Discussion Mods: Ask Us Anything!

One thing I've sometimes wondered:

What do you love most about being a mod? / What makes it "worth it"?

 

I've always wantd to know how they became a Mod??

 

EDIT: Anna beat be to it XDDDD

Haha people ask me this all the time when I meet them in person. For me, I started as a pretty early member of this community. Not the earliest, but I've spent a lot of time here, made a lot of great friends, and seen previous mod teams come and go. When I wasn't a staff member, I had contacted some mods with issues that I had, and received very generous care in their replies. It seemed really nice to me that someone was there to help me should I need it. I wanted to give back to the community.

Fast forward a few years, and now nearly a year of wearing a mod hat, with a rapidly changing community, I still find the the best thing really is just being able to help people out if I can. Getting input from community members is really great too, since it helps guide the entire forum. Seeing some positive reply or any thankfulness wipes out any tiredness that comes my way

I won't lie, I also really dig having green wings on my username XDDDDDD.......

^^ Moderation applications open every now and then, when we need new blood to join our team. There's usually an announcement and a few application forms to fill out. Like Anna, I applied during the most recent recruitment period, last november-ish.

 

I love seeing shy new members grow into awesome talents and start posting their own tutorials.
Seeing someone whose first doll I helped restring turn into a world class face-up artist makes all the tedious background clean-up and organization stuff worth it.
When someone thanks me for helping them and mentions that they feel safe on DoA and they start sharing their excitement and settling into the community, it makes all of the unpleasant rule policing stuff worth it.

I was invited by the Mods at the time - six? years ago - and was told that it was because I was generally helpful and articulate and contributed to many areas of the forum already.

 

So everyone talks about their "grail doll," but I'm admittedly more guilty myself of having "grail" items like clothing or pieces of furniture. (Oh man, that Volks Isao chair. ;o; ) I'm really curious for the mods, especially some of you like St. James, Idrisfynn, Armeleia, etc who've been in the hobby for so longl what would you guys consider your most desired "grail" item?

 

O hai gaiz.

General question, in two parts, to all the assembled --

1) What, exactly, got you involved in the doll hobby to start with? Was it a friend with a doll, seeing something online, maybe having a near-death experience that involved a Volks Suigintou?

2) How insane, precisely, do you have to be in order to want to be a member of modstaff?

 

I knew a member, Chayanne, from an anime forum. I investigated BJDs after hearing about her beautiful dolls and was immediately hooked.

Crazy-cat-lady insane? Just kidding. I'm a teacher by trade, and I get the very same question about why I teach. So I guess, insane as your average high school teacher.

 

Wow, that's a good question! I covet a lot of things but I rarely feel that any particular thing is The Thing, because I covet a lot of things all the time. It's sort of inevitable when one is incessantly bombarded with beautiful images of things to covet. I either acquire them or I don't and there will always be more things. So the items that haunt me are the unique items that won't be made again like that amazing Indian style divan made by sirin7 that I missed the sale of by days.


I have also been known to buy back necklaces from my own shop when I see them for sale second-hand because I miss them and they can't be duplicated, and there is one piece that actually is my grail item. It would even require a quest in England to find it. Many years ago a customer commissioned a necklace from us for her Volks F-28 (old F-16, so this tells you how long ago this was) that was evocative of the sun and did not interfere with his pectoral tattoo. It was an amazing handmade double link copper chain with carnelians impaled on a pectoral of hammered spines and we were so dumb not to have photographed it before shipping it. I later learned that the owner lost her sight, and I will always wonder what happened to Tora and his necklace.

1) My partner told me that if I sold all of my Dollfie Plus character dolls, action figures and Gene Marshall stuff I could buy one giant Kaspar instead. And that is how I got my Delf Dreaming Shiwoo to go with her Dollshe Bermann.

2) I don't know from insane; but I was lured in by the potential to create Order. I blame it on being a Water Ox.

 

I don't know if anything stays "grail" after several years, but I still want to find a well-fitting, perfectly shaped Japanese Heian-era starched-linen "eboshi" hat for the Heian outfit I bought off YJ in 2007....

1) Was indeed someone with a bjd on a forum for another hobby. Friendships, though, arise and fall apart, but the new hobby has happily (if expensively) endured.

2) Far less insane than you have to be to jump into the 3,597th thread discussing "Is it really all right to ________ with/to/from/about your dolls".

 

I always feel that my job as a mod is worth something when a member lets me know I've really helped them out, whether it's clarifying something or suggesting the best place for a question to go... I feel good when my advice has helped someone - and if it doesn't help immediately, I enjoy constructive feedback too.

I don't know exactly what I love the most. I like answering questions in Ask the Mods and fielding some of the email queries we get to [email protected] and I actually enjoy tidying around the forum like merging double-posts and taking down old bumps to streamline threads!

I was asked to join by the previous mod team, which was really flattering I think I was noticed because I'd spent a lot of time posting around the forum and being helpful to new members and things like that.

If I hadn't been asked I think I would have applied to be a moderator when it opened to interested members. I like knowing what goes on behind the scenes and helping, so it still would have appealed to me.

My grail item would actually be a good quality SD carry case - I keep seeing ones with black lining and I keep missing out on the pale lined Volks ones, but I will get one one day.

My other grail piece is something I actually own and am thrilled to have - an Orangebabydolly silver bow bracelet. My SD Rose, Gwenllian, has a silver christening bracelet from her mother who is missing presumed dead. It's an important piece for her to have character-wise and I didn't think I'd ever find anything that fit...but then I did and there was a fierce battle on eBay (which I sadly lost.) I since have one and it is beautiful and fits my girl and her story wonderfully.

