No April Foolin' - April 1st (Tomorrow) is the Last Day for Google+

Farewell Google+. You had your share of the limelight, but you grew much dimmer in recent years. In the end, you were but a shade of your former self. I wish I could say you will be missed, but in there recent months you seemed like you weren't really there.

Let's all do a Google Wave. Wait, they killed that too. Years ago.

Ah well, we had some good times, but now I hang my hat elsewhere:

https://www.tenkarstavern.com/ The Blog

https://anchor.fm/tavernchat The Podcast

https://www.facebook.com/tenkarstaverncommunity The Facebook Page

https://mewe.com/group/5bbbeb719b97560bb884a669 The MeWe Group

https://discord.gg/fReGmuD The Discord Server

Google Spells it Out - Comments Posted as Google+ Comments Cannot be Migrated to Blogger and will No Longer Appear on Your Blog

In case Google wasn't clear enough with their earlier announcement, those that log into Blogger will have this notice on the top of their page:

I am so glad my experiment with Google + comments lasted but half a day before I reverted.

My faith in Blogger as a viable platform as the continued home of The Tavern diminishes on a daily basis.

How Many Blogger Hosted Blogs Are Going to be Hosed By the Impending Google + Shutdown? Judging by the Latest G + Update - Many

Here's the latest Google + Impending shutdown update. There is a part that should greatly concern bloggers that use Blogger and Google + for post comments.

Shutting down Google+ for consumer (personal) accounts on April 2, 2019 

January 30, 2019 

In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content. 

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted. 

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted. 

As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events. See the full FAQ for more details and updates leading up to the shutdown. 

If you’re a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community. Learn more 

If you sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working in the coming weeks but in some cases may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. You’ll still be able to sign in with your Google Account wherever you see Google Sign-in buttons. Learn more 

If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019.  (empasis mine) Learn more 

If you’re a G Suite customer, Google+ for your G Suite account should remain active. Contact your G Suite administrator for more details. You can also expect a new look and new features soon. Learn more

If you're a developer using Google+ APIs or Google+ Sign-in, click here to see how this will impact you. 

From all of us on the Google+ team, thank you for making Google+ such a special place. We are grateful for the talented group of artists, community builders, and thought leaders who made Google+ their home. It would not have been the same without your passion and dedication.

So, I went with the learn more link and this is what I got:

There was nothing more to learn. Some bloggers, folks like Zak Smith are going to lose years of comments. 1,000s of comments. Sure you can download the comments but what good does that do. Are you manually going to reload them as single comments streaming the whole thread? Besides, the way Google + comments worked in Blogger, you'd have different threads based upon communities where it was shared. What a fucking shit show.

Google enabled the integration of Blogger and Google + 6 years ago. A large number of Blogger bloggers made the switch and now they are fucked.

Needless to say, moving The Tavern to another host is on the short list of things to do. I suspect Blogger may be the next Google app to face the firing squad.

News - Google Plus Shutdown Moved Up to April - 52.5 Million Exposed to NEW Data Leak

Why am I not surprised? (quoted from The Verge) 

Google+ has suffered another data leak, and Google has decided to shut down the consumer version of the social network four months earlier than it originally planned. Google+ will now close to consumers in April, rather than August. Additionally, API access to the network will shut down within the next 90 days. 

According to Google, the new vulnerability impacted 52.5 million users, who could have had profile information like their name, email address, occupation, and age exposed to developers, even if their account was set to private. Apps could also access profile data that had been shared with a specific user, but was not shared publicly.

I'm thinking I may need to delete my account and leave before the final light is turned off at this point.

The Tavern Chat Podcast - E146 - Google to Shut Down G+ After Exposing User Info - OSR Migration has Started to MeWe

I blogged about this yesterday and the migration to MeWe is real. Over 400 new members in the MeWe OSR Community and 125 in The Tavern's MeWe Community in less than 24 hours.

