First off, before I get down to business, there's two things I want to mention here. I was going to post a reference guide to the format coding of the new TheOtaku site, that will be delayed a few days, I have more important things to cover here today. I was also going to post the details about a writing challenge I've gotten up on my main World. The writing challenge is the reason I had the video posted last time, and I had intended to open it up to whomever still reads my blog here if they were interested. I'm not sure I have enough interest to make a major production out of it here, I'm not getting a whole lot over in Worlds. If anyone here is interested, the only thing you can leave out of the requirements if you post here on MyO is no tag since there is no post tagging system here. If you post on TheO, don't forget to add the tag, so I can find the post easier, and please, pop me a comment so I know you're doing the piece.
"Beware the Ides of March" is a saying I never truly appreciated until this year. In the last 24 hours I have had mountains of stress and concern thrown at me. I never expected that from the place I still call home on the web. Lots of people I know are packing out, leaving for various reasons, mostly being disillusioned by how badly the new TheOtaku has hurt us long-time Myotaku members in terms of interaction with our friends. Those of us on MyOtaku are out of touch with each other, even those of us who have Worlds, MyOtaku will always be our real home in the whole otaku universe. This is what kept us coming back, the people we were able to interact with here. The people who shared our interests, who asked for our advice, who wanted to know us for who we are beyond fan art, beyond the blog.
Only once before in my life have I been hurt (sorrow is another matter that's besidne the point here) to the point of tears, that was the whole state Bureau of Employment Program/Workforce West Virginia scam back in 2005. When I read the blogs this afternoon, I had to walk away from the computer (it's not in a private location) to recollect my composure. My online home is falling around me, and I know there's nothing I can do to stop it. I don't think Adam realized what effect he would have on longer time members on MyOtaku, where we've always been more comfortable. I don't think he expected as many people to feel disenfranchised with the new TheOtaku system that took not only a lot of our personalities out of blogging, but pulled us long-term members in two directions. We're caught in a position where we're forced to be on the new TheOtaku in order to keep up, and meet newer members who can't get onto MyOtaku, but we're holing onto MyOtaku for the friends we made along the way as well. We have to burn the candle at both ends in order to maintain contact with as many of the friends we have who are still around.
Whether intentional, or accidental, members who choose to remain with MyOtaku are being penalized for that choice. Some are so weighted by the consequences that they are willing to give up everything they built up here to ease the strain of keeping up with everyone. How is that better for TheOtaku? How is driving people away completely helping revitalize and refresh the community? Those are the questions for which I'll need satisfactory answers really soon. As a long-time member of both otaku sites, I'm frustrated with the limited public acknowledgments of our concerns, the lack of anything concrete on repair work for MyOtaku, and a sense of betrayal at seeing some assurances not being delivered.
MyOtaku has been, and will be, my online home. I have made this place a real place where I can be comfortable, open and honest about myself, what I do, and my obsessions beyond anime. While I could easily do the very same on the new TheOtaku, I don't feel it carries the same level of connection that MyOtaku has for me. It's like everyone is in their own little World, and cut off from everyone else. Even though they comment, even though they read posts, it's just not the same, it's colder, more sterile, and less interactive even for all the features there to make it more so. The new TheOtaku is not as fun a site to work with as MyOtaku always has been, and the old TheOtaku once was.
While it's a common decency to offer some form of suggested reformation actions that could correct such trends and animosities I've just unloaded here. I have no such offerings. I do not feel any suggestions I could make would even be recognized or even accepted at this point. I am but one of many, many members, and our voices are not being heard when it counts the most. Right now, I can say I truly understand what Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel meant in the haunting lyrics to The Sound of Silence. I feel that we are reaching out and no one's being touched by our plight, that we are speaking our piece, but not being listened to. Our words are but silent raindrops in the well of silence. Until that changes, there can be no suggested improvements.
