Anyone for Dreamwidth invite codes?

[liv]

I have a few. The site's still very much in beta, and really so, we're actually working on bugs, not just that web 2.0 thing where everything is permanently in beta. But if you want to play around or reserve your username before the official launch, do comment. I expect you all know what Dreamwidth is by now; I might do a post talking about it properly later on, but right now codes up for grabs. If you think I don't know your email address, pm me.

And yes, I am planning to move over fully as soon as the site launches into public beta. More on that later.

ETA: Four down, two to go... within a quarter of an hour of posting. You guys are quick like bunnies!

ETA2: All gone! I'll try and pick up some more but no promises, they're still limiting site growth pretty strictly just now.

ETA3: Already 3 8 people in the queue for any more that show up. There may be faster ways of getting codes than joining said queue, but I'll give them away as fast as they show up if you'd like to add your name to the list. Sorry, Americans, it just fell out that way.

Comments

[darcydodo]

Uh, what's Dreamwidth?

[liv]

'K, so you know how LJ was sold to a big Russian media company who are more interested in making lots of money and having influence in Russia than in actually running the site properly? Well, some people who were involved in the old LJ from right at the beginning decided that they would make a new version of LJ which they would intentionally keep small. They're not trying to make millions of dollars as fast as possible and then sell or dump it, they're trying to make something sustainable that will eventually pay them salaries so they can work on it full-time, and maybe employ one or two other people, and that's all. That means they don't need ads or commercial sponsorship at all, which is how LJ used to be when we both joined, and something that makes it feel much more comfortable for me.

And because they know what they're doing, they're among the very few people in the world who actually properly understand how the LJ behemoth works, both technically and socially, they decided that while they were at it they might as well rewrite things and make it actually good. So they've split LJ-friends into "journals you read" and "people who have access to your locked content", and they've redesigned the whole site so it's easy to use and modern and stuff, and they've created a whole load of completely new journal styles, and made OpenID actually work so that you can be friends with people on different sites. Also taken away stupid features like the Snap pop-up previews and the thing where you flag someone else's journal for being too "adult" and the thing where you can "nudge" people if you think they haven't posted enough recently.

Also, like old LJ but better, they're getting volunteers involved to do coding and run the site. I've been writing FAQs (new FAQs which are readable and answer simple questions with a direct answer and don't make you have to wade through five screens of text to find what you want), and working on the new journal styles to make the system more consistent and produce decent HTML and CSS. Lots of people who know even less about programming than I do are involved, as well as lots of people who are serious experts, including some of the employees who got sacked from LJ in January.

So, because of all these things, and because I'm getting increasingly cross with all of LJ's stupidity (remember when they were suspending journals for Harry Potter slash, for example?), I'm moving my journal to Dreamwidth in a few weeks when the site goes into the stable, open beta phase. Because it handles OpenID sensibly, I think it shouldn't make much difference to my friends who want to stay here, but we'll see how that goes.

If you are quick, you might be able to get the username Darcy *tempt tempt*! (I got Liv, cos I was in there really early as a volunteer.)