More interesting posts from Cohost archived...

[malymin]

cohost! - "Skykomish Never Sleeps: A Preliminary Report on The Esterb…
archived 21 Sep 2024 03:14:04 UTC

A very strong work of original fiction that I enjoyed. "Archeologists find things they aught not" is a well-trod concept, but the implied future setting adds a sense of deep time. Our moment is not the present, but the past as well.

cohost! - "Aquazone - Expensive Digital Fish"
archived 21 Sep 2024 03:24:31 UTC

An essay on a virtual pet product, Aquazone, that was contemporaneous with my own favorite virtual pets, but which seems to have far less survival in its online presence than Petz has. Ahead of its time in the worst ways (paid DLC microtransactions), and yet so thorough as a fishtank simulator, in a quintessentially of-its-era way, that no modern equivalent scatches the itch.

Comments

[stepnix]

Robot alien fish DLC........

[malymin]

I have very distinct memories of an Aquazone fansite (part of a network of virtual life game fansites run by one guy, along with a forum) describing the robot alien fish in detail! Unfortunately, the fansite network went down before 2006, so long ago it's not captured on Wayback...

You can try to visit the captures from 2004 here, but they'll redirect you to "suspended" pages from 2006 before you even get a chance to read them. The captures from 2016 are useless, the site was already down for a decade at that point. Not sure why they exist.

[seaglassgarden]

i was fixated on virtual aquarium games as a kid but never came across this one as far as i can remember. im glad the op got to download all the stuff they wanted :')

[malymin]

Me too. :)

There was also a finch-raising game by the same developers that had an even smaller community in the west, being that it was never legally released outside Japan. It's a good thing these works are available as abandonware.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's good to see folks archiving things from Cohost. If you're new here from there, you might like newcomers which is covering the shutdown and providing resources about Dreamwidth.

Re: Thoughts

[malymin]

Funny thing - I'm a little more familiar with how things work here than most Cohost expats... because I was a Livejournal kid in the 00's! I migrated over to Tumblr because that's where all my fandoms (especially Homestuck) set up shop as LJ was imploding, but I never really liked it quite as much and always missed some of LJ's particular features and charms.

I've been helping explain how to use things like lj-cuts and communities to friends and mutuals setting up shop here to the best of my ability. XD One friend's actually has been making great use of the ability to inject RSS feeds into the reading-feed to keep up on webcomics, which was a feature LJ also had that I never actually touched!

The main thing we've wondered about is what to do if a primary interest (for example, table-top roleplaying) has a community, but that community's been inactive for years... it's not that it's hard to create a new community from scratch and try to get people to join, but I wonder what the best choice between that and trying to revive a dead community is?

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Funny thing - I'm a little more familiar with how things work here than most Cohost expats... because I was a Livejournal kid in the 00's! <<

That's a good thing. I still have my LJ. Most of my audience has migrated here though.

>> I migrated over to Tumblr because that's where all my fandoms (especially Homestuck) set up shop as LJ was imploding, <<

Check out 100quadrantedships here. :D

>> but I never really liked it quite as much and always missed some of LJ's particular features and charms.<<

Yeah, each platform has its own pros and cons. I need somewhere I can have lengthy, threaded conversations.

>> I've been helping explain how to use things like lj-cuts and communities to friends and mutuals setting up shop here to the best of my ability. <<

Thank you! I'm hoping that other folks familiar with Dreamwidth will do that, both in their own blogs and on communities like newcomers and getting_started.

>> One friend's actually has been making great use of the ability to inject RSS feeds into the reading-feed to keep up on webcomics, which was a feature LJ also had that I never actually touched! <<

Clever.

>> The main thing we've wondered about is what to do if a primary interest (for example, table-top roleplaying) has a community, but that community's been inactive for years... it's not that it's hard to create a new community from scratch and try to get people to join, but I wonder what the best choice between that and trying to revive a dead community is? <<

If you just want to post stuff in the void, or ask if anyone is still out there, then you can use the old one. Check its profile page and it'll say whether or not it's moderated and who can post. You can also look to see who else is subscribed to it. However, you won't have the moderation tools available and DW will not appoint a new moderator in a dormant community.

If you want an interactive community, however, start a new one. Then you'll have all the tools available to you. That makes it much easier to reach out to people, make stuff happen, and solve any problems that may pop up. You can always post about the new comm on any older ones that are relevant. Advertise your new comm on dw_community_promo.

