Messages

61

General chat / The "I dont like ..." Thread

« on: July 13, 2008, 08:43:58 PM »

What kinda music is VUK anyway? Weird ambient/triphop shit right?

Appropriately enough, it sounds (to me anyway) exactly like runway model/fashion show music.

And I also was very "what the fuck?" about the VUK portion of the reunion concerts.  It's a concert, and then all of a sudden it's a fashion show.  Complete with fashion show music.  I've got nothing against fashion shows, but fuck, not in the middle of an X concert!

62

Albums/Singles / Standing Sex

« on: July 12, 2008, 11:46:44 PM »

I'm quite sure Taiji mentioned it himself in the untranslated part of Sei to Shi (that's where the person heard it from said it was) or in an interview. I'd like to find the source myself, but I'm quite sure Taiji himself was the person quoted.

I have X no Sei to Shi, have read most of the untranslated part and lightly skimmed the rest, and have so far found nothing about cocaine.  Heavy drinking, but not cocaine.

Maybe "the person you heard it from" could give me a page number?  Or at least a chapter title?  Or if they claim it's NOT in X no Sei to Shi, then exactly what interview was it in?

Until you can provide that, then I'm sorry, this is an unsubstantiated "my friend told me" rumor, and a particularly nasty one to run around stating as a proven fact. :roll:

63

Albums/Singles / Standing Sex

« on: July 12, 2008, 11:31:18 PM »

But ti was a while ago :3 so if the discussino is getting revived, I suggest a topic change is necessary.
However, if noone can present proof, I don't think further discussion is necessary.

Alright, fair enough about the topic part.  And I'll be curious to see if any proof appears... I haven't read every interview ever and it's entirely possible I've missed something.  But whenever I hear the Taiji coke thing and ask for the source, so far I've always gotten "my friend told me" or something.

64

Albums/Singles / Standing Sex

« on: July 12, 2008, 11:21:32 PM »

Oh yeah? Then why did Taiji have a cocaine problem?

Source?  With scans, preferably?  Because the last time you came up with a Taiji rumor (in the "Yoshiki the Confrontationalist" thread), the scans of the source you identified did not even mention Taiji's name whatsoever.

And I've never, once, seen anyone give a source for the cocaine rumor.  Until someone does, I'm assuming that someone, somewhere, made shit up.

I'm not saying there's no way anyone ever did drugs, by the way.  Rock'n'roll is rock'n'roll and stuff wouldn't surprise me at all.  But you don't publicly call someone a cokehead and state it as fact without a DAMN good source.

@Millie, as far as the off-topicness of this conversation, PN already derailed the thread into off-topic land the minute she flipped out over my comment about drug references in lyrics.

65

Taiji / Taiji/Loudness songwriting question

« on: July 12, 2008, 05:27:35 PM »

Don't have time to look through all my booklets and double-check, but yeah, Akira writes almost all of the music.  The lyrics are usually credited to whoever was the vocalist at the time, or in some cases to "Loudness".

66

Taiji / Many happy returns!

« on: July 12, 2008, 05:18:09 PM »

Happy birthday to Taiji!  Hope he gets some hot naked cowgirls jumping out of his birthday cake.

67

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 11, 2008, 07:30:17 PM »

And SarahAlex, Millie IS right. If you remember the list Hollywood made once- Ferret, Millie and quite a few others were sided with you. Now most of the people there have stopped this endless fight. Either because they are sick and tired of this, they see that they have nothing to say, they don't want to say anything or whatever. But I'm pretty sure that the first option dominates.

You know, there's a very simple, fair, and unbiased way to solve once and for all the question of how many people like or dislike the new rules and the way they are being implemented.

We could conduct a poll.  This is something several mods and normal users have explicitly asked for.

But, judging by your lack of response to my latest questions about the poll on the other thread, though, I'm guessing you don't want that.  You actually seem somewhat afraid of the notion of a poll being conducted.  Why is that?  Are you afraid of the possibility that the poll would turn up too many displeased users and you'd no longer be able to claim that everyone likes the new rules or nobody cares anymore?

Yeah, a lot of people are tired.  Some people, on both sides, simply have more stamina than others when it comes to standing up for their side of things.  A poll would eliminate this problem and give EVERYONE a voice.

You care what your users think, right?

