That's where one of ya'll have to pick up the slack and write one.

The review was pulled and balance was once again restored in the universe.

Quote by SunSpotsI think minitokyo is dying out tho.

That's a different subject entirely. I've been fighting that fight for a while now. There's only so much someone is but a member of the site can do. I've gotten accused of "mini-modding" a few times now after trying my own brand of vigalante justice (I guess that's what they figure it is). Hell, I've even pitched an idea to the site admin to make this site better, but I'm still waiting on a response.

This site has gone downhill, it's painfully evident. The quality of member just isn't what it used to be and neither is the contribution to the site as a whole. But again, as long as we continue to exist on this site, we have to stay within the confines of it.

Don't get too negative about it man. Keep in mind that a good many people on this site are members of a lot of groups they really never intended on being active in. Hell, I'm a member of 4 groups and I'm really only active in one and occasionally drop by the other. The other two I haven't visited in months. This is a site for people to grab wallpapers and scans and then be on their merry way.

And yes, loli is pretty popular, but probably not in the capacity that this group offers it. We can occasionally push the envelope, but never to rated 'R' territory. If we offered lolicon hentai, I imagine the traffic would be considerably higher. We gotta work within the confines of the system.

Besides, our group is a general subject group. I'd imagine those groups that popped up because they loved a specific show, have long since died off.

You may or may not have noticed, but I have gone through and cut our member number pretty much in half. After going through our member list and visiting each and everyone of their pages, I deemed it necessary to remove much of the unwanted fluff. We've already come to realize that most who join this group will be inactive within it, but certain things should be reason for removal. I removed people based on the following criteria:

1. If the member is banned from Minitokyo.
2. If the member was last logged on to Minitokyo the same day they joined... aka fly-by-night.
3. If the member has not logged into Minitokyo for over a year (which was probably 30 members).

I could have easily removed more based on the fact they haven't logged in over 6 months, however I made a year the overall criteria for removal. While it does lower our numbers considerably, I figure that there is no real purpose in having ghost members.

1. Yes I am quick to bite the ass of idiots. If it's evident you TRIED, then I'll try to play nice. If you clearly put in not efort, then you have effectively flashed your idiot card. Now you start in the hole with me and now you gotta prove your worth my time.

2. Yea lot's of reviews posted lately... not miraculous. If you notice, reviews tend to come in waves. We get 3 or 4 in a short amount of time, then it dies for a month or two. Not sure why that is though, but it does have precedence.

3. The Monster review... well my take on it was a bit different than davids. Don't get me wrong, fantastic writing, but there were problems I mentioned that he didn't. Maybe he was so shellshocked to see such writing, or maybe I'm just an idiot. Ok well I'm always an idiot, but you guys can just decide for yourselves on this one.

merged: 07-19-2008 ~ 06:15pm
After seeing how they reacted to any kind of criticism, I'd say leave them be. They clearly are incapable of taking any kind of criticism without flipping their wig. God forbid we get a future review that isn't up to par, we certainly wouldn't want to ever mention that.

merged: 07-20-2008 ~ 01:11am
Oh holy hell. He actually went and removed his review... what an absolute bitch. Now I took a page from Jak's book and saved this bastard thinking this might happen. I submit to you, the comment that pissed off this reviewer:

Your review presents a few problems. They aren't bad problems per se, but problems nonetheless.

Your first section tells me how awesome Monster is, but very little as to what Monster is. I gather it's a view of human psychology and the likes, but any such detail as to the subject matter or plotline of Monster is lost. Sure, you aren't supposed to give an exhastive plot description, but it's necessary to know for the reader. I know you love it, but I really have absolutely no idea what I'd be getting into if I watched it.

The second problem is that while you are clearly quite good with words, you have also effectively alienated many of the readers on this site. It's a serious case of "know your crowd". I suspect many of the people who come to read this review on the site may simply hit their back button before finishing the first section because it's simply too confusing or exhausting to get through.

Believe me, you are a great writer. Call me envious in fact. So maybe these criticisms are simply coming from someone who doesn't excel in writing as you may. I suppose we shall have to see how the rest of the community feels.

Yes... THAT sent him over the edge. Following that, he left a comment to the likes of "I thought the plot synopsis was enough and sorry I don't follow the MiniTokyo-accepted-mode-of-discourse. I know when I'm not wanted so I'll just leave."

I left another comment following:

Don't be so quick to get defensive now. Yes there is a synopsis, but in most cases there isn't one for a particular series. And while a synopsis is simply a description of the story, it doesn't really portray your feeling so to say. Mentioning particular plot devices and the likes in relation to your own feeling about the show is more of what I'm speaking of.