What do you do if you expose the user info of half a million of your users? Shut down the service, that's what. Google has given G+ users a 10-month warning that its social media platform is going the way of the dodo. Most migration in the OSR Community appears to be heading towards MeWe.

Link to Episode 146 - https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E146---Google-to-Shut-Down-G-After-Exposing-User-Info---OSR-Migration-has-Started-to-MeWe-e2c4m3

https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2018/10/google-plus-to-come-to-end-august-2019.html

https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2018/10/the-mass-migration-of-osr-from-google.html

The Mass Migration of the OSR from Google+ has Begun

Yep, Google+ was given a notice today than in 10 months, Google will be pulling the life support plug on their social media platform. The OSR is strong on Google+, or it was. What is the point of staying with a dying social media platform? Who wants to be the one tasked with turning off the lights and locking the door?

Facebook is an option, but not all want to do Facebook. I understand that. The Tavern has a Facebook Community which can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/groups/849179298513223/

But what if you don't want to do Facebook? Or what if you simply want more options?

Discord is certainly an option. There is an OSR server which can be reached here: https://discord.gg/36Hfr2

There is also a Tenkar's Tavern server which does double duty as the Official Frog God Games Discord Community. Its active day and night, 24/7. You can join with this link:
https://discord.gg/fReGmuD

But you know what is on fire today? MeWe.com. Seriously, it seems to be a very viable Google+ alternative. There is an OSR Group (I am one of the admins) as well as a new, as of 2 hours ago as I type this, Tenkar's Tavern Group. Huzzah! Join us on the non-Google+ / non-Facebook alternative!

MeWe OSR Group - www.mewe.com/join/osr1

MeWe Tenkar's Tavern Group - www.mewe.com/join/tenkars_tavern

edit - if you want to "friend" me on MeWe, here's the link:  www.mewe.com/i/erik.tenkar

Google Plus to Come to an End August 2019 - Will the World of Social Media Even Notice? Will the OSR Move On?

Rob Conley gave me the heads up earlier this afternoon - Google Plus will be ending as we know it in 10 months (Enterprise users may have a version going forward). Rob blogs about the announcement at his Bat in the Attic blog.

Strangely, it's almost a non-announcement.

This review crystallized what we’ve known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps. The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds. 

Our review showed that our Google+ APIs, and the associated controls for consumers, are challenging to develop and maintain. Underlining this, as part of our Project Strobe audit, we discovered a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs:

Users can grant access to their Profile data, and the public Profile information of their friends, to Google+ apps, via the API. 

The bug meant that apps also had access to Profile fields that were shared with the user, but not marked as public.   

This data is limited to static, optional Google+ Profile fields including name, email address, occupation, gender and age. (See the full list on our developer site.) It does not include any other data you may have posted or connected to Google+ or any other service, like Google+ posts, messages, Google account data, phone numbers or G Suite content. 

We discovered and immediately patched this bug in March 2018. We believe it occurred after launch as a result of the API’s interaction with a subsequent Google+ code change.
We made Google+ with privacy in mind and therefore keep this API’s log data for only two weeks. That means we cannot confirm which users were impacted by this bug. 

However, we ran a detailed analysis over the two weeks prior to patching the bug, and from that analysis, the Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected. Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API. 

We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any Profile data was misused. 

Every year, we send millions of notifications to users about privacy and security bugs and issues. Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice. 

Our Privacy & Data Protection Office reviewed this issue, looking at the type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds were met in this instance. 

The review did highlight the significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers’ expectations. Given these challenges and the very low usage of the consumer version of Google+, we decided to sunset the consumer version of Google+. 

To give people a full opportunity to transition, we will implement this wind-down over a 10-month period, slated for completion by the end of next August. Over the coming months, we will provide consumers with additional information, including ways they can download and migrate their data. 

At the same time, we have many enterprise customers who are finding great value in using Google+ within their companies. Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network. Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organization. We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses. We will share more information in the coming days.  

