how to use dreamwidth: basics
May. 19th, 2024 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hexmixjust a little guide to help ppl find their way around dreamwidth! bc it's a really rad website and an even more rad space for fandom, if somewhat intimidating if you don't know how to navigate it!
disclaimer: not writing this guide as a dreamwidth veteran or anything; i've only been using it actively for a few months after having been a livejournal regular in the early 2000s. there's a lot of carryover there, like enough that i could find my way around and feel confident explaining the basics in guide form, but if you ARE a dreamwidth veteran and have better advice/anything to add, please feel free to let me know! c:
but let's get started with the most basic of basics!
this is what you'll see in the upper right of the main page after making an account. thehexmix indicates your username (if you click on it it will take you to your journal) while the little meeple-looking icon indicates that this is your username specific to dreamwidth (clicking on THAT will take you to your profile). different icons will indicate usernames on different sites, and you'll sometimes see some linking to livejournal or ao3. [NOTE: you can achieve this in your own posts by using Markdown, which i am not going to get into but which you can read more about here.]
under your user name are several other links that i'll get into in a little more as well, namely Post and Reading Page.
so the main thing people do on dreamwidth is post to their personal journals. by "main thing" i mean that's what websites like dreamwidth were originally made for: blogging. dreamwidth also has many different communities, where multiple people will be posting to the same journal/community, but i'll save explaining those for another post.
for now i just want to give a breakdown of what the "Post an Entry" screen looks like and explain some of the options there, since there are a lot of them! way more than people are used to with things like twitter or tumblr!
1) user icon. with a free account you can get up to 15, and you can upload them one of two ways:
navigating to Create > Upload Icons or
clicking on [Edit] here on your own profile page. (you can also click on Icons Uploaded to go to a page that will show you all your current icons which will in turn have a link right up top that will let you upload more.)
and then this is what the actual screen where you upload icons will look like:
choose where you want to upload the icon from and then what keywords (what will show up in the drop down menu when you're selecting which icon to use) comments (just additional comments on the icon; this will only show up on your Uploaded Icons page. many people use this space for icon credit if they're using an icon someone else made.) and descriptions (image descriptions for use with screen readers).
2) the Post to section indicates to which journal you'll be posting your entry. when you first make an account there won't be other options, but as you join communities you'll start seeing more and more in the dropdown based on how many communities you join grant posting access. that will then look like this:
3) this is just what the title of your journal entry will be. you can also leave it blank.
4) the body of the post. unlike with twitter/tumblr you will need to link to any images you post. i just use imgur or tumblr (make a private post with the image you want to upload then snag the url) for image hosting.
5) you can choose, like on ao3, to use Rich Text or HTML.
6) this is the space for tags; separate them by commas. you CAN use this space like you would for tags on tumblr, like just additional rambling, but i wouldn't, personally speaking. i use tags for navigation in my own journal (and other peoples' journals when i visit) so i like it to be a bit more organized. unlike with tumblr these tags WILL NOT be searchable outside your own journal. they exist purely for internal organization for your own blog/community.
for example: i'll be tagging this post 'guide,' but when i post, say, a fic to my journal, i'll tag it with "fic, fandom: [name of fandom], ship: [name of ship], char: [name of character]" etc etc. this just makes my life easier later if i need to find a specific post. and likewise it makes the lives of anyone visiting my journal for specific fic a lot easier too.
but like it's your space friends literally do whatever you want just have fun with it! like i said these tags are ONLY for your personal journal; they have no effect on anything else on the site. they're also completely optional, you don't have to use them at all!
7) i only labeled the Mood section but like let's put Location and Music here too. these are all optional! there are different moodthemes you can choose from on dreamwidth (Organize > Customize Journal Style and once there click on the Display tab under Customize Your Theme). these are just a cute little extra option to let you express how you were feeling when you wrote your post! i'm picking 'hopeful' bc i'm hoping ppl will find this guide helpful and want to use dreamwidth more! you can also type in a custom mood in that little box next to the dropdown menu.
Location is self-explanatory. i leave it blank bc otherwise it would just be "in front of my computer" or "still on this bitch of an earth" every time. Music is likewise self-explanatory. let ppl know what you were listening to when you posted your entry! i'm listening to music now but who knows what song will be playing when i get to the end of this post! i suppose we will find out together!
