Who Sees What?

[iamcool]

have you decided what colors are going to mean what yet?

[chershaytoute]

I very much like the idea here. At this point, it's been worrisome wondering who's privy to what bits and pieces of info... This will solve that rather handily, but...the message board problem is potentially huge...

In the last week, two weeks, we've had both Bree and Daniel visit their own forums, and it really picks up the pace to have that happen... So, I truly think it's important that the in-character forums are kept... *

But... It may be that they need to be/appear slightly separated from the rest of the forums in some way? I'm not sure how that would/could be done just now... <putting on very silly looking thinking cap...without good knowledge of board structure>

Having worked in online communities since the late '80's, I've actually had experience with this type of thing, so I will put some thought into it. (BK, I'll PM you if I actually think of something, or you're welcome to PM me...I've lots of time, and am good, easy free labor <grin>)

Another thing that strikes me... At the moment, it's hard to distinguish the "Everyone's a Character (in-character interaction)" from the "Character Discussion" forum - which I think makes it very easy to flub just exactly which "where" you happen to be.




* (And look at how pleased folks were to be mentioned by Daniel in that last video.)

[chershaytoute]

Trainer, this definitely works... Now it's just a matter of making the in-character section work so that it's not a nightmare for the mods...

[Marbella]

I agree with Chershaytout that this could end up being a nightmare. However, Trainer101 IS a mod, and he brought it up. Maybe he has a plan for us to use.

I think if we did it like "The Order" and "Fighting Against the Order" people would "get it" more easily. I think so because they already are posting in the right categories now (for the most part,) since the topics are spelled out clearly.

[Renegade]

I don't particularly like this idea. "Think of them as 'password protected private video streams,'"?

Bree, Jonas and Daniel are supposed to be bloggers...not James Bond. OP APHID, fine. Ultra secret cult wing using encrypted video transmissions. I can believe that. Their "good" counterpart equipping the same technology to not get caught. Okay. But: Why would Bree, Jonas and Daniel encrypt their videos? Why would they hide them from each other? And why post a video that doesn't exist on the internet?

I do see where this comes from on a meta level. But it's a whole sh*tload of suspension of disbelief we'd have to do there.

Example: If OP APHID's videos are supposed to be heavily encrypted, why embed riddles in them? The stream is protected, only the intended target can see it anyway? Why not encrypt it for real, and make the encryption the riddle?

I just think this system will destroy the world that's supposed to exist. Even in recent, more dramatic, less blogger-like episodes, there was always a hint of blogging in the end...even videos like The Human Ransom had Jonas as the camera man, and Daniel and Tachyon as the editors. The moment you have them post videos they didn't post, the world doesn't exist anymore, if you know what I mean.

Just ask yourself: Why would Daniel send a private transmission to no one? If he just needed to get the "I love yous" off his chest, he'd record it, maybe edit it, and then delete it. Why upload it and then "prevent" everybody from seeing it? There is no logic in that, and the less logic there is, the harder it is to not not believe.

And then, of course, there's the task of keep track of who knows what.
It's already annoying that Bree knows stuff about the Order we don't know. But at least Daniel and Jonas don't either. How are we supposed to memorize which information only went from Bree to Jonas, what Jonas told Daniel in private, which of that we know and which not, and how much of that was intercepted by OP APHID?

The current system, from an artistic point of view, may be inconvenient. But it's realistic. It's what makes this series what it is. Once you deviate from it, you could just cut together 15-minute episodes teenage-drama style and make them available via bit torrent. That would at least make it easier to keep track of conversations between the characters.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it just doesn't fit the world you created. Either a video is up on the internet for everybody to see, or it's not. Either it's in riddles, or not. Either it's protected, or not.
And even if you decide to say "F*ck it, it's just a series!"...think of OP APHID. F*cking up the TINAG aspect of an ARG basically makes it useless. How are we supposed to believe in an alternate reality that just isn't realistic?

[Broken Kid]

But: Why would Bree, Jonas and Daniel encrypt their videos? Why would they hide them from each other? And why post a video that doesn't exist on the internet?

I think the examples the Creators used are just that, theoretical examples.

The problem with "everyone should be able to see everything because we, the fans, can" is how to deal with the bad guys? Daniel broke into Lucy's apartment. They showed great detail about Jonas' home and local area. These are just a few examples of things that BD&J obviously wouldn't want the Order to know about.

So if they didn't want the order to know, they obviously wouldn't post a video about it, right? Well, the problem with that is how would the fans know? It's a series, and we like the action! But how to justify the two?

You're right that saying someone made a video and uploaded it should mean everyone should see it. After all, that's the truth. But for the sake of the story, it eliminates far too much of the plot direction the Creators want to take. So there's got to be some way to allow us, the fans, to see everything but explain away why some people can't.

