Vague airy plans for The Future! Get your The Futures here.
Thursday, 23 August 2007, 16:32The Profusion redesign discussion is unfolding interestingly. Anyone with opinions, even if they're only the "I know what I hate when I see it" variety, please chime in.
As a whole different topic, the other night I started talking with Ree about what exactly I'd include if I were laying specs for a scalable writing-roleplay community sort of thing (à la SFV) to build from the ground up. The current plan is to stick with Discus because it's far better than any other forum software I've ever used. Indeed, if they ever release version 5 I'm prepared to pay for it (gasp). I'm only witholding my money now because they keep promising 5 then ducking questions about when it's due, and I don't like that.
Still, thinking along the lines of scratch-cobbled software is entertaining, if nothing more. I have half a site structure in mind. You can see where some webby2.0 and/or semantic elements could creep in (some variant of XFN among the characters! Generate your fecund elven prince's family tree! I'm buzzing at the mouth just thinking about all the fun) - and, by contrast, where you'd need to stamp down hard on arbitrary HTML and impose hard-coded limits on things like graphics. (People with more experience than me in horrid Sue-ridden huge-signature-graphic-using communities would have even more idea of What Not to Allow, I'm sure.)
Some flavours: the distinction between Pro and Twine (our encyclopaedia) would be much reduced, with background information a lot more closely integrated with the actual storyboards. Character personal 'blogs'. In-character discussion areas, with the IC/OOC line truly understood and reinforced and supported at a software level. Statistics (character last seen on #; click here to see all characters of this species; this character is currently in # active stories; # characters list 'sex' as their occupation). Oh, and an absolute ban on using copyrighted photos as PBs. So we'd need a supporting artist community - or an avatar generator...
Of course... actual members. Yah. Think small, Mutt. Think content, think customer service.
I saw an interesting plot idea on BRPS, of all places. I might introduce a storyboard like that, if I can find the interest for it...
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