Also, if you're starting a new comm, check for any dormant ones. DW won't close them so a lot of names are used up. You can switch it up by using a verb form, a slight tangent, plurals, _on_DW, etc. That's how I wound up with birdfeeding because birdwatching is dormant. If there are no active comms or the only active ones are super-specific, then it's good to make a broad-focused comm that will have a wide pool of potential members. However, if you're interested in a subtopic that doesn't have a comm of its own, then something narrower may suit.

Re: Thoughts

[malymin]

Yeah, each platform has its own pros and cons. I need somewhere I can have lengthy, threaded conversations.

One of the main things I missed soooo bad from LJ; I was very glad Cohost had them. I remember when a lot of people moved to Twitter in the late 00's to early 2010's, and I immediately broke out in metaphorical hives from how antithetical it was to my preferred blogging and conversation style. Give me teal deer or give me death, I say!

Check out [community profile] 100quadrantedships here. :D

Alas, I was never really much of a shipper. u_u; My fandom interests have always leaned more towards meta! I like analyzing character motivations, themes and symbolism, world-building and lore, how older media's influences relate to the work... and for ongoing series, theorycraft and speculation about what will happen next. I ate good during the early 2010's, between Homestuck, Gravity Falls, and Steven Universe...

I did theorycraft for Undertale/Deltarune in the mid-late 2010's, too. But right now the Deltarune theory scene on Tumblr has stagnated in a way I'm not a fan of, and I'm waiting for fresh material to shake up the current theory paradigms.

I also had a lot of fun doing theorycraft for Deca-Dence in 2020, despite it having a microscopic fandom that died pretty much instantly after the show was over. I swear, newer series' fandoms die too fast... but if you like slash/yaoi shipping and don't mind reading for a show you've never watched, I can always show you my friend's MinaKabu fanfics on Ao3. 👀

If you just want to post stuff in the void, or ask if anyone is still out there, then you can use the old one. Check its profile page and it'll say whether or not it's moderated and who can post. You can also look to see who else is subscribed to it. However, you won't have the moderation tools available and DW will not appoint a new moderator in a dormant community.

If you want an interactive community, however, start a new one. Then you'll have all the tools available to you. That makes it much easier to reach out to people, make stuff happen, and solve any problems that may pop up. You can always post about the new comm on any older ones that are relevant. Advertise your new comm on [site community profile] dw_community_promo.

Also, if you're starting a new comm, check for any dormant ones. DW won't close them so a lot of names are used up. You can switch it up by using a verb form, a slight tangent, plurals, onDW, etc. That's how I wound up with [community profile] birdfeeding because [community profile] birdwatching is dormant. If there are no active comms or the only active ones are super-specific, then it's good to make a broad-focused comm that will have a wide pool of potential members. However, if you're interested in a subtopic that doesn't have a comm of its own, then something narrower may suit.

The main thing making me shy about starting my own communities is that I don't think I have what it takes to be a moderator... ^_^; thank you for the information, though! My current strategy has been to see if a dead community's moderator is active, then message them asking if they'd be ok with new people posting... it just seems like the polite thing to do. frillsofjustice's mod said they're ok with new people posting, so me and one other person from Cohost (stepnix) decided to join.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I remember when a lot of people moved to Twitter in the late 00's to early 2010's, and I immediately broke out in metaphorical hives from how antithetical it was to my preferred blogging and conversation style. <<

Yeah, Twitter is unusable for me.

>> Alas, I was never really much of a shipper. <<

That's okay, not everyone is.

>> My fandom interests have always leaned more towards meta! I like analyzing character motivations, themes and symbolism, world-building and lore, how older media's influences relate to the work... and for ongoing series, theorycraft and speculation about what will happen next. <<

We need meta too! I enjoy reading meta.

>> I swear, newer series' fandoms die too fast <<

True. There are many reasons. One is that earlier, there wasn't as much material so people were motivated to become attached and stick with favorites. Now there's such a glut, they can binge one and then binge another tomorrow. And bingeing contributes to the problem because when you go through something fast, you don't have as much time to form a relationship with it and think about it.

>> The main thing making me shy about starting my own communities is that I don't think I have what it takes to be a moderator... <<

Not everyone is, and that's fine.

>> My current strategy has been to see if a dead community's moderator is active, then message them asking if they'd be ok with new people posting<<

Good idea. I've tried it but it hasn't worked often.