finalfantasyland | POLL: Should we move to Dreamwidth?

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poll

POLL: Should we move to Dreamwidth?

While the mods work on tallying, we'd like to put the issue of potentially moving to Dreamwidth on the table for discussion. Since LiveJournal's changes to the comment system, people have asked whether

ff_land plans to move, and well we would like member input before we make a decision either way. I've come up with four options for this comm:

1) No change (keep running it from LJ)
Pros: easy, people have LJ friends and might not want to move, etc.
Cons: no subject lines, other missing functionality, not very much response from LJ, and possibility of DDOS attacks

2) Switch to customized comment pages -- keep the comm on LJ but use a custom S2 style commenting page (for an example, see

ff_eventsquare).
Pros: subject lines, no move needed
Cons: need to upgrade all comms to Plus or Paid; other issues remain or are added (for example, you can't expand top-level comments in the S2 style), but they are more minor

3) Partial move to Dreamwidth -- move headquarters to Dreamwidth, but still leave posts here consisting of a link only to posts on DW when they go up. People would be expected to comment over there, not here (because managing two sets of comments would be a nightmare).
Pros: take advantage of DW's comment system (which people may/may not like), people can see when comms update without having to visit DW
Cons: more work for the mods

4) Full move to Dreamwidth -- move all content over there, close this comm on the LJ side.
Pros: take advantage of DW's comment system
Cons: people might not like using DW or be used to it

Here's the poll:

[Poll #1816658]

If you need more information on the comment changes and Dreamwidth and how easy/difficult it would be to move to DW, read below. If you need to change your vote, click the Poll #_____ link at the top, then [ Fill out Poll ] then change your answers and resubmit.

Overview of the Comment Changes at LiveJournal
Different people have been affected to different degrees by the new Release 88 comment system. Personally, I've gotten used to most of the visual changes and find the new design not TOO bad, and even kind of nifty in certain ways, but I still need to switch to customized style pages whenever I want to use subject lines or change my icon (because icon selection is still broken under the new comment pages). Recent posts at

news and

lj_releases contain complaints of issues that people are having, so you can check those out.

LJ's responsiveness in terms of fixing or at least announcing their intention to fix some of the issues people are having has been kind of lacking. For example, the last thing that was said about subject lines (over a month ago) was that there was no intention of adding them back.

But again, whether the changes bother you or don't bother you at all is a very personal thing, so some people might find them unacceptable while others don't see what the fuss is.

Guide to Dreamwidth

• No polls for free members on DW
You can't post polls if you're a free user in DW. This would not necessarily affect members, but it would affect the mod team since we post polls fairly regularly; mods who need to post polls would need to upgrade to Paid, or we as a mod team would need to upgrade the FF Land comms to be Paid. On LJ, upgrading for free to a Plus account allows you to post polls but DW does not have a Plus account option. A Paid account on DW (bundled with 100 userpics) is $35 a year. A paid account on LJ is $20-25 a year (depending on if you do automatic payments) + $10 for extra userpics. So for a paid account with 100 userpics, DW & LJ are more or less the same ($35), but LJ offers significantly cheaper options ($20 or free Plus) for getting access to poll creation if you don't care about the other things.

Note:

sunflower_mynah has a paid account on DW and would be willing to post polls for other mods if needed.

Information on DW paid accounts
Information on LJ paid accounts, LJ Paid Account Store

• OpenID
I'm not an expert on how OpenID works, but I think basically it's a way of using a site's features without having to create an account with them. For example, both DW and LJ support OpenID, so it's possible to use such an ID as a login and then be able to post comments and create a friendslist/reading page on those sites, even if you're not actually a member. LJ sets people up with an OpenID that looks like

chacusha.livejournal.com. I forget now what sort of work is involved in using that ID on DW, but it shouldn't take more than about 10 seconds or so to get it set up and then it's very easy to log in. In any case, OpenID isn't really that useful if you're already planning on making an account on that site, but understanding that it exists will help to understand importing and OpenID claiming, which are talked about below...

• Personal LJ Importing
Dreamwidth has a feature (available to everyone) where you can import content from your personal LJ (this includes: journal entries & comments, tags, userpics, profile data, custom friend groups). It may take a while for the importing to finish, depending on how many people are importing, but I hear it's pretty reliable?

Information on importing on DW

• Community Importing
It's now possible for both Paid and Free accounts to import the content of communities to DW as well.

sunflower_mynah has tested this feature by importing the content of

airship_lounge. Comments left on the various posts are associated with your LiveJournal OpenID, e.g. it appears that my comments were left by

chacusha.livejournal.com.

