To Move Or Not to Move: Part II
First of all, thank you all very much for your responses to our previous discussion post! It seems that by far the majority of the player-base that left us feedback is in favor of a move. Thus we will dedicate this post to open discussion, to laying out what will need to happen before any kind of move were to happen, and to vote once and for all. As usual, please keep discussion civil. Some people will not share your opinions but we prefer for this post to serve as discussion, not debate.
As mentioned in the paragraph above, the responses we received were nearly entirely in favor of a move; the biggest concerns regarding a move that came up were 1) invite codes, and 2) Dreamwidth's ability to support a community our size. Other concerns that came up were:
► Livejournal's frequent downtime due to DDOS server attacks and other issues.
► Dreamwidth rents, not owns, their servers, meaning their stability is reliant upon a third-party source.
► Livejournal's frequent issues with notif delivery.
► Dreamwidth's icon package system/prices. (Important to note that the DW mods have stated they're looking into revising how they organize packages and will probably add more affordable icon packs/durations of time, but this hasn't happened yet.)
On the record and to reiterate: the game is not officially moving or staying at this point in time. This post is still to discuss the process that will be involved in moving if we move. As roughy 3/4 of our response was in favor of a move, however, we have been discussing as mods the logistics of what moving would entail for us -- and for you -- and would like to lay those out for you now.
Here's the breakdown:
► All of the top-level entries from capeandcowl and capeandcowllogs current to 12/30/2011 have been transferred over to our Dreamwidth mirrors; the comments have not been but will be at our soonest convenience -- February is what they said -- and (since it is a free account) we are over the limit of tags. The tags issue would require the community to either be paid, or for us to delete ~300 or more of the dropped character tags. As we currently have ~260 active characters in-game and ~1,020 dropped character tags, deleting inactive tags would drop us below the limit.
► To help resolve the invite issue, we would include a question in the application asking the applicant if they will need the mods to provide an invite for them; additionally, we would make a members-locked, screened comment post for players to donate any invites they are willing to spare. We would provide such applicants with a code in their acceptance notice via email, and thus would probably switch over to email applications completely. We would also link to code-sharing communities on our application page.
► If we were to move, the projected date would be around mid-February. The reasons for this are several:
We are aware there are some downsides to a wait, such as paid time expiring (though on the reverse side, those who just renewed recently will have time to use their icons) and those players who cannot access the site at all. Therefore, if we do move and if you know someone who cannot access livejournal please contact the mods by AIM or by other means and we will discuss workarounds for you in the meantime.
Below is the official voting poll that we will use to make our decision, and please -- again -- keep all discussion in the comments civil. If you still have concerns that you don't wish to air in public, please feel free to still utilize our screened discussion post or contact one of the mods for private discussion. Please only vote once; all votes made with multiple or unrecognizable accounts will not be counted.
Lastly, anyone who does not respond to either this poll or the other post within two weeks (1/16/12) will receive an email from the mod team to check in, in case they have been unable to access the site.
Thank you.
Poll Should we stay or should we go?
As mentioned in the paragraph above, the responses we received were nearly entirely in favor of a move; the biggest concerns regarding a move that came up were 1) invite codes, and 2) Dreamwidth's ability to support a community our size. Other concerns that came up were:
► Livejournal's frequent downtime due to DDOS server attacks and other issues.
► Dreamwidth rents, not owns, their servers, meaning their stability is reliant upon a third-party source.
► Livejournal's frequent issues with notif delivery.
► Dreamwidth's icon package system/prices. (Important to note that the DW mods have stated they're looking into revising how they organize packages and will probably add more affordable icon packs/durations of time, but this hasn't happened yet.)
On the record and to reiterate: the game is not officially moving or staying at this point in time. This post is still to discuss the process that will be involved in moving if we move. As roughy 3/4 of our response was in favor of a move, however, we have been discussing as mods the logistics of what moving would entail for us -- and for you -- and would like to lay those out for you now.
Here's the breakdown:
► All of the top-level entries from capeandcowl and capeandcowllogs current to 12/30/2011 have been transferred over to our Dreamwidth mirrors; the comments have not been but will be at our soonest convenience -- February is what they said -- and (since it is a free account) we are over the limit of tags. The tags issue would require the community to either be paid, or for us to delete ~300 or more of the dropped character tags. As we currently have ~260 active characters in-game and ~1,020 dropped character tags, deleting inactive tags would drop us below the limit.
► To help resolve the invite issue, we would include a question in the application asking the applicant if they will need the mods to provide an invite for them; additionally, we would make a members-locked, screened comment post for players to donate any invites they are willing to spare. We would provide such applicants with a code in their acceptance notice via email, and thus would probably switch over to email applications completely. We would also link to code-sharing communities on our application page.
► If we were to move, the projected date would be around mid-February. The reasons for this are several:
- We need to conclude discussion/voting and come to a definite decision.
- If moving we would want to close down apps for at least a week, possibly two, beforehand so that we do not slap any new players with a sudden and unwelcome transition.
- Many changes DW is offering are slated to take effect late January to February, such as comment importing and more reasonable icon packages. A wait would mean less inconvenience once the transfer actually occurred.
- Finally, we feel like by February we would have a more absolute picture on how Dreamwidth will handle the influx of RPers and big games moving over, because last we checked many of the bigger games have indeed decided to move and thus far have done so successfully.
We are aware there are some downsides to a wait, such as paid time expiring (though on the reverse side, those who just renewed recently will have time to use their icons) and those players who cannot access the site at all. Therefore, if we do move and if you know someone who cannot access livejournal please contact the mods by AIM or by other means and we will discuss workarounds for you in the meantime.
Below is the official voting poll that we will use to make our decision, and please -- again -- keep all discussion in the comments civil. If you still have concerns that you don't wish to air in public, please feel free to still utilize our screened discussion post or contact one of the mods for private discussion. Please only vote once; all votes made with multiple or unrecognizable accounts will not be counted.
Lastly, anyone who does not respond to either this poll or the other post within two weeks (1/16/12) will receive an email from the mod team to check in, in case they have been unable to access the site.
Thank you.
Poll Should we stay or should we go?