1) I didn't, until recently, have any RL friends in the BJD hobby that I didn't meet through the hobby. It was seeing something online that got me into the hobby - I think the first BJD I saw was a Delf Shiwoo. It wasn't exactly my style of doll, but I was interested in that they were customisable. I then saw a Delf dreaming Lishe and was sold

2) I didn't actually think it was a crazy job until a while after I agreed to join forum staff. It can be hard work sometimes and I think some people do forget that this is an entirely voluntary job when they make a big drama about being formally asked to do/not to do something. It's not so much having to be insane to want to be a mod, but having a perfectly sane life outside of the forum certainly puts things into perspective. It's the same with my day job really - at the end of the day, it's only tins of beans there, and it's only dolls here. It can be as insane or as complicated or as personal as you choose to make it.

 

Does being a mod subtract from your enjoyment of the forums (perhaps due to a heavy workload here, having less time to do what you want to do, feeling obligated, online getting in the way or IRL stuff, or other reasons)?

 

I'm another yes and no. My fellow moderators are awesome people and I treasure the friendships I've made with both past and present mods. Having to be here every day definitely keeps me in the loop for new doll releases and events, and I get to chat with a lot of members with whom I wouldn't ordinarily cross paths. But even though I try to set aside time to play, I often get derailed by something that needs clean-up or a member breaking a rule that I can't let pass, so DoA isn't really a place I go to for relaxation anymore. I have worked retail for twenty-five years so I'm impervious to the crazy drama and people flinging insults, but having to deal with the, shall we say, seedy underbelly of the hobby has definitely taken the gloss off of things for me. It's incomprehensibly weird to be viewed as some sort of Big Brother authoritarian personality, when I feel more like I'm on a Fire and Rescue crew.

I am also a little jealous of regular members right now because they're eligible to win the awesome contest prizes this year!

 

Thank you for being so open, mods! I also have somequestions for you~
1.What is your favorite color and does this reflect in your dolls?
2.Biggest artistic inspiration?
3.Do you let your pets around your dolls?
4.What do you miss about the early days of the hobby, and what do you like about it now?
*Bonus challenge: answer one or more of the questions in thestyle of Dr. Seuss

 

What's the weirdest question you've ever been asked in either PM or in the Ask a Mod subforum?

 

1. My favorite colors are black, duck egg blue and chartreuse. One of my girls has a dress in that shade of blue, and I am planning an irotomesode kimono in blue and green, and a kurotomesode with all three colors. But for the most part my dolls' taste is different than mine. Except for the black part. We all love black. And most of my dolls have green eyes. But I think this is because my husband has gorgeous green eyes.

2. My biggest artistic inspiration is the clothing and architecture of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Art deco ftw! I also love the mid 1700s, and would love to outfit my dolls in French Court oufits. And I love Japanese kimono.

3. If my pets owned my home they would push.
They would shove.
They would chew up the resinous dolls that I love.
But luckily for me, they are thumbless and poor.
They can't buy a key.
They can't unlock the door.
So the dolls and their furniture my pets must ignore.​

4. I've only been in the hobby since 2009, so the old times for me are not that long ago. But I miss the time when the biggest complaints people had were that others were looking down on their dolls for being "cheap." (as if a 200 dollar hunk of plastic could ever be considered cheap). And I miss the time when it seemed like most people were respectful of the sweat and love that goes into an artist's work. What I like about the hobby now is that artists are continuing to explore and push the boundaries of what constitutes a BJD. Although my personal taste doesn't overlap with a lot of the newest trends out there, I like that there is a diversity of styles out there, and I like that it is keeping the hobby fresh.

 

In some ways yes, it can be a little difficult joining in with discussions and things without others feeling like they're on the radar. It's a bit disheartening to contribute to a thread only to accidentally kill it if people aren't keen to follow you or reply to your thoughts, or have people feel that they have to agree with you!

1. My favourite colour changes about a lot, but most typically it's green. I have one pair of green jeans for my dolls and that's it. Even Morideryn's green eyes are more of a turquoise shade than true green.

2. I don't really know. I have a lot of artistic pools that I draw from. I love art deco, bauhaus and art nouveau, and I also like the fairy tale mori style, but I also like contemporary modern design.

3. When I started the hobby I had an elderly Yorkie dog (Toto) and he was really uninterested in my doll things so it wasn't difficult to keep him away from them, but he passed on in 2009, so for a few years I was petless and it was kind of nice to have my doll things out without worrying about pet hair getting on them or dolls being knocked over. I adopted a rescue Yorkie girl (Evie) this year who is quite young and playful and because she's a rescue she's quite clingy and has to have you in sight at all times. It makes it difficult to get away and play dollies because she's very inquisitive and wants to know what could be so interesting to take the spotlight off her! I still make the effort to keep dolls and pets separate though because I may one day decide to sell doll things and I know allergic reactions aren't fun.

4. I bought my first doll in 2008, and although I was looking at dolls before then I wasn't really aware of any trends from the early days. What I have noticed though, and I think it is a great shame, is that as time goes on more and more people seem to feel that the hobby is really prescriptive and they have to ask if things are right/wrong. It's almost like people are asking permission from others in order to do something to their own property. By all means (and it's recommended!) do some research before you dip your doll in Chemical X, but if that's what you really want to do and the doll is undisputably yours, no one can really tell you not to do it. I'd like to see a return to people having more confidence in their own decisions - it's your property so don't feel that other people are going to judge you badly for something you want to do! There are also loads of tutorials and experiments out there so you can directly benefit from other people's experiences without feeling that there is only one right way to do something.

I'm sorry, no Dr Seuss style from me - I can't come up with something clever-sounding after a long shift!

I don't remember anything particularly weird, but we do get some questions sometimes that are really out of our sphere of influence to answer or fix. We can't intervene on Facebook or Tumblr or anywhere else online, for example, if it didn't happen on DoA it's out of our hands really.

