denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
Denise ([staff profile] denise) wrote in [site community profile] dw_news2010-09-08 10:08 pm

Weekly Update: 8 September

My goodness, it's been a busy week! For those of you who are just joining us, I'm [staff profile] denise, and I'm half the ownership team around here. Welcome to our new users, and I hope you're getting settled ...

With that, let's go to the videotape go through this week's update, since we have a whole darn lot to cover ...



Development



This week in development we resolved 25 bugs. You can see the overview of what we did in this week's code tour, compiled by [personal profile] cesy. This week's work was primarily backend (invisible stuff that makes the site run better) or work on styles (either CSS fixes to existing styles, or new styles/themes entirely). However, this week also sees the commit of some of the first of our Google Summer of Code projects: the revamp of the poll system, done by [personal profile] jportela. Not all of his work has been committed yet, but three things have:

* "AJAX"-ifying of polls, which will mean that polls can be submitted (and the results shown) without having to load a new page or reload the page you're on.

* Anonymous polls: a setting you can choose, when creating a poll, to make the results truly anonymous, even to you-the-poster. The aggregate results will still display, but clicking to show individual results will only show the answers as having come from (sequential) numbers, not usernames. (It will still be possible for a really determined person to figure out who answered what if you answer, then comment immediately, or if there are few responses and you comment after you reply. But still.)

* "Tick # boxes" poll question type: you'll be able to create a poll question where you can specify a maximum number of questions for an answer, so you'll be able to tell people to pick (for instance) up to 3 items out of a list of 20.

There are some other poll system improvements still in the review queue, including the ability to label the top and bottom points of scale poll questions (to remind people which is highest and which is lowest) and the ability to show results by person, not by question (so you can see how each person answered the questions, more like a survey). Still, we think this is a completely awesome start. Look for more of our Summer of Code projects to appear over the next few weeks as we finish code review and final tidying.

As always, improvements that are listed in the code tour are not live on the actual site yet. You won't be able to use them on dreamwidth.org itself until after our next code push, which will be listed in [site community profile] dw_maintenance and on our offsite Twitter status page when it's ready.


Invite Codes



As many of you noticed, we released more invite codes into the wild earlier this week! This time, we sent them to people who had no unused invite codes. We did notice, after we sent them out, that a bunch of people had their email addresses bounce as undeliverable, so please do take a minute to check that Dreamwidth has the most recent email address for you on file. If your email address isn't accurate, not only can we not contact you, but if you ever lose access to your account you won't be able to get back into it.

If you're out of invite codes, there'll be a message displayed for you on your Invite Someone page that will let you request more -- we try to hit up those requests once a week or so. If you've got more invite codes than you know what to do with, consider dropping them into the pool at [site community profile] dw_codesharing for people to use. And if you're looking to move over a community of people, or start a roleplaying game, you can contact us at accounts@dreamwidth.org or by opening a Support request in the Account Payments category -- we can create a "bulk" or "promo" invite code that will allow multiple accounts to be created with one code, and we're happy to give them out to anyone who needs them. We've done them in the past for roleplaying games, communities, conventions, conferences -- any time you're going to be talking up Dreamwidth to a lot of people, either in person or online, and don't want to make people type in those huge long strings of letters and numbers to join.


Vox



Speaking of promo codes, Six Apart has recently announced that their Vox service is closing doors as of September 31 30. If you or a friend would like to move your Vox blog to somewhere that has the fine-tuned privacy controls that other options such as TypePad or Wordpress doesn't have, Dreamwidth would be a perfect fit! You can use the account creation code "VOX" to create an account.

Our account importing tool doesn't currently work to import Vox blogs, but we're going to be doing our best to add it in before the 30 September deadline.


(Anti-) Spam



The [site community profile] dw_antispam team reports this week that instances of spam comments is up, so they'd like me to remind you that if you get a spam comment -- identified by the presence of someone trying to sell you something, a bunch of links to sites that look like they're trying to tell you something, or the presence of text that looks like your cat walked over the keyboard -- you should delete it and mark it as spam. To mark a comment as spam, check the option that appears in the popup when you select the delete button to delete the comment.

On other sites it can be tempting to let it go when you get a spam comment, but on Dreamwidth, a single report may be all it takes to get the offending account deleted or the offender's IP address blocked. It also gives us a much better idea of how much spam is hitting the service, so we can identify what other steps we need to take to make sure the spammers are locked in an airtight container, sealed with concrete, and dropped into the bottom of a very large trench in the ocean. Even if you've seen that particular spam text before, it might be coming from a different account or IP address, so be sure to choose the "mark as spam" option each time you delete spam!


