I have lost control.

I never wanted the boards to turn out this way. I just didn't know what to do. After the moderation team dissolved, I thought that if I just let discussion continue on its own, and let things operate mostly unfettered, and only stepped in to act on the most egregious situations, the site would stay mostly as it was. I never thought that the atmosphere would degrade to this extent. It's happened so slowly over the past two years, that I guess it was easy for me to rationalize that nothing had changed all that much.

But stepping back and looking at things now, I can't really say that Uboachan is still the dark-but-chill hangout that I had idealized. Threads about topics as innocuous as the weather are derailed into flame wars in short order, and attempts at moderation are met with harsh criticism, suggesting that in the absence of consistent vigilance, this sort of perpetually destructive atmosphere has become the expected norm. Conversation has turned sour. This is not an isolated incident, but something that is happening to threads all over the site. The low-key rage that rests in the background of most imageboards has risen to a fever-pitch, making calm and enjoyable discussion all but impossible. I don't think it's something I can fix just by banning a few users, and I don't think that the current rules would clearly justify doing so anyway.

I didn't want Uboachan to become a place where people actually enjoy being hateful. The hate and anger were supposed to be all tongue-in-cheek, just part of the joke, the colors of Uboachan's unique, dark sense of humor. I feel like a lot of our users don't get the joke anymore. We ended up attracting actual racists, evil wizards, inquisitors, the criminally insane, elder gods, and other unsavory characters, exactly the kinds of people I wanted us to avoid. This isn't just another imageboard, above all else it's a Yume Nikki fansite. At least, it was supposed to be.

Honestly, I haven't had the time and energy to put into this place lately. I'm not a NEET anymore. I've been going to college full-time, looking for a job, and trying to build my own future, all while dealing with an all-encompasing social depression that has made me more introverted than ever. I don't talk to people as much anymore, and often when I try to browse Uboachan, my eyes gloss over the posts and I don't really absorb what I'm reading. I really feel like I haven't been paying attention. As sad as it makes me to say this, I'm not the guy for this job anymore.

So, effective very soon, I will be stepping down. Our long-time staff member Writer, who has been here on and off practically since the beginning, will take up the title of "Owner", and all of the responsibilities and decision making powers that come with it. After a period of transition in which Writer will choose new staff members, revise the rules for the site, and create clear and public rules for the moderators to follow, I will become a regular Admin working under his guidance. I will, of course, continue being the System Administrator, and continue hosting the site.

Thanks for all the good times, folks. It's probably going to be a bumpy transition, but I really think that this is for the best. I hope that most of you can forgive me.

Sincerely,
Seisatsu

Wow, what a new year.



We started off January with the server crashing and a downtime of several days while the OS was reinstalled and backups were restored. At the same time, Yume Nikki was re-released on Steam after all these years, with an "official" English translation. And to top it off, a few weeks later a new 3D game inspired by the original was announced, developed by a third party game development company allegedly under the supervision of Kikiyama themselves!

A result of this has been and probably will continue to be a huge boost of interest, injecting new life into the fandom, and bringing levels of activity to Uboachan not seen for some years. We may find that we are surrounded by a newer, younger fanbase which comes from a very different background than many of us. Please remember that you were new once too, and don't treat these new fans with contempt. The atmosphere of this place may change as the world changes around it, but it is fruitless to resent the flow of time. Whether or not the new material lives up to expectations, I think it's fantastic that a new generation can be introduced to a fandom we have enjoyed for over a decade, by the emergence of new content. And hopefully, we'll enjoy it too!

A few more changes have happened on the boards recently. A new board, /yndd/, was created for discussing the new "Yume Nikki - Dream Diary". The /cos/ board was annexed for the time being, and a new board with new rules will take its place this year. This will hopefully prevent the new board from becoming a creepy mess. There is now a dedicated section for download links on the sidebar. And lastly, the board software was updated; though it was mostly if not entirely a bugfix release, some of these fixes were sorely needed.

That's all for now. Happy birthday Uboachan, and happy new year!

- Seisatsu

Art by Moga

Here we are, on a rock, screaming. Happy Birthday!

