The AKBar48 Suggestion Box

[SomethingWild]

The AKBar48 Suggestion Box

The AKBar48 has gone into full blast around a year ago. We’ve expanded big time and we're not planning on stopping any time soon. We’re still finding our way and I want everybody’s visits to be as enjoyable as possible. Since it’s pretty much a ‘for fans, by fans’ kinda deal, we’d appreciate your input!

Some of the things that have been on my mind (even though these are more guidelines related than actual forum content)
-   The use of thumbnails. We never really made any strict rules about this, but I think the forum would run a lot faster and look more organized if more thumbs were used, especially in the girl threads where a lot of pics get posted. Of course, some pics are just too epic to be thumbed.
-   The use of gifs. Please use thumbs for gifs bigger than 1mb in filesize.


What do you like? What could be improved? What would you like to see? Anything else? Tell us 

[Masa]

More suggestions plz! Are there any new forums that you guys would like to see?

[atskv9]

Barrie, I think your suggestions are good. Most of the regular posters do know better than to post huge pictures and will use thumbnails since they are easy to generate from the picroda. Same goes with gifs too. Some people are using the width and height attributes in the img tag which I think is fine when used in moderation cause it will usually only be a few pics at a time... though if done throughout the whole page, it could definitely add up. I guess you guys could just be more vocal about using thumbnails if it becomes a real problem.

I'm not so sure any more forums need to be created. When new forums are created, there's usually not enough to fill it out so new ones have to be created. Rather than forcing it, it think it might be better to let them happen over time rather than all at once. That way people won't try to answer every new thread and poll all at once and then it dies out after a few days/week in an attempt to generate more activity on the AKBar. This kind of brings me to my next point about discussion on the AKBar...

I think it's great that AKBar is focused on media and is pretty much to the 'go-to' place for multimedia downloads and pics but it also cuts down on the discussions. Not to mention the 'Thank you' button is possibly a problem (this could be cutting down on discussion but also prevents a page full of thank you's so not really sure where you'd end up unless it was removed for a while), but that's an aside. I'm not sure if there's just not enough to talk about in the girls' threads since we more often see pics than news/info or if it's just the effects of being a largely Japanese influent AKBar population. The Girl of the Week is a good idea in order to generate some non-media posting but sometimes I feel they are a chore (but this may just be me). I'm sorry I don't really have any suggestions as to how to create more of this type of posting but I felt that making it known to other members might get some responses from them (though I'm sure you guys are already aware of it).

Anyways, I appreciate everything you guys do for the AKBar and hope you get some good ideas out of this thread And with that I'm gonna go post some pics and thank some posts

[SomethingWild]

^Thanks for the input!

The girl of the week stuff is pretty hard. The previous survey was too long, which is why I changed it to 5 easy questions which are a bit more less standard. I'm definitely open to any suggestion to re-invent the GotW concept. The idea was to promote some of the girls that are otherwise overlooked and to gain insights in each other's fandoms. I thought about sticking girl threads at random, or maybe taking request from you guys to sticky certain lesser known girls or something. I don't know.

Another area of attention I have is the amount of overlap. Sometimes pics get posted in 6 different threads. I know jph!p has a bit of a 'postwhoring  ' kinda vibe, which I like, but in these cases it can become rather bothersome sometimes. Not sure how to solve this either. I don't want to go the 'pic threads for each girl' direction like we have in the H!P section, because sometimes the pic can create some discussion. :/

[jafeijai]

Maybe sticky-ing this thread would help 

Anyways, I think in the case of pictures, maybe we could stick to group pictures (3+ members?) being posted in the general AKB Picture thread and only there? That might help reduce a little bit of over-crossposting. + if a certain picture generates some discussion about a certain member, one could always quote the picture from the general picture thread INTO the specific member's thread..

[Datalanche]

This is probably going to offend people and... sorry, I guess.

To be honest I don't really like the direction this place is going. I'll try to explain my points clearly. These are nothing but my stupid opinion. Some have already been brought up. I'm bringing them up again.