Documentation



This week we bid a fond goodbye to [personal profile] rho, who is stepping down as our documentation team lead. She did a fabulous job in getting all of our FAQs and site text together during our closed beta phase, and has been babysitting the FAQs since, but she's been bitten by a horrible attack of Real Life. We'll miss you, rho!

This means, of course, that we could use your help in continuing to improve our FAQs for everybody! If you're interested, check out the [site community profile] dw_docs, and particularly So you want to write docs? and Bugzilla: How to enter, find and work on docs bugs. Our documentation manual of style contains all the important information you'll need to know.

Anyone can work on documentation -- you don't need any special knowledge other than how you in particular use Dreamwidth, and all you need is to be able to write clear, coherent English prose. We're particularly interested in hearing from people who have just started to use Dreamwidth, and how they find things and what they're looking for in the way of instructions, since we've been working on things for so long that it seems like second nature to us -- so if there's something that took you forever to figure out, why not write it up and share? If you were confused, it's likely that someone else was, too!


Dreamwidth 101



Welcome again to those of you who are new. We're really glad to see you here, and I hope that you're settling in nicely!

Here are some useful things that we think you might find helpful to know:

* Who we are: I'm [staff profile] denise, obviously, and I'm the Suit: business manager, project manager, person-wrangler, and Coordinator of Stuff. My co-owner is [staff profile] mark, who's the Geek, aka the technical manager: previously he was working on Dreamwidth full-time, which was a lot of help during a critical part of our development, but recently he's switched to taking a more hands-off role due to outside life pressures. He's passed off most of his tasks to Afuna, aka [personal profile] fu, who is Dreamwidth Employee #1, aka the Minion. She handles code review and deployment, as well as doing a bunch of coding of her own -- she's the person who's spearheading the revamp of the Update Journal page that was mentioned in last week's news post, among many other things. You may also see my wife [personal profile] sarah here and there, mostly having to do with payment-related things, since she handles bank errands and other administrivia. (You'll notice that some communities and users have different 'user heads' -- if you see staff profile it means the journal is a full staff member, and [site community profile] means the community is an official site community.)

* How we work: Dreamwidth is 100% user-supported, paid for by people just like you. We don't accept or display any advertising, and we haven't accepted any venture capital or outside investment. So, keeping you happy is our #1 priority, because you are our only source of funding.

You can read over our business discussions in [site community profile] dw_biz. In particular, you might want to look over our Business FAQs, which were written at the beginning of our open beta phase and are still applicable today. We've seen a lot of people wondering how they can know that we're a real, legitimate business that'll be around for a while and won't just disappear with your money and your data, and the answers are there for your perusal!

We've seen a few people asking whether or not we accept PayPal for account payments. Unfortunately, we don't; PayPal closed our account with them at the beginning of the year after we refused to censor our users' perfectly legal content at their demand. We thought that your free expression was important enough to us to stick to our guns. Alas, but this means we can't take PayPal. We do accept credit cards (VISA, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express), and checks and money orders in US funds. We know this can be difficult for our users without credit cards and users from outside the US -- if you're having trouble making a payment, you can a) buy a VISA gift card, which will work the same as a VISA card; b) get a friend with a credit card to make a payment for you in exchange for you sending money to them via PayPal; c) send us American Express traveler's checks (or cash in US funds) in the mail. (If you choose C, do be aware that it is a risk -- the money may get lost in the mail, and while traveler's checks can be replaced, cash can't.) You can buy a bunch of Dreamwidth Points and use them as you need.

* How to get answers to your questions: If you're stuck on something, our team of support volunteers is happy (okay, eager) to help you out -- whether you want to report a bug or just get help on how to do something. You can always open a Support request, and the team will do their level best to get you an answer in half an hour or less or your pizza's free. (Okay, okay, it might take a little longer and there's no pizza involved. Maybe I'm showing my age again.) There's also the Dreamwidth FAQs, and if all else fails, you can ask the community [community profile] getting_started if you don't want to open a Support request. (But really, you can open a support request! They don't bite! The support team is comprised of users just like you.)