Cheaper to shut down than to fix...

I'm not surprised by the announcement. I am surprised that Google took this long to make such an announcement. Facebook drives over three times the traffic that Google Plus does for me at this time, despite 9,453 having me in their circles on G Plus and a hair over 2,000 friends on Facebook.

I know the OSR as a community is heavily invested in G Plus. Where will they move now?

G Plus has been the red-headed stepchild of Google for years. They never really knew what to do with it, and now it follows Google Wave and Feedburner onto the trash heap. I can only wonder if Blogger itself is close behind.

Other articles:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-private-data-of-at-least-hundreds-of-thousands-of-plus-users.html

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/social-network-google-plus-bug-exposed-data-of-up-to-5-lakh-people-will-be-shut-down-1928902

https://abc7.com/technology/google+-to-shut-down-following-data-breach-affecting-500k-users--/4441213/

There's a New Boss in Town - RJ Thompson is the new owner of the Swords & Wizardry G+ Community - Huzzah!

Ownership of the Swords & Wizardry G+ Community has changed hands. The new head honcho is +R.J. Thompson . Yep, the same +R.J. Thompson that has been running the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day these last few years.

My regular readers know how huge a fan of Swords & Wizardry I am. I can think of no one better qualified to help the Swords & Wizardry G+ Community thrive than R.J. This is seriously awesome news.

Below is a snippet of the announcement:

You can read the rest in the Swords & Wizardry G+ Community.

Google Hangouts Getting an Upgrade - Looks Like Apps Will Miss the Cut - Roll20 Users Take Note

Engadget has a short article on Google's currently being rolled out update to Google Hangouts. Simpler interface, improved video quality, no apps. Yep, you read that right - those apps you love - and no, not the sound effects and the goofy hats, but apps like Roll20 - do not work with the new update.

Here's the relevant quote from the Engadget article:

Just be aware that you may lose some features you like -- as one early adopter notes, app support within Hangouts is currently missing. That doesn't necessarily mean that the support is gone for good, but you shouldn't count on it coming back.

 And here's Google's official statement:

The comments in the G+ thread are very interesting and there are some names many of The Tavern's readers will recognize.

Another interesting G+ thread:

In the meantime, here's the link to the old Hangouts:

http://g.co/hangouts

Some Idle Curiosity About My G+ Following

Sometime in the last week or so, I surpassed 9,000 people who have me in their circles. The number is mind blowing.

Now, I know a certain percentage of that number see to follow do so for non gaming reasons. I can't explain why they would want to read my posts and I doubt they do read them.

I am curious as to why those that follow me, especially in the last year or so, decided to join "The Lemmings." (for those not in on the joke, I've been told by certain individuals that I need to be more careful in my postings, as I have - potentially at least - too much influence on our little corner of the hobby, but I digress)

So, how did you find myself and by extension, The Tavern?

Thoughts, ideas, observations?

Google Plus Simplifies URLs - About F'ing Time

I hated sharing my G+ link that led to me, as it was a huge jumble of numbers.

Now, its: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ErikTenkar/about

That's almost... simple ;)

Hey, I'm almost at 8,300 folks that have circles me :)

Running Hangout Games as a "Roll20 Minimalist"

I was about to post this to the Southern Reaches of the Wilderlands - Sandbox community page, but I figured it might be interesting to share with all.

I really am a Roll20 Minimalist when I run games.

I don't use tokens, even though I have hundreds of virtual tokens ready to go and could have thousands more using the RPtools token creator app. I have used them in the past, and it usually results in party members' tokens being left 3 rooms behind as someone takes a bio break or just forgets to move their tokens.

I'm not saying there aren't uses for them in the games run by other GMs, nor am I saying that I'd never use them, but I feel they distract a bit from the "Theatre of the Mind" type of gameplay which is how I like to run a game. I want the gameplay to be bigger than the tokens on your screen or the minis on the table.

