Entry tags:

weekly announcements

Good morning/afternoon/evening/middle-of-night, Dreamwidth! So, this week, those who said that moving the updates to Wednesdays officially would mean they'd be posted on Fridays happened to be correct. I've got a good reason for it, though: I was waiting a day or two until we could commit some code so that I'd have something big and awesome to tell you guys about. More about that in a few minutes, but let's go through some of the rest of it first.

Oh, and for those of you who were curious after last week's update: the hole in our shower wall is now patched. (However, we came home from a weekend trip to visit my family to find that the smoke detector was beeping nonstop. Considering that we have 20' ceilings, and the building keeps the ladder locked up, this necessitated some unhappy calls to the maintenance folks.) I know y'all just couldn't sleep until you heard the outcome there.

Development

This week's code tour comes to us courtesy of jd. It contains mostly backend fixes and style display fixes, with one big exception (which I'll get to in a section of its own in a bit, although those of you who've already seen the code tour probably know what I'm going to say...)

As always, these fixes are not yet available on the live site, and won't be until the next code push. Keep an eye on dw_maintenance for announcements of code pushes.

Summer of Code

It's "pencils down" for Google Summer of Code, and we're really happy to have had such an awesome Summer of Code with some really dedicated, passionate, smart and talented students. It's been a great learning experience for everyone involved (especially us!)

You can view a sneak peek at one of the GSoC projects, the iPhone/iPad app with a title of iDreamwidth, by i_xerxes. The rest of the Summer of Code projects will be coming out over the next few weeks and months; just because the official SoC period is up doesn't mean that our students won't keep hacking on their projects. We'll keep you updated!

Nifty CSS Tricks

In case you guys don't know about it, the dw_nifty journal has tips, tricks, and nifty things you can do with your Dreamwidth account to improve your personal experience. One of the neat things it does is collect interesting tricks you can do with your journal style to customize the display of things, which is made possible through the magic of CSS (cascading style sheets) and the fact that our Styles team did a tremendous amount of work during closed beta and earlier to create CSS classes that would allow you to target just about anything you want using CSS.

Some of the tutorials that have been posted, for things that are frequently requested, are:

* Make entries from feed accounts have userpics, and give a custom background color to comments by certain users

* Add borders to your dynamic expanding cut tags

* Force all entries from a particular user on your reading page to use a single icon

Plus, there's an overall post about how to use CSS to filter your reading page, which can be useful for doing things like blocking entries from particular feeds/posters/accounts you don't want to see on your Network page, or blocking entries from that one really annoying person who spams your favorite comm with 20 posts a day about how adorable their cat is when he snores. (My cat is snoring right now. It's pretty adorable.)

If you come up with some awesome CSS tricks of your own, post them to dw_nifty so others can use them. We always love hearing about what people come up with.

Invite Codes

As many of you have noticed, we gave out more invite codes yesterday! This time, we gave 7 codes each to all users who have been active on DW in the last 30 days. You do not need to save the email that we sent you with the list of codes -- they're always available at your Invite Someone page.

If all your friends are on DW already, you can donate unwanted/unused codes to the dw_codesharing community.

Community Promo

Some communities you might be interested in:

metaquotes: Styled after metaquotes, this is a community for the funniest, most touching, most profound, or just plain awesome things you see while reading DW.

knitting: For people who like to take two sticks and a piece of string and turn them into things. (Side note, entries for the Maryland state fair are due on Monday. I don't think I'm going to finish the knitted sweater I was planning on entering in time. Sigh.)

sun_salutation: A community for people who practice yoga to discuss tips, tricks, and other yoga-y goodness.

classicfilm: Pretty much what it says on the tin! Discussion of all sorts for classic films.

As always, dw_community_promo is where to go for a good time.

And, since it's been a while since we've done community promotions in dw_news posts, it's time to start building up a list! If you've got an active community (receives at least a few posts per week) that you'd like others to know about, toss a link in the comments. It's helpful if you also include a brief summary of the comm's purpose and tell others why it's awesome.

Roleplaying Games

I've been really excited to see more and more roleplay games starting up on DW, since I think we've got a lot of features that are incredibly helpful for roleplay. (Of course, the true "killer feature" for RP is going to be the main/alternate account system, which is still on the roadmap, fear not.) Since we've been seeing lots of people requesting more invite codes for the purposes of RP, I thought it was about time to mention that we are happy -- eager, even! -- to give out "promo" invite codes: one single code that can be used to create multiple accounts, which can be given out to players so that your game doesn't have to scrounge invites from everywhere in order to make accounts.

