For those of you who read the main page the last few months, you was some great reporting by a new member to the news team, Gia. Well, she's moved on to another job and left the news team here. I know I'll miss her multiple updates a day, and thorough reporting, it was a refreshing burst of energy to the news page. I wish the rest of the News Team luck in doing what they can to fill those shoes.
A lot has been happening since I last posted, just the other night the mulberry tree we have in our yard decided to put itself out of it's misery and come down. Luckily, though it was hanging on the power line, it didn't pull it out. That's one less gripe I'll have to hear my parents complain about, the mulberry stains on the car. Other than that, I had an uneventful birthday, the celebration had to be moved down cause everyone but me works, so I'm at their mercy for when stuff can be done in that regard. Age is just a number to me anyway, I don't feel it one bit. I may have to see a Chiropractor, I've had tension in the shoulders for some time now, I think it's partly stress, but partly due to something being out of line in my neck/back. I'll decide that in the next few days. Money is always an issue with me, unfortunately, and that may make the decision for me.
Some major news on my novel. I was doing some research on my own, and found some benchmarks to go on, and needless to say, I fell short of those. What that means is, I know why no one wanted my manuscript, it was too short. I am in the process of adding at least 10,000 words to what I thought was finished, hopefully bringing it up just over 40,000 words total will make it more appealing (one benchmark is 40,000 to 60,000 words, that's the one I'm shooting for). Don't worry, I kept the original manuscript, just for the sentiment later, and to compare the two with myself. It seems daunting to have to add 10,000 words, but I've posted 14,000 in one of my stories on the forum I frequent, and it's nowhere near done yet. Getting that many words together doesn't intimidate me, but it does mean courting agents and publishers will have to be pushed down a little bit, hopefully I'll be able to resume that by March and see some positive results to renewed courting efforts by fall or winter.
On to other things now. As the saying goes "Be careful what you wish for." I'm certainly the testament to that this time around. If you don't know what I'm talking about, scroll down and read my last post, then pay close attention to the comments. Adam kind of caught me off guard with that one, I'll be the first to admit that. I suppose it's better to have that kind of open dialogue and direct interaction when it comes to the issues and questions we members bring up, especially in relation to the uncertainties surrounding the major overhaul TheOtaku.com is getting. I do regret that my standard "up-front" attitude may have reflected poorly upon me in this case, but a dragon can no more change his scales than a tiger his stripes. At least from this point on, I know I have his attention to some degree, and by virtue of that, I think anyone who comments here does as well, but no promises.
Version Vibrant Updates
- Site Look:
- Design change.
- "Spikey" returns with new appearance.
- Logo change.
- Site Features:
- Advanced sort and filter settings.
- New/custom emoticons (Update: New Feature Details).
- Block user feature.
- Comment reply feature (Update: Feature Confirmed).
- E-mail notification system (pending confirmation).
- Photography related feature(s)[unspecified] (pending confirmation).
- Thumbnails (fan art, wallpapers etc) will be larger and/or higher resolution.
- Multiple Wallpaper Resolution Submissions.
- Avatars will be higher resolution/new size(pending confirmation).
- There are 50+ features coming with Version Vibrant.
- Some features will not be implemented at the launch, but come later.
- Cosplay hub:
- Will not carry over with launch of Version Vibrant.
- Will return in the future.
- Spaces (new blogging system):
- MyOtaku customizations not supported or carried over.
- HTML disabled.
- JavaScript disabled.
- BB code based input system.
- Youtube video embedding will be possible.
- Multiple "Spaces" per user supported.
- Multiple User posting tyo blog supported.
- Spaces privacy option(s) include being viewable only to members.
- MyOtaku sites:
- Sites will remain accessible.
- Updates to post will continue to function.
- Customization/coding will most likely continue to function (no details).
- MyOtaku layout will Not be changing. (Update: New Details).
- Will be linked to Version Vibrant for update notification.
- New Version Vibrant Members will not be able to obtain MyOtaku sites.
