The Facebook debacle & other issues

I feel like it's more about keeping criticism of DChoo to actions that affect his company and his customers, not speculation about his personal life or past.

For example, "There are some typos on the website, he should really hire a proofreader to help instead of trying to do everything himself." is a lot different from "Why does he not know how to communicate in English/write in Japanese?" The first is about the way he runs the company, the latter is about him.

(I will comment on the fact that he should be letting someone else check his work before he puts it up on an official site, but I cannot fault him for grammar things; because even I, a pretty decent writer, sometimes do not know how to make the words go good.😅) 

Someone I talk to was going to ask Danny to switch out wigs on a doll and people explained to her fast that wasn’t a good idea. We had to warn her that if you ask for that you will get your order canceled and probably get banned. Poor girl almost screwed herself over. She saw someone saying Danny did that for her and that he might do it for others if you “ask nicely”. We had to show her what happened to others and explain to her about his “policies” and “guidelines” she didn’t realize he wasn’t one for good customer service

52 minutes ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I feel like it's more about keeping criticism of DChoo to actions that affect his company and his customers, not speculation about his personal life or past.

Wasn't the discussion about his products having "misspellings"? It kinda did weer into his "personal life" a bit, so it's good to have reminders!, but it's hard to discuss his motivations without knowing where he comes from, so to say.
Poor translations, bad grammar -  Deliberate? Mistakes? "Jab at the western fanbase"? Wabi-sabi?
(translation of the Volks dolpa disclaimer, anybody?)

From the forum guidelines:

Be kind and respectful to others.

No bullying or harassment.

Do not attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.

--

There is a big difference between saying something on a product is misspelled, and going after an individual for their language skills.

Both Averis and Baldylox have already weighed in earlier about this sort of thing. We're trying to keep this thread from degenerating into a "let's bash on Danny the man" thread, because if it becomes that it's going to end up locked.

17 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

We're trying to keep this thread from degenerating into a "let's bash on Danny the man" thread, because if it becomes that it's going to end up locked.

One of the kinundrums we are facing with this is, that no matter how you look at this situation "Danny the man" as he stands now, will have to take some flack for his personal decisions in how he handles customer related things. -- Like for instance how he takes previous incidents with customers and spins them on his official brand social media as inside jokes.

Keeping things civil is a natural thing on our part, so bashing just for bashings sake is definately wrong.

But really you cant come out in this situation and say "No more danny talk, period".

I don't think people are really being mean to Danny Choo himself. Sure, I felt that the conversation about his Japanese/English skills was sort of veering that way( little to nit-picky, but thats just me : / ), but people were able to keep it civil. As usual. This thread doesn't have the same feel as the reddit one, and heck, even earlier in this thread  harsher things were said! Everyone is doing a good job to point out potential faults that effect the brand, not just " Ewwww Danny Chooo is a gross man who makes ugly knockoff Dollfie Dreams. He can't even run a business!"/j.( might be a bit over dramatic but you get the point.)  

The unprofessionalism is fascinating... I’ve noticed this with relatively newer companies even outside of dolls. Very outspoken and can’t seem to separate their business persona from their personal one, if that makes sense. 

Smart doll is a fascinating company to be sure, but what I think our mod may be saying (and please correct me if I am wrong) is that conversations regarding Danny should perhaps be kept to the realm of dolls since that is the subject of the forum. Speculation about his personal life or attacks on his character (things I will admit I am guilty of and will cease immediately) should stop in order to stay within the terms of service of this website. That's a completely reasonable request and I even appreciate the warning.

I also do agree that it is somewhat impossible to separate smart doll the brand from Danny Choo the man, and he himself has done this. I mean, even the shipping boxes has his name on it. I do think the ability to get parts, customer service oriented things, and anything pertaining to the actual product itself are useful to document since it can inform future potential consumers. I think we can be both critical and respectful at the same time.

1 hour ago, sunlightandtea said:

I think our mod may be saying (and please correct me if I am wrong) is that conversations regarding Danny should perhaps be kept to the realm of dolls since that is the subject of the forum. Speculation about his personal life or attacks on his character (things I will admit I am guilty of and will cease immediately) should stop in order to stay within the terms of service of this website. That's a completely reasonable request and I even appreciate the warning.

That's exactly where I am coming from, and I am really trying to avoid it coming across as a warning. More along the lines of a reminder to keep things on the straight and narrow so we can remain a place where people can voice legitimate concerns.