• OpenID Claiming
The above issue can be fixed if I were to claim my OpenID. This is a feature in beta on DW but it allows you to associate all comments left by your OpenID (e.g.

chacusha.livejournal.com) with your DW account (e.g.

chacusha). This allows userpics to be associated with comments, editing of the comment, etc.

Instructions on OpenID claiming on DW

• Other Importing Issues
Embedded videos do NOT get imported, and we would need to re-invite all members to the relevant comms.

Feel free to elaborate on your vote, discuss the reasons, etc. in the comments. Be understanding that your reasons for wanting to stay/leave may not be universal i.e. avoid saying things like, "There's no reason for anyone to stay at LiveJournal anymore," or "I can't see why anybody would want to move to Dreamwidth," since the cost/benefit ratio is different for everyone.

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I'm going to repeat what I said previously: I've noticed that, if people crosspost both here and dreamwidth, I've yet to see anyone get more comments at DW. (A lot of people seem to get virtually no comments over there, but a lot over here...) If part of the issue is activity, I think it has more to do with people being busy/burnout/etc. This game took place during a time when many had school (i.e. Game 2 didn't have that problem, for the most part), holiday plans, etc. In my specific case, I know I wasn't as active because I was tired after Game 2 and all FF'ed out for awhile, but I think I'm finally over that.

I also imagine people who don't have DW accounts at the moment may not want to move over there for just one community, especially if they don't participate much (but do sometimes), they may just never rejoin. I know I never even check my DW account and am often too lazy to even log on there when I have other sites to check, so I imagine that I'd... participate even less if it gets moved.

I also imagine people who don't have DW accounts at the moment may not want to move over there for just one community
~I agree. I don't have a DW account and Yin and I weren't exactly planning on getting one anytime soon, so I'm not thrilled with the prospect of having to get one to participate here. :/ I was pretty busy with things IRL last game, so I didn't participate as much as I normally do...but, I barely have enough time to focus on checking LJ alone, so I don't know if I'd have as much time to participate on a different blogging site either when I would like to maintain our LJ still. O_O; ~~I have no idea if what I typed makes sense, orz.~~

I honestly don't have much of a preference, I have a good presence on both DW and LJ and have for a long time. I know that, for me, my minimal activity in Game 3 had more to do with being busy in RL with school and holidays, so I should be more active Game 4, and I know some people for whom that was also the case...

So, honestly, I'm happy with whatever others decide. I like the comment structure on DW better, but, I agree with the_404_error, activity on LJ is usually A LOT better than activity on DW. However, what I've noticed, is that comms on DW tend to do okay, to. Especially recently, with all of the migration over there. But yeah, activity is still generally better on LJ.

:)

i'll be honest, i'd like things to remain the same here but having in account the latest problems with livejournal we could start with baby steps, with cross posting things on dreamwidth, since a few of the members don't use that site, it'd be a bit unfair for them if we simply moved to DW since they'd have to choose between moving there too or simply drop off the community =S but it's something arguable so i dunno, to me it'd be indifferent since i have a dw account

I think you already know my vote. I don't want to alienate anyone (and so far it seems like a really close thing), and I respect that a lot of people are very rooted in LJ and don't want to go. (I'm in LJ for the community. System-wise, I prefer DW - for one thing, the current comment system gave me a headache the day it came out, and I've never gotten computer headaches before - it was just that glaring, and my monitor's set to lowest contrast. I'm using add-ons now.)

In either case. I would like to back-up - and that means inviting, I suppose - the communities on DW, and I might as well state my reasons here:

1) We've been DDOS'ed every game. Should something happen on LJ, I'd like for there to be a backup where people can go and check information. (You don't have to create a DW account on this; it's possible to invite people via OpenID.)

2) Quite a few people in fandom have moved over - I'm not sure about the other communities, but I do wonder if having a copy of

moogle_workshop on DW might make us more visible to others, as well.

3) I've been tracking news posts. They want to unveil something shiny and new come mid-Feb, and I don't want to know what it is; it might make the situation worse. If it happens that things get so bad that we have to jump ship, regardless of the initial outcome of this poll, or how long this situation lasts - there needs to be a record somewhere else.

That's for backing things up, and not for moving, which I acknowledge is a highly personal choice; I have less invested in LJ, emotionally speaking, than quite a few people I know, and I don't want anyone to be forced to move because that's not fair to them, either. At the same time, I can't see the situation getting better, and I'd like to be prepared for the eventuality, regardless of the outcome of this poll.

ETA: It's not current activity I'm worried about - I'm aware that most people were busy - as was I, this time of year is always bad for many people. I know people will come back when they're freer. If you think we can still attract more new members here, that's fine by me.

Edited 2012-02-04 22:53 (UTC)

I agree. I like both places, but we need to back up our stuff. We could do that over there. Heck, I'd be willing to help with the moving process.