* Suggestions: If there's something you want to suggest to make Dreamwidth a better place, you can make a suggestion. Filling out this form will create a post in the moderation queue for [site community profile] dw_suggestions. I'll review the post, and if it's a duplicate of something that was already suggested or something that we've already got planned, I'll bounce the suggestion back to you with an explanation. Otherwise, it gets posted into the [site community profile] dw_suggestions community for people to think over, discuss, and vote on.

Positive votes and positive comments to the [site community profile] dw_suggestions post doesn't necessarily mean that something will be implemented, and negative comments and votes doesn't necessarily mean it won't, but we use the discussion and the votes as part of what we consider when we're deciding which suggestions to accept for implementation. Once every few months or so, we go through the suggestions and move the ones that we're going to accept into Bugzilla, our bug-tracking database. From there, our developers can pick up the projects and work on them, and sooner or later everything that's accepted will get added to the site.

* How to find things: There's lots of stuff going on on Dreamwidth, if you know where to look! The first place to check out is the Latest Things page, which is a feed of all public posts made to Dreamwidth (by people who have not opted out of the Latest Things feed). I will not lie to you, every time I load the Latest Things page, I lose another half-hour of my life. (It just happened right now while I was writing this!) You'll also notice that there's a tag cloud on the top of that page; that's DW's own version of the "trending topics" list, and it consists of the 100 most-used tags on the site at that particular time, with links to read all the posts with that tag in one place, too. (And, as a side note, you can see the current emotional weather of Dreamwidth, which is a nifty toy that gathers up all the moods that are being used on the Latest Things page and works out whether Dreamwidth is happy or sad that day.)

Next, if you're looking for some specific content instead of just browsing around to see what's out there, have the Site Search page! Any user, paid or free, can search the entire site and see results of the full-text search of public entries (made by people who haven't opted out of being included in search results). If you're a paid user, or if the account you're viewing is a paid account, you can also search the full text of a single account (again, if that account hasn't opted out of search). You'll see the search link in the interactions menu of the account's profile -- for instance, check out the dw-suggestions profile, and you'll see "Search for entries" right under "Track" in the interactions menu.

Finally, you can search by interests, to find people and communities listing specific interests, or the community search. If you'd like to browse a list of communities to find ones you might be interested in, check out [site community profile] dw_community_promo, and the same for syndicated feeds: [site community profile] dw_feed_promo. If there's a community you want, but you don't want to create it yourself, check [community profile] create_my_comm.

For finding people, [personal profile] zarhooie is hosting a "Friending Frenzy", and [community profile] lj_refugees is hosting a "Friending Meme". A while back, [personal profile] liv hosted a "Giant non-fandom friending meme" that's still somewhat active. Some people also do "Follow Friday", or listings of journals and communities they think people might be interested in.

And if all else fails, there's always the random journal and random community options!

* Styles and other journal prettiness: If you're looking to make your journal pretty, the first place you want to check is the Select Style page. You've probably already noticed that Dreamwidth doesn't support LJ's S1 style system -- this is because we wanted to standardize on one particular system, in order to make sure there was the most range of support. That page has all the system styles we've created so far, though, with thumbnails for you to review and pick.

We've done a lot of work to make sure that our version of S2, LJ's customization language, is fully customizable by you-the-end-user without you needing to know how to program anything. Our base layouts are 100% controllable by adding custom CSS. If you're looking for more information on the style system, you can check [community profile] style_system for tips, tricks, and tutorials, the S2 Guide and S2 CSS Guide on our Wiki, or the official community [site community profile] dw_styles. User-submitted layouts that are in the process of being turned into system styles are in the [site community profile] dreamscapes community, and unofficial user layouts can be found in [community profile] dreamwidthlayouts.

If you're importing a layout from LiveJournal or InsaneJournal, there are a few little tweaks you'll have to do to make it work on Dreamwidth -- we tried to keep the "old version" of S2 as compatable as we could, but there were a few changes we absolutely had to make. When you're creating the style, you'll want to make sure to use "S2 core1" (not S2 core2). (You can see a user-created tutorial on creating styles.) Once you've brought over the style, you'll also need to make this fix. (I think there might be one other fix that needs to be made, but I am so not a styles person, so if someone hollers it out in the comments, I'll edit this post.)

