I have been rejecting many MANY posts from the arashi_on queue for the same problems, so I feel like a mod reminder is necessary.
1.) PLEASE READ THE COMMUNITY RULES before posting. They are found in the community profile. If there is anything you don't understand, please contact one of the mods BEFORE posting. (Our contact information is also in the community profile.)
2.) Requests for videos/subs/scans/mp3s/etc MUST be made as a comment to the Masterpost of Requests.
3.) Images must not be larger than 400px wide.
4.) Sales posts are banned here. Please see the community profile for links to communities that allow sales.
5.) PLEASE try to tag your posts. I often approve posts from the queue from my phone but it is almost impossible for me to add tags. Posts have to sit in the queue longer until I get home and can approve it from my computer.
If you are confused about this (or any of the other rules), please do not hesitate to ask me or one of the other mods.
It's now Arashi's single debut anniversary, so it's time to announce the results of the fan voting. Thank you to everyone who participated! Some of the results were very close. :)
This is just a reminder that you have until 11:59 PM EST on June 30th to apply if you're interested in becoming a maintainer for arashi_on!
Please head over to this post for more details (for those who haven't seen it yet) and to comment with an application. I won't be accepting applications by PMs/emails, sorry!
For those of you who missed the previous announcements, I have decided to step down as the maintainer of arashi_on. Since I've been the only one looking over this place (with lullabyeforyou occasionally lending a hand), I'm going to be recruiting two new maintainers to take over my spot. I know some of you have asked if I will still be around, and yes, I will remain the owner in case anything happens, but they will be running this community on their own starting in September.
Before we move on, I have to give you a warning: I may be stepping down, but I only want the best for arashi_on. I hold myself to pretty high standards in running this community, and I will be expecting the same out of anyone wanting to take over. So this post is going to be pretty long and you might be put off by how much I expect out of you, or how strict the requirements are, but my sincere hope is that there will be people out there willing to take on this role regardless. Having said that, please do read all the way through if you're interested in applying!
If you find it doable and would like to give it a shot, please fill out the application below and leave it as a comment here (all comments will be screened). I'm going to do things a bit differently here at arashi_on from the way mods are usually picked in other communities, so there will be a second part of the application process as well. After a week, I will send out an email to select applicants with a few more questions, which basically consists of three scenarios you may see during your time as a mod and how you would handle them.
Note: Please do not PM or email the following form to me as I want to keep everything in one place!
The deadline for applications will be on June 30th at 11:59 PM EST. Application deadline is now over, thank you for applying!
As I mentioned before, my hope is to take on two new maintainers for arashi_on, preferably with opposite timezones so someone can be around no matter the time. You won't have to worry about being thrown off the deep end of the pool, because I will remain a maintainer for the months of July and August, offering guidance and advice where needed; basically like job shadowing and training for a couple of months. :)
Also, please be aware that we will be keeping in close contact amongst the mods-- not just with me over the next two months, but also between the two new mods once I'm gone. I was able to get by on my own, but having more than one person will mean a need for open communication in order to run this community smoothly!
That should be all for now. Good luck, everyone! ♥
This is partly a reminder that I'll be putting up a recruitment post for people interested in taking over arashi_on in a couple of weeks (on June 23rd), but more importantly, I wanted to ask all of you for some input first. :)
It would be much appreciated if you can give me your opinions on what you think a good mod should be like, and what you would consider bad modding. So for example, here are some ways of looking at it:
- What qualities are you looking for in a mod? (eg. personality, skills, etc.) - What expectations do you have in a good mod? - What qualities would you not want a mod to have? - What type of behaviour would you not like to see in a mod?
While I'm ultimately going to have the final say in choosing the new replacements, all of your opinions will be taken into consideration and it will definitely influence how I make my decision. So by all means, please do leave a comment here with your input! If you're uncomfortable with leaving a public comment, or you feel that your opinions might stir up some controversy, you're more than welcome to send me a PM instead. I probably won't reply to most comments unless there are questions that need answering, but rest assured I'll be reading each one. ♥
Thank you in advance, and see you all again in a couple of weeks!
