On Mar 11, 2009, at 5:43 AM, Philip Newton wrote: > Will OpenID accounts be able to keep a journal, too (i.e. write > entries in it), and post entries in communities?
Not at launch, and likely not for a long time (if ever). Allowing OpenID accounts to post entries in communities would be far more likely than allowing them to keep a journal (with access to associated features). This is because: > So, I'm wondering whether there's a technical reason why OpenID users > can't be treated pretty much the same as other accounts on Dreamwidth. > (I'm guessing there isn't -- i.e. while it might not be possible right > now, the code to change this would not be too great and might even > consists partly of removing checks rather than adding additional code > in some places -- but am willing to be told I'm wrong.) > > And the other thing is the policy side: is there a > philosophical/policy/business reason why OpenID users should not be > able to have journals and work like personal accounts? Uploading > userpics, purchasing paid time, etc.? 1). The technical reason: making the alteration would take a lot of work. Not be impossible, but take a lot of work, and run the risk of breaking lots of things. While we are not averse to lots of work, in this case it would be lots of work to our detriment, as: 2). Allowing OpenID users to function as full-featured personal accounts would completely bypass the invite code system, which we are using as necessary to control site growth and limit the number of free (unpaying) accounts to a number that can be supported by the then-current percentage of paid accounts. The features that personal accounts have access to are the ones that cost us money to offer. (OpenID accounts also cost us money to support, in terms of the resources they consume in viewing, but that's also factored into the free user::paid user ratio.) Allowing OpenID users access to all the site features would thus privilege OpenID accounts over free personal accounts (as people would not need an invite code to create an OpenID account) and *dis*courage people to move to DW accounts, resulting in net loss to us. I doubt this would be offset by people purchasing paid time for OpenID accounts. I would not be adverse to allowing OpenID accounts to post to communities, down the road. I would be highly adverse to allowing OpenID accounts to maintain journals and access the full range of even the basic free-user features, because it would completely bypass the tools we'll be using to keep site growth rational and sustainable. --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
