Dreamwidth.org: FAQ

Initial Stages of Dreamwidth

What must be finished prior to closed beta launch?

Tasks that must be finished prior to closed beta launch can be viewed here, as well as their status. A list of tasks that must be completed before the move from open beta to the full site launch can be seen here. A detailed explanation of how the site will be hosted throughout the stages can be found here.

How will beta stages work?

Closed beta will be open to only a few people: the developers, the documentation team, and a few others. After closed beta is finished, open beta will begin. To create an account in open beta, you can either buy a paid account or obtain an invite code. Invite codes will originally be given to those who took part in closed beta, as well as those who were active in development and discussion in pre-launch stage. Open beta will also correspond with the one-time sale of 400 permanent accounts.

Open beta will be announced at least a week in advance.

Importing Other Journals

What will be imported?

Everything that possibly can be. Friends, userpics, userpic keywords, tags, friendsgroups, bio, entries, security levels, and comments. More discussion on how the importing process will work can be found here. The copyright issues of comments and how we will be honoring the fact that whoever commented owns their comment are addressed here.

Will security levels change on entries I import?

No. Your private or friends-only posts will not become viewable to everyone when they’re imported from another site. We will not remove security settings that you have become used to on other sites. It is important to us that you can control who views your material and we have no intention of weakening the sense of safety you have in any way.

What if I have more icons on my LiveJournal/other account than I have available slots on my Dreamwidth account?

If you import your journal from another site and have more icons than available slots then when the import is complete, the “hi, we’re done” email will include a link to a page where you can choose which icons you want to keep.

Invite Codes

How will invite codes work and how will they be distributed?

Invite codes will always be in place at Dreamwidth. They are a way to control growth of free accounts in the early days and a way to foster community as time goes on. Paid accounts will always be available if you want to avoid the hassle of finding an invite code. Price points and account levels can be found here.

Invite codes will be distributed throughout the community on a monthly basis, based on what the site can support. Further discussion of how invite codes will be distributed can be found here and here. If you want to know more about Dreamwidth before purchasing a paid account, a site tour will be available, as will as guides on how to use Dreamwidth and how to switch from LiveJournal or another LiveJournal-based site.

Will I need an invite code to create a community?

No. We believe in encouraging community and things that allow people to interact. Any Dreamwidth user will be able to create a community.

Watch/Trust

How will Watch/Trust work?

The idea of a friends list from LiveJournal will be broken into 2 groups, Watch and Trust. Your watch list consists of people whose content you wish to view on your aggregation/friends page. Your trust list is people who you trust to view your protected content.

You can trust someone but not watch them, watch them but not trust them, or watch and trust them. Who shows up on your aggregation/friends page will be based solely on your watch list, while the users who can see your protected entries will be based solely on your trust list. A more detailed explanation with examples can be seen here.

Will my trust list be visible to everyone?

Yes. It will be visible so anyone commenting on an entry knows who is possibly listening. Trust filters are not made public, so anyone reading the entry will not know exactly who is listening, but they will know who might be. More discussion can be found here and here.

Things That Will Be Added After Launch

We will continue to add features to Dreamwidth on a continuous basis. Discussion on how priority is given to additions can be found here.

We hope to add “expand threaded comments” and “expand all comments on page” as an option for paid users relatively soon after launch.

We are likely to add a points system that will make it easier to make small purchases, such as v-gifts. The points would be only be redeemable for services, not cash. More discussion on this can be found here.

Things to Keep the Site Running

Will there be advertisements or sponsored pages on Dreamwidth?

There will never be any corporate advertising on Dreamwidth.

Will inactive accounts be deleted after a certain amount of time to free up the usernames?

No. If you trust us to host your information, it will not be deleted, even if you are away from Dreamwidth for a year or more. However, we understand the problem of an ever-increasingly claimed namespace, so to balance that we will make sure the journals that are marked as deleted by the user actually get deleted. As well, the invite codes will help to prevent people from creating hundreds of accounts without intending to use any of them. This topic is something that we will monitor and revisit after 18-24 months to see if any changes are necessary.

Why can’t I host my icons offsite?

Icons are hosted onsite to help control trolling. If they could be hosted offsite it would be easy to upload a 100x100px userpic and then change it to a 2000x2000px to break the display of any page that called for it. Also, although icons can only be 40kb, they're called often enough that it would burn through the amount of monthly transfer that most hosts offer pretty quickly. If the monthly transfer is exceeded or the external site goes down it would lead to broken image links, which look unprofessional and would be directly associated with Dreamwidth.

Can I view more than 1000 entries/more than 14 days on my watch page?

No. Viewing the watch page is the single hardest thing the servers will do. Increasing this limit would result in a huge server drain, which could cause the site to collapse.

Other Questions

Will all styles available on LiveJournal be available on Dreamwidth?

No. Some of the styles on LiveJournal are not available under GPL and cannot be used by other sites. However, we are creating new styles that will hopefully be more customizable and user-friendly. More detail on this can be found here.

Will the profile page and settings page be fundamentally different from the current LiveJournal pages?

Initially, no. There will be a few tweaks, but they will be recognizable as the ones used on LiveJournal. Over time they will change based on user feedback.

What browsers will Dreamwidth operate on?

Dreamwidth will fully support Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 7+, and the latest version of Safari. While we will make efforts to ensure backwards compatibility, we can’t guarantee that the default site will be usable in older browsers. One of our goals is to have a “Dreamwidth-light” that can be hosted on computers that are too old to use modern browsers and on mobile devices.

Can I change the colors of Dreamwidth to something I like more?

Yes. Multiple color schemes will be available by open beta and you can choose one that you like.

Will the post limit and comment limit be increased?

Yes.

Will there be a watchwatch page (equivalent to LiveJournal’s friendsfriends page)?

Yes.

Will it be easy to clearly identify the difference between staff posts and personal posts?

Yes. A separate account type will be created for staff to make it clear when someone who works at Dreamwidth is speaking in an official capacity.