Moving to Dreamwidth - discussion

[srwuga_mods]

This is something the mod team has been discussing for a longer while by now, and didn't really keep secret. Basically, we're thinking about moving the game to Dreamwidth at some point in the near future. There will be multiple benefits to doing that - DW is more stable, offers more options, but most importantly, it has a much bigger roleplaying community, and doing so will let us attract more new players and bring a breath of fresh air into the game.

Remember, this is not something that will happen right here and now. We will take it slow with the moving and let you all know well in advance, so everyone will have the time to speak their mind on this issue and then move their characters comfortably to DW, when we move.

Feel free to discuss your stance on this in the comments to this post, especially if you're against the move. We might decide not to move if a significant number of people is against it, or if someone gives a good reason why we should stay on LJ.

Comments

Yea

[emorangerpink]

I know of no reason affecting me why we shouldn't make the move. I don't do anything fancy with LJ that might break from a move to DW. So count me as a "yeah, I'm fine with this", just for the record. Of course, that shouldn't really count as equally balancing a specific reason not to move affecting anyone else.

[eagle2-red.livejournal.com]

I'm perfectly fine either way. To be honest, though, more of my games are on DW anyway, so I guess that's another push toward yea.

[gamenojikan.livejournal.com]

Hm.

I'm generally opposed to this, but if the game is planned for another 2 full years, then I could see the benefit.

So chalk me down as neutral. I do not look forward to the hassle and see little to be gained from it immediately, but if you plan for things to go that long, we'd need to do it eventually.

If there was some miscommunication and the game is not planned to go for that long, then I see no particular benefit to such a move. Too few players is not exactly a problem right now, and the other benefits of DW seem too minor to justify moving.

[rods-and-cones.livejournal.com]

Most of the hassle is on our part, and, it's not really too much.

For the players, it's a matter of just creating new accounts on DW (which now allow for 25 characters in names, and an offer to import everything from a LJ account).

But yeah, we only 'officially' entered our second year back when we did "First Inspection"

[change-getta-1.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm surprised that we're probably the last ones TO move here at this point. It's easier to manage all of our journals this way, all my others games (whichever are left and active at this point) are over there and we'll get something we've been missing for the past year: more players.

We should have been moved yesteryear

[ikilledthemoon.livejournal.com]

My opinion is already known, but I'll reiterate it.

1. Make no mistake: We will not find new players on LiveJournal. The RPing community here is all but dead due to LiveJournal's notoriously bad customer service, a field in which Dreamwidth is superior on all cylinders.

2. Dreamwidth's paid accounts are both cheaper and are of better value (100 icons for the price of 30 on LJ).

3. Shaun has already imported the communities there, so the hard part is already done.

Everything else has already addressed.

[momentoftherose.livejournal.com]

There are good reasons why every other RP has moved already.

1: Livejournal's new interface is like a broken iPod, and while we've implemented some workarounds, there are still some parts of the game which are by necessity still using it. Getting rid of that is a plus.

2: If any of us expect to get castmates that aren't already in the game playing other characters, DW is the only option. ATP doesn't even run on LJ anymore. I've had interest by many people in this game but all of whom don't want to deal with LJ's bullshit.

3: LJ is prone to going down unexpectedly or suddenly slowing to a virtual halt. It's taken me five-ten minutes to post a short tag because of that.

4: The majority of the game wants it.

5: As pointed out above, paid accounts are a better value on DW

6: If something goes wrong with the comms, we'll get much better service from DW

[sunshine_maiden]

I don't see a problem with this, honestly; I only play this game (now) on LJ and I have two more on DW. The only issue I'd have is that Dreamwidth doesn't have an iPhone app, which I depend on a lot for tags at work... but it's not like I can't just tag from the website anyway from Mobile Chrome, so it's not major. The things like paid accounts don't matter to me, although they might someday if I play something other than Sora enough.

[aceshighhealer.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't have a problem with moving the game to DW. I've enjoyed the game immensely since joining and hope to go on for a very long time. So my vote would be in the 'Yes' column.

[aceshighgrope.livejournal.com]

I've already created the accounts for my pups over there just in case. I know I've been quiet lately here, blaming that on LJ okay.

[demonofjeeha.livejournal.com]

I support this move. Every other game I'm in is on DW, and I literally can't remember the last time we got a new player in the game. Not much else to say beyond that.

[sunshine_maiden]

....I think it was when we got Roger? Dunno what was before that.

[an-alpha-wolf.livejournal.com]

That's only because Roger's mun is my loyal uke and would follow me to the end of all things if I asked.

Not that we don't have plenty to offer! I'm just saiyan. Total yaoi boyz.

[paradigmstop.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should point out the falsehood inherent in this statement...
Anyway I support the move, for what that is worth.

[bottleofgundam.livejournal.com]

As cool as Roger is, I think my point still stands. We are in a rut in terms of playerbase.

[muginami_desu]

I'm all for the move.

More new players is a good thing, and maybe that Requests & Reserves page will actually see some use again.

[can_not_fly]

Well, sounds like a bit of a pain, and I don't know if we'd lose all the posts currently here (I like to trek back and reread old stuff every now and then), but overall it seems like the benefits outweigh the negatives overall, so might as well.

[ikilledthemoon.livejournal.com]

Nope. (http://srwug_alpha_rp.dreamwidth.org/)

Actually, there's an import tool that copies all posts on a community into one on Dreamwidth.

[aheartstrength.livejournal.com]

And comments! Don't forget about the comments!

[sunshine_maiden]

And if you've already got your character journals set up on Dreamwidth, you can tell Dreamwidth to set your imported comments as coming from your new journal!

EDIT: But if there's an underscore in your old journal name, remember to make it a dash in that form, else it gets confused and won't claim properly.

[rods-and-cones.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing I dropped schwarz, cuz there's already a germanninjutsu on DW...

[rods-and-cones.livejournal.com]

Actually, what we DO lose is everything between the official move and when Shaun imported the community. Unless we can import AGAIN

[saikyocivrobo]

That should be possible, shouldn't it?

[sunshine_maiden]

Last time I tried that with Sora's journal, it actually did "import the entire journal again" - it made copies of all the old posts in addition to adding the new ones. I don't know if that's true for communities as well. Although, if there's a relatively convenient option for it, there's no reason we can't just purge all posts from the Dreamwidth comm and do it again.

[white-deviling.livejournal.com]

I think that's why most of the other comms that moved over there from LJ had some sort of 'stop posting/commenting' period before they moved. Unless I read it wrong.

But yeah, what Salsa said.

[betterthnaliens.livejournal.com]

I think you CAN import stuff again.

[aheartstrength.livejournal.com]

I fully support the move. Importing does not take that long and we'd be primed to find a lot more new meat around Dreamwidth than say if we stayed here on LJ.

LJ's notoriously bad customer service has made me want to get the hell off of the site anyway and I've already made my home on Dreamwidth for RPing and my personal journal. On top of this, it's clear that the developers want to go for a more Facebook-ish like design if those prototype designs were anything to judge by. And I'm sure a lot of us don't want to deal with that just to RP.

There's my two cents.

TLDR: I've been for the move for ages and I'm happy to see a post like this finally go up.

[noliesnohero.livejournal.com]

I'm all for it, in fact I already imported all my journals with the exception of this one over there already just in case.