I'll also note that all users can create one custom style (paid users can make more), so anyone can make a style! And if you come up with something you truly love, we'd love to have you submit it for consideration as a system style in [site community profile] dreamscapes. We're always on the lookout for new styles, and every style that gets added to the site will earn you 60 Dreamwidth Points ($6) towards paid services.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to change the look of system pages, you can do that at the "Site Skin" setting, under the Display tab of Account Settings.


And, if all of the above was a little bit tl;dr and you've tuned me out by now (I do tend to run on at the keyboard), you can get the short collection of stuff at either [personal profile] stepps's What to do with Dreamwidth: a list of tutorials and information, or [personal profile] kate's Collection of things to help people new to Dreamwidth.


Favorite New Things



So, in the past year and a half, we have done so many awesome things that it's easy to lose track. I figured it would be a good time to go over some of the changes for the people who might be new to Dreamwidth! If you're really curious, you can check over past code tours, or (for those of you with Bugzilla accounts) take a look at the 2026 bugs that have been RESOLVED/FIXED.

But, for those of you who don't have a spare day and a half to spare, let's make a list of our top 5 or 10 favorite Dreamwidth changes and improvements. There are the big ones, of course, like splitting 'friend' into "who has access to read my posts" vs "whose posts I subscribe to", the ability to import your journal from other services, and the ability to crosspost your entries to other services, but there are a lot of other things we've added that I just love! I'll start with my own personal list:

1. You can upload more than one icon at a time -- while you're on the Manage Userpics page, click the 'Add file' or 'Add URL' buttons to give you another upload slot.

2. We've changed the navigation strip that you can display on top of journals (pick your settings at the Display tab of Account Settings) to be much more useful in many contexts, including -- and this is the part that I adore -- adding a one-touch ?style=mine or ?style=light link -- so if one of your friends thinks that light grey text on a slightly-lighter-grey background is the best design idea ever, you can spare your eyes with one click.

3. You can filter your Inbox to only show you the notifications from a single entry, which makes it easier to keep it tidy and to know what comments you still need to reply to. (You can also see only unread items, which makes it easy to find that one unread item among your 2000 read items.)

4. Community admins can make posts to the community with "Admins Only" security, which are viewable (as one might imagine) to admins only. I've found this is a godsend for coordinating things in multiple-admin communities! Also, community admins can now subscribe to all comments made to all entries in their community. (And if the community is paid, all members can subscribe to all comments.)

5. You can merge two tags together (on the Manage Tags page), and choose to rename icon keywords when changing icon keywords (so that all old uses of the icon keyword change to the new icon keyword).

6. You can make an entry sticky, so it always appears on the top of your journal without having to mess around with complicated dating trickery.

7. Everybody can create reading filters, but paid users can use advanced reading filters, to filter entry by tag, security level, or adult content level.

8. When you edit a comment (a paid user feature), you can specify the reason for edit, which will then display at the bottom of the comment right after the edit date/time.

9. You can reply to screened comments without unscreening them, and the person you replied to can reply back, etc, so you can carry on entire conversations in screened comments without them ever becoming visible or sending out a notification. Likewise, if your entry is set to screen all comments, it means all comments -- even yours!

10. And, the best for last: EXPANDABLE CUT TAGS. I'd put it in blink tags if y'all wouldn't hate me. When you're viewing an entry on a journal or on your reading page, and the entry has a <cut> tag, you'll see a little triangle on the side of the cut. If you click the triangle, the entire cut will expand and show you the entire entry right there. No more opening things up in tabs for later! This is the feature I never knew I wanted until I had it.

What's your list of awesome things DW has done?

The Giant Community Rec-O-Matic



I know this week's entry is super long, and I've already given you lots and lots of things to comment about, but I thought that as a welcome to all our new users (and those who have been with us for a while and are branching out to find new things to read), we should try a Giant Community Rec-O-Matic.

How it works: Comment here with a list of some of your interests, and the kind of community you enjoy reading and participating in. Then, once you've commented, read through the other comments and see what things other people are listing. If you see someone you think would be a perfect match for a community you admin or participate in, comment back to them and point them at the community!

(Crowdsourcing at its very finest.)

*

WHEW. I've been writing this entry for nearly three hours now! (I could write it for another three hours. I'm not proud ... or tired ... okay, now I really am dating myself.) 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.

(Oh, and I totally forgot: l'shanah tovah to those for whom it's appropriate!)
seryn: flowers (Default)

[personal profile] seryn 2010-09-09 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
It's not supposed to be a dread omen that you've announced both [staff profile] mark and [personal profile] rho leaving in the same news post?

