The Many Worlds Forum

[Kappa]

Huh. I've done a test, and it seems like the + thing works with automatic forwarding for my gmail...

[Tulip]

Hmm. Seems like the problem isn't actually as big as I'd thought. From what I can tell, the forwarding bug was only actually happening in the specific circumstance where the message to be forwarded was coming from the same address that it was supposed to be forwarded to. So, essentially, here's the arrangement:

I mainly operate through account A. I also use accounts B and C for various things, and B and C are both configured to auto-forward messages they receive to A. Using A, if I send a message to B, I get it redirected back in my inbox on A. Using A, if I send a message to B+1, I don't get it redirected back in my inbox on A. This led me to conclude that the issue was with redirecting messages aimed at B+1. However, I just ran a followup test, in which I used C to send a message to B+1, and it redirected to A perfectly well. So apparently the problem happens only from A to B+1 back to A, but not from A to B back to A or from C to B+1 back to A. I'm... not sure what that means about how gmail is programmed, but it does mean that I'll be able to use non-A addresses with plus signs without any issue. So problem solved, I guess.

[DanielH]

And I get around this issue by having a custom domain and using WhateverIWant@<mycustomdomain>.com. Which is really convenient most of the time, but can cause problems occasionally (like GMail not knowing about specifically Alicornutopia@<customdamin>, so there being a bit of extra hassle getting the Chelsea google doc set up).

[Lambda]

Separate emails: The service actually supports having multiple forum accounts attached to the same global account, and makes it relatively painless to switch between them (there's an icon in the lower right corner). I vaguely remember there being a limit of ~10 subaccounts but I might be wrong.

Fourth wall: I don't want "omg you're a fictional!" to dominate the interactions, but representation in fiction is a pretty good guideline for whether you'd've heard of something. e.g. if you're from Earth you probably know what dragons are even if you've never met one. I suppose the glowfic convention is as good as any.

Aslan: eeegh, I probably should have thought of that. Possible explanations include that the Wood only connects to Jesus-cluster worlds, or that the Narnia books are not completely reliable, or that proximity of the pools in the Wood corresponds to cluster-nearness of worlds and Aslan has only visited some of the nearer pools. (Did Charn have a Christ figure?) Whatever the explanation is, "it all adds up to normality". It is not the case that Christianity is objectively true in every single world.

PS: The forum software stupidly assumes that everyone is male or female, but you can set the account gender not to display publicly from the Privacy tab when editing your profile, which has a similar effect to not declaring a gender. Sorry for the ugliness.

[anthusiasm]

Is there going to be a policy regarding canon-puncturing? For example, I have an OC from an Earth-but-with-secret-magic world who's really into Doctor Who. What happens if someone shows up RPing as the Doctor? (Does RPing existing fictional characters fit with the aesthetic you're envisioning here?)

[Lambda]

DW might be recognizable as being about the Doctor, but it's not a reliably accurate account. Knowledge of the show certainly couldn't help the Doctor make useful predictions about things that hadn't happened to him yet. It would be like trying to use Indiana Jones or Inglorious Basterds as a source of military intelligence in WW2.

[anthusiasm]

Cool, thanks!

I think I'm going to start posting once I find a way to get Internet into some of my more low-tech settings.

[Lambda]

Remember that not all worlds instantiate the forum as internet. It might be a printed newsletter or mailing list.

[anthusiasm]

How would one comment if the forum instantiates itself as a printed newsletter? Is there a return address to which one can send comments?

[Lambda]

Yes, exactly. It's the snail-mail equivalent of a discussion list. Sort of like a magazine consisting entirely of the letters column.