Talk:Ball-jointed doll/Archive 1

Earliest posts

In the opening sentence, the phrase "anatomically correct" is generally understood to mean specifically that the genitals are depicted. The BJD term is not really meant to imply that so I will replace that phrase with "fully articulated". -- 71.141.23.168 00:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• Well, many BJD are "anatomically correct" (genital depiction), which is what I was implying, in a subtle way. Calicore 15:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

How large are these dolls? Nik42 04:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Typical scale is 1:3, so about 2ft tall. Other common scales are 1:4 and 1:6 ("fashion doll", same scale as Barbie). - David Gerard 12:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

1:6 dolls are not counted generally as BJD unless cast from resin however - the 1:6 scale dolls made by Obitsu and Volks are considered to be fashion dolls, for example. 62.56.78.25 12:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, some of them are teensy - the size of Barbie baby sister Kelly/Shelley dolls, or even tinier. Lindleyle 17:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Non-free images

Images on Wikipedia are supposed to be free content where at all possible; removing free-content images for copyrighted "fair use" ones is completely against the mission of the project - which is "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." As clarified by the Foundation here, that does not say "share freely unless the unfree content is better." - David Gerard 12:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

2nd Picture

I don't think it's a good example of a BJD at all. D: I'm sure his owner is glad to see him here... but the upnose shot + resin mismatch + iffy composition makes me wince to think this is the front put forward on Wikipedia. Does anyone have a nicer image they would like to contribute, or any suggestions of who to ask for a photo? I'm thinking of asking Brightfires from Den of Angels, personally; her dolls are all beautiful, and her photography even moreso. Alanahikarichan 15:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Separate articles for each company?

I don't think separate articles are warranted here, as many of the companies may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for companies. I suggest moving this to a list of manufacturers. The "See Also" section should just include links to articles of companies that are notable. HeirloomGardener 16:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Quite a few of the companies probably would be considered notable, going through sources, several Korean companies seem to have been featured prominently in the BJD Orbyrarium book, as well as fashion doll magazines. However, until such separate articles are actually created, it's much more useful to include them in this article, with some notes and a link, rather than just make a red link to nothing. Siawase (talk) 15:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

External Links

I added Template:NoMoreLinks to the external links section, and removed all forum links except for the largest one. Siawase (talk) 20:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Look at the Wikipedia:External links policy before adding new links and make sure it's appropriate. Avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, and avoid links to social networking sites, chat or discussion forums. Siawase (talk) 10:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing Resinality link. Nikita2471 is not a neutral party. She is one of the admins of resinality. See Wikipedia:External links#Advertising and conflicts of interest "You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent" Siawase (talk) 09:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Broken External Links

The following links have broken links or other possible problems (in parentheses). I'd like to apply some recommendations from Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Preventing_and_repairing_dead_links and would appreciate working with a more experienced wikipedian on this minor project.

• Removed 6 and 7 ^ Civilization.ca - Before e-commerce - The Eaton Beauty Doll (via archive.org
• Removed 8 ^ Den of Angels - (Some Thoughts about ABJD...and a brief History Lesson Rant.. (not the best source, but has pointers to others)
• Fixed 12 ^ Super Dollfie FAQ - Yumia (Forever)
• Fixed 18 ^ Dollectable Northern California ABJD Convention
• Fixed 33 ^ A significant attention regarding the Copied/Pirate BJDS! - SOOM 2009/03/13
• Fixed 35 (not readily accessible - requires login and sufficient privileges) ^ Banned Dolls and Companies - Den of Angels
• Removed 47 ^ http://www.elfdoll.com/default/img/gallery_001asdf/gallery_001.swf
• Fixed 48 (not broken - just the home page of an online newspaper) ^ World Journal

Ideally, we would try to find online archives for these, or replace them with other supporting citations. This list is a first step in that direction. What is the best way to go about this/What do you think? Rolfedh (talk) 02:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice job checking the references! I looked through them.

