A Tumblr Userās Guide to Dreamwidth
Iām sure by now, some of you may have heard of the site Dreamwidth when some people talk about Livejournal and old sites they wish they had. Maybe youāve become a bit curious about how this place works or why people are so interested in it anyway. To answer that, Iām going to give you a little primer on Dreamwidth and what you need to know when converting from Tumblr!
So what is Dreamwidth?
Dreamwidth is a Livejournal code fork and like Livejournal it is an old social networking blog. How is that different from Tumblr? Well to clarify, Tumblr is a content aggregation site, not a content creation site. This means that Tumblrās purpose is to spread things for other people to see, and these things do not even have to be something you made. It is not intended for feedback and communication, it is only intended to be looked at. Thatās why any comment and communication features are so lackluster, the creators genuinely did not want it to work like a blog, and they continue to fight that.
Dreamwidth is a blog with features centered around content and comment management. How you use it is up to you, but it is a more or less static site with each post self contained, no reblogs or sharing apart from manually linking to the post themselves and the only things you see on your feed are the blogs and communities youāve personally added to your watch. The format is best suited for medium to long-posts and posts to start a dialog among people, but thatās not to say it canāt be used for microposts (and there are communities dedicated to that kind of use). Comments are threaded which makes them easy to keep up with, and easy to read.
Dreamwidth is, above all else, a site dedicated to freedom of expression and is one of the few places left that genuinely cares about that.
Dreamwidth Terms You Should Know
Cutting
Youāll see this term used a lot, and itās a really huge important feature of the blog. Cutting is like the āread moreā feature you can find on tumblr. The difference is that you can choose exactly which portion of the entry is behind a cut and which one isnāt. You can also have more than one cut if you like! This is especially useful for long, informative posts to help people jump to the exact spot they want.
Cuts can also have their own titles, so you can inform people briefly of whatās behind the cut in the link itself. Good knowledge of how cuts work is super important and super helpful! https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=88
Access Filters A term youāll see show up when composing an entry is what access filter is applied to the post youāre about to make, (sometimes this is referred to as ālockingā the post). When you create a post you are given the choice to either make the entry public, make it available to only those who have general access to your blog or choose a specific access filter which you have a pre-determined group of people on a list that are the only ones permitted to see those posts. You can set up as many access filters as you want and change them at any time, and none of the members are notified of these changes so you donāt need to worry about that when making chances. You can even make a post entirely private so that only you can see it, and you can modify the access settings on any entry at any time. https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=21 https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=22
Paid Accounts Unlike tumblr, Dreamwidth does have paid accounts. The entire site is ad-free and they support themselves entirely on those people that purchase paid accounts. The free accounts give you more than you need to enjoy and interact with the site, but paid accounts give you extra features such as the ability to add custom mood icons, journal customization options and more user pics. https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=4
Sticky Posts You can sticky an entry on your Dreamwidth, this can be useful to use as a means of introducing people to your journal and what to expect. https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=199
General Dreamwidth Etiquette
Tags You will find that on Dreamwidth no one ātalks in tagsā. This is because each journal keeps a record of every single tag used on a page both yourself and everyone else can see and has a limit to the total amount of tags you can use. Tags in Dreamwidth are seen as a means of organization, not as a means of subtext, youāll have to add the subtext in text formatting seperately. You can of course, edit and delete any of the tags in the list at any time so youāre never stuck with the tags youāve used if you ever change your mind.
Images While this is a holdover from the old days when bandwidth was not as accessible as it is now, generally speaking, images posted are kept around 800px in width if posted without a cut. This is to prevent stretching and just general friends page tidy-ness. Similarly, when posting several images, they are either done by way of small thumbnails, or they are posted behind a cut.
Cutting It is seen common etiquette to cut overly-long entries or entries that contain a large number of images, or entries that could contain sensitive information. This was both to keep the friend reading list trim and tidy, as well as warn people before they read potentially triggering material. You see, back in the days of Livejournal, when people were asked to put their triggering material behind a cut, people complied without argument! You might have one or two bad eggs sure, but it didnāt result in such a huge amount of people harassing one person just because they asked for someoneās post about a pet spider be put behind a cut.
Response Speed As a note, Dreamwidth and other blogging systems are naturally slower than Tumblr. This is not a bad thing! But donāt be surprised if some people donāt comment on an entry till a week later. People on Dreamwidth are far more likely to pay attention to entries and read all their backlog so there isnāt a need to constantly remind or repost the same thing. Dreamwidth generally slower pace can be jarring to some people, but youāll find it has itās own benefits even if it doesnāt offer instant gratification.
Q&A
Can I make multiple journals on the same account? No. While this is a feature many RPers would like, and it has been talked about, there is no system that creates Parent/Child journal accounts. If you want a second journal, you would have to make a whole new account, and log in and log out whenever you want to change.
Can I reblog other peopleās entries? No. Everyoneās blog and posts are static, there is no way to share anotherās post on your own blog other than manually linking their post.
How can I meet people if I canāt reblog? Meeting people on Dreamwidth does take more work, itās not as easy to stumble across new blogs casually in the day without putting effort into it. Communities are a large social component of Dreamwidth and there are communities for just about any fandom, hobby, craft type and even small niches, and you can start your own communities at any time. There is also an āinterestā section in every user profile, which can be used to help find people of similar interests. And then thereās always meeting people through friends of friends in the comments of oneās entires. This post in particular has a much more through break down on socialization and how to find people https://bisexualbaker.tumblr.com/post/147873750806/how-the-heck-do-i-find-cool-stuff-and-people-on
Where can I host my images?
This is of course, the biggest pitfall in Dreamwidth. As it stands right now, there is a small image hosting option however it only can store up to 500MB in size. For anything significant you would have to use a service like Imgur, Flickr, Sta.sh, or other storage option. https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=248
Hopefully this has provided the base amount of information you may need to start a Dreamwidth account. Itās very different from Tumblr in the way itās used but itās not completely different, but itās not intended to be a āreplacementā, itās just another service you can use if it fits your needs. Personally, Iām of the opinion that everyone needs at least one quite, static place they can hash out their thoughts on without fear of making a mistake, and Dreamwidth is very good for that kind of thing.
an EXCELLENT primer on how to Dreamwidth!
I was surprised and pleased to see people moving to Dreamwidth.Ā I have my LJ backed up there, all the way back to 2000.Ā Same username there as here, if you want to connect.
Aaaannndd Strikethrough07...uhh...strikes again? *Gasp!* A Social Media ouroborous!
