chebe | Reading

mark posting in

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!

silveradept posting in

dw_dev

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

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Daft Punk - Touch It

melroseee posting in

icons

[15] robby/abbot icons

See the rest here.

luminousdaze posting in

icons

95 movie and TV show icons (icons include many variations).
( Fandoms... )

View here at

spectral_color

altamira16

My book group likes this mess, and I do not.

I do not want to read books about WASPs who are oblivious to the world beyond the city that they live in. And even in that city, they are about some white people striving and oblivious to anything beyond their own attempt to make it.

They can discuss the trappings of wealth in detail, but when it comes to discussing people, it goes like this:

The interior was a fantasy of soon-to-be-cliched Oriental fixtures: large porcelain urns, brass Buddhas, red latterns, and self-postured silent deference of an Oriental waistaff (the last servile ethnicity of American's nineteenth century immigrant classes.)

Holy hell. That is racist.

Then if that was not enough,

In front of me a broad-shouldered man with the twang of an oil-producing state was trying to communicate with the maitre d'

This is racist against Asian people AND white people all in two paragraphs. The character making this observation cannot be bothered to figure out if someone is from Texas or Oklahoma, but they decide that the rude person in the restaurant is from Texas because who cares about anything outside of New York City. Truly, a literary achievement.

Now, this author is a talented and capable author, but was any of this scene really necessary?

In the first chapters, there are references to so many other books, as if it is inviting you to write a Ph.D. thesis.

The most obvious thesis id about how this book compares to "Great Expectations." The author invites that comparison so many times. One of the characters picks up "Great Expectations" and turns to Chapter 20 as soon as she hears from her friends to London. That is the chapter in the book where Pip, the young character from "Great Expectations" goes to London, and it is just a dirty and corrupt place to be.

In this book, like in "Great Expectations," there is a wealthy benefactor warping the characters around herself, but it is best to leave the details of that for the people who are interested in the book.

Chapter Six is "The Cruelest Month," and it starts with "One night in April" slamming you over the head with T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

There are too many characters in this book that like to read, and they like to read the type of literature that is ruined by high school English teachers. These characters are absolutely obsessed with "Walden;" and I am happy for them for being able to conceive of Massachusetts, a state outside of New York, but not really.

word_never_said posting in

icons

50 total - The Pitt, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Superman (2025), Fantastic Four (2025)

more here

stillpermanentt

magnavox_23 posting in

icons

20 Stargate SG-1 icons from 10x14 The Shroud

Check out the rest here. <3

bookmaniac_feed

Posted by Liz Henry

https://bookmaniac.org/2026/02/21/settle-down-focus-catch-up/

https://bookmaniac.org/?p=5636

I have been a bit overwhelmed and need to spend a good part of today catching up with all my projects and things. Inbox 829. A billionty tabs open. To-do lists in my scheduling notebook on many different post-its. A new attempt at kanban on a magnet board to go with my GitHub project kanban.

It is time to go through all of these systems, clear the decks, and feel like I know what is going on! There is steady progress everywhere, or nearly so, but sometimes things get lost and then I realize 6 months ago I got 90% done with a project and then forgot it.

Browser tabs are not a to do list! Things piled up on the sideboard of the dining room are not a to do list! And email is definitely not a to do list.

OK, I’m going in! Wish me luck!!!

https://bookmaniac.org/2026/02/21/settle-down-focus-catch-up/

https://bookmaniac.org/?p=5636

yarnandglue

Here is a living collection of links to things that I think are cool or helpful! This post was last updated on 2/23/26.

Knitting

Subversive Femme's Curvy Month Patterns

A blogger who gives an annual offering of free vintage knitting patterns, all of which are sized to fit at least a 37" bust.

The Vintage Fit: Expert Tips for Knitting a Well-Fitting Garment by Susan Crawford

A breakdown of design features that typify the knitting patterns of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and where these may cause fit issues for the modern knitter wearing modern undergarments.

Music

[NEW] Innioasis Y1

This is the DAP (digital audio player) I use. They're inexpensive and close-enough to an old school iPod which is exactly what I was looking for!

Joanna Newsom Lyrics

What is says on the tin. I love the comparisons showing how the lyrics changed over time in live performances/alternate recordings or differ from what is written in the liner notes.

Search Engines

ArchiveGrid

An easy way to search through just the archival materials listed in WorldCat.

Marginalia Search

A search engine prioritizing returns from older and/or non-commercial websites (such as wikis, .govs, or .edus).

yarnandglue

I upcycled/modified a shirt the other day and thought I'd share!

It started off as a loose fitting white linen/rayon Gap shirt from Goodwill. Linen/rayon is my faaaaaaavorite fabric blend. I love sewing with it, I love wearing it. It has the softness and breathability of linen but the rayon keeps it from wrinkling too much. But I don't like stark white clothing, so I started off by dying it with some dark green Rit dye.

(As a side note, I know Rit dye is not the highest quality dye. However, I wash my clothes in cold water and hang dry so while YMMV, I haven't had any issues with fading or color leeching.)

I also took off the "Gap" label from the side (see photo below) because visible logos peeve me.

I sewed the button band shut because I have tig ole biddies and they cause gaping. I don't wear super fitted clothing (sensory hell) and I also don't typically wear buttoned shirts open (like, over t-shirts or tank tops) so this is a perfectly acceptable solution for me. I actually really struggled with the best way to do it on this shirt. I usually whip stitch the innermost edge of the band down from the inside. I like the more natural look this gives, since the button band can kind of still move around. I find sewing the outermost edge of the band really makes it look obvious that you've done something unusual to the shirt. But the weave of the shirt is so loose that even teeny little whip stitches were visible. I hemmed and hawed for a few days before deciding to stitch over the top stitching two or three times every inch. And I'm really happy with how it turned out!

You can see that every few stitches on the left hand column is actually a hand stitch done over the machine stitch. It's not noticeable in person. Here's what it looks like from the back.