68

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 11, 2008, 05:36:50 PM »

I do not think further discussion in this topic is necessary, unless a regular like Hollywood who apparently refuses private contact has gotten anything to add.

So now I "refuse private contact"?  That's bullshit.  Complete and utter bullshit.

In the past few months I've been PMed by about eight different staff members about various topics related at least peripherally to the PN situation and rules situation.  I have replied to each and every one of those staff members at least once (though I think I may have gotten slightly behind over the last couple days, have to check my inbox).

You, Millie, are one of those staff members whose PM I promptly replied to.  So let's cut the crap, please.

Thank you, however, for illustrating precisely why I am against this whole "no public dissent, you can only ask questions or address problems via PMing staff members" business.  As you have so clearly illustrated, when one's comment is not displayed publicly and there are no "witnesses", staff members are then able to claim that the comment never existed.  They can even then begin spreading completely untrue rumors about users being unresponsive to private contact.  And naturally, due to the rule about not posting the contents of PMs, the user's hands are completely tied when it comes to publicly proving his or her side of the story.

And don't even start with anything about how users should trust the staff more than that.  When staff members outright lie, as you have done, it should be no surprise why users who have been lied to demand transparency in their dealings with staff.

69

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 10, 2008, 05:55:49 PM »

This was more directed @ Hollywood since he said in one thread that the three of us are trating the users like shit here and I don't think HE wants us three to be the only staff members here,  this was directed at him only.

It wouldn't make much difference really.  You're the only three active admins, and from what I gather (re: some mods' comments on the other thread in this subforum), mods seem to get ignored if they don't agree with what you three want to do anyway.  So from the looks of things, you're already the only three who have any real say in what goes on.

IMO it's more dangerous to have so few staff members because the "god complex" gets worse and who can tell you to stop if there's noone there? You can't have a "democracy" atm, so I'd imagine you prefer something like a "republic" instead of a "three headed monarchy/absolutism".

In my opinion, all far too much politicking for a small forum with under 400 people.  And again, from what I gather it doesn't seem that mods yelling "stop!" would carry any real weight anyway.  I'd rather see honest absolutism than a supposed republic/democracy/whatever that is effectively absolutist anyway.

70

Help / Question about thread deletion/removal

« on: July 10, 2008, 05:44:20 PM »

I waited the two weeks for you as you wanted, Hypno, and this is the thanks I get?  The usual contradictions and "shut up" stuff and a little mockery at the end?  Nice. :roll:

Thanks, but this doesn't explain why I wasn't given 24 hours notice. Maybe I'm wrong but I didn't think any of what I said was of the "emergency, must get rid of it immediately!" variety.

In this case, the 24 hour notice would have been basically useless, as the point was not to have that poll now, and in 24 hours most of the people could have voted anyway.

So, the thought of people expressing their opinions in a constructive and helpful way was such an emergency that it needed to be gotten rid of immediately before anyone could do so?  I'm sorry to hear that.

how about one poll now and a second after the changes are made? That could be a very valuable way to measure the effect your changes make.

I haven't checked all the new posts yet, maybe you already did the before poll, but if you haven't, I don't think it'll be necessary, as everyone is back now and we'll start working on the rules again.

I haven't.  I was waiting for you, as you wanted.  So now that I've waited for you, I'm being told if I wanted to do the poll I should've NOT waited for you, and that I won't be allowed to conduct the poll now?  (I wonder: what would have happened if I had gone ahead and done the poll rather than waiting for you?  I can't help but assume it would've been deleted again, and again with no 24-hours notice, because I didn't wait. :roll:)

I would still like to conduct the "before" poll.  Judging by the response to this thread, there are others-- both normal users and mods-- who would like this too.  Do you object to this?

For that matter, you've mentioned that you want to create a global photo disclaimer for the forum and add a restricted forum for Yoshiki Mobile messages.  If you want to do these things, why haven't you?  You clearly have time to create new forums (Forum Games and now T-Earth), and to explain at length about the YM situation.  Honestly, what's taking so long?  In the time you've spent explaining why you haven't done these things yet, you could have done them about ten times.

*stuff about much mods and such*

Well, Camicat said it all basically. I also like to have more moderators, which means less work for everyone and a more democratic feeling, as we'd have more opinions.

Opinions which you seem to continually disregard if they don't match your own.  There are mods on this thread who would like to see polls about the rules.