As for the "MiniTokyo-accepted-mode-of-discourse" you speak of... let me put it this way. When I go to McDonalds, I'm planning on eating for cheap. Something like 5 bucks. Your review is like if McDonalds added a $40 Filet Mignon to the menu. Sure it's probably the best damn thing on the menu, but nobody goes there to spend $40, so nobody is going to order it. Your review is much like that. It's high quality but maybe too much for the average reader.

Shortly after, he deleted his comment and sent me a private message with the message "In case you're wondering, I deleted my comment on my Monster review not to make you look like an ass but because I'd rather not engage in an argument." Only to then delete the review less than an hour later.

Now you know why it isn't there anymore. If my comment was seriously so bad that it just destroyed his confidence, then that's someone who needs to stay the hell away anyway.

Sweet Jesus, what the hell happened here? We actually look... kinda professional now. I'd say this was long overdue.

Just thought I'd let you wonderful review people know, it is quite possible that I am about to go head to head with one of the fabled MT mods. I'm getting to the point where I am so sick of his sh*t and his damned arrogance that I just can't sit idle anymore. Someone has gotten out of hand, and the fact that no one seems to have done anything about it shows a massive failure on the part of the administration of this site. He has squashed my ideas ultimately because he said so. He comes in and deletes my posts and accuses me of mini-modding. He cares more about flaunting mod powers on this site than actually doing anything constructive with them.

I will also be sending a message to the admin of this site with a little idea I've been brainstorming. I've got something that can really help the community as a whole and I know that if I just put it in the Minitokyo section of the forums, it will likely be drowned out. While the idea in and of itself is just theory in practice, I'm hoping that if approved, I can find people who can actually help bring it together. More on that later...

Needless to say, now that I've essentially decided to go rogue, if a line happens to pop up through my little name here, you know why.

Quote: I've got to give the moderators credit where its due, that was a good response time IMO.

I'm going to split hairs here and edit that comment to say MODERATOR without the 's'. Quick action of one does not give kudos points to them all. Either way, you have convinced me of neither jack nor sh*t.

Gotta do what ya gotta do...

Quote by jakulitoAre you asking for my opinion?

No, I was just preparing myself for the worst.

On another note, the front page has been graced by another MT worthy review. I had brain cells actually explode. But this actually works out quite nicely.

Again, I refuse to report a review. We've had a blistering pace of 4 reviews in the past two months. If something does not come of this, or at least some reasonable explanation as to why it is allowed to remain in existence, I formally wash my hands of the wretched review system on this site. If any of you feel the need to report it, then go for it. But I recommend we do what we do as usual with commenting and let the rest play out.

I'm actually hoping I will visit this site within the next couple of days and see a comment from the annoited God of reviews... or just that the review has been laid to waste. But you'll have to pardon me if my pessimism has me believing something else entirely.

Hey I might crack on you guys, but notice throughout most of my posts in the past, the person I pick on most is myself. I only know you guys from this guestbook, I know myself all to well and I can say without a doubt... I totally suck. I think Jak can attest to that... right?

Don't get me wrong, I generally like all the people in this group (cept Maplerose who shoots me down, Jak who just generally sucks and YOU David for making me look like a yokel everytime you write). It's just that while we do have these guestbook chats, it really is pretty minimal. Most members never say a word and the few remaining ones are fairly active and then drop off for a while, then come back.

Maybe it was my undoing to not be involved maybe with other online communities. The saying "don't put all your eggs in to one basket" comes to mind. I suppose the mindset was come in, contribute, mingle a bit and then maybe I would find more of a reason to hang around.

I hope this isn't coming off as a "oh God, please be my friend" cause it isn't so much that. I mean I got to know Jak from this site, and we talk pretty often (just don't ask about what) and I have got a degree of notoriety from writing, but I guess I see it as effort in does not equal reward out. I think what ultimately needs to happen is, I need to step the hell away from my computer and get out more. But damnit I hate the sun and refuse to drink alcohol... so what's a guy to do?

I see your points, but maybe my problem is that I'm too self-centered. I simply see most of the MT community as a pile of garbage. Most people would rather put pointless replies in threads or throw together fanboy rantings and call them reviews. They thrive on "favorites" threads and the idiot games in the chat lounge. They create groups for current fads and then let them die in no time. So my goal in a sense, was to create at least a community within the community that really made my time worth spending here.

To find enough people who were intelligent enough to actually discuss serious matters with as well as the not so important topics. The ones who would take the time to write a review and would be open to all criticisms. So the little things I would do from commenting on reviews, sending PM's to people doing things wrong on the forums and at times attempting to quell rampant idiocy on certain topics, were to at least create a subset of quality members.

