Dreamwidth Development

Question thread #149

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 01:40:11 GMT

Posted by: pauamma

It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

comments

AI and Dreamwidth

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:21:52 GMT

Posted by: mark

We've seen some questions lately about AI and how it relates to Dreamwidth, especially around scraping and training. Rather than answer piecemeal, I wanted to talk through how denise and I are thinking about this and try to be explicit about some things.

Dreamwidth is a user-supported service. We don't build the service around monetizing user data, and that informs how we approach AI just like it informs everything else we do.

Your content and AI training

Dreamwidth does not and will not sell, license, or otherwise provide user content for AI training. We have not and will not enter into data-access agreements for AI training purposes.

We will continue taking reasonable technical steps to discourage large-scale automated scraping, including known AI crawlers, where it is practical to do so. No public website can prevent scraping with absolute certainty, but we will keep doing what we reasonably can on our side.

AI features on Dreamwidth

Dreamwidth will not introduce AI features (and we have no current intention of doing so) that use or process user content without a public discussion with the community first.

We're only phrasing it like this because we can't predict the future and who knows what will be possible and available in five or ten years, but right now there's nothing we can see wanting to add.

If that ever changed, the conversation would happen openly before any decisions were made.

Site admin uses of AI

Keeping Dreamwidth usable means dealing with things like spam and abuse, and that sometimes requires automated admin tools to be more efficient or effective.

We are not currently using AI-driven systems for moderation or similar decisions.

If we ever decide that an AI-based tool would help address a site admin problem like spam, we will explain what we are doing and how it works (and ask for feedback!) before putting it into use. Any such tools would exist only to make it easier and more efficient for us to do the work of running the site.

AI and code contributions

Dreamwidth is an open-source project, and contributors use a variety of tools and workflows.

Contributors may choose whether or not to use AI-assisted tools when writing or reviewing code. Dreamwidth will not require contributors to use AI tools, and we will not reject contributions solely because AI-assisted tools were used.

For developers: if you use any AI-assisted development tools for generating a pull request or code contribution, we expect you to thoroughly and carefully review the output of those tools before including them in a pull request. We would ask the community not to submit pull requests from automated agents with no human intervention in the submission process.

I think it's important and I want to be able to review, understand, and maintain any contributions effectively, and that means humans are involved and making sure we're writing code for humans to work with, even if AI was involved.

Important note: this applies to code only. We expect any submitted images or artwork (such as for styles, mood themes, or anything else) to be the work of a human artist.

And to be very explicit, any AI-assisted development does not involve access to Dreamwidth posts or personal content.

In short summary

Dreamwidth does not and will not provide user content for AI training
Dreamwidth have not and will not enter data-sharing agreements for AI training and we will do what we can to prevent/discourage automated scraping by AI companies
Dreamwidth will not introduce AI features without a public discussion first
Any site admin use of AI tools will be explained openly and part of a public conversation
Contributors can choose their own development tools for code, but we do not accept images or artwork generated by AI

Oh, and we'll probably mention this (or a subset of this that isn't code related) in an upcoming dw_news post, but will defer to denise on that!

comments

Code Tour: 2024-12-01 to 2026-02-25

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:28:08 GMT

Posted by: silveradept

Oh, hi, everybody! It's been a little bit since we did a code tour, hasn't it? But never fear, we're here to walk you through the changes that have happened since the last time we took a tour through the code changes in Dreamwidth.

Let's dive in, shall we?

( Your code tour, with some attempts at arrangement by topic. )

There we go! Another year's worth of code commits, issues resolved, and attempts to make Dreamwidth a greater and cooler place to be. And to have it continue working into the future.

(We should do these more often, but volunteers and, well…*gestures broadly around*. So it may be a while before someone has the spoons to do this again, but we're always trying to be more consistent about it.)

Here are the totals for this code tour:

104 total issues resolved.
Contributors in this code tour: Copilot, alierak, cmho, dependabot, jjbarr, kareila, l1n, momijizukamori, pauamma, sirilyan, zorkian

comments

Question thread #148

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 20:00:42 GMT

Question thread #147

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 16:51:05 GMT

Question thread #146

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 01:07:14 GMT

Question thread #145

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 22:37:15 GMT

Question thread #144

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 13:38:30 GMT

Posted by: pauamma

It's past time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

comments

Question thread #143

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 13:46:47 GMT

Question thread #142

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 21:15:23 GMT

Question thread #141

Mon, 05 May 2025 20:06:51 GMT

Question thread #140

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 16:00:30 GMT

Current Code Contributors: April 2025

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:26:23 GMT

Posted by: kareila

Every once in a while, I run through changelog compiling a list of who has been contributing patches to our code repository, with the understanding that this is not a competition, or any sort of "high score" list. It's intended as a guide for casual developers, to discern not only our most prolific contributors, but also those who have contributed to the project most recently and therefore would be more likely to provide a timely, informed response to development questions. That is why the list is sorted by "Latest" instead of "Changes".

