![[sticky entry]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png){kind=small}
This is a community for tumblr refugees to reconnect with each other.
As of my writing this, this community is empty of posts and therefor, empty of tags to make it easier to find people of similar fandoms and content.
I please ask that when you tag your posts for your fandoms, you tag them in the format of "fandom: name of fandom" (i.e. "fandom: kingdom hearts" or "fandom: mcu") so that way the fandom tags stay nested and easy to find if a dreamwidth newcomer is looking for people with similar fandoms to add to their circle. If this community gains some traction, I will go through and edit tags if necessary to keep it clean, but I ask for your assistance in this, if only to maker it easier for people to find each other.
As for your posts in general, just post who you are and who you were on tumblr, and your general interests and fandoms and content you produce and start connecting with each other!
Here's a simple template you can use in case your brain blanks out as you're trying to promote yourself. You do not have to use this template if you do not want to, but it's there if you need it.
ETA: please make a new post instead of commenting on this post with your journal promos in order to guarantee visibility.
Comments from this point on this post are screened.
![[sticky entry]](//www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/sticky_entry.png)
Sticky: Mod post: dreamwidth for newbies.
Dec. 8th, 2018 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
specter_rotA couple of people have started posting helpful resources and tutorials both in this community and outside of the community, and I've begun adding these posts into memories for the people that are new to dreamwidth.
If anybody in the community that was already familiar with dreamwidth has any helpful posts, or if anyone in your circle has made helpful posts, let me know so I can add them to memories.
If anybody in the community that was already familiar with dreamwidth has any helpful posts, or if anyone in your circle has made helpful posts, let me know so I can add them to memories.
Dreamwidth and Icons
Mar. 20th, 2026 06:47 amsoc_puppetBuckle in, everyone, this is going to be a long one!
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)
Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
soc_puppetThis is a reproduction of a post I already made on Tumblr, but with that platform's future once again uncertain, I figured it'd be good to copy over here, as well.
Together with figuring out what to even post, one of the things that sucks about moving social media and/or blogging platforms is not knowing if there will be enough activity for you at the new place. Be it from old friends, new friends, or interactive communities, there’s a lot of ways you could find activity at a new place, but finding at least two of those categories can be tricky in itself.
Luckily, Dreamwidth has a few shortcuts for you already!
Adding new people to your reading page and finding new friends:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
addme: Straight up a place to find new “mutuals” on Dreamwidth, with no particular focus; a good place to start!
addme_fandom: Same as above, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!
findingfriends: Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.
Newcomers' Introduction and Friending Meme: A very in-depth adding meme, hosted bynewcomers! Includes a spot near the top for other platforms you're on, so it might be useful for finding Tumblr mutuals.
fandomcalendar: This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes. (I’ll be linking this one again later, as well.)
Getting started on Dreamwidth:
newcomers: A community dedicated specifically to helping Dreamwdth newcomers find their way around on a new site! I believe it was launched around the time Cohost was being shut down, so a lot of the people there now are Cohost “refugees”, but it’s still a good place to start.
the_great_tumblr_purge: A community dedicated specifically to Tumblr refugees, started around the time of the new content restrictions in 2018. If you've got questions specific to being former Tumblr user, this might be a good place to ask them, though Newcomers is also happy to help.
dw_news: The official Dreamwidth news community. I highly recommend following this one and the next one, which will help you keep up with what’s going on around Dreamwidth. DW News typically only posts a few times a year, but maybe that’ll change if a bunch of new users come by...
dw_maintenance: Keep up with the mechanical goings-on at Dreamwidth! If there’s a planned site outage or if DW is updating code, you can find out more here; if there’s something funky going on at Dreamwidth but the site is generally still usable, it’s also a good place to check.
dw_advocacy: Want to know more about how Dreamwidth is fighting for our rights? Follow this community to keep tabs on what bad bills Dreamwidth and NetChoice are battling, and if there's anything you can do to help!
Things to do on Dreamwidth:
dw_community_promo: The official Dreamwidth community for promoting Dreamwidth communities! People will promote new communities here, as well as events going on in established communities. A good place to find out about new things in general.
followfriday: A place to share links to check out once a week. Did you find a cool community that you want more people to know about? Link it in the comments here! The host, ysabetwordsmith, shares a themed post every week with posts, events, and communities related to said theme.
justcreate: A place where you can talk about things you’re working on. There’s a weekly check-in/reporting post, but sometimes people also organize body doubling sessions and other productivity-boosting things.
queerly_beloved: An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!
allbingo: Do you like filling out bingo cards for just about anything? This community is for all things bingo cards, fandom related and otherwise! Put together a bingo card for making mood themes, post topics, or even bird watching (featuring your local feathered friends), and share your results!
Fandom things to do on Dreamwidth:
fandomcalendar: I linked this above, and I’m linking it again: Want to know about fandom events that are going on at Dreamwidth? This is a good place to do it! It’ll also fill up your reading page in a hurry; you might be surprised at how many events are going on at Dreamwidth, or are at least connected there!
fictional_fans: A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.
fandom_on_dw: Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!
Anything else?
Search Interests: Individuals and communities can have lists of things they’re “interested in”. If more than one person has that thing listed, it may turn into a hyperlink that you can click to find other accounts with! You can also use the Search Interests function pretty much the same way. Simply type “cats” into the search bar, hit enter, and a bunch of accounts that have “cats” listed as an interest will pop up! Click through the various tabs at the top to separate accounts out into individual users, communities, and more.
The Latest Things Page: Literally the latest things posted publicly anywhere on Dreamwidth. There’s a list of commonly used tags at the top, if you want to narrow things down at all, but in the mean time, it can be pretty neat to see what J. Random Dreamwidth User just posted about! This is about the closest Dreamwidth gets to surfing random tags on Tumblr.
The Explore Tab: Useful links for Dreamwidth in general. In addition to linking to the Latest Things Page, it can take you to a random account, the FAQ page, and more! Worth checking out if you’re feeling lost.
Most Useful Communities list, as curated byysabetwordsmith; this has a lot of other options that I either didn't know about, or didn't feel like I had room to include; this post is already longer than I like to go without a cut tag or two 😅
The comments on the Newcomers' mirror of this post: People in both of these communities are pretty helpful, and that includes sharing their own suggestions in the comments! If you have something specific you're looking for, you might even ask for help here; who knows, we might just have a good lead for you! (Feel free to ask here as well!)
And that’s all I can think of at the moment! This should help you get started at least, and help fill out your reading page a bit.
Together with figuring out what to even post, one of the things that sucks about moving social media and/or blogging platforms is not knowing if there will be enough activity for you at the new place. Be it from old friends, new friends, or interactive communities, there’s a lot of ways you could find activity at a new place, but finding at least two of those categories can be tricky in itself.
Luckily, Dreamwidth has a few shortcuts for you already!
Adding new people to your reading page and finding new friends:
addme: Straight up a place to find new “mutuals” on Dreamwidth, with no particular focus; a good place to start!addme_fandom: Same as above, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!findingfriends: Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.Newcomers' Introduction and Friending Meme: A very in-depth adding meme, hosted by
newcomers! Includes a spot near the top for other platforms you're on, so it might be useful for finding Tumblr mutuals.fandomcalendar: This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes. (I’ll be linking this one again later, as well.)Getting started on Dreamwidth:
newcomers: A community dedicated specifically to helping Dreamwdth newcomers find their way around on a new site! I believe it was launched around the time Cohost was being shut down, so a lot of the people there now are Cohost “refugees”, but it’s still a good place to start.the_great_tumblr_purge: A community dedicated specifically to Tumblr refugees, started around the time of the new content restrictions in 2018. If you've got questions specific to being former Tumblr user, this might be a good place to ask them, though Newcomers is also happy to help.dw_news: The official Dreamwidth news community. I highly recommend following this one and the next one, which will help you keep up with what’s going on around Dreamwidth. DW News typically only posts a few times a year, but maybe that’ll change if a bunch of new users come by...dw_maintenance: Keep up with the mechanical goings-on at Dreamwidth! If there’s a planned site outage or if DW is updating code, you can find out more here; if there’s something funky going on at Dreamwidth but the site is generally still usable, it’s also a good place to check.dw_advocacy: Want to know more about how Dreamwidth is fighting for our rights? Follow this community to keep tabs on what bad bills Dreamwidth and NetChoice are battling, and if there's anything you can do to help!Things to do on Dreamwidth:
dw_community_promo: The official Dreamwidth community for promoting Dreamwidth communities! People will promote new communities here, as well as events going on in established communities. A good place to find out about new things in general.followfriday: A place to share links to check out once a week. Did you find a cool community that you want more people to know about? Link it in the comments here! The host, ysabetwordsmith, shares a themed post every week with posts, events, and communities related to said theme.justcreate: A place where you can talk about things you’re working on. There’s a weekly check-in/reporting post, but sometimes people also organize body doubling sessions and other productivity-boosting things.queerly_beloved: An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!allbingo: Do you like filling out bingo cards for just about anything? This community is for all things bingo cards, fandom related and otherwise! Put together a bingo card for making mood themes, post topics, or even bird watching (featuring your local feathered friends), and share your results!Fandom things to do on Dreamwidth:
fandomcalendar: I linked this above, and I’m linking it again: Want to know about fandom events that are going on at Dreamwidth? This is a good place to do it! It’ll also fill up your reading page in a hurry; you might be surprised at how many events are going on at Dreamwidth, or are at least connected there!fictional_fans: A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.fandom_on_dw: Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!Anything else?