Some of the stranger-sounding questions are actually quite reasonable once we know exactly what the questioner means. There are a lot of keywords in this hobby (and for the forum too, FS/WTT/WTB etc) that newcomers might not know straight away, particularly when English is not someone's first or even second language, so sometimes questions are asked that don't really hit on the keyword used in the hobby so there can be a back-and-forth to try and get to the root of what the problem is before we can answer the question.

 

What have you learned from being a Mod, that you wouldn't have known otherwise?

 

I guess the feeling of being useful is important to me. I really don't feel that different from how I felt when being a regular member. But with extra abilities and the hindsight of my own early days, I think I'm in a position now to help make things run smoother. Even when that just involves copious amounts of "housework"....

I answered a want ad, then blathered in my usual high verbiage way through a questionnaire.

Not really. After 7 years, I think I voiced my opinions so many times over and over in General Discussion threads, I was hardly posting there as much as previously, even before becoming a mod. And forum "housekeeping" is far less onerous than real-life housekeeping! (My serious lack of an adequate RL housekeeping gene is the major cause for a delay in getting back to doing photostories. But dolls are patient--)

It's true, though, that I do have to carry a mental postie that people could respond differently to a post a mod makes than to a post another member might make, even though my intention at that point was to post just as a "regular person".

Yes, there are a lot of forum matters that need mod-handling but luckily this is a sterling group who are very understanding of things like RL obligations or upsets and who are ready to help fill in wherever needed.

The only subtraction of enjoyment, I feel, is in discovering that not everyone is as WYSIWYG in nature as I'd always thought.

I suppose I'd have to say green over blue, but otherwise I like every color, and most of them turn up in my dolls. But auburn/red has the decided edge as a favorite hair color, which I only discovered when others pointed it out!

Actually? The other members of the forum! Whether younger, from other countries, or proficient in skills I'm not. I've discovered a range of clothing styles and motifs that I've happily embraced!

The bearded dragons ignore them, the finches are in cages, the chameleon doesn't even trust me.... I did have house rabbits at the time I got into this hobby, which made it essential to keep things off the floors, a habit I sort of still have. Kind of.

I came in during late 2006. As I understand it, the hobby was already about 6 years old at that point, so I wonder if I'm still considered as coming in during "the early days". But even then it did seem a lot less complicated. Far fewer companies and doll sculpts, basically the same sort of body construction across the field. Things have gotten a lot more interesting now, if far harder on the wallet.

I'm sorry, but my only Doctors are Spock and Who. It's got to be either logical or cool....

I don't think I've been asked anything really weird. Some things might have been confusing or startling at the time, but I wouldn't want to single anyone out for this kind of distinction!

 

^u^ I was swinging around in online paintchat/drawing circles, and found a very good friend of mine to have been into dolls all along! She introduced me waaay back when there were only a handful of companies, and I've been hooked ever since! Madness wise, maybe 300 vs 300 000 kind of madness.

^^ I'm hopping on the mixed feelings train for this one. I love that we have a purely fantastic team and I can depend on any one of my fellow mods to be able to pick up the extra load if I get burnout. It has definitely opened me up online; I used to be a huge lurker and largely spent my time in very select places XD;..but now I very much enjoy popping around the forums into new threads, seeing what members are excited about, sifting through the galleries, etc... Being a moderator really opened my eyes to the entire forum instead of what just existed in my tiny bubble. Ask the Mods is one of my favorite places to hang out, and like Idrisfynn, menial repetitive tasks such as minor cleaning is pleasurable.

It does, however, make me extremely tired and sad at times. I've had some pretty vile, unjustified and uncalled for things thrown at me both on and off-forum "because I'm a mod", so I consider it a blessing that so many still are level and wonderful. I could take any amount of stress or any workload, and it would be worth it, if only I didn't have to come across those things. I try to keep things lighthearted as well, as hobby mentioned, some may not react the same way to a moderator as they would to someone else.

- Hmm... I don't much have a favorite; all colours are beautiful when in the right context. My collection is pretty balanced, I'd say :> in terms of clothing/eyes, etc... I do tend to favor blue eyes though ...
- Bernini, perhaps? I'm not at the developed enough level to even take inspiration properly, I think. But if it were anyone I could aim toward, probably his sculptures own the greater portion of my heart.
- I don't have pets, but if I did, not a snowball's chance in hell. I ADORE animals, want a dog extremely badly, but the two do not mix.
- I really miss the small community atmosphere, these days it's so big and hard to get a handle on! The good part about having so many hopping onto the BJD train is that there are so many more artisans to admire ^u^

^u^ Can't say I've had anything particularly odd asked of me. I think it would give me a great laugh though, if someone prompted us purposely with something strange and fun.

Gosh, so many things! I think the most valuable thing though, is online temperance, from my fellow moderators. There's a lot of delicacy in situations. I'm a rather blunt person by nature, so it's great to be surrounded by good moderation 'role models'

 

1. I have been a lifelong fan of black and green, so my dolls wear a lot of black and many of them have either black hair, green eyes or both. I also love the particular shade of red orange typical of carnelian so I use a lot of carnelians in my doll jewelry.

2. My biggest artistic inspirations start with ancient Minoan and Mesopotamian cultures which then engendered an interest in Orientalist painters like Eugene Delacroix and Jean Leon Gerome, Symbolist Gustave Moreau, and illustrators like Norman Lindsay, Kay Nielsen and Harry Clarke. The thing that ties all of these together is probably the ornate decorative nature of the imagery and specifically the jewelry. Mediterranean tribal jewelry is an older obsession for me than BJDs. This doesn't translate so much into my dolls except that I rarely buy them anything with collars or buttoned sleeves because I never really consider them to be complete dressed until they're wearing tons of jewelry.

3. Our cats used to be more curious about them, but now they don't make any effort to jump up where the dolls are perhaps because there is no longer any room for them on the platform!

