Dreamwidth

[cellio]

Dreamwidth is an LJ-like site that entered open beta a few days ago. I'm there. I don't know how I'll use the account yet. I have a permanent account here on LJ so I'm not planning to go anywhere, but every time LJ has a kerfuffle I wonder what my fallback plan is, and Dreamwidth seems to be the winner there. It's run by ex-LJ people and seems to be a throwback to the ideals of early LJ, before the sale to Six Apart and then to SUP and the layoff of most of the staff. And they're fixing some of the suboptimal aspects of LJ, like the mingling of subscription and access rights into the ill-named "friend" relation.

I know a lot of my friends are setting up accounts there. Please let me know you're there.

It looks like Dreamwidth supports reading from LJ via OpenID. Does anyone know how to do the reverse? If some of my friends move to DW (as opposed to just mirroring there), what I'd really like to do is read their DW posts on my LJ reading page, using either my DW cookie (since I've got one) or my LJ OpenID. I have the vague impression that this sort of thing almost works. Can someone explain how?

A reminder to people who are moving there: if you give DW your LJ password so they can import your journal, you are compromising not only your own security (your choice) but also that of everyone who posts locked entries to which you have access. Be careful out there, ok?

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I'm seeing a lot of posts from friends saying they have Dreamwidth accounts (or that they aren't interested in DW accounts) but this is the first I've seen that wxplains some of the issues.

My strategy for the time being is to make sure my LJ is backed up, and apart from that, wait and see. So I'll be interested in any impressions you have of Dreamwidth.

[fauxklore]

I don't see any reason to switch on the simple grounds that nobody is there who isn't also here. But I like the idea of having a back-up /alternative, so I will probably check it out on those grounds.

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I looked at Dreamwidth briefly and decided to wait for now, backing up my LJ. I think their paid membership is a little more expensive than LJ's, and I don't see any reason to do both for now.

I assume anyone who gives DW their password to import their LJ posts can then change their LJ password to plug the hole.

[cellio]

I assume anyone who gives DW their password to import their LJ posts can then change their LJ password to plug the hole.

Well, reduce the size of the hole. Import requests go to a queue; I'm not sure how long that takes. (I have the impression it was a few days at one point.) And it needs to occur to folks that they should do so, which is part of why I mentioned it. Not everyone will think of it.

[hlinspjalda.livejournal.com]

I'm there now, same username, still setting up.

Is there a difference in security risk between cross-posting and LJ importation? I don't really understand how it works, and I'm also not sure I have the importation option anyway. (Maybe it's because I have, for the moment, only a free account at DW.)

[cellio]

As I understand it (haven't checked it out personally), DW's cross-poster has the same risk -- you're giving DW both passwords and it double-posts for you. If you want to double-post safely, I suspect you need to do it manually (cut and paste) or via email (can send to both addresses at once). I think posting by email is a paid feature, though.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Or use a third-party client that supports crossposting or can be scripted to do so. (I use Clive (called from a crossposting shell script), but apparently that one is rare enough that it doesn't get listed in statistics for client usage.)

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

I'm there under the same name. I don't currently plan to use it, but I like having it there just in case.

[goljerp]

It's asking me for an account creation code. Do any current users have any free ones to give away? :-)

[cellio]

Sent (via LJ message, as I don't know your email address).

[goljerp]

Got it, thanks! Actually, as far as Email goes, you can probably guess my gmail email. :-) On the other hand, this was better, since I don't actually check that gmail account all that often.