Supporting Former Users of Reddit on Dreamwidth

Each January, snowflake_challenge is one of the biggest, busiest events on Dreamwidth. Hundreds of people participate. It's a lot of fun, but some folks struggle to keep up with something this big and busy. Here are some ideas to make the experience more enjoyable and manageable ...


Know your goals. In order to make the most of Snowflake season, think about why you enjoy it and participate in it. Use that to shape your activities.


* You want to meet more people and/or make new friends.

-- Emphasize the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme. Spend plenty of time crafting your challenge posts, then browsing and commenting on other people's posts.

-- Make sure your profile, sticky post, introduction, or other self-descriptive entries list what kind of people you hope to make friends with.

-- See also "How to Do Online Profiles or Introductions with Less Stress."

-- Visit the "Meet the Mods" page to see who is volunteering to host challenges in snowflake_challenge this year. These are all active, enthusiastic people and most of them have a big audience. Thank them for their hard work. Explore their blogs and leave comments. Think about whether you'd like to subscribe to their blogs. Also look at the other folks commenting there and see if any of them appeal too.

-- Specify that you are seeking new friends, which encourages people to interact with you. Also watch for anyone else who says they're looking for friends too.

-- When people respond to your challenge posts or comments, reply to them and strike up a conversation.

-- Watch for friending memes. These are very popular at this time of year, not just in the Snowflake itself, but elsewhere in Dreamwidth to capitalize on the higher traffic.

-- Watch for anyone who says "This is my first Snowflake" and/or "I'm new to Dreamwidth." Helping them get started is a good way to make friends.

-- Swing by the Add Me communities. They often see a spike in activity during Snowflake season. Leave posts about yourself and/or browse other people's posts looking for possible friends.


* You want to find more blogs and/or communities to read.

-- Emphasize the recommendation challenges. There is often one for individual blogs and/or communities, but you can find those in fanfic recommendations and others too. You can see what other folks are reading and check it out.

-- Ask for recommendations. There is often a challenge along the lines of Pimp Me This, Requests, or Wishlist where you can describe what you're looking for and folks will make suggestions.

-- Watch for community hosts. Participants who host a community on Dreamwidth will often mention it during snowflake_challenge to attract new members, so you can explore new ones.

-- Watch for interesting comments and posts by individual bloggers. Then track back to their blog and see if you like it enough to subscribe.

-- At the beginning of each year, check your list of subscribed communities. Drop any that you've lost interest in or the community is dead. Post or comment in some of your communities. Next, visit the Interests page. Key in some of your current interests and see which blogs or communities are talking about them. Then explore to see if you'd like to subscribe to any of those. Now is a good time to do this because of the higher traffic.

-- See also year-round activities for these things such as Community Thursdays, dw_community_promo, and followfriday. Fannish communities are sometimes announced on fandomcalendar when they are created, or when they open a new event.


* You want to attract more readers to your blog and/or communities.

-- Emphasize the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme; and the recommendation or community oriented challenges. Spend plenty of time crafting your posts for those challenges, then browsing and commenting on other people's posts.

-- Make sure your profile, sticky post, introduction, or other self-descriptive entries list your blog and/or communities, the main topic(s), and what kind of readers you'd like to attract. This helps everyone gauge whether they're a good fit.

-- To identify your main topics: In the sidebar of your blog, click Most Popular Tags. Scroll to the bottom and click Manage Tags. Under the tags, in tiny print, it says Sort: alphabetically or by usage. Click usage. The top 10-12 things on that list are the ones you tag in posts the most frequently. People who like those things will probably like your blog. So this is a useful list to mention in a post during Snowflake season and/or in your profile.

-- Use recurring posts to frame the main topic(s) of your blog or community. This makes it easier for people to identify common interests. Also, most folks consider a blog "active" if it has at least one post a week, and a community if it has at least one post every month or few. Setting up a few recurring posts on main topics for different days or weeks helps maintain activity and encourage regular readers.

-- Make anchor posts during snowflake_challenge when activity is high, so more people will see them. These are longer posts with substantial subjects that are good for sparking discussions, especially if you add a question or two at the end to encourage audience responses. You can do this in advance during a quieter time and save them to post during the busier season of Snowflake.

-- "How to Boost Your Audience" was written for crowdfunding but generalizes well to other topics, with tips on various types of interaction.

