Six Weeks for Dreamwidth

[erda]

As most of you already know, we are approaching the first year anniversary of Dreamwidth's open beta. To celebrate that event, I am thinking about creating a community to oversee a festival which would generate content for our home.

This is not about trying to coerce people into joining Dreamwidth, it's not about posting on lj or any other service about Dreamwidth. It's about making content here, for the people already here, because we have a group of talented people already gathered here and we should have a party for ourselves. If some live journal only people get curious about what's happening over here, they're welcome to come join the fun, of course, but I'm envisioning a party that is by and for people who already love Dreamwidth. Because Dreamwidth is awesome.

I have some ideas about how this might work, but right now it's all still fluid, and I'm open to suggestions. Here's what I have in mind so far:

A central community which I've tentatively called "Six Weeks for Dreamwidth" where people would probably post links, though posting actual content there is not out of the question. Six weeks for Dreamwidth means that participants agree to post their content only on Dreamwidth for six weeks, that is six weeks from the date it is posted. After the six week period is over authors/artists/vidders are free to take their content and post it anywhere they want.

Starting at the beginning of April, as many people as we can interest will start posting content on Dreamwidth comms, or wherever they want on Dreamwidth, and link it on the main comm. Also, as many people as we can interest would start comment fic memes in their personal journals. I would personally like to see some pairing specific memes, because I suspect the percentage of monofannish people on some other journaling services is higher than on dw, and those people might not be so interested in combing through a multifandom thing looking for their pairing, whereas if they should happen to hear there is a meme with just their otp available only on dw, it might make our home more interesting to them, and spark more discussion here.

I'd also love to see a prompting community where people can post prompts without any formal sign ups or obligation to write. I'd like to keep this whole thing as low stress as possible. No real sign ups, just people trying to participate as much as they can given that we are all busy people with lots of other projects. It's a party, not a duty, you see.

ETA: To clarify things a little: I am not saying that participants would restrict their posting of all content to DW for six weeks, or for any period of time. This six week period would only be for works that the participant decided to use for this fest. That would include any comment fic the participant chooses to write for memes which are designated as Six Weeks for Dreamwidth memes. Participants would continue to post other works not written for this fest wherever they liked.

Sooooooooooo

Poll:

Poll #2385 Six weeks for Dreamwidth Interest Poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 84

Are you interested in a Dreamwidth only content fest for our Anniversary?

Yes.
48 (57.1%)

Maybe.
27 (32.1%)

Yes, but six weeks is too long to tie up my content.
9 (10.7%)

Yes, but I think we should keep the content on Dreamwidth longer.
0 (0.0%)

No, not interested at all.
2 (2.4%)

What kind of content should we try to generate?

Fic only.
0 (0.0%)

Fic/Art only
0 (0.0%)

Fic/Art/Vids
3 (3.7%)

Everything we can get.
81 (100.0%)

Would you try to participate in this fest?

I would probably try to create content.
76 (90.5%)

I would probably start a comment fic meme to support Dreamwidth in my personal journal and link it to the main comm.
18 (21.4%)

I would probably try to comment on content generated by this fest to support people creating content.
58 (69.0%)

No, but I still like the idea.
4 (4.8%)

No, I think your idea is lame.
2 (2.4%)

Which activities would you like to see?

One main comm where everything is linked and tagged.
49 (65.3%)

Separate prompt comm where anyone can play.
12 (16.0%)

Use already existing comms to post content.
52 (69.3%)

Comment fic memes in personal journals.
38 (50.7%)

Create fandom specific comms for the fest and link them all to one main comm.
16 (21.3%)

I have another/other ideas I will explain in comments.
4 (5.3%)

Input, suggestions, signal boosting welcomed.

Comments

Via network

[angelikitten]

I was thinking, the other week, about having a virtual meetup for the first anniversary - but your idea sounds much better :)

Re: Via network

[erda]

Nothing to say we can't do both. A virtual meet up sounds like fun!

slight delay

[princessofgeeks]

i forgot that today is the opening of posting for a ficathon i'm supposed to be in charge of, so i need to wait until tuesday or so to do your signal boost. i want to keep my announcement at the top of my queue for a day or two.

Re: slight delay

[erda]

Hee! No problem.

