ATB Review Schedule

[bmathison1972]

I'd like to reserve the Bullyland wolf thats new from 2023 (sorry I don't have the number handy).

Done! Is it out already? Still waiting for the morpho, myself

[Saarlooswolfhound]

The wolf must be as I got it from a state-side ebay seller. I think a few are still lagging... I haven't seen the cow or butterfly for sale anywhere yet. Neither the slug from a US retailer I am aware of. I have seen that the tiger and lion must be sold in Europe but I haven't seen them accessible to me yet either.

[bmathison1972]

I recent reference to Archie McPhee got me revisiting their site. I ordered, and will be reserving for review, their Collection of Mini Garden Birds!

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Oh you just did a terrible thing for my wallet...

[bmathison1972]

@stemturtle has requested to reserve the Schleich 2024 bonobo for Blog review

[bmathison1972]

I am putting the finishing touches on my next Blogpost and plan on pushing it live tomorrow.

After that, I'll work on my next DTB review.

[AnimalToyForum]

FYI, I've started migrating my old walk-around forum posts to the blog, but I'm not going to schedule them in for any particular time, I'll just post them as and when I have a free moment. 

[Gwangi]

The bitter cold gave me some extra writing time this week. I've got two reviews to post. I'll post one tomorrow and another on Saturday.

[bmathison1972]

The bitter cold gave me some extra writing time this week. I've got two reviews to post. I'll post one tomorrow and another on Saturday.

Sounds good. There is a review by @JimoAi too; I will prep it for Friday.

[Gwangi]

Alright, @bmathison1972 suggested I look through the walk-around to see if there was anything I would rather review than see transferred to the blog. I got 8 pages in and came up with a list. I'll look at the other pages later, my eyes were glazing over. Normally I don't like to have such a long backlog of reserved figures but if this is what I have to do then so be it. A lot of these I don't have yet and it will probably take me years to get through the entire list once it is complete. I suspect it will also take years to transfer all the walkarounds too.

Papo
Hippopotomus
Chamois
Gorilla

Safari Ltd
Desert Tortoise
Black Loosejaw
Weedy Seadragon
Bobcat
Mockingbird
American Badger
NAW Whitetail Buck
Sailfish

Schleich
Harbour Seal

Mojo
Black Crested Macaque

That's it for now but I'll be back with more.

[bmathison1972]

@Gwangi - I was chatting more with @AnimalToyForum offline. Can you please elaborate. Do you mean you don't even have most of these yet, and if not, do you plan on getting them soon? The purpose of reserving figures is for people to review figures they have a strong desire to review, but it's generally assumed they already have them or plan on getting them in a timely manner (for example, reserving things when announced but before released but getting them shortly after release).
There is nothing wrong with reserving a lot at once, and if it takes time that's fine, but by reserving things you don't even have yet, and may have no idea of when you'll be be getting them, you are tying them up from others who may have them handy and also want to review them. Reserving things 'years out' that you don't even have is not fair for those that do have them and may want to review them.
Again, please elaborate in case something isn't clear to me or Adam.
@AnimalToyForum - care to elaborate?
thanks!

[Gwangi]

@Gwangi - I was chatting more with @AnimalToyForum offline. Can you please elaborate. Do you mean you don't even have most of these yet, and if not, do you plan on getting them soon? The purpose of reserving figures is for people to review figures they have a strong desire to review, but it's generally assumed they already have them or plan on getting them in a timely manner (for example, reserving things when announced but before released but getting them shortly after release).
There is nothing wrong with reserving a lot at once, and if it takes time that's fine, but by reserving things you don't even have yet, and may have no idea of when you'll be be getting them, you are tying them up from others who may have them handy and also want to review them. Reserving things 'years out' that you don't even have is not fair for those that do have them and may want to review them.
Again, please elaborate in case something isn't clear to me or Adam.
@AnimalToyForum - care to elaborate?
thanks!

Alright, I'm finding this to all be slightly frustrating and a tad insulting. I was told, by you, yesterday...

If you want to review something for the Blog, and there is already a walkaround of it on the forum, I suggest you request to reserve it on the ATB Review Schedule thread. If you do, your blog review will take priority.

That's exactly what I'm doing, but now there's apprehension on your part because I might not physically have the figure I'm reserving yet? I would think that with nearly 400 reviews between both blogs (the most of any reviewer) and consistent posting over the course of 13 years there would be a bit of good faith between us, and trust that when I say I'm going to review something I will and will do it in a timely manner. Even if I don't own the figure yet it should be obvious that if I'm reserving it I will get it and review it. Every figure I listed is one I already intended on getting, and every figure I listed is a figure I want to review and save from a simple, boring transfer of a walk-around. I didn't reserve anything especially rare that I didn't think I could acquire.  Of course I don't have them all yet, but I'm under pressure now to reserve figures before the walkarounds are transferred (which also prevents someone from reviewing the figure, I might add).

I am currently looking at the first page of this thread and the list of reserved figures. Some of those figures were reserved years ago by people that aren't reviewers or even active members, but now we're concerned...with ME? When was the last time EpicRaptorMan wrote a review (January 2022, I looked)? He has 5 reserved. Animal Lover has 6 reserved figures. Have they ever written a review? Between both blogs I post AT LEAST once a week and have consistently done it for YEARS!

And we're worried about tying up a figure that someone else might want to review? Who? How many active reviewers are there? I know I'm not the only one but between you reviewing Japanese invertebrate figures and JimoAi strictly reviewing marine life is there really a high demand among reviewers for standard figures by western manufacturers? Barely anyone else covers them.

