Weekly Update: 9 November

[denise]

My cat wants you all to know that he is being neglected. At least, that's what I think he means by trying to walk across the keyboard while he's lecturing me.

Sorry about the delay this week! I forgot it was Monday until someone reminded me, and then I got distracted. I'll try to behave better next week. Now that I've remembered, it's on with the update! Short and sweet one this week, but we've got some interesting bits anyway.

1. Development

Development this week was pretty active, with 43 bugs RESOLVED/FIXED. You can see the full list of this week's efforts in this week's code tour.

Highlights this week include bug fixes, new themes, display fixes for existing themes, a whole bunch of code cleanup to remove old things we don't need, and a few new features: comments on the Manage Comments page will display a * if they have replies, comments in threads will have a link to the comment that started the thread, there's a new display property setting that will let you decide if you want your Inbox to respect the <cut> tag in entries, the Inbox count in the site scheme menu will dynamically update, unclosed <cut> tags will be automatically closed in crossposted entries so the footer will display properly on the journal view on the remote site, and the comment count image in the crosspost footer has been changed around a bunch so all of the images are the same size (and can therefore have height and width properties defined).

Some of those fixes are live, while others won't be live until the next code push. Watch dw_maintenance for code push announcements.

2. Bug Reporting

Support would like to remind everyone that if you're having an issue with Dreamwidth or have a question about how to make something work, no matter how minor you think it might be, they want to hear about it! If it's a bug, they'll make sure it gets logged into our bug reporting tracker; if it's a suggestion, they'll make sure you get pointed in the right direction to make it; if it's a question about how to use the site, they'll make sure to teach you and then work with the docs team to get the FAQs updated.

We've seen a bunch of people saying that they don't want to bother Support with problems or questions, and it really isn't a bother at all. (Support likes having questions to answer.)

We've also seen people wondering if something is a known issue. If there's something that's affecting the whole site, we'll post about it in dw_maintenance and update the Dreamwidth offsite Twitter status page. If something's not listed there and you're having a problem with it, let Support know!

3. OpenID

This week, we upgraded our OpenID support to OpenID 2.0, so sites that only support version 2.0 of the OpenID protocol will now work to log in on Dreamwidth. As always, let us know if there are any problems.

4. Antispam

The antispam team has been doing a kickass job with handling spam reports! They ran a few numbers this week, though, and discovered that 65% of last week's volume, and 60% of the whole month's, has been invalid reports of comment trolling being marked as spam. Just a reminder that the "delete and mark as spam" option is for unwanted bulk comments -- advertising, pagerank boosting, and other forms of automated abuse. If you're having problems with comments that are unwanted, but not spam, you can delete the comments, log IP addresses, and/or limit commenting to registered members/people on your access list only.

5. Communities of the Week

This week we bring to you two more of the interesting communities you can find on Dreamwidth:

metaquotes: For the posting of amusing, insightful, witty (etc) things said on Dreamwidth. The community rules can be found in the rules post

singularity: Singularity is a fan fiction community welcoming het, slash, femslash, and gen, serious fic and crack fic dedicated to Star Trek (2009) and its universe; whether you want to post a fic about Kirk and Spock's first voyage as captain and XO of the Enterprise or how Janeway's life is different because of the alternate timeline, this is the place for you. Community rules can be found at the mod post tag.

6. Layout Poll, part 2

Last week's default layout poll was a near-tie between Skittlish Dreams and Transmogrified. Because it was so close -- only one vote's difference -- we'll include both layouts' themes in this week's poll.

Please vote for the theme you'd like to see as the default for new accounts for the next few months:

Poll #1667 Default Layout

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 274

Pick one:

Blue
52 (19.0%)

Cyan
20 (7.3%)

Green
18 (6.6%)

Orange
13 (4.7%)

Pink
3 (1.1%)

Red
43 (15.7%)

Violet
6 (2.2%)

Black Eye
3 (1.1%)

Black or White
16 (5.8%)

Cotton Candy Dust
7 (2.6%)

Earth and Sky
15 (5.5%)

Golden Ticket
9 (3.3%)

Ocean
27 (9.9%)

Pale Jewels
7 (2.6%)

Subtle Almond
16 (5.8%)

Basic
18 (6.6%)

White or Black
1 (0.4%)

7. Follow Friday

A few weeks back, damned_colonial decided to bring Twitter's "Follow Friday" over here to Dreamwidth: every Friday, post about interesting people and communities you read on DW. We've set up a followfriday tag on the Latest Posts feed, so anything you post with that tag (I believe 'follow friday' will also work) will get added to the feed. Check it out for interesting things to read!

