Dreamwidth rambling

[frelling_tralk]

Er I hope this doesn't cause any offense, but today I actually unsubscribed from quite a few of the DW accounts that I first added when we were creating them as LJ back-ups. All of those accounts still have mutual access, but I decided that I want to start to try and keep up with my DW flist as well (or "reading list" I guess) now that so many people have left for DW, and at the moment I find that I'm mostly just reading the same entries again that I've already read on LJ, so I've unsubscribed to friends that I'm already in touch with on LJ

For the moment I won't be cross-posting and using my own DW, but I am going to try and keep up with my "subscriptions" over there (is it just me, or is DW awfully impersonal??), and read through it after I've read my flist

Comments

[honeymink]

I'm still fairly undecided what to do about Dreamwidth and all. In any event, meanwhile I'm around and I feel the need to tell you how much I adore your "The Americans" icon! Are you caught up on the new season?

is it just me, or is DW awfully impersonal??

No. That's always how it has felt to me. Probably why I never really felt like moving.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just because we're used to LJ, but "subscribers" on DW and "followers" on tumblr just don't have the same cosy feel as my LJ flist does :( I prefer the mutual friending system where we can get to know one another properly. I have thought about it being fairly easy to manually cross-post to DW, and maybe I should consider it with so many moving there now, but at the moment I'm really meh about it. I consider myself to be primarily based on LJ, and so I really don't want comments in two different places for the same entry, but I know that if I did start cross-posting I'd most likely get people posting on the DW entry instead. And I really want to keep everything all in one place on LJ for the time-being, so I'm just going to wait and see how big the shift to DW is before I make any decisions on cross-posting I suppose. A fair few people and communities have moved there lately, but most of my flist are still here at the moment, so it's not like LJ is a complete ghost town

And all of my The Americans icons are by iwillnotdance, and I was very happy to find them :D I'm all caught up on the new season now, aside from the very latest episode which I'm hoping to watch tonight

[hamsterwoman]

I had the same problem with mostly duplicate entries with DW, a migration or two ago, so I created a "DW only flist" reading filter, and that seems to work pretty well (...when I remember to check DW at all).

And, yeah, I don't like the "subscription"/"give access" terminology much either. I mean, I do think it's awesome that DW separates those two functions, because there are cases where I do want to do one and not the other... but they tend to be an exception rather than the rule for me, and having the whole framework phrased in such impersonal-sounding terms feels rather uncozy...

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I never used to bother with DW tbh, but enough people have moved there recently that I've decided it would be worth checking out my reading list over there after I've caught up with LJ. It is going to be a bit annoying having two separate flists to check, so I thought I might as well cut out any cross-posters from DW, and then had a panic that it might be considered rude after we've only just added one another over there! It seems a bit more formal on DW though, so I'm not sure that anyone would even care, but I'm still in the LJ mode I guess where it's always feels like a bit of a rejection when you get "defriended"

And :nods: I used to think it was annoying that you automatically give someone access to your LJ when you might just want to read their entries, but then when DW was created and did separate it all, I found that I really didn't like the idea of making everything more complicated with subscribing and access. It would make me feel like we're all putting out daily newspapers or something :P

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Someone told me to create a filter, but then I still have to go over there and look at it (which I know I should do, but I'm just too lazy.....).

The thing that annoys me is that people don't want to be on Lj, but then they cross post. So they aren't really sure are they? They should just go if they don't want to support Lj otherwise it looks like they still support Lj and they might as well stay here. Also it makes it look like DW is an active site because everyone is backing up there and creating a history that looks like we've been there for ages. I don't see why they should get that 'history' without providing a nice place like Lj is...

*mutters*

I dunno - maybe I'm just fed up with people flouncing off and I know they don't read my journal here, but seem to expect me to read theirs on DW....!!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Also it makes it look like DW is an active site because everyone is backing up there and creating a history that looks like we've been there for ages. I don't see why they should get that 'history'

Heh that's true, a lot of DW must just consist of back-up journals created from LJ. I must admit that I did do that myself because I found it so handy to be able to back it all up, but on the other hand I'm surprised that LJ ever allowed a rival platform to copy all of their codes (or whatever the technical term is) to the letter, it does seem a bit cheeky!

