Welcome to Dreamwidth for our new Redditor friends!

[denise]

We've noticed a lot of new folks joining us this week after Reddit changed their API pricing to lock out a lot of third-party clients, and we'd like to say: welcome! Because we're structured so differently than Reddit is, I thought I'd take a moment and give y'all a quick tour to get you oriented.

The first step to finding people is filling out your profile. Add some interests describing what you're into: interests are keywords or tags that people can use to find like-minded people. Clicking on an interest in someone's profile leads to a list of everyone who's listed that interest. (As an example, here's everyone who's listed 'cats' as an interest.) Interests match on the exact text you enter, so the best interests are short words or phrases. Check out the popular interests to get a sense of what people list. (Mind the bug that we haven't been able to find yet that means there are a few listed with a wrong count!)

Communities are probably our closest equivalent to subreddits. You can create a community for anything you'd like, and people can join it and make posts. If you're moving over an entire subreddit, making a community is probably the best way for you all to recreate the experience as much as possible. Looking for an existing community? Search by interests on the directory search page, or check out dw_community_promo to see what communities are looking for more members. Just like subreddits, communities have their own moderators and their own rules, so check the rules before posting!

You can also subscribe to your favorite off-site RSS or Atom feeds and read them on Dreamwidth. Check out popular feeds, or add a feed that you're interested in. You'll need to know the URL for the RSS or Atom feed to add it.

Once you find some accounts to subscribe to, they'll appear on your Reading Page. Unlike a lot of places, the reading page is always reverse chronological order with no algorithmic reordering or guessing about what you're most interested in. The filter drop-down in the navigation bar at the top of the page lets you filter to personal journals, communities, or syndicated feeds automatically, and you can create additional reading filters -- if you subscribe to a few accounts you want to always be sure to catch up with even if you only have a few minutes, that's a good use of reading filters.

The inbox is where notifications of replies to your comments go, as well as your DMs and a few other things you can be notified of! (For instance, you can get notified by email and inbox every time a friend or a community posts.)

Our site search is where you can search for anything your heart desires! Search results are limited to public posts from accounts that haven't chosen to opt out of the site search (and if you'd like to, it's the Privacy tab of Manage Settings: scroll down to "Site-Wide Search Inclusion") and any locked posts that you've been granted access to see. You can also check the box to search comments: if the journal or community is a paid account, their comments will be included in the search if you check that box. (Comments made in free accounts won't be indexed, only paid accounts.)

The Latest Things page includes all public posts (on a five-minute delay so you have a chance to realize "oh shit, I accidentally made that public") made to the site. There might be anything in there at any given time, so reader beware, but it's a great way to get a sense of what's going on!

We don't have a mobile app, because when you have a mobile app, you have to control the kind of content your users are allowed to post a lot more than we want to do. (Adult content! I'm talking about adult content. The fact we don't accept advertising lets us allow a wide range of adult content most other sites restrict: as long as it's legal in the US, all we ask is that you mark adult content as adult, either on an entry by entry basis or for your entire account if you post a lot of it, so people who don't want to see it don't have to.) We've done a lot of work to make the site display well in mobile browsers (although we're always working to make it better). Our various journal styles are mobile-optimized to various degrees: the one that's specifically designed for mobile is Mobility, but play around with the various base styles to see which one works best for you. (I asked around our volunteer chat and the ones people named as working particularly well for them are Basic Boxes, Brittle, Corinthian, Drifting, Planet Caravan, and Sunday Morning.) Once you've picked a style, you can customize it to your heart's content, which is why none of us remember what the default settings look like anymore, heh.

I think that covers the majority of it! We're glad to have you, and we hope you'll stick around. And, of course, please let me remind you that Dreamwidth is independent social media that has no advertising or advertisers, sells no data, has taken no venture capital, and has no outside investors: on Dreamwidth, unlike so much of the rest of the modern social media landscape, you really are the customer and not the product being sold. If you have it to spare, toss us a few bucks to help keep the place running for everyone: paid accounts start as low as $3 for one month, and every paid account gets access to a number of extra features as our way of saying thank you for subsidizing the site for everyone.

