Den of Angels FAQ

Most problems with your account will need to be handled by forum staff. Please post in the private Ask the Moderators subforum rather than making an open post on the forum for account related issues. This includes:

• questions about rules and forum use
• account and registration problems
• forum access issues
• problems with other members (harassment, Marketplace issues)
• moving/merging/deleting threads and posts anywhere on the forum
• removing polls from threads

Questions posted in Ask the Moderators can only be read by you and the forum staff, and an active Moderator will answer your question as soon as possible.

Moderators can be identified by the colored wings displayed beneath their names.

Active Moderators (also known as Seraphim and Cherubim) can help you via PM or in Ask the Moderators.

Inactive Moderators help with daily forum maintenance, participate in Moderator discussions, and help implement rule changes and forum design. However, they do not generally help with member problems or actively moderate discussion threads. Please do not PM Inactive Moderators about issues that do not relate personally to them.

In general, it is best to post in the Ask the Moderators subforum if you need assistance.

Before posting, please use the Search to make sure that your question has not been answered already. We encourage members to bump old threads rather than starting duplicates.

Some common questions...

• Where should I post to ask what sculpt I should choose for my original character?
  Threads about choosing a doll go in Visual Concepts.

• Where can I ask for feedback about a particular company?
  We actually have a whole subforum for company reviews! Please do a quick search to see if the company you're looking for has a current or archived feedback thread.

• I want to see pictures of a particular sculpt.
  Check out the Databases to see how other members have customized their dolls. The Database Database will help you to find the database for the exact sculpt you're looking for! If you'd like to see more, or you'd like to see a particular combination of dolls or accessories, do a search in Photo Reference! If your request isn't there, make a new thread to ask!

• I want to buy or sell a doll.
  If you have met the access requirements, you can buy and sell dolls in our extensive Marketplace subforums. If you have not yet met these requirements, you may not solicit or engage in any transactions anywhere on the forum. Advertising or soliciting sales outside of the Marketplace may lead to disciplinary action.

• I'm sculpting a doll and I want to share my progress.
  We no not have a place for original sculpts to be shown. However, we recommend The Joint as a BJD-sculpting forum and resource.

Because DoA's community and Marketplace safety is built heavily on reputation and member feedback, members are only allowed to have ONE account. There are no exceptions, and users who are found to have multiple usernames or share an account will be fed to velociraptors.

For the same reason, we do not allow name changes. There are very specific exceptions, but they are few and far between. For this reason, we suggest that you choose a username that is not time or trend based. It might be embarrassing to you, two years down the road, to have "JustinBieber4ever" as your username.

If more than one account accesses Den of Angels from your IP, we recommend that you post in the Ask the Moderators subforum to let us know that you are separate people.

Meeting People

To find other local doll owners, check the Meetups subforum to see if there are any meetups happening in your area. (Please note: This section is only visible to registered users).

If you are interested in chatting with other doll owners, we have a Wiki directory of DoA members on other sites.

Another great way to meet people is to simply comment on their gallery posts and respond in conversation. PM someone you'd like to get to know better!

Off-topic
Due to the size of the forum, Den of Angels does not have an off-topic section. However, we are far from being the only BJD forum out there. Please check out the wiki for links to other communities.

There are several reasons why your post may have been deleted.

"No Chat" Areas
The News Subforum, Marketplace, and BJD Databases are information only, rather than chat-based.

The News subforum is for announcements of events and new dolls and items from doll companies. In order to make this subforum as useful as possible, only additional information and fact-based questions can be posted to News threads. Discussion of doll events goes into the Conventions and Events subforum, and discussion of new releases belongs in the appropriate size-specific discussion area.

The Marketplaces (excluding Buying and Selling Questions and Commissionable Services) are also no-chat areas. Potential buyers may post fact-based questions and requests for more images; however, compliments on the item, well-wishes, and laments about being broke should be sent to the seller via PM.

The BJD Databases subforum is for posting pictures and profiles of your dolls. This is a gallery subforum, so all profiles must contain pictures. Profiles that do not contain pictures will be removed.

Chat posts in no-chat areas will be deleted by a moderator.

Off-topic posts
Posts that have nothing to do with Asian ball-jointed dolls, or only discuss dolls tangentially, will be deleted.

Postspamming
Occasionally, new members will make numerous content-less posts across the forum to raise their post counts in order to gain access to the Marketplace. If a user is thought to be postspamming, their posts will be removed and disciplinary action may be taken.

Inflammatory or Inappropriate Content
Flaming and flamebaiting are not tolerated on the forum. Additionally, we do not allow posting of adult material. Such threads and posts may be removed at the discretion of the moderators.

If your post is deleted, please do not assume that it is because it was inflammatory, or that you are "in trouble." If there is a problem, you will be notified by a moderator via PM.

If this does not answer your question, or if you have a specific instance of a post removal that you have questions about, please post in the Ask the Moderators subforum.

You may notice that your post count does not always go steadily upwards. This happens for a few reasons.

First, there are certain areas of the forum where posts do not count toward your total post count (i.e. Games). No matter how much you post there, your post count will not increase.

