I've written up a "basic guide to Dreamwidth advocacy": what you can do to help spread the word about Dreamwidth, both the project and the site, and important things we need to keep in mind as we promote the ever-living hell out of the project and the site over the next few months.
Please take a minute to read it: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth.org:_Advocacy In particular, I'd very much like to emphasize the point about not defining Dreamwidth in terms of "not LJ". If we open our doors, and the best description we have to offer of our site is "it's not LJ", it's going to seriously hamper our efforts to build our own identity and our own culture. It's important that we concentrate on what Dreamwidth *is*, not what it isn't. Go forth! Explain to people why you're excited about Dreamwidth! * There's been some really good information-collection going on on the wiki this week in general, thanks to the efforts of our information architect and all-around organizational angel foxfirefey, along with the mad collating skillz of tty63. In particular, tty63 pulled together a bunch of mailing list posts into a single place, so people can more easily find past mailing list posts that answer specific questions: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth.org:_FAQ If you're looking for a place to get an authoritative statement about a particular question, that's a good place to start. Another good resource is our list of business FAQs: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth.org:_Business_FAQs * We've also pulled together a list of the changes we've already made to the codebase, as well as what changes we'll have completed by various stages in development, and I'll have to admit, it impressed the hell out of me to see what we've already accomplished and what we will have accomplished in the coming weeks and months: http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth_changes_from_LJ That doesn't even include tasks specific to dreamwidth.org the service (like our site scheme, our payment system, and our invite codes system), tasks specific to documentation (like the Wiki, which is an incredible labor of love, and the site documentation team), tasks related to the setting-up-a-business stuff, tasks related to feature design, information-gathering to determine how people are using the existing tools and to document and prioritize all of our wanted changes, and allllll the invisible backend changes, such as modernizing the codebase and improving the administrative tools that are available. Seeing it all laid out like that really drove home to me how absolutely incredible this project has been already: how much we've accomplished, how many people have contributed, how many of my own personal itches I've already gotten to scratch, and how much we've already been able to harness the enthusiasm, ability, passion, and smarts of a bunch of incredible people with incredible ideas and a desire to build a kickass community and a kickass product. SO: If you have contributed a patch to Dreamwidth: thank you. If you have contributed to the wiki: thank you. If you have made icons or banners or graphics: thank you. If you've spent time thinking about how things work and how they *should* work, and given that feedback, on the mailing list or as a spec: thank you. If you've spent time combing through old LiveJournal suggestions to think about what would be awesome to have in Dreamwidth, or spent time thinking about how you use online community tools to figure out what would be great to have, or you've described that one nagging thing that *always annoyed you* and let us know we should fix it, or you've given feedback to one of our surveys or our card sort tests or any of our other solicitations of opinion: thank you. If you've challenged our assumptions and asked us to clarify them, if you've asked questions about things that were unclear to you so we could make them clear to everyone, if you've called us out on the choices we're making and asked us to re-evaluate them or explain them better, if you've told us that we're wrong about how we think people are using the site, if you've given us details about what you want from your online community and how you *use* your online community and asked us to take that into consideration as we work: thank you. We're building ourselves the home we've always wanted. And we're getting closer and closer to the home stretch, and I, for one, cannot *wait* to see what else we can all accomplish. --D -- Denise Paolucci [email protected] Dreamwidth Studios: Open Source, open expression, open operations. Coming soon! _______________________________________________ dw-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dwscoalition.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dw-discuss
