digitalsidhe

I posted a couple of days ago, and I made sure to check DW frequently. I must have refreshed my reading page at least 5 or 6 times back on Monday. And I kept it up on Tuesday morning. There was one new item.

And then things got a little busy yesterday, and I forgot to check. And I guess maybe I got the feeling people weren't updating very much, so I could slack off on it for a day or so?

Oops. Checked it this morning, and there are 8 new entries from 6 different people. Some of them are long. *facepalm*

Okay, time to get reading and catch up.

Current Mood: amused

Hey, all you wonderful folks who just arrived from the sinking ship of Livejournal (or anywhere else, really). The latest

dw_news post has a lot if helpful information to help you get oriented and understand what this place is, how it's different from LJ, why it's different in those ways, and so on.

It's well worth the 5-10 minutes it takes to read. Here's the link; go take a look!

(And also: welcome to Dreamwidth, everyone!)

Apparently Livejournal has just announced a new, homophobic AF policy. Basically, journals must now comply with Russian anti-LGBTQ laws that consider any mention of queer material to be a discussion of "sexual deviancy" and hence illegal.

Charlie Stross is moving his LJ over here to DW, too.

Oddly, I am actually leaving my LJ in operation — because the only thing(s) on it are entries like this one that point out why you should move your journal over to Dreamwidth instead. It costs me nothing — it's a free account — and maybe it'll help move more people off LJ.

(This is one of the very few entries that I'm bothering to cross-post over there anymore. Edit: Or not. My DW inbox is giving me messages saying "Failed to crosspost entry to digitalsidhe@LiveJournal: Terms of Service agreement required". Even when I browse around LJ, I can't find where I'd even agree to the new ToS, so fuckit. Not something I'm gonna spend that much time on; I've got a nice dinner to get to.)

Current Mood: gloomy

You've probably heard about/seen/read this already, but even if you have, let this be yet another reminder: it's time to give Livejournal the heave-ho, and get your data off of servers that aren't subject to 4th Amendment protections or the protections of a group like Dreamwidth, who have reiterated just yesterday that:

Dreamwidth is committed to openness and protecting the privacy of our users and their data. While we must of course follow United States law, we take a very strong position on the protection of your data. We'll do everything we can to be the best we can in this area. In other words, see the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Who Has Your Back? 2015 report. While Dreamwidth is too small to be evaluated by the EFF, [the CTO is] committing us to earning all 5 stars.

In the meantime, there are a few posts talking about what's going on:

LJ: The servers are in Russia, political purge of accounts alleged
LJ: Why now
Metafilter: Livejournal represents social media without borders

Everyone is suggesting that you import your Livejournal to Dreamwidth, using DW's Import Tool. Here are instructions for importing your LJ to Dreamwidth; I've done it a few times, and it really is quite easy and simple. You can also import entire communities; I have no experience with that.

Speaking of having "done it a few times", you may be wondering: "What if I imported my journal a few years ago, but now I've been crossposting for years?" I've just confirmed that:

If you imported your journal some years ago, and now you run an import again, the entries and comments that were already on Dreamwidth do not get duplicated or re-imported. Whew!
If you've been cross-posting entries, and now an entry has comments both on DW and on LJ, it pulls LJ comments over to DW and then it seems to add the LJ threads after existing DW threads (it doesn't try to put all threads in proper chronological order).

It might be nice to delete all your entries so nobody can data-mine them, but then keep your account so you can still read and comment on other people's LJs. Sadly, the only way to delete all entries is manually, one-by-one, although a downloadable client could make that a little easier. Edit: Apparently this tool called

ljsec works as a mass-delete tool. I haven't tested it yet, but will update again when I do try it out.

So, having just re-imported my LJ, I'll probably be deleting my account in another few days. Most folks seem to have already migrated over; my DW friends page is much more active right now than my LJ one.

If you haven't made the switch yet, now is the time.

Current Mood: serious
Crossposts: http://digitalsidhe.livejournal.com/1094864.html

Seen at the end of a comment on someone else's journal:

I'm sort of stuck between thinking this comment horribly self-indulgent and something I should delete instead of post, and thinking that with the current state of LJ, one should obey every urge to comment, no matter how self indulgent. I think the latter idea is winning by a hair.

Mmmmmm, yeah. That's a good point.

I sometimes want to comment, but come up with excuses not to. Usually along the lines of, "This is just 'me too'-ing", or "does this really add anything to the conversation?", and sometimes, "Dangit, I can't quite think of how to phrase this". But really, it's just excuses to say nothing instead of actually, y'know, getting in conversations. With people who are my friends, no less!

I think I'll try to comment more in the future. Some of them may not be masterpieces. I hope that's not a problem.

Current Mood: thoughtful

This is a fairly perfunctory purge. Most of the people that actually read me, and who I really know and consider friends, are still here. Reasons why you might have been purged:

I haven't heard from you in years (possibly because you haven't updated in years)
I only met you once
I can't even remember who you are when I look at your username and your profile page (possibly because I only met you once...)

If you fall into one of those categories, I sincerely hope you will not notice or not care that I've dropped you from my list. But if you do care, then I was wrong to drop you. Please comment here (all comments are screened) and I'll put you back on.

