karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (Default)
I have had a number of requests for Dreamwidth invite codes from people who (so far as I can tell) I've never spoken to or interacted with in any way before. I'm not annoyed with people for asking, as (1) generally asking questions isn't wrong and (2) at no point (until now) did I ever say 'only people who already know me', but I have decided that for the next period of time, until Dreamwidth beds itself down within my various social circles, I want to keep invite codes for friends/acquaintances/friends-of-friends. I currently have two invite codes. I am intending a relatively low barrier of 'know me' ie. have LJ account I may have seen commenting on other people's journals/have left me LJ comments etc rather than anything stronger but basically not anonymous/people I've never heard of before.

Dreamwidth have convincing reasons for the decision to use invite codes as a means to control site growth, however, the invite-or-pay-$3-to-get-an-account thing is something that is reminiscient of occasions when I've been the one excluded from a social group. Here I feel like I'm on the wrong side of the equation - I'm welcome here and other people are being sort-of-excluded* and while I accept the geek social fallacy that excluding people isn't always wrong, I think there's a way to go before the site will have grown enough that there will usually be people about with invite codes and most people will know someone able to invite them. For that reason, I do feel somewhat uneasy with deciding to prioritise friends/acquaintances over strangers, because I think getting people here who wouldn't otherwise be invited is a good thing. On the other hand, I don't think deciding to prioritise friends/acquaintances is illogical or in and of itself a bad thing. Of course my primary loyalty is to people I already know.

I will stop in passing to mention [site community profile] dw_codesharing where people with spare invite codes are offering them and there's a place for people who want invite codes to ask for them.

*I say sort-of-excluded because there's a social difference between a friend saying 'hi, come and join me doing x' and 'I'm doing x, if you pay $3, or go and comment in [site community profile] dw_codesharing you can come and do it too' - the access is there, but the social aspect of being explicitly invited to join in and welcomed isn't. [another note in passing - $3 probably is a barrier to entry for some people]. For people who have experienced a lot of exclusion in other settings, the internet is often a place where they find themselves usually welcomed and further experiences of being left out are unlikely to go down well, whether intended in this fashion or not.
karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (Default)
I don't currently have any more invite codes for Dreamwidth. I'll let you know if/when I have more. In the meantime, try asking people who've recently created an account in a few days time, as they're likely to be issued with invite codes in due course. Or go and have a look at [site community profile] dw_codesharing/Dreamwidth codesharing.

[personal profile] reddragdiva/[livejournal.com profile] reddragdiva twittered earlier about No Script; an add on Firefox users can install to prevent websites running scripts without explicit permission. It seems that previously useful software is now being exploited for advertising gains:-( I don't currently have it installed and won't be installing it again until someone more technically competent than me tells me it's useful again or points me at an alternative.

I've just been through my Dreamwidth access list removing a lot of Open ID accounts. When I imported my friends' list from LiveJournal, something was broken and all of the communities and feeds I had on my LiveJournal friends list were given Open IDs. I intended to just remove those accounts, if I've removed you, it's from accidentally clicking the wrong box in scanning down a very long list.
karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (Default)
I now have five Dreamwidth invite codes, who would like one? (I have one person who has already asked me). I need an email address to send the code to, please email me karen@wonderfuldreams.me.uk if you don't want to leave your email adderss in a public post.
karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (Default)
Am thinking about setting up Google Analytics for this journal [ie. the one on Dreamwidth] 'cos it's a new feature to play with.

Is Google Analytics evil?

Anyone have any objections to me doing this, or any other comments?
karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (Default)
I hadn't read Dreamwidth's diversity statement till now and wow, I like it.

I like the commitment and the vision, but more I like the recognition that in the real world, things still go wrong and the commitment to putting things right when they do go wrong. I like that it's been written by people who are good writers (and that's separate from also liking what I assume to be a very deliberate choice of tone and style).

It reminds me very much of Innocent, except a bit more grown up in presentation to users/customers.

Cynically, I wonder how long it'll be before (if it hasn't already happened) companies try to replicate this sort of style of communication with apparent openness about their business practices, without any real commitment to actually being open about business practices or intention to alter practices in response to the feedback they receive.

Dreamwidth

Apr. 17th, 2009 10:56 pm
karen2205: Me with proper sized mug of coffee (badges)
[personal profile] pthalo gave me an invite code to Dreamwidth, so I've created an account here and started subscribing to people/granting them access. Will add other people as I find them. I'm still planning on giving money to Dreamwidth though - they seem worth $25. I think I will eventually (once Dreamwidth is running well) remove people's LJ OpenIDs from my subscription list, so that I'm not seeing multiple copies of the same entries (ie. both on LJ and here).

I'm currently without my rainforest quilt icon, which somehow seems very 'me' as it's the one I've used more or less exclusively for years. I feel a bit odd using the one I'm using - it's a very clear description of one aspect of me, but not something I've talked about much on LJ recently and I feel kind of exposed in using it in a public post, even though it's been sitting quite happily on my publicly accessible icons page on LJ for years.

The importer imported my entries from LJ fine and also imported 6 of my 9 icons happily, but failed to import comments or the other 3 icons. I have submitted a support request as per instructions to do that if the importer wasn't working properly. I've downloaded a copy of my rainforest quilt icon to my computer, but can't get Paint to be cooperative at making it a sensible size (I haven't got round to installing Gimp or similar yet on this computer). Will try again in the morning.

In general I'd like to have some more icons. I've never spent the time learning how to edit images well or in coming up with good ideas for icons and don't really want to ask for help with this as it's something I should be able to do if I just spent a bit of time studying it.

While I have imported LJ over here, I haven't set up any filtered access groups yet, nor added anyone to the filters that were imported across from LJ, so you're not going to be able to see much here at the moment. I imagine I'll get round to sorting that out eventually, if people seem to be sticking around here for a while (as I think they will, but don't currently know).

AIUI things at the moment, it's not currently possible to restrict entries to a filtered access group at the moment.No - see [staff profile] denise's comment below. Recently, on LiveJournal I've been doing a lot of friends-locked and filtered posting as a consequence of being busy at work and buying a house and other stuff going on that's meant I've been less able to apply the kind of skill and care I need to give to stuff I'm intentionally putting on the internet clearly linked with my real name and that is highly googleable. I have a feeling Dreamwidth may be a place where I do rather more public posting.

EditI'm using Zesty White as a journal style at the moment. When I click on 'reply' the screen I go to doesn't give me the set of little icons to edit the entry/add it to memories/send it to a friend/track it. If I take away the ?mode=reply from the end of the url, a box containing those options appears under my icon. I wonder if that's a feature or a bug.

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