![[sticky entry]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png){kind=small}
First of all, hello and welcome! It's lovely to see you here and I hope this community can help you.
To keep things reasonably organised and to help you find relevant information quickly, there's a tagging system in place. A full list of tags can be found at: http://getting-started.dreamwidth.org/tag/
I've been going through entries and tagging them, but do add tags to your posts if you think any are suitable. If you need help, it can be a good idea to go through the tag to see if anyone has asked a similar question before. Bear in mind, however, that Dreamwidth is being actively developed and there have been many code pushes since its foundation; some older information may be outdated and no longer relevant.
Currently, creating new tags, removing tags from entries, and adding existing tags to entries is limited to community administrators. If you think of a useful tag that hasn't been created yet, or a post that should be tagged differently than it currently is, please let an administrator know!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettyarbitraryIt's me again! With how-tos on more cool DW features. (I think they're cool.)
Comment Tracking:
My personal favorite--I consider it the secret sauce of Dreamwidth (and LJ before it)--post tracking! You can use this to get notified when your favorite bloggers make new posts. But you can also CRUCIALLY use it to get notified when people leave new comments on a post you like.
So if you got dug in on a cool conversation in the comments, you can turn that on and get notifications whenever somebody leaves another reply. This lets you stay in the conversation without keeping the post open in a browser window or something. You can add a blog or post to your tracking at any time using the little bell/track this icon at the bottom of each post. You can manage your post tracking in Account Settings > Notification tab. (Also the place to go to adjust your notification settings generally.)
Create Custom Access Circles & Custom Reading Pages:
Another super useful trick, if you're somebody who likes privacy and the ability to lock your posts to certain users, is the ability to create custom access circles. On DW, you always have the ability to set posts to public, private or 'access locked' (this means people you have followed/friended). But you can also create custom access lists! So perhaps you have one for 'besties I trust with information about my mental health.' Or one for 'beta readers for my rough drafts' or 'people who opted into my obsessive posting about kpop.' You create and manage these Custom Access Groups or Custom Circles in your Account Settings > Manage Circles. Create and name one, and then add the people you want in it. Or remove people who you've blog-divorced.
As a bonus, a Circle also includes a custom reading page. So along with using them for custom blog post access, you can also use them to create specialty reading pages--maybe 'people who write weird fic,' or 'my fiber arts friends.' AND you can set those reading pages to be public or private, so that if you don't want people to know you have a weird fic reading page, you can hide it.
Subscribing to RSS feeds or, Did you know you can follow Tumblr blogs from your DW reading page?
Another super cool one: You can add RSS feeds to your Dreamwidth reading page. So you can follow people who post on Tumblr or Twitter or Bluesky. You can follow people's personal off-site blogs. You can follow news feeds from various sites--maybe you're into AP's Finance section or you want to be able to track new fics posted to your favorite AO3 fandoms. Here's the how-to of creating and following RSS/Atom feeds on your Dreamwidth. (Edit: now with 100% more actual link!)
Post to Dreamwidth via email
In your Account Settings > Mobile, you can set up the ability to send emails to Dreamwidth to make posts or reply to comments. Nice if you don't feel like logging in. If you're like me and you lurk in your email a lot, you can have DW notifications set to send you emails as post or comment notifications and then reply to them straight from email.
Crossposted to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
newcomers, pillowfolks
Comment Tracking:
My personal favorite--I consider it the secret sauce of Dreamwidth (and LJ before it)--post tracking! You can use this to get notified when your favorite bloggers make new posts. But you can also CRUCIALLY use it to get notified when people leave new comments on a post you like.
So if you got dug in on a cool conversation in the comments, you can turn that on and get notifications whenever somebody leaves another reply. This lets you stay in the conversation without keeping the post open in a browser window or something. You can add a blog or post to your tracking at any time using the little bell/track this icon at the bottom of each post. You can manage your post tracking in Account Settings > Notification tab. (Also the place to go to adjust your notification settings generally.)
