IT'S UNHAPPY TL;DR OKAY. But basically, copy/pasted-
I personally would like to try to see if lj gets any better- it's only been a week, and I realize that it doesn't seem like it will change back, but moving websites entirely so soon seems extreme, I guess? Though I suppose you guys are already doing that with the wait time for the poll. I appreciate that.
At any rate, I suppose I'm worried about a few things. Firstly, the importing of LJ to DW. From what I've played around with so far, the import feature seems very limited and the lack of icons affected the overall mood of the threads, and made rereading them awkward. This probably doesn't affect most people because lol I'm weird and I reread threads in my spare time, but it's something that really bothered me, especially if player posts and logs would be imported and considered game canon. If Ads did move, I would feel like I'm losing a lot (in both threads themselves, comment counts, and of course, paid time that has yet to expire). I'm also concerned with everyone getting new usernames and trying to figure out who is who again- it's bound to result in a lot of confusion that might affect playing, not to mention the fact that rereading old threads with a different journal on the openID would be- idk, it seems like it would be weird for new people to know who played when? Like if person A changed usernames, their old username would show up on the imported openID, but a new player might not know that it was the same mun if they were linked to the thread... agh, idk if I'm making sense.
And lastly, I guess I'm sort of immature because a big change like this is super scary to me. I haven't made journals over on dw for all of my characters yet, but when I have poked around on it, it reminded me uncomfortably of insanejournal and inksome, both of which I've played at and subsequently dropped because the formatting of the website was much weaker than lj- just with the degree to which you can customize it, the ease of finding things, etc etc. And then there's the added bonus of if we do move, I'm kind of stuck with a feeling of 'why bother?' until then, you know? Because no matter what I do now, the quality of any thread I do will be diminished to me when it imports.
And I guess most of my concerns can be addressed as 'just go read the old threads on lj!' but a lot of the muns I've talked to are definitely deleting their rp journals as a message to lj staff, so that... really won't be possible, I guess.
HOWEVER, I do understand that something's got to change. We can't limit ourselves to custom comment pages and threads below 40 comments. That's just crazy. LJ is getting ridiculous, and I'm definitely not fighting to stay with a broken system. I know that the changes make it harder on us as players and you as mods and everything is crazy and topsy turvy right now. I guess I'm just really frustrated with how limited our options are- and that's not anyone's fault at all!
SO TL;DR THIS SITUATION SUCKS and I feel so badly for you guys as mods and I'm just. Unhappy with everything all around AND I NEED TO PROJECT IT SOMEWHERE and there's not much that can really be done about it. XD
The long and short of it- and what you guys are asking (forgive me again for tl;dring at you), is that if I was given an ultimatum, I would prefer the game to move as long as we're certain that lj is not rolling back anything ever (which I'm fairly sure we are). Can't say I'd be thrilled with moving, but it seems like the lesser of the two evils.
Importing isn't ideal, but it's also not all that there is. Everything old in the game will still exist in some form on LJ. If the icons affect your enjoyment of the thread that much, then you can go and read the original on livejournal.
Dreamwidth doesn't have the level of coding sophistication that LJ has, but it has the level that LJ had five years ago. It's getting better all the time. I'm not shilling for them or anything, but if you look at how their staff behaves - 0 to live community importing in less than two weeks! - then I think you can reasonably expect their level of code strength and usability to go up steadily for a very long time.
I realize this- but like I said in my post, a lot of people are also deleting or recycling their rp journals on livejournal. Rereading threads on lj will be impossible if the journal that the thread is hosted in is deleted or the thread becomes locked. And it isn't simply the icons- it's the entire formatting of the imported posts.
I know that dw is very promising, and I'm hoping that it continues to be so- I'm just worried overall that the quality of the website will wind up being frustrating in the time that it takes their usability to develop and increase. Then again, I can't say that much because I've only been playing with it for a few days- please don't take this as me dumping on dw, I'm just very used to playing things a certain way, and uprooting everything is just an inconvenience, but one that there is no easy way around.
