What Dreamwidth Does Well

[ysabetwordsmith]

yourlibrarian made a post mentioning rumbles about Twitter dwindling, suggested that people discuss what they enjoy about Dreamwidth.

As always, when people become dissatisfied with their current venue, they will look for a replacement. Maybe they want something similar, but maybe they're sick of what it did badly and want something different. This is an opportunity for Dreamwidth to pick up new users. Listen for friends on other services to complain, and invite them over here.


Things I like about Dreamwidth:

* It's ideal for long posts. You can post whole articles or stories on here.

* It manages comments quite well, with enough room for lengthy discussions of complex or controversial topics.

* You can build up a circle of friends. One way to make friends is to look at the comments under posts you like, follow the commenters back to their blogs, and see if you'd like to read more. A similar approach works with communities.

* Dreamwidth has active communties across many topics. You can search Interests to find things you like. See my Follow Friday posts for lists of active communities on different themes. If you don't find a community you like, it's easy to start your own: see "Creating a Community on Dreamwidth" by vriddy.

* There are a few really big events scattered around the year, like the snowflake_challenge in January. These make it easy to meet new people.

* Dreamwidth offers free, paid, and premium accounts so you can choose which you want.  See the Extra Services page for a comparison of what you get in each package.  Frex, everyone gets some icon slots but paying customers get more; whereas only paid and premium accounts can make polls.








Another way to help is to recommend resources for new members. Here are some examples:

* "Quick Tips for the Dreamwidth Newbie"

* "Dev Getting Started" -- how to hack Dreamwidth code.

* Know how to find people on Dreamwidth.

* Recurring posts make it easy to maintain whatever posting frequency you want and to support your favorite topics. Most readers prefer between one and several posts per week in order to read a blog. More traffic than one post a day is overwhelming to some folks.

* "Improving Community in Fandom" and "How to Make Fandom More Inclusive"

* If you're into fandom, know the essential starter recommendations of canon and fanfic for your favorite books, series, movies, etc.


Does anyone else have resources to add?

Comments

[bluedreaming]

It's not a conventional resource, but I often forget about the many things that Dreamwidth can do (especially if I'm not actively using them), so the extra services page is a helpful reminder of features (many of which are available for free accounts) as well as helpful links for how to access/manage those features.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's a good point; I have added this.

[curiosity]

This is something I do on the regular both on Twitter and Tumblr. I've lured a few people to the dark side. *twirls mustache* Dreamwidth is an important, steadfast bastion in a sea of social media outlets and fandom spaces always in flux.

People need to know what they're missing out on!

[vriddy]

Thanks for the link back to that comm creation masterpost, I hope it comes in handy to others, too! :)

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

You're doing some great work. I want people to see it.