And cross-posting seems to be the big thing these days, but it just feels to me like it would be annoying to have comments in two separate places, that way there's much less chance of everyone seeing *all* of the coments and maybe joining in on a particular discussion. I've realised recently that a few entries on my flist that didn't get much response on LJ actually had a lot more comments over on DW, and at the time I'd no idea that there was more talk going on over there, so now I need to remember to try and keep track of the comments in both entries. It was so much easier when everything was all in one place :grumpy sigh:

[shapinglight]

flouncing off

I think that's pretty harsh if you don't mind my saying.

I do read your journal on LJ. I don't always comment because I don't always have anything to say. And I don't expect you to read my DW. Whether you do or not is entirely up to you.

[honeymink]

maybe I'm just fed up with people flouncing off and I know they don't read my journal here, but seem to expect me to read theirs on DW

That's how I feel. And then never reply to my comments. I've stopped commenting on crossposted entries because of that.

[elisi]

I'm slowly trying to set up a filter for DW, but it's v faffy.

Like you, I'm reading a lot of things twice...

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found that I was skimming DW a bit as I'd read most of it on LJ already. I've decided that it makes more sense to take people off my DW reading list if I'm already following them on LJ, but then it felt rather awkward to suddenly take so many names off my reading list when we'd only just added one another on DW, so I had a panicky moment of hoping that none of my LJ friends would take offence at being removed from my DW (well I'm sure that nobody does particularly care lol)

[wendelah1]

The reason for the subscription/access separation was to make it easy for people to read the journals of those who wanted to keep some entries private or for only for a few close friends. The other reason is so people can grant access to someone even if they don't want to read their journal, for whatever reason. You can do the same thing with reading filters here and at DW. It's just more work. If I want to stop reading someone--maybe they're posting a lot on topics that are sensitive to me, or they're obsessed with a fandom I actively dislike--I can just unsubscribe, but leave their access in place. They can still read all of my entries. I always check in periodically. Sometimes I'll resubscribe to people again after a time.

All of my non-fandom entries are locked up there, although I grant access to anyone who asks. My default on LiveJournal is now locked, but again, I grant access to anyone who asks.

Maybe it doesn't feel impersonal to me because I've met new people since I started cross-posting.

I also love your icon. I saw you joined theamericans. I'm two episodes behind. Sigh.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It's just different ways of doing things I suppose, and a lot of us still on LJ have become a bit set in our ways *g*

I was very pleasantly surprised at how active the comm for The Americans seems to be! I'd always heard that the communities were pretty much dead on DW, but of course that might be changing now anyway, a few biggish comms from LJ have moved over recently

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Oh and I take it that it's not considered that big a deal to unsubscribe and still remain on friendly terms on DW then, do you get a notification about it the way that you do on LJ when you've been defriended?

[bm-shipper.livejournal.com]

I don't like DW, never did, therefore I'm not going anywhere. If LJ goes down I go down with it, I won't move to DW at all!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Aww let's hope it doesn't come to that then, I would hate to lose touch! At the moment I'm mostly just using DW as a safeguard to back everything up, but if LJ does ever go under for good then I'm hoping that most of us will pick things up on DW. I would hard to give up blogging all together, I don't want to be stuck with tumblr for talking with other fans :shudders:

[shapinglight]

Have to say I'm baffled by people's view of DW (I don't find it impersonal), and I don't find it particularly onerous trying to keep up with two flists. But I am probably not as pushed for time as some. ;)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

DW probably isn't all that different from LJ really to be fair, and access and subscribing does sound like a sensible way of doing things when you want to read a strangers DW without them having access to all of your private thoughts. I suppose that it's just what you're used too at the end of the day though, it just doesn't feel as personal to me somehow, and I've felt settled here for so many years that I don't cope well with change!