4. I miss the time when recasts weren't even on the radar and Dream of Doll was considered "cheap." I don't miss having to use BabelFish to communicate with a Korean doll-maker because I needed specific bank information so I could fill out the reams of paperwork my credit union required to do a foreign bank transfer. I love the wild variety of the dolls available now. We are so far from the days when Dollshe Bermann was shockingly ugly, aren't we? But you can't have easy international purchases and be spoiled for choice without a much larger consumer base and the expanded demographic that comes with it.

I can't really say that any question I have ever seen on DoA comes close to being as weird or as crazy as the questions I get asked at my day job.

So many things over the years, I wouldn't even know where to begin. But lately I've been studying up on international copyright law. Didn't think I'd ever wish for more spare time to spend reading the entirety of Title 17!

 

Ha ha, "special guest appearance?"

Over the last few years my social anxiety has become less manageable, so I am not as active in the foreground of the site. My enthusiasm now lies more in maintenance and working on forum upgrades and improvements. I get excited when I can do something that people like, and I love making improvements that make the forum more accessible or useful.

I became a mod in 2005 by being invited to join the staff. I became the owner in... I think 2007 or 2008 when our previous owner decided that it just wasn't her groove anymore. At that time, I was one of the most senior mods and the only one with the technical knowledge and the enthusiasm to keep things going.

EDIT: Derp. Armeleia is not good at careful reading. >_<
My grail item is a good set of 1:3rd scale lab equipment... and a few Victorian suits.

1. I first saw BJD in 2001 on a Japanese Harry Potter fan site. I was in college and really into Harry Potter, and we would spend hours crawling through webrings and weird lists of links and affiliates... and this one girl had these three little Volks MSDs dressed as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I was just enchanted with them, and putting the page through Babelfish rendered the translation of "Super Dollar Fee" (which is pretty accurate in terms of the effect they've had on my bank account at times).

I ended up finding out about them but not being able to afford one until 2002, when I got my first doll - a Volks MSD Ken kit.

2. You have to be freaking insane.

Sometimes. A lot of people don't really view the staff as people or hobbyists, so there is sometimes a lot of negativity or "The mods are..." statements that are demotivating and inaccurate. We're all just normal people who like dolls and interacting with other people.

My favorite colors are green and orange... and aside from an adorable (squee!) pair of green boots that I have for one of the boys, it weirdly doesn't come into play at all. I've tried to have a green-toned doll (see Exhibit Elf Shiwoo above) but it didn't push my buttons. I still think a glisteringly orange doll would be pretty fab, but I'm not in a rush to get one.

I'm not sure about artistic inspiration; there are a lot of artists that I like for different reasons, and on any given day I might be pinging about from artist to artist or style to style. In terms of sculpting, I am very inspired by Phillipe Faraut (classically styled figural sculptor), Forrest Rogers (figural sculptor/doll sculptor), Choi Xooang (art/conceptual sculptor who does amazing, creepy, hyperrealistic stuff), Beth Cavener Stichter (animals with a cool illustration quality and expressive faces and poses), and a bunch of others.

The dogs are allowed in the same room as the dolls, but not they don't get up close and personal or anything.

I miss the stronger art-focus of the early days of the hobby. There was a lot more of a focus on having fewer dolls and really making them into art objects; there was higher emphasis on craftsmanship, a love of the artistry, a love of... I dunno, completion. There was a real feeling of the dolls being collaborative art, and that the dollmakers were artists rather than just faceless companies. (The recasting would have never been an issue at all, and I have to admit that the recasting issue now is something that really gets me down as both a doll lover and a doll sculptor.)

As for things I like, I love the diversity available now. I feel like you can really find the perfect head and body to make the perfect representation of a character... I also like seeing more ethnic diversity and more companies taking on non-Asian and non-caucasian features and skintones. It makes me feel as though the hobby is more welcoming to a greater selection of people and that makes me happy.

 

Didn't know where else to put this as it's specific to the Anniversary, but it's kinda sad there's no swap for the anniversary this year. Is there a reason why? I'm not interested in contests (I don't have photoshop, sexy tricks, or popularity enough to win any of them and the prizes aren't that appealing to me anyway...) and I like to make things for other people.

A swap would be sooo nice.

 

That's a tough question. I'm torn between learning skills and emotional things I've learned. I think skills-wise I'd never have known anything about BBCode/VBulletin without being a mod, and on the emotional side I've had to re-learn not to take nastiness to heart, not so much on DoA itself but elsewhere online. I don't live in a perfect environment where everyone holds hands and gives each other flowers in RL, but aside from being bullied for a short while when I was 13/14, I've never had to put up with or deal with jabs of nastiness in RL the way I have online.

There's nothing stopping anyone hosting their own swap just because there isn't an 'official' anniversary one!

Firstly, swaps take place all year round in the Marketplace, so it's nice to focus on just a few special competitions to showcase members' amazing talents for a change - we didn't have any anniversary competitions last year, but swaps went on business as usual. Secondly, the anniversary is supposed to be fun for the mod team as well and the more things we organize the more complicated and less fun it becomes overall. It doesn't mean that there won't be anniversary swaps in future, but this year the focus is on friendly competition.

As for not being able to win a prize - you don't know until you try! It's not about popularity or 'big names' since entries are anonymous for voting purposes.

 

ooh I have one this is meant to be light hearted and a little tongue in cheek....

when you have an especially challenging moment/week/month with anyone particular member or group..... what steps do you take to keep cool to avoid cyber-b*tch-slapping them?

aaaand....

When you first became a mod... how much of the rest of your life was affected by the responsibility... ie: having dreams about running interventions in the debate forum, spending less time online with other interests.... etc...

 

Out of your entire collection, which doll is your absolute favorite and why?

and

Will Truffle be making an appearance this year?

