1. It has come to the attention of forum staff that Dollshe Craft has ceased communications with dealers and customers, has failed to provide promised refunds for the excessive waits, and now has wait times surpassing 5 years in some cases. Forum staff are also concerned as there are claims being put forth that Dollshe plans to close down their doll making company. Due to the instability of the company, the lack of communication, the lack of promised refunds, and the wait times now surpassing 5 years, we strongly urge members to research the current state of this company very carefully and thoroughly before deciding to place an order. For more information please see the Dollshe waiting room. Do not assume this cannot happen to you or that your order will be different.
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  2. Dollshe Craft and all dolls created by Dollshe, including any dolls created under his new or future companies, including Club Coco BJD are now banned from Den of Angels. Dollshe and the sculptor may not advertise his products on this forum. Sales may not be discussed, no news threads may be posted regarding new releases. This ban does not impact any dolls by Dollshe ordered by November 8, 2023. Any dolls ordered after November 8, 2023, regardless of the date the sculpt was released, are banned from this forum as are any dolls released under his new or future companies including but not limited to Club Coco BJD. This ban does not apply to other company dolls cast by Dollshe as part of a casting agreement between him and the actual sculpt or company and those dolls may still be discussed on the forum. Please come to Ask the Moderators if you have any questions.
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Reminder Please review DoA's Rules

Feb 23, 2018

    1. The mod team has been seeing a significant increase in rule-breaking from some of our older members recently.

      The mod team highly recommends that every member, old and new alike, should review all of the Rules found here:
      Rules

      Make sure to review each thread and post. Every member on Den of Angels is responsible for knowing these rules.
      Innocence due to ignorance will not be an acceptable defense. If you break a rule, and then say that you weren't aware of that rule, you have still broken the rule and may receive disciplinary measures.

      It can also help to check in to the Den of Angels News section from time to time, to see if there are any announcements of changes to rules, or other important information.

      If you have any questions, please post in Ask the Moderators.
       
      • x 29
    2. can you please note any we should be 'extra' mindful of? *delete this when addressed ^^* yes i am aware this is not in ATM... i wanted it public is why
       
      • x 9
    3. @Lady Tiku

      Every rule on DoA is important. :daisy

      Some of the most important ones though, are the rules regarding recasts, account sharing, and advertising outside of the Marketplace, which should all be apparent to everyone who is reviewing the rules.
       
      • x 6
    4. I reread the the rules as requested. Though it is still a riddle to me what you mean. It would be nice if you can clarify this a bit more.

      One can't change anything if not told what to change.
       
      • x 1
    5. @Ipledreamer

      If it's in the rules, it's important to know. There are certain rules or sections that gets updated more regularly than other, but every rule is important. Bigger updates to the rules are usually announced in the Den of Angels News section.

      It's not our responsibility to actively tell members to read the rules. I would suggest you make a change yourself and make sure you read the rules every now and then. That's really the best thing you can do to prevent rule breaking on your part :)

      If you want to have a specific rule clarified, you're always free to post in Ask the Moderators and we will be happy to clarify it for you.
       
      • x 3
    6. I think what Ipledreamer is attempting to say is: We're not sure whats going on. This sounds like a sort of PSA because people are breaking the rules pretty consistently but its not saying exactly what is being done wrong. Just saying " rules regarding recasts, account sharing, and advertising outside of the Marketplace" is a bit open to be honest.

      Are people sneaking in recasts as Legit or is it merely that people are mentioning more along the lines of "I won't bully the hell out of you for having a recast" instead of stating clearly they are "pro artist". I mean, I myself have said before that I'm not going to go out of my way to make someone feel awful for their own decisions but I'm against them...does that make me neutral? No. I am very much pro artist, I just don't like being nasty all the time.

      As for the marketplace, I find it hard to believe (Doesn't mean its not possible) that older members are willingly posting searches/inquiries for dolls outside of the marketplace/their signature...so is there a grey area we don't know about? For example: Is it that DoA sales are being posted across not only DoA but say IG, Facebook, etc? Is that something that is technically against the rules? Or is it something a little simpler like seeing someone's project journal, being in awe and merely saying "Do you take commissions?"

