ETA: Power to the people! *grins* LJ has chosen not to make this code live; Anjelika claims they made this choice before got a slew of feedback protesting it, but, frankly, if it was put in the repository that's code they planned to push, not some kind of beta test. So I personally consider that a whole lot of ass-covering.

Please feel free to still make off with codes.

---

So, LJ has some unannounced code changes in the queue (check the "changelog" comm to see) that will, on the next code push, eliminate the "unspecified" gender option. As if this were not enough, all new accounts will also be required to indicate gender (male or female only) on registration.

Anyone who is androgynous or genderqueer? SOL. Anyone who wants to not specify a gender so as to avoid being inundated with ads for diets and jewelry and baby supplies? SOL. Anyone who just doesn't want to hand out that kind of personal information? Too bad!

So, I'd recommend hitting the feedback form (http://www.livejournal.com/contact/?dept=feedback) and copying your feedback to anjelika@livejournalinc.com, the general manager of US operations. Anyone who wants to be undefined should probably make sure they are now, because this will likely go live this week.

Cross-post from my archive.

Fandom/Arc: Choice, Katekyou Hitman Reborn, The Favored Son
Characters/Pairings: Federico, Guardians, Tsuna, Varia, Xanxus
Summary: In the universe where Federico survives, Byakuran is still a problem ten years later. This time, it's someone else who dies to send Tsuna and Xanxus against the Millefiore.
Meta: Drama with Angst, I-4
Wordcount: 9502

Sunlight fell gracefully through stained glass and into the open coffin.

Fedele had known it was going to be hard. It couldn't be any other way when the Vongola's Boss had been killed--not killed, the back of his mind whispered, clinging to that but he couldn't let it show or it would all go for nothing--killed by an ambush no one had seen coming. He had forbidden anyone to tell Federico's wife or son, saying it was for their own safety in hiding, which was true enough. But the fury and pain in the eyes of the other Guardians, the stripped, blank looks on the faces of the two kneeling by Federico's coffin, sliced his heart like a knife.

( Surprised Into Greatness )

Cross-post from my archive.

Fandom/Arc: Choice, Katekyou Hitman Reborn, The Favored Son
Characters/Pairings: Federico, Reborn, Xanxus/Squalo
Summary: A spin-off from Lys ap Adin's AU "Five Things that Never Happened to Xanxus" (read that first). What if Federico had lived and Squalo's duel with Tyr had happened on schedule? What would happen then? And how would Tsuna come into it?
Meta: Drama with Occasional Romance, I-4
Wordcount: 6257

Promotion, in the Varia, happened when a squad leader decided it was about time, or else when the person wanting promotion decided it was about time. The two usually balanced out. The question of who would lead the Varia, though, wasn't left up to anyone but the one who led already and the one who wanted to.

( Three Things that Might Have Happened to Xanxus )

I would like to let it be known that iniquiti is a very fine person. Upon receiving a request to get rid of one of those dreadful "raep" 'jokes' on the profile of a comm s/he mods, s/he promptly did so. Things like this restore my sometimes wavering faith in the existence of decent human beings.

So, I have filled my invite request list and still have two DW codes free! Anyone want them? Taken!

In other news, it keeps coming to my attention that OpenID intimidates people. It shouldn't. It's exactly like any other log-in, only easier.

To do my bit for a distributed internet, allow me to offer the following extremely simple, step-by-step (there are only two) directions for using OpenID on DW:

1) Go here and enter your LJ/IJ/JF/etc. username (like this: branchandroot.livejournal.com).

2) When the confirmation page comes up, click on "yes, always".

That's it! You're logged in, congratulations. Go comment or make an flist or load a userpic or whatever.

Now, to be really spiffy, you can add a third step.

3) Go here and enter an email address. When you get the confirmation email, click the link to validate.

Now you can receive email notification of replies to comments you make while you're logged in like this.

To log in again, just go back to that first linked page (which is also linked from the log-in form with the handy text "log in via OpenID") and enter username.livejournal.com again. Because you selected "yes, always", you won't even have to deal with the confirmation page again, because it's now automatic. For greatest ease, check the little box on the "welcome back" page that says "remember me".

OpenID is not arcane. It's just another log-in. Only easier.

Since I've seen a number of odd notions running around lately, I figured I'd post some quick explanations.

DW is not a clone. It is a fork, like a fork in the road you know? It means starting from the same code but then changing it. In the case of DW, this means both cool new features (which may well also pop up on LJ given the extent of cross-site brainstorming already taking place) but also a lot of major re-writing of the code that won't be visible to most users but will allow more cool new things to be done in the future.

DW is not elite. No, seriously. What DW currently is is broken. It is under construction. That's why registration is not open yet and invites have gone out only to those known to have a reasonably strong interest in the project (who hopefully therefore know about the unfinished parts and won't mind helping test them, sometimes catastrophically). If a hypothetical reader wishes to convince me that being unable to flush the virtual toilet yet is elite... I'm sorry, but no. Pull the other one, it's got bells on. In about two weeks the major construction should be finished and anyone who wants to risk the virtual breaker tripping when you turn on the virtual microwave or virtually sitting on wet paint will be able to venture in.

Users will not, once the site is actually open, ever need an invite to create an account.

Users will need an invite to create a free account. This is because DW does not use ads to support the service (which costs money, after all) and therefore must have a way to make sure that there are only as many unpaid users as the paid users can support. Corollary to this...

( Read on for further examples )

As for any personal accusations against the owners, based on Denise's time working on the LJ Abuse team, I suggest anyone who has genuine concerns read the diversity statement, the guiding principles, the FAQ and the business FAQ. It's best to get things from the horse's mouth and make up your own mind.

