Okay... just throwing this out here.
I am a part of a few other forums. One of the largest I am a part of is called Den of Angels, its a doll forum for Asian Ball Jointed dolls. The forum has over 30,000 members, not sure how many are active, but its a lot. The moderation is INSANELY intense. I almost got banned within my first few posts there, for not knowing one of the rules which was vaguely written. Safe to say, this forum is NOT a friendly or welcoming place to go. The moderation has literally made me afraid to visit the website, for fear of being banned, ridiculed, or spoken of in ill nature if I ever was made to leave.
We do NOT want this to happen to DPF.
Instead of policing every post/person to the highest degree, I think perhaps there just need to be a simple clarification of the rules and policies that are being so heavily enforced lately.
Examples:
-What constitutes bannings and infractions...MANY infractions seem to be going out lately, for a very wide array of reasons, with seemingly no repeating pattern. It seems to me that infractions can be given out at any time for anything as of late. At the same time, some members have been harassing and threatening other members through PM, trying to take people's money, and yet they are still allowed to post, with NO infractions? Seems a bit fuzzy and confusing to me. I think if these rules would be cleared up, this would also prevent from drama-ridden posts littering release threads and the like.
-Pre-Sales need to be more regulated. I do not think that pre-sales should be allowed to be sent as gift payments. It is just too dangerous for the buyers, and some sellers "can't" accept any other form of payment. Some of these sellers are REALLY new to the forum, too, and only show up for new releases. Its a little suspicious. Sure, we all have our friends that we trust, but the newer members at least should have to have some amount of posts or time spent on the forum before they can host pre-orders or co-ops (complicated transactions that can have many problems).
I can think of more but I have to go do homework right now...hopefully what I wrote makes sense 😀
Basically, I really love DPF and its warm, home-like atmosphere. While protecting our members is top priority, I would hate to see it become the cold, heartless type of forum that Den of Angels is...hopefully I'm not alone in this thinking!