alt_fen | Recap for the week of 12 October, Year 1

12 October

Sally-Anne has two pen friends: Ginny and Luna.

13 October

Hermione is no longer being punished, and in the comments it appears that Terry has not been doing his duties in the Hospital Wing. Lucius is back from Scotland, having been forced to Cruciate Crispin's stand-in, and chats with Percy in the comments.

14 October

Arthur posts about a heartbreaking day at the office, then explains himself in Order Only. Ron has singed his fingers somehow. Pansy has come to terms with Hogwarts and now owns a creepy doll's head.

15 October

Xenophilius Lovegood has painted Molly Weasley's henhouse purple, and she is not amused. Sirius is trying to make connections in the black market.

16 October

Fred and George warn Luna (too late) to be careful in their room. Hermione is back to helping out in the library, and her word of the day is "numinous." McGonagall posts a schedule for the Lord Protector's Halloween visit and reminds students to get their Hogsmeade permission slips signed.

17 October

Neville messed up Harry's Potions assignment, so Harry jinxed him and now he's insulting everybody. Boot and Pomfrey have words about his truancy.

18 October

Lupin is sorry about something, but he doesn't say what. Harry says that Neville is still mad at him and wonders what to get his Father for his birthday. Neville apologizes for his behavior, and in the comments Boot says that the jinx Harry used was like Imperius.

Notes

Hey fen! What would you like to see on an Alternity website? I'm thinking of creating one, which would include links to the communities, a list of journals, some game summary and character profile info, and possibly also some goodies. We've already planned on archiving any multimedia stuff we use on the site: what else should there be? Class schedules, propaganda, additional banners & posters, icons (I'd feel really embarrassed to make those for Alternity myself, but)...?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pre-journal start timeline. Though that depends on what you want to reveal for the first time outside of the journal environment.

Maybe we could do a bare-bones timeline and then fill it in as we go? It could be interesting to update that, say, once every six months or once a year to reflect what y'all have learned in the journal environment.

I can imagine there would be some times when supplementary documents on the website could tell a part of the story or reveal some character details that the journals can't. I've thought about the fact that the journals being so closely watched might end up being sort of limiting for players whose characters are not in the Order and would be cautious enough to not share a lot over the journals. So personal letters, diary entries, or even notes passed in class (Shoebox Project-style) could maybe be used to fill in some of the gaps for those characters. Not necessarily plot-heavy, but just fun, something written without the knowledge that the Ministry is reading every word. I don't actually know if that's something anybody would want to do, but that is the kind of thing I would be really excited to find on the website.

We've had a couple threads about some of the characters' profiles, but have you noticed that a few of them have received virtual gifts?

The text is visible to the public if you go look.

Not that being able to see an occasional owl wouldn't be nice, or that Ministry documents aren't helpful. But it's another place to look.

Who's received a virtual gift? I went looking after I saw this comment, but didn't find them. Links please?

Well, they only last for a couple weeks, but I remember seeing that Draco and Harry each got one at the beginning of the year, and Pansy got tea more recently. (It's gone now.)

Though these have all been from Lucius, so maybe it's just the one player.

Oh - Wait - you CAN see it:

http://www.livejournal.com/manage/vgift.bml?u=alt_pansy

http://www.livejournal.com/manage/vgift.bml?u=alt_harry

http://www.livejournal.com/manage/vgift.bml?u=alt_draco

Edited 2008-10-22 21:15 (UTC)

It would actually be interesting to link to these, or at least suggest them as "something to look for" - easter eggs if you will - on the site.

an rss updated list of the all the various posts that one could subscribe too! my rss reader is a mess now that i have all these alternity feeds. lets just narrow it down to one list and one rss address!

also a message board would be nice, that way if people don't have lj accounts (i didn't until i started following this) might be more inclined to post theories, kudos, etc.

I have no idea how to do that! Maybe you could be my RSS liaison? I'll do my best to try and sort it out. Maybe I can figure out some way to create an RSS aggregator on a page that aggregates all the Alternity feeds, which other people can then subscribe to?

Have you considered just bookmarking alt_player's friendslist and checking it once a day? (I know, not a permanent solution - I agree with you that it would be schweet to have an RSS feed that people could just use. But it might help temporarily.)

Hmmm - a message board - would that be best? Or a discussion list? Maybe I'll put up a poll to see if people are happy with the

alt_fen community or if they'd utilize a discussion list or message board. We were sort of going off of the Nocturne Alley vein, and they just had an LJ comm, so I don't think any of us thought about going outside the box in that way.

My own preference is to leave it at this community. It would be a shame to split the conversation across several discussion sites (if that's what you meant), and I'm just more likely to visit here than anywhere else.

I might be in the minority?

i just had a quick look around the tubes and found this: http://rssfeedreader.com/
it looks like it does what i was suggesting, but i don't have web space to play around with it.

As for alt_fen, i think it's great, but, IMHO, lj isn't the most user friendly interface for viewing and replying to messages. it's perfect for what the players are doing, and the way lj works fits the story, but i don't think it translates as well for spectators commenting and gathering as a community.

anywho, one man's opinion.

I can definitely see that - we'll be breaking new ground with having an off-LJ thing like this though I think (how exciting!)

I'll play around with it (I do have webspace to play with) and make it happen. :)

Would the RSS also capture comments? I mean sometimes players don't get to comment on posts straight away, so you'd still have to keep checking back to see if a post sparked conversation....

(I'm an RSS Luddite, though, so this is both a technical question and a "what will that do to help" question.)

dear luddite,

1. go to: http://angstalaska.livejournal.com/1015.html
2. copy/paste the entry into notepad, or your favorite text editor.
3. save as whatever.xml
4. import that file into your favorite rss aggregator.
5. ?????
6. profit!

It won't capture the comments, but i think having to look through old entries for new comments is the best part about this 'game'.

I was just wondering this...

Thaaaank youuuuu!

Recap for the week of 12 October, Year 1

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