(IMPORTANT) on moving to dreamwidth & poll
Hello everyone! As promised, here's the post with our plans and reasoning laid out for everyone to read and consider, as well as a poll to decide where to go from here. We realize, of course, that this is a heavy decision to make, and for many it may feel premature-- but please consider the downtime for a good handful of players unable to access LJ at all, those whose RP drives have been killed with the drama, and those too tired from the holidays to even bother. The sooner we can find a solution, the sooner we can get the game back underway.
I've gathered a number of resources already, from persuasive essays, to guides on what's the same and what's different, to some quick fixes to make Dreamwidth a little more comfortable for LJ users, like a code that changes the color scheme to match the pre-88 LJ scheme. I hope they'll help!
But first off, our reasoning. (And the other mods are welcome to add in their two cents! I'm mostly summarizing what I remember and my own reasons.) Personal feelings on LJ aside, the technical issues are getting to be overwhelming. Many modly duties are being hindered with LJ's failure to deliver notifications in large quantities, a fair-sized chunk of our players are having trouble accessing LJ if they can at all, and the workarounds simply aren't working half of the time. The shoddy servers and DDoS attacks happen too frequently that it affects activity across the board, and with the lack of subject titles that LJ's been very clear about not returning, everything's suddenly ten times harder on our end.
And another great point is that the owners of DreamWidth and current staff? Were the previous owners/staff members of LJ! They have plenty of experience in journaling sites, and if anyone was around long enough for the pre-SUP days, you'd remember that LJ was actually pretty keen then, and very stable. But including personal feelings, Livejournal is no longer trustworthy-- with the way they've been treating their users, laughing and insulting everyone for getting mad at huge changes that affect such a large portion of their userbase, it's shaky grounds on whether legitimate issues that arise would be treated properly. We also don't want to see our playerbase hurt in any way or unable to even enjoy the game, or their money going to waste or trivialized. Plenty of people have gone into the pros and cons on both side, and they probably did it a lot better than I could! So have a look-see at the options available, what Dreamwidth has to offer, the changes LJ have made and further plan on making, and please do consider your choices carefully. DW also has easy links to their guiding principles, diversity statements, privacy policy, and finally their terms of service. Long story short: they welcome everyone, and they despise censoring, which is why they flipped paypal the bird trying to set up an account and paypal wanted them to censor a lot of content.
It can and will be hard to make the right choice-- and the kicker is that we won't be able to please everyone no matter which we choose, no matter how hard we try. So the truth is, we ARE going to lose some players. We AREN'T all going to come to a unanimous decision. But we do need to seriously consider both sides and try to make the most educated decision.
Our gameplan is this: put the game on a hiatus for the two~three weeks or so it should take to import all of the communities over, and allow all of the players to finish their threads or assume an end before we import savevoid and exitvoid (which would be done last). In the meantime, we'll be running memes, plotting, and keeping everyone more than busy with a number of game mechanics updating, discussions, and an all-around overhaul with what we've learned and gathered in feedback on how EV is run.
We already had these plans for the New Year, so it's nothing new cropping up due to moving! It's actually just giving us the time we need to install everything, as well. Things that are changing/updating are: the way missions are structured (to be easier/more flexible and creative), updating locations, fiddling with the map and size of the island so each side of the octagon isn't two miles long (shhhh this has been totally handwaved ICly already), installing location heads permanently, introducing alternate ways to earn tokens, and so on!
The sooner we can import, the better for us, personally. We'd love to get a fresh start some time in January, and have a fully-functioning game back as soon as possible. We understand that many of you have paids-- but we can't wait for everyone's paids to run out, either. That could be as little as a month or two, or as much as six months to a year. The move itself will be fairly painless and without much effort on your part.
We've already had a player step up and offer to pay the difference on anyone's paid time lost if anyone needs the assistance, and to help transition to DW with the move. We have a number of players familiar with DW already and handy with code who would be willing to help move over character info posts. We'll have to redesign the coding on our end as well to comply with DW's use of the updated and streamlined HTML guidelines that LJ has yet to comply with. This WILL be a community effort, but it's nothing that we won't have settled in a week tops on the player side of things! And these are all things that can be done during the hiatus. You're all wonderful, talented people and the entire purpose of a community is to band together and help each other out. I know that when it comes down to it, we can make a move clean, efficient, and quick-- and everyone will help each other out if anyone has problems.
Anyway, with all that said! I have a list of links for you all to peruse, and then the poll. Bear with me just a little longer...!!
Wow, it sure is four hours later.
EDIT! We also realize that whether your CR/castmates will stay or go is an important factor in your decisions-- so please feel free to use the below thread to discuss it if you're comfortable putting your decision out in the open, or take this as a reminder to contact your castmates/regular CR and talk to them personally, one on one. Check the thread and see if anyone you're looking for has replied!
I've gathered a number of resources already, from persuasive essays, to guides on what's the same and what's different, to some quick fixes to make Dreamwidth a little more comfortable for LJ users, like a code that changes the color scheme to match the pre-88 LJ scheme. I hope they'll help!
But first off, our reasoning. (And the other mods are welcome to add in their two cents! I'm mostly summarizing what I remember and my own reasons.) Personal feelings on LJ aside, the technical issues are getting to be overwhelming. Many modly duties are being hindered with LJ's failure to deliver notifications in large quantities, a fair-sized chunk of our players are having trouble accessing LJ if they can at all, and the workarounds simply aren't working half of the time. The shoddy servers and DDoS attacks happen too frequently that it affects activity across the board, and with the lack of subject titles that LJ's been very clear about not returning, everything's suddenly ten times harder on our end.