-- Watch for folks who say, "I'm looking for active blogs to read," because some bloggers post (or make public posts) only during Snowflake season, so you can distinguish yourself from the January-only crowd. Check whether the person lists what kind of fandoms, other topics, or blog styles they want to read; and if yours matches, comment to point invite them over. If they don't mention a target, just tell them your topic(s) and posting frequency. As a general rule, most readers consider a blog "active" if it posts at least once a week, or a community if it posts at least once a month.


* You want to focus on fandom in particular, finding new canons or fanworks to enjoy, discovering more events, and/or increasing your audience for your own fanworks.

-- Emphasize the fannish challenges like Self-Recommendations, Other-Recommendations, and Post a New Fanwork. (These may appear separately or together.) Spend plenty of time crafting your challenge posts, so that folks can see what kind of fanworks you enjoy creating and/or consuming. Then browse and comment on other people's posts.

-- Also pay attention to the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme. Use these to scan for other participants who share your fannish passions. Wishlist and Pimp Me This type challenges can be used to request recommendations or new fanworks to your tastes.

-- Make sure your profile, sticky post, introduction, or other self-descriptive entries list your current (and maybe also past) fandoms, what kind of fanworks you like best, and what kind of people you enjoy interacting with.

-- Post some new fanworks during snowflake_challenge when traffic is at a high point. Not just Post a New Fanwork day, but also the Comment on Someone's Post day or other interactive challenges; these give you the best chance of feedback, and feedback is candy. Especially if you do lots of different fandoms, try to hit multiple ones -- like your top 3 to 5 fandoms -- to charm as many new readers as possible. If you do other things than fiction (e.g. poetry, meta, podcasts, artwork, videos) then that will stand out from the heaps of yummy new fanfic.

-- Watch for people doing or recommending other fannish activities that may extend beyond Snowflake season, such as Fannish Fifty.

-- See things like "Improving Community in Fandom" by ysabetwordsmith or "The Three Laws of Fandom" by Ozhawkauthor for more ideas about supporting fandom in general.

-- Keep a sharp eye on announcement and networking communities like fandomcalendar and fandomweekly. Many activities happen during snowflake_challenge to catch the surge and/or because January is the beginning of the year. Some of these have two-way flow with Snowflake activities, like the Comment challenge and comment_bingo.


* You like structured events. because they give you something to blog about and other participants to read it.

-- Aim to do all the Snowflake challenges. You don't have to invest a huge amount of time in any given one, just try to respond on each of the odd-numbered days.

-- Watch for challenges that can create structure, especially Make Your Own Challenge. Sometimes people come up with long-running suggestions, like Community Thursdays, which started this way.

-- There are many other things you can use as a framework, like Fannish Fifty. Two later events that offer structure include Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (April 25-May 15) and sunshine_challenge (July). You may see folks doing or recommending these during Snowflake season.

-- Use recurring posts to frame the major topic(s) of your blog or community and create structure. You can pick any topic(s) and posting schedule that appeals to you.

-- Any list of questions can be used to create structure for a set of posts. Check out some friending memes for inspiration, or look for lists of blog post prompts.


* You want to boost activity on Dreamwidth as a whole and/or learn how to use it better.

-- Emphasize the interactive challenges like Introduction and Friending Meme to make long-term blogging connections with other active folks. Spend plenty of time crafting your challenge posts, then browsing and commenting on other people's posts.

-- Also pay attention to challenges that encourage blog activity itself, such as Comment on Someone's Post or Interact with a Community.

-- Watch for other users mentioning how they work to boost activity. These are good people to connect with, and they tend to have ideas you can use too. Similarly, people who wish Dreamwidth was more active may be enticed to your projects here.

-- Watch for anyone who says "This is my first Snowflake" and/or "I'm new to Dreamwidth." Helping them figure it out will increase the chance of them sticking around to do more on Dreamwidth. This post on "Membership Retention" may help.

-- Use recurring posts to keep your blog(s) and/or communities active. During Snowflake, also link to resources helping other people do likewise. If you look around Dreamwidth, you'll see that many of the surviving communities are either wholly structured or they have a set of regular posts that stimulate activity, so it's a popular and successful strategy. Also watch snowflake_challenge itself for ideas that may inspire new recurring posts, like Community Thursdays, which started this way.

-- For resources about using Dreamwidth, see communities like dw101, getting_started, or reddit_refugees, blogs like starterpack, and posts like "How to Get Established on Dreamwidth" by galadhir or "Primers and Guides" by ysabetwordsmith. These are all good things to link during Snowflake season so other newcomers can find them.