[zvi]

I think that included content should definitely be show-specific meta, show specific squee, and show reviews. The complaint I hear is not so much that the whole service is slow, but that people's specific fandoms are not here.

[princessofgeeks]

this is exactly what i'm getting too -- people want a sense that their fandom is represented here, so that's a great idea.

[naraht]

Intrigued by this idea (here via zvi) but still pondering it. Are you envisioning "content" as only being fanworks, or including personal posts/comments/other things? Because I think that how you define it will have a big impact on the character of the fest.

Not sure I can commit to it in any case because I have a Big Bang that I'm taking part in which starts in early May...

[ex_wicker969]

Are you envisioning "content" as only being fanworks

I'm in on the idea but that's my question too. I have content, mostly art but some writing, that's not show-specific. I've got a couple people in my circle who are non-fandom photographers and writers. I'm all for people wanting to celebrate less-common fandoms (Dinotopia books ahoy!) but limiting it to that seems to me to be make the six weeks more about convincing people to come over than celebrating an awesome service.

I also think any new communities except one round-up community should be avoided because we ought to fill up the comms and personal journals I'm hearing non-DW people complain are slow. The structure's here, let's fill it with nice things!

Interesting idea...

[elke_tanzer]

(I'm here by way of zvi...)

I'm willing to participate, mostly because I'm only posting content to Dreamwidth with an auto-cross-post to InsaneJournal. I can turn that off for a month and half, or make the IJ posts private (I think of that as a backup of my journal content nowadays). I also post whatever fic I finish to the OTW's Archive Of Our Own (AO3 aka AOOO), and I can put off the archiving of whatever fic I produce to the AO3 for six weeks. I'm so far behind on updating my own website with my fics that another six weeks for that is no difference from what I'm already doing, LOL.

I'd recommend that we try to encourage use of existing DW communities if they exist for whatever fandoms we're creating in and commenting on posts in, because one of the gripes I'm hearing from all quarters is "but it's so quiet on DW!" and the only way to get the comms to be louder is to post more stuff in them, and to comment on the stuff that's there. :-)

And if there's not communities here yet for fandoms folks want? We could encourage creation of the needed communities, and encourage an announcement post to dw_community_promo, with a special tag noting that the comm was created as part of this effort...

Now that I think of it... can we consider asking Denise & Mark to create a public-type-tag, much like "follow friday", so that rather than creating a new community for this to post content and links, we simply encourage everyone to tag their posts (of content or new community creation) for this effort as "six weeks of dreamwidth" or "six weeks of dw" or "happy anniversary dw"? That way it'd be easy to look at the whole effort using a shiny cool tool of DW...

I want to ponder this whole thing further. Hmmmmm.

Re: Interesting idea...

[erda]

I like this idea a lot.

[stewardess]

Some wondering aloud: is there an unstated assumption that "only on Dreamwidth" actually means "not on LJ"? For instance, there are already bunches of people who post fic only at Dreamwidth and AO3, or only at AO3. I think the content fest needs to be more specific, or at least acknowledge the "not LJ" assumption. If it's a temporary LJ content boycott, it needs to be upfront about that.

As someone who posts at InsaneJournal, DW, and AO3, I feel a DW content fest is overlooking a bunch of folks. In addition, there are folks who may have signed up for prompts, exchanges, and so on at LJ comms who cannot comply within the stated time period. Making it shorter, two weeks, may help.

[rydra_wong]

Maybe I'm misreading the OP, but I didn't read it as saying that people should withhold all content of any kind from LJ (or other services), but that there would be a push to generate new, additional content which would (at least temporarily) be DW-exclusive.

It'd obviously be helpful to clarify that.

[facetofcathy]

I think the tag feed idea is good if it gets promoted--the Olympics one did not aggregate very many of the Olympics posts because no one was using the tag--especially not for fannish focus on the Olympics.

I really like the idea for comment fic because when talking about fannish activities, the comment length is the single most valuable asset DW has. It might be interesting if the comment fic memes end up in personal journals or comms around and about to make some kind of list of all the other ones that can go in the top post. That way the content is interlinked.

I do like the idea for non-fannish content to be included in a celebration, but surely one person/group does not need to organize all of this into one event. Kind of like how I think there are other New Year's Eve parties in New York than just the one in Times Square.