I do like importing maps from existing adventures and using "fog of war" to reveal to the party what they can see and where they have been. If I need to point out something or confirm a location, I just "ping" it with a click of the pointer. It's much easier and less time consuming than trying to draw the map out freehand based upon GM description or even having the GM sketch it out I've done both.

Handwaving - I do lots of it, especially with combat. It replaces tokens for me.

Handouts are awesome with Roll20 - I love them and enjoy using them. Once or twice a session on average, assuming I have something suitable.

As for character sheets and macros - that's up to the players. I don't think anyone in my regular group uses them, but they could always prove me wrong.

We most definitely do use the online dice feature, but we've never used the 3d Dice feature, which is strange in retrospect, as it's one of the features of Fantasy Grounds 2 that I really enjoyed. I guess the flashy dice really do take a backseat to gameplay.

We use Roll20 within Google+ as an app and have never had an issue, or at least no more issues than one normally has with G+ Hangout sessions.

I'm a huge supporter of Virtual Table Tops and have thrown money at nearly all of them. Roll20 via G+ Hangouts is the closest I've come to a Virtual Table feeling and playing like a dining room table.

Of Blogger and G+ and the Piss Poor Mish-Mash of the Two

I'm an active blog poster. I probably post on average three to four times a day over here at The Tavern. Each of these posts also get shared on G+, and I guess I'm fairly active over there too. Heck, as of today over 4,000 fine folks have included me in their circles. I'm flattered.

My experiment of trying out the use of G+ for comments in Blogger lasted a few hours. It prevented those without G+ accounts from commenting, which I thought was pretty damn limiting as many of my blog readers and commenters aren't active on G+.

So, the communities overlap to a large extent, but the blog and G+ are also a bit separate.

Now, I posted a comment on a Blogger blog yesterday that had G+ integrated into the comments section, and it turned my comment into a publicly shared post by me on G+, which lost much of the context of the comment as the blog was linked to, but not quoted from by G+. I wasn't looking to fan any flames, but to get the original poster's thoughts on a specific question.

My comment basically started it's own thread, which was not my intention.

Looks like I'll be avoiding commenting on blogs that have G+ integrated in their comments section until Google figures this shit out.

What Google Giveth, Common Sense Taketh Away

This afternoon I jumped on the opportunity to integrate G+ comments with my blog's comments. It was like peanut butter and chocolate, or so I thought.

My impression was that it allowed comments to the blog and to G+ to be mutually accessible. What I didn't realize it really made both sides G+ commenting only - no G+ profile, no comments can be left.

The idea was good in theory, but the implementation is horrid. I have a blog so that people can share their thoughts about my thoughts. I allow comments from everyone but "anonymous posters", because those fuckers are either spammers or worse, and I have no desire to be constantly weeding my blog garden of such.

G+ integration of comments has been turned off.

I need to thank +Dyson Logos for bringing this to my attention. Maybe later on down the line, Google will get it right and we'll try this all over again.

In the meantime, feel free to comment to your heart's content ;)

Google + Comments in Blogger? Blogger Comments in Google +? Interesting...

Just got this in my email:


Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger
 
Hello!

Writing a thoughtful post and seeing how people engage can be really rewarding, so we’ve made it easier to reach a broader audience and see more of their reactions.

Once you enable Google+ Comments, people can share the comments they make on your blog to their circles in Google+, helping you reach people that they know. And there's more: mentions of your posts on Google+ automatically show up right in your blog's comments, so you can see more of people’s public conversations about your content (and private conversations you’re part of).

