Dreamwidth

For the most part, features are similar to those of LiveJournal: users have journals, where they may post entries, each of which has a webpage of its own, and on which other users may comment. Dreamwidth also provides shared or group journals called "communities".{{cite web|url=http://www.itworld.com/open-source/78643/how-attract-more-people-your-open-source-project|title=How to Attract More People to Your Open Source Project|publisher=itworld.com|date=September 23, 2008|access-date=September 22, 2011|archive-date=October 2, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002194057/http://www.itworld.com/open-source/78643/how-attract-more-people-your-open-source-project|url-status=dead}}

Areas in which Dreamwidth differs significantly from LiveJournal include the following:

Initially, Dreamwidth accounts could only be created with an invite code. In December 2011, invite codes were turned off, originally as an experimental temporary measure. As there was no significant increase in spam accounts and the servers were adjusted to handle the load, the invite codes were not turned back on at the start of the new year as planned,{{Cite web|url=https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/32097.html|title=dw_news | Dreamwidth Update: 6 January 2012|website=dw-news.dreamwidth.org}} and new users can still create an account without the use of an invite code.

Free accounts have limited features. Paid accounts exist on two levels, "Paid" and "Premium Paid", and have additional features.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=4|title=What are the extra services available?|website=www.dreamwidth.org}} At the time of the open beta launch, a limited number of Seed Accounts were also available.

In response to criticisms of LiveJournal's friending system, Dreamwidth has split user relationships into two parts: subscriptions and access control. Users may subscribe to other users' journals or grant access for other users to read locked entries as separate actions. Dreamwidth's terminology reflects this split: for instance, the "friends page" has been renamed as "reading page", and "custom friends groups" has been split into "access filters" and "reading filters".

Dreamwidth provides greater interoperability with other LiveJournal-based sites, including the ability to import a journal from another site, crosspost to multiple sites, and greater functionality for users who log in via OpenID.

In addition to the search facilities brought over from LiveJournal, paid account users can search their journal.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/search|title=Search Dreamwidth|website=www.dreamwidth.org}} This was introduced on 24 July 2009.{{Cite web|url=https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/9221.html|title=dw_news | mid-week surprise feature rollout|website=dw-news.dreamwidth.org}}

{{Expand section|date=December 2009}}

LiveJournal was initially free of advertisements, but gradually incorporated them, until by 2017 ads were shown to all non-paid readers on all pages.[http://news.livejournal.com/151767.html LiveJournal: Important Updates], April 4, 2017: "Starting from April 4th 2017, non-authorized users will see advertisements on all LiveJournal pages." Dreamwidth remains free of advertisements.[http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/38065.html Dreamwidth News (and welcome!), 14 April 2017]: "we display zero advertising on Dreamwidth".

The following features, available on LiveJournal, are not available on Dreamwidth:{{Cite web|url=https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=131|title=If you're coming from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth: What's Missing?|website=www.dreamwidth.org}}

• S1 style system
• to-do lists
• TxtLJ
• pingbacks
• nudge
• Last.fm music detection
• singles
• commenting using Facebook and Twitter accounts

Despite the lack of these features, Dreamwidth is acclaimed for its strong community and transparency.

Dreamwidth is based upon the free and open-source{{Cite web|url=http://www.livejournal.com/code/|title=LiveJournal Code}} server software that was designed to run LiveJournal. It is written primarily in Perl. The majority of the Dreamwidth code is available under the GPL for other sites to use.[http://hg.dwscoalition.org/ Dreamwidth repositories] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501124727/http://hg.dwscoalition.org/ |date=May 1, 2009 }}{{Cite web|title=Dreamwidth's open source repository|url=https://github.com/dreamwidth/dw-free|access-date=March 10, 2021|website=Github|language=en-US|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102131313/https://github.com/dreamwidth/dw-free |archive-date=2013-11-02 }}

Unlike many other social networking sites using the LiveJournal codebase, such as InsaneJournal and DeadJournal, Dreamwidth is a code fork, removing unwanted features (such as advertising) and adding new ones as described above. Founders of the site rejected the advertising model as intrusive. Instead, they implemented a payment system, where users can purchase add-on or premium features.Renee Montagne, Laura Sydell, et al. "[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=105493600 Social Networks: They're Popular, But Will They Pay?]". NPR – Morning Edition. June 23, 2009. Retrieved December 6, 2009.