 

1 hour ago, sunlightandtea said:

I also do agree that it is somewhat impossible to separate smart doll the brand from Danny Choo the man, and he himself has done this. I mean, even the shipping boxes has his name on it.

I don't disagree, Danny is a bit like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs in that regard. We just need to be sure we avoid making things personal.

On the subject of language skills it seems to me to come just a bit too close to touching on ethnicity and also social status; it just seems to me like a place that really isn't appropriate to go.

Honestly, I wouldn't have criticised the copy on the site if it wasn't written by a fellow Brit. It's not racist or ableist or classist to suggest a proof reader. ^^; I have people proof my work, and likewise have proofed work for my friends, and our company (in name only. We run like a nonprofit) is a hell of a lot smaller than Culture Japan. Please don't make me do a diversity parade of everyone I've edited over the years just for the sake of scoring woke points.

I quit school at age 12, and I'm not unsympathetic to class. (I think I mentioned in this thread that I'm literally considered part of the "underclass" in the UK. Yeah, it's not a joke. We have an underclass now. Although I joke and say I am "poorgeoisie" lol. I grew up working class so wow how's that for downward mobility.)

I think Danny is an accomplished person and has worked hard to get where he is today. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the man because reasons.

But he still needs a proofreader for his website. 😕 (Don't really care about social media because that's personal, transient, and informed by memes and trends.)

TL;DR: it's not ableist or racist to say text needs proofing. I'm poor as hell.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Katsudon
class solidarity

16 hours ago, Katsudon said:

it's not ableist or racist to say text needs proofing. I'm poor as hell.

That's not all that was said. The forum Admin and the forum mods have all said to keep the discussion on the topic of doll products and services and avoid personal attacks.

This isn't open for debate.

15 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

That's not all that was said. The forum Admin and the forum mods have all said to keep the discussion on the topic of dolls products and services and avoid personal attacks.

This isn't open for debate.

Correct.  All we are asking is that everyone keep the *personal attacks* off the forum.  And by that we mean calling Danny names or poking fun at him personally.  Feel free to fire away at his new dolls and outfits and such, that's what we're here for.  The forum IS all about dolls and that will definitely filter into other aspects as we've seen here.  

As @BeyondTime said earlier, both mods and the Admin have posted here asking everyone to please watch how they're posting and keep the name calling and such away.  If it happens again then this thread WILL be closed and locked and no further discussions on it will occur.

We aren't asking much.  Please help us out by following the rules.

Thank you!

 

 

Billy

DChoo goes overboard with the disclaimers sometimes, but if the implications here are that he's going to make people drop $500 again on something that could end up being a pebble, then yeah he's gonna need a butt-ton of disclaimers to cover that...

(At least refund the people who don't get the doll please? IDK where this page he's talking about is, so I'm unsure how it actually works...regardless, I would highly encourage people to just wait for the official release.)

26 minutes ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

DChoo goes overboard with the disclaimers sometimes, but if the implications here are that he's going to make people drop $500 again on something that could end up being a pebble, then yeah he's gonna need a butt-ton of disclaimers to cover that...

(At least refund the people who don't get the doll please? IDK where this page he's talking about is, so I'm unsure how it actually works...regardless, I would highly encourage people to just wait for the official release.)

 

If you type in brave in the search you will get the page that has the only the brave listing. I am not sure I am allowed to post links so I took a screen shot of the blurb.

1 hour ago, CrazyDollPerson said:

I am not sure I am allowed to post links so I took a screen shot of the blurb.

Posting links is fine.

This just...ugh...what part of his philosophy about being inclusive and celebrating imperfections translates to "and also I double-dog dare you to drop hundreds of your well-earned dollars on something that could turn out to be worthless". At least with the Fortuitous you were guaranteed to get A Doll, that you could sell or trade away if you ended up not liking it. This reminds me of all those overly elite video game developers who promise huge innovations to get people invested and then massively under-deliver on the final product.  

The absolute ONLY WAY I would be okay with this sort of thing is if the money was going to charity or something. Even a portion of the money. Even a "some of our employees have been affected by Covid and I'm going to use the money from this to help them while they recover".

(it better be a really nice pebble)

37 minutes ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

The absolute ONLY WAY I would be okay with this sort of thing is if the money was going to charity or something. Even a portion of the money. Even a "some of our employees have been affected by Covid and I'm going to use the money from this to help them while they recover".