Search Interests: Individuals and communities can have lists of things they’re “interested in”. If more than one person has that thing listed, it may turn into a hyperlink that you can click to find other accounts with! You can also use the Search Interests function pretty much the same way. Simply type “cats” into the search bar, hit enter, and a bunch of accounts that have “cats” listed as an interest will pop up! Click through the various tabs at the top to separate accounts out into individual users, communities, and more.
The Latest Things Page: Literally the latest things posted publicly anywhere on Dreamwidth. There’s a list of commonly used tags at the top, if you want to narrow things down at all, but in the mean time, it can be pretty neat to see what J. Random Dreamwidth User just posted about! This is about the closest Dreamwidth gets to surfing random tags on Tumblr.
The Explore Tab: Useful links for Dreamwidth in general. In addition to linking to the Latest Things Page, it can take you to a random account, the FAQ page, and more! Worth checking out if you’re feeling lost.
Most Useful Communities list, as curated by
ysabetwordsmith; this has a lot of other options that I either didn't know about, or didn't feel like I had room to include; this post is already longer than I like to go without a cut tag or two 😅The comments on the Newcomers' mirror of this post: People in both of these communities are pretty helpful, and that includes sharing their own suggestions in the comments! If you have something specific you're looking for, you might even ask for help here; who knows, we might just have a good lead for you! (Feel free to ask here as well!)
And that’s all I can think of at the moment! This should help you get started at least, and help fill out your reading page a bit.
Uploading Images to Dreamwidth
Mar. 19th, 2026 01:55 amsoc_puppetHello again! With Tumblr's latest brush with implosion, it seems the tutorial writing bug has bitten me again. Today, I'm finally going to talk about uploading and sharing images on Dreamwidth!
Dreamwidth has given all users a certain amount of image storage to use: Free users get 500 MB, Paid users get 1.5 GB, and Premium Paid users get 3 GB.
There's two ways to upload images directly to Dreamwidth.
The first option has a fair number of steps, but it's the one I know the most about and the one I'm best able to help with.
( Option One )
The second option is to post an image by email, which I have to admit I haven't tried myself yet.
For Option Two, the first thing you need to know here is that it's possible to post to Dreamwidth by email;silvercat17 wrote the tutorial I used to set it up, but you can also use Dreamwidth's official FAQ entries about it over here. If you post an entry by email, you can attach an image as a file to the email, and it will automatically be uploaded to Dreamwidth and included in the post! It won't necessarily have any particular title or description included, though, so you may want to visit Manage Images to edit that.
And those are the basics of uploading images to Dreamwidth! Culturally, Dreamwidth users tend to either share larger images as a thumbnail, or to put them under a cut (Dreamwidth's "Read More"), but otherwise this should cover what you need to know.
But maybe I'm wrong about that! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments of this post, and I'll do my best to clear things up (and then edit the post to include the information). You can also check Dreamwidth's official Media FAQ and see if your question is answered there.
Edit: With thanks toteres for the help!
I'd also like to note that you can share images on Dreamwidth that are hosted elsewhere, but not all image hosting sites have the same positive attitude that Dreamwidth does about NSFW art. If you do a lot of art and not all of it is NSFW, you may decide to host your SFW art elsewhere, and save your Dreamwidth storage for the stuff you can't host elsewhere.
Dreamwidth has given all users a certain amount of image storage to use: Free users get 500 MB, Paid users get 1.5 GB, and Premium Paid users get 3 GB.
There's two ways to upload images directly to Dreamwidth.
The first option has a fair number of steps, but it's the one I know the most about and the one I'm best able to help with.
( Option One )
The second option is to post an image by email, which I have to admit I haven't tried myself yet.
For Option Two, the first thing you need to know here is that it's possible to post to Dreamwidth by email;
silvercat17 wrote the tutorial I used to set it up, but you can also use Dreamwidth's official FAQ entries about it over here. If you post an entry by email, you can attach an image as a file to the email, and it will automatically be uploaded to Dreamwidth and included in the post! It won't necessarily have any particular title or description included, though, so you may want to visit Manage Images to edit that.And those are the basics of uploading images to Dreamwidth! Culturally, Dreamwidth users tend to either share larger images as a thumbnail, or to put them under a cut (Dreamwidth's "Read More"), but otherwise this should cover what you need to know.
But maybe I'm wrong about that! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments of this post, and I'll do my best to clear things up (and then edit the post to include the information). You can also check Dreamwidth's official Media FAQ and see if your question is answered there.
Edit: With thanks to
teres for the help!I'd also like to note that you can share images on Dreamwidth that are hosted elsewhere, but not all image hosting sites have the same positive attitude that Dreamwidth does about NSFW art. If you do a lot of art and not all of it is NSFW, you may decide to host your SFW art elsewhere, and save your Dreamwidth storage for the stuff you can't host elsewhere.
Some new(?) tutorial links
Nov. 1st, 2025 03:38 amsoc_puppetHello, everyone! Long time no post! Well, for me, at least 😅
It may still be a little while before I've got all my ducks in a row to make a proper tutorial again, but in the mean time, I finally remembered I already wrote and posted another one-ish on Tumblr 😅 I'm planning to properly organize and re-post it over here at some point, but in the mean time, if you want to know more about uploading and posting images to Dreamwidth, you can check the following links:
Short tutorial without images
Short tutorial with images (I don't think I have to say this, but please don't be rude to OP in this one!)
Bonus: Tutorial by dreamwidth-help on Tumblr for uploading images via email
Speaking of tutorials not by me! Someone in the notes of one of my Tumblr posts mentioned having resources on the Dreamwidth Roleplay scene, and graciously shared them with me.
A Guide to DWRP for Tumblr Users (Google doc)
rp_help
dwrpmasterlist
A dislcaimer from my source: "idk if the google doc is up to date but rp_help is from earlier this year and dwrpmasterlist crowdsources updates monthly."
So it sounds like the communities are definitely solid resources, and a look over the Google doc probably won't hurt, either. Best of luck, future DW RPers!
It may still be a little while before I've got all my ducks in a row to make a proper tutorial again, but in the mean time, I finally remembered I already wrote and posted another one-ish on Tumblr 😅 I'm planning to properly organize and re-post it over here at some point, but in the mean time, if you want to know more about uploading and posting images to Dreamwidth, you can check the following links:
Speaking of tutorials not by me! Someone in the notes of one of my Tumblr posts mentioned having resources on the Dreamwidth Roleplay scene, and graciously shared them with me.
rp_helpdwrpmasterlistA dislcaimer from my source: "idk if the google doc is up to date but rp_help is from earlier this year and dwrpmasterlist crowdsources updates monthly."
So it sounds like the communities are definitely solid resources, and a look over the Google doc probably won't hurt, either. Best of luck, future DW RPers!
Dreamwidth tips and observations.
Jun. 12th, 2025 07:52 amteresGiven that I've made some observations and tips on my own journals over time, I thought it was time to share them a bit wider, so here goes:
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Seeking Image Host Recs
Apr. 29th, 2025 04:27 amsoc_puppetLet's face it: I love Dreamwidth, but it's going to be a long time before it has image hosting interface that a lot of former Tumblr users, or new web users in general, are going to find intuitive. I've got a tutorial for it on my to-do list, but in the mean time, we have another problem:
Free accounts only get 500 MB of storage; regular paid accounts get 1.5 GB, and premium paid accounts get 3 GB, but there are artists out there who will absolutely blow right through that amount of storage in short order. On top of that, it doesn't allow hotlinking of images anywhere.