A 2009 OSCON presentation saw Dreamwidth identified as highly unusual among open-source projects, for the number of women on its development team. About 75% of its developers are female,Krill, Paul. "[http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/microsoft-maintains-openness-push-539?page=0,1 Microsoft maintains openness push]". InfoWorld. July 23, 2009. Retrieved December 6, 2009.{{Cite web|url=http://ww1.infotrope.net/|title=infotrope.net infotrope Resources and Information|website=ww1.infotrope.net}} compared with around 1.5% in the field as a whole.{{Cite web |url=http://flosspols.org/ |title=FLOSSpols |access-date=2009-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140713200340/http://flosspols.org/ |archive-date=2014-07-13 |url-status=dead }} Paolucci and Smith also spoke at linux.conf.au 2010 about Dreamwidth's development model{{cite web |url=http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/schedule/view_talk/50329?day=wednesday |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090925103054/http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/schedule/view_talk/50329?day=wednesday |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-09-25 |publisher=lca2010.org |title=Build Your Own Contributors, One Part At A Time }} and have been invited to speak at Web 2.0 Expo{{Cite web |url=http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2010/public/schedule/detail/14295 |title=Build Your Own Contributors (One Part at a Time), at web2expo.com |access-date=2010-04-29 |archive-date=2014-04-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416180642/http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2010/public/schedule/detail/14295 |url-status=dead }} and OSCON{{Cite web |url=http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/detail/13542 |title=Build Your Own Contributors (One Part at a Time), at oscon.com |access-date=2010-04-29 |archive-date=2014-07-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140712112311/http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/detail/13542 |url-status=dead }} about their techniques.

Dreamwidth was accepted as a GSoC mentoring organization for the summer of 2010.{{Cite web|url=https://dw-dev.dreamwidth.org/42626.html|title=dw_dev | Welcome, Google Summer of Code students!|website=dw-dev.dreamwidth.org}} They were allotted seven students, who worked on a variety of projects.{{Cite web|url=https://dw-dev.dreamwidth.org/56125.html|title=dw_dev | GSoC Results|website=dw-dev.dreamwidth.org}}

Athena, also known as Afuna or fu, was introduced as the site's first paid employee on 7 April 2010.{{Cite web|url=https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/19375.html|title=dw_news | Update, April 5, 2010|website=dw-news.dreamwidth.org}} On 7 September 2010, Mark Smith announced that he had stepped back from Dreamwidth's front line{{Cite web|url=https://mark.dreamwidth.org/21501.html|title=mark | The State of Mark: Dreamwidth|website=mark.dreamwidth.org}} and moved to work for StumbleUpon.{{Cite web|url=https://zorkian.dreamwidth.org/711972.html|title=zorkian | The State of Mark: StumbleUpon|website=zorkian.dreamwidth.org}} He is still an owner of Dreamwidth along with Denise, however.

Following the positive reactions to Dreamwidth's diversity statement and model of inclusiveness, various other projects have followed suit, including Python's diversity list{{Cite web|url=https://wiki.python.org/moin/DiversityInPython|title=DiversityInPython - Python Wiki|website=wiki.python.org}} and Dreamfish.{{Cite web|url=http://www.dreamfish.com/index.php/humanifesto/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028093122/http://www.dreamfish.com/index.php/humanifesto/|url-status=dead|title=Dreamfish humanifesto on dreamfish.com|archivedate=October 28, 2012}}

• List of social networking websites

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Official website|name=Dreamwidth official website}}
• [https://fanlore.org/wiki/Dreamwidth Dreamwidth on Fanlore wiki]
• [http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=121 A Guide to Dreamwidth for LiveJournal users]
• [http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Main_Page Dreamwidth Notes: dwscoalition wiki]

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