Create Custom Access Circles & Custom Reading Pages:
Another super useful trick, if you're somebody who likes privacy and the ability to lock your posts to certain users, is the ability to create custom access circles. On DW, you always have the ability to set posts to public, private or 'access locked' (this means people you have followed/friended). But you can also create custom access lists! So perhaps you have one for 'besties I trust with information about my mental health.' Or one for 'beta readers for my rough drafts' or 'people who opted into my obsessive posting about kpop.' You create and manage these Custom Access Groups or Custom Circles in your Account Settings > Manage Circles. Create and name one, and then add the people you want in it. Or remove people who you've blog-divorced.
As a bonus, a Circle also includes a custom reading page. So along with using them for custom blog post access, you can also use them to create specialty reading pages--maybe 'people who write weird fic,' or 'my fiber arts friends.' AND you can set those reading pages to be public or private, so that if you don't want people to know you have a weird fic reading page, you can hide it.
Subscribing to RSS feeds or, Did you know you can follow Tumblr blogs from your DW reading page?
Another super cool one: You can add RSS feeds to your Dreamwidth reading page. So you can follow people who post on Tumblr or Twitter or Bluesky. You can follow people's personal off-site blogs. You can follow news feeds from various sites--maybe you're into AP's Finance section or you want to be able to track new fics posted to your favorite AO3 fandoms. Here's the how-to of creating and following RSS/Atom feeds on your Dreamwidth. (Edit: now with 100% more actual link!)
Post to Dreamwidth via email
In your Account Settings > Mobile, you can set up the ability to send emails to Dreamwidth to make posts or reply to comments. Nice if you don't feel like logging in. If you're like me and you lurk in your email a lot, you can have DW notifications set to send you emails as post or comment notifications and then reply to them straight from email.
Crossposted to
newcomers, pillowfolksAn Assortment of Tutorials
Oct. 20th, 2026 10:37 amprettyarbitraryTagging posts
On DW, post tagging works differently than more modern platforms. Here, your tag archive is easily accessible to you and others, and manageable. Check out my list. (I made those nested ones by using tags fandom: wod and fandom: temeraire--the system understands that's actually two nested tags.)
You can even display them as a widget in your blog's sidebar, like I did on mine:prettyarbitrary.
The post creation module also makes it very easy to review and select the tags you want to apply to any given post. So if you have categories you want to keep organized, such as 'my art' or 'my fic' or 'book recs,' apply them consistently and you can end up with a premade library. Which, yes, you can link to. Here's my 'dreamwidth' tag.
How to @ a user or community
Shows like e.g.pillowfolks. The user or community you link to this way will not get a notification they've been mentioned. But it does make their name linkable.
How to do that text box thing I just did
How to make linkable text
Most platforms make this easy to do these days, but hey, just in case you want to do it by hand and you don't know how:
And it shows like this: Here I'm linking to The text I want to be visible.
How to add a read-more cut
And here's how it comes out.
( Your cut will look like this )
( In fact, you can have multiple cuts in a single post, if desired! )
Note that this does automatically start the cut-text on a new line. If you want to hide or black out a spoiler or potentially triggering text in the middle of a paragraph, it doesn't work well for that purpose.
How to embed an image in your post
How to embed a clickable image in your post
Crossposted tonewcomers pillowfolks
On DW, post tagging works differently than more modern platforms. Here, your tag archive is easily accessible to you and others, and manageable. Check out my list. (I made those nested ones by using tags fandom: wod and fandom: temeraire--the system understands that's actually two nested tags.)
You can even display them as a widget in your blog's sidebar, like I did on mine:
prettyarbitrary.The post creation module also makes it very easy to review and select the tags you want to apply to any given post. So if you have categories you want to keep organized, such as 'my art' or 'my fic' or 'book recs,' apply them consistently and you can end up with a premade library. Which, yes, you can link to. Here's my 'dreamwidth' tag.
How to @ a user or community
Shows like e.g.
pillowfolks. The user or community you link to this way will not get a notification they've been mentioned. But it does make their name linkable.How to do that text box thing I just did
How to make linkable text
Most platforms make this easy to do these days, but hey, just in case you want to do it by hand and you don't know how:
And it shows like this: Here I'm linking to The text I want to be visible.
How to add a read-more cut
And here's how it comes out.
