With the permission from Rui I'm directing you all to what I originally sent to Rui (and please do browse to the forums and topics to see some of the BBCodes as well):
http://dcnl.forum-xl.nl/index.php [Do not create an account on there as permissions for the original AUKN suggestion only are accessible as a guest.]
Mind that it is using an old project of mine that got abandoned due to my partner giving up and I not wanting to do it alone really.
With some of the changes Disney pulled on us in Belgium I'm kind of glad I abandoned it. I had another project that was really popular at the time as well.
Rui said:
Quick responses to Agent-347 (sorry for my tone, it's just how I talk) ^^;
1. Yeah, I'm not going to move the News forum because it's deeply connected to the site (we're AUKN after all) and Chaos doesn't have time these days to fix anything I break there. I'm happy to experiment with locking it to staff posts only but a lot of people do comment on the 'Guest' posts which relate to the content on the front page; I'm not sure why we'd want to hide those threads somewhere nobody could see them?
Those 'Guest' posts is another thing I never understood.
I'm not entirely sure what you are suggesting though with the staff lock.
I don't want to take away the News part at all. I would have brought it under in the Industry forums. But well ...
Let me initiate another suggestion: How do topics actually end up on the homepage? Are they created via a special button? If I were to create a topic it wouldn't end up on the homepage, would it?
If it wouldn't I could find myself in doing those monthly news threads in the current Anime News & Rumours forum. If anything it might keep the UK Anime Industry and Overseas Anime Industry forums extra clean then.
I'd still like to split off UK News into its own thread then though.
You didn't say anything about my remark in regards to the weekly anime releases threads though. But I'd take those to new topics using monthly release schedules.
Unless that's why you're suggesting a staff lock on some of them, although I would then rather see a subforum for homepage as the "New _ Releases"-threads would still clog up the Anime News and Rumours forum where they really don't belong.
Rui said:
3. I'm not sure I agree that if you make a load of empty forums, people will naturally come up with topics to fill them. I think people make threads when they feel strongly about something; writing a list of OOP manga is a massive, massive undertaking with decades of records to go through and I don't think it will just happen on its own. Most of our big lists start when some user (sometimes even a brand new one) asks a question and inspires someone else to add more information than was originally requested, then other people start chipping in. Forcing it doesn't seem likely to work.
It's not forcing it, but giving people room. I know I have kept myself from creating topics because of the mess here. I seriously can't be the only one who has all these ideas in his head.
Now, due to college I don't have as much time to compose some of these lists I suggest, but I would add them or start a topic for them if everything is approved in due course.
Rui said:
5. I disagree that splitting overseas buyers off into their own section will stop them complaining in the UK release threads. All it will do is make them use two more clicks to see all the information they want. Assuming importers will never buy locally is the exact same thing people like Jerome have tended to do in the past, but the question people should be asking is why these people are importing and why the UK anime industry has failed them so badly that they're paying more in order to boycott it.
I don't think it's good to separate both halves of the fandom with those questions still unanswered, and I don't think there's any value in protecting both sides from one another; for example, I still won't buy Manga UK products but Andrew has tempted me back to the UK for select releases by proving that the UK isn't a complete loss when it comes to anime. And the grumps should warn buyers when a release is known to be lacking in some way, to make distributors realise they shouldn't be releasing poor products. It's all part of the same puzzle. Now, I don't mind dividing things into UK/non-UK if everyone agrees it would be easier to navigate and reduce clutter, but if it happens I think that should be the reason, not because fans should be divided up into UK-only/non-UK/both philosophies. We're all UK fans, so the UK industry should be serving us, and we're all inhabitants of planet Earth, so the global industry should also be serving us. The people who are only on one side of the divide and don't care at all about the industry as a whole are only that way because the industry isn't currently working for them.
I didn't say the first thing at all, I even literally said "Whether forums get split or not it'll get mentioned everywhere and I don't see why having The Anime Industry as one forum would prevent that. ".
It's interesting to see what you think Jereome Mazandarani thinks, as I disagree with that as well. But that's pointless to discuss here.
Reasons behind importing are obvious and in some people's cases it's rather a case of when, not if. The BBFC is reason enough for lots of people to pay more for US releases.
I wonder though, are you a person that sees more structure in chaos than in actual order?
Some of the suggested questions could still get their own threads in separate forums. A "What have you imported and why?" thread in the UK Anime Industry forum feels appropriate to me to help Manga, MVM and Anime Ltd to understand.
I for instance think the disc count logo on earlier MVM Blu-rays is enough for me to not buy them. But well ... I should go deeper into that topic when I or someone else creates that topic when/if the forum is set up.
Not everybody will agree, that can be blamed on not everybody understanding some people really need actual structure. It's not because the boss' name is chaos that the actual forum has to be a chaos too.
Of course I see chaos, but from my understanding Britguy and JPT see clear order in everything thrown together.
So I wonder whether it's a question of 'everybody has to agree' or 'we want the forum to be more user-friendly'. More and 'better' structure will not make it less user friendly, as long as we don't go over the top like with the Hong Kong, France, Germany, .... (joke?) suggestions.
I get the understanding you strongly feel against borders and nations, but that doesn't change my view on the need be for structure.
According to your logic I can place announcements about Ben 10 also in the anime section because strictly seen anime is all kinds of animation in Japan.
I wouldn't do that - and perhaps I sound angry whilst I'm not - but that's the logic I get back from it now. (I really hope you see this as elaborate discussing and that I'm not offending you at all.)