I didn't see it as dumping at all, just a general aversion to change that BELIEEEEVE me I am very, very familiar with. I just wanted to put it out there that the scariness doesn't have to be forever, you know? I've seen some very delightful DW (and IJ, for that matter) layouts in my time.
The issue of deleting or recycling journals... is hard. It's rough, and it hurts to lose old threads. However, i have seen that happen all the time in situations where the person just leaves the game, with no mass exodus involved. In an old IJ game I was in, a journal that was my character's main love interest for eight months has since been recycled, and every thread on that journal is gone. Maybe I'm just a little more cynical when I say that I don't know how much moving will affect that? Or maybe it's the five-in-the-morning sleeplessness talking. I don't know.
Moving isn't perfect. Change sucks. I get that. I don't want to look like I don't, because it's a totally understandable way to feel.
Yeah, we don't want to rush into anything- sort of trying between 'waiting and seeing' and 'not waiting too long'.
I haven't tried the import feature on DW myself, so losing the icons kind of sucks but- I have that same problem re-reading old threads with people who've changed their icons, so they're gone anyway. :x But it's not like- the old ones are going to be shut down or anything? The old posts and comm would always still be here, so everything can be reread with their old icons and everything. And new stuff could just be picked up on the other site where they left off.
I really don't want it to be a big dramatic change for anyone. I think DW kind of looks how LJ did a few years ago. :x; They even have some features LJ doesn't have (icon renaming, without losing old associations!). Some things are in different spots and... yeah, it's mostly a matter of getting used to where things are. I like both sites, really- I'll be using both personally whether we move or not, so it's not like switching a game means never looking at LJ again.
The confusion with 'who is everyone?' is probably unavoidable. I'd hope that it's like using the site itself- that it gets broken in eventually.
Whatever happens, I just want it to be as painless as possible for everyone. .__.
FORGIVE ME FOR NOT POSTING A SUPER LONG COMMENT IN RETURN.
Just want to say that you're right. I realize that a lot of my hesitations are splitting hairs and I'm whining and being entitled to things, and that the import feature really is a great tool, and I should be thrilled to have that much. Most of this honestly is just because I'm frustrated and still in the BUT WHY CAN'T THINGS BE THE WAY THEY WERE? mentality.
So- tl;dr, I'll figure it out eventually, and I'll try my best to adjust some of my reluctance is also laziness- setting up a character journal takes a long time, not to mention four of them!. Sorry for bringing all of this up and whining all over your guys' awesome post. &hearts
I'm talking more of it being like this (the comment section). Which isn't entirely bad! I'm actually impressed with the level of sophistication, and I guess it does feel like I'm splitting hairs, I just... even in that post, the lack of icons changes the whole tone of the thread (mainly because I play a douchey character and I utilize icons a lot to convey sarcasm or him being a jerk when his words say otherwize).
I personally would like to try to see if lj gets any better- it's only been a week, and I realize that it doesn't seem like it will change back, but moving websites entirely so soon seems extreme, I guess? Though I suppose you guys are already doing that with the wait time for the poll. I appreciate that.
At any rate, I suppose I'm worried about a few things. Firstly, the importing of LJ to DW. From what I've played around with so far, the import feature seems very limited and the lack of icons affected the overall mood of the threads, and made rereading them awkward. This probably doesn't affect most people because lol I'm weird and I reread threads in my spare time, but it's something that really bothered me, especially if player posts and logs would be imported and considered game canon. If Ads did move, I would feel like I'm losing a lot (in both threads themselves, comment counts, and of course, paid time that has yet to expire). I'm also concerned with everyone getting new usernames and trying to figure out who is who again- it's bound to result in a lot of confusion that might affect playing, not to mention the fact that rereading old threads with a different journal on the openID would be- idk, it seems like it would be weird for new people to know who played when? Like if person A changed usernames, their old username would show up on the imported openID, but a new player might not know that it was the same mun if they were linked to the thread... agh, idk if I'm making sense.
