I still have four invite codes available. If nobody asks for them by next Monday, I'm going to go over to dw_codesharing and hand all but one out to strangers. (I figure I'll keep one on hand just in case.)

Feel free to share my offer with anyone you know who wants a code; I have no selection criteria in mind.

This entry was originally posted at http://sedge.dreamwidth.org/411046.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Because I got a paid account on Dreamwidth, they sent me two more invites to hand out.

This means I have four, now three definitely available to give away. wayman, do you still need an invite?

If you would like an invite, I can either give it to you in a private message through LJ (if you have an LJ), or by sending you an email, in which case you'll need to leave your address in a comment to this post. Comments are screened for your privacy. I've unlocked this post on LJ and restored comments.

If you know someone who'd like an invite, please feel free to send them my way.

I don't celebrate the opportunity to spend money often. I have a genuine paid account here! (Not a seed, or a premium, because I don't have all that much money, but six months' worth of paid time.)

Anyway! They haven't had a chance yet to give us the invite codes we can hand out like candy to whomever we please. (I think they're too busy dealing with Paypal issues and suchlike.) I don't know how many I will have, but I am happy to share.

If wayman validated his OpenID, then he should be getting an invite from the site. Otherwise, he is next in line. Anyone else want one? I will need to have email addresses to send the invites to, so I will screen all comments to this post.

I have three remaining invites, one of which might be claimed.

(Note to LJ folks: despite the notice that DW automatically adds, you don't need an OpenID to comment on any posts that I have left unlocked on DW - anonymous posting allowed. This post is unlocked-or will be as soon as I get a chance to edit.)

This entry was originally posted at http://sedge.dreamwidth.org/407143.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

( Cut tags are supposed to work in cross-posting now, which might make you happy since I'm about to test how user tags work in cross-posting, since I saw they've changed them. )

Open Beta tonight at 9pm EDT! I don't quite know why I'm so excited, since I've done no work on the site, unless it's that DW seems to live up to their policy statements when it comes to inclusivity (at least so far). They are genuinely working at making the site accessible for screen readers, and genuinely concerned about diversity. (The sensitive way that denise replied to the concern expressed in the latter post also impresses me.)

This entry was originally posted at http://sedge.dreamwidth.org/406502.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

For several reasons, the least private of which is that I have become more and more dissatisfied with LJ for the last few years, I've decided to switch where I'm going to keep my journal. I'd been edging in that direction for awhile, and have recently been presented with an alternative which really makes me excited and happy: Dreamwidth Studios.

Dreamwidth is using a fork of the LJ open source code, with a lot (and I mean a lot) of bug fixes and interface improvements. They're still in beta, but one of the most obvious differences is to eliminate the "friends" terminology and separate it into two functions: a list of journals you read, and a list of journals you give access to your locked entries. They have a list of changes from LJ on their wiki.

The way they've set up the business and guiding principles please me - among other things, they're not going to be accepting ads and have committed to transparency and free speech.

I'm equally impressed by their commitment to a number of progressive actions: they are working very hard to make the code and documentation more accessible to the disabled; people can declare in their profiles that they are male, female, other, or undisclosed; they have a diversity statement that I can really get behind; they auctioned off a permanent paid account for the (Wis)Con or Bust: Fans of Color Assistance Project. (They are also one of very few (maybe two?) open source organizations where the majority of the coders are women.)

They're idealists.

So I poked around over there using the OpenID that comes with an LJ (when they ask for an OpenID, put in your LJ address; this is mine: gannet.livejournal.com); you might have an OpenID with other blogging services. Just on a whim, I verified an email address there to be associated with my OpenID access to DW. I was quite startled when I was therefore randomly sent an invite code at a point when they wanted to test having more stress added to the system.

I have set up an account over there using a different username and I have imported my LJ entries over there (and am going through and locking some of them). I will be posting the information shortly in a locked post; if you have my email address and want to know where to find it, send me an email.

I'm not entirely sure yet what I'll be doing with this journal. I suspect that I'm going to friends lock all my entries in about a month's time and just use it to follow my friends list. I don't plan on deleting it.

ETA2: Actually, I've figured out a new plan. More details in a forthcoming locked post.

ETA: If I understand things correctly, anyone who has used an OpenID to log in to Dreamwidth and verified an email address will be sent an invitation for an account when the site enters open beta on April 30.