Dreamwidth happily hosts and defends NSFW content, and has a history of stability to boot, but for a lot of artists out there, that's not enough to go on.
So what are the other options out there?tesscodes goes over some in a fair amount of detail here, and elyusion summarizes some not in the previous post here; meanwhile, a Tumblr user suggested Amazon's s3 as a hosting option, pointing out that, since a lot of businesses use it for legal stuff, it's unlikely to be scraped for AI, but, like Google Docs, doesn't really do hotlinking. (Separately, I'm also going to add that Neocities allows hotlinking with a paid account, but doesn't encourage it.)
Do you know of any others? Can you recommend one in particular, either from the posts linked above or that you know of otherwise? Please share in the comments so we can get some solid recommendations!
Free accounts only get 500 MB of storage; regular paid accounts get 1.5 GB, and premium paid accounts get 3 GB, but there are artists out there who will absolutely blow right through that amount of storage in short order. On top of that, it doesn't allow hotlinking of images anywhere.
Dreamwidth happily hosts and defends NSFW content, and has a history of stability to boot, but for a lot of artists out there, that's not enough to go on.
So what are the other options out there?
tesscodes goes over some in a fair amount of detail here, and elyusion summarizes some not in the previous post here; meanwhile, a Tumblr user suggested Amazon's s3 as a hosting option, pointing out that, since a lot of businesses use it for legal stuff, it's unlikely to be scraped for AI, but, like Google Docs, doesn't really do hotlinking. (Separately, I'm also going to add that Neocities allows hotlinking with a paid account, but doesn't encourage it.)Do you know of any others? Can you recommend one in particular, either from the posts linked above or that you know of otherwise? Please share in the comments so we can get some solid recommendations!
Cut Tag Basics
Apr. 26th, 2025 04:23 amsoc_puppetIt's time to talk about Cut Tags, Dreamwidth's version of "Read More"s!
I'm going to start by demonstrating one, and I'm going to ask you not to click the actual "read more" text for now, so I can demonstrate one of the properties of cut tags. This should be the first post atnewcomers or the_great_tumblr_purge for April 26th, 2025, so if you've been linked to the post itself, please visit the archive for that date, instead!
( Read More (or don't) )
That's a cut tag. One of the neat things is that you can put whatever text you want there, instead of just "Read More". The thing I want you to pay attention to, though, is that little arrow next to it:
You know how, on Tumblr, sometimes when you click a "Read More", the link will take you to directly to the page of the post, and sometimes it'll just unfold whatever is under the "Read More" so it shows up on your dash? I'm sure there's some logic to which one it is somewhere, but I have yet to really figure it out. (Not that I've been trying, mind.)
Dreamwidth has it codified so you know what's going to do what: The text itself will take you into the post, anchored to where the cut tag/Read More starts, while the arrow beside the cut tag will unfold the post for you. If you want to read the contents of a post, but don't feel like clicking away from your reading page to do so, click on that little arrow right there!
But wait, there's more! Somewhere on your page layout you might see a section that says, "Expand Cut Tags", with double right-pointing triangles and double down-pointing triangles. Click on the double-down triangles, and all cut tags on your reading page will be automatically opened for you! Pretty neat trick, right? That includes what's in the next bit...
This time, please click on that triangle there: ( Read More (yes, please) )
You may also have noticed at this point that cut tags on Dreamwidth can be closed. No more putting the entire remainder of a post under a Read More; you can put the long essay under there, and leave the TL;DR out at the end! This also means you can also include multiple cut tags in a single post, not just one. And not just the nested kind, either; just be careful when using nested cuts to make sure to close all of the ones you want closed, so any text you want on the outside doesn't get caught on the inside!
Etiquette-wise, Dreamwidth users (DWenizens?) tend to apply cut tags to posts that get a little longer, and to hide images that are more than, say, 800 pixels wide. The latter is a holdover from when bandwidth was a lot worse, though last I knew, some places were still running on dial-up, and it's polite to remember them, as well. And both are good for not turning your subscribers' reading page into Color of the Sky. If you've got a post that's more than a couple thousand words long or has a bunch of really big images, you might want to consider a cut tag. Writing that's more than a few hundred words or a dozen lines long (in terms of poetry) is a good choice to put under a cut tag, as are image posts that have multiple large images (unless you're using preview thumbnails).Honestly, this post is long enough that I want to put more of it under a cut tag, but it would mess up the demo...
That's all I can think of about cut tags at the moment; if there's something I missed or something you have questions about, feel free to bring it up in the comments!
Edit:ysabetwordsmith has some concrete advice about when and where to use cut tags!
I'm going to start by demonstrating one, and I'm going to ask you not to click the actual "read more" text for now, so I can demonstrate one of the properties of cut tags. This should be the first post at
newcomers or the_great_tumblr_purge for April 26th, 2025, so if you've been linked to the post itself, please visit the archive for that date, instead!( Read More (or don't) )
That's a cut tag. One of the neat things is that you can put whatever text you want there, instead of just "Read More". The thing I want you to pay attention to, though, is that little arrow next to it:
You know how, on Tumblr, sometimes when you click a "Read More", the link will take you to directly to the page of the post, and sometimes it'll just unfold whatever is under the "Read More" so it shows up on your dash? I'm sure there's some logic to which one it is somewhere, but I have yet to really figure it out. (Not that I've been trying, mind.)
Dreamwidth has it codified so you know what's going to do what: The text itself will take you into the post, anchored to where the cut tag/Read More starts, while the arrow beside the cut tag will unfold the post for you. If you want to read the contents of a post, but don't feel like clicking away from your reading page to do so, click on that little arrow right there!
But wait, there's more! Somewhere on your page layout you might see a section that says, "Expand Cut Tags", with double right-pointing triangles and double down-pointing triangles. Click on the double-down triangles, and all cut tags on your reading page will be automatically opened for you! Pretty neat trick, right? That includes what's in the next bit...
This time, please click on that triangle there: ( Read More (yes, please) )
You may also have noticed at this point that cut tags on Dreamwidth can be closed. No more putting the entire remainder of a post under a Read More; you can put the long essay under there, and leave the TL;DR out at the end! This also means you can also include multiple cut tags in a single post, not just one. And not just the nested kind, either; just be careful when using nested cuts to make sure to close all of the ones you want closed, so any text you want on the outside doesn't get caught on the inside!
Etiquette-wise, Dreamwidth users (DWenizens?) tend to apply cut tags to posts that get a little longer, and to hide images that are more than, say, 800 pixels wide. The latter is a holdover from when bandwidth was a lot worse, though last I knew, some places were still running on dial-up, and it's polite to remember them, as well. And both are good for not turning your subscribers' reading page into Color of the Sky. If you've got a post that's more than a couple thousand words long or has a bunch of really big images, you might want to consider a cut tag. Writing that's more than a few hundred words or a dozen lines long (in terms of poetry) is a good choice to put under a cut tag, as are image posts that have multiple large images (unless you're using preview thumbnails).
That's all I can think of about cut tags at the moment; if there's something I missed or something you have questions about, feel free to bring it up in the comments!
Edit:
ysabetwordsmith has some concrete advice about when and where to use cut tags!
soc_puppetToday I’m going to take a moment to talk about a major cultural difference between Tumbr and Dreamwidth, and that is Audience. That is to say, the person or people you assume will be reading what you post.
On Tumblr, when you post something and tag it, you post with the assumption that anyone, anywhere can and might stumble across it at any time; you have to be mentally and emotionally prepared for the interactions you will face. Since many of the people who will potentially see your post are people who don’t know you, and who you don’t know, one of the things you have to be prepared for is Bad Faith Interactions: Where a person reads what you have written and comes to the worst possible conclusion about both the writing and about you, and is prepared to take their conclusion directly to the source.
Since Tumblr is a content aggregation site, if something you write takes off, the odds that it will reach people who will misinterpret what you wrote and are willing to fight over it are higher than they are on other blogging platforms. If you only have a few followers on Tumblr, the odds of Bad Faith Interactions are fairly low; however, it is never impossible, and the odds go up with every follower you gain.