8) okay so these options will likely only see use if you're posting to communities, but let's explain them anyway! the first dropdown lets you disable comments or turn off email notifications for that post. Comment Screening refers to first hiding comments so only you as the person who posted the entry (or as the mod of a community) can see it. at least that's what it meant on livejournal; i admittedly have not messed with this at all since i've been using dreamwidth. the settings in this dropdown refer to which comments will be screened (invisible to everyone save you and the person who left the comment). you can just leave it set to Journal Default and ignore it if you don't care to fiddle with it.
9) so this should also be self-explanatory: you can flag individual entries with different Age Restrictions which will in turn throw up a warning page when users who are not logged in attempt to access them. the options are also self-explanatory i think (no restriction, 18+, etc), and then for Reason you can just type in the reason. i only use this for fic but it's a nice way to provide people with warnings should you need to!
[NOTE: i'm ignoring Crossposting for now but it won't be applicable until you're a member of communities or have multiple journals.]
10) this is where you determine the privacy level of your post. you can select between Public (everyone can see it), Access List (only people you have granted access to can see it), and Private (only you will be able to see the post).
when you're ready to post click that button! that's it!
now, onto that Reading Page link. this will take you to a page that shows the most recent posts (in chronological order) from all the journals/communities you have subscribed to. it'll be blank if you haven't subscribed to any, so let's look at how to find some rad communities to follow!
probably the simplest way to do this is via the Explore tab:
it will summon a random dreamwdith community (or journal, if you pick that option) for you. this is literally what i did when i was first looking for communities bc none existed for the specific fandoms i was into (or the ones that did exist were inactive). i ended up finding both writing and icon communities! and from there i was able to find even more through the affiliates of those communities! it's also just kind of neat to see all the different kinds of comms there are here on dreamwidth.
but if you're looking for something specific you can also do an interest search which will pull up all the journals/comms that have that interest listed.
what do i mean by 'listed'? when you're setting up your profile page you'll notice there's a little section for interests. communities can input them too. you can search directly from the bar in the upper right or by directly clicking on an interest listed in your own or another journal's profile. right now the only searchable interest listed in my profile is 'ethan winters' bc no one else is interested in either of the other two, alas.
i should really add more interests to my profile so that people who are also interested in those things can find my journal! the only reason i haven't already done so is bc it amused me to only be interested in ethan winters and the lizard man (evil west was a recent addition). but as i am in fact interested in more things i should probably get on that. it's a really good way to find people or communities who like the same things you do!
aside from interests, you can also search dreamwidth for specific things using this search bar on the main page:
it'll list entries with the search term in chronological order, and if you're looking for a phrase it's best to put it in quotations, for example: "Resident Evil" rather than just Resident Evil.
but there's no algorithm here, nor a fyp. it's just what you specifically look for and find on your own. sometimes people may invite you to communities too! some people saw me participating in a lot of icon communities and invited me to their own icon communities! you can also make your own communities if you want! i'll do a guide on that some other time :)
for now i'm just going to end with the difference between Subscribe, Access, and Join:
if you visit the profile of a personal journal you'll see this in the upper right corner of their profile:
Grant Access lets them read any posts on your personal journal that you have locked to your Access List only. Subscribe will follow their journal and will show their entries on your Reading Page. when you go to subscribe to someone's personal journal it will also let you Request Access, which is just asking to read any locked entries they have--probably not the best idea to request access if it is the personal journal of someone you don't know or if they haven't okayed it in their profile/on their blog!
NOTE: since these are PERSONAL journals some people may be uncomfortable with you subscribing to (following) them without saying anything to them first! it's always best to check their profile page and any pinned posts they may have first! this is NOT the case with communities, but it is different from the usual attitude on twitter or tumblr for example, which makes it worth mentioning. you can also PM the person to ask as well! most people are probably chill, and some journals may not be "personal" at all (some people use personal journals for writing exchanges or to host all their fic or graphics, for example), but it's always good to respect peoples' boundaries if they've stated them!
now if you look at the profile page of a community you'll see this in the upper right instead:
Subscribe will again just display any recent entries to the community to your Reading Page. it is perfectly fine to subscribe to as many communities as you'd like! it's what they're there for!
now Join Community will allow you to POTENTIALLY do several additional things. it WILL NOT show entries on your Reading Page but it will allow you to post to the community if the community allows posting by all members (some communities will only allow posting by mods). if the community has members-only locked posts this will also allow you to read those posts.