In general, one commit on Github equals one point in the "Changes" column, but fractional points are awarded for collaborative efforts — the most common example being a new S2 theme, where usually half credit is awarded to the theme author and the other half to the person who converts the theme into a code patch. Due to the nature of development, some changes are massive contributions of new code, and others are tiny tweaks; there is no correlation with the amount of effort involved. We are grateful to everyone who helps to improve Dreamwidth, in ways large or small.

(Additional caveat: not all of the changes credited here are live on the site yet, but hopefully soon!)

I last compiled this list in November of 2024. Since that time, we have welcomed sirilyan as a new contributor! Congratulations and thank you again!

  #  User                      Changes     Latest
  1. kareila                    1704.5     Wed Feb 05 17:34:47 2025 UTC
  2. momijizukamori             425.16     Sat Jan 25 19:38:38 2025 UTC
  3. alierak                      69.5     Mon Jan 06 02:34:09 2025 UTC
  4. mark                        826.5     Sat Dec 21 23:09:32 2024 UTC
  5. sirilyan                        4     Tue Dec 03 17:43:06 2024 UTC
  6. pauamma                       153     Tue Dec 03 05:45:55 2024 UTC
  7. soc_puppet                      1     Thu Sep 12 22:19:43 2024 UTC
  8. lenlen                          1     Thu Jun 06 17:52:08 2024 UTC
  9. chebegeek                       4     Sun May 19 00:26:34 2024 UTC
 10. veryroundbird                  24     Fri Jul 28 15:34:08 2023 UTC

 11. dependabot                      1     Tue Apr 25 20:48:48 2023 UTC
 12. vivtek                          1     Mon Feb 13 18:48:36 2023 UTC
 13. alansill                        2     Tue Nov 22 15:47:35 2022 UTC
 14. rmholsen                        1     Fri Jun 17 19:28:18 2022 UTC
 15. batrachian                     19     Mon Jan 17 19:44:30 2022 UTC
 16. martindemello                   4     Thu Aug 12 04:59:14 2021 UTC
 17. roadrunnertwice               416     Sun Feb 28 04:09:21 2021 UTC
 18. pinterface                     18     Sat Jul 11 03:07:04 2020 UTC
 19. alexwlchan                      5     Sun May 26 04:56:47 2019 UTC
 20. allen                          64     Mon Apr 29 17:10:26 2019 UTC

( The rest of the list... (173 total) )

comments

Question thread #139

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 04:13:38 GMT

Question thread #138

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 16:11:39 GMT

Question thread #137

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:17:41 GMT

Code tour for 2023-11-22 to 2024-11-30

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:08:10 GMT

Posted by: ilyena_sylph

Hey everyone!

Somehow we looked around at it had been an entire year since we did a code tour. What the heck even is time?

This is... not great, so here I am trying to write one for everything that's been done in the last year. Strap in, things might get a bit exciting!

Not every change is live right at this moment, but will be soon (hopefully)!

( lots and lots of fixed problems! )

56 total issues resolved
Contributors: alierak, belatedly, chebegeek, kareila, momijizukamori, pauamma

comments

Current Code Contributors: November 2024

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:03:22 GMT

Posted by: kareila

Every once in a while, I run through changelog compiling a list of who has been contributing patches to our code repository, with the understanding that this is not a competition, or any sort of "high score" list. It's intended as a guide for casual developers, to discern not only our most prolific contributors, but also those who have contributed to the project most recently and therefore would be more likely to provide a timely, informed response to development questions. That is why the list is sorted by "Latest" instead of "Changes".

In general, one commit on Github equals one point in the "Changes" column, but fractional points are awarded for collaborative efforts — the most common example being a new S2 theme, where usually half credit is awarded to the theme author and the other half to the person who converts the theme into a code patch. Due to the nature of development, some changes are massive contributions of new code, and others are tiny tweaks; there is no correlation with the amount of effort involved. We are grateful to everyone who helps to improve Dreamwidth, in ways large or small.

(Additional caveat: not all of the changes credited here are live on the site yet, but hopefully soon!)

I last compiled this list in June of 2024. Since that time, we have welcomed soc_puppet as a new contributor! Congratulations and thank you again!

  #  User                      Changes     Latest
  1. momijizukamori             414.16     Mon Nov 25 20:51:25 2024 UTC
  2. soc_puppet                      1     Thu Sep 12 22:19:43 2024 UTC
  3. pauamma                       152     Thu Aug 08 03:46:31 2024 UTC
  4. lenlen                          1     Thu Jun 06 17:52:08 2024 UTC
  5. kareila                    1671.5     Fri May 24 16:51:26 2024 UTC
  6. alierak                      67.5     Fri May 24 16:26:49 2024 UTC
  7. mark                        825.5     Mon May 20 13:59:42 2024 UTC
  8. chebegeek                       4     Sun May 19 00:26:34 2024 UTC
  9. veryroundbird                  24     Fri Jul 28 15:34:08 2023 UTC
 10. dependabot                      1     Tue Apr 25 20:48:48 2023 UTC