1. PN is adminned.
2. PN supposedly abuses her admin powers.

You'll need to make up your mind on this one.  You have said in the past that if she screws up again she'll be dealt with, which means that according to you she HAS screwed up before.

3. People get pissed.
4. New rules, which were needed anyway, are created.
5. Some people get pissed, most agree to try out the new rules and stop complaining.
6. MiscastDice's pissedness leads to his inappropriate behavior.
7. MiscastDice is banned.

Fixed.

I don't see why you feel the continual need to be rude in your replies, especially after I politely answered your PMs and waited for you on the poll situation.  If you'd like to be respected as an adult, I'd advise you to start behaving like one.

71

X JAPAN World Tour / [Rumour] X Japan London - September 27th Wembley Arena

« on: July 09, 2008, 10:13:45 PM »

Noone says that one can't share the thoughts about X here. Therefor that forum here does exist. However, it did happen already more than once that rumors turned out to be totally odd, and caused rather headace and sadness to both, X fans and the X members themselves... I just think of the time when I came into X - that was, when many people who wanted to say something about Yoshiki, claimed that he is an arrogant, despotic asshole to the members of X. So for what is THAT good for? This opinion still exists unter some J Rock fans and that's something that makes me really sad about it. Since they don't try to see the truth behind it and simply believe what xyz-j-rock-fan says.

Of course rumors sometimes turn out to be false, and sometimes that's a disappointment-- but so what?

As for what people think of Yoshiki, honestly I could not care less.  Everyone is welcome to their opinion, whether it's positive or negative.  Unless you're Yoshiki or one of his very close friends, how do you know what "the truth behind it" is anyway?  It's all speculation, the positive opinions and theories just as much as the negative ones.

I think the majority of people on this forum are reasonable and mature enough to understand the difference between fact, opinion, and rumor, and to determine for themselves what parts of that they choose to believe or disbelieve.  And if they're not and they get disappointed when some rumor turns out false, well, life lesson for them.

Personally, I highly appreciate when people post what information they can.  It seems lately that people (like Beauty/Broken in this thread) are taking the time to post information for us, naturally assuming their contributions will be appreciated, and instead getting nearly attacked for it for no apparent reason.  What did anyone do wrong here?

72

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 09, 2008, 10:02:23 PM »

More public discussion will only ruin the atmosphere more, don't you think?

My problem has never, ever been with public discussion.  When I mentioned the ruined atmosphere, I meant how the atmosphere has been ruined by an overabundance of restrictions and a continual effort on the part of the staff (most, but not all of them) to shut up anyone who doesn't like it.  Like you did just now, for example.

And yeah, this is getting somewhat offtopic, but the on-topic threads about the subject always get closed anyway.  So either the thread gets closed (and I'm sure this is imminent :roll:) for being off-topic or the thread gets closed for being on-topic, but either way, inevitably it will always still get closed.

Back on topic, at any rate:
@Millie, if I misinterpreted your statement, then I apologize for that.  When you said "but apparently it was needed since i.e. MiscastDice started acting like (something I won't write out in case of breaking the rules myself)", I thought that's what you meant.

73

Toshi with T-EARTH / Toshi with T-Earth Myspace

« on: July 09, 2008, 06:04:41 PM »

I can't believe some of you took my little joke seriously  :oops: I'm very very sorry if I confused some people >_<

Yeah, no need to apologize!  I thought it was really funny.

74

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 09, 2008, 06:00:07 PM »

I thought the rules were put in place because of an allegedly abusive admin? This seems to have been twisted around 180degrees.

I don't know exactly why the rules were put here in the first place, but apparently it was needed since i.e. MiscastDice started acting like (something I won't write out in case of breaking the rules myself).
Are you saying all that he's done recently was ok?

The rules were not put in place because of MiscastDice; unless I'm wildly mistaken MiscastDice did not even begin to act up in a ban-worthy way until AFTER the PN stuff and AFTER it was announced that new rules would be created-- rules which were supposedly, at the time, designed to address the PN situation.  (It has since become apparent that this was never the true intention of the new rules, and it's kind of entertaining how many different explanations for the new rules various staff members keep putting forward.  "The rules were needed because of MiscastDice" is a new one to me and in fact pretty original.)