Wow. Eight years since this place opened up shop and six since I've been the owner. Can you believe that? And we've been so active recently! We must be doing something right.

Things have been mostly uneventful regarding the site since my last post. You'll see though that I recently dropped a couple dead boards and improved the recent posts box. As for the scanlations project, it's not dead, we just haven't had the money to import any of the doujins we wanted to translate. However, I expect to be ordering one or more next week. When they arrive I'll send the scans off to Chesir for translating.

A big thanks to our donors from Uboachan and Sushigirl who covered expenses for the past two months. Hosting is $43 per month and can be a bit heavy for me, so donations are always greatly appreciated. I've left a link at the bottom of this post.

We're staying around and going strong. I hope you're all having fun or getting something useful out of the site, and I'm going to keep the doors open for as long as I can.

Thanks guys,
- Seisatsu

Donate: LINK REMOVED

Originally suggested some time ago, the idea has finally come true and is official now.

Uboachan is currently and actively working on the translation of Manga, Doujinshi and other fanworks related to Yume Nikki. The group behind the translations is Patchy Illusion Team. For those who don't know, we were originally a group oriented to game making/help. The team was disbanded, however, and I decided to take the reins and use it for this project. The name may ring a bell in some users.

We decided to create an all-purpose thread where we will publish new releases, post announcements, answer questions from the users and take suggestions. If you have something to say, this is the right place: https://uboachan.net/yn/res/5860.html

That being said, here's our first announcement: We are currently in the need of more people. If you want to give a hand, please, make sure to check the about page in our site and see what would you like to apply for:

http://scans.uboachan.net

You may also post in the thread, or send me a mail. ( a2501@openmailbox.org )

More hands working on this means faster and better translations. This is a work done by the users for the users. And, as much as we all would love to translate manga as fast as possible, it is a rather time-consuming process prone to error. We're all human and we need to use our time for other things, such as work and/or college, or other people pointing out what we did wrong.

Please, notice no prior experience in any of these fields is needed at all. I personally don't have any problems with teaching people how to use gimp and what's the difference between a good and bad translation. Ultimately, we're doing this for our own enjoyment out of our own free will, so don't feel discouraged to give it a try if you want to participate. We don't bite.

Many of us have always felt a special connection with Yume Nikki, and it has even changed the lives of a few people (uboachan is a big proof of this). There's still a lot of unknown material ready to be discovered. I hope we can manage to make it available for everybody through our translations, and to spread the love for Yume Nikki.

Well, we're still here.

Many people have told me over these past five years that the site is already dead, or that the users here are only shitposters, or that this place just isn't worth running anymore. But the Recent Posts bar continues crawling forward without fail, and it's not just full of bullshit, and it makes me feel like I'm still making a worthwhile use of my time and effort in despite of our detractors. I think that, even though Uboachan has changed so much, and many things have ended forever, there is even now still quality content and discussion to be appreciated.

That's not to say that everything has been great. The CP spam was unbearable for a while and we took too long to come up with a good solution. Questionable or, yeah, even bad decisions have been made in the running of this community. I've felt so uncertain sometimes and wondered if I was making the right choices, or if I was betraying my values or the values of this site in the name of peaceful conduct in times of trouble. There have been ugly and destructive public arguments between staff and users, and the staff have been divided in opinion on important issues and come to uneasy compromises.

Our two most involved moderators left a few weeks ago, and the staff room is very quiet now. But, maybe it's for the best if I run most of this show on my own from now on. The other staff members will continue to support my efforts to keep the wheels turning.

And I'm really still trying, you know, because I still love Uboachan! I hope that this can keep being a place that other people can love as well. You may not believe it, but without Uboachan I would not even have half of the IRL friends I have now, I would not be living with these cool roommates, I would never have met my previous or current girlfriend, and I may have never even moved out of my Mom's house, or gone on a real adventure in my entire life. The power of the Internet to connect people together is deeper than I can fathom. This place is so special to me, so I'm going to keep loving it and running it for as long as I can.

Let's see for a while longer where Uboachan can go from here.
- Seisatsu