A Metafilter community on Dreamwidth

January 4, 2019 7:04 AM

I've read before about LiveJournal nostalgia and general personal blogging yearnings, especially during the recent Tumblr debacle. While I was composing a response to this AskMe seeking a community of active personal blogs, I remembered an idea I'd had kicking around for a while about making a Metafilter community on Dreamwidth, so I made one. This provides a reading page of community member journal posts over the past two weeks; any MeFite could join the community (or leave it at any time) and be included automatically.

Other possible usage: People could make introduction posts to the community talking about what their journal would be like or connecting up their Metafilter identity with their Dreamwidth one. I could also provide technical/cultural assistance for anyone who needs guidance using the platform--I've been there a long, long time and have even done some coding and support work there.

One thing the Dreamwidth community wouldn't provide is a hub for blogs off-site, but Dreamwidth has feed syndication capabilities; if there's interest we could create an account that would subscribe to RSS feeds of people who opted in and then the reading page of that account would serve as an aggregator of the last two weeks of RSS posts and we could link to it from the community welcome post and profile for easy reference.

Over the next few days I'll figure out a final style (I hope it's okay to use the MF logo for the icon? Maybe we should make a different one?) and add in resources to the welcome post. Suggestions welcome.

posted by foxfirefey to MetaFilter-Related at 7:04 AM (8 comments total)

I don't want to write in a new place, but you are 100% welcome to my RSS feed for this project. Blog link in my profile.
posted by COD at 10:00 AM on January 4, 2019

Ditto for me.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:54 AM on January 4, 2019

I have been piping up on Dreamwidth a lot and am talking suggestions for a possible blog-a-day through January challenge when I get back from my conference in Tuesday. I'm very much in favor!
posted by sciatrix at 11:45 AM on January 4, 2019

As Tumblr was recently in full panic mode, I thought a lot about how much I wanted to go back to my Dreamwidth. It's still active, just very dusty. I'm not sure what I have to say? But I've joined up and will try and start talking about inane fandom stuff or my mundane life there again. (I'm sure you're all excited.)
posted by PussKillian at 1:14 PM on January 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ooh, I didn't know about Dreamwidth, but I definitely have hardcore LiveJournal (and Open Diary, anyone? Anyone?) nostalgia and will check this out. Thank you for doing this and making a post.
posted by nightrecordings at 2:37 PM on January 4, 2019

I've been on LJ for 18 years (!!!) and now write at DW and crosspost. I am also super nostalgic for LJ in the mid-2000s and would love to connect. I replied to the metafilter community post!
posted by Gray Duck at 4:47 PM on January 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Count me as another who was super nostalgic for the old lj sense of community. I'm still trying to remember how everything works, but if silversandbea subscribes to you, that's me.
posted by dinty_moore at 4:58 PM on January 5, 2019

I'm so tickled pink that a bunch of you joined, part of the reason I held off doing this was I convinced it would just sadly fizzle. Instead I'm making new journal friends and I'm going to try and write posts in my own journal again!
posted by foxfirefey at 10:26 PM on January 6, 2019 [3 favorites]