No one is saying MiscastDice's recent behavior is OK-- I'm certainly not, and I don't see where Matilda was either.  But let's all please keep the sequence of events in perspective:
1. PN is adminned.
2. PN allegedly abuses her admin powers.
3. People get pissed.
4. New rules are created.
5. People get pissed.
6. MiscastDice's pissedness leads to his inappropriate behavior.
7. MiscastDice is banned.

MiscastDice's behavior was inappropriate under the old rules as well; no new rules were "needed" to justify his ban.  It's not like he was banned for posting Yoshiki Mobile messages or quoting posts incorrectly or tying granny knots instead of square knots or whatever else you can now be banned for under the new rules.

75

X JAPAN World Tour / [Rumour] X Japan London - September 27th Wembley Arena

« on: July 09, 2008, 07:25:46 AM »

They can't stop people from thinking, speculation and making sense out of the apparent situation. There is no such thing as an information dictatorship of this sort - not to mention that it goes against ones basic human rights. If they want people to stop speculating then they should be more transparent - it's not like people are ignoring the official information, we rush for every little piece we can get our hands on.  

Completely agreed. And I must say that this new generalized phobia of unnofficial information is getting rather absurd. We're not starting any rumours as we discuss things and share new bits of news. If all that mattered was the utterly-official and undeniable side of the thing, then why would we even have a forum? We'd just sit quietly and pacifically in our places, without any contact with other fans. It's nice and I really appreciate the fact that this forum is against worthless rumours. But we have to put an end to cepticism when it becomes too much.

Totally and completely agree with both of you.

And I thought that was the whole point of fan forums anyhow-- to think, speculate, share what little information we DO have, and to discuss.  Some official forums (hint: starts with a J, ends with an RR) have "no rumors" rules, which I find ridiculous, and I was relieved that X Freaks has no such thing.

X Freaks STILL has no such thing, by the way.  Rumors and speculation are allowed here, last time I checked, so I see no good reason to try and stop people from posting them.  Anyone who hates this kind of thing, why are you even reading this thread?  If you want to see ONLY official statements and nothing else, check the official website daily and don't bother with fan forums.

76

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 08, 2008, 05:36:06 AM »

I agree there's nothing specifically wrong with it, it's just highly unusual and-- eh, how do I explain this-- between the number of staff and the number of rules, on such a small forum, it makes it seem like the staff is overestimating the size and scope of the forum.  Small, (formerly?) casual forum with Big Massive High-Traffic Forum rules, rigidity and staff numbers.

And I agree with Matilda, the atmosphere is not what it was.  Plus, also much like Matilda said, I'll never understand why a forum about a brash, pioneering, "fuck the rules" rock band has such anal rules and such a high staff presence.  The forum's approach and "personality" have become the polar opposite of the music that this place is supposed to be about.

77

Ra:IN / Ra:IN concert at the Japan Expo 6/7/8

« on: July 08, 2008, 05:23:00 AM »

Wait, you mean the show was advertised as "Ra:IN" (i.e., not as "Pata and Michiaki from Ra:IN" or something) but only half the band was even there?

Provided that DIE and Tetsu are still official members-- and I don't have any reason to think they're not-- I don't think I've ever heard of a band doing that before.

That's utterly bizarre.

78

Yoshiki / Yoshiki The Confrontationalist

« on: July 05, 2008, 05:48:42 PM »

To be honest I've never gotten the point of paying extra for someone's autograph, especially a LOT extra... kind of creeps me out somehow, but to each their own.

I've looked at the scans in MiscastDice's post too, just scanned over them really quickly to see if I could find Taiji's name anywhere, and I didn't see anything about him either-- though like I said, I didn't spend a lot of time looking since the text is small and gives me eyestrain if I look at it too long.  So MiscastDice, once you get back from your ban, could you point out (maybe circle or whatever?) the part that you claim is about Yoshiki breaking Taiji's arm?

79

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 05, 2008, 05:39:35 PM »

I find it slightly odd that the post ratio between normal members and board staff is close to 50% (but maybe I'm not very good at counting). Most forums I've visited there are way way more members than staff being active posters. It's almost as though we each have a personal minder.