School should be slowing down now, so I will be more active by far.

Tako and I managed to import most communities, actually. It's astonishing.

moogle_workshop is our biggest community and it finished in... 15 minutes, I think. I'm still in awe.

I can't see any reason to NOT back up the community to Dreamwidth other than the time someone has to take to do it. But if there are people willing to do that, I can't see why we WOULDN'T-- more visibility, the chance to attract new people if people are boycotting LJ for various reasons, and a backup in case LJ decides to fuck everything up as they do on a regular basis.

As for actually moving, I'm not putting in a vote because I really don't care. I'm on LJ more often than Dreamwidth, but I have accounts with both and check both fairly regularly. In general, I support DW's underlying philosophy more than LJ and I'm always happy to see new content over there-- but I'm also pretty entrenched in LJ for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being that I've been here for something like eight years now).

I would like to point out, though, that it's important to remember if people have been turned away from the community by the LJ changes, they are unlikely to see and vote on the poll.

I couldn't vote on the poll since Breyzy voted before me...but I also have to go with Option 1 more.

As was said already before: we don't have a Dreamwidth account and it sometimes takes me awhile to even log into LJ sometimes due to RL things and the like, so I think it would probably make me even less active since it would be another blogging site to log into. ~~Gah, I'm sorry...that probably sounds really petty and everything! 0_0;~~ Whatever is best for the comm overall should be done, I think, so it's really just whatever the members decide. Doing a backup on DW might be a good idea though regardless in case the switch has to happen later on.

Since options 1 and 4 are pretty much in the lead and neck-to-neck, would people voting 2 or 3 consider a revote on one of the two? Personally I'm more inclined to #3 because I don't check DW at all, only my LJ friends page, so it'll be a lot easier for me to follow the game on LJ. I revoted for 4 because I didn't really want to make a throwaway vote ://

However,
1. DDOS attacks are a pain.
2. The DW team is more customer-friendly than the LJ team is, and I don't want to stick with an inferior service provider given the option. I'm pretty much stuck on LJ not because of my journal but because I'm a member of other comms that are not leaving LJ, and while they are affected by the DDOS attacks, they're not affected by not having subject lines... which seems to be an issue on this one.

I think we will lose some current members as well as potential members if we move to DW -- people are more familiar with LJ in general and are likelier to have LJ accounts instead of DW ones. Not being able to access everything at one shot on the same site is definitely going to be a hassle that some people are not going to take, and it's pretty much more convenient to just stay on LJ unless everyone moves. We'll gain members who are unhappy with LJ changes or who made an LJ account just to participate in communities (and so won't be affected too badly, since there's not much to pack up). I don't know what the cost/benefit ratio of this is but look at the votes -- even within the community, it looks like it's split between stay and go.

I'd like it if we moved everything to DW, and had weekly summary posts on a comm (maybe airship_lounge or ff_land itself) that linked to the updates over there. I am definitely staying on LJ, but it's not a huge bother to have a logged-in DW account and check my reading page (the friends page) for updates the same way I check my LJ friends page for them. *shrug

Edited 2012-02-06 13:32 (UTC)

(I voted this weekend from my phone but I wanted to chime in with thoughts!)

I know moving is a pain especially for people who have never been inclined to move to Dreamwidth but I really think the benefits outweigh the hassle in the end. Livejournal has been talking up something new and amazing that they're going to announce soon which makes me very nervous indeed. There is also the fact that they are super responsive and wonderful over at DW, have all the bells and whistles features-wise and their default commenting style didn't make me actually, physicially ill from looking at it for a few hours like the new LJ did. (Yeah, I'm also one of those people, too.)

There are also things like DDoS attacks that don't seem to happen over at DW and which has been a major hindrance for me over the last few months. I only have internet access at work so if LJ is down for 3-4 days in a weekday, I'm screwed for the week.

Obviously, given everything above, I voted for option #4.

Like so many others, I haven't abandoned LJ entirely because so many comms haven't made the move but I'm hoping that they just haven't made the move yet and it's coming. I can't say I won't continue to play here if the comm doesn't move but it would be a much better experience for me if it did and I think generally for everyone else if they gave DW a chance. YMMV, of course.

I'll end with interesting trivia - I learned about

ff_land on a comment in someone's journal on Dreamwidth, not on Livejournal.

I don't particularly care, but I would like to move. If we move the base over to Dreamwidth, then we don't have to suffer from the DDOS attacks. Moving would be hard, but I think we could do it. I am already on DW and know my way around it pretty well.

If we wanted to stay though I wouldn't mind. Livejournal is a bit more of a pain, but not unbearable.

I'm fine either way - but may I ask, how active is DW in general? What's the likelihood of getting new blood there?

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