So I made a tweet about how Maciej Ceglowski (aka Pinboard guy) should consult with fandom on how to build a new fandom platform inclusive of not just text, but images and multimedia.
And then Maciej DMed me and said if fandom (I realize this does not include all parts of fandom) can get a consensus spec of what this platform should consist of, he’ll see what we can do. I have split the document into requirements and nice to haves. I know I’m not going to get everything, but hopefully this is a good enough start to get the ball rolling.
I kind of laughed like “Haha, what hubris, my tech friends say it’ll take a couple million dollars to create a platform like this, one does not simply walk into Mordor” but then all my tech friends were like, “Uh, hon? It’s Maciej Ceglowski. He either HAS a couple million to spend, or can talk his friends into fronting the money.”
(Image description: the Philly rainbow, bisexual, asexual, genderqueer, aromantic, genderfluid, nonbinary, agender, bigender, and intersex pride flags with the words “not adult content” centered in white text. End image description.)
LGBTQIA+ identities are not inherently indecent or inappropriate.
do you ever see a post on your dash that’s like, feminist or queer discourse, and you just know it’s been written by an exclusionist even though it doesn’t actually talk about that subject? like you just feel it in their choice of words and such?
Yup. All the time
Then you look at their blog and it straight up says “cishets arent lgbt!!!!!” And whoop there it is, the big dog whistle daddyo
If anybody wanted to know how I’m currently archiving my blog (because I can’t use github codes, WordPress import isn’t working, and online zipping-based systems can’t zip my entire blog)…
I downloaded a chrome extension called Web Scrapbook by Danny Lin (not linked, just in case) and I’m capturing individual pages of my blog as files. The extension is very customizable, so you can choose whether to save backgrounds/scripts/photos, etc as well as what metadata should be included and even what file type you want (I chose MHTML). You can also generate a site index out of your files, which I think is going to be especially useful. And depending on what you’ve told it to save, you can also save a version of your archive as you would see it on the page–I’m hoping to eventually be able to connect the files of individual posts to the archive blocks, such that I can open the saved version of my blog archive and access the file of a post from there, as if I were just looking at a tumblr archive on the web. (I think there’s some difficulty with page length, though, so I’m saving my archive pages by month.)
More specifically, I’ve got my blog archive open and I’m opening a bunch of posts at a time into new tabs. Web Scrapbook has an option for “capture following tabs” which will go one at a time down your tabs and save them, which is great–I’m just leaving the file names as the default (which is the first chunk of text in a given post), so I just have to click save each time the next page is ready to be saved. And when they’re all done, I right-click on the archive tab to close all tabs to the right so I can start again with a new bunch of posts.
Honorable mentions go to a couple of xkit extensions. Mirror Button puts an extra button at the bottom of posts on dash view which uploads posts to archive . is or archive . org (useful for receipts). Post Archiver also adds a button which you can use to add a post to a list within xkit that saves it to xkit (local storage) and makes it viewable through xkit’s interface. There’s an export function too, but that saves posts in a format that I didn’t like.
(For the record, this whole process is why I’ve changed my blog theme to something more lightweight which also shows timestamps)
Desiring feedback is the perennial state of pretty much every fanfic writer I know. Fortunately, it is possible to increase the feedback you receive with a few simple and respectful tips! Unfortunately, there are many factors which are outside the writer’s control when it comes to receiving feedback, so you should be aware of those, but don’t worry about them.
Writing quality is subjective. We should always strive for quality, but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it or compare ourselves to other writers. All that does is slow you down, which in turn stifles your improvement. You are only ever competing against yourself. So I’m going to start with a few reasons why your fic might not be getting the feedback you think it deserves, before diving in to ways you can improve that.
– Fandom size: larger fandom will, naturally, have more readers. You should scale your expectation of Hits, Kudos, and Comments accordingly. In theory, if you’re starving for feedback you should focus your attention on larger fandoms, but I don’t recommend that. You should write what you’re passionate about.
– Fandom timing: The day after the sequel film hits the theater you’re going to have an inrush of fans who are looking for fixit, romance, canon AU, or any number of needs the film/book/comic release etc left them with but did not fulfill. Unfortunately, writing takes time, especially for long pieces. Audience interest tapers off over that same time, with the occasional bump from a DVD release or a sequel announcement to remind people of that thing they love.
Also, maybe you’re writing for a large fandom like the MCU, but it’s either flooded with writers or it’s been a while since they had a film focusing on your corner of it. Don’t despair that just because it’s a large fandom and you’re not getting attention that it’s necessarily a quality issue. It may just be there’s too much out there or there’s new, different content to disseminate and that’s where the majority of focus is.