Yeah, I agree.  Like I said on that other thread (the one that's now locked :roll:), I've been around, and I've NEVER seen such a high staff-to-user ratio on a forum before.  349 registered users, of whom maybe 25 are active at the most, and something like 15 staff members.  Hypno, PN, ferret, Bizkitroach, Hurley, Lucs, KrazyJess, friday, VioletCamicat, Tordek42, MillieQOF, AsukaMiyu Maverick, Artseeker, Kyubi... have I left anyone out?  Apologies if so, it's hard to count given that there's no list of admins and mods anywhere.

Obviously people can "hire" as many staff as they want, but for such a tiny forum, it's really bizarre and wasteful and borderline creepy in a "Big Brother" way.  For a forum of this size you only need about three active staff, maybe five at the max, so I'm not sure what the point of the other 10 or 12 staff members is.

80

Offtopic / Pregnant man

« on: July 04, 2008, 10:19:14 PM »

I'll admit I kind of don't get it, because if he sees himself as a man, why would he want to be pregnant?

But so long as they're both happy then it doesn't matter whether I get it, and as Camicat said-- why not?  Congrats to them both.

81

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 04, 2008, 05:33:15 PM »

Kind of funny how there's been two bannings because of the Panthere stuff. Since then, there's been two.

Bannings have gone up 200%. rofl.

Three (300%).

And while I do think the bans were justified (the last two much moreso than darkcat's though), the fact is that, yeah, the PN situation and the rules situation have pissed people off to a point where they do ban-worthy stuff.  Which had never happened before all of this.

That doesn't justify or excuse poor behavior on the part of the pissed, but it's still an interesting observation and a clear indication of the general unrest around here nowadays.

82

Albums/Singles / Attitude Original Soundtrack

« on: July 04, 2008, 05:25:39 PM »

I suspect CDJapan is advertising the Attitude soundtrack to X/X Japan newsmail subscribers due to Taiji being the musical director (and Pata being in the movie).

Whether or not there will actually be an X song involved, I don't know.

83

Forum Games / Things, that pissed you off today

« on: July 04, 2008, 02:15:30 AM »

Went to buy my first pair of non-shared pants, that was OK, but I still can't find a big enough cowboy hat damn it!  :x

Headache.

84

Other Bands / Enough with the word "Jrock"!

« on: July 03, 2008, 09:21:02 PM »

I didn't know that it was all called 'jrock' once, goes to show you how somethings are taken and warped into something else because now most of the bands you hear about with that 'jrock' tag now are 'visual/oshare/cosplay' -kei.

I'm actually really curious to hear accounts from anyone else who's known about "Jrock" a while, because while I remember all this stuff vividly myself, ultimately I'm just one guy speaking from personal experience and would really like to know if others' experiences were the same or not.

And of course everyone was a noob once, it's no big deal, but it's so interesting/weird for me to see how people who are discovering Japanese bands for the first time are coming into such a WAY different scene.  (Then again, it would be even weirder if ten years had gone by and things HADN'T changed.)

And the drugs post, if I remember correctly it was titled something that didn't have to do with drugs-- something about death or life expectancy or something.  Anyway I TOTALLY agree with everything you just said, I also have a really hard time imagining that drug use is as rare among Japanese musicians as people make it out to be.  And not hearing about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen-- what with the harsh drug laws over there, I imagine that anyone who IS using is a lot more careful and less open about it (i.e. we're less likely to know about it).  I'm not sure whether it's as widespread in Japan as it is in the West or not, but I'm entirely convinced that everything is not as squeaky-clean as a lot of people claim.

Thats something else that bugs me, rock n roll has always kinda had a little dirt to it, there was something unclean and filthy about it, which was cool actually. But I've seen in some cases, 'jrock' being one of them, where some try to make it seem cleaner, like those musicians are little angels who haven't done anything bad in terms of experimented with drugs or had one night stands or anything like that.  (no its not only japanese musicians or 'jrock' but I'm trying to stay on topic-ish here)

I dunno, something to note is some of the fans, especially on JRR are in fact, really young teenagers who don't know much about that side yet. Again, that was also another topic that was barely discussed.

Oh man, this is SO true!  (And I do think there's a trend in general of castrating rock into being "family-friendly"-- Sex Pistols baby clothes, anyone?-- but yeah, for the topic's sake I'll stick to the "Jrock" aspect of that too.)  And in the case of Japanese rock, since (for better or worse) a lot of the fan culture surrounding it seems to emanate from JRR nowadays, I think it goes back to JRR being careful with their bottom line.  Like you said, there are a lot of young teens on that site and I bet JRR doesn't want to risk alienating them (or more specifically, their parents) and losing their business, since they've somehow become such a major demographic.