NOTE: please check if there are any posting guidelines before posting to a community! most have them! typically you can find these on the profile page or in a sticky/pinned post.
but that's it for the basics! hopefully that helped make things a little less intimidating! please please please let me know if you have any questions or would like further clarification on anything! i'm happy to help if i can c:
disclaimer: not writing this guide as a dreamwidth veteran or anything; i've only been using it actively for a few months after having been a livejournal regular in the early 2000s. there's a lot of carryover there, like enough that i could find my way around and feel confident explaining the basics in guide form, but if you ARE a dreamwidth veteran and have better advice/anything to add, please feel free to let me know! c:
but let's get started with the most basic of basics!
this is what you'll see in the upper right of the main page after making an account. the
hexmix indicates your username (if you click on it it will take you to your journal) while the little meeple-looking icon indicates that this is your username specific to dreamwidth (clicking on THAT will take you to your profile). different icons will indicate usernames on different sites, and you'll sometimes see some linking to livejournal or ao3. [NOTE: you can achieve this in your own posts by using Markdown, which i am not going to get into but which you can read more about here.]under your user name are several other links that i'll get into in a little more as well, namely Post and Reading Page.
so the main thing people do on dreamwidth is post to their personal journals. by "main thing" i mean that's what websites like dreamwidth were originally made for: blogging. dreamwidth also has many different communities, where multiple people will be posting to the same journal/community, but i'll save explaining those for another post.
for now i just want to give a breakdown of what the "Post an Entry" screen looks like and explain some of the options there, since there are a lot of them! way more than people are used to with things like twitter or tumblr!
1) user icon. with a free account you can get up to 15, and you can upload them one of two ways:
navigating to Create > Upload Icons or
clicking on [Edit] here on your own profile page. (you can also click on Icons Uploaded to go to a page that will show you all your current icons which will in turn have a link right up top that will let you upload more.)
and then this is what the actual screen where you upload icons will look like:
choose where you want to upload the icon from and then what keywords (what will show up in the drop down menu when you're selecting which icon to use) comments (just additional comments on the icon; this will only show up on your Uploaded Icons page. many people use this space for icon credit if they're using an icon someone else made.) and descriptions (image descriptions for use with screen readers).
2) the Post to section indicates to which journal you'll be posting your entry. when you first make an account there won't be other options, but as you join communities you'll start seeing more and more in the dropdown based on how many communities you join grant posting access. that will then look like this:
3) this is just what the title of your journal entry will be. you can also leave it blank.
4) the body of the post. unlike with twitter/tumblr you will need to link to any images you post. i just use imgur or tumblr (make a private post with the image you want to upload then snag the url) for image hosting.
5) you can choose, like on ao3, to use Rich Text or HTML.
6) this is the space for tags; separate them by commas. you CAN use this space like you would for tags on tumblr, like just additional rambling, but i wouldn't, personally speaking. i use tags for navigation in my own journal (and other peoples' journals when i visit) so i like it to be a bit more organized. unlike with tumblr these tags WILL NOT be searchable outside your own journal. they exist purely for internal organization for your own blog/community.
for example: i'll be tagging this post 'guide,' but when i post, say, a fic to my journal, i'll tag it with "fic, fandom: [name of fandom], ship: [name of ship], char: [name of character]" etc etc. this just makes my life easier later if i need to find a specific post. and likewise it makes the lives of anyone visiting my journal for specific fic a lot easier too.
but like it's your space friends literally do whatever you want just have fun with it! like i said these tags are ONLY for your personal journal; they have no effect on anything else on the site. they're also completely optional, you don't have to use them at all!
7) i only labeled the Mood section but like let's put Location and Music here too. these are all optional! there are different moodthemes you can choose from on dreamwidth (Organize > Customize Journal Style and once there click on the Display tab under Customize Your Theme). these are just a cute little extra option to let you express how you were feeling when you wrote your post! i'm picking 'hopeful' bc i'm hoping ppl will find this guide helpful and want to use dreamwidth more! you can also type in a custom mood in that little box next to the dropdown menu.
Location is self-explanatory. i leave it blank bc otherwise it would just be "in front of my computer" or "still on this bitch of an earth" every time. Music is likewise self-explanatory. let ppl know what you were listening to when you posted your entry! i'm listening to music now but who knows what song will be playing when i get to the end of this post! i suppose we will find out together!
8) okay so these options will likely only see use if you're posting to communities, but let's explain them anyway! the first dropdown lets you disable comments or turn off email notifications for that post. Comment Screening refers to first hiding comments so only you as the person who posted the entry (or as the mod of a community) can see it. at least that's what it meant on livejournal; i admittedly have not messed with this at all since i've been using dreamwidth. the settings in this dropdown refer to which comments will be screened (invisible to everyone save you and the person who left the comment). you can just leave it set to Journal Default and ignore it if you don't care to fiddle with it.