On Dreamwidth, you have one primary audience (that is, people who are primarily there for you), and many optional secondary audiences (people who might be there for you, but are just as likely, if not more so, to be there for a more general subject).
( Primary Audience: Your own journal's followers )
So that’s your primary audience interactions. Secondary audiences are those who follow communities you may post to.
( Secondary Audiences: Community subscribers )
Overall, between these two factors, the interactions you’ll have with people on Dreamwidth will likely be of a very different character than those you have on Tumblr.
Is it still possible to have huge flame wars and fandom wankfests on Dreamwidth? Absolutely; they happened with frequency on LiveJournal, which is the structure Dreamwidth was originally based on. But in general, it’s easier to control the types of interaction you have on Dreamwidth than on Tumblr, and that includes fandom content and interactions.
As always, if you think I missed or misrepresented something, want to point something out, or have any questions, please let me know!
On Tumblr, when you post something and tag it, you post with the assumption that anyone, anywhere can and might stumble across it at any time; you have to be mentally and emotionally prepared for the interactions you will face. Since many of the people who will potentially see your post are people who don’t know you, and who you don’t know, one of the things you have to be prepared for is Bad Faith Interactions: Where a person reads what you have written and comes to the worst possible conclusion about both the writing and about you, and is prepared to take their conclusion directly to the source.
Since Tumblr is a content aggregation site, if something you write takes off, the odds that it will reach people who will misinterpret what you wrote and are willing to fight over it are higher than they are on other blogging platforms. If you only have a few followers on Tumblr, the odds of Bad Faith Interactions are fairly low; however, it is never impossible, and the odds go up with every follower you gain.
On Dreamwidth, you have one primary audience (that is, people who are primarily there for you), and many optional secondary audiences (people who might be there for you, but are just as likely, if not more so, to be there for a more general subject).
( Primary Audience: Your own journal's followers )
So that’s your primary audience interactions. Secondary audiences are those who follow communities you may post to.
( Secondary Audiences: Community subscribers )
Overall, between these two factors, the interactions you’ll have with people on Dreamwidth will likely be of a very different character than those you have on Tumblr.
Is it still possible to have huge flame wars and fandom wankfests on Dreamwidth? Absolutely; they happened with frequency on LiveJournal, which is the structure Dreamwidth was originally based on. But in general, it’s easier to control the types of interaction you have on Dreamwidth than on Tumblr, and that includes fandom content and interactions.
As always, if you think I missed or misrepresented something, want to point something out, or have any questions, please let me know!
What do I do instead of reblogging?
Apr. 23rd, 2025 02:27 amsoc_puppetReblogging is a core feature of Tumblr that doesn't really translate well to Dreamwidth. There are a couple of different ways to replicate it, but which one you pick depends on what your goal was when reblogging a particular post.
"I want to be able to refer back to this post at a later date."
The feature you want for this is likely Memories. Memories are a site-specific bookmarking system that predate tagging. In those times, a lot of LJ users would use it to organize their own posts, such as keeping track of their fics. (Tags were introduced a relatively short time before Dreamwidth split off from LiveJournal.) Memories can be public, access-locked, or private. Any Memories you make on Dreamwidth will be of Dreamwidth posts only.
Unlike with Tumblr's reblog feature, if you add someone else's post to your Memories and the original poster deletes it or locks it, you will no longer have access to it, but it does give you a way to keep track of posts made by other people. If you want to be sure that you'll have access to a post for later,ysabetwordsmith suggests using an archiving service, such as Wayback or Archive.today. Be aware that not all archiving services will save Dreamwidth posts, Ghost being one of those that does not.
"I want to be able to spread the word about this post."
The way most Dreamwidth users do this is by making their own post about it, either in their own journal or on a community, and including a quick blurb and a link to what you want to share. (If it's a post by another Dreamwidth user, it's considered polite to ask in the comments if OP is okay with you sharing the link around. Most people are okay with this if they made a public post, but some may ask you to make your own post about the topic instead, especially if their own post is access-locked.)
That said, there's also technically a workaround made to mimic reblogs, made byastolat (yes, that Astolat), ljwrites, and melannen. I haven't tried it myself and don't particularly want to, so there aren't a lot of questions I can answer about it. However, I would say that it would still be polite to ask for permission to reblog a post in this case, especially since, as far as I'm aware and unlike with Tumblr reblogs, the original poster will not automatically be made aware of your reblogging.
Interestingly, I've heard that this reblogging tool can also work on some non-Dreamwidth site links, such as from AO3.
ysabetwordsmith suggests: "If it's something you especially adore, you can ask the author to let you repost it on your blog as a guest post. If you host a community, however, it's more common to invite folks to crosspost it there whenever you see something that fits the theme. You can also tell people about a comm that matches their post if it's generally open to such things."
"I want to share this cool, funny, or interesting thing with other people."
Did a friend or someone else you subscribe to make a post that you thought was particularly funny or insightful? I recommend sharing it atmetaquotes! Metaquotes is a community specifically dedicated to sharing fun and interesting things made by other people. It's not very active at the moment, but with a little work, we can change that...
"I have something I want to add to this post."
If what you want is to share your thoughts on a topic, I recommend replying to the post with a comment! If it's something you would have put in the tags or comment section of a reblog (and isn't rude), I can about guarantee that the original poster would be interested in receiving it.
There are exceptions; if you feel like your comment might derail too much from the original post, or if you manage to exceed the character limit for one comment, you might consider making your own post (with a link to the original), and replying to the original post with a link to your own.
And those are the basics! You may want to mix-and-match on these, depending on the content and your goals for it; for example, if someone posts something really funny that you want to share, you can reply to the post, and post to Metaquotes, and link back to it in a post of your own. You may also be able to do a bunch of any of these at a time ("linkspamming" is the nickname for a post where you share a bunch of links). But overall, these options should cover most of your needs.
If you have any questions, or if there's something I missed, please feel free to let me know in the comments!
"I want to be able to refer back to this post at a later date."
The feature you want for this is likely Memories. Memories are a site-specific bookmarking system that predate tagging. In those times, a lot of LJ users would use it to organize their own posts, such as keeping track of their fics. (Tags were introduced a relatively short time before Dreamwidth split off from LiveJournal.) Memories can be public, access-locked, or private. Any Memories you make on Dreamwidth will be of Dreamwidth posts only.
Unlike with Tumblr's reblog feature, if you add someone else's post to your Memories and the original poster deletes it or locks it, you will no longer have access to it, but it does give you a way to keep track of posts made by other people. If you want to be sure that you'll have access to a post for later,
ysabetwordsmith suggests using an archiving service, such as Wayback or Archive.today. Be aware that not all archiving services will save Dreamwidth posts, Ghost being one of those that does not."I want to be able to spread the word about this post."
The way most Dreamwidth users do this is by making their own post about it, either in their own journal or on a community, and including a quick blurb and a link to what you want to share. (If it's a post by another Dreamwidth user, it's considered polite to ask in the comments if OP is okay with you sharing the link around. Most people are okay with this if they made a public post, but some may ask you to make your own post about the topic instead, especially if their own post is access-locked.)
That said, there's also technically a workaround made to mimic reblogs, made by
astolat (yes, that Astolat), ljwrites, and melannen. I haven't tried it myself and don't particularly want to, so there aren't a lot of questions I can answer about it. However, I would say that it would still be polite to ask for permission to reblog a post in this case, especially since, as far as I'm aware and unlike with Tumblr reblogs, the original poster will not automatically be made aware of your reblogging.Interestingly, I've heard that this reblogging tool can also work on some non-Dreamwidth site links, such as from AO3.
ysabetwordsmith suggests: "If it's something you especially adore, you can ask the author to let you repost it on your blog as a guest post. If you host a community, however, it's more common to invite folks to crosspost it there whenever you see something that fits the theme. You can also tell people about a comm that matches their post if it's generally open to such things.""I want to share this cool, funny, or interesting thing with other people."
Did a friend or someone else you subscribe to make a post that you thought was particularly funny or insightful? I recommend sharing it at
metaquotes! Metaquotes is a community specifically dedicated to sharing fun and interesting things made by other people. It's not very active at the moment, but with a little work, we can change that..."I have something I want to add to this post."
If what you want is to share your thoughts on a topic, I recommend replying to the post with a comment! If it's something you would have put in the tags or comment section of a reblog (and isn't rude), I can about guarantee that the original poster would be interested in receiving it.
