115 replies to this topic

[EtherSword]

Ok, its the year 2015 and after doing a lot of lurking around.  I noticed a few issues.  (Sorry if this topic is in the wrong place.)

 

There is so many topics that haven't been touched in years that are pinned (maybe you guys could use an archive forum).  A lot of mods on the forum haven't visited the site at least 5 years or more.  I'm assuming those people grew out of liking Idols or something happened to them (which is fine but abandoning your duty without any memo isn't since no one was there to replace you).  We very rarely get any subbed dvd/tv content anymore for H!P content.  I see plenty of PV uploaded though, but H!P subs their music now so there is less of a reason to pirate their music unless for a more clean translation.  The search feature for the torrents could be much better.  Anyways, there are more issues I would like to mention but this is more me ranting to begin with and looking for an understanding.

 

My point is, what is going on?  Any active mods or admins can give us a heads up why there is a growing number of inconsistencies?  Feels like the only time I see a mod post is when they are laying the hammer down and not actually being a part of the community in the H!P fanbase (as far as I know).  But anyways, will there be any improvements to this site or should I just accept that this only a site for talking about H!P and torrenting old H!P content due to the dying fandom that the vets use to have here?

 

And what could us normal members do to help these multiple issues or help make this site cleaner?  Well, I guess we could learn Japanese but I personally don't have any good sources or time for that.

 

One last thing, not sure if I'm sounding too entitled since I haven't done anything for this site other than help seed but feels a bit unfair these days.  Feels like this site is more about AKB and other idol groups than about H!P due to more resources being poured in the former.  The raw content is provided for H!O but none of its being subbed, I think the sleep prank was one of the last major things subbed lol ( which is super great but why was that subbed this time around?).  It would be great if the Alo Hello 5, 6 and hopefully 7 get subbed.

 

Anyone have opinions on this? 

[rinafest'19]

I've only been on this forum for 3 years and I think the general change went from this being a community of idol fans to becoming a community where you talk about idols. 

I have a few friends who used H!O back in the day when they described it as "chill". Back in the mid-late 00's this was probably the only place to discuss all sorts of topics, now we have things like Tumblr for anything else.

The same thing kind of happened to the tumblr fandom in 2012 I felt like it was a collective thing, Idk maybe it still is but my blog style has changed so I'm not really involved in it.

But year overtime these things change, maybe hello! online will become a better place for discussion in the future.

I still think all the AKB stuff in the forum doesn't really make sense as is pretty unnecessary. 

[usagi_no_kami]

I've been here since 2006 when the forum was a lot livelier and the Senpai were still around helping the noobs like me.... most of the time ().

But that was back when MM had Haromoni and were appearing on other shows, shows and appearances were being discussed and translated with much more frequency as there were more than a couple subbing teams at work.

Then AKB kinda blew up while MM was on the decline with the end of H!M. The Senpai got more interested in AKB and even K-pop, especially SNSD who were getting big. You could see a lot Senpai names in those threads. With those groups blowing up and MM starting a decline, you couldn't really blame them going to where the action seemed to be.

Some even just left for other forums where they wouldn't get banned for some behavior they exhibited here.

Not to mention there was a lot of hate going around with the additions of Koharu, Aika, and even some who weren't too fond of the Pandas joining at first. There was a bit of a sour tone in the general atmosphere of the forum then.... not like it was in the past, and it was noticeable and might've contributed to some people leaving.

 

With MM blowing up now and getting more popular, the problem is that most of the subbing teams that were working on stuff back in the day, have moved on to other groups like AKB or are into K-pop or just plain broke up and don't sub anymore. Most of the stuff you find translated now come from the good folks at Blog!Project, Invisibleguy, and the Youtube channel here and there like Mejrathea's. Not to mention you'll find some stuff on Tumblr too, you've just got to search for it.

But it's not like it was back in the day, things change, the fandom isn't like it was back then.

But who knows, with H!P seemingly having new life in it with all the new girls being added to the line-ups and management looking like they've gotten a clue, maybe thing will change for the better and the fandom will grow and be a bit more like the "olden days".

[zam（仮）]

I'm still here *points at post count*

Can't comment on the tracker coz I don't use it

The lack of subbing teams for video content didn't bother me that much.
I think why there are fewer video content being subbed is becoz of the blog boom.
I realise ppl are translating blogs more than video contents nowadays.
Back then we didn't have H!P blogs.
So our only source of content are the TV shows and DVD magazines.

You will only notice the AKB content if you visit that part of the forum.
Don't like AKB then don't go there
I don't go there unless there is a need to discuss something.
Same goes for the Other Idols thread.
But I like it this way.
All idols under "one roof" so to speak.
Currently I have H!P, UPUPGIRLS（仮）, YuiKaori, StylipS, Idol Street - just to name a few of my main interests, all in one place.
Very convenient for me.
I don't like following multiple forums

I don't even come to this part of the forum much
I accidently saw this thread title

As for the mods, I noticed that when one becomes a mod they stop taking part in the forum
They become invisible
I don't know why, never bothered to ask them.