I don't honestly know if that's good business or not, though, since by attempting to "clean up" rock'n'roll :roll: and appeal to that demographic, they're also alienating another section of their potential customer base-- people like us, who LIKE that "dirt" and don't want to see it washed off.  (Not that you can wash it off too well anyway: it's still there, whether JRR and the like want to admit to it or not.)

And personally?  I can't stand that kind of pandering to the lowest (or least-offensive) common denominator.  If parents don't want their kids listening to "bad" stuff, then rather than expect JRR to put lipstick on all the pigs, they should tell their kids to get out of the pigsty.  (Some of us like our pigsties nasty, thank you!)

85

Other Bands / Screaming Mad Georges

« on: July 03, 2008, 08:30:10 PM »

SMG and Sex George are definitely two different people, I've seen photos/videos of both and they look very different (but it's no big deal, a lot of people make that mistake).

SMG also had a punk band called The Mad, which if I'm not mistaken has attained some kind of cult status among people who are into that kind of thing.  Aside of SMG & Psychosis and The Mad I'm pretty sure he had some other bands too, though I don't remember their names.  He sings and I think he can also play guitar, but I may be misremembering.

But overall he's sort of the Alice Cooper of Japan... well, if Alice Cooper were also into special effects and makeup.  The only concert footage I've seen of him is Extasy Summit, so I can't confirm this, but I've been told he used a lot of props onstage and did a lot of really weird shock-rock stage performances.  I had a SMG & Psychosis album once upon a time and I remember the lyrics as being all in English and really bizarre/shocking/gross-out kind of stuff; "Paranoiascape" was the tamest song on there, heheh.

He's also done creature design for TV and film, including some Hollywood movies.  I forget which ones, but anyone who's really curious about him should get the book "Transmutation" (I think the Japanese title is "Henshin"), which lists everything he's done up to when it was published in the early 2000s or so, with black and white photos.

He was also involved with those fucking cool photos in the Jealousy CD booklet.  You can see him once or twice in the Say Anything PV, he's the unusual-looking bleach-blond in the Jealousy photoshoot scenes.

In short, SMG is weird and freakish and cool.

86

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 03, 2008, 08:15:00 PM »

Thanks Lucs and ferret for your explanations (and your willingness to discuss things publicly), I really appreciate that.  Makes sense now, and I apologize for first assuming it was intentionally done "in secret".

I think that answers all my questions about this personally, thanks again.

87

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 03, 2008, 07:35:26 PM »

The banned person list will be updated.

Why was it not updated when he was banned?  Surely anyone who has the time to ban someone also has the time to make a brief post about it.

I won't go into details, wait till you get an answer to your PM ! Thanks !

I would appreciate if you WOULD go into details, Lucs.  Sorry, but here we go again with the lack of transparency and the PM-only thing.

The "nice" thing about PMs is that, due to the rule about not posting PMs, anyone can say anything they want about the reason for someone's ban, etc., via PM... and because it's a PM, bingo, no one is allowed to discuss it publicly.  Very convenient.

Well, here's something I'd also like an answer to: why all this secrecy?  Why does the administration refuse to speak publicly to their users?

And why was MiscastDice's ban kept secret in the first place?  (As I said: I don't go for "she had time to ban him but no time to post about it".)

88

Help / MiscastDice got banned...

« on: July 03, 2008, 07:27:09 PM »

Well, why not make a topic here?  I wasn't aware of any of this until SarahAlex told me, and I'm glad she decided to post.  Administrative "irregularities" like this need to be spoken up about.  If the administration has no "irregularities" to hide, then why insist that everything by handled via PM?  A lack of transparency will always breed suspicion, whether warranted or not.

About MiscastDice's banning, personally I think a lot of his posts WERE offensive, warning-worthy, and ultimately ban-worthy.  I don't have a problem with the fact that he was banned, but I do have a problem with how the ban seems to have been carried out.

If he was told he would be banned upon his next offense, but commited no further offenses-- why was he banned?  Don't get me wrong: I don't mean anything against him personally by this, but to be frank, at the rate he was going I don't think it would have been long until he commited another offense.  But that doesn't make it OK for someone to tell him he has one more chance and then ban him anyway.

