#browsing the feed ; dash comm

[hashtag-bitch]

"Alright, I'm creating a No Christmas in September club who's joining?"

[stellarcn]

"Noice."

[wrangletangle]

Since you were recommending Dreamwidth, I decided to check it out. Is their anyway to look purely at art/fanfic without searching through someone's blog? What makes Tumblr so easy to use is that you can search through peoples tags quickly to find what you want, and I can't really find that on DW. Also, can you follow tags/interests on DW just like you do on Tumblr? It's a feature that allows me to keep up with my fandoms even when I'm not actively combing the tags and it's very helpful.

Hi anon, thanks for asking! Sorry for the delay.

Dreamwidth is constructed very differently from Tumblr, as you noticed. It was originally created as a fork of the Livejournal code, but has since developed in its own direction, as requests from the userbase came in.

To give you some parallels:

You can still follow individual users. In fact, you have a lot more control over how you follow users - you can adjust your following preferences to group users together into named dashes, for example. I have a dash for individual blogs and a separate one for communities (details below).

Most users do have a personal tagging system, and this generates an automatic list of their personal tags, available at the /tag URL for that user. So if I want to see all of the art that pentapus has ever posted (and I do, regularly), I just go to pentapus’s blog, glance at the taglist and pick the “art” tag. Voila, I have it all. No skipping stuff like Tumblr likes to do.

Now for what’s different:

DW doesn’t block your post for being “adult” or hide posts based on tags. Instead, you flag your individual posts or entire blog as adult, and if someone isn’t logged in, they get a warning before they see the material.

When I make a post on DW, I can literally control who can see it. I can either lock it to only my followers, to only a subset of my followers (groups I’ve put together privately, which my followers can’t see), or I can let everyone see it. I can choose my own tags for my own blog. I don’t have to worry about fighting over tags with another fandom I’ve never heard of, or strangers hopping into my blog and fighting with me over something they have no context for.

Where Dreamwidth is really different is in how it organizes what Tumblr does via general tags. DW does that via opt-in communities, which have mods and everything. When it comes to fannish content, I often won’t post that to my personal journal at all but to a community for that topic instead, or I’ll post it to my personal journal but I’ll post a notice about it at a relevant community. That way, I know that people who are interested in that topic can see the post. I also don’t spam my followers with 50 million Baze/Chirrut reblogs haha ha (still not apologizing).

I join and follow communities for topics I’m interested in. Those communities can show up on my dash/feed, mixed in with the individuals I follow, or I can separate them into their own dash/feed. I have the power!

I can lock my posts in communities to community members only, if I don’t want to tell the entire universe about my Baze/Chirrut feels but only want to talk to like-minded shippers. (Though really, I want to tell the entire universe.)

No need for sideblogs. Just post to communities related to that topic.

Functional cut tags.

Multiple icons on free accounts.

THREADED CONVERSATIONS IN CONTEXT, ALONG WITH EVERYONE ELSE’S COMMENTS ON THE SAME POST. ALSO, CONVERSATIONS WITHOUT REBLOGGING.

No ads.

No porn blog followers.

Community-run support, so you can literally see the support queue and usually get a helpful response within like 2-3 days at most, often faster for easy questions.

Help files? That tell you how to use the site? Linked from a button that says “Help”?

You can edit your posts, and there won’t be 500 copies of the version with the typo in it.

Screened comments that can be unscreened at will.

Long-form non-chat PM system.

Comment-tracking, even for posts you didn’t make.

Multiple icons, which allow you to mood theme your posts.

Polls, if you have a paying account.

Actual mood themes, if you have a paying account.

What does that mean?

No antis. Anti content is not posted to the communities, or if it is, mods remove it. Antis are allowed to form their own communities, and people who love the thing they hate just avoid those. (Most people don’t bother making anti comms and just occasionally mutter on their personal blogs. Overall anti noise level is much lower, comparatively speaking.)

No fighting over tags.

Better RP. Let’s be real, RPing on Tumblr is horrifying.

More control over what feeds I see and when.

More control over what other people see. I can post personal rl posts for my followers only, and they will never be seen by anyone who doesn’t follow me.

More personal connections among mutuals, as you’re able to talk either privately or in small groups about your personal life or interests without random people barging in, taking your sandwich, and kicking your shins.

Better privacy controls. Honestly, does Tumblr even have privacy?

But also, in the reverse, the ability to connect with most of the people who have a particular interest by posting in a community. Since communities are moderated, people don’t hide from them the way a lot of us hide from the tags on Tumblr. You also don’t have to call into the void for people to follow - you can literally just look at the community membership list and browse for cool people.

CONVERSATION.

Connection. Belonging to a community on DW is not like being on Tumblr. It’s much more personal and interconnected, with individual support. On the flip side, communities don’t have the kinds of requirements that Tumblr networks do. You don’t have to follow X or do Y and send in an application and give them your icon and description or any of that jazz. You click a button. There, you’ve joined. No submissions required. No mod has to trawl the tags for things to reblog - members just post their stuff directly to the community, or post to their personal blogs and post a link to the community.

None of this requires an xkit-style extension. All of these features are natively supported by the site itself.

The experience is very different, but it is very awesome. Much more interconnected, much less wank (not totally non-wanky, because fandom wanks, but the system is designed to make it harder to be a jerk and easier to be a friend).

[hashtag-bitch]

Time to spread rumours about Val and the fossil online just because she feels like being a cunt.

[hashtag-bitch]

"Former Overlord says what?"

[hashtag-bitch]

Big. Meaty. Paws.

[hashtag-bitch]

No, she just needs potential new designers because some dickhead keeps using hers as stress toys and target practice.

[hashtag-bitch]

"Ma, hey MA!.. there's a weird fuckin' cat outside, ma."

[hashtag-bitch]

Damn right she's a Bitch.

[hashtag-bitch]

They'd all have no clue what to do with a child. She'd let them fend for themselves on that front.

[hashtag-bitch]

"I'm going to skin him."

[hashtag-bitch]

In her defence, she was actually not trying to do anything weird for once she just wanted a new designer. It's overly horny twats 1 & 2 that are ruining this for her.

[hashtag-bitch]

[hashtag-bitch]

"If he tries it I'm tearin' those bloody antennas off and shovin' em up his arse."

[hashtag-bitch]

"Don't they all have white hair?"

[hashtag-bitch]

"Everything runs on a Voxtek server..."