Dreamwidth Timeline

Expand: This should be a timeline of DW's conception. Should probably also include LJ actions as well that drove DW's formation.

A more complete history of LJ can be found on this timeline of LiveJournal.

LJ History

1999

• 1999-03 -- brad starts LJ

2001

• 2001-03-24 -- Brad announces LJ is open source
• 2001-05 -- LJ clone DeadJournal is started
• 2001-11 -- LJ clone InsaneJournal is started

2003

• 2003-02-05 -- bradfitz announces strict by-day rate limiting on entries (to curb a spammer influx).
• 2003-02-05 -- Over the next few days, users react to the user impact of strict rate limiting of entries (including entries to communities), with over 2000 comments on the first news post and 1,000-some on the second.
• 2003-02-07 -- bradfitz says "I would never advertise on LJ. That's so 1994."
• 2003-03 -- LJ clone JournalFen is started
• This is also the year that fandom_wank is TOSed from LiveJournal, TOSed from Blurty, and ends up at JournalFen.

2004

• 2004-01 -- Mark Smith hired by LiveJournal as a developer: http://news.livejournal.com/75899.html

2005

• 2005-01-05 -- Big news... Six Apart and LiveJournal! -- Six Apart purchases LiveJournal

2006

• 2006-04-18 -- Introducing a new account level -- The introduction of Sponsored+, later to become Plus. This account level includes advertisements.
• May/June -- Breastfeeding strike
• 2006-09-26 -- Sponsored Content -- Sponsored accounts and features come into being
• 2006-10-18 -- LJ and SUP -- Six Apart turns over the Russian side of LJ to SUP

2007

• 2007-05-29 -- Strikethrough, Phase I
• 2007-06-21 -- Hypothetically, let's say that you had a chance to sit down with the person who's going to be the future buck-stops-here decision-maker for LJ. (synecdochic)
• 2007-07-15 -- the internet is serious business (synecdochic) -- synecdochic announces she is quitting employment at LJ and her last day is July 27th.
• 2007-08-02 -- Strikethrough, Phase II
• 2007-08 -- LJ Clone Scribblet is born
• 2007-12-12 -- Six Apart Announces New Home for LiveJournal -- Sale to SUP
• 2007-12-07ish -- GreatestJournal diaspora starts. GJ users are told to start migrating to another site.
• 2007-12-19 -- Jason Shellen joins LiveJournal as VP of Product Development: http://blog.shellen.com/2007/12/im-joining-livejournal-as-vp-of-product.asp

Early 2008

• 2008-01 -- Mark goes to work for Mozilla http://blog.mozilla.com/mark/2008/01/

Pre-Dreamwidth -- ie, Hypothetical Journal

March 2008

• 2008-03-12 -- The 100th Day -- Removal of Basic option for new accounts created. See also I feel very, very, very fucking sorry for certain people today. (synecdochic).
• 2008-03, 15-17 -- Interest blocking from the Top 100 list discovered and then removed.
• 2008-03-21 -- totally hypothetical no really i swear -- Poll gauging people's interest in a hypothetical journalling service.
• 2008-03-26 -- Jason Shellen leaves LiveJournal http://twitter.com/shellen/statuses/777452202

April 2008

• 2008-04-02 -- tupshin's journal created.
• 2008-04-06 -- First 4 Dreamwidth accounts created. http://www.dreamwidth.org/stats/stats.txt
• 2008-04-07 -- twocorpses hands the Scribblit journal service over to Kit, keeping rights to the Scribblit name herself.
• 2008-04-08 -- popefelix takes over administration of the site formerly known as Scribblit.
• 2008-04-19 -- The Site Formerly Known as Scribblit changes to Inksome

May 2008

• 2008-05 -- Inksome opens to public paid accounts
• 2008-05-02 -- New LiveJournal dev manager tupshin introduces himself in his journal: http://tupshin.livejournal.com/1298.html

Dreamwidth Development

June 2008

• 2008-06-11 -- Announcing Dreamwidth Studios. Coming Summer 2008. -- The announcement of DW's conception.
• 2008-06-16 -- Poll: Mood Themes -- Poll about mood themes.
• 2008-06-13 -- S2 Styles Poll. -- Poll about S2 layouts.
• 2008-06-24 -- straw poll #19384 -- Poll about top-level menu items in the LJ scheme.

