BJD makers threatened by China-based counterfeiter / trademarks

Neither do I, I do check out the profiles and pages of everyone who follows me on any social media before following them back however, and I was also shocked at the number of "pro-artists" who own recasts.

It's so hard to get any kind of information out to people. This is literally my job XD so I know. Keeping it as simple as possible is a good way to try...

 

Everyone thanks so much for updating this thread with company responses! It's sad they have to dedicate a portion of their time to dealing with this problem but it's good to know they are aware and planning to take action.

Just a thought: would a separate website dedicated ONLY for novice collectors/potential hobbyists be useful? Not like a forum format, but only a place for gleaning information. So for people who have not discovered the Youtube doll community or know how to search for doll comparisons on Flickr, it could provide links to those different online groups (pro-artist minded communities, of course). It could have pages like how to safely purchase your first doll, explain the recast process, what warning signs to look out for. I know this forum has similar information but until it is seen as more approachable, perhaps a separate online source of info aimed at arming new hobbyists with knowledge could reach more people? And the goal would be to try to make it one of the first Google results someone would find.

I'm planning to make a youtube video addressing this Luo situation and the general recast problem. It's meant to be informative unlike my previous recast-related video which had been more from a personal perspective. Is the label 'anti-recast' still a term many of us pro-artist hobbyists avoid? I'd like to bring that up and would appreciate some insight from anyone!

 

There are already resources for newbies who look for them...Collectasy, Doa's Wiki, and BJD-WTF, all of which link lots of legit doll companies. There is even a good "how to tell if your doll is a recast" page. 10+ years ago when you might need a translator or shopping service to get the BJD of your dreams, saying the info isn't out there actually *was* the case. But it's not anymore. Lots of people have taken the time to get this "newbie-friendly" info together, and even translate it. It's in loads of places, if you just look.

The problem is..they don't look. They don't want to know. They just want that one they saw.

 

Oh thats true... I think another reason may be the ban without a discussion between moderators. I don't even know if thats true, but I've seen people talking about this often, and in many comunities I am part of you need more than one moderator's side to be banned. Not that I think that would make any difference, from personal experience if they want to be biased they will be no matter what, but some people thinks that is more fair or transparent.

 

@VinylFaerie Those sites have been helpful for me in the past but I wonder if a more modernized template and better organization for ease of searching could be attainable. Sadly, people want things fast as you said. They don't want to do research at all! It's so frustrating.

 

Well, I did said I was not sure if it was true. But maybe you could make this clear in the rules that bans are discussed and so on, because a newbie like me didn't know that, and I know some people are too afraid to even join and try the experience because of the bad reputation.

 

I feel as if the mods don't need to tell us what their process is. There are firm rules that are publicly available. If someone gets banned it is safe to say that they have broken one of these rules. I do see that some people are afraid of joining DoA because of things said by former members, but it is something admirable that a forum has rules and follows them.

I think that if they were to give reasoning on why a certain member was banned, or even that they had come to that decision together, it could result in the same bitterness/harsh words from critics, just for a different reason. It could be viewed as an invasion of privacy, taking sides, etc - the same reason they aren't allowed to jump into problem transaction threads.

It is a hard job to a mod, and I know they are doing the best they can.

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As for more information for newbies... I know that the forum has become bogged down by thousands of threads, and now different subtitles. I know this has to be confusing to some new collectors - sometimes I still don't know where to find anything and I've been frequenting DoA for years! There are various resources out there, as @VinylFaerie brought out. These are pretty easy to find but I agree... some people just don't want to look. I mean one of the first things that comes up when you are searching for certain BJD terms (I don't want to say which...) on Google is a recast site... I've been trying to think of ways that could be fixed, but so far I'm coming up with a lot of blanks. Surely not all of the websites lack the SEO...

 

With that I have to agree, I would never be a mod because I have no patience for that. Disclosing why members were banned would not only create more drama but also seem unprofessional.

 

No, because I never check anywhere else since every doll owning person I know left the site. That's the battle you've got if you want a cohesive community again, getting the people previously alienated back again and posting. We all have a wealth of knowledge, but it's going to waste offline in a lot of cases because all the smaller, usually nationally based communities got swallowed up trying to beat DoA and losing. That's left a void for the ill informed/newbies to fall into on social media where they're easy pickings for recast supporters looking to recruit to their cause.

I understand why you run it the way you do, as I said many times, but the bottom line is that this place has become so vast, it's no longer the once small community based system it was. An inevitable consequence of that is that outsiders to it (as well as some of the longer term collectors) just don't feel it's worth it to wade into the melee and post anymore, which, in turn leads to there being an image problem with the site when it's mentioned elsewhere. If everyone realised that this place had, in fact, begun to attempt to resurrect some form of community again, we might be in business, but that's an uphill struggle to have after this much time.