( Your cut will look like this )
( In fact, you can have multiple cuts in a single post, if desired! )
Note that this does automatically start the cut-text on a new line. If you want to hide or black out a spoiler or potentially triggering text in the middle of a paragraph, it doesn't work well for that purpose.
How to embed an image in your post
How to embed a clickable image in your post
Crossposted to
newcomers pillowfolks
Backdating entries in communities
Jan. 3rd, 2026 03:15 amautumninplutoI noticed some people make their own closed communities to post/archive their fanfiction, and decided to try it out myself here: ficsimmy
I am trying to backdate the fics to when I posted them, and it generally works, however, the home page still shows the posts in the order in which I posted them. E.g. the most recent post is dated November 12, then the next one November 13.
Is this intended behavior? If so, does anyone have a workaround for similar use-cases? 😟 I have some fanfiction from 2013 that I want to back up here, but I do not want it at the top of my page in fear of people thinking that's still representative of how I write today 😅
I did find this FAQ article related to backdating + the "don't show on reading pages" button which says "This option is not available for community accounts", but I thought this just referred to the hide from reading page button.
It's a bit weird that I can backdate it, but it will show up in the wrong order on the home page, and in tags. Checking from the archive looks fine, they're all in the correct date I set them as.
vriddyThe FAQ entry about renaming a journal is very helpful to understand what happens and the options when renaming, but I'm not sure what happens to the image links?
Do image links also get redirected automatically ? Or do you need to update your old posts referencing those images, since the username is in the URL too??
Do image links also get redirected automatically ? Or do you need to update your old posts referencing those images, since the username is in the URL too??
Mood theme
Aug. 8th, 2025 10:21 pmcoffeepawsI can't figure out where / how I can select a mood theme. Could somebody help me? Thank you :)
Community themes glitch
Dec. 23rd, 2024 03:37 ambedesI know, second post from yours truly in a row, but this is a new topic that I can't figure out for myself either.
I have this issue where, when I try to apply a journal theme to my community, it glitches out and applies it to my personal journal instead. This includes when the URL says auth as=(community name). I've tried switching browsers, and even switching to my phone, to see if it's a problem on my end, but it's consistent across all devices and all browsers.
Does everyone else experience this? If yes, what's the fix for it, if any? Thanks!
I have this issue where, when I try to apply a journal theme to my community, it glitches out and applies it to my personal journal instead. This includes when the URL says auth as=(community name). I've tried switching browsers, and even switching to my phone, to see if it's a problem on my end, but it's consistent across all devices and all browsers.
Does everyone else experience this? If yes, what's the fix for it, if any? Thanks!
Tips for creating a community?
Dec. 22nd, 2024 04:51 pmbedesHello! I'm looking into possibly creating a community for a series that doesn't have a community yet. Do any community-owners have any advice for keeping a fandom community active and fun? Is there a good place to interest-check a community, or do you just throw it to the wind and cross your fingers, so to speak? Where do you recommend promoting communities?
Thank you in advance!
Thank you in advance!
Journal theme recovery?
Nov. 18th, 2024 07:29 amdrayIf I've accidentally changed my journal styling when I'd meant to swap out a community's theme, is there any way to recover it? I'd spent a long time with my original background, colours and where all the elements were placed, and lost it all in one mis-click.
Questions about posting by email
Nov. 5th, 2024 12:13 amspectre_writesHello! I'm trying to move my writing backlog over here from cohost and I'd like to automate the process as much as I can, and email posting seems to be the easiest way to do that.
Now I have two things I'd like to do that I'm not sure how to do via email:
Firstly I would like the posts to not appear in the reading page, as there will be near 150 of them posted in a short period of time, and second I'd like to give them custom URLs so that I can automatically put prev/next links into the posts that are parts of a series.
These are both things that can be done in the beta post editor, but I'm unsure if it's at all possible to do them via email headers. Is it possible, or is there an alternate way to post to dreamwidth via a script that would allow me to do these things?
Journal Style Query
Sep. 26th, 2024 03:34 pmbedesHello! I have a question regarding customizing my journal. More specifically, I'm making a side account, and I want to replicate the sort of look of this journal:
https://veryroundbirdfics.dreamwidth.org/
I realize that they're using custom CSS! My problem is I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what base code they're using. Is there a way to find what theme someone else is using, if they don't directly say it somewhere? If this isn't possible, but you think you know what base code is being used, shout it out in the comments!
