[MOD] Community update

[acidae.livejournal.com]

First off, sorry about the lack of follow-up to my last post back in September! There's a lot I want to touch on this time around, and once I get things figured out I'll probably be posting again soon-ish, so I apologize in advance for the spamming of your flists.

The first thing I want to bring up is the edit to the rule regarding sales posts, which some of you have already taken note of: under no circumstances will links be allowed in this community as long as profit is made from them-- this pertains not only to monetary transactions between members, but also affliate links such as Webgains or CDJapan's affliate program. These posts will be deleted promptly without notice, and if your journal is either empty or full of similar links, it will also be banned.

I'll probably be making other changes to the rest of the rules as well over the next few days - mostly minor details such as icon previews/image size restrictions and the like - and I'll update to the community after I'm done so people will be aware of them.

Next, it would be great if everyone can take this short poll regarding requests:


[Poll #1308511]
Even if the requesting system idea doesn't pan out, I will be compiling a list of helpful links for new members and old alike to help them find what they are looking for, but I'm personally leaning towards the last option, which is something similar to what boys_paper currently has set up. I'd love to hear your opinions on it though, and any other suggestions are definitely welcome as well!

Lastly, most people seemed to want a new layout most from my last post, and I haven't forgotten about that. I've actually been toying with the idea of doing a layout contest since I don't feel like making one myself, so I was wondering whether people would be up for it. Maybe even two layout contests-- one solely for the months of December and January featuring only Aiba and Sho as those are their birth months, and then another, more generic group one starting from February onwards for an indefinite time.

Prizes will of course be given out since it's a contest (and I'm pretty sure that's what most people are interested in anyway XD); they might not be much, but it's always nice to get something for free, right? XD Anyway, if the layout contest idea works out, I'll be posting up a list of possible prizes people can get, and the winners will be able to choose which one they want.

Hopefully I haven't left anything out... if I have, or if you want to elaborate on your vote/there's something else you'd like to see addressed/etc., do feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

Comments

[3104-yen.livejournal.com]

I think it's great if we can have a master post for requests, so at least it doesn't flood the Friends page. And it will be great if we can keep this community free of sales posts, they can directed to sales-related communities like je_sales instead. These are just my POVs, but anyways, thanks for doing a great job so far!

[rafael-xp.livejournal.com]

I think the boys_paper system fits better. It wouldn't flood friends page ;]

A new layout is always nice ;]

[sashipi.livejournal.com]

Either system seems very efficient and I think both will work out well.

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

Seconded. I've noticed that several other JE related communities use this system, and I've always wondered why none of the Arashi coms do. The spam at birthday time is the worst =/

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

Why can't birthday posts be limited to personal journals? Why do people feel the need to spam comms with useless posts in multicolored font saying nothing but "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!1!~"?

Sorry, pet peeve.

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

I was going to post the same thing XD It's not as bad if they include some content like a bunch of pictures or something. It's kind of funny that the Ohno birthday posts that showed up in personal journals on my friends list had more content than the ones post in public communities (one person was also saying happy birthday to a friend on their journal, two people wrote about what was going on in their life after saying happy birthday) - the places where content isn't required had more going on than the places where it is.

[fluttering.livejournal.com]

dying this is so sad yet true. :/ I'd vote for a birthday master post, too. :x

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

Especially since it gets spread out over a week because people are early, using Japan's timezone, using their own timezone, or are late. Ugh.

[fluttering.livejournal.com]

I love the contributions, I really do! But seeing it crossposted to a billion places and everyone's translating or making graphics and it's just too much. :/ (And content-less birthday wishes are just plain annoying, no matter how earnest they are. D:)

[acidae.livejournal.com]

as;ldkfjas I knew I was forgetting something. You're right about the amount of birthday-related posts-- the ones before Ohno's quite frankly hadn't been quite as bad, but I'm definitely going to figure something out for future birthdays if they're going to have a similar amount of posts. I'll probably do a masterpost after all, posted in Japan time so people can start leaving their birthday wishes before their own time zones.