Existing users: what are your favorite tips for new people getting started on DW? List them off in the comments!

Comments

[soc_puppet]

Definitely follow dw_news and dw_maintenance, so you can keep up with the goings-on of the site. The official news posts always share what's going on in very clear, easy-to-understand ways, and the maintenance posts can keep you up to date with any problems the site may be having.

Something fun you can do is upload a lot of different icons/user pics, and add specific, fun keywords to each. When you hover your mouse over another person's icon, the keywords they used to select it will become visible, adding a potential extra layer of communication!

Other than that, just ask questions! Most of the people here are eager to help out, because we love Dreamwidth and want to make using it easy for other people.

[archersangel]

if your not sure where to get icons here are come communities; dreamsheep (the unofficial DW mascot) , fandom_icons , icons . and some users make/made them too; isapiens a.k.a hsapiens , magnavox_23 , oraclegreen a.k.a misbegotten .

Fandom Roleplaying on Dreamwidth

[unknown20troper]

If you’re a Redditor that’s interested in fandom roleplaying (as in, say, roleplaying as characters from Star Trek, Steven Universe, and other movies, books, TV shows, webcomics and other canons; as well as OCs [Original Characters]), DW has a specific fandom roleplaying subculture that might be difficult to find simply through searching through Interests.

enablemeplz and dwrpmasterlist are where to go to find games and people to roleplay with. bakerstreet is the most popular roleplay memes comm (roleplay memes are different than memes in the usual Internet sense of the word).

The subculture is complex and old (in Internet terms), and I don’t recall exactly where the guides to it are but I know they’re there, and if you have any questions, I could do my best to answer them. I started DWRPing in 2019 so I know what it’s like to be a noob in this particular subculture.

Also, DW has a handy little button for marking your account as a roleplaying account.

Re: Fandom Roleplaying on Dreamwidth

[yudil]

This is one of the guides I was directed to when I was starting DWRP: Guide to DWRP for Tumblr RPers (Google Docs)

There are also some resources linked here on rpanons: RP Resources

I'm still pretty new to DWRP myself but I'm also totally up for helping out in any way I can! 🥰

[niqaeli]

my hot tips come down to: once you find a few neat folks personal journals to follow

a) read the comments, because there will probably be more neat people in them! (I know this goes against everything about the rest of the internet, but if you're a refugee from reddit probably you are used to reading the comments?)

b) surf your network page (https://YOURDWUSERNAME.dreamwidth.org/network) to find more cool people! The cool people you are following are fairly likely to follow other cool people. (the network page is basically all the posts you have access to see of all the people that you subscribe to subscribe to!)

Welcome to Dreamwidth! <3

[vriddy]

To avoid confusion, the Network page is a paid account feature, though it's worthwhile checking it out for anyone deciding to support Dreamwidth :) The Network page for other interesting users you're subscribed to can also be a good start in the meantime.

And yes to reading comments! Conversations are the best part of Dreamwidth :D

[vriddy]

If you find a conversation interesting, you can track it so you get the notifications for any new comment in your inbox (and email, if you want!) by clicking the Bell/'Track this' icon on any post. You could start by doing it on this one, so you get everyone's tips right into your inbox :)

Welcome!

Tips

[brainwane]

Some folks and I put together a few tips during a convention panel a few years ago, such as:

• You can reply to comments via email.

• To just look at the access-locked entries on someone's journal (assuming you have been granted access), append ?security=access to the URL, as in: http://username.dreamwidth.org/?security=access.

• Dreamwidth has flexible tagging for your posts -- see rosefox or 50books_poc for some examples.

Welcome!

[madfilkentist]

Reddit refugees should know that people really are usually polite here.

[scissorsevered]

I've been using DW longer than I've been using Reddit and I can attest to this. I've had quite a few great conversations on Reddit but DW is generally more laid back.