Comments
On "Sizzled Phoenix":
kitbug69:
I'm not having as hard a time with the coding as I am the asinine implementation of it. I have to constantly remind myself to put the code in CAPS or it won't work. Not very intelligently designed if you ask me, cause BB code can do a whole lot more, and a lot better things as well.
Good luck with the stories, those should be your priority, then get around to people. It's not hard to find, it's the only submission I made so far that was accepted into Fan Words. I have a feeling my written content will prove to be a challenge to get proper hosting there on theO. I will be heard, and my work will be acknowledged there, one way or another I will overcome the bias against me.
I think we covered that already. Glad to be of help when I can.
Yensid:
I would like to see some attention come back onto MyO too. You know, we're supposed to be able to see when users update MyO in the new backroom and we don't, go figure. What are the odds we'd get double-talk and nonsense about that ever happening if someone asked Adam about it now? Pretty high I would say. I expect the same of anything, even seeing basics brought back to their former glory. There is a lot wrong with worlds right now, one image, YouTube videos only, links don't open in new windows, there are no tables, no ordered lists, pretty much crude basics only (I'll have my chart up another day so you can actually see what all you can get). You have no idea how that alignment thing is getting to me, word wrapping too, it's painfully disconcerting. I can't post any images in legit posts (I have in my code testing ones - reminds me, I need to do another code test relating to images), because I DETEST GAPS OF EMPTY SPACE AROUND PICTURES!!!. The only reason there's no external linking for images is because no one's figured out how to guarantee those images will fit in the template (ie won't be too big). The upload way automatically resizes the picture if it's too big, so there's no worries for the site on stretching. From what I understand that was the point, to make it easier for the less tech-savvy to post pictures with their blog. I don't think those of us who are a little more technically inclined should be penalized for knowing how to do more, like external linking and so on.
In this implementation, it's just a redundancy. You have both theDashboard and the Backroom which as you can see are exactly the same page.
There's a lot of reports to the Bug Reports post about that very thing happening to people. I haven't noticed yet cause I've not tried to comment in IE 6 yet. As the saying goes: "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain". They went with a script heavy site structure, after concerns were raised that such a site design would not be smart on many levels. I hate to be the one to say I told him so, but way back when, I was one of the people who brought up the concern that too much scripting would affect usability in the negative direction, and that's what I'm seeing happen now, so I was right.
Sure, I'll do that. I don't update my art all that much, but when I do, I'll announce it here on MyO cause there's no other way to know anymore.
Right now, there isn't a "friends only" view, cause there's no friends list on the "new theO". It would have been nice to see it ported over for privacy settings, but only time will tell if something like that is coming. I'd like to be able to restrict beyond simple "Everyone, Members, and Private (only viewable to me), without having to manually type in a long list of users to block. If it worked like Messenger does, where you can block anyone not on your contact list, that would be cool. Only sticking point I would have is that it apply to staff as well. I'm not sure how the URL/ World name thing works, but if you tried the URL then that was a bug cause it would have been your URL cause it's your username. Some other people had issues with that one working too.
Unfortunately, my New Gen gaming experiences are limited to nothing, so if it's not obvious, I'm not going to pick it up right away. I don't even own a PS2 or anything else of that or newer eras. Funny thing though, I was reading about BB code and even people who've coded up sites and forums say it's easier to just use an HTML filter to block out undesirable code rather than to go into the BB stuff. Another nail in the coffin for the "B" code implementation that was totally unnecessary. We could have been given more flexibility with the base themes that are provided, at least, cause I don't like any of them. I'm just using what's available cause those are the only choices available.
Yeah, I'm not one to beat my beliefs on others either, but I did make a promise that I would open up that way. I'll be covering meditation, and I might even post about my animal Spirit Guide after I communicate with him some more (he's a fox for the record). Any topic recommendations, or content suggestions would really be appreciated. If I like what I see and don't feel I can handle it myself, it just might make a good guest post for the Sanctuary.