July 2008

• 2008-07-02 -- Dreamwidth needs mood themes! -- a public call for people to design mood themes.
• 2008-07-30 -- I keep forgetting! and this -- DW is open for volunteer development.

August 2008

• 2008-08-08 -- First quote in #dw IRC QDB -- A quotes database for Dreamwidth's IRC channels is opened on qdb.zhzh.org, and the first quote appears. (QDB is later moved.)

December 2008

• 2008-12-01 -- Mark starts at Google: http://xb95.dreamwidth.org/624464.html

January 2009

• 2009-01-06 -- The Grim Purge -- LJ lays off half of the San Francisco office employees, including the entire design team. Dreamwidth kicks into high gear:
  • Rest In Peace (xb95)
  • FYI (synecdochic).
• 2009-01-07 -- GreatestJournal dies completely, after having limped along in zombie form for the past six months.

Dreamwidth Begins

2009

February 2009

• 2009-02-14 -- Closed beta launch. Accounts are given to the beta testers and testing begins.
• 2009-02-16 -- dw-progress: 16 February 2009 dw-news comes into use.
• 2009-02-28 -- scans_daily TOSed from LiveJournal

March 2009

• 2009-03-09 -- Progress Report: 9 March 2009 -- First code tour (list of resolved bugs)
• 2009-03-16 -- Progress Report: March 16, 2009 -- Mention of "code bootcamp" (#dw_kindergarten)
• 2009-03-23 -- Progress Report: 23 March 2009 -- core2 style system backend released.
• 2009-03-26 -- Open Beta Launch Date Set -- Date of 2009-04-30 (evening, EST) set for open beta; two-phase seed account sale announced.
• 2009-03-30 -- Progress Report: 30 March 2009

April 2009

• 2009-04-07 -- http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/2666.html
• 2009-04-08 -- http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/2826.html
• 2009-04-14 -- LJ Support IRC moves to its own server: http://community.livejournal.com/irctownhall/8069.html

(lots of missing stuff goes here)

• 2009-04-30 -- Open beta launch.

(lots of missing stuff goes here)

May 2009

• 2009-05-01 - peak of 54663 new accounts created in one day (includes OpenID from journal imports). http://www.dreamwidth.org/stats/stats.txt
• 2009-05-07 - A total of 175,846 accounts were created in the first week of open beta.
• Mark and Janine married; ceremony performed by Denise
• 2009-05-31 - A total of 258,616 accounts were created in the first month of open beta, including the accounts from the first week (includes OpenID from journal imports).

(lots of missing stuff goes here)

September 2009

• 2009-09-28 - dw-news (regular update): http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/11791.html

October 2009

• 2009-10-05 -- dw-news: denise and sarah engaged; mark working full-time for Dreamwidth; : http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/12240.html
• 2009-10-12 -- dw-news: from last code push: autocrosspost not just from site & sticky entries; search feedback: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/12509.html
• 2009-10-14 -- dw-news: positive feedback loop between crossposter and importer (now fixed): http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/12724.html
• 2009-10-19 -- dw-news: site search released in last code push: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/12895.html
• 2009-10-22 -- tupshin's departure from LiveJournal staff announced to LiveJournal Support: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_support/795054.html
• 2009-10-23 -- scans_daily broaches the possibility of moving to Dreamwidth to their members.
• 2009-10-26 -- dw_news: From Sunday's code push: new-member welcome entry for comms & all-activity subscriptions for community admins; paid account discount to end Nov 1; feedback solicited about invite codes; farewell to Tupshin: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/13069.html