[juan_gandhi]

Good news! Thank you! We love you!

I'm not inviting anybody, but from time to time I make my post visible by just keeping it public.

Tags are good for attracting people, I think, but one has to handle them properly.

[cmcmck]

If you belong, as I do, to a social minority it's worth using a sticky intro post to say what it is and what you will and will not find acceptable about how people might react.

It's a good way of introducing yourself even without that necessity! :o)

[manglefox]

Absolutely this.

[dangercupcake]

I am a really big fan of finding communities to join, and then posting there or replying to comments, and learning who the great people are, and following them. That's how I met my best friend over 20 years ago and it seems to still work these days :)

[gingicat]

Yes, this is the best way to get around the fact that individual journals are much more decentralized than Reddit threads.

[pineapple_sour]

Thank you for explaining why there's no mobile app. I've often wondered.

[keshwyn]

Yes, this.

[pauamma]

Don't be afraid to check our help resources or ask for help. We don't bite.

[immortalje]

A good starting point for finding fandom communities or promoting any you might create yourself is fandom_on_dw. Anything from general fandom communities to writing/icon challenges get promoted there.

[melannen]

If you're not sure about communities and want to try out using one, fictional_fans was created specifically as a starter community where people new to dreamwidth can try out communities in a low-stakes way. (Posts are supposed to be related to "fandom" in some way but we have an extremely expansive definition of fandom.) It's a place to both ask questions and try out your own posts in a living community.

[tabaqui]

This is really just an excellent post, both for newbies AND for those of us who've been around long enough to forget some things.
Thanks so much!

[denise]

Thank you! I know that we're often hard to figure out on first glance because we're a whole different generation of internet; I should remember to do things like this more often!

[ride_4ever]

Yes, what tabaqui says in the comment right above this one!


<3 you, DW!

[ex_flameandsong751]

Howdy! I make icons at fancylittleboxes if anyone would like free candy.

DW is a much more chill place than other social media sites.

[havocthecat]

Icons are not an addictive substance.

Really.

*cue semi-hysterical laughter and counting of remaining free icon slots*

[randomdrops]

As a user who has returned recently after quite a hiatus, this is all very useful info!

For redditors looking to make friends/follow other users, I've found some great people via addme

[conuly]

And if that's your sort of thing there's also addme_fandom and findingfriends.

[azurelunatic]

If you feel like it, you can post an entry in your own journal to introduce yourself to the people you are adding to your circle. Some possible topics:

* The name you go by on the internet, which might or might not be related to your username and/or display name. For example, my username is azurelunatic but friends call me Azz; only Betty gets to call me Al.

* What your username on Reddit is/was, if you care to make that association.

* What you think you're going to use your journal for (at least right now): are you trying to stay in touch with your Reddit peeps, do you post collections of interesting links, do you mostly lurk and/or participate in communities, do you write about your daily life, do you write themed essays, do you share recipes? Something else?

* What are/were some of your favorite subreddits, and what do you like about them?

[archersangel]

....only Betty gets to call me Al.

if that's a reference to the song you can call me al by paul simon, very nice work.

Two tips to ease things socially

[bioluminescently]

1. This is counter-intuitive if you're used to places like Twitter and Tumblr, but mentioning someone's username with @ in front of it in a post or comment here will NOT send them a notification.

So if you're @ mentioning people but you're puzzled that they aren't leaving a reply, it's not necessarily unfriendliness: they just won't automatically know you've mentioned them.

2. But people can get notifications to Dreamwidth's on-site inbox and to their email inbox when you reply to their posts or comments, or when you make a post, if they've got those options enabled. So make sure you enable notifications yourself to make sure you don't miss people interacting with you around the site!

I think it often throws people that the notifications page has two sets of checkboxes, and the first (leftmost) one is for your inbox on Dreamwidth. So if people don't check the site, they'll miss notifications there unless they also check in the right-hand column, which gets you email notifications.