There are exceptions; if you feel like your comment might derail too much from the original post, or if you manage to exceed the character limit for one comment, you might consider making your own post (with a link to the original), and replying to the original post with a link to your own.
And those are the basics! You may want to mix-and-match on these, depending on the content and your goals for it; for example, if someone posts something really funny that you want to share, you can reply to the post, and post to Metaquotes, and link back to it in a post of your own. You may also be able to do a bunch of any of these at a time ("linkspamming" is the nickname for a post where you share a bunch of links). But overall, these options should cover most of your needs.
If you have any questions, or if there's something I missed, please feel free to let me know in the comments!
soc_puppetHonestly, even aside from me writing my own, there are a lot of tutorials out there for Tumblr users who might be interested in getting started on Dreamwidth. I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to get all of the ones we know about rounded up in one place.
Here's the ones I know about:
Dreamwidth's official Frequently Asked Questions list - Not exactly in the spirit of the rest of these, but if you can't find something somewhere else, it's worth checking here! Or vice-versa.
Basic Dreamwidth for Tumblr Users by![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
star-anise; has some very good intro stuff and basic comparisons.
A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth byaniamra; has some useful Dreamwidth etiquette. (Full disclosure, it also links an older post about finding things to do and making new friends that I wrote.)
DW for Tumblrites Masterpost bypotofsoup; this one has a lot of really fantastic information. Highly recommended.
Part 1: How do I follow a blog?
Part 1.5: How do I find people to follow?
Part 2: Posting and HTML basics
Part 2.5: Images
Part 2.8: Backdating and Drafting
Part 2.9: Scheduling Posts
Part 3: Dash/Reading Page curation (Subscription Filters)
Part 3.5: Access vs. Join vs. Subscribe, and targeted friends-only posts (Access Filters)
Part 4: Likes and Reblogs
Part 4.5: Stickies, Sidebar, Anon Askbox
Part 5: I miss yelling in the tags! (subtext, icons, and moods)
Part 5.5: Actual tags tho
Part 6: Themes and mobile
Part 7: Sideblogs and tag filters
Part 8: Paid features
The official Dreamwidth News post from December 3rd, 2018, right around when Tumblr announced it was banning a certain type of content. While not everything is up to date, there should still be a lot of information in the comments here. I also recommend reading the news post itself, or anydw_news posts, as it'll give you an idea of what the staff here is like. Ditto on the comments reflecting the Dreamwidth community at large. Yeah, there's some trolls and jerks out there, but by and large, Dreamwidth is a pretty welcoming place, if I do say so myself.
A quick introduction to Dreamwidth's Rich Text Editor byteres
How to Post Fiction or Other Writing on Dreamwidth byysabetwordsmith
Guides bysoc_puppet (me): I'm sharing the newcomers links, because that's what I have most easily at hand, but if you check, you can probably find them mirrored at the_great_tumblr_purge on the same date.
What to post about on Dreamwidth
Dreamwidth alternatives to talking in the tags
A quick guide to mood themes
The (beta) Create Entries page
Personal Communities: Dreamwidth's "side blogs"
What do I do instead of reblogging?
Audience on Dreamwidth vs Audience on Tumblr
Cut Tag Basics (first post for April 26th; you may have to scroll down)
That's all I can think of/am aware of at the moment! If you know of any others, please link them in the comments.
Edit: More tutorials and guides!
How to Dreamwidth: A Primer and How to Dreamwidth: Commenting Options bylarissa (Rebloggable Tumblr links, has some good, if sometimes outdated, general info)
PSA byconuly (Sooooo many links; so many)
Here's the ones I know about:
Dreamwidth's official Frequently Asked Questions list - Not exactly in the spirit of the rest of these, but if you can't find something somewhere else, it's worth checking here! Or vice-versa.
Basic Dreamwidth for Tumblr Users by
A Tumblr User's Guide to Dreamwidth by
DW for Tumblrites Masterpost by
potofsoup; this one has a lot of really fantastic information. Highly recommended. Click here for the table of contents
Part 1: How do I follow a blog?
Part 1.5: How do I find people to follow?
Part 2: Posting and HTML basics
Part 2.5: Images
Part 2.8: Backdating and Drafting
Part 2.9: Scheduling Posts
Part 3: Dash/Reading Page curation (Subscription Filters)
Part 3.5: Access vs. Join vs. Subscribe, and targeted friends-only posts (Access Filters)
Part 4: Likes and Reblogs
Part 4.5: Stickies, Sidebar, Anon Askbox
Part 5: I miss yelling in the tags! (subtext, icons, and moods)
Part 5.5: Actual tags tho
Part 6: Themes and mobile
Part 7: Sideblogs and tag filters
Part 8: Paid features
The official Dreamwidth News post from December 3rd, 2018, right around when Tumblr announced it was banning a certain type of content. While not everything is up to date, there should still be a lot of information in the comments here. I also recommend reading the news post itself, or any
dw_news posts, as it'll give you an idea of what the staff here is like. Ditto on the comments reflecting the Dreamwidth community at large. Yeah, there's some trolls and jerks out there, but by and large, Dreamwidth is a pretty welcoming place, if I do say so myself.A quick introduction to Dreamwidth's Rich Text Editor by
teresHow to Post Fiction or Other Writing on Dreamwidth by
ysabetwordsmithGuides by
soc_puppet (me): I'm sharing the newcomers links, because that's what I have most easily at hand, but if you check, you can probably find them mirrored at the_great_tumblr_purge on the same date.What to post about on Dreamwidth
Dreamwidth alternatives to talking in the tags
A quick guide to mood themes
The (beta) Create Entries page
Personal Communities: Dreamwidth's "side blogs"
What do I do instead of reblogging?
Audience on Dreamwidth vs Audience on Tumblr
Cut Tag Basics (first post for April 26th; you may have to scroll down)
That's all I can think of/am aware of at the moment! If you know of any others, please link them in the comments.
Edit: More tutorials and guides!
How to Dreamwidth: A Primer and How to Dreamwidth: Commenting Options by
larissa (Rebloggable Tumblr links, has some good, if sometimes outdated, general info)PSA by
conuly (Sooooo many links; so many)
killerqueer
☆ 🌈 r 🐉 — they/he☆ living in the pnw of the usa
☆ queer / trans / chronically ill / disabled leftist
☆ early 30s
☆ artist, fic writer, craftsperson, etc
☆ you can also find me here:
killerqueer, 
mxmorel (art), hearteyespierce (personal) 
mxmorel, 
mxmorel, 
art comms site☆ art commissions are open!
☆ feel free to contact me in any of the available ways
☆ a mix of art, fics, shitposts, & personal posts. maybe playlists. who knows.
☆ main fandom at the moment is m*a*s*h, but i'm also still making dghda stuff and poking around in other fandoms as I please, will tag for the most likely ones!
☆ some content may be nsfw but I will restrict as necessary,
☆ anyone is welcome to subscribe/reach out!
i would love to make some new friends and reconnect with old ones, so feel free to say hi!
Now taking tutorial requests
Apr. 19th, 2025 02:25 amsoc_puppetIf there's a subject about Dreamwidth in general or how it compares to Tumblr that you'd like me to cover, reply to this post and I'll see if I can get to it! If it's something I'm not prepared to cover myself, I'll say so, and hopefully someone else can pop in with resources.
I've got a hellaciously busy weekend ahead of me (Easter weekend in the food industry, and we do an Easter Sunday buffet special), so I likely won't be getting to any before Monday at the absolute earliest. That said, knowing if people have requests might give me something to mull over while I'm working.
Tutorials I'm already planning on:
Cut tags, Dreamwidth's (superior) equivalent to Tumblr's "Read More" Done! Cut Tag Basics
The basics of icons, Dreamwidth's userpics/PFPs/avatars/what-have-you
Image hosting and sharing on Dreamwidth Done! Uploading Images to Dreamwidth
If you have any requests, comment on this post or send me a direct message and I'll see what I can do 👍
Update: Thank you, everyone, for the questions and suggestions! I'm posting a quick list of what I've gotten so far, but feel free to keep asking if you don't see what you want to know listed here already. (I also did my best to provide some quick answers to the questions/topics at the posts where they were asked, so go check the comment section if you want to know some of this ASAP.)
Tutorial requests fromnewcomers:
How communities work (special request for clearing up 'subscribe' vs 'join')
The Latest Things Page
How to make friends and find things to do Done! Finding Friends and Things to Do on Dreamwidth
What about reblogs, anyway? Done! What do I do instead of reblogging?
