Never having used dreamwidth very much in the past, except for reading a couple of fics and scanning fail_fandomanon, I'm not very familiar with it. Do you have any tips for the new-ish user?
I can try, though as someone who went DW -> Tumblr, I might not be the best judge of what a Tumblr native needs to know. There are some blogs dedicated to the transition, and I think DW itself has some advice for people coming from Tumblr. But this is what comes to mind:
1. It’s so text-oriented that it can be a bit daunting to just start posting/commenting. But it’s okay! Post about whatever you feel like and reply to other people’s posts. It’ll probably make their day.
Remember, there’s no like/kudos button, only comments. So the only way for the poster to get a response is through comments.
If you don’t have much to say beyond “+1″ or “this” or a gif, that’s okay! Anything at all is nice.
2. Comments are threaded, like AO3: you can reply directly to the original poster, or to other people who have commented, and anyone who looks at the post will see the comments. Also, everyone has the option to put their own subject heading on their comment if they want (discouraged on anonmemes and the like, but perfectly common in personal conversations).
There are none of Tumblr’s complications with notes. All the comments are right there in one section under the OP’s post. That does mean that your comments don’t show up on your own blog (unless you’re responding to someone’s comments to you), and the original poster will be capable of screening them and/or deleting them. And that anyone who happens along will see all the conversations, unless the post is f-locked or filtered.
As with Tumblr, people can respond anonymously, but only if the OP has set their blog to allowing it. Most do, but they also often click on the IP-logging feature. (If you’ve been at f_fa, you’ll occasionally see a mod freezing a thread because the poster is a known troll. They know because it’s set to automatically log IP addresses, and they can go back and check if posts go back to the same IP address.)
3. Speaking of f-lock:
F-LOCK!!!!!!
It’s not called f-lock on DW; that’s a holdover from LJ. It’s … okay, I’m actually going to make a better post than this about the posting system in general (eta: it’s here). But the system on DW isn’t necessarily a matter of personal friendships (though it can be!) as it theoretically was on LJ: if someone looks interesting, you can subscribe, and if you know them very well personally, you can make your locked content available to them.
Basically, you have the option to post an entry as “public,” in which case everyone who clicks on the link can see it; “access list,” in which case only people you’ve given total access to will see it; and “private,” which is similar to Tumblr’s—only you can see it.
Locking posts can serve a lot of purposes: it might be personal matters you don’t want the entire Internet viewing, it might be so trivial you don’t want to inflict it on all your subscribers, it might be controversial posts you don’t want to discuss with everyone but your hand-picked list, it might be problematic porn you’d like to keep to a small circle of like-minded perverts. Whatever.
Do not ever, ever, ever leak locked content unless it was originally a public post. There is probably no DW etiquette stronger than “f-lock is sacred.” You know how there are assholes who go out of their way to reblog posts marked “personal” or “p ersonal” or “do not reblog” or whatnot? That is virtually unheard-of on DW, because you have to be trusted in the first place to get access at all. And breaking f-lock is a violation of that trust.
4. ICONS, ALL HAIL ICON SUBTEXT
Like on Tumblr, you can have an icon that will appear next to your posts. Unlike Tumblr, you can have multiple icons uploaded to your account and use any of them at any given moment—in your original posts and in comments. You do choose a default icon, which is what will show up on your posts/comments if you don’t specify one.
Generally, of course, people try to choose an icon at least vaguely suited to their post/comment. That means that icons can function as a sort of silent additional comment, a layer of subtext that can emphasize, clarify, or undercut what you’re saying. Or it might just be because you happen to like that one, or it’s the only vaguely related thing you have. It’s pretty common to add a subject heading like “the icon really says it all” or “don’t have an X icon, so…”
It’s possible to respond with nothing more than a period, and your icon literally comprising your entire commentary. Sort of like gifs, though the aesthetic tends to be different.
If you see an icon you like, it’s usually fair game to use it yourself as long as you credit the maker. You can see my icons here which should give an idea of the etiquette.
(I add descriptions for accessibility, but it’s pretty normal not to.)