For people who have been around since forever, please bear with me while I tell a little story!
From July 11th, 2005 to July 13th, 2007, I was one of the creators and maintainers for a_ra_shi. We started it back when arashi_on was deader than dead, and we were lucky to get even one post in this community on a good day. (Plus, it had an ugly default layout.) It was a small but cozy community where friends were made and people enjoyed themselves.
From July 16th, 2007 onwards, due to a difference in opinions between another creator and I, I became a maintainer here at arashi_on and eventually became the sole maintainer and owner. For many people, I was probably the only mod you ever knew about, if you even knew what the name of its mod was at all. Over the years, arashi_on ballooned in membership and now boast over 20,000 members (!).
Why am I waxing poetic all of a sudden? To cut a long story short, after seven years, I have come to the decision to resign as a maintainer for arashi_on by the end of August.
The reasons are entirely personal, and mostly has to do with the fact that I simply do not have the time to devote to modding anymore. I still love the group and treasure the friends I have made over the years... but as my schedule grew busier and busier, I came to realise that in order to do the best that I possibly can, something has to give.
I won't be quitting right away, so no worries about that! This is basically a heads up that I will be leaving, and to let you guys know what my plans will be over the next few months, which is as follows:
- I will be putting up an application post for anyone interested in modding arashi_on and leave it open from June 23rd to June 30th. - July and August will be spent training whomever I end up picking (most likely two trainees). I'm going to be very hands on and strict with it as I want only the best for this community, so please be forwarned! - I will say my final goodbyes on September 1st.
No matter how early or how late you were in becoming a fan, the Arashi fandom has seen more than its share of ups and downs, and you no doubt were part of at least one of them. Some of you watched as Arashi began their climb - then rocket - to superstardom; some of you joined precisely because they were everywhere; and still more of you are just joining now, lured in by the sparkles and rainbows and good-natured grins of five guys who genuinely seem to like one another.
Regardless of whether I'll be modding or not, I have confidence that arashi_on will continue to thrive all the same, just like the group itself. So let's continue to keep this community in order and enjoy our last few months together, okay? ♥
It has been brought to my attention that several individuals and subbing teams in this fandom have recently implemented the use of for-profit links from adf.ly, something that is addressed in our community rules:
☆ Sales posts are banned in the community; any and all posts pertaining to sales will be rejected. If you have something you want to sell, please check out the links to the right for more relevant places to post. Links to online shopping sites such as Yesasia and CDJapan are allowed provided they are not affiliate or webgains links. For-profit links such as LinkBucks are banned as well.
I'll be honest: it's disappointing to hear that this trend is returning to our fandom. I would have thought that with all the issues regarding PayPal's refusal to let us collect money for the Japan fundraiser because they considered it a "sale of copyright infringing materials", and after the brief panic over people linking said fundraiser to VSA's producers, that everyone would be more careful and unwilling to both use and support money-earning methods like this.
We've addressed the dangers of copyright-violating content before. We've discussed the legalities of the things we do in fandom. People can debate over this until the cows come home and still get nowhere, because some will have no issues with it and see it as the subbers getting some well-deserved reward for all their hard work, while others will find it hugely hypocritical considering the fears that many subbers have about being subject to legal action.
But regardless of each person's personal morals and views on this matter, regardless of whether this is ethical or not, it is clearly stated in the rules that this is not allowed. I cannot impose these rules elsewhere on Livejournal, but there will be no profiteering off other fans for things that are free in this community, and it will always stay that way.
Therefore, I will be deleting all the posts in violation of this rule shortly; if I miss any, you're welcome to link them to me either through PM or in this post and I will delete them as well. Recurring rule breakers will be banned from the community. I cannot check locked posts in external subbing communities, so it would be much appreciated if people can alert me to reoccurrences in the future.
As per usual, feel free to comment here with any opinions, questions or concerns. Thank you for reading.
