Weekly Update: 21 December 2009

[mark]

Happy Holidays!

Dreamwidth is humming along, and this week's update promises to be short and to the point. I'm currently out of town in North Dakota visiting my family (hello, Mom!) and we're relaxing in the living room about to watch the video of my wedding which we just got recently... ah, holidays!

1. Spam Update

Our anti-spam team has an update for you this week. There were 79 reports of spam, of which 78 were actually valid spams. We've taken care of banning the IP addresses and account that was spamming us, and we're working to build better tools (and analyze LJ's latest anti-spam tools) to see if we can automate this some.

Thank you to all of you that report spam when you see it! That is the best way for us to be able to identify where spam is coming from and get rid of it.

2. Gradation Vertical

If you don't know what I'm talking about, last code push we released a new site scheme -- a different way of browsing the Dreamwidth site. If you haven't seen it yet, you can get a look at it here:

http://www.dreamwidth.org/?usescheme=gradation-vertical-local

It's a dark scheme designed to provide an alternative to the bright schemes we have right now. If you want to use this scheme yourself, you can set that in your Manage Account page, Display tab:

http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

Anyway, this is a new site scheme and there are still some bits that aren't quite right yet. If you like it and would like to help us improve it, please see this post by foxfirefey:

http://dw-dev.dreamwidth.org/33203.html

Thanks for helping out!

3. Development

Not much to say for development this week. What with myself and most other people being out or busy for the end of December, it's going to be pretty slow around here as far as code development goes.

For this week we will skip the code and bug tours, and instead I will personally thank all of the people who make this possible. Thank you!

4. Wrap-up

Well, that's the end of this short update. Happy Holidays if you celebrate something, and if not, I hope you enjoy your week!

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Happy Solstice!

[renne]

I like the vertical scheme! It's nice! I've always preferred vertical schemes over the horizontal ones.

I'm not so keen on the dark colours though, any possibility in future of it being offered up in the lights too?

HAPPY SILLY SEASON!

[renne]

OH WAIT, THERE IS ONE. I'll just shut up now & change my theme. ;)

[nonniemous]

THANK you for the gradation vertical. Now if there's only a dark holiday scheme in time for next year's Midwinter holiday season, Dreamwidth will be absolutely perfect. ;-)

No, seriously, I REALLY appreciate you all taking the light text on dark pages issue seriously. Most people don't--they think ti's a matter of taste. And yeah, I can do light backgrounds for a while (as per my current holiday style), but for any length of time I need dark backgrounds. You all rock!

[msilverstar]

PLEASE comment on the scans_daily issue. I don't really understand what's going on, and I expect you to be a lot more communicative than LJ, but not a word.

metafandom linked to londonkds post, so it's not exactly obscure. You need to say something!

[ex_pseudonym472]

I forget what the one I'm using, celery something or other. But that's a vertical one too, if that's not the one you found.

[ex_pseudonym472]

Thanks for the weekly update. I appreciate the option of having a light on dark layout.

[renne]

Hee yes that's the one I found :D

[denise]

It's not really something we consider suitable for public commentary -- we contacted the people who were directly affected, to let them know what their legal rights/obligations and choices were, but it's not something we necessarily want to call to everyone's attention, simply because the more a service yells something like this from the rooftops, the more the opposing party is likely to dig their heels in and target the service about everything, including things they might otherwise let slide.

You can see Dreamwidth's DMCA policy if you have questions in general, or email us if you have specific questions.

[foxfirefey]

Celerity! Hehe.

[charmian]

Doesn't it say in the linked article what Dreamwidth did?

"the host determined that, "because none of the images in the individual posts are hosted on Dreamwidth's servers, they do not need to take further action. ... However, Marvel may contact individual image hosts and request copyright infringing material be removed."

Personally, I don't see why in this situation it's something that must be publicized to all of the users unless it represents a change in Dreamwidth's policy.

[absque_setentia]

MTE

[ex_pseudonym472]

Yeah that one!

[ex_pseudonym472]

me too

[mark]

What Denise said. The other commenter was correct: the DMCA report we received covered content that was not actually hosted on Dreamwidth, so no action could be taken on our part.

However, we did forward the DMCA notice to the moderators of scans_daily so they were aware of it. We also politely replied with relevant and useful information for Marvel's lawyers.

If this doesn't cover your concerns, then I would ask that you let us know (you can email feedback at dreamwidth.org, preferred, or comment back here I guess). In particular, I want to know what you want to know.

We do not have a policy of telling the public (i.e., posting in dw_news) about private matters. DMCA reports, ToS violations, and similar are private issues between the involved parties.

[karayan]

This.

[zarhooie]

WHOO SPAM. I am so freakishly proud of our spam team.

[iamshadow]

THANK YOU SO MUCH. As someone with sensitivity to large amounts of white on screens, I've engaged the light on dark scheme immediately. I've been waiting for it since I first got an account, and saw it mentioned that it was in development.

[tenkuu]

I have to admit, that theme is far too dark for my tastes. If there were some color other than black and a tiny bit of white to lighten it up a bit, it would be nice, but all black, especially for a Gemini like me who loves bright colors, is a bit depressing. :(

[marcmagus]

Thank you for the light-on-dark scheme! It's a real relief for my eyes.

Any chance of getting a light-on-dark version of Tropo, or another horizontal scheme? As much as I prize vertical real-estate over horizontal, the horizontal navigation strip can be scrolled away, whereas the vertical one takes up space no matter how far the page scrolls.

[iamshadow]

I think this theme is less about mood and more about accessibility. As someone with sensory sensitivity, this theme is a welcome relief. Pages with heavy concentrations of white or bright colours give me headaches and make me squint. This can make composing a blog post something that can take hours, because I have to give my eyes a break every minute or so and look at something else. I could easily make my journal theme dark, but the 'post' page was always that bright, stark white, and even my Irlen filter couldn't dilute that much. Hopefully, this basic light on black theme will make it easier for me and others like me.

[mark]

Gradation Horizontal is in the works, and that will be the same scheme but in the more normal horizontal look.

Well, I expect it will differ from Tropospherical in some ways. I'm not sure if we'll make a light-on-dark Tropo scheme. When Gradation Horizontal comes out, if you feel it's lacking compared to Tropo, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

At some point we want to make sure we have enough options to cover things such as accessibility and choice, but we don't want to have to support dozens of site schemes. That becomes difficult and overwhelming for users and developers.

[marcmagus]

Thanks, mark. You guys rock.

I appreciate the desire not to go crazy with options. I suspect Gradation Horizontal will do the trick for me. If I notice an issue I'll be sure to report it.

Thanks for being so responsive to user feedback and putting so much effort into making your site as great as it can be. It's really great that I've been able to see things improve over time as I've been a member, and to see you respond productively to both suggestions and criticism.

[azurelunatic]

I imagine that if they find some part of it that can be shared, then that bit will wind up in a ToS team blotter/roundup, once they have enough items for one, but I'm not expecting anything until then.

[mark]

That is 99% of what we wanted to accomplish by starting Dreamwidth: listen to people, give them what they want and need, and make a site that is open and welcoming and etc etc.

I'm glad to hear that you have noticed. Also foxfirefey just opened bug #2244 which is for getting Gradation Horizontal up on the site. You can follow along there if you want.