I think the idea of a "free reading list" doesn't fit with most people's models of how Dreamwidth works. And to be fair, at the moment Dreamwidth is basically a private club, with multiple barriers of entry: An invite code, a desire to get an invite code, and a level of technical sophistication and/or patience sufficient to put up with an archaic (if not user-hostile) interface.
OpenID seems designed to mitigate the first two factors, but at the moment it's even more difficult, as it requires the user to both know what OpenID is and know if he or she has one. The only purpose it seems to serve right now is to allow even more technically proficient users coming from other sites to authenticate their comments.
There were some objections raised to the idea of using cookies, but it'd probably work for 90% of browsing situations. An explanation could be attached explaining its limitations (that it'd only work on that computer and only if your browser is set to accept cookies), and encouraging the user to sign up with an OpenID account ...
That'd still only help with the first two hurdles, though. I'm not sure Dreamwidth can get where it needs to be UX-wise without a major overhaul, and as its user base is (mostly) LiveJournal adepts it doesn't seem like there's much freedom to experiment. I hope the "named anonymous" commenting thing helps, though.
Sorry to ramble. >.> It's not like my ideas for solving things tend to be that good to begin with.
no subject
OpenID seems designed to mitigate the first two factors, but at the moment it's even more difficult, as it requires the user to both know what OpenID is and know if he or she has one. The only purpose it seems to serve right now is to allow even more technically proficient users coming from other sites to authenticate their comments.
There were some objections raised to the idea of using cookies, but it'd probably work for 90% of browsing situations. An explanation could be attached explaining its limitations (that it'd only work on that computer and only if your browser is set to accept cookies), and encouraging the user to sign up with an OpenID account ...
That'd still only help with the first two hurdles, though. I'm not sure Dreamwidth can get where it needs to be UX-wise without a major overhaul, and as its user base is (mostly) LiveJournal adepts it doesn't seem like there's much freedom to experiment. I hope the "named anonymous" commenting thing helps, though.
Sorry to ramble. >.> It's not like my ideas for solving things tend to be that good to begin with.