-- See 'Creating a Dreamwidth community' Masterpost by vriddy for ideas on launching a new community and "Improving Communities on Dreamwidth" by ysabetwordsmith for maintenance and participation.

-- Mark your calendar for other major events on Dreamwidth such as Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (April 25-May 15) and sunshine_challenge (July). Mention during Snowflake season that you plan to do those and invite folks to revisit your blog then. One thing about Snowflake is that a fair number of folks post (or make public ones) only during Snowflake season, so this will help distinguish you from them to people who want year-round blogs to read.

-- Consider volunteering for snowflake_challenge next year, and watch for the call post to go up (usually in early December). See last December's call post for an example.



Plan ahead for recurring challenges. Many of the challenges repeat every year or most years. By saving time on these, you can spend more on the new "surprise" challenges, some of which may take more work. Especially plan for the ones that often come first, and those that take a lot of time.

-- Introduce yourself. Ubiquitous, often the first challenge.
Whenever you need to make an introduction, bio, profile, etc. then save a copy. Often these things use similar questions or other frameworks, so you don't have to start from scratch. See also "How to Do Online Profiles or Introductions with Less Stress."

-- Update your fandom information. Ubiquitous, sometimes the first challenge.
When you see the advance announcement in December that Snowflake is coming in January, do your update then. Alternatively, update whenever you participate in a major event such as Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (April 25-May 15) or sunshine_challenge (July). This way, all you have to do for this challenge is link to what you already have. BOOM-done. If you use the lock feature on your blog, you can 1) leave just these informative posts unlocked for potential new friends, or 2) temporarily unlock that post just for Snowflake season, then relock it in February.

-- Create a fanwork. Ubiquitous.
When you see the advance announcement in December that Snowflake is coming in January, check your supply of unposted fanworks. If you don't have one ready, start making something now. This is especially important if you prefer to make longer/larger fanworks. The description usually says post a new one, not that you have to create it that day.

If you like making something that day, arm yourself with a list of small things that can be made in reasonable time. For fiction, consider these short-short forms. For verse, here are some short poetic forms. For podfic, search for the aforementioned short forms. For art, icon sets are popular; see smallbatchicons which specializes in sets of 5. In any case, it's much easier to pick from a list than try to think up something from scratch.

-- Interact with (a target). Ubiquitous.
This has several variations including Comment to Someone New, Reply to a Comment, Leave Feedback on a Fanwork, and Interact with a Community.

The first trick here is to do this all along. You don't have to wear yourself out trying to respond to everything. One reply per challenge is a good starting point, or some folks concentrate on interacting with new readers who visit their blog.

You can also cherry-pick: the second trick is that this challenge frequently follows a challenge which makes things to interact with, like Create a Fanwork or Recommend (your own, someone else's) Fanworks. If you start interacting when that earlier challenge goes live, you'll already be done with the followup challenge by the time that one appears.

-- Recommend fanworks (by someone else). Ubiquitous.
There are two easy ways to do this:
1) Keep an ongoing list of your all-time favorite fanworks.
2) Keep a list of "Best Fanworks Found in (year)."
Then just copy-paste that into a post when the Recs challenge goes live.

Otherwise, most folks wind up hunting through saved fanworks or searching online for that cool thing they remember from a few months back, and it's a huge timesink. Just this one shortcut can save you hours.

Note that some years the self-rec and other-rec challenges combine into one. Separate challenges generate more total recs, but combining them means you only have to do the thing once. Pay close attention to the description on rec-type challenges to make sure your offering fits the current parameters.

-- Friending Meme. Ubiquitous, often the last challenge.
Save old friending memes that you have answered, not just from snowflake_challenge but others as well. Like introductions, they often repeat the same questions, so you can save time by copying anything that hasn't changed. friending_memes is an excellent source.

Another way to save time is to skim for user names you don't recognize. Skip your current friends and aim for the new people to get the most bang for your buck from this challenge. If you have time left over, you can make a second pass to touch base with your current friends.

-- Set some goals for the coming year. Common.
Do this in late December or January 1. Mine always goes up on January 1, but I have versions from previous years to use as a starting point. Browse lists of New Year's resolutions for inspiration. Here's one with a fannish focus. These are, if not actually unique, at least quite rare. If you hate New Year's resolutions, consider alternatives. Once you have this done, all you need to do when the challenge appears is link to your thing. If you use the lock feature on your blog, you can unlock that post just for the Snowflake season, then relock it in February.

-- Create a wishlist. Common.
Details vary, but this usually includes some range of objects, fanworks, actions, and wide-angle "world peace" stuff. When you see the advance announcement in December that Snowflake is coming in January, start your wishlist. You can use it for winter holidays, as long as you remember to cross off stuff you already got. After Snowflake, your wishlist will remain useful for birthdays or other occasions. If you use the lock feature on your blog, you can unlock that post just for the Snowflake season, then relock it in February.

-- Create your own challenge. Common.
First, keep an ongoing list of things that you wish more people would do: fannish, blogging, whatever. It's much easier to copy-paste a list than think up something good on the spot. Start your challenge response post by listing three or so of those. Next, look at other people's challenges. For anything you really love, copy it over to your list with a pointer to the originator. Most years, somebody comes up with a really brilliant idea that lots of people pick up, like Community Thursdays, which started this way.

-- Brag about yourself. Common.
This is one challenge that changes its phrasing a lot. Sometimes it's about self-rec fanworks, other times life accomplishments, and so on. It is easiest to complete if you already have some way of tracking your accomplishments. Frex, if you update your goals list as completed through the year, you can link last year's goal list for this challenge. If you keep a masterlist of your fanworks, or a list of this year's fanworks, those will also fit most times.

Note that some years the self-rec and other-rec challenges combine into one. Separate challenges generate more total recs, but combining them means you only have to do the thing once. Pay close attention to the description on rec-type challenges to make sure your offering fits the current parameters.

-- Share resources. Common.
Aka Pimp Me This, and the phrasing or target often varies. This encourages folks to use fansites, wikis, archives, hubsites, meta warehouses, etc. with a fannish or blogging flavor so that they continue to exist. Resources on how to do things (e.g. Dreamwidth tools, general blogging, building a website, making a costume, game design) are also popular. You might use your bookmarks, a separate file, or your browser history to find your favorites. The advantage of a separate file for this purpose is so you can just copy-paste that text right into a post, then enable the links.

-- Write a (type of meta). Occasional.
Like the fanwork challenge, this is one where you can make something in advance and hold it for January. It's good to have some meta up your sleeve for this. Aim for your current favorite fandom, especially if it's new enough not to have much content yet; or revive an old favorite that doesn't get much attention nowadays. Read about meta for ideas. Another thing that helps is having a list of your favorite fandoms, in case the challenge calls for a specific type of meta you don't have in the can (e.g. a ship manifesto). That list of favorite fandoms can come in handy for many other challenges too.

-- Promote a canon. Occasional.
Here's another reason to keep a list of your favorite fandoms. The easiest is if you have a set of "my favorite fandoms" for an exchange or in a masterlist of your fanworks. If you post fanworks on AO3, then it autosorts to give you a list of your fandoms and how many entries for each: useful if you write for many canons and want to pick favorites by frequency.

If you don't have that information separate, then scan your files of saved fanworks because most folks sort those by fandom. Your list of subscribed communities on Dreamwidth is another place to check.


Finally, understand that some repeating challenges are best done in the moment. Why you're doing snowflake_challenge, a random act of kindness, a fannish memory, a work that changed your life, a favorite creator -- these are things prone to change as you grow and as you discover new things. These are the challenges you are saving time FOR by doing the more consistent ones in advance. Plan to spend a lot of your time on these.

The other place to spend extra time is the new challenges. There are always a few of those, and they're completely unpredictable. Surprises can be good, so take time to savor these.


Make backup plans to conserve time and energy, or recover from setbacks. Some folks want to do All the Things during snowflake_challenge. That's fine and common. Other folks feel overwhelmed and/or January is a busy season for them. That's also fine and common. Then there are things that go wrong without warning, because when people plan, the Universe laughs. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the season of snowstorms, getting stuck in a ditch, the first store is out of toilet paper, and unexpected power outages. Your plans should thus include as much fault tolerance as possible. Here are some ideas for that.

* Feel free to cherry-pick your favorite challenges. You DO NOT have to do ALL of the challenges. You can do just the ones that excite you, or that you have time and energy for. So think about past challenges, or the above list of common ones that may recur this year, and consider which are the most important to you. Prioritize those. If there are some that make you uncomfortable or seem too hard, you can just skip them.