I'm hoping the whole two flists thing will be easier now that I've removed a few LJ subscriptions anyway, because they'll be two entirely separate entities to catch up with. And I might try cross-posting to DW before the end of the year, I'm not sure what I want to do yet

[eowyn.livejournal.com]

I can understand that - it's awfully messy at the moment.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yes, it feels like everything is very split between LJ and DW at the moment so it's best to have a toe in both waters.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I'm tolerant of DW at best, and I've been cross-posting my entries for the most part.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Do you manually copy and paste your LJ entries over there then, or is there a way to cross-post from LJ to DW? And yes, if it was up to me then we would all just stay on LJ, but I can understand why people wanted to leave :(

[sabotabby]

I find DW a bit impersonal. Maybe it's the dearth of comms, or that "subscribe" and "circles" feel less friendly than, well, "friends." Hopefully it'll heat up now that there's such an exodus from LJ.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

That's how it's always struck me, that it's more about cherry-picking what it interests you to read, rather than formulating mutual friendships. It just feels a bit more formal than LJ. Plus honestly it always felt like all the 'cool kids' went over there, pitying those of us who didn't want to make the break from LJ, and it can be hard to shake that first impression, even though I'm sure that it is a pretty ridiculous and unfair one!

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I don't mind DW, but at the same time it feels terribly foreign and yes, kinda impersonal. I reckon it is the new house feel to it. Everything is new and the walls and windows are bare, so it's like a cheap hotel room. Every time there's a new issue on LJ it seems like I make a new one (i can never remember my login info) and then forget about it.

If you're fandom-only, especially nearly-dead fandoms, it's hard to keep up the motivation to go there regularly.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

It seems like it's picked up in activity a lot lately, but yeah it's been dead there for so long that I never felt very motivated to pay much attention to it before. Now some of the bigger LJ comms have moved there though, so I'm not sure what's going to happen in the future, maybe it really will end up having a bigger user base than LJ

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I think that's a-ok. :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

:)

[tinny]

I have flist filters on both sides, so with the recent move, I just removed people from one filter here on LJ and added them to my filter on DW - no entries twice, everything fine, and I don't have to "unfriend" anyone.

A lot of people on my flist had been crossposting already for years, and the number of comments on the DW side was always close to 0. Now that has changed, and a lot of people suddenly have more comments on the DW side than on the LJ side. So I have moved those over to my DW circle filter. But of course, the problem with the split comments remains. :/

There is no way to crosspost from LJ to DW - unless you use Semagic to post to both sites at once. But I cannot recommend that! I did that for a bit in 2014, and when I decided to import my journal from LJ to DW, all those entries were duplicated.

The only thing that really works is to crosspost from DW to LJ. You can (repeatedly) import your LJ journal into DW, so you have all the comments on DW. It will not duplicate anything, and in the end you have the complete set on DW like that.

I also found that DW was completely dead over the last two years, but it has really picked up again this month, and I hope it stays that way.

(The americans comm has always been active over there - it just happens to have a dedicated mod.)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I've definitely noticed that for some people the number of comments that they're getting on LJ vs DW has really switched around with LJ's recent move. I've always had a few friends that cross-post from DW, but there never seemed to be a very active community over there before, and now things are starting to pick up. The split comments does make things a bit messy, but there's not really much to be done about that at the moment

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Hey, go for it! I don't post on DW and use it just like to: to read other people's posts there. So no crossposting on my end!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Same with me at the moment :)

[batmarg.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to just check in w/ the people I know made the move individually to avoid repeats, but I dunno if that will prove too much work.

ATM, I'm going to try to get used to the crossposting feature by using it for the 365 day meme. But I'll be still posting my general entries over here and backing up to DW. I don't want to make the move, but want to be used to it, just in case. And yes, DW is v impersonal.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think that DW is very useful for backing up my LJ for the future, but otherwise I don't particularly want to make the move. I can see why not having a mutual friending arrangement is more practical, but it does feel a bit impersonal to me, I feel like you wouldn't end up knowing your flist half as well as you do on LJ