 

Well, I just remember the anniversary swap being so super fun because even people who couldn't do a lot or had no feedback could be in it. XD

And even without names, I've noticed the winners are usually those who's styles are easy to figure out or those who put stuff that's usually banned into their photos (sexuality, etc). So, yeah, because I won't break my morals and basically whore out my dolls I probably wouldn't win. XD

Oh well, time to work on Christmas presents anyway!

 

I really hope that wasn't intended to be as nasty as it came across. There was no call for that kind of response, and you've just provided a good example of the downside of what the mods have to deal with. Putting smilies after harsh words doesn't make them more palatable.

 

Unlike my day job where I put on the flawlessly friendly face while someone is still having a meltdown in front of me, when someone is being difficult online I can just turn the computer off and they disappear.

I still have dreams about moderating and my life has just had to adapt.

My Volks Johanna/Delf boy is my favorite doll. He was my first doll (as a Shiwoo) and he never fails to cheer me up when I look at him.

Truffle!! I hope so because a) Truffle and b) I love Pomeranians.

Since this question was completely out of line for this thread anyway, I'd suggest that you not dig yourself a deeper hole by insulting your fellow members who worked hard to contribute their creativity and time to these celebrations.

 

It's sarcasm? That's why there are smileys. It's hard to understand people when there's text and no voice.

And as far as 'dealing' with anything, I think you guys need to take a breath and not be so serious. I was only pointing out how if someone who takes a lot of pictures and does photo stories here all the time is going to have a style that's easily recognized, even if it isn't a conscious thing. People know what they like and will gravitate towards it. If you aren't familiar, the brain is going to interpret it as strange and uncomfortable, so it's going to be seen as wrong and quickly avoided.

Psychology sort of works against you I'm those cases. Sort of like how you expected those words to be harsh because you EXPECT an argument when something isn't in 100% agreement with your views.

Psychology~! Terrible for forums.

 

Oh, I'm not bent. It's just something I've seen. Heck, I was only in one round of contests. Every other year I didn't even bother unless there was a swap. I just kind of noticed what was happening. I have no trust of contests because I don't win even random name draws. I'm one of those unlucky, untalented people who wouldn't win even if I paid people to! :3

So yeah, everyone else should have lots of fun doing the contests. (As I said, its not for me.) It's just..yeah...I feel sorry for those who will put so much effort in only to fail.

 

I think what is best realized, KohakuTenshi, is that you needn't feel sorry for those who "put so much effort in only to fail". That phrase alone reveals much about your own psychology. This is not a psychology-focused forum. It is a doll forum and celebration/participation/voting is completely optional to all members.

This anniversary, and DoA itself, are celebrations of artistry, effort, variety, and most of all, FUN. There is no failing in the anniversary; the prizes are generous donations from companies who wished to celebrate with us in our collective love for dolls, together. It isn't about winning or losing, and we hope that our contest designs have adequately emphasized that we wish to see everyone try their best in creating something wonderful and memorable.

 

Whoa, okay. Bringing it back, here are two more questions:

Have you (generally speaking, not addressing any one mod in particular) ever broken a DOA rule? Either before you became a mod or during your position as moderator?

Has a rule ever had to be edited because of a loophole or inconsistency a member has pointed out? It would be interesting to know if members can/have impacted rules.

This mod discussion topic is really a fun idea! It gives me very interesting insight about your positions and reminds me that you all aren't some otherworldly squad of law enforcement agents; you're just normal hobby enthusiasts who want to help keep the forum running.

 

That I worry about how the cute newbies will be trying so hard to win because a lot of them can't afford dolls but they really have no chance because they don't have the umph to get votes? Yeah. It shows I'm not thinking about myself so much, I'm thinking about how these things actually end up making the "cool" people clique together and the other people feel so bad they leave because they aren't cool enough to be noticed...

But whatever. I don't like contests. I like games and swaps. Less of a chance of people being disappointed! :3

And lets just stop talking about it because a)it's OT, and b) we all have unmovable opinions on the subject.

 

A timely question. I think the best thing to do is probably just to walk away. I love DoA, but when my patience is tested I have found that I must just log off and do something else. If I'm particularly bothered, I will probably just go play with my dolls and remind myself what matters. The luxury of the internet is that I can be away from it. ^^ It helps to have level team members around too Though a stiff drink might be easier than leaving the Den!

Oh gosh :S I'll admit to going a little bit crazy during my first months. I'm normally flitting about DoA on a daily basis for a few hours, but I am still in the danger of spending too many here. >u<;; I did have a few dreams of it haha.. I used to be an avid paintchat fiend and draw very often, but i've found that my hobby interests in dolls and moderation requirements of time have largely taken over that. It's probably healthier to remember that there are other things out there to be enjoyed XD..

Goodness >n< asking me to choose! I think I'd have to say...Matthias, my SWITCH Ryun:R. It's his face up, really. He just gives such a pouty/sad/worried look that I can't find it in me to leave him alone XD...His worries are my worries!

I have no idea, Truffle has not confided in anyone this year, I think. But I'd be very happy to see our master of ceremonies pop in!

Hahaha..good question! I've broken signature rules before, mostly because I had no idea how to really format banners to a proper size. I remember how scary that big red moderation button was....XD Sometimes the staff was so fast that I was caught just when I was fiddling around trying to make it fit properly! As for during my time as a mod, not that I know of. >___< Though some could rightly call me guilty of neglecting my MP threads for 6 months at a time, that's just clean up and not against the rules!

Members sometimes point out gray areas of confusion, or loopholes ^^ It's extremely helpful for them to do so. We usually take quite a bit of time to discuss policy changes though, and try to introduce them gently, so changes might not be seen immediately. I love seeing solutions that are sensible/easy to enact. For instance, one member mentioned that it would be much more helpful if discussion threads were closed and linked to their successive threads, instead of just closed. Since then we've been linking them together for convenience.