Thanks for bringing that up!

[denwa.livejournal.com]

I like the Boys Paper option, too, because that way people are still happening upon the requests when they check their friends page. The other way, requests will only be filled if someone decides to check the comments in the request post.

And a layout contest sounds like a great idea :D.

[booksandsarcasm.livejournal.com]

I think the requests thing depends. While I'd like to see more order to things I can also see some newbie posting up a request anyway and getting their heads bitten off by some of the fans more used to the comm. Not sure what can be done about it but it is a little sad to see when people on both sides get thoroughly bashed. ): It seems like if you did have master posts of resolved questions that people could easily search through. Like commonly asked questions or something. Ugh, sorry, I'm not really any help. x.x

[hyearts.livejournal.com]

I voted yes for both systems, but I like boys_paper's more. It seems to be troublesome to scroll all these comments just to see, which requests are new.

And like blood_opal have said, something should be done with birthday posts. Maybe some compilation post? Where people could leave link to their entries if they really have to post something.

[acidae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was one of the things I forgot to mention XD I'll probably be doing a master/compilation post for members' birthdays too, since I personally wouldn't want to go through another birthday spree like the one we just had for Ohno's.

[n4ncy.livejournal.com]

I'm in another fandom community that have weekly request post. So every week ,mod make a post for it, request post only can only be submitted in the request post.
I think that's pretty neat , because the request threat won't be that long because changed every week :)

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

This is going to seem stupid, but could you please leave this entry (http://community.livejournal.com/arashi_on/1110384.html) up? Maybe you could remove the link to the blog, but it would be nice to have the lulz there permanently. If not, give me some notice so I can save the post and edit the links on the wank report (http://community.livejournal.com/je_wankage/5467.html). Thanks!

[acidae.livejournal.com]

Can you save the post, actually? I do want to leave it up for the comments but uh, it kind of breaks the rules and you and I both know there are probably members in the community who would go and click on those links anyway to put money in his pocket.

Just let me know whenever you've got everything saved, and I'll delete the post after. Thanks!

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

Feel free to delete, the report is now updated with quotes. :)

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of compiling a list of helpful links, especially since it seems like a lot of questions/requests get answered by people linking to the same three or four sites over and over.

Personally I like the boys_paper system better. That way there's less spam, but people's requests are still out there. I definately wouldn't take the time to keep checking a requests post to see if someone is asking for something, but if they were all consolidated once a week or something, I'd help out where I could.

I don't know if this would go over, but I really wish anon commenting would be banned in this community. I feel like that's where the majority of stupid wank comes from. I don't have a problem with someone replying to an entry and being snarky or stating their opinion of a post as long as they have the balls to do it under their own username. That way if it turns into an actual problem, a mod can deal directly with the person - even ban them if it turns into a reoccuring problem. I get that anon comments are usually left on in case someone who doesn't have an LJ account wants to post - but how often is that really an issue? 98% of anon comments I see are either someone who forgot to log in or someone who wants to say something mean but doesn't have the balls to use their own account. Besides, the majority of posts with content like scans or uploads are f-locked anyway, so there's not much point hanging around an Arashi LJ community if you don't have an account.

Aaand one other thing that I doubt will happen, but why not bring it up in case I'm not the only one XD Sales figure posts. Every time a new single/album comes out, do we need to be updated every single day about how much it sold? Sadly the wiki at the ppn is down, and it used to have all that info, but still, couldn't it be consolidated to at least once a week? While it's nice to see Arashi is selling well, a daily update is kind of overkill.

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

The problem with all the anon commenting stuff is that it's instantly negated once someone creates a sockpuppet account. *cough*

I was an anon lurker for a long long time before I created an account, and I managed to get around fine. I only created an account so I had one place to go to instead of 10. Mind you, that was a few years ago, and things have changed since.