• A search turned up that #12 is on archive.org [1]
• and this [2] could be used as a better replacement for #18.
• #33 is still available at [3]
• #35 appears to have been moved here [4].
• #7 (and #6 really) is used to verify what is pretty much common knowledge and could easily be replaced with better sources.
• I would suggest just removing #8 for now. I searched DoA and the topic appears to have been completely removed, and is not available through archive.org.
• No idea what #47 was used for. Maybe Elfdoll history or something that may be available elsewhere on their site now.
• #48 was used to show that Dollzone was mentioned in a secondary source. (see "Sources for which dolls/companies are notable" below) Not sure what to do about that one now. (replaced with Den of Angels citation)
• But other than that, just follow the guideline you linked. If you have any questions, feel free to just ask here, I'm watching this page. Siawase (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for the guidance. I'll work on this over the next week. 144.212.95.9 (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we remove all this at some point, or do we keep it here as a kind of record? Rolfedh (talk) 03:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Great job! Thanks for going through and fixing all of those. However, the dollzone doa wiki link is not a reliable source as anyone can edit that page. Looking through google news archives I found this spanish source[5] mentioning dollzone, which should be a reliable source. Also this russian source [6] but it looks like a blog so I'm not sure if it's reliable. Talk pages are kept and archived after a while. This talk page hasn't been too active, so it hasn't grown large enough to need archiving yet. For more info see Wikipedia:Talk pages#Subpages and archiving. Siawase (talk) 15:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I replaced the doa wiki reference with the spanish el pais article. That one and NPR could probably also be used to expand the article further, or reference some existing info. Siawase (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Existing Links

Going through the existing links and the Wikipedia:External links policy seeing what would apply to the existing links. Siawase (talk) 10:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Gigglegeek's BJD database

For:

• Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.

Considerations: Gives an illustrated overview (via thumbnail images) of a wide variety of BJDs, in detail (ie over 1000 individual dolls) well beyond what wikipedia could appropriately cover.

Den of Angels

For:

• Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.
• Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article
• Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.

Against:

• Links to sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content
• Links to social networking sites

Considerations: Den of Angels is very central to the BJD world, and has been noted as a central source of BJD information by third party sources, like in ShojoBeat June 2007, and Haute Doll May/June 2005. It has an established longevity, and functions somewhat like an archive, with posts going back to 2004. It is as much a huge repository for BJD information (if in a somewhat disorganized fashion) as it is a social/discussion forum. Some relevant sections (like news) are viewable without a registration. The inclusion of Den of Angels should not be seen as a reason to add links to other BJD forums, rather this is the one exception to the rule. Each link should be considered on its merits.

BJD_WTF

For:

• Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.

Against:

• Links to social networking sites

Considerations: Contains detailed information and "how to" type guides that are useful but would be beyond the scope of a wikipedia article.

Improving this article

• ANY KIND OF RELIABLE SOURCES RELATING TO BJD NEEDED! WP:RS
• Anyone have any FDQ or Haute Doll articles that could be used as sources?

Hidden suggestions mostly implemented in the July 7th expansion, preserving for reference

Possible additions to this article to improve it:

- Lead

• ball jointed dolls in general vs the modern Asian BJD [7] [8]
• (would it be possible to just flat out say that BJD started out as dolls that were created in the image of super dollfie?)
• something about the colloquial usage of "dollfie" as a blanket term for all bjd

- History

• old late 1800s early 1900s ball jointed dolls (composition) [9] [10] (sizes) [11]
• hans bellmer and his influence on...
• strung asian artist dolls
• garage kit roots (applies to both volks, cp, and unoa), and the similarity of the production methods
• companies after super dollfie, in which order did they appear?

- Companies

• which companies to include? larger/older? (looking for some kind of balance in what should get coverage WP:UNDUE), of interest should be esp companies who introduced new sizes or features (tinies, double joints etc)
• a lot of this obviously needs sources/verifying.
• delf line of dolls def deserves a mention, cerberus project being behind the designs (the early ones at least), and their history with figure kits [12] does anyone have any sources on this? luts vs other resellers wtf is going on there?
• unoa/araki and the history with volks and figure kits [13]
• dollshe 2003 (tall, slim, double jointed boy dolls)[14]

• companies that predate february 2005 [15]
• angelregion
• customhouse (old company)
• dream of doll (first with anything? large/popular company, maybe deserves a mention because of that)
• souldoll
• bluefairy predates 2005 [16]
• Dollstown
• Elysium
• K-doll
• Narin
• Real Missing Link RML
• Serendipity
• Peakswoods
• dollzone deserves a mention as the first(?) chinese company, their history with piratical super dollfie and then switching over to doing their own original sculpts [17] timeline info should be available on doa
• the minimee dolls and celebrity headmolds
• bambicrony april 2006 [18]
• lati 2005 (very tiny tinies) [19]
• elfdoll catsy, before pipos?
• pipos (first anthro dolls??)

