BJD makers threatened by China-based counterfeiter / trademarks

My idea was to use drive as a base (to gather the infos), and then be able to copy paste them into tumblr or hwhatever webservice we could find.

 

I think thats kind twice the work, but we can try! Whatever is chosen as the best method, I'm willing to help with!

Just clearing something up: I don't think everything ever launched needs to be there, just the ones that are currently in the official company sites. Is not to be a wiki but to help newbies to buy the dolls. I'm not against having them there though, but that would be sure troublesome to gather information of.

 

The list I'm thinking of only contains the company, their page, their location, (if they're in business), which sizes they offer (SD, MSD, ..) and additional information (like for Soom that they're only doing limited releases). Starting to name their lines/sculpts would be too much - its not a wiki.

 

Aaah, we are not in the same channel than. I was thinking in a more newbie friendly kind of thing.

 

Hm. the problem I see with any bigger project that contains any kind of work beside copy/pasting is that people tend to say "omg I love it I'll help out" and then vanish after a few weeks. I had it with a face-up artist list, I have it with the measurement list.
I'm not sure how far you can go with newbie-friendliness without going too much into detail. Describing the different lines, like explaining the difference between Iples FIDs and JIDs, or that Minifees don't fit into regular MSD clothes, seems a bit too much (in my opinion). With the basic infos and tumblr tags it would be pretty easy to show, say, just companies that offer msds... I dunno.

Still like the idea of a tumblr page for it. You can do a lot with tags there.

 

But newbies aren't searching for information like this fits that yet, they want to see the doll and fall in love for them first so it would be basically copying and pasting the doll pictures descriptions and links only. I know it would be troublesome to keep, but thats why it needs a rotationary team, so it won't be too much a load for no one.

(Edit) ok, maybe some newbie are searching for this, but the purpose is to compete with how easy is to navigate between sculpts in recasts sites, recasters don't offer this kind of information so we dont really need to compete in this.

 

Wow, I see you've all taken the bull by the horns while I was in Tesco! hee hee...

Just a quick query but I was initially thinking of somewhere like WIX which is where I have my own website but I'm cool with whatever everyone thinks is best.... I think we would need to agree a basic "Stater Kit" of info, so the major BJD companies we all know of, ESPECIALLY everyone affected by the Luo fiasco, as many worldwide dealers we can think of and of course, the legit clubs like DOA and Marie Celeste, etc...

One thing I DO know a lot about and that is designing information layouts and how best to present multi-info layouts so that they are easy to navigate. I just wonder about using an existing platform because sites like Tumblr you have to be a member already.... or the information will become fragmented - and when they change hands we would potentially lose access to it.... whereas if we had an independent website, we could move the domain to another host if things went pear shaped couldn't we?

We DEFINTELY need seductive imagery and lots of it, for this to really work we need to be luring those who might end up buying a recast (because it's easy) back from the Dark Side. It should not be a wiki-type thing because the aim is not to be an encyclopedia of BJD just a one stop information site which collates the major sites a BJD Hobbyist needs to get to know. I don't think we should show every doll - that would be a crazy amount of work - and just presenting newbies with yet more confusion. Information overload is as bad as too little info.

Any DOA technical bods around that could give advice, how did you chose this platform? What about places like Ning also, even though you have to rent space, they are very well organised?

 

@flornosertao So far I tried a simple list for now. Including name of the company (maybe a link to the store could be placed under it), mold name, whether they have certificates, Size (maybe better in cm but did 1/3 for now), price at store (dunno if thats needed tho) and... oh if they have dealers.

I did tabs for each letter of the alphabeth, with Soom, FL and Luts in their own tabs. (because big).

No images yet, but you could place them behind the info. (although, in my opinion images could become a lot of work and eventually chaos, so maybe we could also do a tumblr for the images and link to the posts in the excel file. Like make an extra column with "Photo" and then link to the picture tumblr.

Eiiither way, I only did part of 5Stardoll so far to give a quick look of what I was thinking of. See if you can open it and what you think?