I'm going to copy and paste a part from it because it is very important and relevant to this issue at hand:
The suspect was in violation of the Japanese Copyright Act during the period of November 22nd of last year to February 5th by publicly sharing Arashi's concert footage from two different products including the DVD "ARASHI AROUND ASIA+ in DOME" as well as commercial broadcasts of variety shows on Youtube. According to the police, he has testified that he "wanted to earn some spending money" from it. The suspect Miyazaki had been directing viewers onto his own homepage in hopes of generating ad revenue. A copyright organization provided information and alerted the police to the matter. [T/N: In another article, it was further stated that his site had received tens of thousands of hits.]
Hello! It's been a while since I've last made a mod post in this community, but there are a couple of issues I would like to address this time around due to a recent increase of related incidences.
1: The sharing of J-Net videos
I'm going to start off with a bit of a backstory for anyone who's unfamiliar with the history behind this whole thing and why I'm so strict about not allowing J-net videos in the community:
Almost two years ago, Johnny's Net began uploading video messages from the groups onto their official website when in the past, the only way you could see them was by visiting the official fanclub building in Japan. There were two versions of each video: a shorter one made public for anyone with internet access, and a longer one exclusively for paying members of the fanclubs. Their main stipulation was that redistribution of their videos - whether to other streaming sites or in any other form - is not allowed. Shortly after they made the shift towards online availability, some of the videos were found on a streaming site (most likely Youtube) and Johnny's Net issued another warning to all users, further stating that they will end this service to the fans should it happen again. You can view the original email and a rough translation here.
Given the fact that it was fans who alerted J-Net to the rule breaking, and J-Net may very well go through with their threat and stop uploading these video messages (which is a big improvement from their past rules of not allowing images of their idols to be used on the internet at all), I think it would be better to err on the safe side and disallow the sharing of these videos (both raw or subbed) in the community. You can, however, still link to the offcial site when new messages are posted. I've also edited the rules in the user profile to reflect this official change.
2: Bans from the community
While this is pretty uncommon, it is possible for a member to be banned from arashi_on. The main reasons for this are both listed in the rules: either you are reuploading files without permission and show no remorse or refuse to heed warnings to stop, or you are continuing to make the same post over and over again despite it being rejected for breaking the rules in some way (especially if a reason was given for it). Using sock puppet accounts or other friends to post for you after a ban will also lead to those accounts being banned immediately as well.
I won't name names, but multiple people have been banned recently, so I want to take this opportunity to strongly suggest to anyone planning to make a post in this community any time at all in the future to first read the rules. If your post has been rejected, please read the notification email before deleting it because 9 times out of 10 it will come with a reason for the rejection (unless, perhaps, that reason is glaringly obvious). If, by any chance, you did not receive any emails and it has been at least two days, please either PM or email me and ask about your post. And most importantly, if your post has already been rejected twice and you still have no idea why, please PM or email me first before you make a third try.
I will not be reverting a ban once it's in effect, because you have had ample time and opportunity to either read the rules or approach me and ask for a reason. I'm sorry for sounding pretty short about this, but it can wear on your patience when the same thing happens several times within a short period of time, and every single person only contacting me quickly after the ban.
Thank you for reading through all this, and feel free to leave a comment with any questions or concerns!
This is just a friendly notice to inform everyone that acidae is currently experiencing technical difficulties with LiveJournal (the server seems to only be working in certain areas of the world as far as we have deduced), and that she will be temporarily unable to access/approve any posts in the arashi_on moderation queue or answer any PMs, comments, etc. Please be patient with her and she will be back as soon as she can!
This fundraiser first started in the evening of March 11st, 2011, where I am. To put things into perspective, that means we've only held it for one day short of three full weeks.
To further put things into perspective, the Haiti fundraiser from the beginning of last year lasted just a tiny bit longer, at exactly three weeks. Its total was $1,275 USD (if you want to be specific, $75 of that money came later and were instead donated to Chile's earthquake relief). It consisted only of a post where fans offered to take commissions in exchange for donations to be made, and a single auction for a celebrity autograph. There were absolutely no problems with collecting or donating the money. It ultimately made for an uneventful, simple fundraiser, and the only experience I have ever had with holding fundraisers, period.