And lastly, I guess I'm sort of immature because a big change like this is super scary to me. I haven't made journals over on dw for all of my characters yet, but when I have poked around on it, it reminded me uncomfortably of insanejournal and inksome, both of which I've played at and subsequently dropped because the formatting of the website was much weaker than lj- just with the degree to which you can customize it, the ease of finding things, etc etc. And then there's the added bonus of if we do move, I'm kind of stuck with a feeling of 'why bother?' until then, you know? Because no matter what I do now, the quality of any thread I do will be diminished to me when it imports.
And I guess most of my concerns can be addressed as 'just go read the old threads on lj!' but a lot of the muns I've talked to are definitely deleting their rp journals as a message to lj staff, so that... really won't be possible, I guess.
HOWEVER, I do understand that something's got to change. We can't limit ourselves to custom comment pages and threads below 40 comments. That's just crazy. LJ is getting ridiculous, and I'm definitely not fighting to stay with a broken system. I know that the changes make it harder on us as players and you as mods and everything is crazy and topsy turvy right now. I guess I'm just really frustrated with how limited our options are- and that's not anyone's fault at all!
SO TL;DR THIS SITUATION SUCKS and I feel so badly for you guys as mods and I'm just. Unhappy with everything all around AND I NEED TO PROJECT IT SOMEWHERE and there's not much that can really be done about it. XD
The long and short of it- and what you guys are asking (forgive me again for tl;dring at you), is that if I was given an ultimatum, I would prefer the game to move as long as we're certain that lj is not rolling back anything ever (which I'm fairly sure we are). Can't say I'd be thrilled with moving, but it seems like the lesser of the two evils.
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Dreamwidth doesn't have the level of coding sophistication that LJ has, but it has the level that LJ had five years ago. It's getting better all the time. I'm not shilling for them or anything, but if you look at how their staff behaves - 0 to live community importing in less than two weeks! - then I think you can reasonably expect their level of code strength and usability to go up steadily for a very long time.
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I know that dw is very promising, and I'm hoping that it continues to be so- I'm just worried overall that the quality of the website will wind up being frustrating in the time that it takes their usability to develop and increase. Then again, I can't say that much because I've only been playing with it for a few days- please don't take this as me dumping on dw, I'm just very used to playing things a certain way, and uprooting everything is just an inconvenience, but one that there is no easy way around.
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The issue of deleting or recycling journals... is hard. It's rough, and it hurts to lose old threads. However, i have seen that happen all the time in situations where the person just leaves the game, with no mass exodus involved. In an old IJ game I was in, a journal that was my character's main love interest for eight months has since been recycled, and every thread on that journal is gone. Maybe I'm just a little more cynical when I say that I don't know how much moving will affect that? Or maybe it's the five-in-the-morning sleeplessness talking. I don't know.
Moving isn't perfect. Change sucks. I get that. I don't want to look like I don't, because it's a totally understandable way to feel.
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I haven't tried the import feature on DW myself, so losing the icons kind of sucks but- I have that same problem re-reading old threads with people who've changed their icons, so they're gone anyway. :x But it's not like- the old ones are going to be shut down or anything? The old posts and comm would always still be here, so everything can be reread with their old icons and everything. And new stuff could just be picked up on the other site where they left off.
I really don't want it to be a big dramatic change for anyone. I think DW kind of looks how LJ did a few years ago. :x; They even have some features LJ doesn't have (icon renaming, without losing old associations!). Some things are in different spots and... yeah, it's mostly a matter of getting used to where things are. I like both sites, really- I'll be using both personally whether we move or not, so it's not like switching a game means never looking at LJ again.
The confusion with 'who is everyone?' is probably unavoidable. I'd hope that it's like using the site itself- that it gets broken in eventually.
Whatever happens, I just want it to be as painless as possible for everyone. .__.
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Just want to say that you're right. I realize that a lot of my hesitations are splitting hairs and I'm whining and being entitled to things, and that the import feature really is a great tool, and I should be thrilled to have that much. Most of this honestly is just because I'm frustrated and still in the BUT WHY CAN'T THINGS BE THE WAY THEY WERE? mentality.
So- tl;dr, I'll figure it out eventually, and I'll try my best to adjust some of my reluctance is also laziness- setting up a character journal takes a long time, not to mention four of them!. Sorry for bringing all of this up and whining all over your guys' awesome post. &hearts
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