I do agree with the daily updates on sales though. Once a week is enough, apart from first day sales. You know, the important landmarks when selling CDs.

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

The problem with all the anon commenting stuff is that it's instantly negated once someone creates a sockpuppet account. *cough*

Ah, true, I didn't think of that. Although most sock puppet accounts are pretty easy to discover, so it seems easier for a mod to just ban the sock puppet accounts rather than have to keep deleting anon comments all the time. Which doesn't happen anyway since there's only one active mod and that's a lot of work for one person. Oh well.

Once a week is enough, apart from first day sales. You know, the important landmarks when selling CDs.

Oh I forgot about first day. That's what I was getting at though, landmarks rather than every single day (especially when weekly sales are going to include all the daily ones already post anyway).

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, it should be very obvious this is a sock, albeit a well used one. I'm too lazy to keep typing in my password or switching accounts every time I want to comment.

As for deleting comments, most of the time I don't see comments being deleted, it's posts that are targeted for breaking rules. The last mass comment deletion that I can remember was the one by buttkisser (or something like that) prematurely stirring the flames on a Sho scandal.

As a side note, I'd be out of a hobby if the wank get deleted before it has a chance to get going :(

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people have sock puppet accounts for good reasons (I sort of have one as well). But it's pretty easy to tell them apart from the people who are just using them to be a dick or do nothing but post webgains.

I haven't seen anything deleted either (I don't really go back and check though). I just assume that it's because the com only has one active mod, and there's only so much she can be expected to keep track of. That, or she's trying to keep you hobby alive XD

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

I said this somewhere before, but I can't tell whether it's the mods or the posters deleting. The comms tend to be self-policing anyway, and as booksandsarcasm said above, a lot of people tend to bash the n00bs into deleting their posts.

LOL I kinda hope that someone keeps it alive, in the spirit of Vron and Yao XD

[acidae.livejournal.com]

In case you're still curious, I only delete rule-breaking posts if I get to them before they do it themselves, but I've never deleted or screened comments before so it was probably someone else in those cases.

Aside from deleting posts that blatantly break the (currently) very short list of rules on the userinfo, I don't think this community needs to be babysat (that and the amount of posts to the comm has seriously shot up over the past few months, let alone year) so I don't usually do much at all if drama erupts in the comments on certain posts.

[sparklesifu.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that, so thanks for clearing it up :)

Nice to know that it's the ones that don't see sense that have to get their posts deleted by mods lol.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sure my case is not representative of the anon community at large, but I'm a lurker in this fandom just because I'm really not ready to come into it with my name attached yet. I do like to get my opinion out there, though, and it really bothers me when I can't because a community has disabled anon commenting.

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, why do you not want your name attached to the fandom? If you prefer not to answer, I understand, I'm just really curious about what there is to hide - if you're not being a troll, what's bad about having your name attached to your opinion?

[(Anonymous)]

There's nothing bad about it, really, and I have ended up making posts using my journal name occasionally when I've needed to. It's just that my LJ has been inactive for about a year now, and though I plan to go back to it eventually, I want to do some organizing and rethinking and get some other things done first. I'd rather not become an active member of this fandom until I have all that sorted out. It's got nothing to do with the fandom itself or the opinions I have, it just makes me uncomfortable to know that if anyone gets curious and clicks on my username, they'll end up at my old abandoned journal.

[(Anonymous)]

i'm another anon.
i'm just incredibly shy and very self conscious to sound stupid with my stupid questions and lousy grammar and such. Also by being an anon i can give a more truthful opinion rather than keeping silent. Venting out silently is really not healthy.. maybe somebody else might agree and i won't feel so left out. I tend not be nasty with ALMOST all of my anon comments but a bit of ranting needs to be done to help rid with the annoyance.

[acidae.livejournal.com]

If I go with that idea (and frankly it seems likely, with the votes as they stand right now), I'll modify boys_paper's setup slightly, mostly concerning when to post up the lists of requests; weekly might be a bit too often, but I don't want to make people wait too long either. I'm not sure yet... I'd probably have to implement the system and see how things go first.