The Japan fundraiser, on the other hand, came up to a grand total of $29,167.50 USD. Not only did we have a similar post for services, we also started a garage sale post for material goods; fansubbing teams proactively offered to come together and release subs in support of the cause; somewhere along the way, even fans of other Johnny's groups started taking part. In a little over two days, we had already collected $6000+, almost five times the amount raised for Haiti. Over the course of this fundraiser, we came across a myriad of unforeseen issues that, looking back, I really should have been more cognisant of. Well-meaning fans wanting to inform their local press about the amazing efforts in the fandom. PayPal's extended saga of issues regarding the legitimization of the fundraiser, and more recently their string of inconsistent concerns regarding sales being made in the fundraiser and risks to their own brand that forced this fundraiser to be cut short.
There are so many factors to which we can attribute the runaway success of the Japan fundraiser compared to Haiti, such as the fact that the group(s) we are fans of are Japanese in origin, or the fact that numerous new features have been added to the fundraiser that wasn't in the previous one, but it's still an amazing, jaw-dropping number any way you look at it. And it was all made possible by an admittedly big group of people scattered all around the world who had only gathered here on Livejournal for a common interest.
As happy as they've made me, I haven't been able to reply to all the comments thanking me over the course of this whole experience, so I'm going to take the opportunity to do it here in one go, and hopefully not leave out anyone:
I would sincerely like to thank every single person remotely involved in the entire fundraiser for your contribution to the cause, however small you think your contribution may have been.
All the people who offered up services, pledging their time and energy in exchange for donations.
All the people who sold off things they have made, or old items they either no longer want or can bear to part with.
All the people from fansubbing teams and independent subbers who took initiative and formed AQR to provide subbed releases as an added incentive.
All the people who aren't even Arashi fans, but exemplified the intention of this fundraiser and looked past our different interests to come together and help out as a group.
All the people who were willing to take that leap of faith and place their trust in me, sending in monetary donations that ranged anywhere from less than a dollar to hundreds.
Even those who donated through other means outside of the fundraiser, but nevertheless left kind comments of encouragement.
And then, of course, there are some who I need to extend personal, special thanks to:
- lullabyeforyou, who maintained the lists for the two main posts and helped field some of the questions I received, especially when I wasn't around to answer. - zomboid, who was instrumental in helping me handle the technical/legal side of things, in particular with the researching that went into different charities, tax laws and things of a similar nature. - bokuwashinigami, who really stepped in and helped out with looking up copyright laws while lullabyeforyou was sick and zomboid was away. - Other friends and several people from AQR, who readily offered the support and encouragement I desperately needed at multiple points throughout the fundraiser.
You all kept thanking me for holding this fundraiser, for going beyond my duties as a mod and for helping it all grow as big as it did, but as you can see yourself from the long list of thank-you's above, I didn't do this alone. Not only were there other people helping me hold the fundraiser together (and kept me from falling apart at the seams), the hundreds upon hundreds of fans who participated - regardless of the method they chose - are actually the ones whose contributions made up the bulk of the overall success. It's honestly been one heck of a roller coaster ride, complete with the crazy rushes of adrenaline and all the loops and turns that you can possibly imagine, and I couldn't have made it through without everyone rising to the occasion. I hope you're all as proud of this fundraiser as I am, and proud of the fact that because of you, over $29,000 of aid will go to Japan.
With this, Fundraising for Japan-- Fandom-style has officially come to an end. As I'd said before, I will be refunding all donations received after this date; please make arrangements to donate directly to other charities instead, and thank you very much for your good intentions. :)
And for those wondering, AQR will still continue to post releases until they've fulfilled their promise of releasing something per every $500 donated! However, if you wish to donate again, please do feel free to donate to any charity of your choice, because it doesn't mean Japan no longer needs the aid just because this fundraiser is over now.
arashi_on queue for the same problems, so I feel like a mod reminder is necessary. 
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