You'll notice I posted the breakdown again. Well, that's because there has been more information about Version Vibrant being posted on the main page of TheOtaku.com. I'll link directly to those specifically, except for the first announcement because even though I reported it going to a dead page, it wasn't fixed. But worry not, I have a back-up to get you that information. So let's start with the new information. Actually, some of it is confirmation of already speculated information, and some of it gives more details to already known information as well. Feature Announcement #1 indicates that voting, subscribing, and favoriting will be more streamlined. There won't be that "back button hiccup" cause the page won't need to refresh to register the action. Here is the broken link to the posted article. Feature Announcement #2 is direct confirmation of the comment reply feature I listed in my breakdown last time (Note: I failed to flag that item as "Pending Confirmation" though it was at the time). Feature Announcement #3 details wallpaper resolutions. In that there will be options for higher resolution submissions, something like 10 or more resolutions will be available. Feature Announcement #4 details some of the stuff Spaces will be able to do, like one use will be able to set up multiple spaces under one account, they will be able to give other users posting privileges, and there will be some customization elements available, but what those are isn't specified. Feature Announcement #5 is only the second time I've been mentioned by name in News Articles (the first was when I donated that blue question mark image for caption battles etc). It follows up on the "many-to-many" blogging of the previous announcement with details on the privacy options for the Spaces. Unfortunately, right now Spaces will only have the ability to be set to be seen by everyone, or members only, if I read that post correctly. I believe blocking individual users though will prevent them from seeing your Spaces, not certain of that, but indications in the comments seem to point to it. There are plans in the works to develop more specific privacy filters for Spaces as well if I read that part correctly as well. Feature Announcement #6 provides more information on the Emotes that were alluded to in the trailer video. And we also have this mysterious teaser about something coming to Version Vibrant as well, though if you check my comment, my money is on the lightly touched Photography features previously mentioned. Won't say for sure till it's confirmed though, don't want to start any rumors prematurely.
Digging up the older links is more time consuming than I though, so I didn't include them this time around either, I just linked existing stuff that had updated info to go with it. Here's the updated Version Vibrant breakdown. For anyone wanting to link directly to the breakdown in my post, use this:
Version Vibrant Update
That should take care of Version Vibrant for this post, and as before, I'll correct any bad info if I'm asked to do so.
Comments
Magnus Lensherr:
It's hard for me to really say what the method to that is. I don't doubt he's gotten lots of complaints about the "no HTML" Spaces configuration, probably more than we know about. It is a respectable gesture to let us keep our MyOtaku sites, those of us who've been here since pretty close ot the beginning of MyO have become used to this set-up. Having the ability to have both Spaces and the MyO site, I'll probably test out some of the Spaces features, but I can't say that I'll blog there regularly until more specific privacy options become available. I have ideas that can benefit from the Spaces set-up, but only with some semi-enhanced privacy features.
I suppose it depends on the definition of "feature" because some of the minor things could also be counted as "features" in that number. We're going to know some of what's coming, Adam is posting things on TheO regularly now, so more will be out there for us to know before Version Vibrant comes. As for the launch date, it's up to him to decide when enough is ready to put out to the public. I'd like to see him make his personal deadline this time, I think it would take a load off his shoulders, at least till the bug reports start gushing in.
Actually, I missed the snow by less than an inch, hit the wet, salt covered brick real hard though. I think part of this tension in my shoulders could be related to that fall, I did hit the shoulder hard too, even though the knee took the brunt of it.
The term "hacked" dredges up lots of negative connotations that I don't appreciate being applied to me as a person. I said something to that effect to Adam. We didn't break into the MyO servers and modify our pages there, we're using what we know, and only the tools provided by the site to go beyond the basic design. I certainly hope if the subject comes up in the future, he'll show more tact in calling us something less obscene than "hackers". Heck, I openly admit I'm gray hat, but I've never done anything malicious.
As much as I hate to say it, I think the listening thing goes both ways. Now that we're getting positive information about Version Vibrant, I think it's up to us to make sure Adam knows where we still have questions, and where we're enthusiastic about stuff that's coming to us with Version Vibrant. I'm looking forward to the user block feature, the multiple spaces under one account (I do have ideas about that concept which I can't wait to try out).
AngelBest Dream:
Someone had to do it anyway, and since I was keeping tabs on my own, why not share it? I'll be doing my best to stay on top of all that stuff each time I post from here till Version Vibrant finally makes it's debut. I hope I can do reporting on it the justice it deserves.
Yeah, I can rattle some bones with my big mouth when I need to, I've been told my call is loud enough to be heard halfway around the world, and beyond that seismometers, geophones, and hydrophone pick it up the rest of the way round.
If he was still planning to mod MyO (from what I understand, he's dropped that), adding more character space to the introduction would be necessary to allow for the loss of the left menu details. I don't think we'll see anything on MyO by way of new features, old features being revamped and so on. His push is toward Spaces, and well, MyO just isn't that important to him anymore, even though we'd like to see it get some new things too, that won't happen.
Time will tell for a lot of things. We won't really know how things play out till we see them succeed or fail.
That's out of my realm of experience. I don't know how or if Adam and James will connect OtakuBoards to Version Vibrant (OB is connected to MyO now, in a small way), or if there will be something totally new by way of "forums" on Version Vibrant. Nothing has been said either way on that front, so no one knows for sure.
