Matthew's Journal

I have been automatically cross-posting my DW entries to LJ for some time now (since April 2017), and AFAICT this has mostly Just Worked.

The DW folks recently said that LJ have stopped co-operating with them about the cross-posting feature; they used to pass-list DW's IP so that even if one person put in the wrong password, most people would still be able to cross-post and now refuse to do so (or even acknowledge that they used to).

I have also been pointed at section 9.2.6 of the current LJ ToS, which prohibits "use [of] automatic scripts (bots, crawlers etc.) to [...] interact with the Service".

So it looks like it will no longer be possible to have my DW entries cross-posted to LJ (and indeed the most recent couple of entries haven't made it across); I'll copy this entry over by hand, but I don't think continuing to do so regularly is going to happen.

If that's going to be a problem for you, do comment, but do please consider joining me over at DW (or using your OpenID account to read me on DW)...

If you use OpenID to log into Dreamwidth (e.g. by using your LJ account), you may well have noticed it isn't working properly at the moment. This is because the most recent code push broke the main OpenID login form; a fix has been merged into the code, but presumably won't be deployed until the next code push.

In there mean time, there is a workaround: even though the main OpenID login form is broken, you can still use the comment form to log in.

If you click reply on any public entry, choose OpenID as your user type and tick the login box, and then click preview, that should log you in (without posting a comment), and then you can use DW as normal.

Thanks to angoel for reporting the bug to me (and confirming the workaround works) and to roadrunnertwice for the workaround.

ETA: I think the bugfix was applied during yesterday's code push.

I'm confused (or Doing It Rong) - I thought, per the FAQ on features of paid accounts that making a community a paid account would mean that the relevant community would "allow any member to post polls (community)".

So I paid some money to make a community (ardgour) paid, but the not-paid-account members of that community still can't post polls (e.g. this support request). Given this is the only reason I paid DW money for that community this is a bid underwhelming. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[all the comm members have posting access]

I've just updated firefox (to Debian stable's latest, i.e. 31.3.0), and now I cannot use Livejournal unless I disable both Flashblock [1.5.17] and Noscript [2.6.9.6] - note that white-listing LJ (which is what I'd done previously) isn't good enough anymore, I have to disable those add-ons entirely to get access to LJ [my friends page and own journal page work with Flashblock enabled, but I still cannot get to e.g. the update journal page thus].

WTF?

I have a longer post I want to make to LJ, but that will probably have to wait for the DDoS to abate.

Given that DDoSes are bad, and things I don't want to encourage, I'd like to suggest people don't migrate to DW right now - that, to me, would be to be seen to be supporting the DDoSers.

A very short post to say I have the obvious dreamwidth account; if you're an LJ-fiend, either fiend that directly, or comment here.

My musings on DW itself seemed better said there than here, so I wrote this.

Having got a DW account, I need to decide what (if anything) to use it for. After all, I have a permanent account on LJ, and have done for years (the account is over 8 years old, I can't remember when I permanentified it). Even if I wanted a permanent account here (they seem to call them seeds), I can't have one (I'm on holiday well away from the internet 24 April to 4th May, and I full expect the seed account options to have all gone by the time I get back); there don't appear to be any plans to sell more seed accounts in future. I really like having a permanent LJ account, so that's quite a downer before we even start! Maybe there could be a way to hold an option on one before the open beta...

The key advantages of DW seem to be twofold - firstly, it has more clear trust network functions (you can separate who you want to read from who you trust to read your protected entries), and secondly it is aiming to be "fluffier" than LJ. There are some more or less substantial other UI tweaks, but they seem to be aiming to fix some quirks in LJ that have never bothered me.

As a network analyst myself, the first feature is definitely sensible (and might even reduce some of the de-friending drama that drifts round LJ from time to time), and I'm interested to see what difference it'll make to peoples' social networks over time. There might even be a short research paper in it :-) The flip-side here is that LJ might reasonably decide that this feature is good, and incorporate it into their code-base; in fact, I'll be a bit surprised if they don't do so.

The second I'm less sure of; back when LJ was starting up, it felt fluffy and community-oriented. I really applaud the Dreamwidth founders for trying again, and for making commitments to being ad-free and suchlike. But; will things still be this good 8 years' hence? Will the be-nice business model succeed?

[I wonder how denise finds time to read users' entries!]

It seems that Basic accounts no longer exist for new users - you can be full of ads, or pay LJ money. I tested this by creating an account...
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Over in news, Sixapart's CEO apologises for the recent LJ-deletion drama. I'm going to leave much of the issue alone, since many many electrons have been spilt over this already. barakb25 writes: "Both in the instructions for profiles and in other places on the site we make it clear that interests listed should be evaluated within the context of “I like x”, “I’m in favor of x” or “I support x”. "

Well, point of fact first. http://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/ which is where I edit my interest from, simply says "List all your interests, separated by commas, to allow other users to find you using the Interest Search.".

It seems to me that "I am interested in the things I list as interests" is a more natural reading than "I like them" or "I'm in favour of them" or "I support them". That's how we use the word "interest" everywhere else!

I'm interested in infectious diseases, particularly those of cattle - I spend most of my working life trying to understand them better. If I put "infectious diseases" on my interests list, I think it would be absurd to think this meant I was some sort of bio-terrorist hoping to inflict my latest creation upon the world!

If Richard Dawkins had a livejournal, I'm sure he'd put "religion" on his interests list, and possibly "Christianity" as well. Indeed, glancing at the profiles of some of the more strident atheists on my fiends list, I see Christianity pops up quite often in interests lists.

So: reading interests lists as solely "I'm in favour of X" is daft. Please don't do it :-)

I saw this on rmc28's LJ, and am in the mood for procrastination...

Look at your LJ userpics list. If you have fewer than 50 icons, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five icons, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five icons, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly why you have it, why it's interesting to you, what significance does it have.
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I think I'd would have preferred to pick 5 userpics to talk about, rather than just "every fifth", but never mind, eh? If anyone wants to ask about other of my userpics, I'll gladly wibble about them ;-)

In unrelated news, I find myself hoping this gets laughed out of court.