Thank you!
https://veryroundbirdfics.dreamwidth.org/
I realize that they're using custom CSS! My problem is I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what base code they're using. Is there a way to find what theme someone else is using, if they don't directly say it somewhere? If this isn't possible, but you think you know what base code is being used, shout it out in the comments!
Thank you!
What is "hardcoding"?
Jan. 18th, 2024 02:21 pmdoodlemancyI just joined a community and read their rules and it says "please don't hardcode your entries".
I cannot for the life of me find a definition of "hardcode" anywhere, at least not in the context of Dreamwidth. Doesn't seem to be on the jargon page of the wiki. What does that mean? Also is it generally unwelcome in communities, whatever it is?
Edit: thank you! I have been educated!!! I had totally forgotten about this aspect of journaling sites.
I cannot for the life of me find a definition of "hardcode" anywhere, at least not in the context of Dreamwidth. Doesn't seem to be on the jargon page of the wiki. What does that mean? Also is it generally unwelcome in communities, whatever it is?
Edit: thank you! I have been educated!!! I had totally forgotten about this aspect of journaling sites.
What happens if I buy a rename token?
Dec. 2nd, 2023 08:19 pmsunlit_skycatI'm considering buying a rename token, but I'm not entirely sure how those work. Some questions:
- Can a rename token be used on a community?
- After a rename token is used, what happens to previous links to posts sent out with the old name? Will those redirect to the same posts under the new name?
Notes on Migrating an Online Community
Feb. 4th, 2023 10:41 pmosteophageNote: At ysabetwordsmith's suggestion, I'm crossposting this post from where it was originally published on Pillowfort. Hopefully some of these ideas may be helpful for thinking about Dreamwidth, as well.
These are some general thoughts about how to encourage folks to shift or expand activity onto a new site, based a conversation withprettyarbitrary, as well as some of my own experience. This list is not exhaustive and comes with no guarantees, but I wanted to pass these suggestions along for anyone who might be interested. Feel free to add in your own tips and observations in the comments. ( Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith's suggestion, I'm crossposting this post from where it was originally published on Pillowfort. Hopefully some of these ideas may be helpful for thinking about Dreamwidth, as well. These are some general thoughts about how to encourage folks to shift or expand activity onto a new site, based a conversation with
prettyarbitrary, as well as some of my own experience. This list is not exhaustive and comes with no guarantees, but I wanted to pass these suggestions along for anyone who might be interested. Feel free to add in your own tips and observations in the comments. ( Read more... )Twitter Exodus
Nov. 4th, 2022 04:06 amysabetwordsmithTwitter faces a mass exodus.
For people on any other service, this is an opportunity to scoop new users. Listen to why people are leaving Twitter. Does your favorite service meet any of those needs? If so, encourage people to move there instead. Gathering more of your friends together will make any service more fun to use.
For example, many people are complaining about hate speech and poor privacy tools that don't let them block it. Dreamwidth offers private blogs, themed communities, and pretty robust moderation tools that let you delete comments you don't want on your blog or block people so they can't bother you. Want a hate-free online space? It's not that hard to make one. Want to make tweet-sized blog posts? Some people do that here, especially with certain formats like "3 Things Make a Post" in various blogs or "Just One Thing" onawesomeers. Looking for communities on your favorite topics? Check out followfriday for suggestions. You can also use the search box in your blog header for interests.
Some resources that you can share or reblog for new users to find:
* Dev Getting Started (for the code)
* dreamwidth 101: the (sort of) fast version
* Finding people on Dreamwidth
* Getting Started on DW (from LiveJournal)
* how to dreamwidth: a primer
* Making Friends on Dreamwidth
* So you're into BNHA and just created a Dreamwidth account
* A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth
* And of course, refer them to this community.
I have not seen a Dreamwidth guide for Twitter users, so if you know of one, please share the URL so I can link to it. Other guides are welcome too.
EDIT 11/19/22 -- I have continued to update the version of this list that I posted on my blog, which is now much larger, as other people have made resource posts or lists.
For people on any other service, this is an opportunity to scoop new users. Listen to why people are leaving Twitter. Does your favorite service meet any of those needs? If so, encourage people to move there instead. Gathering more of your friends together will make any service more fun to use.
For example, many people are complaining about hate speech and poor privacy tools that don't let them block it. Dreamwidth offers private blogs, themed communities, and pretty robust moderation tools that let you delete comments you don't want on your blog or block people so they can't bother you. Want a hate-free online space? It's not that hard to make one. Want to make tweet-sized blog posts? Some people do that here, especially with certain formats like "3 Things Make a Post" in various blogs or "Just One Thing" on
awesomeers. Looking for communities on your favorite topics? Check out followfriday for suggestions. You can also use the search box in your blog header for interests.Some resources that you can share or reblog for new users to find:
* Dev Getting Started (for the code)
* dreamwidth 101: the (sort of) fast version
* Finding people on Dreamwidth
* Getting Started on DW (from LiveJournal)
* how to dreamwidth: a primer
* Making Friends on Dreamwidth
* So you're into BNHA and just created a Dreamwidth account
* A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth
* And of course, refer them to this community.
I have not seen a Dreamwidth guide for Twitter users, so if you know of one, please share the URL so I can link to it. Other guides are welcome too.
EDIT 11/19/22 -- I have continued to update the version of this list that I posted on my blog, which is now much larger, as other people have made resource posts or lists.
Community about running communities?
Jan. 8th, 2022 04:26 pmvriddyI'm meeting more and more people who are finding their way to Dreamwidth and enjoying the pace and atmosphere here better, and are also realising that if they want to see more activity related to their fandoms, they'll have to create the communities themselves.
And so I find myself wondering... Is there a community out there about how to run a dreamwidth community effectively? Where people share their experience and advice, best practices, and possibly support? With topics like how to write a code of conduct or a good profile page, keeping a community active, dealing with trolls, promoting a comm, encouragements...
I found a few posts under the communities tag helpful already, but the kind of questions I'm thinking of may have a broader scope than just getting started 🤔
And so I find myself wondering... Is there a community out there about how to run a dreamwidth community effectively? Where people share their experience and advice, best practices, and possibly support? With topics like how to write a code of conduct or a good profile page, keeping a community active, dealing with trolls, promoting a comm, encouragements...
I found a few posts under the communities tag helpful already, but the kind of questions I'm thinking of may have a broader scope than just getting started 🤔
vriddyI was recently asking about Dreamwidth tips for new users on my journal, and this community was suggested to me in the replies! Here to my first post in a DW community. I am wondering, what little tips and tricks do you have that make for a more comfortable experience? The kind of tips that wouldn't be obvious for someone coming from another of the modern platforms.
For example, I only recently discovered the "Track this" option to keep an eye on post with thriving/interesting discussions in the comments without necessarily getting emails for it. Love how this lets me participate in conversations for longer, or get a notice if it was e.g. a request for recs and someone replies later.
Thank you!
For example, I only recently discovered the "Track this" option to keep an eye on post with thriving/interesting discussions in the comments without necessarily getting emails for it. Love how this lets me participate in conversations for longer, or get a notice if it was e.g. a request for recs and someone replies later.
Thank you!
Moderation / Censorship on Dreamwidth?
May. 28th, 2021 04:53 pmarchershipsI was a longtime LJ user back in the day, got sucked into the Facebook borg, and am now returning to my roots. Many thanks to the staff and volunteers for creating/maintaining Dreamwidth.
I'm still finding my bearings, so apologies if this is not the right place for this kind of question.
As y'all are probably aware, Facebook heavily censors a wide variety of topics, from porn, to vaccines, to erotic Bernie memes. (Ask me how I know about that last one). I've been banned (temporarily) and seen friends banned (temporarily and permanently), sometimes for posts they made years earlier that were consistent with Facebook's rules at the time.
As a result, I've become increasingly angry at being treated like a child by Facebook's Dolores Umbridge algorithms. One of the main reasons I've fired up my account on Dreamwidth is the founder's stated commitment to free speech:
"With servers in the US we're obliged to follow US laws, but we're serious about knowing and protecting your rights when it comes to free expression and privacy. We will never put a limit on your creativity just because it makes someone uncomfortable — even if that someone is us."
