Dreamwidth

Dreamwidth is a fandom-friendly LiveJournal code fork site (rather than a clone), which implements some changes to the LJ codebase to offer improved and new features. 
Launched as invite-only, after a period of closed betaDreamwidth FAQ How do I create an account?(accessed 25 April 2009), it entered 'open beta' on 2009 April 30, offering paid accounts for the first time. Two years later, the open beta period ended on April 30, 2011Happy birthday to my baby!(accessed August 30, 2011).
Dreamwidth is staffed by experienced former LiveJournal employees and has Guiding Principles, a Diversity Statement and an Operating Agreement publicly visible.
A few of the many implemented changes include http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dreamwidth_changes_from_LJ: 
* full import of an account and its contents from any other LiveJournal-based service
* splitting the friendslist into 'access' and 'subscribe' functions
* increased length limits on entries, comments and usernames
* more control over adult content warnings without site-forced adult content settings
* additional post formatting and content warning controls for community maintainers
* reworked journal style system and user icon interfaces
Currently there are lists, a wiki and an IRC channel to discuss Dreamwidth and its development.
==Origin of the Name==
From 2012: The origin of the name Dreamwidth. archive link (August 28, 2012) 
From 2017: 
==Fandom on Dreamwidth==
Before the site was out of closed beta and only a very few accounts had been handed out, synecdochic hosted The Inaugural Dreamwidth Comment Porn Meme beginning on March 29, 2009The Inaugural Dreamwidth Comment Porn Meme, accessed August 28, 2011. Fans got to experience the larger comment size limits and many people had to navigate Open ID login since they didn't have Dreamwidth accounts yet. 
* Kink Bingo moved to Dreamwidth for the 2009 challenge.
* Scans Daily moved to Dreamwidth in November, 2009.
* Fandom Secrets moved to DreamWidth on June 1, 2012
===Homegrown Dreamwidth fannish sites===
*Animanga News
*Dark Agenda
*Fancake and the related comm, Bestthingever 
*Kink Finders
*Queerlygen
*SPN Bitesized
*White Collar Weekly Roundup
*Are You Game?
=== Controversy around early migration from Livejournal ===
Dreamwidth has been a source of both widespread squee and significant controversy within fandom. Some of the arguments within fandom have touched on the following points:
Arguments against Dreamwidth:
* Fandom should not abandon LiveJournal altogether in favour of Dreamwidth as some proponents suggest.
* Dreamwidth is "elitist" (an invite code was required to set up an account during closed beta, and is required to set up a free account during open beta; various BNFs have moved to, or plan to move to, Dreamwidth); 
* Dreamwidth users are "forcing" LJ users to comment on their posts on Dreamwidth, rather than on LJ;
* Subscribing and granting access on Dreamwidth is more hurtful and confusing than LJ's "Friends List." Metafandom's "dreamwidth" bookmarks on Delicious. (Accessed April 25, 2009) Looking at the bigger picture (Or, "Oh look, fandom is throwing a hissy again."), by bzzinglikeneon. (Accessed April 26, 2009);
* Some fans argued that importing comments from LJ to Dreamwidth is a copyright violation.telesilla, it's like rain on your wedding day (Accessed May 7, 2009).
Arguments in favor of Dreamwidth:
* LiveJournal is not a safe space for fandom thanks to events like Strikethrough; Dreamwidth is more fan-friendly because one of its founders is a fan;
* Dreamwidth has taken pains to be interoperable with LJ and other journaling services, and also to be accessible to those with disabilities;Jade, dreamwidth -- it's not all or nothing, posted April 27, 2009
* The initial invite code phase is not a sign of elitism, but was a natural way to keep account growth reasonable, and a variety of invite-code-sharing communities and opportunities are available;
* With OpenID, DW users can easily give access to those who choose to remain on LJ.Zvi, Crossposting and Locked Posts: A very careful operation, posted April 23, 2009.
* For some fans, the language of "access" is less fraught than "friending" and "de-friending," and it's good to be able to separate between who one wants to read and who one wants one's locked posts to be read by;
* On the comment-importing issue, some fans argued that there's value in keeping conversations intact when journals are moved; also that once someone makes a comment in someone else's journal, the original commentor no longer "owns" the comment (the person in whose journal a comment was made can choose to delete the comment, lock down the journal, and/or move the journal to a new journaling site without disturbing fannish norms of communication.)
* There was an "open account creation week" from February 21, 2011 to February 28, 2011, during which an invite code was not needed to create a free account. If growth during this period is sustainable, and it does not lead to increased spam and abuse, it may be repeated as often as monthly. Denise, dw_news: Weekly update: 10 February 2011: Open Account Creation Week 
Various fans have pointed out that the backlash against Dreamwidth is similar to that experienced by LiveJournal when (parts of) fandom first began to shift over from mailing lists and message boards.see for example: April 21st 2009. gerrisullivan. My thoughts about Dreamwidth. (Accessed April 26, 2009)Seperis, fandom and migration, posted April 17, 2009
Some fans have asserted that the presence of Dreamwidth is helping to "save" LiveJournal, by providing a stable and workable alternative for those who'd been wanting to leave LJ or mirror their journals elsewhere, and also by their commitment to interoperability.Azurelunatic, How Dreamwidth is saving LiveJournal, posted August 1, 2009.
