(no subject)

[laszlo-jamf.livejournal.com]

Hello one more time, Polychromatic!

Voting on our gamewide poll is closed.

The majority of votes were in favor of moving Polychromatic to Dreamwidth.

Therefore, Polychromatic will be moving from Livejournal to Dreamwidth.

And the mods agree that, given Livejournal's recent difficulties and potential future changes, this will be the best course of action for the game.

The move will be taking place on Sunday, January 15. On that day, posting will officially move from LJ to DW.

Furthermore, we are waiving activity requirements for January because of this move.

However, because this is such a change, we have decided to revisit a topic of discussion--namely, should Polychromatic operate in a community-based or a journal-based posting format?

There are pros and cons to each format--journal-based posting allows one to keep one's own content even after leaving a game, but community-based posting eliminates the need for an add/remove list, &c. Please give both sides due consideration and vote in the following poll. We would like you to decide as regards this change. The majority will rule in this poll as in the other.

This poll is open until Friday, January 13th.

[Poll #1809839]

As before, while we would prefer you to use this poll, you may also contact us by email (polychromatic.mods@gmail.com) with your response if LJ is giving you difficulties of any sort.

A few more things:

→ Please join [poly_chromatic], [tampered], [poly_tldr], and [thatrainbowcity] with your character journal(s). These will be our main communities on DW. (Alas, the name "polychromatic" was already taken by a personal journal! How can this be? Also! if the mods of poly_crack would like to set up a crack comm for Poly on DW, please do. That's all up to you, but spread the word if you create one!)

→ This poll is still on-going, but you may go ahead and post in your DW journal if you would like, but please be aware that some players may only be checking LJ. We certainly encourage crossposting from DW to LJ for the time being. We know the game is kind of on hold while the move is going on. We are working on importing our communities and getting everything set up as we'd like. Moving is something of a gradual process, but we would like to have at least the basics completed by the 15th.

→ We recommend that everyone use poly_chromatic's members list for the time being to keep up with any character posts that may be made on DW. Once this poll closes, we will either rebuild the add/remove list or open poly_chromatic for posting with character journals (and we will be using [thatrainbowcity] for mod posts and announcements). Please be aware that if the game stays journal-based, it may take a day or two for us to rebuild the add/remove list and you may have to use the member list for a little while after January 15th.

→ If you are going to be using a journal on DW with a different username than the one you have now, please reply to the first comment in this post with both your old and your new usernames. Please do not reply if your journal name is the same on both sites.

→ Please comment to the new [Taken List] with your character(s). This will be a fresh start and will help us to update the Taken List.

→ Please bear with us while we work on making these changes. We will do our best to get everything up and running as soon as possible.

We will also be making another post here in POLYchromatic and mirrored on the Dreamwidth equivalent (poly_chromatic) with the results of the poll, what those results will mean, and a few final notes and suggestions before the 15th.

Thank you, POLYchromatic! We'll see you on the other side!

Comments

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Please do not reply if your journal name is the same on both sites!

[wandbreaker]

pinkfuckingpro -> pinkeffinprofessional

byweavinglives -> synanthrope

repeatshimself -> inmyothertights

[what_the_flux]

wut_the_flux > what_the_flux

[ironmanic.livejournal.com]

LJ: notflynn | DW: vesperian

[signatures]

shifts --> signatures

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Re: poly_crack --

As far as I know, Haunt has already set up the comm for it, I believe under the same name, but I'll let her do any official word-spreading since at the moment she's the one with the information on it. However, we do have the name and the intent to continue maintaining the comm, I know that much! o/

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Rock on! Thanks so much.

[deadly_legacy]

poly_crack is moving to http://poly-crack.dreamwidth.org/

I was actually just getting it ready tonight. Co-mod Alex still needs to look over it, but people may join at any time!

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Fantastic--thank you!

[stargathering]

I'm not really sure which username I'll be using yet. I already have a paid account for another game that uses the character journals (for memes and stuff), so if Poly stays journal-based, I'll have to use another account. I know one other person is pretty much in the same position.

[deadly_legacy]

Yeah, I have deadly_legacy over there, but if we go comm, I'll probably switch and just buy the one journal. So, you know 2 people!

