NEO Magazine Forum - Secrets of An Admin

Wow Muu! That was just great. Not just the stuff you wrote about but the way you wrote it. I wish we could give you a round of aplause. It's such a shame UM/NEO treated you that way. It's hard to believe Gemma could be like that (as I've had a few PMs back and forth with her myself). All that weirdness that went on on the forum back then makes so much more sense now. Thanks for informing us.
 
To be honest i decided to become an admin purely to give cud a hand since for some dumbassed reason they made just him admin of the sinking ship(or at least they gave him some of the admin tools) so i offered hima hand and suggested shadowcat come help since he sorta knows his way around that stuff(to a degree), i nearly quit once i noticed how mesed up the system was and how counterintuitive some parts were due to not having access to chunks of the admin tools we really could have done with at the time(we eventually got made super mods whatever that means).

I kinda figured we were jsut gonna be used as a way to keep the place runign on life support til they got bored early on but by that point there admin guy had done somethign that cleared the backlog out whcih made our lives abit easier....til the forum software started making new members guests accounts after they posted an intro or just delted them completely once they were allowed through and then the forum completely crashed again and was down for nearly 24 hours.

I intend to keep reading the mag(its the only half decent asian culture mag we have at the moment though im guessing it'll soon be folded since the quality is going crapper every month) but to be hoenst they can go flock themselves if they think im gonna contribute to the fb or twitter pages.

i gotta say though Muu you summed the whol thing up perfectly there and i really shoudl have taken your advice way back when and moved to a better forum...at least now i found 2 so one crappy forums demise resulted in me finding 2 new forums :)
 
For the most (nearly all in fact) I agree with your post Muu but to pull you up on why I forwarded myself as a mod was primarily for the sake of those who still used to forum. I was aware that Neo had been paying little attention but that was no reason to let the forum to go to wreck and ruin. Whether the forum was earmarked for closure or not I felt it unfair to leave it unmoderated. That is why I eventually got involved. I thank Shadowcat, Duo and Broken Serenity greatly for their help for without it would have gone to pot a lot sooner and more than likely just been shut without so much as a mention and far fewer of us will have been aware of this great place. Neo are a victim of their own inadequacy but why should those using the forum be left to suffer?
 
Good post muu :)

athough im with cud and broken on this one, The only reason why I became a admin was for the sake of the forum not Neo,, although I to also *wanted to* quit many times after reading some old threads in the Admin section :evil:

Well, It seems we have managed to get the majority of the burning island, so its not all bad :)

Edit: oops missed out *wanted to* :(
 
There's no disagreement between us. When I said you wanted to save the forum I did not mean to imply that any of you wanted to do it for NEO's sake. As I told you all when I was trying to discourage you from taking up any mod/admin role on the forum I do appreciate that you only want(ed) to help the users and the community. The treatment you got from UM when you took the roles (as typified by the muddled permissions you ended up with) was piss-poor. I would much rather that none of you had to suffer any of that.
 
In all fairness what we got was a damn sight more than you, Manning and Kuro got. Myself, Duo, Shadowcat and Serenity were there at the end while yourself and the others were there from the start. If things were to be done right UM and Neo should have (if nothing else) been listening from the beginning and doing something worth while. I think it might be worth putting a foot note to what you've said and raise the voice of some of the former members to act as warning of a very dark spectre, namely Tokyo Toyz. Alongside mismanagement, there was a genuinely awful stench in the promotion of TT. While it wasn't actively promoted via the forum there was (and still is) a spread in the mag. This was a problem actively frowned upon (or at least commonly known about) by the forum, but no heed payed. This always carried a distain by the members and fans, which ain't a good thing.
 
I agree they obviously didnt care about our views on such things as the placement of the ads(right next to the merchandise reviews section). they even as much as jumped to defend TT when a very nice member of the hong kong customs counterfeit department tried to help them with the issue on their own forum!, those of us around when the **** hit the fan about TT a few years back must remember the person im talking about and the ****** response gemma and co gave her when she tried to help the mag in its "so called" anti knockoffs agenda which ultimately resulted in a load of hot air being spouted then every legit company on the forum at the time upping sticks along with a fair few regulars in disgust.

Im actually surprised any legit merchandise selller actually wants to do business with them considering the crap that went down back then, but i guess at the end of the day they know that their mag is the big asian culture and anime mag on the market(mym is still in its infancy on the market and often gets mistaken for a kids comicbook in alot of newsagents so although they may be a better source of adspace they doont have the same impact as neo does) so they swallow their pride and get on with business hoping TT's stench doesnt taint them by association.
 
Guys on Tokyo Toys please remember - they paid for advertising, they helped pay for the magazine to be printed. As Gemma pointed out if they dropped Tokyo Toys (and possibly others doing the same) then they would have to use chat line adverts - a friend of mine tried this for his radio show - most ended up being for porn chat lines so he had to drop them again. Additionally I'd much prefer a half page spread from a shop I do not have to buy from rather than 2-4 pages of chat line ads.

Oh and on the counterfeit goods. My understanding is that the Japanese originals do NOT have world wide copy right protection. While we do not like the fact that TT sell counterfeits, they are open about this and they are also not illegal in this country. Also they are not the only trader to follow this route.

I seem to remember the key bitch from forum members was that TT would win the readers poll for shop of the year each year - that's nothing to do with UM, they only list them (which is right as they are one of the largest merchandise shops over here and an advertiser in the magazine).
 
dapprman said:
Oh and on the counterfeit goods. My understanding is that the Japanese originals do NOT have world wide copy right protection. While we do not like the fact that TT sell counterfeits, they are open about this and they are also not illegal in this country. Also they are not the only trader to follow this route.
Click to expand...

That is not true, though it's a common misunderstanding. In the countries where the fakes are manufactured, the protection isn't enforced so people get away with it, but the United Kingdom from which TT trades (and where NEO/MyM are based) is bound by the Berne convention, as is Japan. That means that if a symbol or product is copyrighted in Japan, we are bound to treat it as copyrighted here under our (reasonably similar) laws. Therefore, the obvious bootlegs sold by TT are not only against the rules in Japan, they're also against the rules here. The only reason this isn't well known is that we don't enforce things properly, whereas Japan does.

Since the powers that be are too busy/ignorant to look into it properly, I think fans who realise other fans (and indeed, hardworking anime/manga creators who have created a hit) are being ripped off have a right - if not a duty - to speak up about it.

R
 
Back
Top