The ease of cross-site OpenID and importing journals from other sites is one of the coolest things about Dreamwidth, but not all the other sites are as seamless as DW, alas.
For example, Journalfen is one of the LJ clone site from which you can import to DW, but it does not have a functioning OpenID server. So it is difficult to actually use the openID JF accounts that the Dreamwidth importer creates. However you can still use a JF OpenID by using OpenID delegation. That is, link your JF page to an account that
does have an OpenID server, and Dreamwidth will use that server to give you a JF OpenID. I've written a tutorial, intended for people who know nothing about what they're doing, that will walk you through setting up openID delegation for a Journalfen account. If you're interested in setting up an OpenID account for another personal blog or website, the notes at the beginning should also help you out.
In terms of DW, you will be able to use a delegated openID like any other openID account, and to claim and put an icon on imported comments originally made on that account, and eventually associate that account with your personal account. It will not affect your ability to use the OpenID account you delegated to (so, I delegated my JF openID to my LJ, but my LJ openID account still functions completely separately
and it counts as another openID account for invite code lottery purposes)
( The basics of OpenID delegation, and picking a server to delegate to. )How To Delegate an OpenID on Journalfen( The Easy Way: Using an S1 style. )( The Hard Way: Using an S2 style )And you should now be set! Thanks to
zvi and
stellar_dust for helping out with this. (And
afuna, an ancient S2 tutorial of whose let me finally figure out how I had to do this in S2.) If you have any questions about delegating, or you have problems working through this tutorial, leave a comment & someone will try to answer.