[boutant]

On the taken page -- did you want that to say "character dw" instead of "character lj"? I changed mine anyway because otherwise it would bother me but ahahaha /sits in corner

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it, um, actually probably should say that. Please do feel free to change it, if you like. We wanted to get the taken list up and running on DW as soon as we could and we figured that the "character LJ"/"character DW" was a small thing in the scheme of things. We'll fix the coding in the posts as soon as we can, though!

RE: FORMAT.

[crowing]

I can honestly play in either format, but I would personally prefer community-based because there are always gonna be people who don't like constantly updating their friend's list! hahaha.

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

A valid argument as well. Please do vote as you see fit!

[duplicities]

if we're posting an app should we do it on lj or on dw?

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

We're going to be looking in both places for this week, so you may post it in either LJ!appfloss or DW!appfloss (the name is the same on both sites), though we would encourage you to post your application on DW because that will be the new location for apps after this week.

[intheblanks.livejournal.com]

RE: FORMAT

we're... practically the only journal based game left. I love the format and think it would be a crying shame to change it. I like having a friends list, and all my game history in my own journal. Just my feels.

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Totally legitimate feels, too, by all means. This is certainly something to consider very carefully.

[signatures]

I'm personally one who doesn't care which one we end up at since primarily my interests lie in whatever makes the move over easier for the mods, but I saw this suggestion on plurk and thought it was pretty neat:

If we move over to comm-based, is it possible that we could disable comments and then fake-cut our comm posts to lead to our journal posts? That way we have copies on both the comm and our journals as far as keeping track of a/c, but have the meat of it in personal journals so that we all have it in one place in case we ever have to leave poly? I know it's pretty easy to set up character tags in a poly comm but this way it's our stuff, and I know a lot of people are attached to that particular ownership of things being all in one place for them \o\

Since our a/c is only based on posts, it'd really just be up to the player base if they want to go through with having something split like that, since I'm sure a lot of people won't mind posting and commenting on the comm itself, so it might end up a little messy if not everyone is using the same system.

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

This is a pretty clever idea. It seems as though it would be feasible (the mods are talking about it a bit at the moment too).

Players would still be responsible for making the post with the fake cut on the main poly community and for including the character's community tag, but the actual post and the comments relating to it could certainly take place in the personal journal.

We will certainly keep this option in mind because it does seem like it would be do-able.

[bedsidemanners.livejournal.com]

The journal-based format makes me actually want to change my journal's colors from the default and do stupid fandomy stuff in the journal itself. Comm-based has always made me feel like I don't need to do that since I figure no one'll be looking (and even after having been in multiple community-based formats, I still never end up feeling like I can quite put down whatever comes to mind. It's like it's less.. personable? This is all my own very weird damage, though!).

*/two cents*

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

A very valuable $0.02, as they all are.

[dignity_misery]

Just my two-cents in case it's meaningful to anyone undecided. This is the first journal-based game I've been in and I've really been enjoying the change of format. There's something intimate in the enaction of actual journals and 'friending' that starts to fade in the comm setting. The tools you use and the way you use them define the character of your use in varied and subtle ways, but I think some of the inconveniences of the journals, especially having to deal with managing the flist, have probably shaped the community of players and their relationships to one another, as well as to the characters. Flists are journals strung to one another, communities are journals strung to a central node.

In the logical part of my brain, it's clearly recognized that the change is not that significant from a literal view. The flist when fully updated is a similar enough approximation of what a comm would give you, but the part of my brain that reacts to symbolism would be sad to make this change.

tl;dr - I would be disappointed to switch to community style since the journals are part of the reason I applied here, and I think the change would have broader ripples than just logistics. But ultimately? I would get over it.

[pirate-mod.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your two-cents as well. Polychromatic was journal-based when it opened and has been that way for over five years for various reasons including the feeling you have, you've just managed to articulate it far better. In that five years we've also received questions and suggestions about becoming community-based from players who have come and gone and some who have stayed despite preferring a community-based game. The decision to poll the community for this kind of change definitely didn't come easily but we hope that whatever the outcome people will continue to play however makes them feel most comfortable.

[ignipotent.livejournal.com]

Since there are a substantial number of players who still want a journal-based game (compared to the landslide DW vote), I think it would be fair to compromise and allow players to fake-cut their community posts to personal journals.