Pictures: They're everywhere. The same ones. I think it's gotten beyond out of control. Some treat it like it's some kind of sport. I appreciate people posting them but there needs to be some kind of better place for them. And God, do I wish I had a suggestion, but I don't. All I know is that they are drowning the girls' forums. Sure, there may not be a lot of talk to go on in many if not most of them, but when you have two lines of text amidst hundreds of pixels of these behemoth picture posts, it's easy to give up on posting because it's so hard to find. It's really hard to recommend an action. At this point, I think that AKB, SKE, SDN, and soon NMB are now big enough to consider a pics subforum, especially if people are going to be blog treasure hunters about it. And finally, for my possibly offensive statement on this part: I've heard opposition that this would result in less discussion. Well for one, it's not like the girls' threads are ripe with discussion anyway for whatever reason, and if you're too lazy to get the link and quote it, you probably didn't have anything too enthralling to say in the first place. And then again, a pictures subforum adds it's own downsides as well as ups, so... I dunno.

Threads: I personally don't think that the way to revitalize the forum is to make a bunch of threads akin to "[POLL] Which AKB48 member would be the most pink-ish goo after being put into a human blender?" Although, I respect that a seperate forum has been made for those that wish to not participate in this content. Maybe instead, all of the people in the Ajax Chat could remember to share some thoughts on the forum as well longer than one line. Again, this is probably offensive, but some don't have the time to hang out in there all the time and take part in the live action discussion. I personally think some have forgotten that there is a forum as well. There's also a lot of people on jphip who seem interested in AKB but never post. Come on... say something. It doesn't have to be some picture or information post to be good content.

Edit: And.. I'm going to be dangerous and add this in. I've seen this said, not inferred, SAID OUTRIGHT, multiple times by leaders. "Man I wish our AKBar peeps would chat it up more, but I'm too lazy to do that." That gets to me like nothing else. Go ahead and write it off as srs bsnss, but wow. That's just... wow.

Social Etiquette: This is not really a "Mods suggestion". Rather, it's an observation of bizarre behavior. I totally understand the code of conduct. I respect what it says. I agree with what it says. But by God, I am getting SO SICK of Jurina, Myao, etc. discussions going like this.

MATSUI JURINA    Ice cream.

Please, tell me what's wrong with..

Wow, Jurina was really awesome in the S3 LoD! She's definitely a really talented and very pretty girl. I loved that Girls! vol. 30 picture set! I think she'll go far. Go Jurina!

In fact, dare I say, and again, possibly offensively, what is it that you guys can't say about these girls that you are hiding behind this stupid emoticon SO. FREAKING. MUCH?! Am I just missing some grand inside joke? I love Jurina, she's my #2 in SKE and she's way pretty. Problem is? No one's making you look at Myao in bikini's. Are you worried about what you'd really say? I am not condoning perving of this nature in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, but really, what is it that you're so scared to say? If U-17's scare ya, you are in the wrong fucking fandom because they're like cockroaches in an abandoned building. You can't take a step without seeing one. Frankly, I don't give a crap if Jurina in some wild outfit is heaven to you or the worst thing you've ever seen. This crap adds no discussable value to a fandom that is already sometimes hard-pressed for discussion. Again, my opinion.

Those are my large-scale issues. Everything else is just piddly, and probably negligible and only amplified by my very un-positive recent mood, so I'll leave it at that.

[maliciel]

Offend?
I'm sure we're classier than that. 

Pictures: They're everywhere. The same ones. I think it's gotten beyond out of control. Some treat it like it's some kind of sport. I appreciate people posting them but there needs to be some kind of better place for them. And God, do I wish I had a suggestion, but I don't. All I know is that they are drowning the girls' forums.
...
And then again, a pictures subforum adds it's own downsides as well as ups, so... I dunno.

I agree. Make a pic subforum, so everyone who wants pics can go there, and keep the girls' forum free for actual discussion. I think part of the problem is because discussion is limited to TV shows and whatnot, so that goes into the AKBINGO discussion thread, etc. There's the danger of the girls' forum being dead, or turning into "AKB48 Praise Thread Section", which is what we don't want (I think). But I think if there's less pic posts in threads, discussion can definitely be done better.

There's also a lot of people on jphip who seem interested in AKB but never post. Come on... say something. It doesn't have to be some picture or information post to be good content.

The ball, it is not in my court.

In fact, dare I say, and again, possibly offensively, what is it that you guys can't say about these girls that you are hiding behind this stupid emoticon SO. FREAKING. MUCH?!

