IMPORTANT! Please read!
In regards to the recent LJ update and the changes across the site, there's been a lot of talk in the RP community about shifting games and personal accounts over to Dreamwidth. The modteam have been in discussion since the update as to what our options are and how they might affect the game, but before any decisions are made, we'd like to hear from you! This game exists for the players (aka you awesome people), and we'd hate to make a call without your input. Ultimately, we'd like this to be a group decision between players, mods and sharksheep alike.
Below is a poll, created to give us an idea of where everyone stands in the LJ/DW debacle.
Please only vote once! Rigging results or cheating makes babby moose cry ;A;
Poll DW, LJ and Comment System Poll
Detailed results - who voted where - will only be seen by the mods, so please be honest with us. We would like to hear all opinions. If you choose 'other' - maybe you'd like to wait and see what the RP community as a whole does, maybe your response can't be summed up by this poll - then please elaborate in the comments.
We are also opening this post up for discussion. Below the cut is some information on (what we think) are the three most viable options from here, as well as some pros and cons for each. Vote first and discuss later, or see what others think before you decide. It's up to you. If you'd like to have your say but don't want to say it in front of everyone, don't forget we have this sweet suggestion box.
Where do we go from here?
Stay at livejournal and adapt to the new commenting system.
This involves… Doing nothing! :D It’s quick, it’s easy. The game’s policy of disabling custom comment pages will remain.
Pros
- The new comment system has some cool features, including icon browse and editing options.
- New comment system allows for uniformity in design.
- It's really simple.
Cons
- Some players have difficulty using the new interface for a variety of reasons.
- No subject lines
- General usability ‘bugs’ (not saving comments when you expand another thread on a page, not saving comments when you click the ‘more options’ button, no preview button) that are likely to go unfixed
Stay at livejournal and circumvent the new commenting system.
This would likely involve measures that many have taken already, including the game-wide implementation of custom comment pages, though we wouldn’t ask for the implementation of a single journal style.
Pros
- Minimal change necessary
- Circumvents the accessibility, design and usability issues some players are experiencing with the new comment system.
Cons
- Custom comment pages have style problems of their own, primarily the ‘bunching’ of comments once a thread gets to a certain length.
- Requires either an impeccably maintained friendslist or manual insertion of ?style=mine into the url for design uniformity.
- May not be a permanent solution, in the event of an s2 redesign.
Move to dreamwidth.
This option is initially by far the most complex, but also presents the most thorough work-around to any of livejournal’s recently implemented coding.
Dreamwidth allows any user to import their existing journal content from livejournal, including comment threads in entries.
Within the next week, they will be allowing community importation. There will be some restrictions on this initially, in case of server strain (the importing user must be a paid user, the community must contain less than 100,000 comments). This means that for almost any game, and certainly for ours, the moving option is a medium-term option - in the next month or so - and may take some time to implement if we want to avoid suspending play.
Pros
- The new comment system and all future livejournal redesigns, updates and changes cease to be an issue.
- Aside from subject-lines, dreamwidth has a number of useful features that livejournal doesn’t (see here under ‘Dreamwidth 101’)
Cons
- Any players with paid time at the time of the move would lose it
- You lose icons when importing threads (see test here)
- There is a chance that Dreamwidth may not be equipped to handle the influx from the roleplay community, and livejournal has no reverse import feature, should the community change their minds (for more information on steps they’re taking to ensure system stability, see here under ‘site stability’)
- Accounts are only freely available until the 1st January. This means:
==> Even if a move is planned for some time in the future, there is a limited time for people to snap up journals.
==> In future, you will need an invite code or to purchase a paid to create a new journal. Invite codes are not difficult to get (see here) but this means journals are more difficult to create than they would be on livejournal.
Please keep discussion civil. There have been a lot of hot tempers over this and we like our game chill. Like a milkshake.
EDIT: REMEMBER. ONLY VOTE ONCE. That means ONE vote with ONE of your character RP journals. We've had some people voting twice. As it stands, one of the 'stay' votes won't be counted, as it's a duplicate vote.
Below is a poll, created to give us an idea of where everyone stands in the LJ/DW debacle.
Please only vote once! Rigging results or cheating makes babby moose cry ;A;
Poll DW, LJ and Comment System Poll
Detailed results - who voted where - will only be seen by the mods, so please be honest with us. We would like to hear all opinions. If you choose 'other' - maybe you'd like to wait and see what the RP community as a whole does, maybe your response can't be summed up by this poll - then please elaborate in the comments.
We are also opening this post up for discussion. Below the cut is some information on (what we think) are the three most viable options from here, as well as some pros and cons for each. Vote first and discuss later, or see what others think before you decide. It's up to you. If you'd like to have your say but don't want to say it in front of everyone, don't forget we have this sweet suggestion box.
Where do we go from here?
Stay at livejournal and adapt to the new commenting system.
This involves… Doing nothing! :D It’s quick, it’s easy. The game’s policy of disabling custom comment pages will remain.
Pros
- The new comment system has some cool features, including icon browse and editing options.
- New comment system allows for uniformity in design.
- It's really simple.
Cons
- Some players have difficulty using the new interface for a variety of reasons.
- No subject lines
- General usability ‘bugs’ (not saving comments when you expand another thread on a page, not saving comments when you click the ‘more options’ button, no preview button) that are likely to go unfixed
Stay at livejournal and circumvent the new commenting system.
This would likely involve measures that many have taken already, including the game-wide implementation of custom comment pages, though we wouldn’t ask for the implementation of a single journal style.
Pros
- Minimal change necessary
- Circumvents the accessibility, design and usability issues some players are experiencing with the new comment system.
Cons
- Custom comment pages have style problems of their own, primarily the ‘bunching’ of comments once a thread gets to a certain length.
- Requires either an impeccably maintained friendslist or manual insertion of ?style=mine into the url for design uniformity.
- May not be a permanent solution, in the event of an s2 redesign.
Move to dreamwidth.
This option is initially by far the most complex, but also presents the most thorough work-around to any of livejournal’s recently implemented coding.
Dreamwidth allows any user to import their existing journal content from livejournal, including comment threads in entries.
Within the next week, they will be allowing community importation. There will be some restrictions on this initially, in case of server strain (the importing user must be a paid user, the community must contain less than 100,000 comments). This means that for almost any game, and certainly for ours, the moving option is a medium-term option - in the next month or so - and may take some time to implement if we want to avoid suspending play.
Pros
- The new comment system and all future livejournal redesigns, updates and changes cease to be an issue.
- Aside from subject-lines, dreamwidth has a number of useful features that livejournal doesn’t (see here under ‘Dreamwidth 101’)
Cons
- Any players with paid time at the time of the move would lose it
- You lose icons when importing threads (see test here)
- There is a chance that Dreamwidth may not be equipped to handle the influx from the roleplay community, and livejournal has no reverse import feature, should the community change their minds (for more information on steps they’re taking to ensure system stability, see here under ‘site stability’)
- Accounts are only freely available until the 1st January. This means:
==> Even if a move is planned for some time in the future, there is a limited time for people to snap up journals.
==> In future, you will need an invite code or to purchase a paid to create a new journal. Invite codes are not difficult to get (see here) but this means journals are more difficult to create than they would be on livejournal.
Please keep discussion civil. There have been a lot of hot tempers over this and we like our game chill. Like a milkshake.
EDIT: REMEMBER. ONLY VOTE ONCE. That means ONE vote with ONE of your character RP journals. We've had some people voting twice. As it stands, one of the 'stay' votes won't be counted, as it's a duplicate vote.