As I mentioned on Nelly's thread (http://polychromatic.livejournal.com/231296.html?thread=18482560#t18482560), there are notable cons to the comm-based system, just as there are with the journal-based system.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

I will +1 this, with a link (http://polychromatic.livejournal.com/231296.html?thread=18482304#t18482304) to my thoughts on being able to tag my own content--as my personal primary con to a comm-based system.

[shall-yield-us.livejournal.com]

......because my tl;dr shouldn't flood Audrey's plurk!!!

I sort of personally like journal-based more, because it makes me... feel less self-aware when posting... /cricket-cricket

But I think that comm-based should be easier to maintain - especially on dreamwidth, where friending someone is a two-step issue: you have to grant access (allow someone to read your content) and subscribe (read theirs on your flist). This isn't a problem when you mass-friend with a console, but it might become one when people friend newly intro'd people off poly_tldr: it sounds easy ("Just tick the other option for the full friending experience!") but I think a lot of us might forget. Which... if we forget to subscribe would result in people not having each other followed / unable to tag because they don't see the entries on their flists.

Sob, this is a very tl;dr comment for what basically amounts to, "RELEASE THE TAG KRAKEN."

Actually, can I get a kraken banner...

[intheblanks.livejournal.com]

I'm just curious, is there anyone who will actually be unhappy or feel their enjoyment of gameplay will be hampered by staying in the journal based format?

I do wonder if that might not be the question to ask, simply because everyone here signed up knowing it was journal based and so is likely to be able to tolerate keeping that system. I myself will be sad if it switches to a comm format but it's not a deal breaker. I'll see how I deal with it, I'm just aware of people with more issues than myself related to playing in a comm style.

The biggest specific/technical pros I can see with switching to a community format involve making the transition to dreamwidth smoother for the mods when it comes to compiling an initial friending list, and then the worry that people will forget to click both grant and subscribe when adding individual friends later. And, obviously, some people just prefer the community format - but have been playing in a journal based style and joined the game with that set up.

I feel that a small note or table to throw in to new character tldr posts saying "please grant AND subscribe to -username-" would go some way to solving the two-click problem, and we'd get used to it, though I'm sure there would be small slips.

However, in switching to a community format, we lose some of the tradition of one of LJ's older panfandom games - and while poly may always have put a few people off who only like comm games, there are many alternatives. Far fewer alternative journal based games.

We lose the back story of the characters. We'll all either have journals that look abruptly cut off, or those of us who like things neat will delete or hide imported entries and start over. Either way it will be harder to trace a character backwards.

We lose the more personalised feel and sense of ownership others have mentioned they get from having their character's entries in their own journal.

We lose the ability to filter friends pages: I know some of us with more than one character like to have one main friends list and smaller friends lists for individual characters, for those days when you can't read everything (more necessary when the game was faster).

Yes, we can track community posts in our own journals, or even fake-cut link across, but both of these options feel somehow distancing.

Ultimately, I'll go with the game and see how I get on with it, whatever the decision may be. Making the change to dw is already quite an adjustment and it's great that there are efforts all round to be accommodating with it. I just wanted to shape my opinions a little bit more and stop overloading people's plurks. Sorry to be so srs over what is a silly little thing in the scheme of things. It's just 4 1/2 years in the game is a lot of tradition to miss.

[drinkslikeanan.livejournal.com]

+1 to all this. Well said.

[deathstrumpcard.livejournal.com]

So..I voted for comm-based purely based on the fact that I, generally, prefer that format over journal-based. It probably boils down to 'I'm lazy and don't check my f-list' but I know there are plenty of posts I don't see that might be relevant to my character's interests and that sort of thing is eliminated with a comm-based format. Besides, it makes it also gets rid of the headache of keeping up with friend adds and, possibly, filters.

That said, I then walked away and thought more about it and, while all of my previous points still stand as to why I am in favor of Comm-based in general, I think journal-based is a better route for Poly. There is the fact that journal-based eliminates any, possible, self-awareness issues but, beyond that, there's the issue of alerts/floods.

I'm one of those people who tracks an entire comm instead of the tags for the characters I have CR with so I end up getting an e-mail alert every time someone posts something new. For a game like Poly where curses are prevalent and posts are being made all the time, especially for popular curses, I don't think anyone's inbox would appreciate that sort of flood.