- Culture/fandom/etc?

• the fandom. Something was in an earlier version of this article but was deleted, maybe follow up on that, but more needs to be added.
• doll collecting vs ... personalized? bjd dolls
• forums/meetups/cons
• vampire/elf dolls and the vamp/elf fandoms/subcultures, which was the first vamp/elf dolls?
• yaoi fandom connections~
• cosplay
• something about the relation to fashion dolls.. or not?
• copyright lawsuits and such, foreverdoll and lolidoll, any documented cases?
• a few of the culture mentions in the super dollfie article could apply here. more like that but for bjd in general would be great.

- Pictures

• yes, we really really need pictures. at this point ANY non-super dollfie bjd pictures. fish out that deleted picture from the archive. If we have nothing else even an unflattering picture will do.
• good pictures might be: examples from whichever companies end up included in the article, examples of "first" when it comes to features/sizes per above, maybe comparison pictures between diff bjd sizes, as well as bjd compared to fashion doll

- Skip y/n?

• Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
• add Sybarite (fashion doll) and Asian fashion dolls to see also?

Starting on some structure per above Siawase (talk) 16:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Siawase (talk) 10:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Rescued from old versions

Hiding as it's been mostly absorbed into the July 7th expansion, preserving for reference

"Many owners assign their dolls to a certain personalized character, and they are sometimes used as subjects of artistic works, such as photography. Photo stories are popular on doll web forums."

67.180.204.240 update from 16 January 2008 removed the above stating "almost all of the article was copied from another site previously", but it seems that site is owned by the same person who added it to wikipedia originally (Arkady Rose update from 11 April 2006), so there should be no copyright conflict.

"Often, an owner will base a doll of an existing character in an original novel or webcomic."

File:BJD modified Cerberus Project Sleeping Vampire head with normal Cerberus Project boy body.jpg

A modified Cerberus Project Sleeping Vampire head on a normal Cerberus Project boy body. The eyes have been opened. Note the blushing on the feet.

Siawase (talk) 13:38, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Siawase (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

July 7th overhaul and expansion

I've overhauled pretty much the entire article, rearranged and restructured a lot of it, as well as greatly expanding it, per the above post.

• Expanded the history
• Added a general section on BJD
• Added a section on BJD culture
• Expanded on the size section and added examples with links
• Added a related dolls section, and incorporated the "Vinyl vs. Resin" info there instead, also fished out paper moon info from the history and added this here
• Found and used some sources, but there is a lot left to do on that front

I've attempted to keep all the information that was contained in the previous version of the article [20], the only thing I know I outright deleted were the "see also" links to Uncanny Valley and Dollfie.

To work on this article, I created a WIP copy on my userpage User:Siawase/BJD WIP which contains some addition info which I did not include in the version I posted here. Siawase (talk) 15:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Random unsorted, possibly useful sources

I've been gathering these on my userpage as I've worked on the article.

http://www.japattack.com/main/node/140

http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/plastic-fantastic-japans-doll-industry-booming

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31916 11-07-2005 first DZ mention

ShojoBeat June 2007 issue http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134326&highlight=shojo+beat

Haute Doll http://www.barbiebazaar.com/ January 2005, May/June 2005 [21] October 2005 [22]

Unoa Freak book

BJD Orbyrarium http://www.amazon.com/BJD-Orbyrarium-Aimee-Steinberger-Peterson/dp/B0014TWWMA/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215424219&sr=8-1 http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209438&highlight=book http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119352&highlight=book " Liebchen, a large number of Hypermaniac dolls, some Custom House dolls, Dollshes, Unoas, DoDs, CPs, Souldolls, Elfdolls, and a Kawainino as well as Volks dolls. There's also a picture of a doll from each company listed in the A-Z guide." "Dollshe, AnuStyle interview and accompanying photographs"

Mo Hitori No Watashi (Another Yourself book!) http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70311&highlight=book

Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures In Japan http://www.amazon.com/Japan-Ai-Tall-Girls-Adventures/dp/1933617837/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215424244&sr=8-1

FDQ http://fashiondollquarterly.com/

Dolly Dolly

Dollybird http://www.hobbyjapan.co.jp/dollybird/

[Sep/2005 - FDQ International] The Volk's Store Arrives! - [PDF file] http://fashiondollquarterly.com/files/volksla.pdf

Korean book: http://www.bookers.co.kr/Product/ComicsDetail.libro?goods_id=0060000834968 http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22155&highlight=book

http://www.tonnerdoll.com/2008TonnerSite/2008June.htm

http://www.dollicieux.com/vol1iss6/series.html

Siawase (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: "For many years the Super Dollfie were not very popular"

from the edit summary: "Saying that Super Dollfies are not popular,...um, WHAT? If they aren't popular, then why are they still commanding high prices?"

