Someone I found online was kind enough to give me an invite to DOA when I ran across a mention of her Long Island BJD Meetup group (I messaged her saying how I would love to finally meet some doll people around here and was pleasantly surprised when she sent me an invite!) ^.^
But other than the Meetup thread, I haven't found DOA that useful for me. I've been on that forum for months now and have only managed to make a grand total of.... 4 or 5 posts, I think? I was told before that that DOA is basically the "Holy Grail" of BJD forums, but after trying to jump in somewhere over there and being too nervous to speak up for not wanting to get banned and lose my access to meetup info, I really do agree with all the above posts: DOA is for the "Doll Collector", not the "Doll Enthusiast" (as in "I am so enthusiastic about my kids that I want to make fantasy clothes for them and run awesome ongoing photostories and collect little plastic dolls to be their minions and feature them in those stories and...!")
I've also found the DOA "Search" tool useless in finding what I want to find. Anyone else? I'm glad there are so many nice people on here who understand that site for those of us that don't ^.^*