      I would like to think that account sharing is pretty black and white, so I won't really touch on that one. Then again there could be hiccups where notes aren't made about people sharing IP addresses. My husband and I share the same IP, but there was never a direct "Hey we put in a note that you are not mulitple accounts". I just assume since neither of us have gotten the boot we're good to go. He stated I was on the forums when he joined, so I figured that was enough.

      I'm not trying to be nasty/mean/rude about it, but a lot of the rules are direct yet not precise. They say what you can/cannot do but not to what degree you can/cannot do it. Vague is perhaps the word best used to describe them. Which is fine, vague rules provide more of a blanket statement for Moderators. It gives less room for those breaking the rules to argue "Well I didn't do "this part" of the rule so I'm not technically breaking it". Yet in a scenario like this, where clearly there are multiple people trying to figure out what rules they could be potentially breaking, its always nice to have a bit more detail so we can all read it and go "Dang, I didn't interpret that rule this way, now I know."
       
      • x 34
    7. Thank, this is precisely what I wanted to say.
       
      • x 4
    8. The mod team does not share information about members with third parties (ie other members), so we will not divulge any specific cases.

      If you have read the rules, and are following them, then there should be no worries about accidentally breaking them. Wanting to know what rules most people break so that you can avoid breaking those specific rules is fine, but you still have to follow all of the rules, not just the ones most people break.
      This thread was simply meant to be a reminder for members to review, nothing more.

      @errinreynolds Rules Cross-posting sales is not against DoA's rules. But the 'do you take commissions?' scenario is.

      If you are concerned about breaking a specific rule, please create a new Ask the Mods thread and we will be happy to explain further.
       
      • x 1
    9. Funny you'd mention those specific issues, as I personally have seen a lot of those exact things from people who should know better in the last few months. But that's just me, and I am just one staffer. Each of us has seen different instances of infractions in different forums, but what they all have in common is the general increase of instances coming from our old-timers. We do expect our old-timers to be pretty good at policing themselves.

      It is difficult to just point to one or two rules and say those are the ones to take special note of. All of the forum rules need to be followed. There isn't an exemption from any of the rules if we neglect to point them out in this reminder.

      Many of these rules have been the same for a long time, so we can only assume people are forgetting and need a refresher than willingly going rogue. If you (general you) see something in the rules that you feel is "a grey area", you should always come to Ask the Mods and get a clarification. And get clarification before you do something you aren't certain about as we will enforce the rules as they stand.

      I'd also like to point out, the greatest number of our members have gone for years, more than a decade, without a single instance of rule breaking. It is pretty easy to follow them, as long as you know them.
       
      • x 4
    10. I do not think specific cases are being asked for. Since there has been a significant increase in rule-breaking, it should be possible to narrow it down better than "rules regarding recasts", without outing anyone.
      For example - Is it a matter of discussing recasts? Owning recasts? Attitudes towards recasts?

      I do not think people want to break the rules... So, of course, we would want to know what this increase is about. I do not know if I am reading it wrong, but it sounds like you think you are being asked for a cheat-sheet. Like, "these rules will be on the test, do not bother with the others - no teacher checks those" or something...
      When rather, we would like more information related to this new information (which is an increase in rule-breaking) - more information on what instances of the rules to be extra observant of, related to this. And not overall, or to rank the rules in order of importance.

      So could we perhaps have another thread specifying these?

      If there has been a significant increase, then us members would probably want to help prevent further rule-breaking as much as possible, but as @errinreynolds said, the rules can be a bit vague.
      So unless the rules that has been broken have been all over the place, a few pointers, or clarifications, is what we are after, to prevent accidentally breaking the same ones ourselves - especially if there is an underlying cause (- new tech, habits, and so on, that does not comply with the rules? Just a speculation).
      I just think it would be easier for everyone.

      But as mentioned as well, it could just be due to forgetfulness or the old-timers quitting the hobby and thus dismissing a lot of rules in the exiting process.
       