If you're starting a game, and need codes for your players, just contact me in the Account Payments support category and let me know:

* The name of your game (this will be used as the name of the code);

* The number of accounts you envision needing (this can be added to later, if you need more; I only need to specify a number at creation);

* The main community for the game, which will be suggested to your players as part of the signup process

This also applies to non-RP communities -- if you've got an existing base of people who are coming over to Dreamwidth to join a community you started, or you're moving a community over wholesale, we're happy to give you out a promo code. It doesn't matter how large or small your community is. (Most of our promo codes are requested for 10-15 accounts to begin with!) We're happy to give out promo codes to anybody who wants to bring a group.

(Also, right now the closest thing I can find to a "here's a new game starting up!" type announcement place is rpads, which is pretty dead, so if anyone knows of anywhere better for me to point to in future news updates when I'm talking about RP games, let me know! Lord, I wish I had time to RP.)

Update Page

So! Last week in dw_news we demo'd the next round of the new Update Page, being revised in order to allow support for draft and scheduled posts (as well as many other usability tweaks and bugfixes). Just like last time, we got some great comments, which we (okay, fu and hope) have been collecting, pondering, and poking at.

The major dislike we've been hearing (from those who do dislike it, of course, which is -- thankfully, omg -- a minority) is that people feel the page is too 'busy'. So, right now we're working on how to balance the need to have access to the full range of features DW has without burying them or hiding them away vs presenting a design that doesn't make people instinctively flinch. There's going to be at least one more round of tweaks and feedback before we get to the point where we can even think about releasing it, don't worry!

One thing people have been frequently asking is what it will look like in other site schemes. We haven't shown it in other site schemes yet because of [insert long boring handwavey explanation here that basically boils down to, it was just incredibly simpler to present it as a static HTML page instead of as a page that could be 'skinned' using our site designs]. The time has come, however, where doing that conversion makes sense, in terms of work expended, since we're getting closer and closer to a usable design. This means that the next round of design user-acceptance-testing will allow you to view the design in your chosen site design. (And will, of course, likely turn up a ton of other things that look wrong about it! Nature of the beast.)

As a side note, thank you to everyone who took the time to offer thoughtful, measured feedback, and especially to the people who took their brainstorming to the point of offering sketches or mockups! That sort of detailed feedback and brainstorming is a great help; even if we don't wind up using a particular idea, for one reason or another, it's always great to have such concrete things to work with.

This Week's Big Thing...

And, with that, we are on to This Week's Big Thing!

A few days ago, fu (who is totally my favorite person right now) committed the code for something that people have been asking about for a while: rename tokens. That's right, with the next code push (which, again, will be announced in dw_maintenance, and given how huge this is, will be announced here again) you'll be able to purchase a "rename token" that will let you change your Dreamwidth username.

I'll answer some questions about how the whole process will work that I think will come up, and then if there's anything I miss (or, okay, let's be honest, when there are things I miss), leave questions in the comments and one of us will try to get to you as quickly as possible.


How will it work?

You will be able to rename both personal journals and communities you control (ie, comms you're an admin of, even if you aren't the sole admin, so all comm admins will be able to rename the comm). To do this, you'll purchase a rename token from the Dreamwidth Shop. Rename tokens will cost $15 USD (150 Dreamwidth Points).

The token will be delivered to your account and 'held' there, so you won't have to perform the rename immediately; you can hold on to it for future use and not have to worry about losing the email in which the link to rename your journal was sent to you.

You'll then visit the rename page. If you have a token on your account, you can change your username right there. (Or, you can choose to 'work as' a community you admin if you want to rename it; tokens for comms go to the admin, not to the comm.) If you don't have a token already, there'll be a link to buy one and then continue the process.

Once you use the token, oldusername will become newusername. If 'newusername' was already registered, and you are renaming to it, the former contents of 'newusername' will become 'ex_newusername123' (where '123' is a random 3-digit number). You will still control that account, so if there were entries in it they won't be lost or deleted, just moved.

What options will there be while renaming?

Personal journals:

* will have the option to forward oldusername to newusername or break the connection. If the connection is broken, oldusername will be deleted and purged, so someone can use a rename token to rename to that account. If the connection is kept, anyone visiting oldusername.dreamwidth.org will be seamlessly redirected to newusername.dreamwidth.org.

* will have the option to clear out the list of people who subscribe to them or retain the list of people who subscribe to them. This means that if you choose to clear the list, anyone who has subscribed to oldusername will not be subscribed to newusername, and will have to subscribe to you again.

Communities:

* will have the option to forward oldusername to newusername or break the connection. If the connection is broken, oldusername will be deleted and purged, so someone can use a rename token to rename to that account. If the connection is kept, anyone visiting oldusername.dreamwidth.org will be seamlessly redirected to newusername.dreamwidth.org.

* will NOT have the option to clear out members, since this can be done through the community management pages.

