Lurker wrote:Since you (wisely) decided to bring the issue up here, I'm going to, first, go ahead and thank Greg again for making last night's video public. That simplified things enormously, at least for the moment. I also want to thank chershaytoute and ApotheosisAZ for discussing it with me and trying to help make sense of it prior to the status of "Aiding and Abiding" changing from "private" to "public."
That said, Apo was totally correct when he said that while it clarified this particular situation, it doesn't clarify the concept. So, secondly, I'm going to try to make this more simple for everybody (audience and Creators) by listing the issues with the private transmissions concept where the good guys are concerned (that way the Creators know all they'll need to address in the future, and the audience knows all the questions they have to ask; if I forget anything, please tell me and I'll add it to this list):
—First and foremost, how is it possible for the characters to make a private transmission to us or each other? Is there a special function of the site in the fictional unierse that we're not aware of?
This can be done in a real life situation. Since it's hard to imagine this if your aren't a diginert, let me show you how it's done.
First we(BDJ) PM the administrator (
who is happy to see us because a great many people frequent this site (even if we're talking youtube or revver) because of our videos) we talk him into letting us have special permission to make group posts. If his forum doesn't have that special ability we tell him where he can get it for free. We now have the ability to make private posts to a group of people. Next we make sure that we pay attention to who is posting like a flunky of the order (sorry, Apotheosis) and we make sure they're not on our list. TaDa! We can now post privately to a group of people.
This assumes BDJ have the ear of the administrator. If they don't, I have another way, but since that circumvents administrative security, I'd rather not post it. I'm a techie, not a cyber-thief.
—How does Jonas (or whoever else) decide who to show it to?
If he's smart, he gets hold of somebody he trusts that seems to have a lot of time on his hands and is pretty bright, (like, oh, Lurker?) and ask him to keep a running list of people who seem trustworthy. If he's Bree, he tries to do it himself or just guesses.
That's the Breeniverse version. On our side, if we want to IC as friend, we receive it. If we want to IC as foe, we don't. If we don't want to IC at all, hell! We're omnicient! We see everything!
—The original concept of the private transmissions, as described to us
here, seemed to suggest that we couldn't mention any private transmissions to other characters because our in-universe personas did not see those videos and had no knowledge of them. Last night, however, we were essentially being asked to not mention it to Bree and Daniel (or Lucy, as the case may be) to respect Jonas' confidence in us. This brings us back to how he decides who to show videos to, and it kind of limits what one's in-character persona can do. Take Apo's in-character persona, for instance: He's an Order supporter through and through, and he'd be calling up Lucy at the first sign of there being problems between the trio
OK, I don't really see where the point is in this point, but maybe I'm just not reading it right. But let me try anyway--
About the video: The very first line of this video blew the creator's first explanation. Originally the privacy thing was extremely limited. I recognize that. I think the creators--in their well meaning but distracted by too much other life way--forgot the exact setup. We've done a lot of arguing and philosophizing about the private/public issue and they read everything. It's entirely plausible that their hindsight isn't quite 20/20.
Before I posted that first IC thread to Jonas, I actually went back and reviewed the original proclamation and the video to make sure I was understanding what was happening. My take--not necessarily the ultimately correct take, but I couldn't call up the creators and ask--was that the creators were giving us and option that we hadn't had before. I was determined to take advantage of it, since I think it's a logical and reasonable action.
I would have done exactly what I proposed if I had been in their shoes in the Breeniverse.
The actual reason I moved the discussion to Concerns is in an effort to point out to the creators (and any doubting muggles) that it could work this way and it would make their life sooooo much easier.
—If Jonas (or whoever) makes a video to us, then we should be able to talk to him about it in his in-character section, right? But what's then to stop Bree or Daniel from simply looking in there and reading about it? We know from "Foosball" and "Quitting The Sauce" that the characters can and do read other's sections
The characters read each other's section because there has never been a private post. These sections can be passworded so that only people with the password can read. How do you think the log entry type posts stay private?
Now I'm not suggesting the creators really password these sections (BTW if you want any passworded sections, creators, I can point you to a plug-in that'll work on this forum.) They only really need to be passworded in the Breeniverse. --and I'm pretty sure the creators know how to do it there!
So now here's my point by point:
- Faction: THE RESISTANCE(or any single character) . Status: PUBLIC VIDEO
Everybody on both sides sees this.
IC is open season.
No secrets here.
Faction: THE ORDER(or any single character) Status: PRIVATE VIDEO
The character is PMing all of the people in his preferred group.
IC people who are siding with anyone else cannot acknowledge they have seen the video. If you wish to play both sides, just remember which persona you're playing at the moment you enter the IC area.
Secrets: no Breeniverse character other than the poster is allowed access to this knowledge.
Faction: THE RESISTANCE(or any single character) Status: VIDEO LOG
The Faction character is creating a VLOG for s/his private memory. Nobody else IC knows about this besides the character.
Faction: DANIEL to ALEX(or any single character) Status: PRIVATE VIDEO
A single character is PMing another single character. This is totally single character mode.
IC we know nothing unless, say, the creators want to introduce a new character from among the throng and it's LongLostPoster's name instead of Alex's 
--at which point we hear (without the aid of electronic devices) a mighty HALLELUJAH that sounds like Juli.
