tl;dr

• Use this thread to ask for any shows that you would like to see discussion threads for next season.
• Wiki article for additional bot information.

Previous Thread

In place of the normal weekly general thread this week, I wanted to provide an update about a siginificant change to the community that will be taking place soon. Namely, that episode discussion threads for Spring shows and onward will be bot-created rather than user-created as is currently the case for most Winter shows.

The Dawn of the Age of Machines

To that effect, everybody please welcome the newest member of the moderation team, rikka@ani.social, the bot that will take over discussion thread posting duties going forward. If you would like to see what the new discussion threads will look like, you can see one that she already posted here. If you would like more information about how the bot will work and how you can interact with the bot, check out the wiki article I wrote here. If you have any questions or comments, please use this thread to ask me.

Request Spring Show Threads Here

This thread will serve as your initial opportunity to ask for discussion threads to be made for Spring shows. You can see a full list of the Spring season’s shows here. Please make a comment in this thread if there are any shows that you plan on watching and would like a discussion thread to be made.

Exception to the Rules

There is currently only one show that I plan on handling in a way different than what is standard operating procedure for rikka, namely, Delicious in Dungeon. Currently, there have been quite active discussion threads for each episode over in !dungeonmeshi@ani.social and I don’t want to negatively impact a growing, active community on the fediverse. So, I will defer this show’s discussion threads to that community rather than having the bot create separate threads in this community. I will try to make sure that these threads are discoverable from this community though (will be in a pinned discussion index thread similar to the Winter Discussions post currently pinned).

In the future, if there is a series-specific community that is active and wants to run their own discussion threads in a similar way, I am amenable to giving that series a similar treatment. If you currently, or want to moderate a series-specific community for a series that is airing, feel free to reach out to me. I would like to see series-specific communities grow and don’t want to contribute to stifling their growth by sucking all the discussion-oxygen out of the proverbial room.

The New Normal

Going forward, expect a thread similar to this each season in which you can make the initial requests for show discussion threads (1-2 weeks prior to season start). The first show that is categorized as a Spring show premieres on March 20th (Sand Land: The Series). So, user-made threads will not be allowed for that series, or any other series categorized as a Spring show (per AniList). User-made threads will be allowed to continue for currently airing Winter shows as the season draws to a close. After the Winter shows have ended, so has the age of user-created episode discussion threads.

Acknowledgements

I just wanted to add a blurb here at the end to recognize the contributions that both shinobu and chaorace (shinobu’s maintainer) have made to the anime community within the lemmy-verse. It was chaorace’s work on the lemmy fork of the holo project that provided the starting point for the codebase that eventually became rikka. Also, it was the episode discussion threads created by shinobu that served as an entry point for me to get more involved in the greater anime community on lemmy. It is quite plausible that without shinobu/chaorace, anime on lemmy would still be a splintered and disperse community instead of having a critical concentration of active users gathered here. So, I will raise a glass tonight for shinobu and will always remember her fondly.

Also, as always, thanks to hitagi for both being the lead moderator in this community as well as the admin of the instance. They have always been helpful and responsive to my questions and have yet to put a check on my absolute power give me any reason to regret all the time, energy, and donations I have put into the communities and this instance.