I've also dropped a bunch of accounts that were secondary accounts, used for only a month or two. And some accounts that have been deleted, and some people that are no longer alive. Also, if you defriended me a while back, I probably finally got around to dropping you... but you probably won't notice. *g*

If you see the post that comes right after this one, then you're still on my friends-list.

Note, as I go to post this: The song that's playing right now has absolutely nothing to do with this post's content! It's just because feyandstrange and I are also putting up our Christmas tree tonight, and so we have Christmas music playing! I swear, it's just a coincidence; three minutes ago, it was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", okay?)

Current Music: The Hallelujah Chorus, by G.F. Handel

Is anyone else seeing problems crossposting from Dreamwidth to Livejournal? I've tried, multiple times, to get my most recent Dreamwidth entry to crosspost; each time, I get a message in my Inbox saying: "Crosspost to digitalsidhe@LiveJournal failed. Failed to crosspost entry to digitalsidhe@LiveJournal: Failed to connect to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc."

Back when I had the wrong pass phrase on file, I didn't get the part about "Failed to connect to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc", so I'm wondering if it might be a general problem instead of a specific-to-me one this time.

(Unless it's something weird about that particular post...)

Edited to Add: Well, it wasn't just the one post. This one failed to crosspost, too. I suspect

feyandstrange's analysis, in the first comment, is quite on-target.

Current Mood: confused

Yeah, I'm doing a bunch of public-post announcements lately. Maybe third time's the charm?

Dreamwidth is trying an experiment. As they put it on their latest news post: "For the week of February 21 - February 28, creating an account on Dreamwidth will not require an invite code. You'll be able to register an account without needing a code -- just by visiting the account creation page."

Alternatively, if you'd like an invite code, I have quite a few. Just let me know.

Dreamwidth is actively improving the LJ-based codebase with new features and bug-fixes. It's ad-free and community-maintained, and is not run by a spooky Russian corporation. Seriously it's a lot more fun over there.

Current Mood: hopeful

I doubt that anyone who reads my journal is unaware of the hideous privacy nightmare that is Google Buzz. But I just found out about another, less headline-grabbing story of Google's problems.

After Dreamwidth got targeted by (a group presumed to be) Warriors for Innocence, PayPal requested that DW "remove entries on [their] service that contain nothing but constitutionally and legally protected speech that is not against [the DW] Terms of Service". As I've previously written, Dreamwidth did the right thing, and told PayPal they were taking their business elsewhere.

Apparently they took their business to Google Checkout. And the puritanical group attacking Dreamwidth went to Google and complained, and Dreamwidth says that Google has "decided to terminate our business relationship unless we alter our Terms of Service to prohibit all adult content." (emphasis mine)

The lovely thing about Google's "Don't be evil" motto is that it never says you actively have to be good. But I'm not sure that this move meets even that low, low bar. Let's be clear: Google has told a group that's actively working to promote free speech that it must ban all adult content on its service in order to keep doing business with Google.

This is certainly within Google's rights; I'm not saying they have to do business with anyone they don't want to. But muzzling people's right to discuss adult topics? It's pretty damn close to evil. Remember that "adult topics/content" doesn't just mean slashfic or porn — it also means: discussions of rape, including survivor groups; promotion of equal rights for sexual minorities; spreading and discussing safer-sex information...

Keeping this information hidden doesn't make a better world. It makes things worse, for everyone. And how is making the world worse "not evil"?

If Google doesn't want to do business with Dreamwidth, I don't really want to do business with them. I'll continue to use their free services, like search and maps... but please don't bother sending email to my (ad-supported) Gmail account any more. It's going to vanish shortly.

I welcome discussion of which other services of theirs would be appropriate, or inappropriate, to keep using. I also welcome pointers to alternative services. And I would love to help welcome any of you to Dreamwidth — let me know if you want an invite code.

This entry is public; you may link to it freely.

Current Mood: angry

Just a few days ago, I let my Livejournal account lapse, because I could no longer support them after their poor handling of things like the Great Strikeout. And the Strikeout itself was caused by — hell, was the manifestation of — their poor handling of the demands of Warriors For Innocence.

And then Dreamwidth posted a news item of their own, saying that they had "come under attack by a group of trolls with ties to several hate speech organizations." The Dreamwidth update went on to state: "The chief methods being used at the moment are false accusations to our merchant processor and our upstream provider that we host child pornography."

Yesterday, they posted a further update, including this absolutely beautiful second paragraph:

First, PayPal, our merchant processor, has requested that we remove entries on our service that contain nothing but constitutionally and legally protected speech that is not against our Terms of Service. We will not be complying with PayPal's demand that we remove these legal entries posted by our users: our Guiding Principles say that we won't, and we're sticking by them.

As a result of this, they're ditching their association with PayPal and finding a new merchant processor. (They clarify that they "are in a good enough position that a week or two of payment system downtime while we switch merchant processors is just inconvenient, nothing more", and request that people who want to show their love with extra financial support send it to Haitian earthquake relief efforts instead.)

And this is the kind of thing that I want to see! Eight years from now, Dreamwidth may have changed to the point that I want to leave. But right now, I'm feeling very happy about my decision to adopt Dreamwidth as my journaling provider.

Current Mood: very pleased

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Entries tagged with dreamwidth

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