 11. vivtek                          1     Mon Feb 13 18:48:36 2023 UTC
 12. alansill                        2     Tue Nov 22 15:47:35 2022 UTC
 13. rmholsen                        1     Fri Jun 17 19:28:18 2022 UTC
 14. batrachian                     19     Mon Jan 17 19:44:30 2022 UTC
 15. martindemello                   4     Thu Aug 12 04:59:14 2021 UTC
 16. roadrunnertwice               416     Sun Feb 28 04:09:21 2021 UTC
 17. pinterface                     18     Sat Jul 11 03:07:04 2020 UTC
 18. alexwlchan                      5     Sun May 26 04:56:47 2019 UTC
 19. allen                          64     Mon Apr 29 17:10:26 2019 UTC
 20. srukle                         13     Wed Dec 19 03:35:50 2018 UTC

( The rest of the list... (172 total) )

comments

Question thread #136

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 01:20:49 GMT

Question thread #135

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 20:23:53 GMT

Patching Mood Themes

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 01:28:09 GMT

Posted by: momijizukamori

Writing this down for future documentation purposes because I don't feel like fighting with the wiki today.

1) Create a new folder in $LJHOME/htdocs/img/mood with a short-but relevant name
2) Put all the images for the new moodtheme in the new folder. Each image filename should be in the format <emotion>.<file extension>, with the emotion in lowercase, eg, 'cheerful.png'. There is a list of valid emotion names on the wiki
3) In a commandline, run

$LJHOME/bin/misc/mood-maker.pl --dir <dir name from step 1> --name "<visible title for mood theme>" --desc "<short description of mood theme>"

. Neither the name nor the description should contain any : characters. This will output formatted text, or error if there's a file that doesn't match one of the available preset moods.
4) Take the formatted output from (3), including the line beginning with MOODTHEME, and paste it at the end of $LJHOME/bin/upgrading/moods.dat
5) Update the database, following the regular dev maintenance update steps.

comments

Question thread #134

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 01:51:20 GMT

Question thread #133

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 12:59:16 GMT

Current Code Contributors: June 2024

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 18:45:53 GMT

Posted by: kareila

Every once in a while, I run through changelog compiling a list of who has been contributing patches to our code repository, with the understanding that this is not a competition, or any sort of "high score" list. It's intended as a guide for casual developers, to discern not only our most prolific contributors, but also those who have contributed to the project most recently and therefore would be more likely to provide a timely, informed response to development questions. That is why the list is sorted by "Latest" instead of "Changes".

In general, one commit on Github equals one point in the "Changes" column, but fractional points are awarded for collaborative efforts — the most common example being a new S2 theme, where usually half credit is awarded to the theme author and the other half to the person who converts the theme into a code patch. Due to the nature of development, some changes are massive contributions of new code, and others are tiny tweaks; there is no correlation with the amount of effort involved. We are grateful to everyone who helps to improve Dreamwidth, in ways large or small.

I last compiled this list in October of 2023. Since that time, we have welcomed testify as a new contributor! Congratulations and thank you again!

  #  User                      Changes     Latest
  1. lenlen                          1     Thu Jun 06 17:52:08 2024 UTC
  2. kareila                    1671.5     Fri May 24 16:51:26 2024 UTC
  3. alierak                      67.5     Fri May 24 16:26:49 2024 UTC
  4. momijizukamori             404.16     Wed May 22 20:34:13 2024 UTC
  5. mark                        825.5     Mon May 20 13:59:42 2024 UTC
  6. veryroundbird                  24     Fri Jul 28 15:34:08 2023 UTC
  7. pauamma                       151     Wed Jul 05 18:54:26 2023 UTC
  8. dependabot                      1     Tue Apr 25 20:48:48 2023 UTC
  9. vivtek                          1     Mon Feb 13 18:48:36 2023 UTC
 10. alansill                        2     Tue Nov 22 15:47:35 2022 UTC

 11. chebegeek                       3     Wed Oct 26 01:30:42 2022 UTC
 12. rmholsen                        1     Fri Jun 17 19:28:18 2022 UTC
 13. batrachian                     19     Mon Jan 17 19:44:30 2022 UTC
 14. martindemello                   4     Thu Aug 12 04:59:14 2021 UTC
 15. roadrunnertwice               416     Sun Feb 28 04:09:21 2021 UTC
 16. pinterface                     18     Sat Jul 11 03:07:04 2020 UTC
 17. alexwlchan                      5     Sun May 26 04:56:47 2019 UTC
 18. allen                          64     Mon Apr 29 17:10:26 2019 UTC
 19. srukle                         13     Wed Dec 19 03:35:50 2018 UTC
 20. darael                         10     Sun Dec 09 01:41:18 2018 UTC

( The rest of the list... (171 total) )

comments

Question thread #132

Sat, 25 May 2024 23:02:24 GMT