 

When do I get to make the mods a steak dinner for the epic amounts of BS you have to put up with?

 

I can vouch for Prae's steak. It's the best I've had.

Oh! I have a question! Are there any dolls that have been labeled off-topic for one reason or another, but you liked enough to buy anyway?

 

Do you believe its possible to get away with murder by taking tips from CSI?

Also, Isn't Jerome Jarre the most wonderful person ever?

Just to shake it up a bit.

 

One question for everyone individually:
What are you working on right now for your own dolls (if anything) and what are your next upcoming personal doll plans (if any)

And a collective question that I've been wondering:
How long in total volunteer work hours did it take you to plan the anniversary events for this year not counting replying in threads, just the planning and writing them up.

And a greedy question:
Will there be a zazzle anniversary t-shirt/merch design for this year (maaaaybe a competition, even?) and will there ever be an opportunity to buy previous DoA designs again?

 

At some point I linked to my eBay auctions after the no eBay auctions rule went into effect. It had been so long since I'd had an auction, I completely forgot! I caught myself though.

The rules have become a patchwork of stuff all over the board for precisely this reason. If every possible loophole isn't covered, it is guaranteed that someone will demand to know where in the rules it says they can't do X, Y or Z. One of my big behind the scenes overhaul projects right now is collating and rewriting all of the rules for conciseness and clarity while still covering all the bases. It's kind of a fun semantics exercise, but it's kind of sad that everything has to be spelled out in such fine detail and we can't just say "Play nice with each other."

A steak cooked by someone living in Steaklandia? Sign me up!

Whether or not a doll is on topic on DoA has no impact on what I buy. If Dollzone Moment had been off-topic I would still own him. I desperately desperately want an Eva made by Oxana Geets but it's coming up with $2000 for one that's stopping me, not the fact that she's off topic for having painted eyes. I've never understood why DoA rules would affect a collector's buying choices, since one lives in one's own home and not inside DoA.

No probably not. But I have no capacity for violence anyway. I had to go vomit and shudder in the restroom for a good thirty minutes the other day after a coworker started telling me about her surgery. It's terribly embarrassing to be a woman who actually does faint at the sight of blood.

After Googling Jerome Jarre I still don't have a grasp on who he is. Sorry!

I still have my DZ Moment disassembled, coated and waiting to be airbrushed.
I'm more currently shaving down the neck on my Choa's new Iplehouse nYID body so the two parts will fit together.
Just this afternoon I bought a yard of some crazy hipster Native American printed stretch lace to make a couple of dresses for my Dollstown Elysia and my Soom Onyx.

No idea when I'll actually do any of that. I've gotten to the point where the only face-ups that get done are ones I commission, and everything else gets put on the back burner when there's jewelry to make or DoA stuff to do. It takes me about nine months on average to get a personal doll project done when everything goes well.

My potential upcoming plans involve modifying an Iplehouse Zera head to take larger eyes and finding it a boy body.
Next purchase will be La Legend des Temps Ludwig I hope, since there's a rumor that he might finally be released soonish.

Can't really quantify the number of hours we've spent on the anniversary planning and implementation yet, as we're still not done writing up events and building entry forms. Donations are still coming in and more suggestions keep coming up for consideration. A lot of us are spending hours a day on this.

 

That's a tough question. I have a little cluster of 3 who have been with me the longest and who were "born" so to speak into their common storyline at the same time. But foremost would have to be Calciferbird, my MNF El. I was besotted with the original MNF male body since 2006, and his snarky little personality just sprang into being without forethought. (Right with him, though, has to be my DM Hwiki mod, Himiko, and Nigel (a Nanuri06 hybrid), and their characters - and dialogue - still exist actively in my mind!)

Strangely, the only "work" dreams I've ever had still date from my early waitressing days. (Put me back in a classroom, though, and in a week I'll be having the old dream about the test based on the secret textbooks nobody told me about....) At the mod-start, though, I did have this idea that modding would be a great distraction from gratuitous, frequent cruises through the MP. (Hey, you new guys in the top row of doll boxes, you wanna tell them how that worked out?)

That things are often more complex than they appear. Or simpler than they're purported to be. And dayum, this place requires a lot of "housework"!

Early signature size violations. I kept going too tall!

Had to laugh at Laelen's answer about not bumping her MP threads. Oh yeah, done that. In fact my own threads got removed in the last clean-up - on the same day someone asked about an item! I went to check the price I'd set, and the thread was gone.... Really must get into the habit of backing up.

There is an evolution of the rules that goes on. Sometimes it's something we see that isn't working well, or doesn't address changes in the hobby, or something some of us have new thoughts about. But yeah, sometimes things do get pointed out by members, or a member appeals to us about something, or a member asks a question that hasn't been asked before, and we will open up a mod discussion because of that. And changes do come about.

We're going to need a lot of beef...

Definitely. I think most of us own some off-topic dolls. I myself succumbed to Soom Egg earlier this year.

Well, if you make a script out of your plans, and they buy it, that's probably a good sign-- At least until the airdate....

Waaaall, he's no Takeshi Kaneshiro...or Matt Smith...or Mansai Nomura...or Alexander Skarsgard....

 

I believe the proper answer would be: PREEZEVERYDAYOMGSTEAKNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Teasing us further like that, tag team steak duo!

I must confess I'm not terribly well versed outside of what usually falls within topicality here on DoA. It's not unimaginable though. I probably would buy a lot of off-topic dolls, had I the funds to justify them! I also cannot fathom not buying a doll I loved because it couldn't be shown on DoA. ^^ That's what blogs and other places are for. I'm actually of the lazier sort who doesn't post a ton of photos or anything [I keep telling myself I'll improve one day...] of my collection. What matters is that they're home with me and I'm happy with them

While CSI is informative, I believe I have a flair for the dramatic and morbid, so maybe I'd take a few tips from Hannibal if I really wanted to get away with things.... >U>

but is he REALLY the most wonderful person ever? REALLY REALLY?