– Reader trust: It takes time to build up an audience, and you need to be gentle with yourself and with your expectations of feedback during that time. Even if you’re the greatest writer in the world, your first fic in a new fandom doesn’t necessarily come with a lot to recommend it. You’re relying on curiosity or boredom from readers scrolling randomly through the section, especially if you don’t promote yourself elsewhere or have readers who are following you from a prior fandom. There’s a lot out there, and like with published books, many readers just stick to authors they already like and trust, or they may just have one specific idea they want to read which your story doesn’t fit, or they just don’t intend to spend a lot of time in the fandom (which not everyone does!) and they rely on kudos/comment/hit count to tell them based on other readers what has been considered to be popular (which is not always the same as good!) so don’t take it personally. Sometimes it’s just a product of fandom timing. Having that solidly written movie fix-it ready within the week the film came out will tend to shoot a story to the top of the list, even if a “higher quality” one comes out later.
Perennial rule for fanfic writers: do not compare yourself to other writers based on these metrics. There’s room enough for everyone. A larger number of fics in a fandom tends to INCREASE the number of readers, not decrease the amount of attention to go around. The presence of other fics and fic writers helps you, it doesn’t hurt you. You are colleagues, not competition. With that in mind, you should not be afraid to promote fellow fic writers! It’s very likely they will return the favor, but even if they don’t (and that’s fine!), it’s just a nice thing to do and makes you a positive member of fandom, which we should all strive to be. This can also serve as an aspect of winning reader trust if you are a known, positive entity in fandom.
With that in mind, let’s dive in to tips to increasing reader feedback. Most of my tips are going to focus on how to build an audience by increasing reader trust, the one thing a writer actually has some control over. See those below the cut.
Ok kids – I didn’t see Stoki/Frostshield content as a comm on pillowfort (if I am an idiot who somehow missed it, let me know), so I set up a frostshield comm over there to share fic, art, headcanons, etc.!
I don’t intend to stop using Tumblr but that’s going to be pretty much inevitable if everybody else does, so…here are some other places you can find me, some a lot more regularly than others (but maybe more regularly in the future if fandom migrates there). generally speaking, I’m 100indecisions everywhere except sites where that was already taken or nobody was allowed to start usernames with a numeral.
Twitter: mari_shepard (public) and 100_indecisions (private and only occasionally used, but feel free to request to follow if we already know each other at all; I sometimes use this to vent about work or family stuff)
the more friends ask me about dreamwidth, the more i realize i know a lot about this site that isn’t super obvious at first glance. so here is a primer for those of you thinking about making a dreamwidth account. this post ranges from your really basic starter tips to the completely esoteric things that come from using it for a decade.
a what now? dreamwho?
Dreamwidth is a code fork of LiveJournal. A code fork means that they took LJ’s code (which used to be open source) and went their own direction with it. They still use the basic ideas behind LJ’s codebase, but have changed and improved upon it in various ways.
The core difference between DW and other websites is privacy isn’t an afterthought, but the central feature. You can lock posts, filter them to a select group, or make them visible to only you. I recommend reading through this section of DW’s FAQ for more on this.
When you make an account, you can subscribe (ie follow) and grant access to other users. Both of these are one-way – if A subscribes to B, that doesn’t automatically grant B access to all of A’s locked posts. Here’s more on this.
DW in general can be kind of confusing for people who have only used tumblr, but their FAQs are pretty good on the whole, and they’re searchable. If a website feature is confusing, start there.
okay, i have a journal. now what?
Customize it! DW doesn’t have all the latest and greatest features, but you can still make it your own. Here are some useful tips.
You can change your layout from Organize > Select Style. Mobile support is hit or miss, unfortunately, but there are some nice default layouts that work with it. You can also use this style for Practicality which makes DW fully mobile-friendly. If you’d rather design it yourself, Tabula Rasa is completely stripped down.
You can get premade DW layouts at the dreamwidthlayouts community. If you have trouble with your code, ask over at style_system.
Edit your profile! This is where you put your usernames for other social media sites, tell people a bit about yourself, and mention your interests. Your interests will be part of the interest search; it’s one way to find people.
Upload icons! Free accounts get 15 icons; paid accounts get 100 icons, premium accounts get 250 icons. You can use one icon in each entry and commment you make. It’s good form to put the maker of the icon in the comment section if you didn’t make it. If you got it from someone on tumblr, you can even link their blog using the code <user name=username site=tumblr>. (This works all across DW!)
While you can’t make pages, you can set a post to stick at the top of your journal, much like Twitter’s pinned tweets. Here’s how to do it.
You can also change how Dreamwidth itself looks, if you don’t like the red. Go to Account Settings > Display. Most other site display preferences are on that page.
While you’re here, look through the Account Settings > Privacy page. By default, your public entries will be included in site searches. You can turn it off at the bottom of the page if you want. You can also set it so your entries are automatically access-locked or private as well.
This got very long so the rest is behind the cut. (Now you really know I’m legit.)
I'm a defeatist but I don't have to be 