Further to the interlinked content idea, if existing comms need traffic then some kind of link hopping scheme where I post to a comm and then ask readers to post to another comm and link in comments--related content would be cool, or just a hey here's a post to read--and so on and so on. For a non-fanwork but still fannish spin on this I could post to the Leverage comm and analyze the way fans interact with the creators and actors of the show, then someone else posts on the same topic in the White Collar comm, and links in comments to that and etc. etc. This is the kind of content that does not need to take up a lot of time to make, but is largely absent from all fannish comms.

I think any attempt to frame this as an anti-Livejournal, rather than pro-Dreamwidth event is a very bad idea, and that's not at all how erda's idea reads as to me. This is about Dreamwidth being a fun place to hang out in, and creating things to share with anyone who happens by, and to show the people that are here how much we appreciate spending time with them. If we let the secondary purpose of promotion overwhelm the idea of having fun, all we'll do is piss people off.

[erda]

I agree with everything you have said. I don't mind a tag feed, but I am wondering if there are people who would feel more comfortable just searching the tags on a community.

Further to the interlinked content idea, if existing comms need traffic then some kind of link hopping scheme where I post to a comm and then ask readers to post to another comm and link in comments--related content would be cool, or just a hey here's a post to read--and so on and so on. For a non-fanwork but still fannish spin on this I could post to the Leverage comm and analyze the way fans interact with the creators and actors of the show, then someone else posts on the same topic in the White Collar comm, and links in comments to that and etc. etc. This is the kind of content that does not need to take up a lot of time to make, but is largely absent from all fannish comms.

I really, really like the sound of this. It just seems like it wold be a hell of a lot of fun.

[torachan]

I think it's a neat idea and would probably try to read and comment if there was stuff I was interested in. Not sure if I will be able to generate any content myself.

[erda]

I really want to keep this low stress and low pressure, so that people feel free to just have fun.

[azurelunatic]

Oh! So, essentially, first-publication for any fics in this fest to be on Dreamwidth (doesn't matter where on DW), and exclusively to DW for six weeks. After which, wheresoever.

[erda]

Pretty much, except I'm hoping to have a main comm that people will link all their fest fics and memes at so others can find and comment.

[copracat]

I really like the idea of a tag, like the one we use for follow friday, because it will allow one link to the latest posts page to collate all the posts that people tag.

I am imagining:

Post Subject
Blah blah blah my content
Footer: You can browse all the 'happy 1st anniversary DW' posts at 'latest posts link'
Tags: blah, blah, blah, 'happy 1st anniversary DW'

I'm not particularly interested in posting only to DW. If I don't crosspost to LJ (or IJ or JF or whatever other blogs etc you use) then how do those readers know about the anniversary?

[zvi]

One of two things: either you'd blog about the whole thing before, so they'd know they should go check your DW to see things.

Or, you wouldn't do a full crosspost to LJ, you'd do a link roundup. (Maybe what you've done plus stuff you recommend that other people have done.)

[blnchflr]

Since I don't post to LJ, my content is already non-LJ. But I could still see making an effort for whatever you end up organizing :o)

[erda]

Hee! A lot of people are getting hung up on lj, and it's not about that.

I'm not very concerned if people on lj only find out about the Anniversary after it is over, though I doubt that would happen. Word about these things seems to get out rather quickly.

[anehan]

Sounds good. (Here via my circle, btw.) I could definitely see myself participating. Not fic or anything artsy, but maybe meta or squee or something like that.

[erda]

That would be great!

[dancing_serpent]

Here via my dwircle, and I like the idea a lot.

Also, there already are several comment fic comms and random prompt comms on DW, which are quite silent at the moment. Maybe we could make an effort to "revive" some of them. Even the fandom specific ones, like the Star Trek Reboot kink community which still lots of unfilled prompts open.

[erda]

Yes, I think most people are going with using our already existing comms. I'm hoping I can gather a list of comms interested in participating, and give them some publicity.

[cesy]

I'd love to have more people replying at dailyprompt. We could also do a charity drive at kiva.

[aryas_zehral]

Hi.

Hope you don't mind but I added you to my circle so I could keep an eye out for how this idea plays out/new posts on this so that I could join in. