moving day

[tielan]

Okay, so I moved a long time ago - both back in 2009 when I first transported everything over, and again around 2011 when I realised you could crosspost from DW. There are probably quite a few entries that I'll lose between 2009 and 2011: the Merlin and Sanctuary years, I suspect.

Regarding my fic: I have every fic I've ever formally written on my HD. Yes, I have the very first fic I wrote waaaaaay back in 2001. And all the ones since then. (130 in Stargate-Completed, 56 in Oldfanfic-Completed, 785 in fanfic-Completed.) I just haven't put them all up on AO3 and ff.net.

I'm a little hesitant to put them up on AO3 to be honest. There've been noises about how The Servers Are Not Robust, and issues with posting and posting a peak times and, oh, all kinds of stuff.

What I don't have are: a) comment fics that I didn't save (some I did, there was no logic to the saving), b) the comments on my fics that people left and which just fill me with ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥! Mostly particularly the pre-AO3 stuff, when people mostly commented on LJ and I commented back and I made friends with the people who I started discussions with, or who started discussions with me...

Anyway, looking at the list of translated comms put up by squidgiepdx (LJ and DW equivalents), it's pretty clear just how quiet DW is. Most comms haven't been updated in several years, and almost none of them are active. And I get that I'm not in the segments of fandom that are busy and have the movers-and-shakers of fandom (ie. male-centric, slash pairings) but...it's really very quiet.

While I really do love having a community (or an audience), part of the reason I journal is because I use this as a thought-dumping ground: somewhere to put my thoughts that is largely my own and over which I have a certain amount of creative control. Obviously the co-opting of LJ by the Russian company means I lose that creative control and have to censor my thoughts which I'm unwilling to do. It's also a way of keeping up with people that's less public and out-there than FB, harder to co-opt the way Tumblr does (have you ever put up an opinion on Tumblr and then promptly found it hijacked by the antis? I have at least twice, most memorably by racist Chaleigh shippers, and by pro-gun nuts), and easier to track than Twitter.

And I am enjoying that more people are coming out of the DW woodwork and posting. I've subscribed to people I wasn't subscribed to before, and I might unsubscribe from people who weren't posting at DW but who I subscribed to when we had things in common and now no longer do.

Life goes on.

--

Curious question: who uses the 'new' DW code for HTML tags? Because I've been using the 'old' LJ code and...it still posts all okay so far as I can tell...

Comments

[monanotlisa]

...I use the old LJ HTML for my posts (but should probably put the ten minutes in to learn switching, really).

[tielan]

I haven't bothered. *winces* I used the LJ HTML for 10 years before coming over here and have used it for the last five...

I do like things like the DW code for Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3, though!

[grav_ity]

My comments (on posts I imported) came too, but the links all go back to LJ, so I'll have to do something about that.

*looks at enormous fic post*

Okay, so probably not. But still. At least I trust this platform.

[tielan]

Yeah, the links are tricky. I didn't transfer them all over - even when I changed my personal LJ username, I didn't bother - there was 9 years of posts and links and I didn't think it was worth it...

Yeah, it makes it more difficult to go through, but, I figure I can find ways around it if I have to.

[kore]

GOOD ON YA MATE for saving everything to HD, altho I also obsessively back up to flash drives (yes!) and dropbox as well. //Geocities veteran (and boy my site was UGLY)

DW comms are indeed really quiet. I'm hoping they perk up some. I honestly think most action will remain on Tumblr, but I'm really hoping the comment fic and meta and other TEXTY STUFF returns to DW, because it's so unsuited for Tumblr. All the ugly desaturated gifsets and anti battles can stay there.

[tielan]

Heh. My Dropbox is pretty much just the place where I can put my 'common work' - I mostly used it so I wasn't transferring files across on portable HDs while I had a different work computer. Now that I only use the one computer...well, it's useful for other things, too.

I'd like to see more DW involvement, and maybe some more people interacting. Which means I have to go over and comment on other ppl's posts every now and then. :)

Tumblr I shall happily leave as the reblog session, but my primary mode of online communication is text, and there's a part of me that finds Tumblr behaviours a bit bewildering. Fr inst: the liking system. To me 'liking' something is kind of a weenie act on Tumblr, you agree, but you haven't got the balls to post it on your own feed. But then, I use 'likes' for things that I want to come back to later, and reblog stuff I agree with, frequently with my own addition to whatever was on the post.

And yes, pretty pictures!

But, ugh, antis.

