It's been a minute since we added a vendor -- Today, we added @darquepath.com to the toy box and their incredibly detailed selection of toys!

Vendor additions are going to be a bit slower for the moment, but we'll keep adding when we can!

We shipped a new (minor) update.

We cleaned up some broken links (Links that vendors have changed) and added new items to the index. We also shipped some more technical updates that change the way filtering works to be a little more efficient!

I have some more indexing to do, and when I get caught up on tech stuff, then I'm going to put some time into thinking about what the guidelines/policy is going to be going forward.

Not yet - The fork in the road right now is to either be 'hands off' on stuff as much as possible (which TF would fall under in this case) or to craft a more robust and more 'complete' set of guidelines. DD's stuff has consumed a lot of time here, and so that's been neglected.

Again, thank you to everyone who talked it out reasonably. I've said it a dozen times before, but I appreciate it a lot and good conversation does help shape policy on the site!

Regardless, I appreciate the conversation and ideas from everyone. @kumaotome.bsky.social had a great idea where if we list 3rd party molds in the future, that they should be labeled as such on FTB - I'm going to be building this tech as I think it fulfills the larger purpose of the site elegantly.

But I do think there needs to be a some path paved to purge the accusations, or even in the case of wrong doing, that path needs to exist to redemption. I don't really know what those paths look like. I took a swing at it with getting DD to feel legitimized, but I don't think it was sufficient.

I think the community is right and generally justified in being rather suspicious of vendors for a variety of reasons. The list I have of stores that will never be listed is honestly very long and it speaks to how prevalent scams, bad actors, and just poor quality toys are.

Update on DD: They've reached out to me and requested to be removed. That change should be reflected on the site at the time of writing

I won't comment on their behalf here, but I do want to talk a little bit about my perspective.

Oh, I like this idea a lot! DD has since been requested to be removed (A post I'll make here in a moment), but if we do have white-label molds, I think you hit the nail on the head - We should label them accordingly. I'll definitely be using that idea as I think it solves a lot of the problem.

This is an interesting point that I'm just too ignorant to know anything about - care if I reach out to chat a bit about this? I'd like to understand some of this from your point of view as a vendor in this space a bit if that's possible.

I think that's ultimately the best path forward re: Balance of Harms, but like I said, it's something I'm constantly thinking about.

I do appreciate the conversation and I genuinely do appreciate being challenged on that kind of stuff.

Part of the reason the net is so wide right now is that I don't want to be the picker and chooser. I want to be able to point to a clear policy (Which today is, 'Safe Materials', 'Delivers products' and 'Don't fuck up tremendously') and generally let people choose from that point.

In DD's case though, I would need something more substantial than speculation. I need receipts, or at very convincing circumstantial evidence that they are crossing an ethical line that we should consider, or maybe consider more substantially than we do today.

I wax philosophical a lot about the 'Balance of Harms™' when considering these things and I am not exaggerating when I say I'm ~constantly~ turning them over in my head. The policies of the site are not in stone and I'm open to re-evaluation of them - to that end, I appreciate the conversation!

But here, I don't know if buying off-the-shelf molds would rise to that level. In the same way, I don't think complaints about BD rise to that level either. The balance of harms is not weighing in favor of removing them at this moment.

Truthfully, I think we are more interested in the former than the latter - not that we don't want to promote ethical companies, but because 'ethical' is a moving target depending on who you ask. As mentioned in other places, there still lines. EE, Nothosaur, etc. are clearly over them.

For sure - this is why I originally removed them from the site and why I asked for pretty decent proof of their operations. If someone has good evidence of this, I would absolutely love to see it, but the evidence I have today suggests they buy the molds and pour their own stuff.

Roger that - I'll definitely take some time this weekend to understand that company and space a little more and it might mean our policy changes here. I do appreciate being made aware of it!

Yeah, it seems that way. I'll say here too that for those that might have been directed here - I would avoid saying anything. You are welcome to read and watch and respond if it's relevant, but astroturfing is extremely obvious and not helping the case.

That said - it's worth trying. I'll definitely try to make an effort in that regard. I'm here to try to do better on behalf of the industry, but I also am not blind to that fact that basically no one is working with clean hands any more :(. Capitalism sucks.

I'll add to this as well: I don't know what I could do with the information anyway. Global supply chains are basically universally fucked. Clothes, computer chips, furniture, even food - it's ethically bankrupt all the way down. I don't know if I can move the needle on that.

I truthfully do not - Although when I look into them, it seems like they don't exist any more? Their storefront(s) seem dead (qianai.shop 404s, qianaitoy.com/ 502s).

Let me know if I'm just looking in the wrong spot.

Hopefully we are. It's going to be a moving target for awhile, especially as we learn more about the details of production and the industry as a whole, but I think given enough time (and feedback!), we'll land on something that might not be perfect, but is doing a lot more good than harm (I hope!)

Much like TF, there is a conversation happening between contributors to site about where we draw certain lines, ethically or otherwise. We want to cast a really big net by default, but we really need to think about if we are doing the 'net good' - if we are balancing the harms appropriately.

That is the thought process today anyway: These molds exist everywhere - might as well direct them to a vendor who will deliver something worth buying.

This too is a policy that's not written in stone and is something me might revisit in the future.

To that end, if someone is looking for that particular model, we'd rather direct them to someone who is at least using quality materials, with quality curing processes that will have a high chance of delivering what was ordered.

The goal of the site is still to direct people to quality, safe products first and foremost. There are several 'bad' vendors in the space using those same molds but using cheap materials or inferior processes.

This is a good question and one myself and a few others have talked over quite a bit. The question at it's core was: "Do we list vendor products that are from third party molds?"

We initially were leaning toward 'no', but reconsidered that the more we talked about it.

So please put in your own thoughts here. Would you be comfortable buying a toy from them given this data? Would you want different kinds of evidence or proof? If so, what?

I'm genuinely looking for input on this so please do not hesitate to respond!