November 2009

• 2009-11-02 -- dw-news update: 1500 resolved bugs; icon limits increased; post-by-email to all users; latest page created; Mark tries NaNoWriMo; posting in dw_codesharing opened to non-members: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/13432.html

New icon limits

Free accounts: 15 icons

Paid acounts: 100 icons

Premium paid/Seed accounts: 250 icons

• 2009-11-09 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/13683.html
• 2009-11-14 -- IJ scans_daily closed and moved to Dreamwidth.
• 2009-11-16 -- dw_news update: AO3.org in open beta; new accounts to use Skittlish Dreams blue: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/13864.html
• 2009-11-23 -- dw_news update: update time button for entry posting for next code push; 40 suggestions implemented (25% of suggestions taken into bugzilla); http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/14312.html
• 2009-11-30 -- dw_news update: denise's first appearance in a published anthology; admin-only security & icon tag renames for next code push; high not-spam reports; actually 49 suggestions implemented (30%): http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/14528.html

December 2009

• 2009-12-07 -- dw_news update: holiday 6+2 month sale pre-announced; live in last code push: icon keyword renaming, admin-only community entries, active entries module: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/14833.html
• 2009-12-15 -- dw_news update: Holiday promotion live; NZ and AU visits announced; deleted account purges planned; live in last code push: edit reason for comments: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/14987.html
• 2009-12-21 -- dw_news update: live in last code push: Gradation Vertical sitescheme: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/15300.html
• 2009-12-29 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/15610.html

2010

January 2010

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6939/1/

• 2010-01-05 -- dw_news update: purging deleted accounts to begin soon, reminder on icon poll, end of 6+2 paid time promo, denise's birthday and call for Harry/Draco fic recommendations: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/15633.html
• 2010-01-12 -- dw_news update: code push: comment screening updated, popular subscriptions page http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/popsubscriptions, more inbox filters, every-time password entry for crosspost: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/16019.html
• 2010-01-14 -- dw_news update: Account security and important notes: troll attack: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/16338.html
• 2010-01-15 -- dw_news update: update on current events: switch from PayPal: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/16590.html
• 2010-01-19 -- dw_news update: Attending http://www.lca2010.org.nz/ http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/16775.html
• 2010-01-26 -- dw_news update: Denise back from NZ; code: community admins can close polls; no alternative to PayPal yet: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/17121.html

February 2010

• 2010-02-05 -- dw_news update: holiday promotion *actually* turned off; Google Checkout in place; email forwarding spam filter tweak: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/17231.html
• 2010-02-16 -- dw_news update: cross-site reading discussion, community importing, suggestions process, update page update wireframe complete, mockup to happen: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/17591.html
• 2010-02-22 -- dw_news update: Google Checkout no longer active; metadata saved in emergency draft recovery; fu to work for DW full-time: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/17858.html

March 2010

• 2010-03-02 -- dw_news update: suggestions hackathon, payments update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/17942.html
• 2010-03-05 -- Spike in account creations, 1714 new accounts in one day.
• 2010-03-07 -- "Six Weeks for Dreamwidth" festival proposed: http://erda.dreamwidth.org/44698.html (later became three_weeks_for_dw)
• 2010-03-08 -- dw_news update: renames coming soon, EasyRead style, payment provider application approved: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/18191.html
• 2010-03-16 -- dw_news update: Bug 11 resolved, Google Summer of Code discussion, code push coming, Three Weeks for Dreamwidth anniversary festival, a caution against obnoxious evangelism, meetups: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/18504.html
• 2010-03-23 -- IRC move to Freenode finalized; old IRC server decomissioned.
• 2010-03-23 -- dw_news update: Google Summer of Code, Ada Lovelace Day, credits in new payment system announced, fundraiser brainstorming, http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/18764.html
• 2010-03-30 -- dw_news update: code push http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/19003.html