===Development of Dreamwidth features and growth of its fannish users===
LiveJournal offers most of its code as Open Source code, available for anyone to use to make a clone or fork[LiveJournal offers most of its code as Open Source code, available for anyone to use to make a clone or fork. LiveJournal Code in About LiveJournal](accessed August 30, 2011). When LiveJournal develops new code, some of it is added to that Open Source section, but some of their features and developments remain LiveJournal only. Dreamwidth developers can choose to adopt any code out of the Open Source pool they wish. They also develop many features and enhancements that are unique to the site. As time goes on, the two sites become more and more distinct as they each develop on their own paths.
Two key features the Dreamwidth developers had hoped to implement have not borne fruit. One, the ability to import communities may yet be implemented (this was initially implemented for paid communities, and was opened up to all communities in February 2012), but the ability to read your LJ friends list on Dreamwidth itself will almost certainly not be able to be implemented.Weekly update: 24 December, "Sad Project News" These two features may be must haves for some fans to consider a move of their primary fannish home from LJ to Dreamwidth. 
Dreamwidth emphasizes interoperability with Livejournal and other sites. As fandom splinters away from Livejournal, fans on Dreamwidth take advantage of this in many ways. All account levels can make RSS feeds, and fannish use of feeds of Livejournal, InsaneJournal, Journalfen, Tumblr, Twitter and blog accounts is widespread. Fanfic FlamingoProfile page for Fanfic Falmingo feed which has 50 subscribers on August 31, 2011, a Tumblr account, has over 50 subscribers and some newsletters have over 100 subscribersProfile page for Trek News which shows 147 subscribers on August 31, 2011. Misha Collins twitter feed has 25 subscribers.Profile page of Misha Collins twitter feed which shows 25 subscribers on August 31, 2011
Many fans use the crossposting and link-back features to post their fannish content to other sites. While communities cannot use the crossposting feature, many fannish comms do a manual mirroring or crossposting to serve fans on both Dreamwidth and Livejournal. Polyamory Big Bang and McShep Match are two examples of fic challenges that post to both sites. Metafandom posts to LJ, Dreamwidth and Journalfen.
===Tumblr vs Dreamwidth===
In some corners of fannish Tumblr, a migration back to Dreamwidth has been suggested as a solution to some of the perceived problems with Tumblr as a platform for fandom communities. On December 20, 2016, Tumblr user pythiaspeaks posted on their blog:
The post was reblogged by the Tag Wrangling-focused blog wrangletangle, who wrote:
Additionally, Tumblr user deadcatwithaflamethrower wrote in November 2015 that, "I will be seriously amused if Tumblr managed to do what Livejournal could not do in its entirety- drive everyone completely onto Dreamwidth and make the company’s stats fucking SOAR." adding that Dreamwidth is free with no ads, and that "Unlike Tumblr, Tags on Dreamwidth are fucking useful." 
They suggested keeping Tumblr for image hosting, which is one function that Dreamwidth doesn't have, and concluded by saying, "If everyone gets serious about this Fuck You Tumblr thing…well. DW is what LJ used to be, and has no intention of ever changing that."Blog post by deadcatwithaflamethrower on Tumblr, posted November 1, 2015 (Accessed December 29, 2016).
Other arguments made by users who favour Dreamwidth over Tumblr include:
*A single, all-inclusive posting setup ("not several restrictive sub-mechanisms (TEXT, IMAGE, etc.) that don’t always suit what you want to do") and a fully-fledged Rich Text EditorBlog post by janglingargot on Tumblr, posted July 19, 2013 (Accessed December 29, 2016).
*A more logical, integrated comment system instead of scattered reblogs
*Up to 15 free icons, of which different icons can be used for different posts
*The Dreamwidth diversity statement and guiding principles
Arguments made in favour of Tumblr over Dreamwidth (or LiveJournal) include:
*Its strength as a platform for spreading information, memes, ideas and jokesBlog post by schafudel, posted June 1, 2013 (Accessed December 29, 2016).
*Its strength as a hosting platform for image-based content (Tumblr user sfingosella-old theorised that the reluctance to move platforms comes largely from fanartists for this reasonBlog post by pluckyminna on Tumblr, posted July 21, 2013 (Accessed December 29, 2016).)
*The ability to search the site for posts within a specific tag from multiple blogs
*Its comparatively low barrier for participation, and the ability to more easily see posts from users outside your personal fandom bubbleBlog post by amara, posted December 30, 2016 (Accessed December 30, 2016).
===Later migrations from LJ to Dreamwidth===
* April 2017 - https://dw-maintenance.dreamwidth.org/75631.html
** notably, the most new account creations by day (as of 16 April 2017) occurred on 6 April 2017 (54721 accounts were created, which is 58 more than the day after Dreamwidth went into open beta)Dreamwidth Raw Statistics (Accessed 16 April 2017)
* Feb 2017 - https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/2017/02/15/february-2017.html
* Jan 2017 - https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/37592.html
* December 2018 - https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/38929.html
==Additional Reading/Meta==
* ; ; part three archive link part three; by synecdochic (July 2008)
* , by zvi loves tv (April 17, 2009)
* , by princessofgeeks (April 17, 2009)
* , synecdochic 2010-05-03 
* (Posted Sept 3, 2014)
* (December 2015)
== Notes ==
Category:Websites
Category:Social Networking