Next, there are areas that are routinely pruned. For example, the Marketplace is frequently purged of sold items, threads are removed from the galleries occasionally when the image links no longer work, and threads are deleted from Doll Arrivals! after three months of inactivity.

If you already have marketplace access, dipping below the required number of posts will not affect your access level. The only way that you can lose access is if an administrator changes it manually.

Forum-wide bans and suspensions

Members may receive a forum-wide ban or suspension for:

• flaming or flamebaiting.
• harassing members via PM.
• marketplace dishonesty.
• repeatedly breaking forum rules.
• posting blatantly inappropriate content.
• sharing an account or creating multiple accounts.

Den of Angels has taken a stand against the principle and practice of recasting dolls, therefore we reserve the right to ban those who engage in recasting, those who aid and abet recasting by procuring legitimate dolls for the purposes of recasting, and those who provide ordering services for recasters. Using Den of Angels to promote any of these actions is a bannable offense. Reference to ownership of recast dolls either in photos or in writing on Den of Angels is a bannable offense.

If you are suspended or banned, you will receive a notification via email. You may also appeal the ban via email.

If you are caught sneaking back onto the forum, your new account will be gleefully banned also.

For legal reasons, we are not able to list who has been banned or for what reasons. In cases of dishonesty, we recommend checking the Problem Transactions Index and keeping up-to-date with warnings of known scammers. This information can be found in Problem Transactions Feedback.

Marketplace bans and suspensions

Members may receive a marketplace ban or suspension for:

• problematic marketplace transactions.
• breaking marketplace rules.
• buying or selling outside the marketplace.

For problematic Marketplace transactions, a marketplace ban may be lifted after all outstanding transactions are resolved. However, in most cases, the ban will be permanent. In very serious cases, a marketplace ban will turn into a forum-wide ban.

What happens if I receive a marketplace ban or suspension?

When you receive a marketplace ban or suspension, the shopping areas of the marketplace will be invisible to you. Your sales and WTB threads are removed; your in-progress splits or group orders may stay, at the mods’ discretion.

A marketplace ban or suspension means that you may NOT:

• buy or sell items anywhere on Den of Angels.
• commission another member or accept commissions.
• share or create an account to get around the ban/suspension.

If you receive a marketplace ban or suspension, it’s OK to:

• participate anywhere on the forum except the marketplace.
• participate in the feedback subforums.
• complete and resolve any current transactions.
• ask a moderator to send info from your split or group order thread.

You will need to contact a moderator to have your suspension lifted. Once the time is up, you may contact any moderator, not just the one who suspended you.

A lot of members have created signature banners with small images that list their doll families.

These icons can be found here:
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5885

In order to combine them, you will need a graphic editing program such a Photoshop or Paint. A good, free option is pixlr.

Please make sure that your finished banner fits within the signature guidelines.

The wiki has information about banned and off-topic dolls.

Please read the forum criteria for on-topic dolls.

Den of Angels is a 13+ forum.

We do have profanity filters in place, but they are fairly limited and mostly limited to racial slurs and the strongest of the 4-letter words. Though we do not block many words, we ask that members use maturity and taste in their use of profanity.

We do not allow highly sexualized images or excessive gore. Certain sensitive topics (i.e. rape, incest, pedophilia, torture) are not allowed in images or textual content, including comments made to the original post. Please keep dark backstories vague.

There is no concrete list of things that are allowed or disallowed; please use your common sense. If you feel that something you're considering posting may be a bit too much, feel free to post in the Ask the Moderators subforum to get approval. Offensive or inappropriate posts/threads that are reported by other members may be removed; any post/thread may be removed by a moderator at any time, for any reason, at their discretion.

If you are looking for adult alternatives and are over 18, we recommend visiting ControversialDoll or Resinality.

You may invite friends (up to 7 per week) after 25 days of membership and 40 posts. Users who are on any sort of restriction may not send invitations.

To invite a friend, choose the Invite Friends link below the dark blue toolbar. On the next screen, enter your friend's email address, your name (if you feel like it), and click submit.

Invitees will still be screened by the moderators before their accounts are approved; this is done to avoid allowing banned users (particularly those with Marketplace issues) to re-join the forum.

People who don't know any community members may email membership@denofangels.com to request an invitation.

Please note that the invitation log is available to the moderators, so we will know who has invited whom. If you are caught attempting to help a banned member re-register, you will also be banned.

If you post an image and the web address (URL) for that picture belongs to someone else, you are hotlinking. Hotlinking uses someone else’s bandwidth without their permission and may cost that person more money. It’s not good netiquette. We do not allow hotlinking. So how can you avoid it?

You can simply link to that image. Right-click the image you want to link to. Select View Image. Copy the URL for that image from your browser’s address field. Don’t use the Insert Image feature (that would be hotlinking). Just paste the URL into your post. Done.

You can save the image to your computer and upload it to your own hosting service, then post it. To do this:

1. Right-click the image you want to save.
2. Select Save Image.
3. Proceed with the steps for posting a picture.

You’ll want to be careful not to violate the owner’s copyright. It is polite to secure permission before using any images that belong to others.

Mods and Virtues edit hotlinked images so they appear only as links. If you routinely hotlink, you may receive a warning.