Does Dreamwidth have an equivalent to Asks?
What exactly is a "circle"?
Tutorial requests fromthe_great_tumblr_purge:
Seriously though, what about reblogs? Done! What do I do instead of reblogging?
General Dreamwith etiquette
How subscribing and granting access works
A general Q&A/quick answers post
I've got a hellaciously busy weekend ahead of me (Easter weekend in the food industry, and we do an Easter Sunday buffet special), so I likely won't be getting to any before Monday at the absolute earliest. That said, knowing if people have requests might give me something to mull over while I'm working.
Tutorials I'm already planning on:
If you have any requests, comment on this post or send me a direct message and I'll see what I can do 👍
Update: Thank you, everyone, for the questions and suggestions! I'm posting a quick list of what I've gotten so far, but feel free to keep asking if you don't see what you want to know listed here already. (I also did my best to provide some quick answers to the questions/topics at the posts where they were asked, so go check the comment section if you want to know some of this ASAP.)
Tutorial requests from
newcomers:Tutorial requests from
the_great_tumblr_purge:
teresHello! I've written a tutorial on the RTE on my own journal, and, at soc_puppet's suggestion, I've reposted it over here.
--
So, at the request of soc_puppet, this is a guide to the basic functionality of Dreamwidth's Rich Text Editor ("RTE" for short).
soc_puppetSide blogs are a feature of Tumblr that are beloved by many: A secondary blog that you can post to without signing out of your primary blog. Most people use this secondary account to blog about and reblog things related to an interest they consider too "niche" for their main account, specific fandom content being among the main contenders. Other Tumblr users can subscribe to/follow specifically that side account, and while Tumblr recently added the ability for side blogs to respond to comments under the name of the account that is commented on, the side blogs themselves cannot subscribe to/follow anyone.
That's not quite a thing on Dreamwidth. One alternate option would be to create an entire separate journal account; Dreamwidth Roleplayers do this a lot, and may even be able to direct you to widgets that can help you switch between accounts quickly. But this is about the same as creating a separate Tumblr account, and not so much as creating a side account.
Something that might come closer is creating a personal community: A community that only one person can post to.
If you've been nosing aroundnewcomers or the_great_tumblr_purge for a while, you probably have some idea of how communities work on Dreamwidth. Tumblr is, in fact, currently implementing a similar feature, so you may be familiar with the idea from there, as well (though last I knew it was still in beta).
Creating a community of any kind should start in a similar way to creating a personal account; unlike creating a new journal, however, it can be done while you are logged in: Go to the "Create" tab and scroll to the bottom to Create Community. There, you will be prompted to name and title your community. As an example for this post, I am currently creating a community namedexample_comm, whose title is, "An example community for demonstration's sake".
You will then be prompted to pick how open you want community membership to be: open (anyone can freely join), moderated (anyone can ask to join, must be approved by an administrator), or by invitation only (only people invited by an administrator may join). This does not affect whether people are able to subscribe to a community, only whether they can post. I'm selecting "By invitation only", because this community is only for an example, but you can pick whichever you like.
Some things to keep in mind when picking your preference: Anyone who joins a community will be able to see posts locked to that community; if you want to have a side blog that only a certain subset of people can see the posts of, they will need to be members of the community. If you've ever wanted to have control of who follows your side account before they click the follow button, go with "moderated" or "by invitation only". If you don't have a preference to who joins, go with "open". If you don't plan to make any locked posts that only your community members will see, pick "by invitation only".
The next steps are to edit the community settings, edit the community profile, and customize community appearance.
( Edit Community Settings )
( Edit Community Profile )
( Customize Community Appearance )
And that should do the trick! If you have any questions, if I've missed anything, or anything else, please feel free to comment and I'll do my best to help.
That's not quite a thing on Dreamwidth. One alternate option would be to create an entire separate journal account; Dreamwidth Roleplayers do this a lot, and may even be able to direct you to widgets that can help you switch between accounts quickly. But this is about the same as creating a separate Tumblr account, and not so much as creating a side account.
Something that might come closer is creating a personal community: A community that only one person can post to.
If you've been nosing around
newcomers or the_great_tumblr_purge for a while, you probably have some idea of how communities work on Dreamwidth. Tumblr is, in fact, currently implementing a similar feature, so you may be familiar with the idea from there, as well (though last I knew it was still in beta).Creating a community of any kind should start in a similar way to creating a personal account; unlike creating a new journal, however, it can be done while you are logged in: Go to the "Create" tab and scroll to the bottom to Create Community. There, you will be prompted to name and title your community. As an example for this post, I am currently creating a community named
example_comm, whose title is, "An example community for demonstration's sake".You will then be prompted to pick how open you want community membership to be: open (anyone can freely join), moderated (anyone can ask to join, must be approved by an administrator), or by invitation only (only people invited by an administrator may join). This does not affect whether people are able to subscribe to a community, only whether they can post. I'm selecting "By invitation only", because this community is only for an example, but you can pick whichever you like.
Some things to keep in mind when picking your preference: Anyone who joins a community will be able to see posts locked to that community; if you want to have a side blog that only a certain subset of people can see the posts of, they will need to be members of the community. If you've ever wanted to have control of who follows your side account before they click the follow button, go with "moderated" or "by invitation only". If you don't have a preference to who joins, go with "open". If you don't plan to make any locked posts that only your community members will see, pick "by invitation only".
The next steps are to edit the community settings, edit the community profile, and customize community appearance.
( Edit Community Settings )
( Edit Community Profile )
( Customize Community Appearance )
And that should do the trick! If you have any questions, if I've missed anything, or anything else, please feel free to comment and I'll do my best to help.
The Create Entries Page
Apr. 16th, 2025 09:13 pmsoc_puppetI've covered What to post about on Dreamwidth, but now that I think of it, that may have been putting the cart before the horse! That sort of thing is good to know, but harder to do if you don't know how to post on Dreamwidth.
When it comes to actually posting, you'll want to pick a text format to use. I personally use Casual HTML, since it's what I was used to on LiveJournal before Dreamwidth, but I know a lot of Tumblr users are going to be more familiar with Rich Text Entry (RTE); if you want to know more about the RTE options,teres wrote a great breakdown right over here. To find out what HTML you can use on Dreamwidth, check out this FAQ page.
Once you have that done, the first thing I'm going to recommend you do is to turn on the Beta "Create Entries" page. Why? Because Dreamwidth is going to make it the default sometime soon, and it'll be better to get used to it sooner rather than later. Also, it's just superior to the original Create Entries page in a lot of ways! I'll go into more detail on that in a moment.
To turn on the Beta "Create Entries" page, first go to the Organize tab. At the bottom of the drop-down menu is the option, "Test Beta Features". On that page, you have the ability to opt in to helping test five different beta features. At the top of that list is the Beta Create Entries page. Click to Opt In on that, and you should be good to go! (I also recommend opting in on the beta Inbox page.)
Now comes some of the fun: If you go visit the Create Entries page now, you'll notice some different features. At the very top, right above the subject line, is the option "Rearrange Panels". Surprise! You can now decide, with some limitations, how you want the Create Entry page to look!
(With thanks toteres for the reminder: There are some animations built into this process; if you want those to go away or to be minimized, that is the final option to click in the Rearrange Panels field.)
( Let's get into the nitty gritty of that )
One field that won't move is the field where you select whether to post and what privacy level to post at; you can find it right below the text entry field. There you will find one or two drop-down menus. The first menu will allow you to choose the privacy level of the post, be it public (anyone can read it), access-locked (only people you grant access to can read it), access-locked to a specific subset of your access list (a custom access filter), or private (only you can read it).
The second drop-down menu is for whether you're posting to your own journal or to any communities you may be a member of that allow you to post. The default option from both the "Create: Post Entry" drop-down and the "Post" option on the left-hand side of the navigation strip at the top of various Dreamwidth pages is to your own journal, but if you are visiting a community and click the "Post" option on the right-hand side of the navigation strip, it will select that community for you instead. If you post using that method, you will not have a drop-down menu to choose another location from.
And those are the basics of the beta Create Entries page! If I missed anything, or if you have any questions, please feel free to comment and let me know, and I'll do my best to clear things up.
Edit: Shoot, I forgot to talk about cut tags. Next post, maybe?
Edit 2: With thanks toteres for suggestions to make this post better!
