Dreamwidth Q&A Session

[denise]

I realized this morning that it has been quite some time, so I figured it would be a good time for another Dreamwidth Q&A session!

Got a question on how the business end of DW works? Curious about the progress on a particular feature? (Although I can probably answer that for you by saying: we're working on paying down our technical debt so that we can move forward on a lot of the planned features; it got to the point where we couldn't progress further without making some aggressive modernization of the existing codebase.) Wondering what an average day in the life of a DW employee is? Got that one question that you've been vaguely wondering about for ages, but never felt like it was "important" enough to make a support request to get the answer on? Want to know if it really is that cool being able to work from home without wearing any pants? (Answer: yes, especially when it's 85 degrees F in my office and the air conditioners won't be delivered and installed for at least another day or two.)

Comment here, and we will answer!

(Just a reminder: you may receive comments or replies from people who know the answer to your question, but aren't officially DW staff. If the person who answers you doesn't have the official "staff" userhead -- -- they are not DW staff. They may be correct -- if they aren't, I will be sure to answer and clear up any misconceptions -- but they are not speaking ex cathedra Dreamwidth, so to speak!)

No question too big, no question too small. There's also previous Q&A sessions and the Business FAQs to browse through!

(Answers may be a bit slow depending on computer woes and additional stuff going on, but we will answer!)

Comments

[denise]

We are indeed paying fu's salary, with considerable help from favorable exchange rates. (We honestly couldn't have her full-time if it weren't for that.) We also pay modest monthly retainers to the backup on-call sysadmin (to make sure we have coverage; mark is still our primary sysadmin, with fu learning what she needs to know to help out) and one of our Terms of Service people (it helps, legally, to have certain ToS stuff handled by someone who's employed by the site, even on a contractor basis).

We then pay me a very minimal salary, if the month's income supports it -- which, thankfully, it does most months, although April was pretty bad what with taxes and we couldn't pay me until after the seed account sale. And by 'very minimal', I mean, a thousand dollars a month. Obviously I really really wish we could pay both me and mark a living wage! But fortunately sarah has a stable government job and can support us on her income alone, with mine being used for supplemental stuff and the home repair fund. :)

[jeshyr]

I have much yay for allllll of Dreamwidth and her people as I'm sure you know, but I'd just like to take this juncture to say Yay sarah too. :)

And also yay to radical transparency because I learn so very much reading about Dreamwidth!

[arethinn]

considerable help from favorable exchange rates.

There's somewhere in the world the US dollar has a favorable exchange rate?? *shock*

[sporky_rat]

Philippines.

1.00 PHP = 0.0230840 USD
1 PHP = 0.0230840 USD 1 USD = 43.3200 PHP

[pne]

Though by themselves, those numbers mean nothing - you'd have to combine them with the purchasing power of the peso (and perhaps, for context, average salaries by kind of job) to give the numbers some context.

[denise]

Suffice it to say that we are able to offer a fairly generous salary. :)

[pne]

And everybody profits!

Fu earns good money, while you guys don't go bankrupt.

[denise]

Exactly! We honestly couldn't afford to have her full-time were it not for the exchange rates, but the exchange rates make it possible, and everybody wins!

(Plus, another person in the world gets to work without wearing any pants. I am firmly in favor of increasing the pantslessness of the world.)

[arethinn]

I know (from husband), it was more of a general comment about the US economy/credit/debt. ^_-