I know they're open to suggestions if you can help suggest how to do this...

[immortal1]

I think the idea is good in principle but like others have said needs tweaking.

I think in needs to be based on function everyone uses on many websites, what we are really talking about are filters. Here's how you might do it, I'd have too modes: public and friends. The friends vid has a red border. Everything without the red border would be public by default. Bree could start a vid with "We just upgraded our vlogging software. If you are seeing this you are on my friends list."

The only thing this system doesn't allow for is character to character vids. This part I don't agree with because the we really wouldn't be seeing those. What's unique about this series is that it breaks the 4th wall successfully by having a logical explanation for doing so. You just can't throw that 4th wall back up when it's convienent which is what private character to character vids would do.

EDIT: Instead of the private character to character vids you could use picture in picture to place the vids side by side and call it cam to cam video conferencing.

[chershaytoute]

Thoughts on LGPedia, Tags, and Border Color <shudder>...

Could this be where the LGPedia comes in? A heads up to the Admins there, when the vid comes out, saying VERY specifically, THIS vid is being posted by X, and is being sent out to be seen by Y and Z only. A, B, and C are NOT able to see it at all. Please make sure that's understood within the LGPedia? Place this info somewhere in the notes, perhaps, plus...

Echo that within the tagging (which is, of course, also seen right next to the vids both on site and on YT)... So, tags could be something like "cabin snow peanut butter Nancy Drew poster=Bree seen=Daniel seen=Jonas seen=Tachyon notseen=OpAphid"

But...how do you do something to indicate who sees within a bordering color coding? THIS, I think would be nightmarish, at best, personally - it strikes me that you'd have to start thinking about rainbow color coding...!! THE HORROR!!

[Renegade]

[...]when the vid comes out, saying VERY specifically, THIS vid is being posted by X, and is being sent out to be seen by Y and Z only. A, B, and C are NOT able to see it at all. [...] poster=Bree seen=Daniel seen=Jonas seen=Tachyon notseen=OpAphid" [...]

...that's exactly what I ment. A nightmare to keep note of. Not to mention that, in their concept, you'd have to add "viewer" as a seen/notseen variable as well. So you'd end up with videos seen by all the good guys, you know exactly what they're planning, but you actually don't.

@Broken Kid:
If it was that easy, I'd have posted a solution in the post before
But just because I don't know anything better doesn't mean The Creators' plans are good

So if they didn't want the order to know, they obviously wouldn't post a video about it, right? Well, the problem with that is how would the fans know? It's a series, and we like the action! But how to justify the two?

The Human Ransom worked well...even though, and especially because they couldn't/didn't reveal their plans to us.

They could, of course, just receive some threatening e-mails from the Order, check the headers, and IP-ban them from the server - but that'd be scratching realism as well. (Ultra secret cult agents too stupid to use a proxy?)

The only other thing I could imagine would be taking the others out. Ignoring the public. Making each single video a private transmission to the very user watching it. Like a video e-mail or something. That would explain why I know of Bree's secret sexual desires and the Order and the boys don't.

Although then I'd have to worry about how all you guys hacked my vid-mail account

[GoodGollyItsHolly]

Its a smart idea. I really think it will work well. Hopefully Jonas will send me a private message declaring his undying love for me

[raindown]

needs tweaking imo,
just because I can see it becoming very, very confusing for everyone, especially newcomers and lurkers...

[GoodGollyItsHolly]

I'm going to clairify here.. i thought it was going to be one color like red, and then the character would address the person they were talking to by name in the video. Is it going to be a bunch of different colors associated with different people?

[ladron121]

In order for any of this to work, you would need to get rid of the "in character" boards. Even if you let everyone who is currently playing know the rules, there is no way to keep everyone who is just joining up to date. You will have people posting "private" info on those boards constantly, which will eat up moderator time editing or deleting them per the rules.

A better way may be to set up different video pages on the site. Replace the "in character" boards with video boards, one for each character. The heading of each video can specify if they are "public" or "private", public being what all characters can see and private being their personal posts not to be shared. That could solve a lot of problems, and still allow characters like OpAphid, Tachyon, 10033 and others post with those videos their own updates (like the profile updates on YouTube).

[jobee13]

It's really suspending disbelief though to think just because a video is labelled Private OpAphid will just not view it...I mean...seriously

[ladron121]

It's really suspending disbelief though to think just because a video is labelled Private OpAphid will just not view it...I mean...seriously

Suspend disbelief would be the operative term here. Its not that they have to ignore a "Private OpAphid" video, its that any of the characters, in story, wouldn't even know it exists. Only those of us on the boards would "be able to see it". Also, if each character had their own video board, then comments, suggestions, everything from us could go with the video, and be responded to like they used to with the YouTube emails.