Some very old timers like Mr.H are still around but just lurking nowadays.
They do post sometimes but very rare.

@usagi_no_kami
Looks like you will join my "5-digit post count" club soon

[usagi_no_kami]

^ !!

If I weren't forced to take 2 years off, I'd already be there!

 

But yeah, you make a good point. If you don't like AKB other Idol groups, you don't really need to see any of their content as they've got their own forums, and their stuff on the tracker can be easily filtered out.

[Krusha]

I joined this site in 2004, although - this version of Hello!Online is certainly not the first version - as you can see below:

 

So, you can see that Hello!Online has been around both in name and concept before this site that we're on now. We go back to the beginning of the millennium.

The main focus was Hello!Project (due to the virtue of practically being the only popular idol group around back then), but we allowed Japanese, Korean, and Chinese entertainment back in the days (no anime, no pornography). So the fact is that we've not become more liberal in terms of what we allow here, we've become more conservative. We only allow female Japanese idols. Like has been said, if you don't like a section of the site, then you don't need to visit it, and that's very simple and straightforward I think. Also I'm very happy that we have such a diverse contribution of different idols here, both on the tracker and the forum, and this is something that many appreciates.

Also, as you can see, we've been around for a while, and so have I. What I can tell from direct observation, is that there are "waves" in terms of time periods and people. This means things go up and down in terms of activity and who are active (we've had great periods, good periods, terrible periods, OK periods, etc.). I know from the beginning the active crowd back then certainly wasn't the active crowd of today. And I don't think many people can recall who were active back then either. This is more than 10 years ago...

So, people move on. Some stay of course. But priorities changes. Interests changes. I know that many of the people who were part of the H!P "scene" so to speak back in the days moved on because: a.) They stopped enjoying H!P, and found other idols they liked instead, b.) They stopped enjoying H!P, and quit idols altogether, c.) They may still appreciate H!P, but moved on, to other things...

And so if you are a subber, it's hard to sub what you don't care about because it takes a lot of work, especially if you consider translation, editing, timing, encoding, uploading, etc.

With regards to the OP, the moderators don't really have an obligation to inform the community of their departure. It's mostly the administrative team that could be informed, as it's easier to create a transition then, with new additions of moderators. I do like to think though that an invisible moderator is preferrable to a moderator that is in every thread waving his or her arms around... Sort of like how if you watch a football match and you can't recall having seen the referee, then that's usually a good sign.

Now, what can you normal members do to help? Well, you are everything, because without content, what is a site?

So, we have a frontpage for both H!P and the 48G's - and you members can add new things to this frontpage. We have a picboard. We have a tracker. We have blogs. We have a forum. Safe to say, any activity on this site is due to the members of this site.

What can be done to generate better discussions? Or more active discussions? There are probably many things, but I think each and every one of us should try not to be so argumentative with one another, and we can also try to actually discuss things, instead of talking past our heads. But this is just one of many things. We can all contribute in a positive manner, that I'm sure of.

[mach1neshop]

I'm not sure I'd count myself as a vet, joined in '09 but I did read the boards as an anon lurker for maybe a year or two beforehand. I'd say the boards were much livelier then, but I'd temper that against (apologies if incorrect, I'm just writing out of recollection and everyone knows how (in)accurate that can be at times) maybe saying that there were fewer hubs of active conversation/posting.

 

Personally, I'd say that the board discussions have somewhat gone a bit more superficial and, as Krusha points out, a bit more argumentative over trivialities. Changing of the times definitely shows because while there were arguments before, I'd say we've definitely become more PC/touchy about things nowadays. I wouldn't go so far to say that meaningful discussion has died, it's just that it's not as commonplace, or it takes place over smaller things of note, in typical posts nowadays - personal opinion anyway, flame away if you disagree. Besides, people move on, interests change, or circumstances dictate people's activity levels. But hey, come another few years, if you're still here, you'd be the vets then, right?

[fr0d0b0ls0n]

More a lurker than a poster, but I'm still here. What I miss more are the video translations. There are plenty of text translations I'm really happy with, but doesn't feel the same.

[Corpenicus62]

I also wish there were more subbed videos.   Part of the problem, however, is that H!P has a pretty minimal presence on TV these days.   And when the groups do appear, they rarely do anything memorable, other than give live performances of recent singles, and that doesn't require subbing to enjoy.   It would be nice to see more DVDs subbed, but that's a lot of hard work, and many of them don't need subbing anyway, since they are "gravure" style releases.  