Rui said:
6. I guess Marketplace could move sections or we could add a general non-anime Marketplace too. Is it a big problem that people include gaming items there? It's never bothered me that some anime/manga content leaks into Off Topic, either, as the entire reason I come here is to talk anime/manga with anime/manga fans, not general people with no anime/manga in their life.
Having two Marketplaces would really be a slap in my face if the UK Anime Industry, Overseas Anime Industry and Members' Collections & Acquisitions forums don't happen. xD
I really almost feel at least we should just go to the AUKN chatbox and try to fully understand what I mean and want to achieve. (not all suggestions are things I actually want to achieve)
Why I said the previous line? Because I thought I said I think the marketplace shouldn't be in the forum section/category "Anime & Manga" if non-anime stuff is allowed.
Unlike the acquisitions threads where I rather have a split view over who buys what outside anime and inside anime, I don't have a real problem in seeing what they want to sell in general.
Perhaps that may be a discrepancy in my logic now, who knows ...
Rui said:
7. If a topic title is incorrect, mark it for moderation and I'll fix it any time.
You really want me to report over 100 thread titles that in my opinion need fixing?xD
It's not as if I didn't realize before you're one special person though, but still ... I'm the only person crazy enough to go forum-wide changing stuff. (I have done it before)
Rui said:
8. I don't have a problem with double posting here, and that's why it's not in the forum rules. It's not as though it happens much, and sometimes it's annoying when someone adds something important to the first post and you miss it because you read it before the edit. To be honest, in some situations I find double posts a heck of a lot easier to read and follow than really, really long posts which span multiple topics (oh, like this one ^^; ). I trust that people will use common sense (and those who don't will receive a private message eventually). If it happens enough to be a problem and common sense isn't any help, I'll add a new rule about disruptive posting.
I had an anti-bumping rule on all the forums I was part of in some way, I believe this forum to be very special in that regard.
It's one of the reasons behind my megaposts though. I'm so used to that rule. But honestly, I have asked myself before what I should do with my own posts.
Structure-wise I'd actually rather have split comments, with headers and such, but realistically ... Recently I wasn't on AUKN for 2 weeks due to college tasks, if I were to make every comment of mine then independently you could sometimes get perhaps over 10 posts of me in a row which feels wrong to me as well.
That is actually something I wanted to chat somewhere about at some point too, how people feel about my posts and way of treating my posts.
I really don't like how most users think black and white, but I've found myself wondering whether people NOT read my posts due to their length or because they come from me.
And this reminds me of another reason why I wanted the news threads to be monthly!
Earlier this year I didn't have time to compose my comments in the news thread spanning over 3 months of news, I felt inclined to comment but knew it was a mess.
People forget about news stories or don't want new feedback et all anymore, so if it were monthly threads people could have easier ignored my comments in October then.
And yeah, going back to the Haruhi Suzumiya news from July or August would be much easier if the news threads would be monthly. I think it was August.
Rui said:
I know I probably seem like a really soft/lazy moderator, but it's a pretty mature community and the entire reason I was originally brought onto the team was because the owner wanted this style of moderation, so I've tried to keep to his vision. Even though I've been accused of power tripping numerous times I think the community is pretty solid here and the last thing I want is to start getting strict on unnecessary rules.
You're special, that's all ...
I'm lazy too, but when I want to do something I can be really dedicated. People underestimate how much I (would) love to do certain things.
I mean, I wasted easily 3 days on this all already and it's looking like I'll have wasted 3 days of my life as the more time passes the less it looks like something that matters to me really will change.
Don't get me wrong, I don't expect people to adapt all my suggestions at all, but didn't expect this little to happen either. I mean, you approve the UK and Overseas split, but 2 members don't really see a purpose for it. Are you now going to listen to them? You probably will.
And later you and others will ask what happened to my ideas. I honestly don't think they'll work out if it's just Anime Industry.
Or the forum would have at least 2 threads with similar names to everything there:
- "[2015] UK Sales" and "[2015] Abroad Sales".
- "[January 2015] UK Anime Releases" and "[January 2015] US Anime Releases"
- "
- Disappointing/Defective UK Anime Releases" and "
- Disappointing/Defective US Anime Releases"
- "
- UK Licensed Anime Without Release Date" and "
- US Licensed Anime Without Release Date"
- ...
I just expect people to click on the wrong thread and accidentally post in the wrong topic then, especially when they are in a hurry.
And having it all in one thread beats the purpose of my suggestions.
Rui said:
9. Fundamentally, I don't want to change too much as the reason our regulars use this particular forum is going to be that they like how it's set up, on some level. There are definitely some improvements which could be made but as soon as we turn a forum organised with one philosophy into something completely different, some people will stop wanting to use it, even if it makes other people enjoy navigating here a bit more. Especially when other forums already exist which use that design philosophy and the people have specifically chosen to be on this one. There's nobody here I would want to lose for such a pointless reason.
I don't want to change the philosophy and don't see how my changes would limit people more.
I've been coming to AUKN for over 2 years as I liked the community, not because I liked how it is set-up.
The last suggestion splits "Anime News & Rumours" and "General Anime Chit-Chat" into "Anime News & Rumours", "UK Anime Industry", "Overseas Anime Industry" and "General Anime Chit-Chat" with the introduction of a forum for members' collections & acquisitions.
If we are keeping Anime News & Rumours and General Anime Chit-Chat there's less need for an Ark of Archival.
I'd move some stuff around, but that doesn't change philosophy and I don't really want a rule on bumping threads. (although in the marketplace deleting some of these bumps might be appropriate really)
Albeit I would really prefer some threads to start fresh in the new year using my suggested either monthly, quarterly and yearly treatment.