Like someone has already pointed out, there isn't much point in banning anonymous commenting with the rising popularity of sockpuppet accounts nowadays. :/ It might cut down on some of the trolling since most people would probably be dissuaded from commenting once they see that they can't do it anonymously, but it only takes a bit of work to register a sockpuppet if they really want, and there's little difference between those and staying anon, period. I can ban, but they can simply make a new one too. If anon commenting continues to get worse, though, I'll definitely give that some thought too.

Ahaha another thing I forgot about. I'm not sure where in the rules I would fit that under (I'll probably make a new rule somewhere), but I'll probably cut those posts down to certain dates as well-- first day, first week, month, and so on. Thanks!

[starsystems.livejournal.com]

I think the boys_paper system is better since I would probably forgot to check on a master post if I wasn't reminded about it.

[acidae.livejournal.com]

That's the one main reason I prefer the boys_paper one over the news_jpop too; it probably wouldn't make a difference to me since all I'd be responsible for is deleting rule breaking rules, but there isn't much point in making such a post for members if no one checks it, right?

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

i'm glad it seems that more of us are going with the boys_paper suggestion. Thanks for putting up this poll!

i think the best way to actually avoid so many requests is to have a search tool, because i can spend a couple hours getting lost in the tags and yet still not finding what i want, which gets really frustrating sometimes. i just wish i could type all the possible keywords and just have stuff pop up. however i don't think LJ actually allows such a thing, so i guess the next best thing would be a posting system instead of a search system... -_-"

master posts would be fantastic, thank you. :)

[hontowa.livejournal.com]

There's some service out there that allows searching of LJ (I stumbled upon it in a google search once), but it's really shitty =/ Maybe it would help to have more tags? In particular, ones for D and G no Arashi instead of having them go under download: older shows, since those seem to be the ones that get requested the most. And maybe some clarification for download: music shows and download: performances, since there's probably a lot of overlap there. Otherwise the tags seem like a pretty organized way of searching - I get the impression from a lot of the request posts that the person hasn't bothered to use google or spend the time you have looking through tags though, so hopefully the boys_paper suggestion helps :)

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

(yeah, i sorta get that impression too... google is actually really good XD)

tags were fantastic when i first started coming here because i was looking for recent programs and such, but once i wanted to access older material they started to torture me. i still trawl through tags up till now :( more specific tags will really help though, and tag rules to tag everything possibly relevant to the post. but i guess rules are sometimes ignored and 'possible relevant' becomes very subjective -_-

but yeah, in any case i'm looking forward to the new request scheme :)

[acidae.livejournal.com]

I implemented tags after I became a mod here, and I never went back to tag older entries because there was simply too much of them-- that's probably why you can't find much from early 2007 and back. That and people hardly ever used the tags themselves, as if they weren't used to the concept yet or something.

The thing is, a tagging system relies heavily on the posters themselves to make it successful. Like I said already, I don't think this community needs to be babysat; if posters can't even be bothered to add a simple tag or two to their post, why should I have to do it for them? I'll do it for people who actually state that they're not sure how to tag their entries, but seriously, it's not called a community for nothing. Add that to the fact that I'm pretty much running this 5000+ member comm on my own and well... it's kind of unrealistic to expect the tagging system to get much better than this. :/

Personally, I think the current tags in the community are pretty sufficient-- I'll probably clarify what some of them are for in my next mod post, but I wouldn't really make a lot of changes to them. Besides, I don't really see the point of creating more specific tags when you want posts to be tagged with every single thing possibly relevant to it, which is basically like casting a very broad net (which I don't actually have any problems with), so what's the point of being specific in the first place? It seems very contradictory, imo.