Re: Two tips to ease things socially

[denise]

You can sometimes also use site search to search for your username, although that's harder if your username is a common word and sometimes the search's fuzzy matching is a bit irritating, heh.

[sky]

Welcome Redditors!!!

While there are no upvotes/downvotes here, if like me you sometimes look at your own /u/ page to check your imaginary internet points remember what conversations you've been involved in, Read > Recent Comments from the main menu will get you some of that information here on DW. https://www.dreamwidth.org/comments/recent

Paid accounts have access to a longer comment history.

[soc_puppet]

Oh, I've got a new one! So the way to include someone's username here is this code: <user name=examplename>

Something fun Dreamwidth set up is that you can link to someone's username on other websites this way! So here I'm soc_puppet, but I'm also socchan and bisexualbaker. You do that by adding site=examplesite after the user name in the code, like so: <user name=examplename site=examplesite> It's super useful!

To create a cut that shortens posts, like a readmore on Tumblr, use the tag "cut" between carrots; "/cut" closes it. You can nest cuts, but you won't be able to tell unless you're reading the topmost cut by opening it via side triangle.

Some fun spoiler-hiding code:

When you click this triangle, you'll find some example text

Example text

<details><summary>When you click this triangle, you'll find some example text</summary>Example text</details>

Dreamwidth has some really fun features 😃

[denise]

Ooooh, those are some good tips I totally forgot about! Thank you!

[soc_puppet]

A couple other features!

"Expand all" for comment sections: I think this is only a paid feature? But when a post gets over fifty comments, Dreamwidth automatically collapses a lot of threads, especially longer ones; when that happens, you can check up at the bottom of the post, and the option to "Expand All Comments" will appear as a viewing option right next to the links showing how many comments there are, inviting you to post a new comment, etc.

Another one I really love is a vital accessibility feature for people who rely on screenreaders: You can turn on a special comment hierarchy thing, which makes it easier to figure out which comment is in reply to which. So a comment thread might look like:

Click the triangle to see an example comment thread

1 (first comment)
1a (reply to first comment)
1b (reply to first comment)
1b1 (reply to second reply)
1b1a (reply to previous reply)
1c (reply to first comment

2 (second comment)
2a (reply to second comment)
2a1 (reply to first reply of second comment)
2b (reply to second comment)

And so forth. It's pretty nifty!

Overall, Dreamwidth dedicates a lot of time and effort to making the site as accessible as possible. Sometimes things still happen, and an update may bork the site in a way that the accessibility team wasn't able to find before the code went live, but the Dreamwidth team always does their best to get things fixed as soon as possible, and to expand their tester base in the aftermath to hopefully prevent that sort of thing from happening again.

[cora]

Thank you for this! I had forgotten about the 'expand' option, and was just opening endless browser tabs to read the comments.

[silveradept]

For those of us who like to post long-form things, manifestos, or other thousands-words long posts as a general rule, there's no automatic "read more" cutoff point to a post. Instead, you can manually decide where to put the "Read More" spot in your entries using the <cut> tag in your entry. (It's called that because it's a holdover from LiveJournal which used <lj-cut> to do it.)

The standard cut tag will default to "Read More", but you can customize the text of what you want to display there with <cut text=text>

This only works for entries, and it creates a link to the spot on the entry when you click on the cut link. <details>, mentioned above, works on both entries and comments, so it's up to you to choose which one you want to use for your entries.

today I learned

[ex_flameandsong751]

I have been on DW for years and I did not know about

thank you!

[sabotabby]

Welcome Redditors! It can be hard to meet people at first here because a lot of the communities aren't as easy to navigate here as subs and the pace is generally slower, but I promise it's worth it. I don't have anything to add to the great tips but I just wanted to say hi.

[x003]

I'm a new convert from Reddit/Twitter and I just wanted to thank you all--both for this post and for the warm welcome and tips in the comments. Looking forward to meeting the community here! :-)

[denise]

Welcome home! I hope you enjoy it here :)