The full sentence from the article before editing read: "For many years the Super Dollfie were not very popular, but from 2003 onwards the Asian BJD market seemingly exploded with a multitude of companies based in South Korea, and a couple of years later beginning with Dollzone in 2006, several Chinese companies."

I was saying that they were not very popular, untill approx 2002-2003, but that after that the market exploded, but my wording obviously wasn't very clear. Also, I thought I had a decent source, but the best I can find now is [23] "It was a fact that the idea of Super Dollfie was not fully understood by the doll fans, but it was also true that Super Dollfie was beginning to engage some people’s hearts and minds. They just did not understand what to do. All of VOLKS staff, including Mr. and Mrs. Shigeta, felt sad to see the customers in such bewilderment." I thought it was kind of established that it took several years for SD to catch on, and a lot of it was due to the community (ie, customizers and owners improving on the body and doing faceups vastly beyond volks initial very basic ones, etc), and also volks releasing boy dolls and other types which expanded the market.Siawase (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Dollzone history

from what I could find on doa dollzone started getting international resellers in 2006. [24]. In addition, it's possible that dollzone was selling original sculpts back in 2005, but the doa threads are not 100% clear, and all the links are to now expired ebay auctions. I *think* they were selling original sculpts in very early 2006, but again, the doa threads are not 100% clear Siawase (talk) 09:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Why does the article neglect to mention that Dollzone WAS the chinese company creating knockoffs? They make original sculpts now, but they didn't always.

67.182.252.226 (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Dollzone wasn't the Chinese company creating knockoffs. There have been several Chinense companies over the years doing unlicensed recasts. This sentence: "The earliest Chinese-made BJDs were knockoffs, direct recasts or only slight modifications of Super Dollfie or original Korean BJDs. Made of plaster, low quality resin or polystone (a mix of resin and a filler material, like sand) they were very cheap but not very durable." refers not to dollzone, but other chinese companies from several years earlier. Dollzone's history of being accused of re-casting is not mentioned because I was unable to find a reliable source that is compliant with the policy Wikipedia:Reliable sources that confirms it. Since it's legally contentious to accuse a company of copyright infringement it would be against wikipedia policy to include it in the article based on forum posts. From what I could glean from doa, no one ever publicly sued dollzone, but volks and the people behind the delf line might have put pressure, legal or otherwise, on dollzone. But again, from what I could find, they never publicly mentioned the dollzone name specifically. It seems to have been mostly market and community pressure that made them stop selling the disputed sculpts. tl;dr: gotta have WP:Reliable sources to add it to the article. Siawase (talk) 08:45, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

This article is poorly organized.

My biggest complaints:

1. The introduction is much too wordy.
2. The article has poor organization; things such as the list of doll companies and their lines need to be moved to their own pages.
3. Several paragraphs are rather jarring, an feature juxtapose ideas. (an extension of my above point, I know)
4. The text-to-image ratio seems off.

I do believe this article deserves an overhaul. Anyone up for the task? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.119.162 (talk) 08:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see someone else take such an interest in this article. I've pretty much overhauled it by myself. This [25] is the state it was in back in June before I began working on it. To respond to your specific complaints (I numbered your list for clearer referencing, I hope you don't mind):

1. There is actually a policy, WP:LEAD, regarding how the introduction section should be constructed, and I think the lead on this article conforms fairly well.
2. Glad you noticed :) I just re-organized to give the lines and companies room to grow, and if possible get their own articles. This is how it was structured two days ago: [26]. Wikipedia has policies about which subjects get separate articles, in this case WP:Notability and WP:Notability (toys and games) would apply, so it's likely some lines/companies will never get their own article. Which lines should be covered in this article and how lenghty is also subject to policy, in this case WP:Undue weight.
3. I'm not sure which paragraphs you mean, could you be more specific? You can also just jump in and edit the article the way you'd like it, be WP:BOLD!
4. Indeed, this article would be much improved by more images, but, of course, there is an WP:Image use policy. (which sadly I'm not well versed in. Due to copyright concerns it's rather complicated.) There are two more images at Super Dollfie, but I thought it'd be boring to have the same images repeated here.