"Also, please know that no one is taking note of what challenges you take part in. You can do every one. You can do one or none. You can do a challenge and not link at the comm, that's perfectly fine. But, if you do link at the community, we do encourage other Snowflakes to check out the links, because there is a whole wide world of loves out there waiting to be encountered and read about."
-- INTRODUCING THE 2024 FANDOM SNOWFLAKE CHALLENGE! by turps on snowflake_challenge


* Don't rush yourself. There is NO TIME LIMIT on this event, or its challenges. You can take your time to fill them in order. If you get behind, you can skip something to catch up. You could even spread them out through the whole year, doing one or two a month at a much more leisurely pace. While it is true that snowflake_challenge is officially active only in January, and most people view challenge responses the day of and the day after each challenge, that doesn't mean you have to answer each challenge right away. Some, like Create a Fanwork, routinely run slow anyway.

"You can also respond to the challenge at any time, on the day that it's issued or a year later, it all counts.
The mods who post the challenges are located throughout the world, so while the challenges will be posted on specific dates, due to time zones they will be posted at different times during the day, so don't worry if a challenge is posted at 9am your own time one day and 9pm the next."
-- INTRODUCING THE 2024 FANDOM SNOWFLAKE CHALLENGE! by turps on snowflake_challenge


* Don't obsess over trying to make everything perfect. This is meant to be fun, not work. So be yourself, have a good time, and don't worry about the rest. It's all fine.

"Some challenges will have been used before, some will be new, but all can be answered in any way that you want and to your own interpretation. There are no wrong answers."
-- INTRODUCING THE 2024 FANDOM SNOWFLAKE CHALLENGE! by turps on snowflake_challenge


* Use the Tag Feed tool on the Latest Things page. Here is the Snowflake Challenge feed. This shows the most recent posts with that tag. It can be a useful way to catch up if you fall behind. However, the Tag Feed requires frequent activity in order to display, and doesn't save older "most recent" posts for long, so this pretty much works in January only.)

The challenge posts on snowflake_challenge will collect comments from people as they complete that challenge, often with a link to what they did. Not everyone mentions or links their activity in the community, though. The feed will catch everything tagged with Snowflake Challenge. Therefore, also make sure to tag your Snowflake posts accordingly, so they show up in the Tag Feed.


* Let's do the time warp again! Did you skip a challenge or two because they're not to your taste or time budget? Do you really miss one from a previous year that hasn't repeated? On snowflake_challenge, look at the left sidebar under the Tags. Click any earlier year, then scroll down to find its master post. Revive an old challenge by copying it into your blog and filling it. You can also mine previous Make Your Own Challenge lists for inspiration.

* Try to think of a backup blogging location or two, in case you lose your internet connection. Most libraries and many coffeeshops have free Wi-Fi. You could also visit a friend's house. Take your laptop or other mobile device so you can still make your Snowflake posts.

* Enlist the aid of a backup friend. This is someone you can contact for assistance in case of mayhem. For example, if you get delayed and won't be able to post, they can post to their blog and/or your blog, letting your other friends know what happened and when you expect to get back. This can cover for storm outages, computer trouble, family obligations, etc. Individual blog regularity varies, so your readers might or might not notice an absence normally; but in Snowflake season if you're known for doing all challenges promptly, then there are more people around who might notice a disappearance and worry about you. A backup friend is also useful if you're freaking out over a challenge and need a sympathetic listener, or other support.

* Make a self-care kit. Snowflake is fun, but it can also get nerve-wracking or even overwhelming. After all, we love fandom because we're passionate about these characters, stories, and ideas; sometimes those emotions get to be a bit too much. So be prepared in case you suddenly find yourself having All the Feels. Know how to make a self-care box and some ideas for what to put in it. These are general links for emotional first aid and self-care. Here is a checklist for when everything is awful. Just remember that you're not alone; everyone has melted down over an intense fanfic or a hectic schedule.

* Watch out for emotional drop in early February. snowflake_challenge is big and busy and exciting. Sometimes that makes for a big letdown when the challenge season ends and much of that activity dries up. One thing that helps ramp down gradually is to go back and check the last page of each challenge's comments, because some folks always run slow and post their fills later. Know how to cope with emotional drop. Remember that what goes down must come up: eventually things will be okay again.


I hope you find these tips helpful. Enjoy the Snowflake season!