Edit 3: There is now a post about cut tags!
When it comes to actually posting, you'll want to pick a text format to use. I personally use Casual HTML, since it's what I was used to on LiveJournal before Dreamwidth, but I know a lot of Tumblr users are going to be more familiar with Rich Text Entry (RTE); if you want to know more about the RTE options,
teres wrote a great breakdown right over here. To find out what HTML you can use on Dreamwidth, check out this FAQ page.Once you have that done, the first thing I'm going to recommend you do is to turn on the Beta "Create Entries" page. Why? Because Dreamwidth is going to make it the default sometime soon, and it'll be better to get used to it sooner rather than later. Also, it's just superior to the original Create Entries page in a lot of ways! I'll go into more detail on that in a moment.
To turn on the Beta "Create Entries" page, first go to the Organize tab. At the bottom of the drop-down menu is the option, "Test Beta Features". On that page, you have the ability to opt in to helping test five different beta features. At the top of that list is the Beta Create Entries page. Click to Opt In on that, and you should be good to go! (I also recommend opting in on the beta Inbox page.)
Now comes some of the fun: If you go visit the Create Entries page now, you'll notice some different features. At the very top, right above the subject line, is the option "Rearrange Panels". Surprise! You can now decide, with some limitations, how you want the Create Entry page to look!
(With thanks to
teres for the reminder: There are some animations built into this process; if you want those to go away or to be minimized, that is the final option to click in the Rearrange Panels field.)( Let's get into the nitty gritty of that )
One field that won't move is the field where you select whether to post and what privacy level to post at; you can find it right below the text entry field. There you will find one or two drop-down menus. The first menu will allow you to choose the privacy level of the post, be it public (anyone can read it), access-locked (only people you grant access to can read it), access-locked to a specific subset of your access list (a custom access filter), or private (only you can read it).
The second drop-down menu is for whether you're posting to your own journal or to any communities you may be a member of that allow you to post. The default option from both the "Create: Post Entry" drop-down and the "Post" option on the left-hand side of the navigation strip at the top of various Dreamwidth pages is to your own journal, but if you are visiting a community and click the "Post" option on the right-hand side of the navigation strip, it will select that community for you instead. If you post using that method, you will not have a drop-down menu to choose another location from.
And those are the basics of the beta Create Entries page! If I missed anything, or if you have any questions, please feel free to comment and let me know, and I'll do my best to clear things up.
Edit: Shoot, I forgot to talk about cut tags. Next post, maybe?
Edit 2: With thanks to
teres for suggestions to make this post better!Edit 3: There is now a post about cut tags!
A Quick Guide to Mood Themes
Apr. 15th, 2025 04:37 amsoc_puppet(Originally posted on Tumblr where I was blatantly showing off and bragging.)
So what exactly is a "mood theme", anyway?
A mood theme is like a sticker you add to the end of your posts to indicate what mood you’re in. If you've seen the cute little cartoon-ish rats at the bottom of my posts, those are part of the mood theme that I use!
In the "Currents" section of the post creation page, there’s a drop-down menu with 132 moods to pick from, as well as a space to enter a custom mood. If you pick a mood from the drop-down menu, it will upload one of the aforementioned stickers on your post. If you enter text as a custom mood instead of using the drop-down menu, there will be no sticker. But, if you do both, you can get a sticker and have it display a custom mood name for you!
For example, if you pick "happy" from the drop-down menu, you can enter "pleased as punch" in the custom mood field, and your post will say that next to the sticker instead of "happy" (demonstrated below). It can be a fun alternative to talking in the tags, since tags are strictly functional/organizational on Dreamwidth.
Got it. Now, how do I pick or change my mood theme on Dreamwidth?
First, make sure you’re logged in. You can’t change anything about your account if you’re not 😉
Second, go to the Customize Journal Style page. You can find it under the drop-down menu of the Organize tab. Once there, click the "Display" option. The ability to pick your mood theme should be at the top of the "Customize your theme" section. Or, for a shortcut, click this link!
Third, pick the mood theme you want from the drop-down menu. If you want to preview all of the mood themes before picking one, you can do so here. (It’s also linked right above the mood theme selection menu.) To view all of the mood images at once, find a mood theme you're interested in, then click the "View All" option on the right-hand side of it. Dreamwidth currently has two pages worth of free mood themes to pick from, so be sure to check them all out to find the one you like best! After you're done looking at the options, return to the journal customization page.
Finally, select the mood theme you want to use from the drop-down menu. A preview of the mood theme will pop up on the right, if you're worried about remembering which mood theme is which. After you’ve selected the mood theme you want to use, click the Save button at the bottom of the box. And you should be good to go!
Enjoy your fun new mood theme 😃
Okay, that’s cool and all, but I’ve seen accounts that have Star Trek or Pokémon mood themes. How do I get one of those?
Well, I’ve got good news and bad news there.
The good news is, anyone can get or make one of their own! In fact, I’ve set up a Dreamwith community for anyone who wants to make their own custom mood theme and wants some structure or friendly encouragement as they go: you can find it atmoodthemeinayear. Some people also have also made custom mood themes that they’re willing to share with the public, be they fandom or original. In fact, that’s what I was originally planning to do with my Fancy Rats and Jellyfish, before I learned how to submit them to be official site-supported themes!
The bad news is twofold: First, you need a paid account to set up a custom mood theme to use. As long as you get your custom mood theme set up and ready to go while you have paid time, you can keep using it after your paid time runs out, but only if your paid time runs out while you have it selected as your mood theme, and you cannot edit it without getting more paid time. This is fine if you can easily afford paid time, even just a month’s worth, or are enough in love with a custom mood theme that you don’t think you’ll be changing it any time soon, but is definitely a barrier! (I daydream about offering paid time to users who complete certain custom mood theme milestones at the community I linked above, but am not in that financial position at this time, alas.)
The second part is that it takes a fair amount of effort to set up a custom mood theme. Even if someone else made all of the images, you still have to upload them somewhere (Dreamwidth has image hosting, though it can be confusing to newcomers; Squidge.org is also an option I've heard) and match the image links in the custom mood theme setup and editing page. You need a minimum of 15 unique images for a "complete" mood theme, unless you want to use the same image for every mood.
That said, it can be done, and it can also be very rewarding! I had a blast making the mood themes shown above. Also, if the custom mood theme you create is entirely original art (no fanart, no screencaps from your favorite shows, basically nothing Dreamwidth can be sued over for copyright infringement), you can submit it to be a site-supported mood theme, which makes it available to all Dreamwidth users of all account types, free accounts definitely included! So depending on what you make, there’s a bit of a loophole to the "needing a paid account" thing 😉
I don't currently have a tutorial for uploading a custom mood theme, but I have added it to my to-do list.
Anyway, that’s the basics of Dreamwidth and mood themes! I hope that answers any questions you might have, but I’ll do my best to help if you have any others 💖
So what exactly is a "mood theme", anyway?
A mood theme is like a sticker you add to the end of your posts to indicate what mood you’re in. If you've seen the cute little cartoon-ish rats at the bottom of my posts, those are part of the mood theme that I use!
In the "Currents" section of the post creation page, there’s a drop-down menu with 132 moods to pick from, as well as a space to enter a custom mood. If you pick a mood from the drop-down menu, it will upload one of the aforementioned stickers on your post. If you enter text as a custom mood instead of using the drop-down menu, there will be no sticker. But, if you do both, you can get a sticker and have it display a custom mood name for you!
For example, if you pick "happy" from the drop-down menu, you can enter "pleased as punch" in the custom mood field, and your post will say that next to the sticker instead of "happy" (demonstrated below). It can be a fun alternative to talking in the tags, since tags are strictly functional/organizational on Dreamwidth.
Got it. Now, how do I pick or change my mood theme on Dreamwidth?
First, make sure you’re logged in. You can’t change anything about your account if you’re not 😉
Second, go to the Customize Journal Style page. You can find it under the drop-down menu of the Organize tab. Once there, click the "Display" option. The ability to pick your mood theme should be at the top of the "Customize your theme" section. Or, for a shortcut, click this link!
Third, pick the mood theme you want from the drop-down menu. If you want to preview all of the mood themes before picking one, you can do so here. (It’s also linked right above the mood theme selection menu.) To view all of the mood images at once, find a mood theme you're interested in, then click the "View All" option on the right-hand side of it. Dreamwidth currently has two pages worth of free mood themes to pick from, so be sure to check them all out to find the one you like best! After you're done looking at the options, return to the journal customization page.
