Dreamwidth
When word of dreamwidth first reached my ears, I was a little skeptical. I mean after all, there're fifteen billion journal services out there. But I decided to get an open-id account, just to figure out if I liked the idea.
I got the open-id account a couple weeks ago and just kind of let it sit on the back burner for a while. I didn't try to find anyone. I didn't try to actively participate.
But then someone came into an IRC chat I frequent talking about the diversity statement so I innocently clicked on the link. And that's when my life changed forever.
You see, I'm a member of several minorities. I'm a visually impaired person, I'm a multiple, I'm a fanfic writer, and I also don't feel quite comfortable with regular gender roles.
So I read the diversity statement and started thinking "Wow. This might be a good idea."
I went back to the site to do some exploring. That's where I found the link to the IRC chatroom. Since I have an IRC client I decided to go in and thank them for writing such an awesome diversity statement.
And I walked directly into a community of caring, helpful, extremely awesome people. For once in my life I didn't feel like an outsider there. I didn't feel like I had to prove anything. I felt as if they took who I said I was seriously. People of all walks of life and all types of beliefs mingled there, people that you most likely wouldn't normally see together. The owners of the site were there, mingling with devs and curious people like me who had just come to peek in.
That's where I discovered how accessible things were. They have a description field on their icon uploader page. They don't use captchas unless absolutely necessary and not on the account creation page. Things that blind people had been asking LJ for for years were done on Dreamwidth and done well.
But the focus wasn't only on people in minority groups. As we all know that can swing both ways. People not in minority groups can feel just as left out as we in minority groups usually do. But on Dreamwidth everybody seemed to feel comfortable and like they belonged. In the time I've been on the site and in the IRC channel, even times of huge amounts of pressure, people still get along. And I think a main component of that is respect. The site owners respect the devs and the devs respect the end users. Support questions are taken very seriously and are promptly answered.
Perhaps the most important part, to me at least, is the fact that the owners of Dreamwidth don't pull the corporation card. The site faq's are not written in legalese. Nor are they impossible to navigate. Also, there're no ads, no snap.com previews and no nnudge-a-friend which I found annoying.
Now don't get me wrong. I still like LJ. But I feel more comfortable on DW than I ever felt here and over there I feel like devs and site owners care enough to listen.
If you want more in-depth, detailed, nuts-n-bolts information, check out the wiki and Why Dreamwidth
I got the open-id account a couple weeks ago and just kind of let it sit on the back burner for a while. I didn't try to find anyone. I didn't try to actively participate.
But then someone came into an IRC chat I frequent talking about the diversity statement so I innocently clicked on the link. And that's when my life changed forever.
You see, I'm a member of several minorities. I'm a visually impaired person, I'm a multiple, I'm a fanfic writer, and I also don't feel quite comfortable with regular gender roles.
So I read the diversity statement and started thinking "Wow. This might be a good idea."
I went back to the site to do some exploring. That's where I found the link to the IRC chatroom. Since I have an IRC client I decided to go in and thank them for writing such an awesome diversity statement.
And I walked directly into a community of caring, helpful, extremely awesome people. For once in my life I didn't feel like an outsider there. I didn't feel like I had to prove anything. I felt as if they took who I said I was seriously. People of all walks of life and all types of beliefs mingled there, people that you most likely wouldn't normally see together. The owners of the site were there, mingling with devs and curious people like me who had just come to peek in.
That's where I discovered how accessible things were. They have a description field on their icon uploader page. They don't use captchas unless absolutely necessary and not on the account creation page. Things that blind people had been asking LJ for for years were done on Dreamwidth and done well.
But the focus wasn't only on people in minority groups. As we all know that can swing both ways. People not in minority groups can feel just as left out as we in minority groups usually do. But on Dreamwidth everybody seemed to feel comfortable and like they belonged. In the time I've been on the site and in the IRC channel, even times of huge amounts of pressure, people still get along. And I think a main component of that is respect. The site owners respect the devs and the devs respect the end users. Support questions are taken very seriously and are promptly answered.
Perhaps the most important part, to me at least, is the fact that the owners of Dreamwidth don't pull the corporation card. The site faq's are not written in legalese. Nor are they impossible to navigate. Also, there're no ads, no snap.com previews and no nnudge-a-friend which I found annoying.
Now don't get me wrong. I still like LJ. But I feel more comfortable on DW than I ever felt here and over there I feel like devs and site owners care enough to listen.
If you want more in-depth, detailed, nuts-n-bolts information, check out the wiki and Why Dreamwidth