I mean I find it sad that when you go into forums, you know exactly what you are going to find. Favorites threads for any of the anime or gaming forums. Emo kids encouraging other emo kids in Lamentations. Flame wars in the religion portion with the same members. But I blame myself for expecting much more than I should have from a website of this ilk.

So yea, essentially I wanted to create my own niche of people with whom I didn't mind associating with. Be it in a group like this, or a constant forum buddy or maybe even someone worth maybe chatting with on Instant Messanger (but Maplerose turned me down). I suppose at some point it just became something more than simply cranking out review after review.

Quote by jakulitoRead my sig...

Usually I say "We don't die, we multiply." But looking at MT now, its dead and divided.

I wanted to leave that comment alone for a while in hopes I could come back and say you were somewhat wrong... but more than a week later and we didn't get a single damn person applying. I suppose it's time to accept the fact that this section is the appendix of the Minitokyo body and although it exists, is on the whole useless.

Quote by melymayI'm willing to do some content stuff.

I expected a bit of a more in-depth response, but at this point this is all we've got. My friend, make some magic happen.

It is indeed clear this group is hanging on with life support. Our admin hasn't logged in in nearly 2 months and I have been dedicating any MT time to the MT Review group. That being said, if anybody has any ideas to revitalize the group then please feel free to mention it. Also, if anybody would like to take charge of making changes or simply believes they have what it takes to make this group better, let me know. With my lack of use and SunSpots, we should probably promote some people to mods who want to be there. Anybody up for that promotion and why?

I've taken the time many times to report forum posts, but never reviews. Reason being that there are hundreds of forum posts a month, but only a scant few reviews in that same period of time. Fact is, if our review mod took 10 minutes a week to comb over the newest reviews, we wouldn't have as many issues.

Am I calling it laziness? Maybe. But I tend to more along the lines attribute it to lack of care for the review section. Look, I don't know how difficult a mods life is on this site, probably never will, but certain obligations come with that colored name. When you get attached to a certain section, you are tasked with maintaining it. So being the review mod and having no hand in the review section is much akin to the Secretary of Agriculture having no idea about an impending severe corn shortage.

It's not just deleting bad reviews or anything, but that colored name of yours means a lot to a lot of members. A positive Maplerose comment on someones newest vector art is like tenfold that of a regular member. So a positive comment on a review may encourage the writers to take more of an interest in the section as a whole. Likewise, a negative comment may make them act far more quickly than any of us. I'd venture that although I told them their review was not up to standard, that if a certain someone else told them the very same thing, we'd likely have a prompt result.

I'm also not foolish enough to think that being a mod ties you down to this site in servitude. Obviously we have lives that take precedence outside of this site, to think otherwise would be nuts. But it isn't as if this job is just thrust upon people, they take it upon themselves. What I'd wonder is how much communication goes on between all the mods? When one of you is going to be in short supply for whatever reason, are you asking for someone else to back you up? Are you all engaging in discussion about problems or is it all just every mod for themselves? When a member has something negative to say about a mod, is it taken seriously is just treated as a member being an idiot? To us members, it seems like the mods are a dark organization who thrive on telling us were wrong and operating under the cover of darkness.

That point aside, on to your recommendation for a more detailed FAQ/Guide. If we threw anything in the forum, it would likely be lost like everything else. Instead why not just beef up the information you see on the page where you submit reviews? Right now, its a sentence or two on how to write in that section. Lets make that more robust. I'd imagine adding a few lines wouldn't be difficult and it would certainly be visible for all review writers.

1. Yes it would be premature to say welcome back.

2. Do me a favor, click the word "Review" up at the top. If you'll take the time to click on all the reviews submitted by people not in this group, you'll see that outside of myself and Jak, who consistantly comment on reviews, our group has collectively commented 9 times. At least half of those 9 being davidh01.

3. Take a look at our member list. You'll see we have 13 members. Again subtracting myself and Jak, that leaves 11 members. Taking away davidh01 that leaves 10 members and approx 5 comments amount the remainder of the group within the past HALF YEAR!

So Yea it's finger pointing time. I know we based who we invited into this group on writing. Whether they contributed good writing to the site was simple enough criteria. When I was invited by shinsengumi I was told "There we not only critique each other's reviews, but we also discuss the review system itself in Minitokyo". This meant to keep writing and not only improving myself, but improving the system. What I could have never hoped to accomplish myself I now might be able to with strength in numbers.