Well, at least I have a possible answer to the publishing problem, and with that in mine, I'm working to correct it and will try making my rounds again after I fix my query and cover letters, and all that other good stuff that one has to prepare for publishers and agents.
Tenshihoshino:
Sometimes what is, and what appears to be are two different things. I know the readers of my blog value my opinions, but sometimes it seems that others do not.
No matter what I do, I'll take all the good luck I can get, thanks.
Adam:
Welcome, welcome to the desert wasteland that is my mind, it's hot, dry, barely hospitable and full of rouges, outlaws, dragons, and lizards. Pull up a chair and have a nice tall glass of iced tea. I'm not used to having staff visit me here (though in my case that's usually a good thing given my attitudes and personality). Hopefully you'll make it back here once in a while at least and enjoy yourself when you do stop by.
It wasn't an easy thing to go back over the notes I took and through pages and pages of posts to relocate stuff I didn't jot down to collect all that. It was worth the effort though, someone has to keep on top of the information coming out and present it in a meaningful way. The member base deserves to have ready access to as much public information about the launch and they can possibly get. I'll be updating that breakdown every time I post till Version Vibrant is launched from here on out. With you posting those announcements regularly, I'll not be running out of material to modify or add to that anytime soon. The gesture of posting those announcements like that is much appreciated too.
I should being by saying that I meant no disrespect in my last post, sometimes one has to take a defensive posture to command attention when it's needed. I've noticed that I can disarm a person fairly effectively when I comment intelligently on a subject without having a lick of experience. More an more these days, I'm finding it hard to convince people in the offline world that my being unemployed at 27 does not mean I'm not intelligent. Like most things that come easy to me without personal experience, Public Relations (PR) is mostly common sense application of information exchange. PR is about sharing information with the public, be it good, bad or in between. The key is to balance what you want to do with the information you have (I know you like to surprise us at times, that's a neat novelty that makes things fun on occasion) with satisfying the public's, or in this case the member base's, need to know what's going on so we can plan our continued involvement with the site accordingly.
What you said about announcing features then having to scrap them makes a lot of sense to me, probably more than you realize. My High School one year performed Plaza Suite, the Neil Simon play, well, they did parts of it actually, one actor never showed up for rehearsal so the director cut that whole act out of the play, five minutes before curtain on opening night, so there was no way to tell the audience they weren't getting the full play till curtain itself (even the programs and the cast/crew shirts have all three acts on them - I ran sound for that one). What I'm saying is, it's not fun to have to recant something at the last minute, but there are ways to announce a feature's potential without committing yourself to it absolutely being there, but that goes back to my "common sense application" statement above.
An FAQ type document would be a big help to everyone here I'm sure. I'll be sure to link to it right here on my page and direct others with questions to it as well, when it's available. If I can do anything to help you put it together, you know how to get my attention.
Oh, for the record, this is me being facetious. If you happened to see my statement in the last post regarding the novel I'm working on, that wasn't facetious, it wasn't joking. I'm 100% serious. Don't expect it anytime soon as the novel isn't published yet, but I'll get you the details when I can.
kitbug69:
From what I've seen in comments and so on, the MyO stats won't transfer over. I know I've seen information specifically on the number of visitors to the page, that number won't transfer over, I'm not entirely sure about the rest of the stat stuff or the guestbook entries. I do know that all submissions should remain intact, and that Version Vibrant will keep our usernames as they are (we won't have to sign-up again or anything like that). I'm not sure on the actual guestbook entries, but changes are those won't port over like the Quiz manager, which also won't be ported over to Version Vibrant. I won't speculate on technical stuff like account removal. I would think that their material would be removed if they deleted their account.
My major issue with BB code is that it's overly proprietary. Sure it looks like a "standard" similar to HTML, but it fails in being a true standard across multiple applications. You go to any two BB based message boards (that aren't out of the same box) you'll find a lot of headaches when it comes to that "easy" coding, in that some of the code may not be supported, some of the code may have less support. Are we going to have the needed attributes to the BB tags for images (like align, alt and both in one tag), are we going to have tags for blockquotes, ordered and unordered lists? Will there be tags to let us post content the way we want it to render (pre for pre-formatted)? That's all stuff that's not clear right now, and among other things that I won't know till I try to do them, will affect the way I blog on Spaces. As for the code being easier, it's easier cause it's a step or two backward from where the W3C would like to see the web go.
As I brought up with Adam above, PR is about balancing the way information is presented using common sense. There's a way to present a feature that does not commit it to "this IS part of the launch". With no training or experience in PR myself, I think I should stop there.
