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Welcome to Dreamwidth, Tumblr folks!
With the new update to Tumblr's community guidelines announcing that they will no longer permit adult content on their site, we'd like to take a moment to reassure all y'all that we have your backs. With a very few exceptions (such as spam and the like), if it's legal under US law, it's okay to post here. We're 100% user-supported, with no advertisers and no venture capitalists to please, and that means we're here for you, not for shady conglomerates that buy up your data and use it in nefarious ways.
Tumblr's definition of "adult content" seems to be inherently visual, and I also wanted to remind people that we do have basic image hosting. (It's definitely not as slick and easy to use as Tumblr's, I won't lie, but it does exist.) If you want to include images in your posts, you can upload them and the site will give you HTML that you can paste into your entry. Or, if you have post-by-email set up, just attach the image to the end of your email and it'll be posted. All users have a 500MB image hosting quota right now. I know that's small for people looking for a place to host NSFW image blogs, but we are reviewing usage statistics to see if we can increase it, or at least make it possible for people to pay for more quota like you can for more icons.
For those asking whether we have a mobile app: we don't at the moment! There are many (soooooo many) prerequisites that we have to do first, which we've been working on but haven't yet finished, because we're dealing with a lot of systems and architecture decisions that were made nearly 20 years ago by now. (A mobile app would also be subject to the same censorship pressure Tumblr faced -- it's looking pretty good that Apple taking the Tumblr app out of the App Store was the proximate cause of Tumblr's content guidelines change, and Apple is notoriously strict on apps for sites that allow user-generated content -- so even once we have one, it's even odds on how long it'll be able to stay available for certain platforms.) We've been trying to improve the website's experience on small screens in the meantime, and that's an ongoing project that we'll do our best to devote some more attention to over the next few months.
Feel free to use the comments to this post to recommend communities to join and to make new friends, whether you're here for the first time as a Tumblr refugee or have been here since the start (and any range in between). To the newcomers: we're happy to have you join us. Welcome aboard!
(Comment notification emails may be delayed for an hour or two, due to the high volume of emails generated by a![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_news post. This was posted at 2105/9:05PM EST (see in your time zone). Please don't worry about delayed notification emails until at least two hours after that. I also apologize to anyone who gets a notification for this post twice; we're trying to figure that one out.)
Tumblr's definition of "adult content" seems to be inherently visual, and I also wanted to remind people that we do have basic image hosting. (It's definitely not as slick and easy to use as Tumblr's, I won't lie, but it does exist.) If you want to include images in your posts, you can upload them and the site will give you HTML that you can paste into your entry. Or, if you have post-by-email set up, just attach the image to the end of your email and it'll be posted. All users have a 500MB image hosting quota right now. I know that's small for people looking for a place to host NSFW image blogs, but we are reviewing usage statistics to see if we can increase it, or at least make it possible for people to pay for more quota like you can for more icons.
For those asking whether we have a mobile app: we don't at the moment! There are many (soooooo many) prerequisites that we have to do first, which we've been working on but haven't yet finished, because we're dealing with a lot of systems and architecture decisions that were made nearly 20 years ago by now. (A mobile app would also be subject to the same censorship pressure Tumblr faced -- it's looking pretty good that Apple taking the Tumblr app out of the App Store was the proximate cause of Tumblr's content guidelines change, and Apple is notoriously strict on apps for sites that allow user-generated content -- so even once we have one, it's even odds on how long it'll be able to stay available for certain platforms.) We've been trying to improve the website's experience on small screens in the meantime, and that's an ongoing project that we'll do our best to devote some more attention to over the next few months.
Feel free to use the comments to this post to recommend communities to join and to make new friends, whether you're here for the first time as a Tumblr refugee or have been here since the start (and any range in between). To the newcomers: we're happy to have you join us. Welcome aboard!
(Comment notification emails may be delayed for an hour or two, due to the high volume of emails generated by a
dw_news post. This was posted at 2105/9:05PM EST (see in your time zone). Please don't worry about delayed notification emails until at least two hours after that. I also apologize to anyone who gets a notification for this post twice; we're trying to figure that one out.)