...and from the site's Operating Principles:
"We will not place limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as removing spam)."
While I'm heartened by the apparently vigorous commitment to free speech here, many sites that claimed to support free speech at their founding, grew to support censorship of a wide variety of topics. For example, when reddit was founded, it claimed to be a "bastion of free speech". Over the intervening years, however, it has censored or banned thousands of communities, on topics ranging from drugs to sex work to conservative politics.
The founders of Dreamwidth also don't seem very active on the site any more. ![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise hasn't posted publicly since 2015. mark hasn't posted publicly since 2013. Many of the founding documents are outdated with references to policies that don't exist any more (such as invite codes).
As a result, I'm hesitant to invest in a site that seems to be on autopilot, and de facto controlleded by volunteers who may not share the founder's commitment to free speech.
So, before trying to recruit my friends here, I'm trying to get a sense of the real boundaries of free speech on Dreamwidth.
To help clarify, I've made a list of topics that have been banned on other major services. Note, to be clear, I don't necessarily support the communities that were banned on other sites. For example, I'm not a Trump supporter, and I'm certainly not a Nazi. However, I'd like to occasionally be able to discuss those topics without fear of being banned.
Which of these topics, if any, is likely to put my Dreamwidth account/communities at risk of a ban/censorship?
- Reddit Bans ‘Watch People Die’ Subreddit After New Zealand Mosque Video Is Posted to the Site
- Trump is banned permanently from Facebook
- Facebook Deleting Coronavirus Posts, Leading To Charges Of Censorship
- Hours After FOSTA Passes, Reddit Bans 'Escorts' and 'SugarDaddy' Communities Note, for some reason, reddit hasn't banned the main sexworkers subreddit yet.
- Stormfront, the internet's oldest major racist website, has domain suspended
- YouTube Bans DIY and Commercially Focused Gun Videos
- Reddit bans ‘deepfakes,’ pornography using the faces of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Gal Gadot
- Twitch, Reddit crack down on Trump-linked content as industry faces reckoning
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this matter!
How to decrease logout frequency?
Jan. 21st, 2019 10:33 amsophusI keep on finding myself automatically logged out of Dreamwidth within 36 hours or so of logging in, which is mildly inconvenient.
Is there a setting that I can use to increase log-in duration? And if so, where do I find it?
Is there a setting that I can use to increase log-in duration? And if so, where do I find it?
rivendellroseI was recently gifted with a paid account, and since I finally have access to the ability to add a custom mood theme, I wanted to upload my old mood theme from LJ. I had saved off all the gifs from that theme (it was one of the defaults there but not available here) before I deleted my journal there, and I was able to upload all the images and set up the console code without any trouble using these instructions here, but when I entered the final commands, a bunch (but not all!) of my commands came back with the error "You do not own this mood theme."
So now, around 14 of my mood theme images work, and the rest are blank. And I have no idea how to fix this, because it seems so dang arbitrary.
At first I thought the problem was that I had uploaded all the images to my image storage here on Dreamwidth and linked to them there, but if that was the case I would expect all of them to fail. Same with the theory that the system somehow knows that yeah, I admit it, I don't actually own these images, I saved them from my old LJ. While it would be sort of understandable... that would apply to all of the images. (And also, I'm guessing, to a lot of other people's mood themes that use images from TV shows, movies, etc.) So...???
It's dumb, but all I want is my little grey-blue animated cartoon kitties. Anybody have any experience with this problem or have an idea how to fix it?
So now, around 14 of my mood theme images work, and the rest are blank. And I have no idea how to fix this, because it seems so dang arbitrary.
At first I thought the problem was that I had uploaded all the images to my image storage here on Dreamwidth and linked to them there, but if that was the case I would expect all of them to fail. Same with the theory that the system somehow knows that yeah, I admit it, I don't actually own these images, I saved them from my old LJ. While it would be sort of understandable... that would apply to all of the images. (And also, I'm guessing, to a lot of other people's mood themes that use images from TV shows, movies, etc.) So...???
It's dumb, but all I want is my little grey-blue animated cartoon kitties. Anybody have any experience with this problem or have an idea how to fix it?