What can I rename to?

You can rename your account to:

* an unregistered username

* a username that has been deleted and purged (not just deleted; it must say "this username has been deleted and purged" when you view the account)

* a registered username that you control, where both accounts have the same confirmed email addresses

You can't rename your account to:

* a username registered to someone who is not you

* a username that has been suspended, or an account that is in memorial or locked status

* a username that has only been deleted, not deleted and purged


You can rename personal journals to the username being used by a community you control, and vice versa, as long as you're an admin of the community.

What are the limitations to renames?

Let me put this in bold so that it's really really really clear: renames are not an effective way to 'disappear'. There are technical reasons for this, but short answer: After you rename, all comments and community entries you left under oldusername will be updated to display that they came from newusername. It's just plain not possible for us to change this without radically restructuring the way that DW works (on the order of "rewrite from the ground up", more or less), so if something happens in your life and you desperately need to 'hide' from someone, a rename is not a foolproof way of doing it, even if you choose not to forward oldusername to newusername. (Basically, comments and comm entries are stored in the database by userid, not username. When you change your username, your userid stays the same, so there's no real way for the system to know that 'userid 12345' used to be 'oldusername' but past a certain point is now 'newusername' in order to decide which username to display.) There's also no guarantee that someone wouldn't be able to go through your old relationships list and find your new username by 'triangulating': seeing what new name has popped up in common on all the profiles of the people you subscribe to/give access to.

A rename can be a good way to disappear from a casual acquaintance who found the direct link to your journal but don't know much about DW, but it will never be a way of completely disappearing from DW. If that becomes necessary for you (and I sincerely hope it doesn't), the only way to be sure is to create a brand new account that isn't connected to your old account. (And even then, people can still triangulate.) I want to be really clear about this, because otherwise people might get burned.

Renames should be used more for "I'm tired of my old username", not "I need to vanish"!

Why does it cost money?

On the whole, renames aren't a terribly good thing for the site. (They aren't awful, but they aren't harmless, either.) There are a lot of complex reasons for that, but it boils down to:

* It's confusing for people to load one username and be redirected to another.
* It takes processor power to do the rename.
* It can cause issues with 'moving' content around.
* It can lead to username squatting if people choose to redirect their journals.
* If people rename multiple times, with redirection, the 'chain' of former usernames can get very deep, and cause issues with the database and with display.

Because of all of this, we'd like to discourage people from renaming their journals every week or two to suit their current fancy! Charging a nominal fee lets people ask themselves if they really want to do it, while making it possible for people who really want to do it.

Having additional sources of revenue is also important for us, because I get nervous when we only really have one source of revenue (paid accounts). It's going to take us a few years before the 'bump' of income in April/May and October/November (from people who first paid for accounts on open-beta launch hitting the 6-month and 12-month renewals) evens out, and any other source of income that isn't periodic like that is a good thing for us. We're hoping that the revenue from renames (and vgifts, which is another project we're working on) will help even out some of those bumps. (This is not to say we're in financial trouble, not at all, but it's always, always good to diversify.)

Can I swap two usernames?

At immediate launch of renames, this probably won't be possible without a complex dodge involving three tokens (the way it works on LJ right now), but within the next few weeks, fu will be adding a way to swap two usernames (so that name1 becomes name2 and name2 becomes name1) with a single step involving two tokens. We'll announce it (and document it) when it becomes available.

Can I rename to a purged account?

Yes, you can. If an account has been deleted and purged, you can get a token and rename to it. Anyone can rename to the username of a purged account without controlling it.

The reason you can't just re-register the name without a token is because there were already comments and comm entries made by that username/userid combination. Journal entries are deleted when an account is deleted and purged, but comments in other places and community entries in other places aren't. Part of the rename process removes those old contents to another username (the 'ex_username123' form) with the same userid, freeing up the username for it to be associated with your userid. Basically, there needs to be an extra step involved in using a name that was already in use at some point, and that step is part of the rename process -- hence why those usernames are only available via rename and not by regular account creation.

?

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's the basics of what I think people will want to know! If I've missed things (okay, since I've missed things), leave questions here. I will get to them later on today after I wake up. (Yes, I know it's 1330 in my time zone. I'm still up past my bedtime.)

(Also, huge thanks to cesy for writing up the first draft of the rename FAQs! They'll be added to the site when we launch renames, but I've cribbed heavily from them for this section.)

*

With that I shall bid you adieu! As always, if you're having problems with Dreamwidth, Support can help you; for notices of site problems and downtime, check the Twitter status page; if you've got an idea to make the site better, you can make a suggestion.

We'll see you next week for our next update. (Anyone betting on what day it will actually be posted will get the hairy eyeball. *G*)