Feature Request (simple I think)
People say "well just friends lock (access list lock)" but many times i specifically want to hear from those NOT on my access list- I want to know outside opinions. I want Dreamwidth communities to be able to link to my post if they find it relevant and for discusion to grow, to meet new friends/allies.
If the post is locked to DW users only, then a password is required and those archival sites can't copy our posts and discussions.
I think this would make posting on DW feel not just safer outside of our little "access list" circles, but that by feeling safer, it would increase discussion/involvement/customer loyalty.
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
Regarding scrapers -- it's been a while since I've fiddled with settings, but do we not have some kind of setting for that? Or is it that [wracks memory] those kinds of things are more of a code-of-honor dealio and malicious agents aren't technologically prevented from doing the scraping?
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
no subject
Re: Feature Request (simple I think)
Since Fanlore outsourced archival to a 3rd party like Archive.is, If I want the violating material removed, I have to take it up with Archive.is, which is run by one guy in Prague who simply ignores "DMCA" take down requests and C&D letters, even written by lawyers. For example, he's ruined this guy's life: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/53wjst/iowa_archiveis_is_hosting_a_fake_malicious_blog/ but the advice he gets is naive- I've dealt with Google's legal team, they don't care - they just go thru the motions for 'safe harbour' and then refuse to do anything until you travel to california, find a lawyer in that state, and file a lawsuit (As if most people have the $ to do this, or can even take time off work to?). So to protect yourself, you have to block him and his scraping machine, and dozens others out there that exist like it, or that may come into being in the future... but this is rather difficult, as these more knowledgeable folk explain: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/88257/deny-access-to-archive-is he has 100's of domains like Archive.is, Archive.cz, Archive.li or Archive.xyz etc. Furthermore, he is hosted, i mean, has hired as a virtual body guard, Cloudflare, so there is no point in sending a C&D or DMCA request to through them either (That's why they're the go to service for Incel, Nazi, and other hate group sites: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-cloudfare-online-content-protection_us_5b491632e4b022fdcc597327 ) They hide the name/contact of the violators from you, but they forward YOUR name and contact info to THEM. This has resulted in people being bullied and harassed by neo-nazis and others https://www.propublica.org/article/how-cloudflare-helps-serve-up-hate-on-the-web "[A]ny complaints filed against the site go to Cloudflare, and... Cloudflare does not regulate content, so it is meaningless." (Why Fanlore would use an archival site that hides behind a service that protects violators and knowingly endangers the victims who try to get resolution via the legal paths permitted/required, I can't imagine.)
When they scrape something like your journal, its done very carelessly, and includes a bunch of stuff that you might be fine with fandom/DW-folk seeing, but not the entire world. In the example I gave above, about fanlore submitting my journal to archive.is to back up a citation that we were still working on our fanfic.... they scraped not just the post in question (which I find violating by itself) but ALL THE OTHER POSTS written before and after it!
This one for example: http://archive.is/ddCE you have to scroll all the way to Aug 5th to find the citation backup about our still working on the fanfic - but along the way you get to read all about:
- a neighbour attacking our service dog, (from which you can deduce I am in some way disabled)
- my having trouble paying for our hosting server (from which you can deduce that I am poor and thus not likely to be able to afford a lawyer to defend my copyright or site TOS etc)
- thanking people for helping donate for that, (from which you could attack me for trying to profit off of fanfic) and
- how a storm knocked out power to our town for many days- much of the infrastructure needing repair or replacement.
Was all that necessary just to cite (and have a back up of the cite) that we were going to finish the fanfic? When one writes a book review, do they include a copy of the ENTIRE book with their review to the newspaper or magazine? Its ridiculous.
What if those other posts were a more sensitive nature? Such as this 'backup' citation: http://archive.is/ZvQwz aparently for a cite of 8 January, because apparently, quoting my saying that we are still writing isn't enough, they have to cite me every time I ever say it... So there it is, along with how i feel adrift and stuff... which again, I don't want copied to some random archival cite! And also AGAIN, they copied it so that all the OTHER posts around it were also copied. So, if anyone reading about me, my spouse or our fics on FanLore follows the citations- they will now know (thanks to the first post that appears, before the one I just mentioned) that:
- i feel adrift
- I want more friends on Dreamwidth
- I like slash, especially Snape/Harry
- I dislike JKR
- I am Autistic
- I am Queer
- I am married (to my fanfic co-writer)
- I suffer from chronic pain
- I havent had a TV for almost 2 decades
- I am an athiest
- I have an urban farm and lots of pets.