Doll Companies.xlsx

 

Well THAT would be a ton of work. Only considering the first 20 companies with the most doll lines we're at 600 lines, and if each of them has 'only' 5 dolls (which we know is lowballed), that's 3000 dolls. Thats 3000 pictures with 3000 links : | I mean I get the idea behind it, but...

Out of the 460 companies that are still in business, I've added ~180 to the measurement list; these 180 alone make over 1700 lines. Again, multiplying that be 5 makes 8500 dolls - but I think it would be more realistic to multiply it by 10 (looking at you Iple and FL)., so were at +17000 dolls that can currently be bought.


(I like the idea with the dealers and the coas though. Gonna add that to my list...)

 

I'm guessing the idea though is that multiple contributors via google sheets (or whatever) would very much lessen that work load. One person only has to be a big fan of Plumedoll say and add their dolls for the Plumedoll section to be complete. There's a huge number of people who are fans of Fairyland who could contribute Fairyland dolls.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the intention here. It would have to be public for editing by others in order for the format to work I think, otherwise it's too much for a small group.

 

Agreed that it would be a ton of work. Linking to the company itself would already get them photos right?

Also yes, it seemed wise to include CoA's (also from when on they started adding them) for the second hand market. Like a 2018 Minifee should never ever come without a CoA. And Dealers could help newbies buy closer to home. I have always been fond of buying dolls in my region. We had Think Pink (RIP... ) where I usually bought my dolls. I am still scared of buying directly at the company.

 

Good idea with the CoA date!

 

How about a compromise? Instead of trying to include images of all the dolls, choose one popular example for each line, or three for each company?

 

I don't think we can have that much info in free wix, I know it changed but back in the time I used it was pretty limited.
In tumblr you can make a team with each one in their own accounts so we dont necessary need to share a login, but its true about losing everything if its over. Blogger can be exported though. Wordpress would need a paid site...

 

I fear that that could make it into a complete mess. If anyone could edit it then there would also be a possibility that false info can be editted or things could be erased...

Ohh that sounds like a great idea!

@vonbonbon I personally dislike Wix because I found it rather limited, but we could check it out if it works.

 

Well, with 100 posts a day limit that would be around some months. But really, I wasnt expecting any less work. I've been part of fandom blogs and its pratically the same workload.

Thats an idea...

 

Kayren-Twist and flornosertao, I'm happy to go with Tumblr as many of you seem to think it's a better fit for what we need.

I think Sianserais, had the right idea: "How about a compromise? Instead of trying to include images of all the dolls, choose one popular example for each line, or three for each company?" Just give the newbie an overview of what they can find at each particular company. With Dealers we just show the logos of who they represent, with forums we could just list the loaction/language...

To make this happen (and fast) it is probably best to be quite minimal with the information for each company to start with. If we split up into batches and each do a spreadsheet with basic info and then colate them and check that we have covered everyone we can think of, then start inputting that to Tumblr.... is there then a way for volunteers to go back and expand a particular area once we have the structure in place?

 

The theme/design can be changed any time without interfere with the content. The tags can be bunched edited. The posts need to be manually edited one by one, so it would be better to not make mistakes there since it would be troublesome to edit them all after we were way gone in the procress.

 

i'd love to help or even run a tumblr or site for bjd beginner stuff. i've had experience moderating a forum, editing wysiwyg pages, and some tumblr code (and i'm a pretty heavy tumblr user), html, etc., plus i'm unemployed so i have literally all day every day to dedicate to these things. once i tried making an app to keep track of bjd stuff, but uh, i'm not an iOS coder by any means, lol

 

What we dould do for Tumblr indeed is show a few of the dolls per company, link to the company, then instead of listing all dolls show what sizes they offer, Price range per company, Dealers and whether they have CoA's (I personally find this important haha).

For example for a tumblr post:

{ Show a few pics of different sizes)
"Fairyland {Link}
Sizes: 9 cm to 70 cm
Prize range: 160$ to 847$
Dealers: link or logo
Has CoA: Yes since 2016"

(Show a few pics of different sizes)
"Resinsoul {Link}
Sizes: 15 cm to 72 cm
Price range: 75$ to 260$
Dealers: Link or logo
Has CoA: Yes/No"