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

[kyrielle]

...mostly all people need is someone to sit there and listen while they talk it out and solve the problems themselves....

This is what the system architect on my product at work calls the "rubber chicken" phenomenon (or worse, depending on his mood) - you could be talking it out with anything, including a rubber chicken, the key thing is you are talking it out.

Of course, it isn't strictly true, because you would monologue at a rubber chicken (if you talked to it at all) in a way that didn't lead you down the same paths presenting it to a colleague will. But it's close. And I get an internal chuckle every time I do it, because I'm thinking of that chicken. (Which is much better than the way I used to react, by feeling guilty for "wasting" the coworker's time!)

[pne]

At my place of work, they called it "playing dog" - the underlying idea being the same except that you're explaining the concept to your dog.

So you might have a colleague come up to you and say, "I need a dog - are you free right now?" :)

[pauamma]

There's also the (maybe apocryphal) "Before you tell me about your problem, you must tell the teddy bear at the door" story.

[denise]

It's not apocryphal -- I have a friend who worked for someone with this requirement. :)