April 2010

• 2010-04-05 -- fu joining full time.
• 2010-04-07 -- fu's first news post. New payments system with points online.
• 2010-04-09 -- Google Summer of Code applications close.
• 2010-04-09 -- http://qdb.dreamwidth.net/ split from old LiveJournal QDB, in separate hosting
• 2010-04-14 -- denise on hand rest: http://denise.dreamwidth.org/38803.html
• 2010-04-16 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/19567.html - Dreamwidth swag store, zero green, 6 slots for GSoC, mark will be wearing the developer hat.
• Late April -- the outboundlink LiveJournal fiasco; afuna explains the technical reasons for her discomfort. Drives a number of users to (at least temporarily) stop crossposting; some are driven to fully switch.

• 2010-04-26 -- three-weeks-for-dw festival begins.
• 2010-04-28 -- Freenode approves Dreamwidth's group application & information on cloaks added to IRC page.
• 2010-04-20 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/19959.html
• 2010-04-26 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/20211.html - summer of code

May 2010

• 2010-05-03 - 2010-05-06 -- mark and denise attend Web 2.0 Expo.
• 2010-05-04 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/20337.html - tag merge, anniversary sale ongoing
• 2010-05-04 -- dw_biz: The state of the coffers
• 2010-05-06 -- vulva makes a public comment complaining about an inappropriate comment from a LiveJournal staff member on material that was supposed to have been locked, which sparks a round of general as well as specific discussion about staff access to secured material on social media.
• 2010-05-09 -- mark speaks about staff access to secured content on Dreamwidth, discussion of a FAQ entry about this.
• 2010-05-10 -- denise makes a dw_news entry involving staff access to secured content on Dreamwidth; also update redesign, call for vgift artists
• 2010-05-19 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/20933.html - GSoC starting & a review of projects
• 2010-05-26 -- Denise and Sarah married: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/21237.html
• 2010-05-26 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/21237.html - update page redesign mockup

(Some time around here-ish Mark takes a day job working for StumbleUpon.)

June 2010

• 2010-06-01 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/21330.html - r&r, entry page update feedback being accepted
• 2010-06-06 -- "Account Contents" section added to the Privacy Policy (announced in dw_news June 08).
• 2010-06-08 -- dw_news update: Tag merge and cut expansion, 2nd month in the black financially, author tagging in comms (code merge from LJ), community all-comments subscription (paid comms), reading page security filter (paid). http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/21507.html
• 2010-06-15 -- dw_news update: inline cut tag expansion a big hit, also over 2,000 bugs resolved
• 2010-06-16 -- brief downtime in which Mark has to pull over to the side of the road to fix it - http://dw-maintenance.dreamwidth.org/23889.html
• 2010-06-17 -- Milestone: Poll 3500
• 2010-06-23 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/22135.html -
• 2010-06-25 -- Bare-bones S2 style for syndicated accounts: http://changelog.dreamwidth.org/649976.html
• 2010-06-30 -- ToS team roundup #3: http://dw-biz.dreamwidth.org/5624.html
• 2010-06-30 -- dw_news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/22439.html

July 2010

• 2010-07-06 -- dw-news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/22655.html
• 2010-07-14 -- dw-news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/23006.html
• 2010-07-19 to 23 -- http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010
• 2010-07-28 -- dw-news update: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/23257.html

August 2010

• 2010-08-21 -- Inksome announces a net loss from 1 May 2010 to 31 July 2010: "... we're losing money again. ... a difference of $178.50 ... cannot afford that kind of loss every month. Unless account revenue improves soon, I will be forced to shut down the site." http://www.inksome.com/users/news/13110.html
• 2010-08-31 LiveJournal rolls out r69, with Twitter and Facebook integration, most notoriously including ability to easily send links with quotes of locked content to Twitter and Facebook, and a re-implementation of pingbacks that sometimes shared large excerpts of locked content with people not authorized to see it.
  • news http://news.livejournal.com/129190.html
  • r69 http://community.livejournal.com/lj_releases/61333.html