So anyone who has any biases against those things, or just has something against me personally, can use them against me. Like the time someone threw poisoned meat to one of our dogs (she died), or tried to get local PeTA chapter to support a local AR group to 'liberate' our pets because they disagreed with our breeding them, or the time we were denied Medicare services we had been getting when the caseworker found out we were a gay couple.
Because my hosting provider screwed up, for a few days it would show all my domains as subdomains of the first domain I bought. Just my luck, Fanlore decided to 'back up' my websites to Archive.is during this short timeframe. So instead of seeing:
www.My-Snarry_Fic.com
for our fanfic and
www.My-Urban-Farm.com/Photo_Gallery
for my photo gallery (that was password protected, except for a few hours basically because I wanted to ask if they wanted me to upload any specific ones to their servers- they never replied and I then got an email stating a page I was editing was updated, with a link (and archive.is backup link) to that gallery) you'd instead see:
My-Snarry_fic.My-Urban-Farm.com/Photo_Gallery ...
so, now, if someone googles for breeders of a particularly rare breed of dog that we happen to breed, or for available lambs of a certain breed of sheep in our geographic area, or where you can get farm fresh eggs from urban farmers in my very
homophobic,
wealthy and classist city,
whose claim to fame is having more places of worship per capita than any other town/city in the country...
They will also often see in search results that I am also somehow connected to this "alchemia" person with this weird "fanfic" website- and there is GASP fic dealing with underage sex, rape, queer issues, beastiality etc. They can follow the archive.is links if that is where they are (or google for the fannish websites / keywords / etc ) and piece things together that way. It was techniclaly always possible, but would be difficult and not worth it for the average person, assuming they even knew how. BUt now, it is much much easier for people that don't have any need or right to know about every one of my interests or hobbies or details of my life, to find that out, and that may not be safe for me.
Maybe the next person who contacts me wanting to buy a spring lamb won't come to throw poisoned meat to our dogs, but with bullets intended for me and my spouse.
Or maybe someone sees me walking our very distinctive looking dogs on the local nature trail and *Blam!*
I'm another statistic in the history of hate crimes against queers (or in this place, atheists, or who knows what else). All because Fanlore wanted a backup for a citation and outsourced that to ethically and morally bankrupt 'archive' when they could have simply ASKED me if and where a backup could be made, and of what. (I was editting right alongside them at the time!)
But this isn't about why I don't trust Fanlore - what happened with them simply alerted me to this issue- ... this is about how ANY group or individual can use a site like Archive.is, be it out of ignorance or malice, to copy your journal, and how that makes it unsafe to journal on DW, LJ, wordpress, or anyplace else, except under 'lock and key'.
(And yeah, I know, someone can just scrape this, for a fanlore citation or because they don't like me, or they think it would be funny.... but its already been, so whats the point of trying to hide it, when instead it can be used to help inform others about certain dangers to be aware of and to find ways to prevent others from being harmed? At least I can make some good come of it.)
Right now, we can either lock posts to access list / friends only, which stagnates discussion, prevents our making new contacts or learning new things, interferes with creativity and the fannish interconnectedness that I so loved in the early days of LJ..... OR we can leave our journals public, and take on risks like those I described above.
The only way, right now, to allow us to maximise the reach of our posts and to get as many people reading and discussing, is to NOT make it access-list/friends only.... but if we don't want to make it public and take the risks discussed.... we NEED a third option. Unless someone has another better idea, I suggest that third option be to allow ANYONE who is logged in to be able to read the post/journal.
(It just came to me that perhaps the archive owner could create an account and program the software to use his password- so perhaps this option would require combining it with some other safeguards, like requiring every user to also do a CAPTCHA test before they can read your 'open to all DW users' post)
ETA: fandom, this will be an issue if you stay on DW(I hope!),go elsewhere, or makes a new place(NP)