Some advice on using dreamwidth
Jan. 5th, 2022 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrThere's been recent rumblings on tumblr about people wanting to move to dreamwidth, which I think would be great!
Two nice guides to dreamwidth aimed at tumblr folk which cover most important things:
Here's a guide to how this all works on a cultural level
Disjointed Dreamwidth Tips (written by someone who wasn’t on LJ)
Some extra things:
Dreamwidth is well suited to long text posts (and polls, if you have a paid account), adequately suited to short text posts, and not great at everything else. You CAN post images but it's fiddly compared to sites like tumblr, especially if you are no good with html.
You're less likely to have random people stumble across your posts via tags than on tumblr or twitter, though that does happen.
It has great tools for fine grained privacy levels for locked posts. For example I have a 'health' filter where I post about boring/gross medical stuff that people have to ask to be on, and only those people see those posts.
"memes" are single posts, or collections of posts, where people are encouraged to have conversations in the comments. These are often anonymous, for example most kink memes, but not always. 'Friending memes' are places for people to post non-anonymous comments introducing themselves, in order to find new friends.
One good thing about dreamwidth is that there isn't as much of an expectation of everything being in the now. So if you find someone who posts about a non-personal topic you're interested in, and has tagged it, they probably won't mind you going back through their tag and commenting on old posts positively. I get comments on years' old posts sometimes and am 100% happy about it.
How to find people to follow:
How to get people to follow you:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge/ sunshine_challenge is a good place to start: it gives prompts for posts to make through January/July, and snowflake_challenge has a friending meme at the end.
This is the most recent friending meme I'm aware of
The other communities in the tumblr post above, now with links:
fandomcalendar and fandom_on_dw
fictional_fans (I can't find fictional_friends so think they may have meant this)
fancake and recthething
fandom_icons
Alsokinkmemepromo has links to kink memes if that's your jam.
I also recotome_games to anyone who likes otome games, because I mod it and want more people to join ;) And it's an example of how a very small community can keep going if the mod(s) post regularly. There's never a lot of comments and it's rare for anyone but me to post, but we're still all having fun. I wouldn't recommend making your own community until you've been on dreamwidth long enough to get a feel for how they work, but it can be very rewarding.
Two nice guides to dreamwidth aimed at tumblr folk which cover most important things:
Here's a guide to how this all works on a cultural level
Disjointed Dreamwidth Tips (written by someone who wasn’t on LJ)
Some extra things:
Dreamwidth is well suited to long text posts (and polls, if you have a paid account), adequately suited to short text posts, and not great at everything else. You CAN post images but it's fiddly compared to sites like tumblr, especially if you are no good with html.
You're less likely to have random people stumble across your posts via tags than on tumblr or twitter, though that does happen.
It has great tools for fine grained privacy levels for locked posts. For example I have a 'health' filter where I post about boring/gross medical stuff that people have to ask to be on, and only those people see those posts.
"memes" are single posts, or collections of posts, where people are encouraged to have conversations in the comments. These are often anonymous, for example most kink memes, but not always. 'Friending memes' are places for people to post non-anonymous comments introducing themselves, in order to find new friends.
One good thing about dreamwidth is that there isn't as much of an expectation of everything being in the now. So if you find someone who posts about a non-personal topic you're interested in, and has tagged it, they probably won't mind you going back through their tag and commenting on old posts positively. I get comments on years' old posts sometimes and am 100% happy about it.
How to find people to follow:
- Check out the latest Popular Tags
- Find an interesting person and check out their reading list to see the latest posts by people they follow. For example, here's my reading list.
- Scroll through a friending meme.
- Do an interest search for something you're interested in.
- Follow an active community and see who makes cool posts
How to get people to follow you:
- Fill out your profile, and make posts. If there's nothing to read, people are less likely to follow you!
- Make an introduction comment on a friending meme.
- Follow people you like the look of, and/or give them access. They won't all follow you back but some might.
- Post relevant posts to active communities
- Comment on posts on communities
- Comment on people's personal posts if it seems like they'd be cool with comments from a stranger. The etiquette is similar to replying on twitter or tumblr: the more impersonal and light hearted the topic, the more likely comments from strangers will be welcome. Some people explicitly welcome it in their profiles or sticky posts.
snowflake_challenge/ sunshine_challenge is a good place to start: it gives prompts for posts to make through January/July, and snowflake_challenge has a friending meme at the end.This is the most recent friending meme I'm aware of
The other communities in the tumblr post above, now with links:
fandomcalendar and fandom_on_dwfictional_fans (I can't find fictional_friends so think they may have meant this)fancake and recthethingfandom_iconsAlso
kinkmemepromo has links to kink memes if that's your jam. I also rec
otome_games to anyone who likes otome games, because I mod it and want more people to join ;) And it's an example of how a very small community can keep going if the mod(s) post regularly. There's never a lot of comments and it's rare for anyone but me to post, but we're still all having fun. I wouldn't recommend making your own community until you've been on dreamwidth long enough to get a feel for how they work, but it can be very rewarding.
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Date: 2022-01-05 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 01:39 pm (UTC)It's something I think a lot :)
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Date: 2022-01-05 01:33 pm (UTC)Excellent!
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Date: 2022-01-05 01:39 pm (UTC)Thank you :)
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Date: 2022-01-06 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-06 07:17 am (UTC)Oh man....I think I did but it was years ago, so I don't have the link, sorry! What part do you struggle with?
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Date: 2022-01-06 01:18 pm (UTC)(Also, there's a hellish fan war going on, where I do not fit well with any of the factions, but that's a separate issue.)
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Date: 2022-01-07 10:03 pm (UTC)Unfortunately I am a terrible person to answer this question because all the people I talk to on tumblr are (a) people I befriended elsewhere first or (b) people with whom a bond was forged in the fiery pit of Homestuck and/or Dragon Age tumblr fandom circa 2010ish. I can think of literally one person I added in the last few years based purely on tumblr interactions and that's a friend of my partner so still doesn't entirely count.
But for what it's worth: One thing I think helps is coming across as someone who welcomes and engages in more personal interactions, though getting that ball rolling can be a bit tricky. Things like ask memes or art/writing prompts can be a fun way to form connections, but you either have to wait for someone you follow to post one, or post one yourself and plausibly not get any replies. Replying or reblogging with commentary is great when it works out but requires a little social finesse to figure out when it's welcome that I'm not always great at myself.
Even as someone with a circle of people I have known and chatted with for years it's still mostly just silent reblogs and likes. I get the occasional reply or reblog with chatty tags/commentary, and send people messages sometimes with links I think they'll like and they say thanks, and get the VERY occasional ask, but that's it. Then again most of my dreamwidth posts don't get comments either! I don't mind in either case, I still have the sense people are quietly reading and just piping up when they have something to say, but creating that sense is kind of just a thing that happened slowly over time, on both tumblr and dreamwidth. Sorry, that's probably not very helpful! But if a flailingly awkward person like me managed it somehow I'm sure you can too :)
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Date: 2022-01-23 04:59 am (UTC)And yet, on good days, there is fascinating meta and such cute artwork!
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Date: 2022-01-26 01:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, sounds like stepping back is a good idea. Good luck, I know how upsetting this kind of thing can be.