All we can do right now is wait and see what happens, ride out the bugs and errors, and hope for the best. I think one of the better features with Spaces is the multiple Spaces per account thing. That's going to be a help to people like you who post your stories to a separate account, in theory, you won't have to do that anymore.
NekoMimi16:
There will be a lot lost to Version Vibrant, that's for sure, but I do think we gain some nice points as well. Hopefully things won't be so radically different that we suffer from culture shock just from getting a site overhaul.
Being a hard-headed dragon, I know exactly what you mean there, but there are other things that hint at my opinion meaning less to some people than to others. Little things like questions not being answered and so on. I'd cite a specific instance, but I don't have one for you right now.
AngelBest Dream:
That happens to all of us sometimes.
Yensid:
Actually, I'm kind of unnerved about that, but at the same time I do feel better for having known he's seen what I said.
Sounds like some rough weather there, hopefully it's gone through by now and things are dried out. Landscaping is a mess, I get a puddle on the back walk every time it rains. I'm working on solving that problem myself cause when contractors get involved here, so does the pretentious, stuck-up "historic district" and they're more trouble than they're worth. Only interested in preserving history when it suits them.
I like rain and snow (I still want to get out to the Rail trail and shoot some pics of the tunnels in the snow), but in moderation. Cold is only good to me if there's snow to enjoy it with, and rain is good when it's moderate, not too heavy, not too light.
Yeah, I'm doing all right, wish the weather would make up it's mind here so I wouldn't be worn out all the time.
Caprice:
Welcome back, long time no see.
Sine you have the same info I do, I'll tell you that's the way I understand it myself. No new memberships will be done for MyO, the push will be for TheO and Spaces. Customization will be limited, we know there's no HTML, no CSS (it's HTML based after all), and no JavaScripts (no loss there for me I don't use scripts). We know there will be some form of BB style code, but what attributes will be available aren't known, we also don't know what kind of customization we will have available to work with on Spaces. I'm glad to know that he's letting us keep our MyO pages though, for me, MyOtaku was the second online community I called home, the first was the now defunct Tech TV message boards. I learned HTML for MyO here first, then discovered that hey, I can use this almost anywhere, and sure enough I have. I even learned enough CSS to get what I really wanted out of my page here, then turned to apply that to my website. It bothers me too, not from the standpoint of being interested in it as a hobby, but because I can do much more with it, than BB code will ever allow someone to do. I just hope there's enough room in the BB code of Version Vibrant to let me really do some of the core things I've come to accept.
A lot of people have that impression, but we won't know till it launches what it's like. I won't know if it's a MySpace knock-off, I'm not even a member on that site, so I'll have no base of comparison. Hopefully it won't go that route, cause I hear not so good things about the MySpace model. Really? My friend plays drums every now and then for a rock band here that's got a bit of a following abroad I'm told. I'm not sure if he's in any of the clips or pictures on their MySpace page or not (I haven't gone over it yet), but here's the page to look at anyway, watch the volume, autoplay song alert.
Yeah, I've been to other blogs, I hate with a passion WYSIWYG post editors (watch that be a feature of Spaces), those give me fits, I've been overwhelmed with stuff and underwhelmed with stuff on blogs elsewhere too, like dA's "pay for everything but posting plain text" model. I like having a simple blog that progresses with me as I learn more about HTML, CSS and so on, and lets me do what I want with it from the start. If I want to post pictures, I shouldn't have to pay for that privilege, if I want to customize my page, I shouldn't have to pay for that privilege either. None of the other blogs I've been to will grow with me, and let me do what I want from the start. I'd like to combine all the friends I have into one spot, it would be easier on me for sure, but that can't be helped. People go where their interests are, and sometimes that me ans we have to follow them to keep in touch.
I haven't been myself last year at all in terms of posting, I just got so overwhelmed with stuff and didn't get around to sites, didn't comment much, and I'm working on getting better at that this year, Hopefully I can do that and not wear myself out. I know I've heard a lot of people talk about leaving over the Spaces "no HTML" thing, but yeah, it's been quiet around here for a long time. Hopefully more people will come around and hopefully we'll see some old faces stop by more often too. Ranting helps sometimes, getting those concerns out there is the only way to see them addressed. That's about all we can do right now, is wait and see how it goes. Once VV is out, we'll know where we stand.
Actually this year is going better for me right now. Same time last year I was in a paranoid state of mine, and thought I'm tired, and a little sore, I'm feeling all right this year. Hopefully this year is enough to recover from last year. 2007 was just plain exhausting all around.
