promethia

So, comms have always been tricky on Dreamwidth. Maybe there are some truly active ones out there, but by and large there's never been that critical mass to make them lively. Up to this point it's been far, far easier to just lure your friends over to Dreamwidth or find a few new ones through your network and have your fannish life be in people's journals.

But right now? I think there's a chance of making a few of them take off.

miss_s_b on gallifrey_times has compiled a list of active Doctor Who comms and a list of inactive Doctor Who comms on Dreamwidth. Note: the distinction between active and inactive comms on DW is . . . a somewhat academic one.

I'm seriously considering subscribing to the whole list and just seeing if any of them rise from the dead. The upside of DW is that there's no real downside to subscribing to as many comms as you want. Most will sit there and maybe spit an interesting tidbit to you a couple times a year. But maybe this time one or two will do more.

I've deleted my account. For anyone who is interested in doing so without having to sign something in Russian, if you're using some method of blocking external scripts (I use Ghostery) you can get onto the site without the pop-up loading. Apparently you can also just disable Java in your browser for a bit. Now, LJ is unusable like this, so it's not a way to keep using the site without consequence, but if you just need to nip in in order to burn the place down, it seems to work.

UPDATED: In light of the new Terms of Service over on LJ, I think I have to amend my basic recommendation here to 'abandon ship as soon as possible.' I personally have deleted my LiveJournal. But a lot of this is still relevant to how to set yourself up over here.

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Hello old friends and new. If you’ve not heard, LiveJournal is now being hosted on Russian servers, leading to many a declaration that this time, really, we are all moving to Dreamwidth. Really, really.

Pity Dreamwidth sucks.

As someone who made the move . . . *boggles* four years ago now, I am here to tell you that this does not have to be a misery. It also does not have to be an all-or-nothing thing, unless you want it to be. You, too, can move to Dreamwidth and like it.

I’m not going to tell you why you should move to Dreamwidth. If you’re still using LiveJournal, your reasons are probably well-established. But if recent events are making you think that you need to suck it up and move anyway, read on.

Look, I’ll be honest, I’m a bit of a technological drifter by nature. I jump hardware and software platforms all the time. Because I’m bored. Because I want a new challenge. Because I like the way my thoughts feel in a new box. It’s an adventure for me. I don’t expect everybody to feel the same way about things, but I will tell you if you can take on even a bit of this mindset, moving will be a lot more enjoyable.

Change! Adventure! A fresh start! A chance to rethink how you do things and why.

Go on, paint your room a new color! Maybe you’ll like it *eyebrow wiggle*



( How to move to Dreamwidth: )



I hope this is helpful to anybody feeling a bit overwhelmed about things and not knowing what steps to take and how. Feel free to link this to anybody you think could use it.

Change can be fun, if you embrace it! Good luck!

If you're like me and a lot of Dreamwidth looks horrible and huge and boxy on your computer, I have found out why and how to fix it!

Most sites you're used to visiting override your browser's default font size and force your browser to display something small like 10 or 12 pt. font. Dreamwidth, for what I assume are accessibility reasons, respects your browser's default font and proportions everything else to fit it. When I went into my browser's preferences and looked it up, my default was set at 16 pt. I've now adjusted it down to 14 and the whole site looks so much better.

Merry Christmas!

ETA: Apparently Gmail also adjusts to browser default font sizes (kind of), and 14 pt. font in Gmail is tiny. Also does not appear to have an option for changing the overall font size on Gmail (just the comfortable/cozy/compact views, which mostly change the amount of white space). Am not used to having to be mad at Gmail, booooooo . . . I think 15 pt. might be a reasonable compromise.

I'm moving (ish)!

While I'm not raging over the recent LJ changes the way so many seem to be, I have been looking for awhile for a decent excuse to push more of my fannish life over onto DW. The current crisis seems as good a reason as any, and if we all of us sit around saying "I'll move to DW as soon as there's more fandom activity over there," then, well, there's never going to be more fandom activity over on DW, now is there?

Therefore from now on, I will be disabling LJ comments on new entries and directing commenters over to my DW. I will continue to cross-post to LJ so you can see my posts on your flist!

If you don't have a Dreamwidth account of your own, you can comment on Dreamwidth with your LJ account using OpenID. Learn how here. (Your OpenID URL would be username.livejournal.com.) I will also leave anonymous commenting on on DW for as long as it doesn't give me any grief : P

Anyone on my LJ flist who is also on DW, please feel free to friend me! Let me know who you are if I won't recognize your DW username.

Anyone on LJ who is interested in testing the waters, DW is currently having an open enrollment period (no invite code needed). Create an account here. And here's a handy guide to DW for LJ users!

Change is fun! See you all around.


ETA: elleth has an excellent linkspam here of LJ/DW news, features, and changes relevant to the current situation. Of particular interest to me among the things she's found: aphelant's beautifully in-depth post about the differences between LJ and DW. Also: apparently a feature for importing communities from LJ to DW is imminent!