And another great point is that the owners of DreamWidth and current staff? Were the previous owners/staff members of LJ! They have plenty of experience in journaling sites, and if anyone was around long enough for the pre-SUP days, you'd remember that LJ was actually pretty keen then, and very stable. But including personal feelings, Livejournal is no longer trustworthy-- with the way they've been treating their users, laughing and insulting everyone for getting mad at huge changes that affect such a large portion of their userbase, it's shaky grounds on whether legitimate issues that arise would be treated properly. We also don't want to see our playerbase hurt in any way or unable to even enjoy the game, or their money going to waste or trivialized. Plenty of people have gone into the pros and cons on both side, and they probably did it a lot better than I could! So have a look-see at the options available, what Dreamwidth has to offer, the changes LJ have made and further plan on making, and please do consider your choices carefully. DW also has easy links to their guiding principles, diversity statements, privacy policy, and finally their terms of service. Long story short: they welcome everyone, and they despise censoring, which is why they flipped paypal the bird trying to set up an account and paypal wanted them to censor a lot of content.
It can and will be hard to make the right choice-- and the kicker is that we won't be able to please everyone no matter which we choose, no matter how hard we try. So the truth is, we ARE going to lose some players. We AREN'T all going to come to a unanimous decision. But we do need to seriously consider both sides and try to make the most educated decision.
Our gameplan is this: put the game on a hiatus for the two~three weeks or so it should take to import all of the communities over, and allow all of the players to finish their threads or assume an end before we import savevoid and exitvoid (which would be done last). In the meantime, we'll be running memes, plotting, and keeping everyone more than busy with a number of game mechanics updating, discussions, and an all-around overhaul with what we've learned and gathered in feedback on how EV is run.
We already had these plans for the New Year, so it's nothing new cropping up due to moving! It's actually just giving us the time we need to install everything, as well. Things that are changing/updating are: the way missions are structured (to be easier/more flexible and creative), updating locations, fiddling with the map and size of the island so each side of the octagon isn't two miles long (shhhh this has been totally handwaved ICly already), installing location heads permanently, introducing alternate ways to earn tokens, and so on!
The sooner we can import, the better for us, personally. We'd love to get a fresh start some time in January, and have a fully-functioning game back as soon as possible. We understand that many of you have paids-- but we can't wait for everyone's paids to run out, either. That could be as little as a month or two, or as much as six months to a year. The move itself will be fairly painless and without much effort on your part.
We've already had a player step up and offer to pay the difference on anyone's paid time lost if anyone needs the assistance, and to help transition to DW with the move. We have a number of players familiar with DW already and handy with code who would be willing to help move over character info posts. We'll have to redesign the coding on our end as well to comply with DW's use of the updated and streamlined HTML guidelines that LJ has yet to comply with. This WILL be a community effort, but it's nothing that we won't have settled in a week tops on the player side of things! And these are all things that can be done during the hiatus. You're all wonderful, talented people and the entire purpose of a community is to band together and help each other out. I know that when it comes down to it, we can make a move clean, efficient, and quick-- and everyone will help each other out if anyone has problems.
Anyway, with all that said! I have a list of links for you all to peruse, and then the poll. Bear with me just a little longer...!!
- a persuasive essay on why to move
- an official dw guide for livejournal users migrating over (what's missing? is a crucial part to look at!)
- a guide to RP-specific features, LJ vs DW (by our very own relle!)
- nifty dw coding, for easy multi-site linking for usernames (supports LJ, IJ, DW, plurk, last.fm, and various other sites!)
- an open collection of resources, faqs, guides, and an open question/answer post (by one of our players, loren!)
- a quick style fix to make DW look more like LJ (I have this and love it! but I needed to use this code instead of the one provided, on gchrome)
- a very handy walkthrough for coding tables and fonts on DW
- AND FINALLY!! a community for profile layouts, CR tables, and more!
Do you want to move the game to Dreamwidth?
Yes
76(82.6%)
No
16(17.4%)
(IF YES) What are your reasons to move?
No ads on accounts
35(13.7%)
Better/more attentive customer support
68(26.6%)
More icons on paids
27(10.5%)
Stable servers, no DDoS attacks
66(25.8%)
SUBJECT HEADERS!!! YEAHHHHHHHH
60(23.4%)
(IF NO) What are your reasons to stay?
I already have paid time that won't expire for a while
12(27.9%)
I'm waiting to see what they'll change
11(25.6%)
I'm loyal to LJ
0(0.0%)
I don't want to move to another site
12(27.9%)
I think a move will kill the game
8(18.6%)
How long do you want to wait until the move?
1~2 weeks
56(65.9%)
3~4 weeks
19(22.4%)
1~1.5 months
3(3.5%)
2 months
1(1.2%)
MORE!! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE...!!!
6(7.1%)
Anything else?
I'll take it to comments, thanks for nothing you jerk!
27(100.0%)
Wow, it sure is four hours later.
EDIT! We also realize that whether your CR/castmates will stay or go is an important factor in your decisions-- so please feel free to use the below thread to discuss it if you're comfortable putting your decision out in the open, or take this as a reminder to contact your castmates/regular CR and talk to them personally, one on one. Check the thread and see if anyone you're looking for has replied!