recent LJ controversies, Three Weeks for DW

[charmian]

Been busy translating some stuff, although I am planning to put up some links about the latest Facebook events.

Hmm, at this point a lot of my thoughts about LJ's latest scandal regarding the Driving Revenue/Outboundlinks stuff can be summed up by this animated .gif. Here are tips on dealing with the issue, in case you haven't heard already.

Also, there's a comm on DW dedicated to creating exclusive content for DW for three weeks. Since most of the content in this blog is original and not cross-posted to anywhere else, I guess you could say I'm already 'participating.' Anyhow, this campaign makes me wonder whether it is true that one of the impediments to DW growth is that there is a dearth of original content on DW?

Poll #2875

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 55

View Respondents

What do you think the main factor impeding/slowing DW growth is?

View Answers

Lack of DW-exclusive content
6 (10.9%)

Dearth of active comms
33 (60.0%)

Invite code system
3 (5.5%)

Insufficient publicity
1 (1.8%)

Something else which I will detail in comments
12 (21.8%)

Comments

[morineko]

since I'm not using DW as a social network, but as a blogging service/non-anon commenting account, I'll address that issue; there's no reason for people to drop their other blog services unless it is indeed LJ or an LJ clone because it's not as friendly to use as the other services. Also, I used to think that invite codes were a great idea to combat spam, but it also discourages non-DW bloggers from commenting here.

[holyschist]

...but you don't need an invite code to comment. You can comment anonymously (and I'm hoping for signed anon comments soon--I think that would help!) or with OpenID. Anyway, invite codes don't just combat spam--they also ensure sustainable site growth.

LJ started out invite-only and that didn't hurt its growth; but I also think DW is growing much like LJ did in its early years, so I'm kind of puzzled by all this why-isn't-DW-growing discussion anyway.

[foxfirefey]

LJ did not start out invite only. LJ only put up invites at a point where they needed to constrain growing too fast. So, in that way, DW is starting from a disadvantage, because it didn't get that early, lesser-barrier start. On the other hand, DW is very, very generous on the invites front; with LiveJournal, you'd get an invite code for making a new journal or one for each month of paid time. DW gives them out regularly to the entire populace, gives them out if you ask and don't look like a squatter, and makes bulk invites for events where lots of people might need to join.

Unfortunately, I think spam is a worse problem than it used to be when LJ started out, and there are automated programs that I imagine would be compatible with Dreamwidth if it didn't have invite codes. For instance, you can see on IJ's latest stats that a good percentage of the new/lastest updated journals are spam journals. LJ's latest page used to be 1/2 spam, which from my calculations mean 1/3 of all posts were spam.

[charmian]

Thanks for that reminder! Yeah, based on the growth of IJ... I'm not really that sure whether DW would start growing insanely. Rather than growth to the point that the performance would suffer, I think what is more likely is namesquatting and spammers.

Yeah, that's basically what I think is the main positive effect of invite codes.

[holyschist]

Oops, I did not know what. When I arrived at LJ it still seemed pretty small.

[foxfirefey]

Yeah, on the other hand, LJ probably started out a lot smaller--DW got a bit of a "buzz" jump start.

[foxfirefey]

Also, I used to think that invite codes were a great idea to combat spam, but it also discourages non-DW bloggers from commenting here.

Do you think the named guest commenting project coming up will help that? It's a step between OpenID and anonymous, and pretty analogous to the default WordPress commenting setup.

[charmian]

I can't speak for Morineko, but IMHO, I think that would be a great advance.

[foxfirefey]

I think it has a good chance of being a GSoC project; there were a bunch of applications for that one. If so, then it should be implemented this summer!