How to Use Dreamwidth! (A Basic Guide)

[chubsthehamster]

If you're new to Dreamwidth and aren't sure how to use it, don't worry! Read on for more info on how to get started with the site and our community.

how to use Dreamwidth! (a basic guide)

What is Dreamwidth?

Dreamwidth is a codefork of LiveJournal. As the Dreamwidth development team explains in their intro here, this means that Dreamwidth uses the same open-source code as LiveJournal. However, even if you've never used LiveJournal before, with a little patience, Dreamwidth is still very accessible.

What makes Dreamwidth different?

Instead of interacting on a timeline or dashboard, Dreamwidth users communicate on each other's journals. On your journal, you can make posts and interact with users who comment on your posts. Likewise, you can also comment on posts made to another user's journal. In short, a journal is similar to a Twitter profile or main blog on Tumblr, except all posts are made by you (as there is no reblog or retweet function on Dreamwidth). Similar to Tumblr themes, you can also customize your journal! Dreamwidth also offers more robust privacy controls than other social media websites. There are three levels of privacy for posts on your journal:

1. Posts visible only to you
2. Posts visible to a select group of people
3. Posts visible to everyone

You can also control who comments on specific posts on your journal, as well as change your privacy settings for both posts and comments at any time (even after you've made the post). Unlike sites like Twitter and Tumblr, Dreamwidth does not sell online space to advertisers. This means that although anyone can join for free, there is also the option to support the site financially by signing up for a paid account (similar to how you can opt into a paid account on Tumblr). NOTE: A paid account is not necessary to use Dreamwidth, and a paid account is not necessary to join the Renegade community. There are some fun extra perks that come with a paid account (which you can read more about here), but anyone can make a Dreamwidth account and join our community. Why is this important? No advertisers also means that Dreamwidth does not employ an algorithm to push content to your journal or reading page (see the section below for more information on reading pages). This makes interacting with other users and finding community a little different from other social media sites. In short, using the site and interacting with other users is a little more involved than on other sites, but it also feels more personal. A slower burn, if you will. Finally, Dreamwidth's community functionality and robust tagging system make it easier for us to host Renegade's resources on here than on our Discord server or other social media, so it is also where we host the bulk of our imprint member resources.

Main features of Dreamwidth

Your Journal Your journal is your home on Dreamwidth! You can post entries, catch up on your reading page, and interact with users who comment on your posts. It's similar to your your Twitter profile or main blog on Tumblr, except you make all of the posts. Your Reading Page Your reading page is similar to your timeline on Twitter or your dashboard on Tumblr. Posts appear here from users or communities you are subscribed to. The more users and communities you subscribe to, the busier your reading page will be! You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for the Renegade Tumblr so that posts from our Tumblr will show up on your reading page--simply click the "Subscribe" button at the top of the feed. You can also browse and subscribe to any RSS feed on this page. Communities (or "Comms") Communities are the bread and butter of Dreamwidth! There are two ways to interact with a community: to subscribe and/or to join. Both are laid out in more detail below, but essentially, the difference between the two is how active you wish to be within a certain community. If you're not sure who to subscribe to or what communities to start with, we recommend fandom_on_dw and fandomcalendar for news on fandom events, recs, and general chatter, and of course our own renegadepublishing! Subscriptions If you subscribe to... ...a friend's journal, then their posts will show up on your reading page. ...a community, then that community's posts (in our case, posts made by the Renegade Dreamwidth admins) and that community members' posts will show up on your reading page. However, a subscription only allows you to see the posts made in that community; you cannot post to the community itself. In order to post to a community, you must join it. Joining a Community Joining a community is more involved than a subscription; it allows you to see members-only posts, as well as make your own posts to the community. Like your journal, there are several layers of privacy regarding access to a community and to the posts made by its members. You can learn more about the specifics of community privacy settings here, but for the purposes of this tutorial, it suffices to say that Renegade is an open community that grants posting access to all members. This means that anyone can join our comm and post to it as a member. DISCLAIMER: The Renegade Dreamwidth community is different from the Renegade Publishing imprint. To join the imprint, please read and acknowledge our Code of Conduct. If you have any further questions about membership to the Renegade Publishing imprint, please read our FAQ.

How do I join the Renegade Dreamwidth community?

It's easy! All you have to do is log in, navigate to any page of the Renegade Publishing community, then click on Join Community in the navigation bar. This bar should be on the top left-hand side of any page of the Renegade Publishing Dreamwidth.

Now that I've joined the community, where do I start?

There are a number of posts to help you navigate the comm, including our lovely navigation page, where you can find links to our Dreamwidth community rules, Renegade Publishing Code of Conduct, invite to our Discord community, FAQ, and much more! And if you haven't already, we invite you to join our Discord, the central hub of activity for the Renegade Bindery.

How do I post to the Renegade community?

In the navigation panel on the left, select Post to Community. Write up your post, tag it accordingly, then hit "Save."

I want to post pictures of my books to the community--how do I do this?

Dreamwidth's image hosting works a little differently from a lot of newer social media sites. If you want to post pictures, you have two options: 1) Cross-post from other social media websites This option is the simplest--just copy and paste a link to another website's post (such as Tumblr, Twitter, or Instagram) that contains your images to your Dreamwidth post, and you're done. However, although this is the easiest way to link your post to images of your books, the photos themselves won't appear in the Dreamwidth post itself. 2) Upload the image(s) to Dreamwidth's image hosting server (or another image hosting server) and embed them in a post You can also upload your images to Dreamwidth's image hosting server, a third-party server, or your own if you have one. If you want to use Dreamwidth's image hosting server, free accounts get 500 MB of data for images, while paid accounts get more. However, you are free to use any image hosting service you like, so long as you have an active URL to link back to. Some free sites that offer image hosting services and that are mentioned in Dreamwidth's FAQ are Flickr and Instagram, but there are several others out there as well. (I've used postimages many times with no issues--it's free and easy to use). Regardless of which service you use, once you've uploaded your images, you can then embed them in a Dreamwidth post by using the Insert/Edit image option in the rich text editor or with basic HTML. This option has a bit of a steeper learning curve and is more time consuming than simply copy/pasting a link, but if you want to display images in a Dreamwidth post, then this is the way to go. For a more detailed tutorial on how to do this, you can also check out Dreamwidth's tutorials on uploading images here and here. Finally, if you're going to upload more than one photo to a Renegade community post, please put all extra photos under a cut, per our community rules. A cut on Dreamwidth functions similarly to a cut on Tumblr, and much how a cut on Tumblr is used for etiquette purposes, cuts on Dreamwidth help keep other community members' reading pages from getting too cluttered. Thank you in advance! And of course, you're always more than welcome to post your pretty book pics in our #show-off-book channel on our server. In fact, we highly encourage it!

I have a question that's not answered here--please help!

Aside from Dreamwidth's FAQ, there are also many other wonderful resources out there to help you get started. Feel free to check out a few of the posts below, which go into much more detail about the nuts and bolts of Dreamwidth beyond the scope of this tutorial:

• how to dreamwidth: a primer
• Disjointed Dreamwidth Tips (written by someone who wasn't on LJ)
• Recs for communities/users to follow
• A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth

We hope this helps, and happy crafting!

♡