9) so this should also be self-explanatory: you can flag individual entries with different Age Restrictions which will in turn throw up a warning page when users who are not logged in attempt to access them. the options are also self-explanatory i think (no restriction, 18+, etc), and then for Reason you can just type in the reason. i only use this for fic but it's a nice way to provide people with warnings should you need to!
[NOTE: i'm ignoring Crossposting for now but it won't be applicable until you're a member of communities or have multiple journals.]
10) this is where you determine the privacy level of your post. you can select between Public (everyone can see it), Access List (only people you have granted access to can see it), and Private (only you will be able to see the post).
when you're ready to post click that button! that's it!
now, onto that Reading Page link. this will take you to a page that shows the most recent posts (in chronological order) from all the journals/communities you have subscribed to. it'll be blank if you haven't subscribed to any, so let's look at how to find some rad communities to follow!
probably the simplest way to do this is via the Explore tab:
it will summon a random dreamwdith community (or journal, if you pick that option) for you. this is literally what i did when i was first looking for communities bc none existed for the specific fandoms i was into (or the ones that did exist were inactive). i ended up finding both writing and icon communities! and from there i was able to find even more through the affiliates of those communities! it's also just kind of neat to see all the different kinds of comms there are here on dreamwidth.
but if you're looking for something specific you can also do an interest search which will pull up all the journals/comms that have that interest listed.
what do i mean by 'listed'? when you're setting up your profile page you'll notice there's a little section for interests. communities can input them too. you can search directly from the bar in the upper right or by directly clicking on an interest listed in your own or another journal's profile. right now the only searchable interest listed in my profile is 'ethan winters' bc no one else is interested in either of the other two, alas.
i should really add more interests to my profile so that people who are also interested in those things can find my journal! the only reason i haven't already done so is bc it amused me to only be interested in ethan winters and the lizard man (evil west was a recent addition). but as i am in fact interested in more things i should probably get on that. it's a really good way to find people or communities who like the same things you do!
aside from interests, you can also search dreamwidth for specific things using this search bar on the main page:
it'll list entries with the search term in chronological order, and if you're looking for a phrase it's best to put it in quotations, for example: "Resident Evil" rather than just Resident Evil.
but there's no algorithm here, nor a fyp. it's just what you specifically look for and find on your own. sometimes people may invite you to communities too! some people saw me participating in a lot of icon communities and invited me to their own icon communities! you can also make your own communities if you want! i'll do a guide on that some other time :)
for now i'm just going to end with the difference between Subscribe, Access, and Join:
if you visit the profile of a personal journal you'll see this in the upper right corner of their profile:
Grant Access lets them read any posts on your personal journal that you have locked to your Access List only. Subscribe will follow their journal and will show their entries on your Reading Page. when you go to subscribe to someone's personal journal it will also let you Request Access, which is just asking to read any locked entries they have--probably not the best idea to request access if it is the personal journal of someone you don't know or if they haven't okayed it in their profile/on their blog!
NOTE: since these are PERSONAL journals some people may be uncomfortable with you subscribing to (following) them without saying anything to them first! it's always best to check their profile page and any pinned posts they may have first! this is NOT the case with communities, but it is different from the usual attitude on twitter or tumblr for example, which makes it worth mentioning. you can also PM the person to ask as well! most people are probably chill, and some journals may not be "personal" at all (some people use personal journals for writing exchanges or to host all their fic or graphics, for example), but it's always good to respect peoples' boundaries if they've stated them!
now if you look at the profile page of a community you'll see this in the upper right instead:
Subscribe will again just display any recent entries to the community to your Reading Page. it is perfectly fine to subscribe to as many communities as you'd like! it's what they're there for!
now Join Community will allow you to POTENTIALLY do several additional things. it WILL NOT show entries on your Reading Page but it will allow you to post to the community if the community allows posting by all members (some communities will only allow posting by mods). if the community has members-only locked posts this will also allow you to read those posts.
NOTE: please check if there are any posting guidelines before posting to a community! most have them! typically you can find these on the profile page or in a sticky/pinned post.
but that's it for the basics! hopefully that helped make things a little less intimidating! please please please let me know if you have any questions or would like further clarification on anything! i'm happy to help if i can c:
