Tips for new users coming from other platforms

[vriddy]

I 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!

Comments

[misbegotten]

You can link to another user or community by putting an @ in front of their username. @ + vriddy = vriddy.

Cuts (hiding text in your post) are really useful if you have a long post or want to hide a spoiler in your text. You can find out more about creating a cut here. Note that if you click on the little triangle next to a cut, you can view the cut text without it loading a new page, which it does if you click on the cut itself.

Subscribing to your own journal means you see your posts on your circle feed and are able to spot formatting or HTML errors right away! I've found that very handy. It also helps me keep track of what entries by other people on my feed are new since I last posted.

[altamira16]

Thanks for linking to that thing about cuts. I was always using the legacy cuts.

I did not know about either the tracking feature or that @ can be used here.

If anyone is doing a friendzy, go find some people who look interesting.

holiday_wishes is very active right now.

[misbegotten]

holiday_wishes is a great one this time of year! As is fandomtrees.

[vriddy]

Thank you both for the community tips! I actually subscribed to fandomtrees to observe how it works this year and am finding it very overwhelming to follow, I might have another question post at some point on how do people manage their reading lists with communities and the like 😂 Especially exchanges when it's the posting period and there are suddenly so so so many posts about fandoms one doesn't necessarily follow...

[azurelunatic]

You can make custom filters for your reading page, and there are built-in filters for just personal journals, just communities, and just feeds: https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=76

So you could make a filter that contains the accounts and communities that you definitely want to read so you don't miss anything, and another that contains all the other ones so you can catch up on them when you have time.

There are a few communities that I have filtered out of my default view, I think.

[sally_maria]

I track busy communities, rather than including them on my reading page - that way I get emails for all the entries, and only look at the ones I'm likely to be interested in.

[vriddy]

I'm not sure if I want a couple dozen emails related to fandoms I don't know about, but getting DW inbox notifications without the email bit could work out nicely! Thank you for the tip!

[vriddy]

Oh, thanks!! I've subscribed to my own journal too now, that's always a good tip (I do the same with AO3 to see the emails 😂).

I actually found a neat trick with the user tag recently, you can add a site information for fancy formatting: astolat (that's user name=astolat site=ao3 between the angle brackets).

[misbegotten]

The @ + username works with AO3 too! @ + username.ao3 so @ + misbegotten.ao3 = misbegotten

[vriddy]

OOoh love it, even easier!! Thanks!

[shipperslist]

Ohhhh wow! I didn’t know that!

[misbegotten]

Here's the complete list of sites that can be linked to in that way. Twitter, Tumblr, and many others are included.

[firecat]

When I post something with complex formatting I always post it privately first and then edit the audience to public or friends.