I know it's about the same for people's f-lists but, when you check your tags via your e-mail, it's a pain in the ass to have to spend 15 minutes judging what should be deleted and what needs to be read.

...I know there were more points I had...but I can't remember them right now so I'll just rein in my teal deers now. >>;

[designedtoparty]

Commenting from my phone, so apologies if this has already come up and I managed to miss it.

Do you know what tagging system we'd be using if we did move yet? If not could we consider using a two tag system? Something like 'misfits: nathan young' for a post and '-misfits: nathan young' for when we comment to posts. I just find tags like that make things a little easier for stalking organisation.

[deadly_legacy]

/finds this incredibly sexy.

/easily moved by organization.

It would take up a lot of tags for a big game though. I know Amat always has problems with running out, but DW might offer more than LJ. But...I liiike it.

[riseto.livejournal.com]

I tried responding to the taken list over at DW and it says maximum comments reached.

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is...quite, uh, unexpected. Let me look into it and see if there's a per-day comment limit or something. We may have reached our limit. Try it again in a little while, if you don't mind, and I'll see what I can find out.

[shall-yield-us.livejournal.com]

...and back with a compromise-suggestion, though idk if this might not be too little, too late XD.

How about... people join the polychro main community, post on their own journals, but use the com's flist instead of keeping their own? Wooooould that work? That option's been available until now too, but I think a lot of people have forgot to add themselves to the polychro community over time, so its flist hasn't always been up to date. If people know the only flist source is the comm flist, I think they might keep better track of joining it and all that T_T

That way, we can keep the journal format but there's no longer the issue of an add/remove list, which seems to bother some and which might be a tad weirder on dw.

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

This is another good option and it's certainly the mode we're suggesting for the time being while the game is currently moving, and it does work! The only trick is that any posts made on either poly_tldr or tampered won't show up on the comm's flist, which can be a little inconvenient.

(And, yes, the adding/removing process DW is different from LJ...which is taking some getting accustomed to...)

[boutant]

Just a quick note -- Dreamwidth reading lists (aka the friends list) have a limit. They display the most recent 1000 entries posted within the past 14 days. This is for both personal journal lists and community lists; I checked with both Ariadne's DW and the poly_chromatic comm's reading list. I haven't been at Poly while a large plot has been going on but my understanding is that a large amount of characters + a huge plot = a lot of posts. Will it hit over 1000 in 14 days? I have absolutely NO IDEA.

So yeah uh. JUST SO THAT'S OUT THERE. /goes back to Uncharted 2 and Nathan Drake's ass

EDIT: back from Nathan Drake's ass for a moment As a note, it's 1000 entries or 14 days, whichever comes first. If there are only 10 entries but they've all been posted 15 days ago, you won't see them.

[signatures]

... like the back button won't go back past 15 days?

[ignipotent.livejournal.com]

I still maintain my position that the option of a hybrid system (meaning players would have a choice to us it!) would be the best compromise given the margin of the poll. As it is now, choosing to go either/or with journal vs. comm-based will end up alienating a substantial portion of the playerbase.

I made a model of the hybrid system just to give a clear-cut illustration of how it works!

Pretend that this is Polychromatic's new community (http://sausage.dreamwidth.org/).

Players post on the community with full posts, but instead of clicking the reply link, the reader clicks a link on the bottom of the character's post leading to the journal post. This maintains the aesthetic consistency of the community's format, while giving players the option to maintain their content on their journals. Furthermore, this optional hybrid system would not cause extra hassle because the entry's Reply link is simply replaced with the player's custom link. It's still one click to get to the comment page.

However, I do have one concern: I'm worried that if the option of a hybrid system is allowed, some players may choose to ignore the players who use this option. There's no technical reason for it, as the hybrid system would do little to affect the community format besides the community posts not reflecting the actual comment count. (A minor concession, I think.)

[valentineluke.livejournal.com]

Do fake-cut comm posts (http://polychromatic.livejournal.com/231296.html?thread=18472576#t18472576) first for a couple weeks, get everybody familiar with it? Then switch over to hybrid for a test run?

[robot-mod.livejournal.com]

We have created a list of pros and cons for each game organization style here. (http://polychromatic.livejournal.com/231569.html) Please give these benefits and drawbacks due consideration in your vote.

Thank you!