I quite agree with this. I guess it's just a manifestation of the fact that the mods don't want to condone any actual perving. I dunno.

[Datalanche]

I guess it's just a manifestation of the fact that the mods don't want to condone any actual perving. I dunno.

Thinking a girl is pretty is not equal to perving.

Let me use you as an example, mal. I'm not picking on you, this is completely an example of what I see in this mindset. What's with that Ono Erena signature? Hmmmmm? Why, of all the pictures of her, you chose THAT to use as a sig?! Why that's just SCANDALOUS. 

This is my problem with it. This way of beating around the bush is ... if I may be frank, stupid. Certain people almost treat this emoticon like a "get out of naughty thoughts free" card. Say she's pretty and be done with it. There's no harm in that. You guys make it seem so horrible to look at an idol that's practically shoved in your face. If you're so ashamed, don't look in the first place.

[Naomi]

I don't want to go the 'pic threads for each girl' direction like we have in the H!P section, because sometimes the pic can create some discussion. :/

You could always make it so no discussion is allowed in the picture threads, and if they want to talk about the pictures, they can quote them in the girl's thread. I wouldn't mind, actually, since I'd like to talk about my favorite members, but it's hard to do when no one sees your posts because of the amount of pictures...

[Masa]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! Finally some constructive criticism! I'm happy that we have people who ain't afraid to open their mouths

Alright I better address each and every issue:

Lurkers: There's absolutely nothing that can be done about lurkers & closet fans. Daigong and I have been trying to get lurkers to become more active since the beginning of JPH!P but unfortunately nothing works. You can't force people to post with rules or forum mods. People either leave completely or just spam nonsense. If somebody one day comes up with a solution, that person will be making some serious money. Because JPH!P is not the only forum that has lots of lurkers. Lurkers keep lurking and that's it.

Pictures: We definitely gotta move to using thumbnails as soon as possible. I think you should always use thumbnails unless the pictures are as small as some of the SKE blog pictures. If there's a picture you like and you think that it should posted in full size then use the Favorite Pictures Thread. Picspamming & crossposting is another thing that needs to change. I'm definitely guilty of picspamming and I promise to use the edit button more often in the future. Crossposting is a bit trickier but I guess you just have to use common sense. Like if you have a picture with both Maeda & Itano it's alright to post it in both of their threads. However, if the picture features more than two girls then it should be posted in our general AKB picture thread.

Picture forum: It's definitely coming but I'm not sure when. Right now The Official Girls Threads forum is not ready for a picture forum as people don't write enough. The last thing I want to see is the Girls forum turning into a graveyard. Basically the more you guys write, the sooner the picture forum will be added.

Thank You button: The TY button is here to stay and we added it for two reasons: to prevent spamming and to make it easier for people to express their gratitude. I don't know about you guys but I definitely don't want to see ten "thank you" posts in a row everytime somebody posts pictures. Another thing is that we have a lot of "shy" people who rarely post but still want to express their gratitude. Nothing is more frustrating than spending hours and hours on sharing pictures and videos and not get any props for your hard work. People like Afro_Stud work their asses off and they deserve to be thanked. And the Thank You button happens to be the easiest way for people to thank other members.

Discussions: I'm very happy with the general discussion forum where people do write but The Girls Threads Forum is pretty much the opposite. The fact that people rarely write anything in the Girls Threads has always been my pet peeve. I know I haven't done shit to fix it but unfortunately I couldn't start an interesting discussion even if my life depended on it. So I'm hoping that people will start writing more about their favorite girls. I'm always ready to join a discussion but I can't start one. Some people might be too busy to write anything intelligent but if you have time, then please write something. Frankly speaking I'm usually too tired to write anything after work and my free time is quite limited. When you only have 3-4 hours of free time a day it's very difficult to balance everything. There's no doubt that the chat room has affected the discussion threads but you have to remember that only a small amount of our AKB-fans actually visit the chat room. Fortunately our chat room regulars are quite active but it's true that we could post more. I admit that I'm often guilty of "being too lazy" but I'm one of those people who have very limited free time. However, I promise that I'm gonna try to step my game up and write more.