Oh man @___@ There's always projects on the go at my house too, and they're usually on St. James' timescale XDDD;;;;; It's a little bit shameful but alas, dolls are more often bills than the sources of paying for them. Right now I've got three full faceup/bodyblushes on the list and several sculpting projects/sewing projects with which I am working with some very talented artist buddies. I'm hoping to return to the more dedicated roots of the hobby and really devote my time to creating a world that I can convey in photographs. Just waiting for my schedule to settle down a bit, as it's quite a busy time of life right now. A lot of people might not like the ol' 9-5, but right now it sounds like a dream to me! I'm always commuting all over the place, 8u8 so any period of time spent in one location is a bit of a luxury.

Oh man >___< I have no idea how much work has gone into this, hours wise. It's not really a good scale to go by. I think it's just easier if we describe it as a constant longterm project that has been going on for months, and it's still not done. I can't really partition my hours on DoA into anniversary/nonanniversary, but I think the safest answer is... A LOT. XDDDDDDDD

We've still got a few contests coming, I cannot promise either way, but keep in mind this is our first rodeo as a staff team! Things can only get better from here on out~

 

Oh I have a new question! Which is your favorite of the main six from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and why?

Also I often ask this is of Blizzard employees but my WoW account has run out of time so I will ask the mods here instead. I'm bored, will you tell me a joke?

 

Well... that escalated quickly

Well, with question 1, because we work as a team most correspondence is shared, especially if it's particularly antagonistic or challenging. It's easier to not rain down brimstone when you know you can vent to an entirely closed group and know that it's entirely confidential. It doesn't happen very often, thankfully!

And with question 2, I pretty much disappeared from LJ and other places online when I became a mod. I used to write fanfic and it completely trailed off. I've not had a DoA dream though!

It always rotates Right now Morideryn is favourite because I've been spending most of my time dressing her and she's the last doll I took out on an excursion. My favourite will usually be the doll I'm currently dressing and photographing.

I do hope Miss Truffle will be making an appearance!

I don't know - if I have ever broken a rule I'm sorry!

Rules are periodically beefed up with explanations to plug perceived loopholes and then we go through a period where we think 'there must be a more succinct way of putting that' and revise them to be more concise, which unfortunately some people think means that the rules have been relaxed, and then the rules have to be spelled out again. It's a tricky balance because there has to be a line drawn somewhere with how long rules are, (we don't want people to feel that the rules are like a huge legal document) but if the rules are just one-liners people feel that they are open to interpretation, when they're really not.

"If every possible loophole isn't covered, it is guaranteed that someone will demand to know where in the rules it says they can't do X, Y or Z." (St.James) This is part of it, certainly. The other part is trying to be considerate towards ESL members who might not assume, as native English speakers would, that situation A = situation B, so rule A fits both situations. The rules have to have a balance for the benefit of people who like them to be brief as well as people who need them to be specific for various reasons.

Eee steak! I will never say no to steak.

There are loads of off-topic dolls I love, unfortunately money stands in the way of me acquiring them! I did get a Sekiguchi Unoa Light (the vinyl version) because I was finding it tough to find a resin Unola though.

One of my best friends in RL is a CSI for North Wales Police! I believe it is at least theoretically possible to get away with murder based on tips from CSI because my friend has told me that she now knows enough about murders and other grisly things that she could probably create the perfect crime.

I just had to Google Jerome Jarre! Wow. I think his heart is in the right place, but I don't think I would be too keen to be encouraged to wear a moustache by a complete stranger with a camera!

At the moment I am supposed to be working on my Soom/Nobledolls hybrid. I need to unstring her and give her a deep clean and give her a new face-up. It's a bit shameful, I've been thinking about this for months now. Next I'd really like to restructure my entire collection and try to get down to the dolls I really couldn't do without. That's going to be tough but I do want to move in with my boyfriend and doll money would come in very handy as deposit money and furniture money and decorating money, so as much as I love my gang when I look at some of them I just see the money that's tied up in them right now!

I really don't know the answer to that one. We started batting ideas around in April... so quite a few hours!

I'm not sure about that one. I suppose it depends who owns the designs? Perhaps someone else has a definitive answer!

Do you know, I have never actually watched MLP:FiM. I've just not had a chance to watch it!

As for the joke...

Once upon a time, there was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

 

When I get angry, sometimes I write out something very mean just to get out my aggression or hurt feelings. Then I delete what I wrote and re-read what made me angry... and on the second read, I look sift through the rhetoric/insults/hyperbole for the meat of the issue. Then I reply to the parts that are valid (there are always some valid points!) in the most logical, even-tempered way that I can using the most concise, gentle wording that I can.

I also sometimes rant to my roommate.

Ah, there are a lot of small things. For example, I post all my fanfiction under a completely different identity.

It's a toss-up between Rory and Knife.


Rory was my second BJD, and I bought him from the Tenshi no Sumika in Nagoya Japan when I lived there. When Link came out, I thought he was SO UGLY. But every time we went to the Volks shop, I found myself gravitating back to him... so I bought him for myself two weeks before Christmas, and the box just sat under that glass coffee table and waited for me. At that time, I had been living in Japan for about 2 months... and I had to work Christmas. I was so angry and homesick, but when I got home from work I had a lovely dinner with my best friend in the world and we exchanged gifts. Rory came out of his box and I sanded his seams while we watched a DVD of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (and I somehow dumped an entire bucket of water in my lap). And even though it was my first Christmas away from home, everything was okay.