Anyway, I don't need to actually reserve any of these, I didn't want to do this. If a walkaround is transferred before I get it and review it then so be it, that figure will just be present on the review blog without an actual review of it. I can live with that, I was just doing what I was told to do. I don't like long backlogs anyway, it gives me anxiety, and I don't want drama or pressure when it comes to reviewing plastic animals. I do this because its fun. If I miss out on something then there's still plenty left out there. I just feel like me and my contributions to the blogs are being a bit undervalued right now. I feel like I'm being spoken down to when I am far from new at this.

[bmathison1972]

Not apprehension, just curious. And thanks for the clarification!!

You brought up some good points about others and I was also planning also to out to @Animal Lover @EpicRaptorMan @Lanthanotus @Birdsage and @Arctinus (and others) and ask what the status was of some of their reservations going on a couple years. Early on Adam and I discussed (internally) about having time deadline for reviews and that anything not reviewed on a certain time would be 'un reserved' but that never came to fruition.

Honestly if you want to reserve these that's fine. You are regular and prolific in your reviews, so I am not worried about them getting reviewed.

For the time being, consider these things reserved for you. I will also make sure these are last priority for blog transfer that way if you change your mind on any of them we can do it at a later date. There are LOTS of others in the meantime.

Oh, and my last 11 reviews, not a single one was a Japanese invertebrate and of my last eight, not any invertebrate 

[Gwangi]

Not apprehension, just curious. And thanks for the clarification!!

You brought up some good points about others and I was also planning also to out to @Animal Lover @EpicRaptorMan @Lanthanotus @Birdsage and @Arctinus (and others) if they plan on reviewing what they reserved. I was planning on asking them if they don't plan on at least starting reviews in the next couple months, we might remove their requests. Early on Adam and I discussed (internally) about having time deadline for reviews and that anything not reviewed on a certain time would be 'un reserved' but that never came to fruition.

Honestly if you want to reserve these that's fine. You are regular and prolific in your reviews, so I am not worried about them getting reviewed.

For the time being, consider these things reserved for you. I will also make sure these are last priority for blog transfer that way if you change your mind on any of them we can do it at a later date. There are LOTS of others in the meantime.

Oh, and my last 11 reviews, not a single one was a Japanese invertebrate and of my last eight, not any invertebrate 

No, I won't reserve them, it's too much and I don't want to commit myself like that. I also like spontaneously reviewing figures depending on my mood and don't want to feel beholden to all of these reserved figures. After all of this I would feel obligated to push through them all and this isn't a job and I don't want to treat it like one. I'll limit it to just the Safari American badger, whitetail buck, bobcat, and weedy sea dragon. You can take me off the rest of those and if I get to them before they're transferred, great! If not, all well.

Believe me, reserving figures I never intend on reviewing (or taking a long time to get to) is something I do not like and do not want to do. I've seen it time and again on the Dinosaur Toy Blog and it is often frustrating. Back in 2020-21 I was committed to getting every Marx dinosaur on the blog. I almost reached that goal when someone else decided they wanted to review the last three and reserved them. Now it has been two years and they're still not on the blog, I would have had them up in weeks. I never reserved them because I didn't think I had to, because no one else was really interested in covering them until the ball got rolling. And there's a lot more competition over there than here. There have been numerous occasions where there was something I wanted to review that was reserved by someone else only to continue to sit there unreviewed. So, I am definitely in agreement that there should be a deadline and I think it is long overdue. 

There are obviously a lot of figures I want to write about but I'm not normally concerned if someone beats me to it. I like reading reviews by the other writers but I would be lying if I said I liked the walkarounds. I like the review format for the blog and I'm sort of bummed when I see a great figure get the short stick of a walkaround transfer. Case in point, the Safari crocodile shark. The only crocodile shark that will likely ever be made and it's represented on the blog by barely a paragraph. Would have loved to give it a proper review. That's why I asked in the other thread if they were meant to be placeholders, because they're not actual reviews. But hey, it's not my blog. I'll just keep contributing in my own way and if simple walkarounds are cool with the guys that run the blogs then who am I to complain? I can stay in my lane. Maybe I should switch to posting walkarounds too, it would save a lot of time. 

[AnimalToyForum]

Sorry for the confusion and frustration @Gwangi and @bmathison1972.

@Gwangi, of course we appreciate you, and I also want to keep things as simple and enjoyable as possible. The purpose of reserving figures is to avoid reviewers stepping on each others toes, but this really only matters with the clamour around new releases. It was misjudged for us to ask you to reserve walk-arounds.

I'm now making an effort to add some kind of review to my walk-arounds as I migrate them, even if it is only brief, so that will hopefully alleviate some of your frustrations about the migrated walk-arounds. Moreover, I'm open-minded for all walk-arounds (indeed, any blog posts) to be supplemented later, by the photographer or other keen reviewers, or even replaced wholesale if there's a case to be made for it. So, upon reflection, let's think of the migrated walk-arounds as placeholders that can potentially be replaced or updated, I think that's the most pragmatic approach.

[bmathison1972]

Kikimalou is requesting the Schleich 2023 cape buffalo

[bmathison1972]

Kikimalou is also reserving the 2024 CollectA Ibex and Anteater

[sbell]

I've just scheduled a couple of Yujin fish walkaround reposts for the next couple days. Feel free to move them if necessary (but keep them in order!)

[bmathison1972]

@sbell - I moved yours to 1/22 and 1/23 (but kept in the correct order) since we already had reviews for today and there is one already scheduled for tomorrow.

Let's try our best to do 1 per day

If a guest review comes in, I'll schedule it for a specific day so everyone will know

[sbell]

@sbell - I moved yours to 1/22 and 1/23 (but kept in the correct order) since we already had reviews for today and there is one already scheduled for tomorrow.

Let's try our best to do 1 per day

If a guest review comes in, I'll schedule it for a specific day so everyone will know

I wasn't sure -- only mine show up on the list, so I never know if I'm overlapping