 

Personally I think the fact that DoA is " so vast" is good proof of how many of us want to be a part of the Legit doll community. I noticed there are a lot of big artists that used to be a part of DoA are now more interested in self promoting than promoting other doll artists naturally . But the fact that these artists do help each other by promoting each other is probably the best way to reach out to newbies IMO.

 

@hobbywhelmed
On the subject of Brigadoon being left up year around... it would probably be nice if it were listed under one of the drop downs the way other topics are. Maybe under possibly the Community or Discussion drop down. That way people could find it easily and make use of it. (Unless it is already and I'm just completely missing it)

 

I feel like I started a "kick DOA" tangent when I mentioned the image problem: Sorry, not my intention. Of course, those who have been banned will whine and bad mouth DOA, that will always happen but the fact that their rants always come so near to the top of Google searches is what I think is so damaging. How do we combat that? It's giving an unfair image of the place to those who are just getting into BJD and I think we all need to start promoting the hell out of the place on social media and try to turn things around.... because if we get newer blood in here then those are people who will get educated about the real harm that recasts are doing.

I saw someone on Facebook today posting that she was really frustrated about not being able to find out where to buy a Natalia Loseva doll, so I piled in with "Come to DOA where there is a thread where you can talk directly to her agent"... no idea if she will follow through but where else can you go and talk to the artist who actually makes the dolls, or their representative if there is a language barrier. Surely that close proximity to so many doll artist and companies, who also use DOA, has to be a huge draw. I don't know, we all feel so powerless to stop what is happening with Luo but I think we have to look for ways to get the message across in a fresher way.

It wasn't SO long ago when recasts first started to appear and we started having long discussions about why recasts were bad and would damage this hobby. So many of us had a horrible feeling we knew where it was headed, even back then -but what I never envisaged was the way the pro-recast lobby managed to infest social media and are starting to make US look like some out of touch minority.

 

The wonderful thing about DoA is that it is a repository of knowledge and experience. That can make it seem intimidating but it’s been my experience that the lovely people here, both from the moderation team and from our user base are often more than happy to point you in the right direction when you encounter confusion. I’ve noticed that many of the new member discussion threads are peppered with so-called old timers who are happy to share their experiences and answer questions. If you want DoA to be a more welcoming place, join threads and chat with people, post pictures, and take part in the community. Those are concrete examples that can be pointed to if someone wants to argue this place is terrifying.

You’re never going to be able to please everyone though and it’s not shocking that that this site has its detractors. I would point though to the sheer volume of people who use this forum daily as part of their doll fandom experience as an indicator of its success rather than a vocal minority. That said, I don’t need to know why certain people have been banned. I can make the logical assumption that a rule was broken. It’s not my business to know all the details.

 

awesome, thank you so much! i was having trouble accessing DoA earlier, so i'm sorry for the late reply, but if you could DM me the full message, i'd be very interested to see it, and i'll make the call if it's relevant/publishable information or not for the list.
i've already added them to the doc, i'll add them to the tumblr page right now. ^^

sorry to double post but i didn't get the alert for this, thank you sooo much for these too, i'll add them to the list right now!

 

This man Sucks

 

Wow. Thank you for posting this. I don't use social media so I would never have known about this if it hadn't been posted here. Very sad to see this happening.

 

To be totally honest... the actual fate of this whole situation isn’t in our hands, or even the companies hands. We can all do the best we can, and the companies can take legal action but its the people who buy the recasts that can change the outcome by stopping Luo’s income flow. When the money dries up, the problem dries up.
I know most of us do this, but I would reach out to them with kindness. Some will still say we’re bullies even if we’re nice, but thats just their own guilty conscience making them feel bad about themselves. Make kind youtube videos, “we don’t hate you... we just hate that the hobby we BOTH love is truely being threatened”. The truely selfish ones won’t care, but some may listen... EVEN IF it means buying a recast from anyone but Luo. Idk.

 

Agree! How is that saying? "Kill them with kindness"?
Another thing is that I think we should be more forgiving towards people who had recasts in the past but decided to go legit only. Its human nature to make mistakes, as long as you acknowledge the mistake and try to become better a person you should have your second chance.

 

@flornosertao I mean full disclosure, that's exactly what happened with me. I realized that my previous behavior was motivated by greed, impatience, and entitlement, and decided to only buy legits moving forward. Honestly that's part of the reason I'm taking such a personal interest in this- as someone who used to be part of the problem, I want to see it stopped. I want people to realize that these are not big companies, losing sales to counterfeiters is incredibly detrimental to their livelihoods, and most barely have enough money to pay their staff to begin with, let alone legal teams.