Finally, select the mood theme you want to use from the drop-down menu. A preview of the mood theme will pop up on the right, if you're worried about remembering which mood theme is which. After you’ve selected the mood theme you want to use, click the Save button at the bottom of the box. And you should be good to go!
Enjoy your fun new mood theme 😃
Okay, that’s cool and all, but I’ve seen accounts that have Star Trek or Pokémon mood themes. How do I get one of those?
Well, I’ve got good news and bad news there.
The good news is, anyone can get or make one of their own! In fact, I’ve set up a Dreamwith community for anyone who wants to make their own custom mood theme and wants some structure or friendly encouragement as they go: you can find it at
moodthemeinayear. Some people also have also made custom mood themes that they’re willing to share with the public, be they fandom or original. In fact, that’s what I was originally planning to do with my Fancy Rats and Jellyfish, before I learned how to submit them to be official site-supported themes!The bad news is twofold: First, you need a paid account to set up a custom mood theme to use. As long as you get your custom mood theme set up and ready to go while you have paid time, you can keep using it after your paid time runs out, but only if your paid time runs out while you have it selected as your mood theme, and you cannot edit it without getting more paid time. This is fine if you can easily afford paid time, even just a month’s worth, or are enough in love with a custom mood theme that you don’t think you’ll be changing it any time soon, but is definitely a barrier! (I daydream about offering paid time to users who complete certain custom mood theme milestones at the community I linked above, but am not in that financial position at this time, alas.)
The second part is that it takes a fair amount of effort to set up a custom mood theme. Even if someone else made all of the images, you still have to upload them somewhere (Dreamwidth has image hosting, though it can be confusing to newcomers; Squidge.org is also an option I've heard) and match the image links in the custom mood theme setup and editing page. You need a minimum of 15 unique images for a "complete" mood theme, unless you want to use the same image for every mood.
That said, it can be done, and it can also be very rewarding! I had a blast making the mood themes shown above. Also, if the custom mood theme you create is entirely original art (no fanart, no screencaps from your favorite shows, basically nothing Dreamwidth can be sued over for copyright infringement), you can submit it to be a site-supported mood theme, which makes it available to all Dreamwidth users of all account types, free accounts definitely included! So depending on what you make, there’s a bit of a loophole to the "needing a paid account" thing 😉
I don't currently have a tutorial for uploading a custom mood theme, but I have added it to my to-do list.
Anyway, that’s the basics of Dreamwidth and mood themes! I hope that answers any questions you might have, but I’ll do my best to help if you have any others 💖
How to Back Up Your Tumblr Account
Apr. 15th, 2025 02:24 amsoc_puppetEven if Tumblr doesn't end up dissolving into so many pixels, it's a good idea to export and/or otherwise back up your account if you have something you want to keep! There's a couple options I know about for how to do it:
Option one: Go to blog settings and export your blog. This is Tumblr's built-in option. Unfortunately, it can take a while, and IIRC isn't recommended for blogs with 10k posts or more. It is also not possible to do via the app. Which is when we get into...
Option two: Export your Tumblr to Wordpress. Wordpress is ultimately owned and run by the same people (person) as Tumblr, so if you don't like how things have been going since Automattic picked things up, you may want to consider...
Option three: Using a Python script. I've done this twice now, and it takes a while, but I'm pretty sure I got everything. There's a tutorial you can use here, which should reduce headaches at least a bit. Important note if you're using this method: The directions for getting your API Key are in the Google doc (first link in this option). It can take a bit for the less computer savvy (like myself) to figure everything out here, but if you have more stuff in your account and don't trust Wordpress, it's probably your best option.
Best of luck!
Option one: Go to blog settings and export your blog. This is Tumblr's built-in option. Unfortunately, it can take a while, and IIRC isn't recommended for blogs with 10k posts or more. It is also not possible to do via the app. Which is when we get into...
Option two: Export your Tumblr to Wordpress. Wordpress is ultimately owned and run by the same people (person) as Tumblr, so if you don't like how things have been going since Automattic picked things up, you may want to consider...
Option three: Using a Python script. I've done this twice now, and it takes a while, but I'm pretty sure I got everything. There's a tutorial you can use here, which should reduce headaches at least a bit. Important note if you're using this method: The directions for getting your API Key are in the Google doc (first link in this option). It can take a bit for the less computer savvy (like myself) to figure everything out here, but if you have more stuff in your account and don't trust Wordpress, it's probably your best option.
Best of luck!
soc_puppetThere's a number of technological and cultural shifts Tumblr users will have to make when switching to Dreamwidth; the differences in image hosting are probably the biggest technological switch, but the one I anticipate giving people the most trouble is tagging.
On Tumblr, you can add pretty much whatever you want to the tags, in any order you want; there is no limit to them, and they're essentially used as a secondary comment system.
Not so for Dreamwidth! Dreamwidth has a hard limit on the number of tags any journal or community can register; it's 1,000 for free users, 1,500 for basic paid accounts, and 2,000 for premium paid accounts, and they're basically entirely for organizational purposes. One of the ways that Dreamwidth's code reflects this is that it lists tags alphabetically in posts, not in the order that they were written or added. If you want to include a stream of consciousness in your tags and have them make sense, your best bet is to find a way to make them alphabetical. There's also a hard limit of 40 characters per tag for everyone, regardless of account type (paid vs free).
There are other organizational options, Memories chief among them, but it's not really possible to opt out of tags being organizational and switch them to being communication. So what, if anything, can you do instead?
( Option One: Icons )
( Option Two: Titles and cut text )
( Option three: Currents )
( Other options: Tiny text and comment editing )
So there you have it! Dreamwidth may not have "talking in the tags" the way Tumblr does, but it does have some other forms of communication that you can still have fun with.
On Tumblr, you can add pretty much whatever you want to the tags, in any order you want; there is no limit to them, and they're essentially used as a secondary comment system.
Not so for Dreamwidth! Dreamwidth has a hard limit on the number of tags any journal or community can register; it's 1,000 for free users, 1,500 for basic paid accounts, and 2,000 for premium paid accounts, and they're basically entirely for organizational purposes. One of the ways that Dreamwidth's code reflects this is that it lists tags alphabetically in posts, not in the order that they were written or added. If you want to include a stream of consciousness in your tags and have them make sense, your best bet is to find a way to make them alphabetical. There's also a hard limit of 40 characters per tag for everyone, regardless of account type (paid vs free).
There are other organizational options, Memories chief among them, but it's not really possible to opt out of tags being organizational and switch them to being communication. So what, if anything, can you do instead?
( Option One: Icons )
( Option Two: Titles and cut text )
( Option three: Currents )
( Other options: Tiny text and comment editing )
So there you have it! Dreamwidth may not have "talking in the tags" the way Tumblr does, but it does have some other forms of communication that you can still have fun with.
What to post about on Dreamwidth
Apr. 12th, 2025 09:48 pmsoc_puppetHello, everyone! I'm Socchan, but you may know me better as bisexualbaker on Tumblr. I've been coming up with various guides and info posts for Dreamwidth over the past several years, but have been ramping things up again in light of half of Tumblr's remaining staff being laid off, reducing them to a mere 25 people. I'm planning to mirror said guides over here over the next few days or weeks, to better organize all of the information, so you may see some familiar posts in the near future.
I hope you're all adjusting well to Dreamwidth, or have over the past few years, and if you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask them in the comments on a post here, make your own post to this community, or even DM me! Posts here will probably be the most likely to get you the information you need, since I don't actually know everything about Dreamwidth (I'm a terrible person to ask about journal customization, for example), but I understand it can be a bit intimidating to take the plunge and post on a community for the first time.
Anyway, on to the meat of this post!
( What should I post about on Dreamwidth? )
(With thanks toysabetwordsmith for some of these suggestions 💖)
I hope you're all adjusting well to Dreamwidth, or have over the past few years, and if you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask them in the comments on a post here, make your own post to this community, or even DM me! Posts here will probably be the most likely to get you the information you need, since I don't actually know everything about Dreamwidth (I'm a terrible person to ask about journal customization, for example), but I understand it can be a bit intimidating to take the plunge and post on a community for the first time.
Anyway, on to the meat of this post!
( What should I post about on Dreamwidth? )
(With thanks to
ysabetwordsmith for some of these suggestions 💖)