Actually, the URLs aren't word-for-word the same as my world names. I will get the links up in my intro here so they are easy reference for anyone interested, all my sub worlds are Member only viewing right now, so you'll have to be signed in over on TheO to see them, though my main one is set to Everyone. Too lazy this week to get those links up though, but they'll be there real soon.
AngelBest Dream:
Always a good idea to rest the body and mind before diving into deep subjects.
That was a guarantee back in November when it missed it's first projected launch date. Version Vibrant was always expected to be the direction TheOtaku was heading. Will things be on the right track in a month or so from now? It's hard to say. The first few hours were very rough. I've been through some bad weather, hail, thunderstorms, wind, snowstorms, but the 0 Hour for VV, that was chaos of a different order all together. I did my best, but even I have my limits with this whole, sad to say.
Patience doesn't always come easy for me. That comes from my short fuse, I tend to anger easier than I can sit down and see an obstacle though. It's kind of hard to really explain.
Yeah, I'm seeing some of that myself too. It doesn't really look all that good, but hopefully in time TheO will pull out and do something that makes it stand out. There's no timetable for comments being fixed here, but we know this site is being worked on, or will be according to Adams last blog entry here, and I do mean last. Hopefully stuff like comments those dead "PM me" links at the top of the page, and all that stuff will be fixed sometime soon. We won't know till we see it happen. It's tough for me to say this, but I don't think there's any intention of bringing the two sites together again.
That makes sense to me, I mean look at it, Type O blood can be put into anybody who needs blood, but, the reverse can't be done at all. Type O blood has to be put into Type O people. Yeah, that kind of seems to fit me pretty good actually, I do try my best to do what I can. I'm getting there, slow and steady.
There are a lot less people around here now, and that is very sad. We'll all eventually find each other I think cause we'll be the only ones here. I don't envy Adam his position at all, cause I'd have lost my cool after about an hour of dealing with bugs and stuff. That's just me. if there was a medal for patience, he'd deserve it at least ten times over for putting up with everything on VV.
On "Bug Fix":
DarkFaerie88:
Nice to see you getting around over here, sorry things are, well nuts. Can't help the VV changeover though.
Oh, I loved the original Mission Impossible, part of the reason I will not waste money on that trash Tom Cruise did to burn the films. He totally ruined the IMF concept that the show introduced back in the 60's. Matlock was okay too, but I've never heard or Westworld. I'll have to do some research on it, cause I'm curious now.
Yensid:
Yeah, I kind of figured it was VV and not the video code. The significance of my posting that video is hopefully clear now, though I doubt it will get many takers.
AngelBest Dream:
I've been commenting there on VV a bit, but most of the time it's for the formality, or to make myself known to someone I know there. I really don't like the comment system over there, it's clunky and very inconvenient for 99% of the user base. Not everyone has eidetic memory, so having what amounts to malware (the pop window hijacks the page, darkens the bg so you can't see beyond the pop window, it won't let you move it, it won't let you change it's size, it wont let you minimize it, and it won't let you switch out of it, not to mention the IE crashes it causes) handling the comments makes it a lot less user-friendly to comment over there.
Oh there's no doubt the difference is so dramatic, I'm feeling like the G4 takeover of Tech TV is happening all over again. So many promises were made, yet none were kept. I kind of see that happening here, and I don't like that. I saw Tech TV fall in my mind long before G4 snuffed it out, and I'm getting a similar image here. Within a year, will we even be able to access this site anymore? I hope I'm wrong about that, I really do.
I think we can expect to wait till TheO is running on all cylinders before we see any patch-up work done here, and that's what it will be, simple "quick-fix, I really don't care I'm just doing it to keep the members still hanging on there happy" patch work. So, it may be June before we get a questionably better comment box and hopefully some integration into the PM system for here (Don't hold your breatt on that one though). Even if it's just a link to the TheO inbox, that would be more than we have now: broken links on our pages and no direct access in the backroom at all.