I'm glad this wasn't a late news day because I'd already heard doom and gloom from elsewhere about Mark leaving. It helps that you were able to write a news post that wasn't shrieking and wailing like you were in a panic. Your words were subtler than shouting, "The sky is NOT falling."

Still... the head guy at LJ left and it only took them 3 steps to sell out to a Russian data mining conglomerate. Do not use that as your example!
chaosraven: Chopper (Default)

[personal profile] chaosraven 2010-09-09 06:32 am (UTC)(link)
I'm pretty sure [staff profile] mark isn't leaving in the same way that Brad left LJ and is just scaling back his participation from full time to some of the time. Obviously, I don't want to speak for him but that was my impression of the things I've read.

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bethmccombs: Garfield reading a newspaper. Image is captioned "Newsworthy" (Garfield - Newsworthy)

[personal profile] bethmccombs 2010-09-09 06:04 am (UTC)(link)
Denise, this is a nice, complete and easily understood update. I totally enjoyed it. Plus, you aren't kidding at all with how quickly support and the support related communities are to respond to requests and questions. I think my problem the other day was solved in less than fifteen minutes.

I am a very, very happy Livejournal escapee who just purchased paid time to support you all in your endeavors.

Thanks!
Beth

Rename status

[personal profile] ex_moondancer561 2010-09-09 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
Any idea when rename will be available? I'd like to change the name, but don't want to have to create an entire new journal, re-friend everyone and import the old entries...
senmut: modern style black canary on right in front of modern style deathstroke (Default)

Re: Rename status

[personal profile] senmut 2010-09-09 11:38 am (UTC)(link)
If I am not mistaken, it was mentioned in last week's news post, and was supposed to be next code push. I may be misremembering, though, and there's this whole thing of just got off work.

Re: Rename status

[personal profile] ex_moondancer561 - 2010-09-09 17:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Rename status

[personal profile] ex_moondancer561 - 2010-09-10 07:27 (UTC) - Expand

[personal profile] doro 2010-09-09 06:26 am (UTC)(link)

Favorite New Things - #2, this is the part that I adore -- adding a one-touch ?style=mine or ?style=light link

Absolutely. Due to mild vision issues, I use this on most posts not taken directly from my "flist" page.

One question/suggestion for the formatting on the ?style=light: would it be possible to put in white space (inch and a half maybe?) on both sides of the text, so the text column is only about 8-9 inches wide? (Again due to those same mild vision issues, it is difficult to track lines clear across the width of the screen.)

Thank you so much for a great site!

zarhooie: Girl on a blueberry bramble looking happy. Text: Kat (Default)

[personal profile] zarhooie 2010-09-09 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
This is a great idea! You should take this to Suggestions. The stuff on how to do it is http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/profile

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ariestess: (Default)

FYI re: Vox closing...

[personal profile] ariestess 2010-09-09 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
Just thought you should know that, per this info @ Vox, people won't be able to log into their Vox accounts as of 15 September 2010. They can view them up until 30 September, but no other access at that point.
foxfirefey: Smiley faces are born through factorized mechanical torture. (grimace)

Re: FYI re: Vox closing...

[personal profile] foxfirefey 2010-09-09 07:00 am (UTC)(link)
Oh geez mateez. Yeah, I don't think we'd be able to get anything completed and implemented on site for that in six days, ouch.

Re: FYI re: Vox closing...

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bandgeeks_fics: gradient background with text saying fiction is my escape from reality. (Default)

[personal profile] bandgeeks_fics 2010-09-09 06:41 am (UTC)(link)
Expandable cut tags are wonderful. I sat there playing with the triangle for a little while going Firefox won't hate me anymore, lol.
lanterne_rouee: dreamwidth: (ooo, shiny!) (dw shiny)

[personal profile] lanterne_rouee 2010-09-09 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you very much to everyone who has put so much work, love and rational thought into this place. <3
kowe: (Default)

[personal profile] kowe 2010-09-09 06:44 am (UTC)(link)
I love your icon, mind if I gank (with credit)?

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florahart: (cheerleading)

[personal profile] florahart 2010-09-09 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
Holy sheep long update!

Poll changes: *\o/*

Cut expander: I wish there were a more convincing way to say never knew I needed this until I fell in love immediately because people are always all ...so? and then ...ohhhhhhhhhhhh.

Nav bar: holy CRAP I have been here all along and managed to miss this because I had it off because it started out so not-useful. ?style= is there now? *turns on*

Summing up: *\o/*

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raletha: open book with teacup and tea ball (books & tea - open book)

[personal profile] raletha 2010-09-09 07:01 am (UTC)(link)
It's wonderful to read my journal host's news post and be thinking, "Cool! That's neat!", instead of "AARGH! What the heck?" In fact, it's nice to want to read the news post. :D

You guys rock. I love it here. <3
sildil: from Harper's Bazaar photoshoot (Default)

[personal profile] sildil 2010-09-09 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
Very interested in the Vox transfer, I have moved my stuff to typepad, but would much prefer it here if at all possible.
faevii: (Default)

[personal profile] faevii 2010-09-09 07:42 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, I was totally unaware of the icon keyword thing! That's beyond awesome.
tree: text: dreamwidth, in blue on a blue and green background ([else] dreamwidth sheep)

[personal profile] tree 2010-09-09 07:57 am (UTC)(link)
We know this can be difficult for our users without credit cards and users from outside the US

i wonder if it would be possible/useful to have, like, proxy-purchasers? if person the first wanted to purchase some DW points, they could pay person the second via paypal (or other mutually agreed upon means), then person the second buys the points and transfers them to person the first. everybody wins!

it's kind of messy, i admit, and there's the whole "giving your money to a stranger" aspect. but it might be useful to have it sort of semi-official? i am writing things in question form because i really don't know?

it's just that i remember what it was like when there was no australian paypal. i would like to prevent others from experiencing that same fiscal horror! (also i get frequent flyer points on my credit card, so it's not entirely altruistic on my part.)
Edited (i must learn to preview my comments after i re-word them eleventy times.) 2010-09-09 07:58 (UTC)
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

[personal profile] cesy 2010-09-09 07:59 am (UTC)(link)
We already do that informally. Making it formal would open up Dreamwidth to liability issues, because people would complain to Dreamwidth if something went wrong. Informally means that people tend to get the help they need, but Dreamwidth isn't responsible so can't be blamed if there's a problem.

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erilyn525600: (Default)

[personal profile] erilyn525600 2010-09-09 07:59 am (UTC)(link)
A few of my favorite things:

1. Update page. It's not out yet but it's already my favorite feature.

2. Importing. It was very easy to move house, I was surprised it only took a few ticky boxes and a few minutes then presto everything was here.

3. Expandable cut tags. I don't know how I ever lived without it.

4. [site community profile] dw_news. I know it must take effort to write these up so I hope you know these weekly updates are much appreciated.

5. I don't know what to call it exactly but I'm awed by your business practices. You guys were true to your word and stood your ground versus Paypal and Google Checkout even if it cost you. You have an awesome diversity statement and you're committed to staying ad-free. You asked for feedback regarding the update page and you zomg actually listened. That is nothing short of amazing. You all deserve cookies and cake!
kitters: (Default)

[personal profile] kitters 2010-09-09 08:03 am (UTC)(link)
So, I already felt really good about leaving LJ and coming here... but this just made it so much better. <3 Thank you.
shiny_crystal: picture by Luis Royo (DW)

[personal profile] shiny_crystal 2010-09-09 08:04 am (UTC)(link)
The changes on the polling system sound awesome :)

And the expandable cuts rock my world! As does Dreamwidth as a whole, of course. Still so glad to be here :D
chagrined: Marvel comics: zombie!Spider-Man, holding playing cards, saying "Brains?" (brains?)

[personal profile] chagrined 2010-09-09 08:11 am (UTC)(link)
I love expandable cut tags with a fiery passion. Seriously, something I never knew HOW MUCH I needed/wanted them until I had them. I use them all the time now. It makes reading my dwircle so much easier. ALSO I haven't used them yet, but I am excited to someday use nested cut tags, which I just learned about recently. ALSO ALSO there are some other features in the top 10 list here I didn't know about and am excited to try!

These poll changes sound super exciting omg I love polls so much.

...is there any chance any of the summer code projects were to come up with a way to make video embedding work in comments? :3
pauamma: Cartooney crab wearing hot pink and acid green facemask holding drink with straw (Default)

[personal profile] pauamma 2010-09-09 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)
None of the GSoC projects included that (there's a list in http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/20211.html#cutid1)

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[personal profile] zaluzianskya 2010-09-09 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
Oh man, AJAXifying polls... you guys are incredible.