8. Life, the Universe, and Everything

A few random facts that don't fit anywhere else:

* After our discussion about invite codes, I asked Mark to check on how many codes have been used over time and how many are still available. As of 11/3, when he pulled the stats, it was 124,860 unused codes out of 171,836 issued. If you've got some of those codes and want to offer them up, dw_codesharing is the place to do it.

* If you have a syndicated feed on your reading list that's changed its source URL, you don't need to make a new feed account for it. Contact Support with the name of the feed account and the new URL, and the source can be changed.

* We had 116 people take the card sort test we posted about last week for the Settings page -- thanks, guys! If you missed this one, don't worry; we'll be taking the data we got and doing another sort next week to test various designs to see which one is most logical.



*

That's it for another week! 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; if you just want to come and hang out with us, join us in irc at irc.dwscoalition.org, channel #dw. (Warning: studies have shown that #dw causes loss of time and mad laughter in lab rats.)

Oh, and for the record, both Mark and I are doing well at NaNoWriMo: my word count's at 30,493, and his is at 9,799. If you're NaNoveling, we hope it's going well for you, too!

We'll see you next week for our next update.

Comments

[angelikitten]

Awww, poor ignored kitty *pets*

[erilyn525600]

Thank you for the Inbox <cut> tags. Been spoiled a few times that way.

[pne]

comments in threads will have a link to the comment that started the thread

Awesome!

unclosed <cut> tags will be automatically closed in crossposted entries so the footer will display properly on the journal view on the remote site

Hee :)

This week, we upgraded our OpenID support to OpenID 2.0, so sites that only support version 2.0 of the OpenID protocol will now work to log in on Dreamwidth.

That's good, too!

I don't (think I) use v2.0 myself, but it's good to know that something based on LiveJournal code supports the latest version, given that at least some people identify OpenID as "what [those guys at] LiveJournal came up with".

[susanreads]

Some awesome changes there! Also, thanks for recommending metaquotes *subscribes*

[cesy]

Yay for lots of cool stuff :)

[zarhooie]

(Warning: studies have shown that #dw causes loss of time and mad laughter in lab rats.)

Citation please!

I, for one, am WICKED psyched about the OpenID 2.0 upgrade.

^..^~

[babysprite]

/\__/\
(='.'=)
(")_(")

Kitty is poised to take over the world.

[papercoversrock]

I LOVE the Inbox respecting the cut tags. Been wanting that forever, since I track a lot of important things that way so I don't miss them on my Reading page. *claps*

You all never fail to impress. Great job!

[angelikfire]

+1 for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, guys.

[yvi]

We've seen a bunch of people saying that they don't want to bother Support with problems or questions, and it really isn't a bother at all.

Really, the worst we will tell you is that we already know about this bug. Which might cause one of us to poke a dev (or ourselves) to fix it faster :)

[mushroom_of_doom]

yes, that is how kitties tell us they are neglected. mine does it all the time... he acts like i never feed him...and he acts like i never give him lovins.

::sigh::

[feathertail]

A link to Dreamwidth Support might've been helpful when you were encouraging us to go there >.>b

[tree]

Warning: studies have shown that #dw causes loss of time and mad laughter in lab rats.

"Time can't just disappear; it's a universal invariant!"

[owl]

Yay for cuts in the inbox! It's one of those things that's always been a little niggling annoyance to me on LJ.

[ranunculus]

Love the changes to Manage Comments and the cut tags!!

[ex_srs552]

So how do we use the new OpenID 2.0 protocol? I just tried to link my DW identity with Facebook and get this error from them:

"Service type is not supported

You can log into Facebook using any account that supports OpenID 2.0. The given URL, http://srs.dreamwidth.org/, only supports OpenID 1.0."

[katzedecimal]

Family comes first and that includes kittehs :3

[ai]

Weird, I've tagged my entries for follow friday and they don't seem to be coming up in the search. I did it with the space and it seems to fail to get them. I'll have to fool around with it some more when I am not at work. Thanks for pimping it by the way. I loved the idea when I first saw it in comments and am pleased to see it grow like this :)

I wanted to do NaNoWriMo this year so badly but every year I do, a major thing happens that pulls me away from the computer (death of a relative, illness, etc), so I've been writing a 5k word fic every day to make up for it. I'm technically writing a lot more, but it's not the same as committing myself to one idea. Woe! Glad to hear you two are doing so well though!

Kitty See Kitty Do

[hohaiyee]

Your cat just saw Piano Cat!