*taps mic* *clears throat* Hi, hello!
We've been somewhat quiet in the last few months, but that's not to say things are not happening as we speak! There's lots of site activity and Staff discussion to bring up and, well, discuss with all of you.
For starters, I'd like to follow through an event that happened in 2024 that has been a slight to us as Staff: the
first ever unpublication of a movie done by Staff. Read the post by dwango for further details on this unprecedented decision.
Since this event happened, there's been a lot of discussion across Staff on how to address events like this: what do we do when a movie submission or publication needs to be pulled, and more importantly how? The unpublication of HK97 is not only unprecedented, but it was a major mistake on our part as Staff, a failure that we do not want to just sweep under the rug. As Staff, we owe our community transparency and communication. Publishing that movie was a mistake we're intent on not repeating, but we cannot guarantee we won't make mistakes in the submission and publication process. As such, the best we can do is to formalize this process so any such issue is open.
Science publication processes have retractions: flagging of any submitted work as flawed to such an extent that it cannot be trusted. We intend to adopt a similar process. A Publication can be retracted if it is found to violate Site Rules, Terms of Service or contains some otherwise major issue that means it should have not passed the submission process to begin with. A retracted movie will have its publication pulled, and its Submission retroactively rejected, with an explanation on why the movie was pulled. Please note that movies can only be Retracted if the issue with them cannot be handled with the currently in place obsoletion chains: any movie that is obsoleted is still valuable to the site.
We're working on the details of this policy, but for now, we encourage everyone to speak up, via the submission threads or contacting Staff, when you think a movie that has been published should not be. Expect a formal change to Site rules in the coming weeks.
Speaking of communication, we also have been looking at ways to help TAS work reach more people! Showcases and events are already big ways, but we've been wondering what more we can do as a site to bring more people to this world.
This thread by Memory is a place to brainstorm suggestions and discuss goals for this. What would you like to see? Articles? Podcasts?
EDM Concept Albums? Let us know! Heck, go and make some of it yourself! Any outreach that brings people in is helpful.
Well, that's all I have to discuss at the moment. Thanks for reading this! I've stayed mostly low profile since I became Senior Judge, but I want to improve that and let you all know what we're aiming for and what we want to do. Thanks for making this site better, everyone. 💙