Okay, my favorite parts of Dreamwidth in no particular order:

1. Userpic renaming and multiple userpic uploading
2. Being able to link to users on other sites in the <user name> tag
3. THE DIVERSITY STATEMENT AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES.
4. How open the staff is to suggestions and stuff, and how you actually ask for input before doing anything too major. I also really liked how you explained that there would be no opt-out for the new update page; on other sites, it annoys me when staff members don't answer people asking for opt-outs, but here, you pre-empt those requests by explaining in understandable terms why it's not possible.
5. You stick to your principles. I was super impressed with you guys during the Paypal/Google Checkout fiasco.
6. You're so open to fandom and welcoming of RP communities. I wish all the RPs I'm in would move here :( But I'll settle for just hoping to see more games open up on Dreamwidth!
ironed_orchid: watercolour and pen style sketch of a brown tabby cat curl up with her head looking up at the viewer and her front paw stretched out on the left (Default)

[personal profile] ironed_orchid 2010-09-09 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
2. We've changed the navigation strip that you can display on top of journals (pick your settings at the Display tab of Account Settings) to be much more useful in many contexts, including -- and this is the part that I adore -- adding a one-touch ?style=mine or ?style=light link -- so if one of your friends thinks that light grey text on a slightly-lighter-grey background is the best design idea ever, you can spare your eyes with one click.

This has become one of my favourite features. No more manually typing ?style=mine when viewing other people's entries!
yvi: Kaylee half-smiling, looking very pretty (Default)

[personal profile] yvi 2010-09-09 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
*tries not to blush too hard of mention of her patches*

Can it be code push now? I want "tick X boxes" polls!
dragonfly: (amazing)

[personal profile] dragonfly 2010-09-09 05:46 pm (UTC)(link)
See icon.
strwbrri_shrtck: (pretty flower)

[personal profile] strwbrri_shrtck 2010-09-09 09:01 am (UTC)(link)
I am LOVING it here.

Thank you guys so much for such an awesome place to write :)
thblackflame: rozilla@livejournal.com (Default)

[personal profile] thblackflame 2010-09-09 09:40 am (UTC)(link)
Once again, Denise, thank you for being the awesome person that you are. The fact that you actually put effort into these update means I actually care enough to read through the entire thing. Other places don't put much of a personal touch or they think they are funny and all of their "personal touch" is lost on me. After last week's hilarity on lj's botched new feature, DW is definitely my new home. ^_^ shall have paid account soon...very soon...yes...very soon indeed... Cue maniacal laughter! o.O;; That is...as soon as real life stops biting me. ^^;;;

As for comms, can anyone point me in the direction of some overly active writing communities? The biggest reason I took my friend up on her offer of invite code was so that I would get back into my writing that was sorely neglected as of late. I have joined a few that I positively adore, but I'd really like to join more that have a lot of activity. That would be great. Thanks~!
rydra_wong: dreamsheep with spork and "SheepSpork" logo; no, it wouldn't make any more sense if you saw it  (dreamwidth -- sheepspork)

[personal profile] rydra_wong 2010-09-09 09:44 am (UTC)(link)
As for comms, can anyone point me in the direction of some overly active writing communities?

Original fiction? Fanfiction? Comms discussing writing, or prompt-type comms?

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needled_ink_1975: A snarling cougar; colored pencil on paper (Default)

[personal profile] needled_ink_1975 2010-09-09 09:49 am (UTC)(link)
You had me convinced last week. This? This is glorious bloody overkill!

And I've got a room in a house where the landlady has a wife... Me: two. I am very, very happy.

Thank you.

-Nic
lupinity87: (Default)

[personal profile] lupinity87 2010-09-09 09:58 am (UTC)(link)
I've spent the last few weeks wondering what on earth those triangles next to all my cuts were, and trying to work out how I could get rid of them. I'd never even realised that they were to expand the cut. Whoever came up with that is a genius!
stepps: Brad Colbert laughing, orange background ([gk] Brad (ahahahaaaa))

[personal profile] stepps 2010-09-09 09:59 am (UTC)(link)
Glad the list is still coming in handy!
aurora: (Default)

[personal profile] aurora 2010-09-09 10:08 am (UTC)(link)
and this is the part that I adore -- adding a one-touch ?style=mine or ?style=light link
OH YES.

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