This. Especially since he says he's not doing it for the money...

Veering off topic a little, I have fond memories of when Crobidoll did the charity blind box once for Christmas! They put up a blind item for $200, with no clue at all as to what it was. I purchased it since it was for charity, and it was revealed to be a limited-quantity SD-sized doll (SD-sized Crobidolls usually go for about $600 on the site). Even better, Crobidoll donated ALL the proceeds from the blind box to charity. The doll came just in time for Christmas with a thank-you card from the company. That Christmas still ranks as one of the best for me ^-^

Has anyone confirmed that it's possible not to get a doll in these brave packs though? Truthfully I haven't heard of anyone buying these and getting a beach pebble but I would be very interested to see what the stories are out there.

2 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

I double-dog dare you to drop hundreds of your well-earned dollars on something that could turn out to be worthless".

I wasn't sure if the pebble thing was serious, but if it is then the first thought through my head was the company isn't doing well. If they need to take $500 and only give people a small rock in exchange, then something is really wrong in SmartDoll land.

My best guess is that it's a very SmD way to give people no room to mention faulty faceups or broken elbow joints. If you bought this item 'knowing very well that it might be a pebble' then he thinks it makes it more difficult to complain. You got a doll, right? Not a pebble? You got lucky enough! Sure it's broken/smeared/stained/of poor quality, but it's not a pebble! Congratulations, by receiving a flawed doll you actually won the lottery!

From what I've seen, people always get a doll. I think depending on what option you choose you can either get an an unreleased doll or an unreleased skin tone variation of an existing doll. I've seen people get Evisage, tea Genesis, and even a cinnimon Julia( I've also seen a cinnimon original Mirai but that might have been a chaos head) to name a few. They're always store grade but you can never tell with the more radical fans. The pebble thing is just probably to add the sensation of "risk". Even though Danny makes some bad bussiness choices I'm pretty sure he knows better then to send someone a rock lol.( he does right? Right?)

13 hours ago, Mame said:

The pebble thing is just probably to add the sensation of "risk". 

But why not simply state so?
- No refunds
- Will contain either x y z item/(doll, doll part, outfit)
- Quality is not guaranteed
- Fullset not guaranteed
 
Something like that... Instead of the "hello fellow kids" approach. Would it not help to steer the right customers the right way..?
A mystery bag is not an unknown thing in the shopping world.

27 minutes ago, Yumeiro said:

But why not simply state so?
- No refunds
- Will contain either x y z item/(doll, doll part, outfit)
- Quality is not guaranteed
- Fullset not guaranteed
 
Something like that... Instead of the "hello fellow kids" approach. Would it not help to steer the right customers the right way..?
A mystery bag is not an unknown thing in the shopping world.

Probably because he doesn't want to place emphasis on the cons (quality not guaranteed/ no warranty/ no refunds) and instead spin it in a more positive way (how brave are you?/ be unlike the haters who only know how to care about quality/ you might get a rare limited doll!).

Let's face it, if he were playing fair then the prototype garage shouldn't even exist because those dolls would be in Only The Brave.

12 hours ago, bbotss said:

 Let's face it, if he were playing fair then the prototype garage shouldn't even exist because those dolls would be in Only The Brave.

THIS.  This all day long.  Ever since that garage opened up it has done nothing but tick me off.  It's a total cash grab on his part and he uses it to basically charge people $2000 for a rough looking 3D printed head or a slightly different faceup on a regular doll.  That's it in a nutshell.  And that thing with the original Moonlight going for $2500??  She was a regular retail version, not a prototype or anything of the sort.  If Smartdoll Land isn't about the money then why did she get listed for $2500 instead of $600 or $700?  I'll tell you why... he knew the aftermarket for his original cocoa colored girls is insane right now and he knew he could easily get whatever price he put on her.  It was a total cash grab that used the aftermarket demand for her to his benefit.

 

Billy

A lot of the fans seem to eat the garage sale & only the brave packages up. Man, I love a blind box, but I just can't see throwing down that much money on a doll you may not want and might not be able to really sell for what you paid. I'll be honest, most of the garage sale dolls, I don't know why people don't buy the same sculpt and then have a face up artist paint it however you want. The differences in so many are just a slightly different face up. There are a lot of things that just make me shake my head. Did you see the outfit that someone bought on ebay for $1000? I just don't get it.