» I don't mind brackets, but the text is too small. All the font sizes that DWRP users favor are generally way too tiny for the modern web.

We should abandon the default siteskin so that they will make a more usable default siteskin, imo.

living my life with dreamwidth set to 125% zoom

its fine i know im blind

i don't have problems with the font size but god being so married to the old site skin is part of (though not all lol) what's making it so difficult for dw to optimize for mobile and it's killing me lmao

i would kill a man for a workable dw mobile app but every person i know who has experience in writing mobile apps looked at the dw back end and went "nOPE"

the custom comment pages on older styles are unusable, so i can't blame people there

but the newer styles are a lot better

I know that the reason the font is too small in the DW site skin is because dwrpers live in the internet from 2009 and came to DW in large part due to changes to the LJ interface!! Even though the siteskin perpetually nesting comments is actually terrible for roleplay specifically

you can actually have responsive comments if you turn off the siteskin but people won't do this for accessibility reasons and it's

I hate large fonts I'm sorry

i played at a game where i had to pm the mods representing like 6 other players asking for them to make the event posts with bigger fonts because it was more than a single <small> tag and they would put A LOT OF DETAIL into the info.. surely, we can find a middle ground

16px is generally considered the minimum size for readable text but we in the text-based hobby of dwrp make our 12px font smaller, willingly, for reasons, and the reason is that aesthetically were stuck in like, 2004 fanlisting land

100% of the reason i always say i prefer prose style is bc the small text is too small

it is too small!!

this is probably the most scorching take I have, but in general I think as a community people mistake aesthetic for design

sometimes i zoom in even on the normal size text bc even without underlying vision issues it's a strain on the eyes

i increase the font size on every layout i use because it's not like i'm gonna run out of paper printing the thing

also the reason i'm constantly waffling between courier and courier new for text tags, bc courier looks super tiny on mobile

except the ones that come with adequate font size to begin with, which isn't many

which I get because I like things to look pretty but a lot of profile codes &c are more about neat text effects and graphic collages than presenting important information in a readable way, which is sad, because I really like reading profiles

but a lot of time I get multiple paragraphs of information squished into tiny scrolly boxes, because?

because someone decided it looked cool but even if it does look cool it is not fun to read and also probably broken to h*ck on my phone

» I like threading intro small talk

» I don't have a long treatise on the anon comms to type out here but I will say that I think there are two sides to the great dwrp inability to communicate.

On the one hand people are clearly terrified of being confrontational or telling others stuff they don't want to hear and thereby setting boundaries.

On the other hand, when people actually gave crit on HMDs, there was a weird expectation that you had to seriously consider anything negative anyone had to say about you and react to all criticism as if someone was doing you a favor.

Characterization is a matter of interpretation and if someone else's take on your favorite character is getting you mad it's your problem, not theirs.

It sucks when you're in a cast or similar with someone whose characterization you really don't agree with but the solutions there are basically get over it or drop, because submitting seventeen paragraphs of detailed criticism to their HMD probably won't fix it.

Now, I think some people actually enjoy getting writing and characterization crit, that's part of the fun of the hobby— and I think basically all dwrpers are happy to discuss their characterization choices at length, and HMDs can be great for that. I'm 100% for discussions that people want to have.

And I also think that if a fellow player is doing something hurtful oocly, you should say something. I don't think pretendy fun times means total immunity from criticism, but having fun is the goal, not deathless prose.

» mods are likewise I guess expected to be open and respectful to all criticism and this is completely why no one wants to mod.

I don't like anonymous modding but I understand why it's done and I think we have to work on making the community less toxic for mods in particular if we really want it not to be the norm!

But I'd never mod except to make a game pretty.

This is why... I totally understand why people would want to say things anon. A lot of people who have been around journal RP since the mid to late 2000s have experience with disproportionate blowback over benign opinions.

But.

Sometimes with criticism and suggestions, it does help to consider the source. And sometimes the source is one you find objectionable, but they’re not wrong.

Yeah, I guess it's just, being a kind person is way more important than being the best pretend Captain America on one specific internet community, and everything should be looked at through that lens, first.

And I think most people agree, tbh. I've generally had good experiences in this hobby or I wouldn't be in it. And I think most bad experiences in this hobby come from getting too invested, not from malicious masterminds.

To be clear still holding a grudge from 2008 is what I would call "getting too invested"

omg i also ... like threading intro small talk...

legit was beginning to think i was the only one LMFAO

I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE DON'T LIKE IT AND FIND IT REPETITIVE BUT... listen... im still out here enjoying it in 2020 leave me alone 8(

I'M GLAD

you're not alone!! there are maybe… five of us, lmao.

I am only juuuuust starting to get to the point where I’m like “I’ll do it if the other person wants to, but”

(As opposed to “I’m totally into this”)

Takes on site skin duly noted for my volunteer shenanigans

And yeah I agree about site skin and aesthetics in general. We have a really strong overlap in aesthetic tastes (hence me camping out on Vigils for literal years) but I also used to, years ago, study UX design and usability

we really are stuck in early 2000s fanlisting aesthetics land in some ways

And I definitely have my browser set to 120% or so specifically because of DW and RP.

I'm sure Denise agrees with me that the fonts are too small, DW has been really good about adding better functionality through codepushes, but

/gestures at the reaction to codepushes

and it makes sense, in that we've all accustomed ourself to this ancient design, so that in a way it is userfriendly, as we are set in our ways and anything else would be intimidating and unfamiliar,