Either way, could you maybe give me examples of more specific tags that you would like to see? It's very possible that I could have missed a few that should belong on the list. :)

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

hey there! i think you pretty much narrowed down most of the stuff in your newest post on the community, but i did suggest one more tag about raw files.

i think as a mod it's up to you whether you want to tag tagless posts, but i'm with you on the idea that it isn't necessary unless someone says they aren't sure how to tag.

by specific i meant slightly-more-specific, like what hontowa mentioned about requests being for D no Arashi etc and they're being grouped into older shows so it's harder to find them. the tags don't have to be earth-shatteringly different, just more narrowed down. i'm sorry if you thought it was contradictory to put more tags or anything, i doubt that was what i suggested in the first place.

but i really do think that it's the members of the community who have to undertake posting responsibilities. moderators honestly SHOULDN'T need to babysit communities at all, i agree completely with you on that, and neither should they be bullied by circumstances to do anything out of their jobscope. yep.

[acidae.livejournal.com]

by specific i meant slightly-more-specific, like what hontowa mentioned about requests being for D no Arashi etc and they're being grouped into older shows so it's harder to find them.

I thought about doing that at first, but then it occurred to me that-- well, older shows simply aren't shared as often as the newer ones. I mean, how often do you see posts with uploads of D or G no Arashi around here, right? I checked the older shows tag just now, and there were only 9 entries under that tag; not very hard to look through them all, I don't think. :x

I don't think your idea was a bad one though, I really don't! It's just... I don't really see a need for it, especially since we're not exactly overrun by uploads in this community, nor are downloads its main focus (not like onlyarashifiles, which I'm pretty sure I had added more specific tags like C/D/G no Arashi and so on). Keeping it simple sometimes works just as well as specifying everything, or at least that's how I feel. XD

And before I forget and leave you thinking I'm annoyed at you or something, thank you for your feedback ♥ I hope I didn't come off sounding offended or anything like that, because I do appreciate hearing any thoughts on how the community could improve. :3

[oviparous.livejournal.com]

hey, it's all right. nah i didn't get the idea that you thought my idea was a bad one, i just misunderstood that you were unhappy with me demanding so much of you by asking you to add tags as if you have lots of time on your hands, which is really the last thing i hope to impose on you. thanks for clearing that up, heh. ;)

[tartaruga139.livejournal.com]

I like either systems for request as it can get kinda cluttered sometimes, though I don't really mind. news_jpop's system is not all that bad as there are a decent amount of users who are good about often checking there and respond quite quickly. Also, mods occasionally go through their request post and will make a post with all the ones that have not been answered yet, similar to what's done on boys_paper

As I was reading this post I actually had the same thoughts as hontowa about anon postings but I guess with sockpuppet accounts as mentioned it would become kind of pointless so never mind?

And a layout contest sounds like fun. I wouldn't participate cause I have no artistic skills whatsoever but there are some talented people in this comm so hopefully they'd want to participate.

[dw9lives.livejournal.com]

I do like the request post at NEWS' comm but now that you bring up the one at boys_paper, I like that one better.

good luck with everything!

[inuhariko.livejournal.com]

I usually don't mind requests and help when I can. I like the idea of compiling them all together and making periodic posts.

[nikoree.livejournal.com]

i like the system at boys_paper, i think kattunlove also uses this system
it's more efficient... i think xD

[keylimepieat3am.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a requesting system is really needed. The influx of posts is mostly due to requests, I think.

However, I'm sure most people are like me:: they don't even bother with the posts when someone requests. Thus, I think a requesting system like the one used in news_jpop is really needed. The one used at boys_paper is all fine and everything, but the number of requests in THIS community far dwarfs that of boys_paper... so I think that just having a master post where the people who actually WANT to help can go.. is a better idea than periodically posting a compilation of requests.

^^

[winged-lily.livejournal.com]

I think that it's a good idea to have a master post for requests. =)

I also think that a layout competition sounds like fun. There are a lot of great graphic makers out there, who'll probably have fun participating in it. =) Even if there aren't prizes, I think that it would be great.