Sorry to spring so much policy on you right off the bat, but I wanted to explain some of the framework we're working within on wikipedia. I hope you're not discouraged. If you decide to get editing further, you might want to create an account. I left a welcome note with more details on your talk page. Siawase (talk) 11:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I've come over to see what I can do to help with this article!

1. I'm not 100% on Wikipedia's photograph policy, but as an owner of several BJDs, if I was to take a comparison photograph of my own personal dolls and put it up, would that be in violation of a policy? It would at least provide a comparison of several different types of BJD from different companies, which I think this article is lacking.
2. I think the section on the culture of BJD needs a bit of work, it might be more useful to seperate the animes/mangas, bands and films featuring BJDs from the general culture of ownership? I'll try and get more information and linkage about this from people who know something about it.
3. The Lines and Companies section needs to decide whether it is lines or companies at this point. It's getting confusing and I believe it would be more helpful to list the companies by country, and then discuss the lines produced by those companies? Deccaboo (talk) 20:42, 27 November 2008 (GMT)

Welcome Deccaboo!

1. I'm not very familiar with the image policy. As far as I know, one of the problems with images of contemporary dolls is that they inherit the copyright/trade mark of the doll itself, so any images, even if you take them youself, would only be usable under fair use, see the policy Wikipedia:Non-free content, which is fairly strict.

2. Yes, that section is definitely in need of more WP:Reliable sources. The only properly reliable secondary source used at the moment is the June 2007 issue of ShojoBeat. As for changing it, just be WP:BOLD!

3. I think first making a section with companies and then another section with lines would be more confusing. But it might be less confusing if we rename the section to "Lines" and simply mention the company/ies behind each line in the text. Siawase (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Siawase!

1. I will see what I can do with my own dolls as far as examples of dolls from different companies goes, because that would be fair use and we wouldn't have to worry copyright issues. In the meantime, I'll try and get in contact with some people who can do similar company comparison shots.
2. :D
3. I meant have a list of companies, and under that company's heading outline their best-selling and most popular lines. The problem with simply listing lines is the Luts/Cerberus Project problem. The 'Delf' line of dolls (Shiwoo/Chiwoo/Soo/El/Woosoo/Lishe...) were designed by Cerberus Project and the copyright for the facial sculpts belongs to CP, whilst the right to use the name 'Delf' was ceded to Luts, and CP are now the design team for the Korea-based company Fairyland. If we were to list companies and then their lines, the list could work like this example;

"Luts - based in Korea, Luts originally produced and distributed the popular Delf line of BJDs, but have expanded to produce 70cm Super-Senior Delf, 60cm Senior Delf (Delf dolls with more mature proportions), 45cm Kid Delf, 26cm Cutie Delf and Honey Delf, and the 14.5cm humanoid, cat-like Zuzu Delf.

Fairyland/Cerberus Project - Fairyland is the Korean producer and distributor of 60cm Feeple, 45cm Minifee, 26cm Littlefee and 10cm PukiPuki dolls. Fairyland is the sales arm of the Japanese design team Cerberus Project, who previously designed the older Delf dolls produced by Luts.

Volks - The earliest producer of modern Asian ball-jointed dolls, Volks has the 60cm Super Dollfie, 45cm Mini Super Dollfie and Super Dollfie Cute and 30cm Yo-Super Dollfie lines (could refer the reader to the Super Dollfie specific page for more information at this point, since we're just giving an overview)"

What do you think? Would that be clearer? Deccaboo (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2008 (GMT)

1. Yeah, that sounds great! (and just to clarify, while respecting the doll owners wishes is an important part of etiquette in the doll community, as far as wikipedia is concerned it only matters who took the picture and who owns the rights to the doll's design.)

3. I think it's clearer to emphasize the names which are more well known, particularly if some lines grow to get their own articles, per WP:Naming conventions, the article name should be "the most easily recognized name". Some doll lines are more commonly referred to by the name of the company or distributor, some by the name of the line itself, and I think the article and any potential spinoffs should reflect that. The situation with the CP dolls is quite unique due to their complicated history, and I don't think there's a reason to restructure all doll lines accordingly. However, it does seem a good idea to structure the CP dolls' entries the way you just did.