 

If Up-Front actually produced a great variety show for H!P, I'm sure someone here or elsewhere would sub it.     But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[EtherSword]

I've read every post there but I don't feel too happy about the reasons, not that can be helped anyways lol.  Thank you for posting too though Krusha, that was very informative.  I don't visit any AKB or anything else on these forums that isn't H!P, so I'm not sure what you guys are saying by telling me not to go there when I don't go there to begin with. 

 

Reading about what you guys are saying in terms of flames or arguments, could part of that reason be because of mixing all of the different idol fandom into one site?  (A small example would be the Smileage/Angerme topic, so much comparing with other idol groups to which I think is quite off topic, I'm reluctant to post there cause of that.)

 

@Roddy Reta, I've seen plenty of memorable content from H!P that could be subbed though.  This also kind of falls back to how people say these new girls (9gen and beyond) don't have personalities or they aren't interesting.  Well, I say one of the main reasons why we are getting those people and why those people are leaving this site is because we can't see their personalities in action since non of the content by H!P is hardly subbed (youtube was my source but now its google and trackers).  There is so many DVD Magazines out there and those aren't subbed anymore.  Twilight Paradise fansubbing site use to do those and they suddenly stopped and the site is down too now.  And only the first 3 Alo Hellos are subbed, I would think the later ones would be pretty memorable too.

 

Anyways though, I guess we can't force the fansubbers that do all that AKBingo stuff to do some H!P every once and again.  Just all of those DVD Magazines and some of the Alo Hellos, amongst other H!P content is right there to be translated to bring in more fandom and current fandom to grow to love our H!P idols more (and not leave), raws only get so far.  If only H!P would provide English subtitles, I would buy every single one of the DVD Mags for sure.

 

Lastly the only issues I really have right now with the site is the tracker,  Its very strange on how it works.  It doesn't keep your place and there isn't much options for when you are trying to look something up.  For a good example:  type in "alo hello 4 morning musume", nothing comes up as if it doesn't exist but if you type in "alo hello 4" the subbed version does come up which I find strange.  The other issue is, can the tracker become more H!P centric again?  There are plenty of forums out there if people just want to talk about H!P but this site in terms of the tracker, to what I would think is one of the major important things here, its very non H!P.   Is that just impossible to get back to making it more in the scales of H!P once again, its not like having AKB and other idol groups content being uploaded is bad, its just its only been that majority of the time.  One last thing, I think we could use some clean up around here with active staff and pinned topics that aren't touched anymore.  We don't need half of a page barely every talked about topics on the different forums on different groups that aren't active anymore lol.  It would be better to have forum for those non active pinned topics on a new forum, maybe titled along the lines with groups that are no longer active or on hiatus.  Am I making sense?  Would this help make the site a bit better?

 

Anyways, thank you everyone for posting, I felt like this is the sort of topic where people would avert their eyes from but I got more posts than I thought I would and even a site manager posted too.  But anyways, so far everything is ok at the moment, people are having fun talking about their favorite idols but I think this site is slowly losing its merits in terms of what issues I mentioned here on this topic because nothing is changing for the better, it's the just the H!P side is quite overshadowed these days.

[Krusha]

The following tab options exists for the tracker:

 

"Show All", "H!P", "AKB48", and "Others". Personally I always use "Show All" tab option, because I don't want to miss out on anything, but if you think there's too much of this or too much of that, then you click on "H!P"  only tab option.

 

The tracker is fine as it is.

[EtherSword]

Well, if you say so but I'm not the only person that complains about the tracker either.  I found what I looked for so that's what matters and there is still also google if I'm really desperate.

[mach1neshop]

I'm not sure that's something that the admins can control. If I understand the way the board mechanics work, the search algorithms are a function of the forum template that's used to power the GUIs we see and interact with. 'Course I could be talking out of my butt...

[zam（仮）]

I don't visit any AKB or anything else on these forums that isn't H!P, so I'm not sure what you guys are saying by telling me not to go there when I don't go there to begin with. 

Because you said this,

Feels like this site is more about AKB and other idol groups than about H!P due to more resources being poured in the former.

You didn't say specifically you were only refering to the tracker.
So I thought you were talking about the forum in general

Reading about what you guys are saying in terms of flames or arguments, could part of that reason be because of mixing all of the different idol fandom into one site?  (A small example would be the Smileage/Angerme topic, so much comparing with other idol groups to which I think is quite off topic, I'm reluctant to post there cause of that.)

Arguments don't actually go across idol groups.
There are no idol vs idol wars going on here that I know of
The flaming usually just happens within the H!P fandom

The example you sited about Smileage name change was a discussion about the possibility of legal issues the new name AngerMe might have with another group with a similar looking name, Ange☆Reve.
The following action H!P took, changing the logo to use the Katakana characters instead of the English letters as the primary lettering suggested it did.

