What happened to figure.fm??

There are even "forums" moving to the social media model of no categories, newest on top, anything more than a day or two old may as well not exist, etc.

That would certainly kill off things like photo stories and tutorials.

Tutorials I guess go to youtube. Not sure photo stories have a future. Certainly their current activity is very low everywhere I look.

I still believe that photo story still have a future ahead It's the people who are willing to do them or have the time to do it. on figure.fm I remember that there was still posting every once in awhile from what I remember, I was one of the people who post constantly as well but as I got sicker I had to stop posting as often to the point that I had to stop.

 

Other people might not have as much free time as they used to I imagine why it started going slowl but I still believe that there is a bright future for photo stories :3

 

But yeah I really hope Danny is able to recover all of our old post cuz I didn't save anything thinking they were safe on his site

I definitely don't have the time to make photo stories like I used to. I can recall taking an entire weekend to do 7 or 8 stories and then roll them out at 1 or 2 a week so I always had a backlog of stuff to post in case I got busy and couldn't take photos one weekend.

 

Also, physically I can't keep up anymore. The last few photo stories I did that had over 30 photos in it took me 4 or 5 hours to do and afterwards, my lower back and knees were screaming bloody murder at me. It sucks getting old.

 

I do still like making stories tho and I think doing more of them in short runs, like K2 does in his Smartdoll thread, makes more sense for me now.

 

And like everyone else has said, forums do seem slower nowadays but I for one hate the way Facebook doesn't save anything or allow you to keep info around for long. Forums have way more easily found info and definitely a more group/buddy feel to them. I plan to be active here for a very long time.

 

 

 

Billy

Baldylox I highly suggest getting the a camera with a flip-out screen and 360 rotation. I learned it's WAY easier to take pictures from any angles without the side effects of body aches ;3

It's not just that fewer stories are posted, it's also that stories get few comments when posted. Here, DoA, elsewhere.

It's not just that fewer stories are posted, it's also that stories get few comments when posted. Here, DoA, elsewhere.

 

I've wondered if, at least here, stories get fewer comments because they're on a separate subforum which gets less traffic (which feeds back into the lack of activity, causing a negative feedback loop...) But that wouldn't explain it on DoA.Edit: Forgot that DoA also does have a separate photostories gallery. Never mind.

 

Myself, I'd really like to do more photostories but I don't have the sets to do the sort of things I want, and the lighting in my apartment is so repugnant I can rarely even take single photographs of which I don't immediately feel ashamed. I hope the format doesn't die out, even though it is much more work to execute.

Yeah good sets are hard, especially if you don't want the dolls to be 1/x scale things living in a 1/1 scale world. Have to hide all those background items around the house.

 

And yes DoA has them off in their own subforum as well.

 

If anyone is looking for a vinyl friendly forum with image notes to post their stories you're welcome to visit mine. Yes it has BJD in the name but that's largely because dollstories was already taken. There are no rules on the types of dolls. It has a few other tricks as well and is generally phone/tablet friendly.

Figure.fm was also where I got started with my figure/DD collecting hobby started It's sad to see that it's offline now. Hopefully it'll be back up someday!

Am I the only one wondering if Danny won’t renew it because he no longer wants anything to do with DDs or that could tie him to them? On one hand I understand but on the other his entire doll line was inspired by them so it kinda...leaves a bad taste in my mouth, if true.

(I’m not trying to start anything against him here I’ve just been contemplating the reasons. If it is the case I wish he’d just hand the reigns to someone else. The site clearly meant a lot to people.)

I don't think that's it, He doesn't seem the type to do something like that.

 

For me I think this site is not on his "top to do list" things anymore since he seems more interested in the supper sized smart dolls. It must have slipped his mind or just didn't care as much to bother with it anymore. He clearly did intended to fix the site at first but then suddenly dropped the project.

 

That's why I would have liked him to see how important it is to us as we carry so much memories their so he could bring it back. And if not to at least let us save our things

If you really want your old stories you can probably grab several of them using the wayback machine.

It seems like it won't come back.

Has anyone had any luck getting Figure.fm content from the Wayback machine or any of its alternatives? I haven't been able to get Wayback to fire up at all, and I wanted to copy even my text to the blog I'm toying around with. I just want to preserve my oldest content in some way, some form.

According to Danny Choo, Volks apparently threatened him with a lawsuit if Volks products showing up on his site... I wonder if that would affect this? By his site I'm fairly sure he meant the Smartdoll site but for all I know it might have something to do with figure.fm as well, or at least the likelihood of it reopening... Not sure whether I believe everything he says these days but it struck my curiosity regarding this.

 

I have no idea if this is the case and I don't mean to spread rumors but does anyone know anything more about whether that has anything do do with it going offline? I actually never discovered figure.fm until recently and hadn't had a chance to look around before it was gone. It sounds like something I would have really enjoyed and gotten into if I had found it/been into vinyl dolls before recently. Regarding photostories I feel saddened at the thought that they are disappearing, but it's true that it is hard to find active ones nowadays (aside from K2's which is why I got particularly interested in vinlys again, especially Smartdolls, especially Kizuna- but I digress). I actually didn't know DoA had a place for them other than the main gallery, because I haven't really looked for them in a while(years? idk), again because everything was so dead. Not to hijack the topic, if anyone has any particular recommendations I *think* I can receive PMs... :3

 

I hope the site comes back, I feel I missed a chance to get involved in a fairly big, previously unknown to me part of the hobby. It's too bad that like people have said, it's probably not much of a priority these days

According to Danny Choo, Volks apparently threatened him with a lawsuit if Volks products showing up on his site... I wonder if that would affect this?

 

Considering that mr Choo has the ability to remove people he doesn't care to see in his sphere of influence on the internet through moderation tools, using this as an excuse does not add up.

 

If this were the case he'd only have to moderate that part of the site, as it is done on this forum, except that volks items would be off limits totally. But this, in the end means effort...

 

To me that sounds like a dandy excuse to shut something down that needs work, needs money to maintain, etc, that might not be giving him the payoff to bump his own brand ... (the, "Oh I wouldnt have, but they made me..." defence)

That makes sense! I want to clarify though that Danny didn't say that specifically re: figure.fm, it showed up on the page on his site about wanting more Smart Doll owner pics. I don't want to spread misinformation and my previous post may have been worded a bit awkward. As far as I know he is not using it as an excuse for that site going down, at least not at the moment (I've only seen it mentioned with the "translation" post he made re:Volks, and the selfie collage announcement thingy on his page). So I'm sorry I didn't clarify before.

Regarding photostories I feel saddened at the thought that they are disappearing, but it's true that it is hard to find active ones nowadays (aside from K2's which is why I got particularly interested in vinlys again, especially Smartdolls, especially Kizuna- but I digress). I actually didn't know DoA had a place for them other than the main gallery, because I haven't really looked for them in a while(years? idk), again because everything was so dead. Not to hijack the topic, if anyone has any particular recommendations I *think* I can receive PMs... :3

 

For what it's worth, I found out that for some reason the Wayback Machine is blocked where I work, but I was able to scrounge up some of my old posts and stories when I got home. I've been rebuilding them on my blog: http://www.firebirdflaire.com/dorkydollymommy/ I haven't been as successful in resurrecting posts after early 2012, but by then I was migrating more to this forum, so I think I've only lost a couple of meetup summaries. I think I may also put new stories on the blog from here on out, because it's a lot easier than the whole back-and-forth with Flickr it takes to post here. (That was always, always my least favorite part.)