4. (I guess I'll add a new number for a new note ^^) Try to avoid peacock terms. Just saying a line is "popular" is not very meaningful, instead explain in detail how the line is important. The Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms guideline is pretty great at explaining this.

5. (and this is definitely not just aimed at you Deccaboo!) I already see a great risk of the article becoming heavy on product detail. Among other things, Wikipedia is not a catalog. The entry for each line or company should not predominantly be details about which exact sizes they have or their names, but rather:

• what makes this line notable
• in other words: why was this particular line chosen to be included in the article, from the 100+ lines out there?

I tried to include some crude examples in the lines I added, but I realize a lot of work remains to be done here, in particular WP:Reliable sources to WP:VERIFY the information and notability. But for example, and depending on what can be sourced: is it one of the oldest, most established lines? or were the dolls featured in some notable context? (like the customhouse dolls in the dollmaster movie). or even: did they introduce some new features or innovations? The company history might in some cases also be of interest, but does not in itself (ie "this company was started in 2005") convey any notability.

I very much welcome any and all feedback on the above. It would be great if we could get some WP:Consensus on how to decide which lines/companies to include.

And again, I hope my spouting of policy is not discouraging anyone. I just find that policy often has helpful advice how to improve articles. If you have something you want to add to improve the article, just ignore me, WP:Ignore all rules and go for it! Siawase (talk) 15:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The Delf line

moved this comment from the article:
The Delf line is NOT OWNED by Fairyland, despite people often referring to them as CP Delfs. Luts is the company that owns the legal rights to the Delf line, and anything affiliated (Kid Delf, Honey Delf, ect...). The picture shown to the right is technically a LUTS vampire head on a LUTS Delf boy body, NOT CP.
where it was posted by 68.37.147.135

The specifics of this line is obviously complicated. The article doesn't actually mention which entitity own the rights to what, but only that CP designed the dolls and that Luts and Fairyland makes/distributes them. Do you have any WP:Reliable sources so we can verify and sort out the specifics of the situation? Siawase (talk) 18:19, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Images and wikipedia policy

Alright, I did some hunting around and I think I found all the relevant policy with regard to uploading and adding more BJD images to this article.

First of all: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Derivative_works - which basically clarifies that legally toys should be handled as copyright protected artwork, and any images of them would be derivative work, and as such only usable on wikipedia under fair use.

I also found a reply to a specific question about doll images here [27]

If anyone has further questions about that, Wikipedia:Media copyright questions would be the place to ask.

From Wikipedia:Non-free content - what, as far as I can tell, would apply here:

Acceptable use
Images
7. Paintings and other works of visual art: For critical commentary, including images illustrative of a particular technique or school.

And since this is a general article about BJDs, I'm also pretty sure this section would apply:

Wikipedia:Non-free content#Non-free image use in list articles

Particularly:

1. Images that show multiple elements of the list at the same time, such as a cast shot or montage for a television show, are strongly preferred over individual images.

2. Images which are discussed in detail in the context of the article body, such as a discussion of the art style, or a contentious element of the work, are preferable to those that simply provide visual identification of the elements.

3. An image that provides a representative visual reference for other elements in the article, such as what an alien race may look like on a science-fiction television show, is preferred over providing a picture of each element discussed.

To summarize

As far as I can tell, a few images that clearly illustrates the unique features of BJDs as discussed in the article would be fine to include, particularly comparison shots which include several dolls.

When uploading the images you need to add a Non-free template, this should be appropriate: Template:Non-free 3D art, and a non-free use rationale, this template: Template:Non-free use rationale should work. There's a guideline here: Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline

Anyway, that's as far as I could figure it out. I hope that helps a little. Siawase (talk) 11:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

When external sites were last updated

One editor has been adding the date when the sites in external links were last updated. There is no reason for this. Nothing in WP:External links policy encourages this. The information the sites have is still valid even if they don't have the latest news. If you have some better sites to suggest that are compliant with the external links policy, then by all means suggest them, or if you want to remove the links completely, please elaborate on why. But to attempt to discourage people from visiting the sites by labelling them "outdated" is just pointless. Siawase (talk) 13:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Reference format

Almost none of the references are in a good format. Most are just links. I understand the reference policy is to use what most of the references in the article use, so I am not going to change them all unless some other people agree with me. Zell Faze (talk) 21:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It would be great if you formatted the references properly. I wrote a lot of this article when I was new to Wikipedia, and not very familiar with the references formatting. That's really the only reason so many of the refs are just links. Siawase (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Photos in this article