Here's how to add Google+ Comments to your blog:
1. Sign in to Blogger
2. Click on the “Google+” tab in your blog’s Dashboard
3. Upgrade to Google+ if you haven’t already done so
4. Enable Google+ Comments. Comments already made on your posts will keep working in the new widget

If only this had been active during yesterday's S&W Blogest ;)

There Will Be Benefits For Members of "2,000 Coppers" (Some may call it bribery;)

(remember, membership is free)


Here's the gameplan for 2,000 Coppers and my usual contests:

If I run a contest I'll be adding a prize just available for folks in the 2,000 GP community - when you enter the contest, just sign off at the bottom of your comment with:

"2kCP - XXX" - where XXX is your handle on G+

basically, its an extra chance to win - and yes, you can win a regular prize along with the 2kCP prize

I'll also gonna try and figure something out as a random gift, awarded once a month to a member of 2,000 Coppers - I'll update when I nail that down

There will be more going on at 2,000 Coppers, but this is the start ;)

"2,000 Coppers" Community is Now Live on G+

Yep, Communities is live on G+, and I've set up 2,000 Coppers as a place for friends of the Tavern to hang out at.

Random thoughts - maybe even some random gaming later on ;)

It's open to all, even those that have an unholy aversion to coppers, rats, taverns and gawds forbid - beer!

(edit) - added link ;)

Tonight's ACKS Game Will Be Live On G+ Hangouts - On Air

In case you missed the announcement on G+, tonight's Adventurer Conqueror King System gaming session will be watchable via Google+ Hangout using the On Air feature.  So, as if I didn't have enough on my plate keeping 5 very skilled role-players engaged I now have an unknown audience added to the mix.

Normally, I'd have a few beers with my gaming session, but tonight is going to be pure caffeine.  Lots of it.

So yeah, 930 Eastern Time on the ACKS Channel.  Or just look for the announcement on G+ from Tabletop Forge.

Tonight's program is rated "R", for language, possible simulated torture, random acts of violence, liberal use of fire, portrayals of the undead, verbal descriptions of gore and other assorted silliness that accompanies "R"oleplaying.  You have been warned.

Feast or Famine - At What Point Do You Have to Say "No" to Gaming?

I went though a number of years where I wasn't able to get any table top RPGing in.  Whether it was face to face or a virtual table top, my gaming was nonexistent.

From there I found myself some fairly regular gaming via Fantasy Grounds, which was cool while it lasted.  I followed that up with a dry spell.

Virtually the same week I started playing in a weekly D&D game via G+ Hangout I also started attending weekly sessions of Games That Can Not Be Named.  I went from no gaming to gaming twice a week, and an opportunity for a third session - my wife, who had encouraged me to get myself back into gaming, would have rightfully killed me if I had opted for the third.

I'm down to just the Saturday night game now, so when I was offered a spot in a Apocalypse World game this sunday night via G+ Hangout with some really great gamers (more on that after the game) I couldn't say no.  I guess I'll see if it really does play better than the mess it is written as ;)

Mere hours afterwards, I got an invite to James Mal's Dwimmermount game for tonight via G+ Hangout.  Hangout is outa control!  heh.  I had to pass until a later time with James, as gaming all three nights on the weekend would have gotten me some wife agro.  I might be knew to this, but I'm a quick learner.

So, what's your weekly limit of gaming goodness?

Tip Toe Around the NDA

Its funny.  You sign an NDA and you can't discuss your game experiences from the POV of the rules, although you can probably post in broad swaths, as long as those broad swaths avoid anything rule like.

Heck, I'm not even sure if you can discuss the name of the game covered by the NDA, but if I say I'm playing in a game covered by an NDA, it should be an easy guess.

Hmmm... I can't even tell you if the game plays well.  Can I even tell you who my GM is?  Probably not.

Alright, how about the Google+ Hangout with battle grid and dice roller?  That works extremely well, independent of system.  Still in beta and not released upon the masses, but no NDA there.  Last night the game broke down into pure silliness.  The same silliness that would occasionally break open in a session of my face to face games.  It means the group has bonded.  We are comfortable enough to let our hair down, so to speak.

So, Dragons For Dinner will be a great tool within Google+ Hangout for RPG sessions once it's fully tweaked.  We can see the potential, and it is real.  As for the thing behind the NDA?  I can't say.   No, really, I can't say.  Says so in the NDA.