Polls: I confess that the main reason for my poll spammage is... numbers. I'm an admin which means that I follow the forum statistics religiously. I fucking care about the numbers: 15,000 posts is much better than 11,000 posts. Men lie, women lie but the numbers don't. People have been more active since the PWO II and we had to capitalize on that. Posting 20 polls simultaneously might not be smart in the long run but reaching 25,000 posts (in a month) for the first time in the history of JPH!P feels pretty damn good. That's a great reward for 5.5 years of hard work. And don't worry, I have plenty of new thread ideas so the Polls & Games forum will not die anytime soon.

New forums: My goal is to make The AKBar the 2nd biggest foreign AKB-forum and I'm always looking for opportunities to expand the forum. However, we will definitely be patient and you are not going to see 10 new AKB-related sub-forums appearing all of a sudden. The SKE Girls Threads forum will be added sooner or later. Let's face it, in a year or two they will truly rival AKB48 and those two groups will have to be separated. However, if people vote against the SKE Girls forum, then we will postpone our expansion plans.

: Yeah, the whole thing has gotten out of control especially in the chat room. At this point it's basically an inside joke gone too far. There really shouldn't be any suggestive comments of U-17 members, not even "read between the lines" kind of comments. So yes, that's something we gotta work on. I do agree that it's alright to call for example Jurina beautiful. Nothing wrong about that. But saying something like "OMG Jurina is so hot & sexy " will only get you banned.

Phew, that's the longest post I have made in ages. Anyways constructive criticism is always welcome so keep it coming, guys! There's no need to be afraid of offending people because we are all adults here

[maliciel]

Picture forum: It's definitely coming but I'm not sure when. Right now The Official Girls Threads forum is not ready for a picture forum as people don't write enough. The last thing I want to see is the Girls forum turning into a graveyard. Basically the more you guys write, the sooner the picture forum will be added.

I dunno, it's really Catch22-esque.
People won't write because of the picspam, picspam won't stop because there's no posts, etc.

[Naomi]

People won't write because of the picspam, picspam won't stop because there's no posts, etc.

That's exactly why I've never bothered to post. There's so many pictures, that it seems like regular posts get overlooked anyway. =/ I'd be more inclined to post if the threads weren't filled with pictures.

[reina's eyes]

Lurkers: Dont worry. I lurk a lot elsewhere. When I feel comfortable and have something worth adding I'll finally jump in, and I hope others are that way too.

Pictures: Could we have a max nonthumbnail posting size just big enough to be worthwhile? Most of my pix are from screencaps and don't need to be large. Also, I seldom click on thumbnails. Perhaps the thumbs could be biggish?

Thank You button: Register a thank you click for the thank you button. :-)

Discussions: I feel like it's a momentum thing that's led to them being pic heavy. It almost feels strange to post a text only reply. Also I'd often like to comment on pics but I've seen enough occasional dumb comments by others that I don't want to be annoying myself. Hence pics and little text. I can reflect on helping reverse that.

[Anariel]

wtf

[SomethingWild]

^The picroda seems to be used by a lot of people who don't actually post the pics here. I always try to keep an eye on roda. Some new, interesting or funny pics will usually get posted (either by me or someone else here). Unrelated pics, huge ass screen shots and bashing pics will be removed.

[Anariel]

May be delete SKE48 Youtube Thread? Rename AKB Youtube Thread in AKB/SKE (dunno how make it better) or without rename (when we say AKB we suppose also SKE) and clean all posts with dead links (too much dead links, if possible change dead ones to any live).

AKB48 YouTube Thread
SKE48 YouTube Thread

Some ppls (i don't swear their and understand) use akb thread for posting ske links

or we can leave it the same how is now

[SomethingWild]

^TBH, I had no idea we had an SKE YT thread, but I think it might be a good idea. I'll just keep it the way it is for now 

[atskv9]

I realize at one point you guys are gonna create subsections for all the groups but I think adding a tag in front of every girl now was really helpful. So... many... damn... girls Especially with all these new ones coming in, gets hard to keep track of them all. Props to whoever added all the tags, I'm sure it was time consuming

[Anariel]

Fanfics must be separated from the forum, I am tired of reading their titles thinking it refers to real AKB when I look through forum main page.

Admin edit: removed harsh language.

[SomethingWild]

^Not gonna happen. Besides, most thread titles are labeled [akb] or something random anyway, so you'll know it won't be actual akb news or whatever.