September 2010

• 2010-09-01 - Spike in Dreamwidth new accounts created: 9350 new accounts (includes OpenID from journal imports). http://www.dreamwidth.org/stats/stats.txt
• 2010-09-02
  • lj_refugees created.
  • Six Apart announces the closing of Vox. http://team.vox.com/library/post/vox-is-closing-september-30-2010.html
  • 12619 new accounts created (includes OpenID from journal imports). Largest spike since 2009 05 01. http://www.dreamwidth.org/stats/stats.txt
• 2010-09-07 - mark announces he has stepped back from day-to-day management of Dreamwidth. Mark remains involved with the project and a co-owner. http://mark.dreamwidth.org/21501.html
• 2010-09-10 - LiveJournal announces that the most unpopular parts of r69 (easy linking of locked or screened content) will be undone with the next code release. http://news.livejournal.com/129284.html
• 2010-09-18 - New account creations drop below 1,000 in a day for the first day since 2010-09-01. 88,268 new accounts (including imported OpenID) were created from Sept 1st to 17th.

October 2010

• 2010-10 -- Mark and Janine announce their separation.
• 2010-10-21 -- Denise & Sarah begin the process of purchasing a house.

November 2010

• 2010-11-19 - List of writers, photographers, etc. on Dreamwidth started curation: http://denise.dreamwidth.org/54683.html
• 2010-11-22 - Denise & Sarah purchased house.

December 2010

• Denise & Sarah moving house, spotty internet access
• 2010-12-10 -- Inksome's financial troubles continue: "... we are very likely still going to be going dark come April, because we have not made any progress where it comes to turning a profit." http://www.inksome.com/users/news/13421.html
• 2010-12-24 - "Sad Project News" Cross-site reading tabled until factors making it impossible change. http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/27853.html

2011

January 2011

• Denise & Sarah's spotty internet access continues.
• 2011-01-12 -- Inksome users offered a group invite code: http://www.inksome.com/users/news/13591.html

February 2011

• 2011-02-10 -- Reliable internet access for Denise & Sarah returns: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/28412.html
• 2011-02-21 -- Open account creation week: from 2011-02-21 to 2011-02-28, it was possible to create a Dreamwidth account for free without the use of an invite code, as an experiment to see if growth would be sustainable and to see if spam and abuse would rise after the open account creation period. 5497 accounts (including OpenID) were created in this window. Only ~10 were then discovered to be spammers.
• 2011-02-28 -- Denise & Sarah adopt "Noah", a toe-chewing kitten.

March 2011

• 2011-03-2 -- LiveJournal is added to a Spamhaus blacklist for hosting a large number of spammer journals.
• 2011-03-13 -- Inksome announces "...we have not had any significant turnaround in income, which means yes, we're still going dark in a few weeks."
• -- LJ changes the IP address from which it is sending email. [citation needed]
• -- LJ suspends some quarter of a million spammer accounts, with an estimated error rate of 1%.
• 2011-03-28 -- Code push: http://dw-maintenance.dreamwidth.org/30344.html which included the change stripping some HTML/CSS used by spammers from comments: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/28412.html
• 2011-03 -- Last week of March, LJ downtime due to DDoS. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2063952,00.html

April 2011

• 2011-04-01 to 2011-04-06 -- LJ downtime, DDoS-related. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2063952,00.html
• 2011-04-06 -- Spike in new account creations: 16,226
• 2011-04-08 -- Inksome's hosting expired.
• 2011-04-30 -- Second anniversary of Open Beta. Seed accounts on sale; 'beta' removed from site logo. http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/29530.html http://changelog.dreamwidth.org/936983.html

October 2011

• 2011-10-12 - "Expand All" collapsed comments for paid users to be in next code push http://dw-dev.dreamwidth.org/100133.html
• 2011-10-30 - New Update Page goes into beta testing http://dw-beta.dreamwidth.org/12259.html

