[Note: I posted this here because it doesn't really feel like a front page post to me. Plus I didn't want to clog up all the news with it.]

At any given time, there are about 10 different ideas running around in my head for Tomopop. Big ones, little ones, short-term, long-term and pretty much everything in between. I like to think of ways we can make the site better, more accessible to collectors of all levels and types and a little more fun.

But I don't always like to sit up in my hypothetical ivory tower and make decrees. Never really been my style. I always like to get feedback before I jump into something new because it often catches mistakes or brings up new ideas and issues I hadn't thought of. And today, I thought I'd share a few ideas I've had with you guys, just to gauge what you think of them because you ultimately help us figure out things, too.

So here's three smaller ideas rustling around in my head that I thought I'd share with you. Some of these may change, and some may just never happen if it's determined things aren't practical enough, or there's logistics issues. But they're ideas I've been thinking about that would be rather easy to implement once everything

1.) The return of Tomopop After Dark ... kind of.

Most old Tomopeeps probably remember Tomopop After Dark as the time of night when all the NSFW stuff came out to play on Tomopop and things could get awfully ridiculous. Eventually, due to some changes to rules and us realizing that our late night posts were still showing up in the morning hours, NSFW stuff got scaled back dramatically.

With the new NSFW filter, we're no longer bound to the late night hours for posting NSFW content that falls within our parameters. As such, Tomopop After Dark really doesn't seem to have a
purpose anymore, but I've been considering repurposing and renaming it for maybe a few posts per week. Instead of focusing on just NSFW stuff, it might focus more on odd stuff or things that have fallen through the cracks at Tomopop that we just think are cool, along with pre-order posts as they pop up.

Some of the names I've been considering were Midnight Run (in homage to the old Toonami block that ran late at night as a pre-cursor to Adult Swim that was F***ING AWESOME) or Midnight Channel (in homage to Persona 4 because ... well, Tomopop's editor-in-chiefs have always seemed to love Persona. Guess it comes with the territory) because I couldn't think of anything original. I'm not sure if there's a demand for this sort of stuff, though, which is why I thought I'd mention it to see if there was any interest in the community.

2.) A new podcast

This is an idea that's been brought up before, both by myself and by others, as perhaps something of interest. It's ranged from a shorter, more frequent podcast that would be more centered on general news about toys, interviews, etc. as a supplement to a more casual Tomocast; to a podcast that focuses on a certain, specific area of the toy market (vinyl and PVC are the ones which would be most considered); to a podcast involving members of the Tomopop community that would likely be monthly (recording whenever we could get everyone together) and themed to focus on the particular interests and knowledge strengths of our community.

The problem I've run into is the logistics of this and how to set up something that won't dillute Tomocast as our flagship podcast. I'm also not sure if there would be a demand for a second podcast from the community, as it seems most folks are pretty content with just having Tomocast around.

3.) Event coverage labeling via captions

With big events like WonFes, it can be hard to sort through galleries sometimes and figure out what's what, since often times, photos in big galleries aren't labeled. That often means if you don't read Japanese or know the character, you don't know what's what. Which is where labeling photos via captions for clarity might come in.

We have the capacity to do it; the problem has been a.) we do forget about it a lot and b.) it's incredibly time-consuming because each photo has to be done individually. We could do it before a post goes live (though at the cost of possibly delaying the post a bit) or after the post goes live and we're not running around trying to post everything (at the cost of not having the captions right away). I've tried it a few times and no one seemed to notice on some of my past event coverage posts, but other people I've talked to said they would find it helpful. But I don't think we've ever really asked you about it as a community until now.

In today's Nendoroid WonFes post, I tried perhaps what could be seen as a quick compromise, listing all of the Nendoroids with what info we had at the time and linking to their pictures in our gallery for quick reference. If you're interested in seeing captions on gallery photos, let me know below as well as what type you prefer.

Thanks as always for reading, and know we're always working to build you a better Tomo :)