beetiger

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Is this Dreamwidth thing an add-on that people are attaching to livejournal, or a way people are interfacing with LJ, or is this a thing people I know are migrating to and I need to use openid and follow in a new place or two places or something? I am confused, and I am tired of chasing people around social networks.

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From:

inaki.livejournal.com

Dreamwidth is all the former LJ developers designing a new site from the ground up. So yes its a separate site.

See http://www.dreamwidth.org/

Edited Date: 2009-04-13 02:43 pm (UTC)

From:

shatterstripes.livejournal.com

It's a new site running on pretty much the same stuff LJ runs. Like Insanejournal or Greatestjournal, except they claim to have done some major improvements to the code.

Until they actually get a page together with a nice bullet-point list of reasons You Should Switch From LJ, I can't be bothered. So far all I could see from some digging is that they will be nicer to people writing slashfic, and will never have any ads, really, honest! - not enough to even begin to think about moving.

Also they in a closed beta with invite codes; since none of my network has migrated I have no codes, and no desire to hang around begging random people for codes.

Here's someone trying to give me a summation of Why They Are More Awesome Than LJ.

From:

jenett

Dreamwidth (at http://dreamwidth.org) is an online service based on a code fork of the LiveJournal code (by which they mean it is based on the open source LJ code, but has already diverged from that code in a number of places.

They are deliberately building in interoperability with other sites (easiest to do with other stuff based on the LJ code, including LJ, but they have plans for better intergration with people using other sites/software, too, like WordPress or Moveable Type.)

The more techie explanation of those changes is here: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth_changes_from_LJ

http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Notable_Dreamwidth_Reading has links to some of the most common questions, information, and other useful things, and is a good general place to start if you want more than the rest of this comment.

As you might see in my journal, I've got an account in the closed beta, and intend to eventually shift my primary home there. A less tech-speak list of reasons I'm doing that (this is me, personally, not why anyone else should) looks like this:

- I want to be part of a community that's actively encouraging and directly supporting volunteer participation in the community, that has a significant sustainable business plan and plan for growth. I think they do.

- They're committed to allowing the maximum level of free speech under US law - and they realise what that means. LiveJournal was never quite set up to do that (and I think it's unfair to force a site into that particular set of risks given the current state of the laws about it). For both professional and personal reasons, I'm really excited about supporting a site who is interested in active advocacy on these issues.

Techie stuff that makes me happy:

- Ability to save drafts of posts, and to schedule posts (not in place yet, but on the 'soon' list of additions they want to make and think are feasible.)

- Longer comment limits. (Enough said, probably) LJ's is 4,300ish, DW's is 16,000. (Also larger limits on post size and a few other things of that kind.)

- Ability (not yet present, but in the works) to associate accounts with a primary account - for example, being able to associate a reading journal or a gaming journal with your primary account, so you can post to it without needing to log out and log back in.

- The ability to import your entire LiveJournal (already in place: I've done it, but am currently tagging entries I want to keep, and deleting those I no longer have a need for - not quite a clean slate, but a much tidier one. I don't need the posts about how wonderful and then not-wonderful my marriage was. It's still on LJ, and it's still in an archive on my computer, but I don't really need to see it every time I'm hunting for something else, y'know?)

- Lots of little fixes to things that have been annoying for a long time, an intuitive navigation system, etc. These would not have been a reason for me to start there, but I'm finding them making my life better already.

In my case, I intend to keep cross-posting to LJ for the indefinite future (and Dreamwidth expects to have code in place by the end of the month that will make that a one-button-click process from their posting interface). I intend to keep comments open in both places for the forseeable future (but I also recognise I may eventually shift comments over there, if at some point, that's the more active comment discussion and/or most people likely to comment on my stuff regularly have shifted there.)

You can register an OpenID over there now to comment or follow people's journals or participate in communities (the only thing you can't do is post journal entries yourself), or if you're interested in an invite code, I'll gladly add you to my list for when they hand more out.

[edited to add the bit about comment limits, which I'd left out.]

Edited Date: 2009-04-13 03:41 pm (UTC)

From:

asqmh.livejournal.com

I've considered purchasing a code when they open it publicly on the 30th and your comment has kind of solidified that for me, I think. Should you happen on a bucket of codes prior to that, though, and not mind handing them out to random LJ-ers only tangentially associated with you, I'd be thrilled to be on the list. ^_^