      • x 3
    11. Personally, I have observed that certain "new" MP procedures are mostly violated by old timers rather than newbies: changing a sales thread title to "delete" or "on layaway" or "sold" without changing the prefix to "finished," deleting original title, price and all photos when finished (not very helpful when searching the "graveyard" for completed sales info), and that sort of thing.
       
      • x 3
    12. I think this is the kind of clarification we're looking for. As @Yumeiro and others have said, we're not trying to find loopholes or incident reports, or looking to figure out which rules are "serious" and which are "flexible", just wondering if there are specific reoccurring problems that seem to be getting overlooked so we can avoid making those same mistakes (not because they're "more important," but just to be more conscious of bad habits). Of course I agree that everyone should familiarize themselves with all the rules, but there are quite a lot so it's easy to glance over like "oh yeah I've read these before, I know all this," and overlook updates or even just lines you may have misremembered (like trying to proofread an essay and missing the typos). So "just read everything and you'll be fine" doesn't clear anything up.

      If it's just an overall increase in infractions, with no patterns to speak of, then that's fine to say too, but a lot of the mod responses seem to have a pointedly dodgy tone, like you think we're trying to trick you into giving away a hint for something or avoid taking personal responsibility ourselves.

      I think all of us who have asked would just appreciate some concise clarification like "we've noticed more issues, especially regarding: talking about recasts in any capacity, offering or asking about commissions outside the marketplace, correctly labeling and updating your MP threads, and posting too much in non-gallery threads" or whatever.

      Or, if there are no patterns like that to speak of, just a clear "there's no single issue that's been a dominant problem in need of specific review, we just want to remind everyone that rules we have rules and they're important" would be nice.

      Maybe that's what you were saying anyway, but it kind of came across like
      "There's been a problem lately."
      "What's been the problem?"
      "Not really a problem, but everything is a problem. Now no more hints, go read the rules."
       
      • x 9
    13. To put it simply: We've been seeing an increase in rule breaking from some members who have been here for a long time, and they are breaking rules that have been in place for a very long time. It's possible this might be because members haven't been reading the rules in a while. This is why we decided a reminder would be a good idea.

      Overall, rules need to be somewhat vague by necessity, so that they may be applied to multiple situations. If the rules are too specific, we would need to have hundreds more rules in order to list everything. Slightly-vague rules which can be applied to most all situations is the only way to keep the rules from being too big and bloated, and hard to understand.

      But basically......

      No long-term rules have been changed. They may have been clarified over time, but not changed. Things including, but not limited to:
      Don't share your account. Period. There is no circumstance where this is allowed. And certainly don't share your account with people who have been banned or suspended.
      Don't make accounts for other people. You may not make an account for your child. The other person must do it on their own.
      Don't make a new account for yourself and claim it's for someone else.
      Don't help people without MP access, or nonmembers, to access the MP for any reason.
      Members without MP access cannot make purchases on the forum, or sell things or offer/request services from other members. Don't buy from/sell to/offer services using forum resources to anyone without MP access.
      Don't post recasts or include them in your profile. Don't post recasts or include them in your profile and claim they're legit or the result of a modding/dyeing project you did.

      This list does not mean that other not-listed-here rules are any less important.
      Don't think that, because you've been a member for a long time, that the rules don't really apply to you, or that you can have your own way anyway if told "no", or that the rules can be ignored because you think you won't get caught.

      If you have read and understood the rules, now or fairly recently - you should be fine.
      If you have read the rules, but you are worried that you might not fully understand some of them - ask us about it in Ask the Mods.

      Hopefully this is a sufficient explanation now. The small number of mods on DOA have a large number of mundane/housekeeping/software/development things to do on a regular basis, so it is up to you, to read the rules and follow them all to the best of your abilities, without needing to have our constant guidance. We cannot continue to, and will not, debate semantics or interpretation of the rules any further, so this thread is being locked to further replies. As we have said, please create a new Ask the Mods thread if you have any questions about specific rules.
       
      • x 14