[Berikyuu!]

I used to be VERY active around here when I first joined (2008), because before then, I didn't have any sort of outlet to discuss my love for H!P.
I discovered Hello!Project through a friend when I was 10 years old....elementary school. So naturally, due to paranoid parents and Internet child blocks, I wasn't really allowed to participate in any kind of forum or chat rooms at that age (aside from AIM, which was heavily supervised).

 

Once I was well into high school and was free from those limitations, I found H!O and used it constantly. So to finally "meet" people who were just as interested in H!P as I was, it was everything my little heart could ever want. I loved it here!

 

But like everyone has been saying so far, other forms of social media have emerged, such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, ect. So I've branched out by discussing H!P in those other places, and became a lurker here specifically for news and announcements. And even now with Hello!Station, UP-FRONT LINK, and Hello!Base, I don't even need H!O for news anymore. Now I just kind of....pop my head in here every now and then partly out of habit, and partly for nostalgia's sake. AND with H!P really branching out through worldwide concerts/events, the excitement of meeting like-minded people has dulled quite a bit online, because every couple of years or so, there's an overseas concert to go to, where we can all have fun in person.

And I agree, the other reason I don't post much here anymore is how quickly discussions sour nowadays over the most trivial things. And personally, I think that kind of tension happens because we're now at the point where there is a whole new "generation", of sorts, of overseas H!P fans. I was a little kid when I first found out about H!P, and now there are new little kids who are just discovering it now, or more commonly, during Platinum Era Momusu. So maybe what seems to be a huge deal to those guys, is super petty to older/seasoned fans. Hence the problems that surface.
But again, I could be wrong. Just an observation I've noticed over recent years.

[Santa-san]

Well I grew out of liking JPop for a long time because of..well it just got uninteresting. I watch the Tokyo Idol Festival each year, with the pathetic groups that can't sing or dance, and then suddenly something special happened called E-Girls! I was an instant superfan. Pro dancing and singing skills way above their competition. And the 9 minute PVs with something to watch for everyone...

 

Yurina best girl.

[sheikhyerbutay]

I discovered H!P on Youtube maybe 4 yrs ago.  I couldn't get enough of it!!!  I play-listed every subbed video I could find.   Then UFA started attacking the subbers for copyright infringement.  Cherished videos were deleted.  Youtube closed subbers accounts.  Banned many. 

 

I think that killed most subbers desire to share the love.  It's H!P's loss (and mine, too.)  UFA has their automated subs.  It's nice, but just not the same.  It does not translate as accurately as the subbers did then, or do now.

 

Along the way I searched for more subbed videos.  I became a member here for that reason.  I have to tell you I have never been able to watch a single video from the tracker.  I don't know why.  Over time I have changed out computer equipment as it wears out.  Still can't watch a tracker video.

H!P Fansubs via Sacred Cultivator tried to help me out.  I did everything he said to do.  Still I can't watch a tracked video.

Hello-Online says I have leeched X number of vids on my stats.  It's not true.  I have never seen a single one.  The equipment, and software, I have is what I have.  I don't try anymore.

 

Special thanks to Mejra Thea!  I love your subs Thea, please don't let the haters steal your joy.

[Krusha]

That you can't watch a single video you download has nothing to do with the tracker and everything to do with you.

 

If you run Windows, e.g., Windows 7 or something like this, on a standard and reasonably up-to-date PC, what you do is that you install standard MPC, MPC-HC, or MPC-BE. You can also install VLC player as an alternative. There's really no need for more media players than these when it comes to video. Then you play the file you downloaded. Mind you, you cannot play a .torrent file, if that's the case. You got to open the .torrent file with a BitTorrent client (e.g., utorrent), and let that program download the actual file. Then, when the file is downloaded in all its glory, you play it. It's that simple.

[Paramorning]

Spoiler

Also if your computer is old and slow like mine, you can get tTorrent (best one IMO) for android and watch stuff on tablets. I tried to watch Lilium on my 2010 netbook and the audio was 6 seconds behind the video. Which was hell.

[minaeshi]

I personally would just like to see Hello!Online more active again. I used to browse this site a lot since 2010, and only decided to make an account back in 2013 after finally having enough confidence to defend my opinion on things

Of course, as H!P's popularity started to die out, the forum's activity went down too. Now that H!P is finally back on its feet with a whole new generation, It would be great to see H!O getting more active again. This has always been my go-to site for H!P information (and 48G info until I found S48), so I'd like to see more translations etc but we have great sites like blog!project for that too. I think that this site is great as it is, all it needs is a bit more life! 

Although I do agree, we should have more mods here. It's kinda frustrating seeing threads that haven't been active for years still pinned at the top all the time, and its horrendous trying to navigate through the 48 groups threads