Dreamwidth

[sophinisba]

So, I've been crossposting all my entries to Dreamwidth and LJ since July. The crossposting function is really easy to use and allows you to edit both posts at once. I think this is great. I read both f-lists every day and comment some, though most of the posts I see on Dreamwidth are just duplicates of ones I see on LJ. And like my own posts, my friends' posts usually have ten times more comments on LJ than they do on Dreamwidth, so it's more interesting to read them on LJ. This makes me a little sad, but maybe it shouldn't, and maybe I've been too passive about it all, I don't know.

I think I'm going to start adding the automatic links from my LJ entries to the Dreamwidth ones though. (I think they'd be more useful if they worked the other way around, but alas.) I wasn't going to do this at first because I thought it would be annoying to people who just want to stay on LJ, and also they'd look silly because almost all of them will say "0 comments on Dreamwidth". On the other hand, links are useful! For people that I follow on both sites I've been trying to comment on Dreamwidth if I know they're Dreamwidth enthusiasts (like trascendenza and msilverstar), so those links have been helpful for me as a reader/commenter, and I figure they'll be helpful for me as a journaler too, sort of like my tags and my fic index are useful for readers but even more useful for me. Comments on LJ will definitely still be open and welcome, but I'll just put in this reminder that I welcome them on Dreamwidth too.

I think most of you have Dreamwidth accounts already but if anyone needs an invite code I've got a bunch, and there's also commenting with OpenID.

In other news, I signed up for picfor1000. This is a challenge where the mod gives you a picture and you use it as inspiration for a fic of exactly 1000 words in any fandom. I think this looks like a lot of fun, even though the theme this year is food, which is not really something I get excited about writing about. The funny thing is that I've never managed to sign up for this challenge before but I have written four stories of exactly 1000 words in the past year. (I considered doing a set of ten drabbles for remixredux09 too and I think it could have worked well for that fic, but I was afraid of getting stuck in a rut, and I'm glad I went with something a little longer instead.) I think there is generally not much feedback on this challenge (unless you're, you know, astolat writing NC-17 Arthur/Merlin or something) but that's okay. There is also not much stress because it's not an exchange.

Speaking of which, best wishes to everyone struggling to finish up their holiday fest assignments, and also to students and teachers struggling to finish up the semester. (I had my last class today and it sucked, really left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a bad feeling about the semester, but at least it's over.)

Comments

[roga]

I've thought about it too, and now that I see you're doing it, I'm adopting the DW comment link line too. I thought it'd be annoying too, but lots of people are doing it, and I don't find myself annoyed.

[sophinisba]

I find the default wording a little off-putting. Once I realized I could say "Also" instead of "Originally" and take out the part ordering people to comment at Dreamwidth I felt better about it. (Though I've been slow to set it up because of laziness, and I tried doing it last week and did it wrong so it didn't take effect.)

[torachan]

I decided to start using the link on all posts (I was using it only on the rare ones where I closed the comments on LJ), even though it means I will have to go in and edit posts for one journal that I want to crosspost to, but not constantly link back to DW (I have linked back here occasionally, but don't want the link to be that obvious).

I'm lucky in that both my DW and those of most people on my flist are quite active, so I don't really feel like it's just meaningless crossposting with all the "good stuff" still happening on LJ (which is how I felt about IJ).

[sophinisba]

Yeah, I tried friending some new people on IJ but they didn't post often enough to make it worth it for me to read there regularly.

You've sort of been saving Dreamwidth for me. :) I've taken advantage of the subscription/access split here to follow some people that have always intimidated me, or like, people that I'd friended on LJ and they didn't friend me back, or they seemed to filter me out of their reading lists there. So there's interesting content here but very little of the kind I'm actually comfortable commenting on. It's more like reading metafandom links mixed with duplicate posts, and not much like reading the journals of friends. It's been getting a little more friendly lately though, so maybe that'll keep getting better.

camelot_fleet's also here, and that's been awesome.

[torachan]

It's funny. I thought I'd be using the split a lot more often, because on LJ I didn't friend back people unless they posted often and about things that really interested me. So I had planned on doing the same here, but granting access to everyone who friended me, regardless of whether I friended back. But I've just been friending everyone (except for like two people whom I just granted access to without friending), even those who haven't updated at all. It really bothered me to friend inactive journals on LJ, but I guess because I started doing that from the beginning here, it hasn't had the same feeling.

[sophinisba]

Yeah, I was surprised that you friended me back because I know you didn't always do that on LJ, but it's been nice.

It makes me a little uncomfortable when people here give me access without subscribing though. My feeling is that if someone's not going to be reading me we're not going to have a relationship so I don't need to see their personal posts or their snark posts. I guess some people just do it so they can share media though.

[torachan]

Well, mutual friending isn't guarantee of a relationship, either. I have plenty of people who've friended me and never commented even once, etc. I still include them on flocked post, unless I'm filtering to a smaller group.

With DW I really do try to friend everyone, but some I just can't. There's one person whose DW is only their twitter posts and while I'm willing to scroll past those for someone I'm friends with or who has other interesting content, I'm really not for someone who never comments on my posts and has no other content.

[sophinisba]

I have mixed feelings/go back and forth about how much I want to share with people who never comment (like, partly it's "Do I want these people to know this much about me?" but also "Do I want to spam these people with a bunch of posts they're probably not interested in?"). I used to use filters a lot but that got sort of complicated when I was crossposting to InsaneJournal so I stopped using them for posting, and lately I've stopped using them for reading too and have been more likely to unfriend people on LJ that I never interact with. I still hesitate though because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

LoudTwitter: ugh.

[egret]

I am very LJ-centric and really only use my DW account to comment on DW sites, but I'll friend you here as well in case that changes :)

[sophinisba]

Cool. Adding you back, and we can rearrange things if you start crossposting or reading here. :)

[lavendertook]

I like the way you've set it, but I can't figure out how to fill the default box to get it the way you've set it.

I try to always comment at DW if the friend is crossposting. Very few of my LJ flist do crosspost here, but I wish more did.

[sophinisba]

Have you gone to the My Account Settings page? There's a box there that lets you fiddle with the text. Mine says "Also posted at %%url%% with %%comment_image%%<a href=%%comment_url%%>comments</a>."

I follow some former Lotrips people here and folks I'm used to reading through metafandom and other communities, but barely any of my older friends from LotR fandom use their journals here.

[lavendertook]

Thank you very much--I went and set it to that. I couldn't tell if you should replace the URL code with your own journal addy and how to mash the codes together.

DW is where I have the right icon for any occasion, because I just don't want to give LJ any more of my money, but I'm happy to give it to DW.

[sophinisba]

I went to a basic account on LJ for quite a while - I don't know, maybe a year? (It would have been longer but someone gave me some paid time.) But eventually my desire for more than six icons grew stronger than my desire not to give them money, so I caved. Someone else gifted me paid time here so I have more icon spaces but I almost never use them because they won't work for crossposting and because I do so little commenting here. :( This is one of my Dth-only icons.