So, as Dreamwidth approaches the next big production step, I thought it would be worthwhile to make a post about this thing that comes next.

Next is open beta.

Open beta is NOT site launch.

Contrary to what Microsoft has tried to train the public to think for lo these many long years, "open beta" does not equal "stable product". Open beta is the smoke test. It's when we say "this seems pretty stable and the big things are done, it's time to load it up and jump up and down on it and see where the smoke comes out so we can fix that before actual product launch".

Site launch, in another handful of months, is what will declare "yes, this product is stable". Site launch is where we say "okay, this is a (though not the because we keep developing) stable product, this is version 1.0, we're open for all public business".

So, for those who are thinking of coming in during open beta, remember, not everything will be done. Not everything will work. It is just about certain that we will break something as we jump up and down on it at full load. Because that's what open beta means.

Come ahead, intrepid testers and explorers! Just remember this is not Microsoft and no one is pretending that it's all done and ready yet.

Our lovely co-owner has been watching the DW posts and put a post of her own together to answer some of the questions that have come up frequently.

DW fact sheet

Just to add a few of my own:

The current default journal style will not likely be the final default style. It's just the first one that got ported over completely! There are still a few bugs with it, as with all things during closed beta. (If anyone currently in testing wants to make use of the Core 2 Testing skin I made, instead, feel free to copy this into a theme layer.)

The default site scheme is still being poked at a bit, but it should be readable now at high res and low, no matter your font size.

On other topics, I'm interested to see the culture that's developing. A number of people are a lot more open in their posting and disclosure of identity. Being the web-cynic I am I hope this doesn't come back and bite anyone as time goes on, but right now it's all very bright and cheerful. Some people are using DW for a new start and some are importing all their history. Special interest comms are starting to pop up. There's still sawdust everywhere and the wallpaper isn't hung, but the roof seems to be on and the plumbing is working!

Dreamwidth's open beta is coming!

The date is set, and on April 30th the site will launch open beta on full production hardware. At that time, the one-time sale of seed accounts (permanent accounts for $200) will begin.

Invite codes for free accounts will be released as the site proves it can handle the load, but anyone who wants an account can also pay $3 for a month of paid time, after which the account may then be let to lapse back to free. Or, you know, keep it paid and get all the frills.

Some major things that are in the pipe for open beta: journal importing, entry crossposting between sites, the watch/access split of the friends list, expanded standardized options for journal styles so that you can pick based on the look you like instead of being limited by the functionality you want, vastly improved maintainer options for communities.

A lot of other functions will not be finished by open beta. There will still be rough edges to be sanded down and anyone who moves over completely at that time can expect a few bobbles. I have to say, though, I've been very impressed by the number and vigor of DW's working programmers, so bobbles should be steadied reasonably quickly.

For those who want to look around the current testing site, you can start from Denise's journal. Check out the comms, look at people's journals to see what the closed beta testers have done while they kick the tires. Sign in with OpenID, if you want, and you will have a stripped down (non-posting) account to poke around with.

(And if you don't like pink, well, I submitted three alternate site schemes today, and you can see the screenshots here: Celerity, Blueshift, Gradation.)

Dreamwidth promises to be a very cool thing, and a project committed to Open Source. The improvements Dreamwidth is making are available to everyone to use, including LiveJournal. In addition to simplifying the installation of the software, plans include the ability to port LJ-based databases into the Dreamwidth system, so that LJ-based sites can easily switch over if they wish. No restrictions, no fee, no hook (and no more mind-bendingly complicated and undocumented code). And we're going to have drafts and real hierarchical tagging and memories that work and exporting to pdf in whole or by time-span or tag and and and... *waves hands* cool stuff!

I'm enthused. You can tell.

Take a look around. The testing site and all the improvements you can read about in dw_news and the other comms have been accomplished in nine months. Just nine. In people's spare time, because almost everyone working on this has a day job too. And this? Is just the beginning.

[Crossposted from my InsaneJournal.]

For those who may have noticed my new icons, or seen mention of this in passing, Dreamwidth is a fork of the LiveJournal code. That is, it takes the current open source code and, instead of making future updates from the LJ version, starts writing it in a different direction. (Kind of like fanfic, really, only different.)

Two months or so from now, when Dreamwidth.org goes live for open beta, I will move there.

( The reasons are many and varied, and I have to go back a little ways to explain them all. )

I hope that all this will draw enough people over to a) make a thriving community and b) get enough people to transfer/back up their content that we don't lose too much when LJ finally reaches the end it's heading towards.

So! To that end, let me mention some of DW's advantages. At launch, DW will import entire journals, and multiple journals if you want, (including entries, comments, tags, userpics and flists) from other danga-code sites. It will recreate your flist(s) with RSS feeds (the problem of offering you locked posts from other sites is one of the high priority projects and may be available soonish, let us hope and cheer on the programmers). It will split the flist into a 'watch' list and a 'trust' list, just like we've been asking for for ages. It will even let us have longer usernames and comments and entries.

On the to-do list, DW aims to overhaul the horrible Memories function to act more like a sensible bookmarking tool, and to introduce a parent/child account structure so that we can finally link all our journals (from our point of view only, of course) and switch from one to another without all that tedious logging in and out. Even if you don't use Firefox.

There are a lot of other ideas being bandied back and forth about subscription to specific tags, entry and comment management, making OpenID sign-ins both non-anonymous and a way for people to control imported comments and even cooler stuff. There are people combing back entries in lj_suggestions to see what it is users (as opposed to prospective buyers) actually want.

Go see! Mouse around the Wiki. Page through some of the mailing list archives. Maybe chip in your two cents, because this? This is for us.

We're home.