libitina's Journal

Dreamwidth
So now I'm on Dreamwidth (same username). Here's a post I wrote on livejournal talking about it.

I've mentioned Dreamwidth to a few of you before with vague handwavy generalizations.

And some of you already know about Dreamwidth.

But for a good half of my friendslist, I'd say this is pretty new.

So what is it? It's journaling. It started from the livejournal opensource code. And then they forked the code - to make it cleaner and better. And 500% more awesome - at least.

Awesome #1 - plays well with others
But because it's based on the livejournal code, the development is progressing such that it plays well with other livejournal code based systems.

Importing - There is an import helper that will bring over your profile, all of your entries, all of the comments on those entries, all of the filters on those entries, all of the tags on those entries, and all of your icons. A bit later I will talk about the nifty things it does to your friendslist, but for now let me just say that it slots all of your friends groups into entities called trust groups.

The import helper is still being improved - and here is a post talking about its current awesome status. I shall not be importing my journal until after I have a proper paid account (April 30th, baby) so that I will have enough slots to move over all of my icons without any extra work.

Cross-posting - So back when I first heard the details from Denise/synedochic at the last Con.Txt, this was what really sold me. Sadly, it's not up yet, but there is a push to get it up by open beta according to this update. At Con.Txt, it was phrased as being able to collate and present your entire reading list from multiple other (lj-cloned) journal sites, including locked/protected posts and including the ability to reply to them with one click. OMG! I still don't know how much of this will present in the finished (or the launch) version, but it makes me very happy just looking at those words.

What this means is that there won't have to be a migration off of livejournal. You can maintain all of your contacts and friendships. You can restart the ones that fell to the wayside because people migrated to insanejournal. For once, change might tie people together instead of splintering them. Plays well with others, people! Please, please, please make it work.

OpenId - Dreamwidth fully supports open ID, and it will even let you make a subscription list for your open ID with a whole friendslist-type reading page and everything... and 6 icons.

Awesome #2 - Transparency liek whoah!
So you are wondering what makes this code different from livejournal's code? Well, there was a mailing list and now a dreamwidth community that will give you weekly code tours of the updates they've made and the changes they are implementing. You want more detail? There's a community that gives you every single changelog. You can comment on it - you should comment on it. Their internal documentation is external. Well, okay, so their going to keep a few things closed source, but all of the rest of the code, coding, and the process of revision is out there for you to see. You should see the twitter feed @dreamwidth

Awesome #3 - My kind of ethics!
No, really, this is a good thing.

They are committed to open expression.

They welcome diversity.

They have a pretty kick ass privacy policy.

And as part of privacy, they have changed the mechanisms of your friendslist. The simple version is that there granting reading access to some or all of your content is completely separate from subscribing to read other people's/communities' content.

In conclusion - April 30th!

(Have a look at the pricing)