November 2011

• 2011-11-01 -- Migration to new Dreamhack server finalized; inactive Dreamhacks archived. http://bugs.dwscoalition.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4001#c2

• 2011-11-24 -- Oliver Graham Smith born: http://xb95.dreamwidth.org/744397.html (Also pictures: http://xb95.dreamwidth.org/744623.html )

• Late November -- LiveJournal under heavy DDoS attacks with phishing, suffers downtime

December 2011

• Early December -- LiveJournal under heavy DDoS attacks, suffers downtime, crossposting affected
• -- Elections in Russia
• Open account creation period starts
• LJ's R88
• Spike in traffic/new users
• 2011-12-25 -- community import bug committed

2012

January 2012

• Community imports
• SOPA/PIPA protests: splash screen (minimal interference with site as it is a communications platform)
• 2012-01-19 -- #dw-tmi unofficially revived

February 2012

• OpenID claiming

March 2012

• The Support High Scores Board spills onto a second page, meaning that more than 100 different volunteers have answered support requests since Dreamwidth's creation.
• Replaced reCAPTCHA with Text Captcha

May 2012

• Dreamwidth decides to move from Mercurial to Git for source code management.

July 2012

• Dreamwidth sponsors a group of developers to attend OSCON, marking the beginning of an annual conference tradition. The first rough implementation of image hosting capability is made available.

2013

January 2013

• 2013-01-01 -- misskat comes on board as Dreamwidth's second employee.

April 2013

• Added ability to reply to comments by email, and public subscription filters.

June 2013

• Dreamwidth's yearly conference for 2013 is YAPC::NA in Austin, Texas. Mark, Denise, and Kat present talks about diversity, attracting and retaining volunteers, and self-care.

September 2013

• 2013-09-26 -- mark switches IRC nick from xb95 to zorkian.

November 2013

• Development begins on implementing next-generation responsive design using Foundation/SCSS.

2014

March 2014

• 2014-03-14 -- The Dreamwidth Bugzilla database is accidentally deleted, with no backups. The development team begins to use Github's issue tracker for managing bug reports and ongoing projects.

April 2014

• LiveJournal closes off access to their source code.

June 2014

• 2014-06 -- Dreamwidth's yearly conference is Open Source Bridge for 2014. A number of Dreamwidth people give presentations.

• Beginning of deployment of Foundation-styled pages. First to be converted is the community admin area, followed by journal styles.

2015

February 2015

• 2015-02-03 -- fu announces she has moved from the Phillippines to the Bay Area.

June 2015

• Open Source Bridge is again Dreamwidth's yearly conference. Dreamwidth brings 12 people officially, a number of whom speak. There are also a number of Friends of Dreamwidth.
• fu steps down as employee, intends to return as a volunteer (after getting on board at new job)

July 2015

• 2015-07-06 -- karzilla becomes DevCom

2016

June 2016

• 2016-06-18 -- Icon size limit increased from 40KB to 60KB.
• 2016-06-28 -- misskat steps down as head of support.
• No official DW conference this year, although several friends of DW return to Open Source Bridge.

December 2016

• 2016-12-01 -- DW moves to new hardware.
• 2016-12-24 -- Another spike in new users, especially from Russia and Ukraine, following rumors of LJ's servers moving to Russia.

2017

February 2017

• 2017-02-12 -- Image hosting pages come out of beta; HTTPS Everywhere beta is added.

March 2017

• 2017-03-04 -- The Dreamhack machine suffers a catastrophic failure, requiring rebuilding from scratch on new hardware.

The Future

• Cross-site Authenticated Reading List Tabled until factors making it impossible regarding LJ change, as of 2010-12-24: http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/27853.html
• Entry creation out of beta/edit redesign
• Photo/image hosting (currently in beta) finished Feb 2017
• Redesign client API
• Continued open account creation, unless spam, performance, or some other reasons force it to be turned off!