[kore]

I think what really gets to me about Tumblr and Twitter is how much of it is recycled content -- liking or reblogging, and liking and/or retweeting. It's kind of going back to the earliest days of blogs, when they were little more than a collection of links. I'm really a text-based creature, and both Tumblr and Twitter seem very....nonverbal? I know there are 'tweetstorms' and longer Storify collections, and people tell me they have great conversations on Tumblr, but what I mostly see are people adding kind of brief annotations in tags, and IDK. Even a short comment on a blog post is something original. (Of course, there's also the "plus one" from Facebook or kudos on AO3 or other non-verbal basic online affirmations....and LJ had just introduced the "heart" feature on posts, a la Facebook.)

[deird1]

...there's new DW code? *has no idea*

What I don't have are: a) comment fics that I didn't save

You probably know this and have good reasons why it doesn't work, but I have almost all my comments in my email, because LJ replies would quote the original comment.

[tielan]

Ahh, yes, good point!

And my Gmail has all the comments since 2004, I think, when I transferred over. But it's not quite the same as being able to look at it all together in the one post...

Ah well, we live and manage and move on...

[kore]

I think it's just stuff like going "lj user = name" or "lj cut text = " because I used to do it too. It works in DW like it did on LJ.

Hah, that's also why I get copies of comments emailed to me -- whether commentfic or not, just so I can have something to refer to, because my memory is so bad otherwise I forget what I said. Let alone what other people said.

[havocthecat]

I joint he chorus of, "there's new Dreamwidth code?" Whoops...

[tielan]

Oh, not new code. I think they set up their own code, but because people were accustomed to LJ, they also copied the LJ code for things like cuts and user names. Of course, I like that we can make AO3 user links and tumblr links and twitter and such over here on DW. LJ was never so accomodating. (The advantage of a relatively small site.)

[bridgetmkennitt]

In the random bursts of posting I do, I normally don't get any comments no matter journal I was on, so quiet on DW in terms of that doesn't mean that much to me? My flist seems busy, but I honestly can't recall if that's people or comms. I'd like to be more active in regards to comms though. I should go see what's out there and post something (besides the NPT admin comm. That's just cheating during this time of the year XD ).

[tielan]

I guess I have memories/records from the height of ElJay, involving making several postings a day and getting a number of comments on each of them.

I know it's nothing like that now - at least, not for me when most of the people I interacted with have gone offline or else migrated to FB.

[kore]

Yeah, that was great -- interesting and vital conversations would just fall into your lap, maybe several times a day. I do think when fandom pretty much migrated to Tumblr, a lot of that personal stuff went to Tumblr and Twitter. LJ was interesting in that it felt like one of the last one-stop services -- you could blog there, you could be fannish there, host pictures, talk about your day -- and now all that's split up between Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, which can all be linked and crosspost, but it feels a lot more fragmented to me now. //is such a child of Web 1.0 it's not even funny

[bridgetmkennitt]

I was around in HP during the height of LJ and I guess I wasn't popular enough to warrant receiving very many comments on the things I posted? Heh. I know I definitely have no plans for tumblr. I like a journal style and the brief time I tried tumblr, it was definitely like shouting out into a void, especially since without a 3rd party thingy, no one saw my comments when I reblogged. Or maybe I didn't understand how to talk to people but even more so, I like a journal style.

[gaffsie]

I did a fuck-ton of fills for the sga kinkmeme, and I'm a bit torn about what to do about that. I'm not a great writer by any means, but I'm actually kind of proud of several of them. I think I still have the original Word document saved somewhere, so I could always upload them to Ao3. And if they're terrible I can orphan them. ;)

[colls]

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'new' HTML tags. Have I really had my head in the sand so long?

I wish AO3 was more robust. Not only for housing all the fic, but to really become an archive for other material as well (*cough*vids*cough)

My level of involvement with fandom in general has dwindled a lot this past year or so. I feel kind of out of touch. Like you I'm not in any current megafandoms and also the use of mobile devices cuts down on my interaction - I scroll, don't comment. I honestly think the mobile thing has more to do with it than anything else. I have passing knowledge of things people are fannish about and could still engage - like MCU, for example - but often don't bother when I'm on a mobile device.
I'm beginning to see the appeal of FB's "LIKE" button, where a few years ago I'd have said I loathed it.



Ugh.... tumblr.



P.S. 130 Stargate fics. That's AWESOME :)
P.S.S. Can you tell I'm at an actual computer and not a tablet/phone, with commenting and words and whatnot?

[umadoshi]

I use a mix of LJ and DW code, the main split being that I use the DW code to link to users on any platform (which means my fingers have forgotten how the LJ-user code when I want to use it in a comment there, and I always have to think about it) and LJ's cut-tag/text code.

Is your hesitance re: AO3 mainly due to the thought of putting in all the effort of getting everything uploaded there and having it be for nothing (or not much) if the site flounders/fails, or is there something else going on?

[tielan]

Mostly the first. Although it's also a little inhibiting to know that when they're put up, very few people are going to see them...