5. TAG LIBERTY
There are no Tumblr-type communal tags. That is, if I tag a post “hillary clinton,” it will go into the “hillary clinton” tag on my blog, and nowhere else. There’s no general #hillary clinton tag that people are tracking; tags exist entirely for your own organization.
There is a search function, but you really do have to go out of your way looking for trouble.
Also, tags formatted with colons are automatically nested on your tag page. So, for instance, fandom: asoiaf, fandom: austen, fandom: avatar, fandom: bones, fandom: circle of magic, etc show up on the tags page as:
- fandom
asoiaf
austen
avatar
bones
circle of magic
The tag page is automatically generated; you don’t need secondary apps or anything. But tags on your posts are also automatically alphabetized, which makes tag commentary pretty much impossible if the comments are in any way sequential. Tags are primarily used for organization and only organization.
6. Types of posts
The main types of posts that get made:
- fic
- meta
- ship/fandom manifestos
- polls
- rec posts: these can be in-depth discussion of whatever it is you’re reccing, or simply “I saw this thing, liked it”
- linkspams: more neutral than rec posts, these are along the lines of “I’ve been reading things on a topic, here are the links”—sometimes there will be brief commentary to give an idea of what you’re linking to, often not.
- picspams: aesthetic posts/fancasts, DW edition. Image hosting at DW apparently exists, but is complex and obscure; you can, however, very easily include images or other media hosted elsewhere
7. Sticky posts
You can make a post “sticky,” which means it will always show up as the first post on your journal. These are usually “introduction to me” or masterlists of your fic/meta whatever.
8. Messaging
Dreamwidth’s messaging system is entirely private. It works more or less like e-mail, with messages/responses chained together, and all your outgoing messages saved (if you don’t delete them). There’s no instant messaging and no asks, just an ordinary inbox/outbox.
(You can also switch up your icons on these :D)
This is long and probably terrifying—very few of these (apart from “don’t break f-lock”) are anything like requirements, but just possibilities for how you can use the site.
Bear in mind: unlike livejournal, and Tumblr/Twitter/etc, dreamwidth was designed for fans. It’s a non-profit, so there is no incentive for them to monetize fandom. It funds through donations and through paid services (I pay $30 a year for my premium account).
There are not and never have been ads of any kind, never any major overhauls, anything like that. It’s not completely a positive—part of the reason it didn’t take off as much as it could have is because it never altered with the times—but that does make it stable. I went back after two years and everything was exactly the way I had left it and everything worked the way I remembered. It’s not flashy or particularly exciting, but it’s stable and reliable.
YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT SOMEONE BY THE TYPE OF MUSIC THEY LISTEN TO
Hit shuffle on your iPod, phone, iTunes, whatever it is you listen to music on and then write down the first 20 songs that come up.
01. gigantic (pixies) - belle and sebastian 02. it must be love - madness 03. asleep - the smiths 04. oh bondage, up yours - x-ray spex 05. clocks - coldplay 06. all of my love - led zeppelin 07. gay pirates - cosmo jarvis 08. lord, send me an angel - the white stripes 09. rhapsody on a theme of paganini - rachmaninov 10. girl with one eye - florence and the machine 11. just the way i’m feeling - feeder 12. sloop john b - the beach boys (damn I love this song gotta listen to it all) 13. andy’s chest - lou reed 14. some riot - elbow 15. lucy in the sky with diamonds - the beatles 16. god’s gonna cut you down - johnny cash 17. once upon a dream - lana del ray 18. red right hand - nick cave & the bad seeds 19. rebel girl - bikini kill 20. work (jacob plant remix) - iggy azalea
theplasticlamb replied to your post:Give me something to write a three sentence ficlet about
The woman in a lady of a certain age
She is young, stunning, beautiful, gem of the jet-set life, her smile the shade of a sunset over the coast at Nice.
She is a mother, glowing, proud, her children an embodiment of potential who will be taught (not by her, of course) to rise even higher than she did.
She is lonely now, and old, like a wilting flower but she likes to think she still has a certain something about herself, a shine of glamour and in the eyes of this young man - he could be her son! - she almost feels young again.
