Release #98

[markf]

Release #98 is now live.

New Features:

• The friends page has been redesigned as a system page for all users, and is now available for Beta testing. There will be a link at the top of your friends page allowing you to switch between the new and old versions allowing you to switch back and forth between both versions throughout the beta testing

Comments

[bree]

Over in Ru_news tritankista says, "By the way, soon we will cancel the paid accounts." "More to the point, and it is not until the spring, we'll explain in detail." What does this mean? What about the people that have already paid for their accounts beyond the spring? Will you offer a refund?

I'm not interested in using livejumblr... The friends pages are horrible looking. Unlike what tritankista thinks my disliking for the "friends feed" is not out of "habit." You're taking everything that makes this site what it is and throwing it away. Do you really think that you're going to get this influx of new users because you changed a layout?

Lj doesn't care and I don't know why I am wasting my time. Good luck in bankrupting your company.

[itsanonyx]

I really have no words for this. ô__ô

[ladyiapetus]

So what does this mean for the permanent accounts? Are they going to be downgraded or whatever the hell happens to the paid accounts after those go bye-bye?

[valo]

I'd like to know that too. I understand that LJ is built for "real people" but I am an admin of a role-playing game that started up in 2001. We have 660 active journals in the game, most of them paid accounts.

Why does LJ seem to think that the site would find new popularity if it were more like Facebook, Twitter, or tumblr? We're here because LJ is not them. All you're doing by making LJ more like other sites is drive us away. Away to sites that are more like the old LJ.

brit said up there: tritankista thinks my disliking for the "friends feed" is not out of "habit."Of course it's habit. It's also that we absolutely hate some of those features on Facebook and Twitter and tumblr - such as the infinity scroll. Why do you think that the LJ messenger never took off? Or the games

[batyatoon]

Oh man, do I ever feel your pain. :(

This is exactly why the milliways_bar game moved over to Dreamwidth back in February. Would you be interested in talking to our admins about how they managed the move? I'm not an admin myself so I'm only peripherally aware of what was involved aside from "a metric frakton of work".

[ashen_key]

I'm wondering it's worth gathering up a rough FAQ of how to transport large communities over - I know, obviously, M'ways did and it all worked, but I think that between the flist changes and the lack of a paid account is going to finally kick fandom over (OR SO I DREAM) so there'll be a bunch of people interested.

[batyatoon]

It might be. A lot of people may want that now.

[valo]

I'm nervous about moving to a different server - for one, we wouldn't all get our usernames again (let's face it, we all get attached to those usernames). And I'm afraid of servers disappearing. GreatestJournal seemed like a really awesome option, until it disappeared into the abyss. Then again, who's to say that LJ will last, especially with those incredibly stupid updates. They shut down their US office, so maybe it will go all cyrillic.

Anyway, can you give me the Milliways admin contact info?

[batyatoon]

There's contact info at the game profile, here. I'd recommend using the milliways,mods address.

(I'd also recommend waiting a week or so, as I know at least one of our mods is currently without power thanks to Frankenstorm.)

[minkhollow]

Someone else who was part of the Milliways move: You might snag the same user names over again; I think DW is on the whole still smaller than LJ. Hell, you might even be able to snag something you've wanted the whole time/wanted to change to but couldn't over here! That happened for one of my characters.

(Moving can also be a good excuse for plot, if you want. We went with 'torch the whole damn place down,' which was a LOT of fun. :D)

As Batya said, we're down at least one mod of the three due to Frankenstorm, but our mods are a friendly bunch. I'm sure they can give you some tips to make it as painless as possible, if you do decide to jump ship.

[foxfirefey]

GJ is a bad comparison. I'm not saying DW will last forever, but GJ was run with shoestrings and bubblegum holding it together. They had no real business plan and gave away 1000 icons for free. Even they didn't disappear right away--they said they were shutting down in late 2007 and had shut down by the end of 2009, which was plenty of time to refugee elsewhere. DW has people running it that can do actual development to the codebase, instead of just being a clone, and keep six months of funds in reserve.

[harpsi_fizz]

Not sure what you decided, but from an RPer (not in your community, but I understand completely about attachment, right down to the page layout for reading a particular thread even) I'd suggest making a backup and moving, or having a little discussion about options and getting together a little "doomsday plan" as it were.

If you did move to Dreamwidth, it's not like you'd have to delete the community on LJ. Even a move of "all activity with henceforth take place here" would leave a gap of however many journals are active. It'd have an impact.

[valo]

So far, we're staying here. It seems like LJ has taken at least some feedback into consideration, and the last change didn't have too many terrible effects. Personally, I actually like the new userinfo. Or let's say I like it better than the one right before... ;)

Anyway, we created communities over at DW and some of us even created journals, all of which are laying dormant for the time being. "Doomsday plan" - I like the sound of that!

[bunnygirl]

Is the RP MBP?? I was a member back in the day!

[valo]

Yes it is, we're still going strong. =)

[bree]

tritankista said that there would be a package for the permanent accounts. They did not elaborate about what that package might be though.