Now I'm not foolish enough to think that this group has some amazing power to make changes, but think about it. We don't have the numbers of something like the Ecchi Club, but what we do have is quality members. Just the top of this group has some well known members of MT and over time many of us have established ourselves nicely throughout MT. Maplerose has since become a mod, Jak, from what he tells me, is hella popular, and people know my name now as that guy who writes too many damn reviews. Many of us in this group aren't random nobodies who simply inhabit this site with the sole purpose of leeching its resources. We do contribute. We don't cause problems (except me of late).

That's where our strength lies. If we discussed things in detail amongst ourselves, we may be able to push things through for change or improvement, but not as members and mods, but as a group that cares about one neglected little section of MT. If we can't have the review mod in this group, then we damn sure need to be keeping the one that's there in the loop. If we annoy him, THEN TOO DAMN BAD. It doesn't stop at reviews either. I'd say that outside of the occasional dumb subject (usually instigated by me) we usually are a pretty intelligent bunch. Change will come by those who care making it know that change is necessary. If we can't directly influence that change then we can damn sure work to influence the ones that can.

While my point may have been lost somewhere above, it all comes down to all of us giving a shit. This group really does consist of people who only become active when they have a new review posted. I am pointing fingers at the failure of this group as a whole to do anything. I point it at myself for not being proactive enough. Sure I tried to do things, but I was always worried about stepping on the wrong persons toes. I didn't want to piss off a mod who is too high on themselves that they forgot (or never knew) what their purpose is on this site. While you guys may want to play it safe I'm done with that. If If somehow a good change happened to this site and I got banned, I would feel like mission accomplished. I left this bastard anyway so what would I have to lose. All I'm asking is that those people who never say a damn thing, start speaking up. Those who do talk, let's make something happen. And if we need numbers, let's get out there and find them and not wait for them to come to us.

Who's with me?!

In an effort to quell some of my nightly boredom, I made my way to this site to see what the happenings have been of late. To my absolute disgust I read the Maigetsu. What caught my eye was that of the interview with littlejohnny. To even speak of reviews made me sick. Ok so he doesn't write them, big deal... but have any of you realized that there has been a review not up to standards on the front page for over 5 weeks? That High School Debut review has been garbage from the beginning and not even the Review Mod did a damn thing about it.

This is supposed to be a group dedicated to making the review section not look like a damn joke. But when you have a mod that doesn't do anything about it and a group that seems just as eager to make a difference, it stands to reason that it forever will be.

I know I left the site suddenly and probably without any reason to most of you. But it's been something I've been hinting at with Jak for a while. Honestly this site has fallen into nothing more than a place for people to get their newest CC and Lelouch vector and nothing more. The forums are still a joke and seemingly nothing is being done to correct them. Hell just check the MT forum and you'll see how gung ho spystreak was about closing favorites threads even though I called him a damn liar, yet "Who's your favorite Naruto idiot" remains strong.

Yea so it's venting and I did leave this site. But I dedicated a lot of time trying to make things better by reporting forum posts, commenting on nearly every freaking review that crossed this site and trying to suggest changes. Instead all I got was accused of mini-modding and told to shut the hell up and sit in my member corner. Maybe the art section of MT is freaking amazing, I would know, I never visited it. And whether its the members, the mods or the owner of the damn site that let everything else go to s**t I don't know. But unless your just sitting in this group so you can 'be a part of something" I'd recommend somebody step the hell up and make something good happen.

I honestly don't know why this all pisses me off, but I almost attribute this to when a child leaves home. Sure the kid is gone and you don't have to pay attention to it all the damn time, but when it needs you, you know you need to be there.

Well I'll leave it up to you guys how you want to handle my info on this page. We have inactive members still in the group and still up in the top, but at least they are still confirmed alive. My reviewing and MT days are done so I guess a confirmed loss can be done away with. Either way, I'm on Yahoo under shoujo_boy (Jak already knows this) so keep in contact (if you actually care to). Keep representing MT Review crew in that oh so defunct review section and remember; "What is popular is not always good. What is good is not always popular." Out.

Nah, I'd prefer a swift boot in the a$$ and then once I'm face first on the lawn, you change the locks. That seems more fitting wouldn't you say?

Well the deed is finally done. My inital estimates for completion was 70 hours but it ended up taking 150. It appears my calculations were WAY off. I could have done over ten 26 episode series, or 1/8th of Naruto, in that same time. Either way, it's done and so completes my review work.

Close sho? I didn't type it R-Tard. I would have cross checked it with Word or something. Geez, I guess it's just accepted that I'm the group dumba$$. Enjoy it while you can, it ain't gonna last much longer.