And I too was under the impression that all bans are supposed to be listed on the banned persons list.  It's especially unfair to ban someone and then not tell even the banned person themselves how long they're banned for.

I too would like some public answers.  If the admins wanted him banned, all they would have to do is wait until he makes another offensive post, ban him, and post about it (including the length of the ban).  Then I would not personally have any argument with it at all.

So, why was this not done?  Honestly, can we even get through one week around here without admins breaking their own rules?

89

Other Bands / Enough with the word "Jrock"!

« on: July 03, 2008, 05:47:18 PM »

depending on if you just call all rock from japan jrock, or if jrock is a certain type of japanese rock and pop groups...

It used to be used in the first sense, and as far as I can tell was never used in the second sense until JRR started using the word "Jrock" to promote a roster of exclusively visual kei bands.

OK, here I go with one of those annoying "back in the day" stories, Storytime with Uncle Hollywood again.  Back in 1996 when dinosaurs walked teh internets, I discovered my first Japanese rock band (Luna Sea), went online to get more info about them, and from there went on to find X and B'z and whoever else.  Back then:

1. Jpop was by far the most popular form of Japanese music online.  You had to wade through the pop sites (SMAP, V6, MAX, Namie Amuro, whatever) to get to the rock.
2. Everything that was "harder" than boy bands was usually called Jrock.  Basically, bands where they play rock instruments rather than sing and dance.  The pop-rock bands, like Glay, L'Arc, and (at the time) B'z were alternately called Jpop or Jrock.  Let me make this really clear, ANY rock from Japan was called Jrock at the time.
3. "Normal" Jrock was normal.  The non-visual or used-to-be-visual-but-not-anymore were WAY more popular than the visual bands.  Visual kei, which at the time was called "visual rock" or "visual shock", was a niche genre for freaks and enthusiasts.  (Much like it is and always has been in Japan.)
4. Other than Luna Sea, X Japan, Kuroyume, and Penicillin, visual rock was fucking hard to find information about, let alone actually buy.  What few online stores there were, private sellers included, sold only Jpop and non-visual Jrock.  If you wanted visual, you either had to know someone in Japan, or else you had to use a very mysterious and arcane fax process to order from Third Stage, who did not have a web site at the time.  If you actually succeeded in ordering something from Third Stage, you were the coolest person ever, or at least the coolest person that week on inertia's visual BBS.

Over the years the visual stuff gradually gained popularity.  Skip ahead about 10 years, and all of a sudden Jrock Revolution appears and declares themselves the be-all-end-all of all things visual and "Jrock".  They create a surge of new visual kei fans, who naturally take everything JRR says as truth.  It's not the fans' fault really, after all, JRR presents themselves as the ultimate authority and the new fans don't know any better than to simply accept that.  I wouldn't be surprised if many of JRR's employees are in fact themselves too "young" in the scene to understand its history, and the older fans who have been around longer unfortunately seem to see no need to correct any of their misconceptions.

Jrock 101 is pretty scary since a lot of what they present is poorly researched, leaves out some important points, or is simply wrong.  To use a very trivial example that still illustrates the problem pretty well, I remember a Jrock 101 topic about why no Japanese rock musicians ever have green hair.  The very existence of that topic amused me, but anyway, it's simply incorrect-- INA, the guy in By-Sexual, the guy in Color, etc., all had green hair.  There was another topic about how Japanese rock musicians never do drugs and never die of overdose, or something like that, which left out Hisashi Imai's LSD arrest and Kazuki's (Raphael) fatal overdose on sedatives.

Anyway, what this all comes back to is that JRR, a source of much misinformation and little historical perspective, is almost certainly where this notion of "not all Japanese rock is Jrock" originated.  Because they call themselves "Jrock" but all the bands they promote are visual.  And understandably from a marketing perspective, they seem to let this misconception flourish, probably because it benefits their brand if people associate the currently-popular visual stuff with the word "Jrock" in the name of their company.

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Offtopic / Leaving the forum...

« on: July 03, 2008, 07:59:48 AM »

Well, given the state of things around here in the last month or so, I hardly think it's surprising when someone leaves.  I don't know Siri's reasons, but just saying.

But of course that doesn't make it a good thing... I know we didn't always agree Siri, but I'm sorry to see you go.  Feel free to shoot me a message on myspace anytime if you want to keep in touch.