A user recently removed the photo of a Delf/Luts (File:BJD modified Cerberus Project Sleeping Vampire head with normal Cerberus Project boy body.jpg) from the article. This is in response to the comments they left in the edit summaries.[28][29] The quality and clarity of the image are perfectly adequate by Wikipedia standards. That the doll has been modified is just fine. The article discusses doll modification so to include an image of a modified doll is appropriate. Basically, that you don't like it is not a very good argument for deleting the image. I do believe that Delf/Luts is a very good candidate for having an image included in this article. They are one of the best known Korean BJD brands, and I do believe that at least one image of a Korean doll should be included. If another equally informative image of a Korean doll from one of the largest brands/companies (basically the ones mentioned in the article) was uploaded it would be fine to replace it. The Unoa image is already a good representation of a face closeup, so an additional image is more informative if it's a full body image (like the current image is.)

I think one of the biggest hurdles to getting BJD owners to contribute images to this article is that for an image to be used on Wikipedia it has to be released under a free license. This means that anyone can use the image for any reason, including for profit, as long as they clearly give the photographer credit. Not many BJD owners are willing to give up their rights to a photo in this way. The user who took the current image was kind enough to release it under a free license, which is why this image is included here instead of another.

If you have an image you have taken yourself of a Delf/Luts doll (or another major Korean brand) and are willing to release it under a free license to include it here, it would be very much appreciated. I would be happy to help with the proper licensing etc. One of the easiest ways is to upload the image to flickr under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license and then mirror it here on Wikipedia, in the same way as was done with File:Unoabjd.jpg. Just let me know if you need any further assistance. Siawase (talk) 11:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not just the quality that I mentioned, but the fact that the doll does not represent Luts dolls. It's modified for a start so isn't what Luts produced. It's a male head on a female body and the head is normal skin while the body is white skin. It just misrepresents what Luts dolls are and the quality. You say modified pictures are fine but then go on to say Luts need a photo of their dolls. A modified doll does not represent their line of dolls. I'm not trying to be rude to the person who took the photo and was kind enough to offer it up for free use but it really is a misrepresentation. If it's going to stay that's perfectly fine (I honestly didn't think the photo met standards but I'm not as knowledgeable with Wiki as you). I have asked my friend who has a Luts doll if she would upload a photo but she's not sure how to go about it. She said she'd look into it as she has a few photos but she doesn't want to give them all up for anyone to use. 77.96.95.141 (talk) 04:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds great about your friend. If she has a flickr account she can set just one of the images to a free license, she certainly does not need to give up the rights to all of them! I'd be happy to help with the details how to go about it. Cheers, Siawase (talk) 11:58, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Knockoff/pirate dolls

I've edited for accuracy the claim that knockoff dolls are not accpetted in the bjd community. While several large English-speaking forums ban them and there are some very vocal critics of knockoffs, there is much wider acceptance in non-English speaking forums and on Flickr, and I am aware of more than one sizeable non-English forum that is dedicated to *entirely* to pirate dolls. Not interested in taking sides the whole "Are knockoffs acceptable?" debate, just in accuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.12.176.25 (talk) 11:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. I edited out the specifics. Since this is unsourced and potentially controversial it doesn't sit right with me to point out any particular communities that might be accepting of knockoffs. Siawase (talk) 18:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Monster High

Monster High dolls are currently popular with BJD enthusiasts who cannot afford the high quality ones or by people who want to practice customizing without ruining a $300+ doll. Can this be included? Ambiesushi (talk) 05:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source, like a newspaper or a magazine. The longstanding overlap with Blythe and Pullip is probably more notable though (but I don't know of any sources that go into that either.) Siawase (talk) 12:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't have any academic source confirming, I've just asked Youtubers who customize MH dolls why they do it. They're easier to access than Blythe or Pulip. They aren't as nice as most BJD because the joints are plastic on plastic. They don't move as smoothly. Ambiesushi (talk) 18:07, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand that my previous comment sounds very childish I was just writing like I speak >< Ambiesushi (talk) 18:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries, it's fine to speak colloquially on talk pages. :) Unfortunately talking to people on youtube would be original research. I did notice though, that people customizing the dolls isn't mentioned at all in the Monster High article. Maybe it would be more appropriate to include a mention of the customization enthusiasts there. Siawase (talk) 18:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)