Since then, I've modified the crap out of him and upgraded his eyes and wig probably 5 times. He's had a number of faceups and I just love the crap out of him.



Knife started as a Delf Shiwoo in 2005, then went to a Minimee, then to a Dreaming Abadon head, and he is finally a Soom Dia. He's a very beloved character, and even though I'm not really into the goth/jrock/whatever aesthetic as much anymore, I still just really love looking at him. He also has the most clothes and accessories out of all of the dolls, the brat.

I will see if I can get her furry butt on camera.

EDIT: These are the best gifs I can get. This dog will just NOT look at the webcam.

I will admit to one major rule-breaking prior to my mod days. When I was in college, I bought a Dollfie Plus (Volks 1/6th head) and sanded the face off and used it as a base for a new head, which I cast. I sold two casts of the head (which was, in all honesty, rather awful)... and this would go against the no recasting rules of the forum. My excuse was that it was 2001 and I was young and stupid, but I still feel very bad about it. :/

Otherwise, I think I've been pretty well-behaved.

Definitely... and in some ways, it's caused more trouble than good. Personally, I hate having a lot of rules. I would love it if people could just be nice to each other, post in the right places, and not rip each other off. However, we've seen time and time again that it's just not possible to get thousands of people of varying ages and backgrounds together without a bit of friction and monetary opportunism. ANYWAY, we have had times where a member has pushed and been like "WELL WHAT ABOUT THIS EXTREMELY SPECIFIC AND UNLIKELY SITUATION???" and we've added to the verbiage to close the loophole. Other times, we've had people do something that was against common sense and/or common decency, and we've had to add rules that we didn't actually wanted to add but needed to cover our asses.

As for members pointing out actual, useful loopholes? It's infrequent, but it has certainly happened! We appreciate when members point out inconsistencies or things that they don't understand. It's our eventual goal to strip the rules down to a minimalist process and translate it into the major languages that our members speak... and this really helps us!

Now is good. (Feed me.)

Usually when they're off-topic and I want them, they're too expensive for me to buy. I would LOVE to buy some of the porcelain BJDs or the small-run art dolls. I LOVE THEM. However, my finances are limited and I just can't justify the expenditure... and sometimes I'm not even sure how to buy them.

No, but it might be good for expanding your mind to outside considerations.

I'm sorry, I live under a rock and I don't know who that is.

I am actually trying to downsize my BJD collection... which is very hard, in part because I like a lot of my dolls and in part because I am phenomenally lazy about photographing them and posting sales threads. What I need is for someone to come to my house and do it for me, or for me to psychicy upload my sales information so you all can just PM me.

But anyway, for actual resin BJD, I'm repainting my Volks Heath sometime soon and turning him into another character. Love that sculpt!

I am working more on sculpting right now. I am almost finished with an LE head for the St. Louis BJD Con, and that will be going to the factory this week for production. I am excited about the weird-looking little thing and its crazy little nose. I am also going to be doing collaborations with a few other doll artists whose work I love, and I am SO BEYOND EXCITED. I will also be working on sculpting two bodies by the end of the year, and then next year I will explore ethnic and regional diversity through sculpting lots and lots of heads. It's a great time to be alive.



I've also been doing some action figure heads and that's been a fun way of learning to sculpt more realistically.

I'm not very involved this year aside from some prize coordination with our sponsors. There's been a few hours there for me, but the lion's share (more accurately, the whole damn pride's share) has been done by the rest of the mods. They are all fantastic, wonderful, and all around kick-ass.

I dunno about a shirt for this year (though I think there's some talk of it)... but I can put the previous year's shirts up again if people want them. The Cafepress shop is still around.

I'm not allowed to watch MLP... my roommate thinks it's an abomination. >.> When I see fanart, though, I think Applejack (I think it's Applejack) is really cute.

 

Happy 9th Anniversary DOA!!! I absolutely love DOA and now it is a part of my life and I cannot imagine living without DOA!

I have 4 questions for all the mods!

1) Who are the pioneers who started Den of Angels? How was the reception when you first started?

2)If you can be a mythical creature, what would you be and why?

3)What is your favourite sci-fi movie or anime?

4)Do you have any doll based on a movie/anime character?

Thank you!!

 

armeleia Thanks so much for posting Truffle. Glad to see she is well and still as cute as ever.

 

TruffleTruffleTruffleTruffleYAY!

1) I wasn't around in the Yahoo! Group days of Den of Angels, so I don't can't speak to that.

2) I was quite in love with Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty as a child, and I still can't think of anything better than being a beautiful fairy who can shapeshift into a dragon to do her own ass-kicking, so I'm going to stick with that.

3) I love sci-fi in all mediums, so I'd have to say that BladeRunner is my favorite dystopian sci-fi and Aliens is my favorite alien contact sci-fi. Anime I would actually have a much harder time narrowing it down.

4) A few of my dolls are inspired by movie/anime characters, but they are not those characters.

My Supia Roda is loosely modeled on Jenny Wright's character Mae in the Katherine Bigelow film Near Dark.

My Customhouse Choa is inspired by a few different B-Movie scream queens, with a little Sherilyn Fenn circa Twin Peaks and Isabelle Adjani circa La Reine Margot.

My Volks Genji is modeled after Seishiro Sakurazuka from the CLAMP series Tokyo Babylon and X 1999. I also put his head on a Dollshe DSAM32 body so he'd have the long skinny proportions of CLAMP characters.

Oh, and my Soom Bix is modeled after Rowland S. Howard of Crime & the City Solution and he did appear in Wings of Desire as himself.

I guess I'm showing my age with all of these answers!

 

Howdy, I have just a few silly questions! I'm oddly fascinated by the answers so far at least.

1. What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?

2. Do you think moosetar when you look at Doll Chateau Alberta/Ada too?