Supporting Former Users of Reddit on Dreamwidth

>> For sure. I switched over from Tumblr, in fact (even though I'm still there and had already been on DW and on LJ before that yeaaaars ago), and it's funny that the separation of topics -- or lack thereof on Tumblr -- bothers me a lot more today than it used to.<<

Well, you've had more time to observe the drawbacks. Often a venue seems appealing at first, but over time, the flaws come clearer.

>> Most people just reblog things without much care for internal coherence, <<

That sucks.

>> so it's odd when you have one or two main interests you'd like to discuss in depth and everyone else is just feeding their blogs with wide-raging "content" without any sort of audience (or depth) in mind.<<

That's a signal-to-noise problem. It's why most large communities tend to create structure that helps people find what they want, and also why the largest ones tend to branch off into smaller communities for narrower interests.

>> It's absolutely fine that they should do it, of course, I wouldn't ever tell anyone what they should do in their own space and on their own time, <<

Yeah, I don't use the locking feature in my blog and I rarely subscribe to friends-only blogs, because I can't see the dingbat easily and that just frustrates everyone. But I don't tell other folks not to use it, because that tool is terrific for certain types of blogging.

>> but it's also frustrating when your desire is for some sort of community; like it or not, communities need things over which their members can bond, common interests, whether big or small in scope. There has to be a recurring theme, am underlying structure of some sort.<<

Exactly. In a small community, it's easy, you can allow anything that's reasonably on topic or even tangentially related to keep traffic up.

In a larger community, you can still achieve it by setting certain times for certain topics or activities:

Week 1: Activities and Announcements
-- monthly calendar
-- a post for your accomplishments and plans
-- fest and event organizing posts
Week 2: Ships
-- gather post of ship news from elsenet
-- general discussion of relationships
-- days devoted to different ships
Week 3: Recs, Requests, and Self-Promotion
-- recommendations for fanworks in a particular theme
-- requests for recommendations
-- links to stuff you've created
Week 4: General Discussion
-- lounge post for hanging out
-- posts inviting discussion of featured topics
-- meta

So if you know that the monthly calendar goes up on the first of each month, you check then and note any days you want to participate.

I do month-end or month-beginning gather posts for most of my communities. These basically note any important events in the community, then invite readers to share their accomplishments from the previous month and goals for the next.


>>Then again, that's certainly something that can be helped or hindered depending on the platform, which is why this post was so interesting to me, <<

Same here. Even though I don't code, I am interested in the tools and techniques that platforms can offer. Some are designed mainly or wholly for visual input, some for short text conversations, others for lengthy discussions.

>> and it seems a lot of people today merely use these same platforms without ever wondering what they actually want to take from them, what results they have in mind, what they can gain by choosing place A over place B.<<

Too true. I think that's exacerbated by having so many platforms that people are scattered far and wide, which means a lot of folks choose platforms not based on their needs and interests, but on where their friends are.

>> Do I want to scream into the ether anything that crosses my mind and not care if anyone sees it? Do I want to reproduce other people's "content" non-stop and without comment? Or do I want to establish two-way connections by which I talk to people and they talk back? Do I want those conversations to last or do I just want someone to validate my one-liners? It's all more complex than we take it for... But not necessarily complicated.<<

I agree, those are good questions.

I really like this concentric diagram of online relationships. Of course, not everyone follows it exactly -- I encourage following much farther out, any time I find good resources, but that's because I'm an information dispensary and it's part of why people read me. I do still have the same general stages of consciousness, engagement, collaboration.

>> I'm still settling back in here, haha.<<

What kind of topics, blogs, communities, etc. interest you? followfriday lists batches of communities by theme and anyone can recommend things. There are seasonal gathers of themes and then a year-end gather. Several folks do Community Thursday posts about their community activities.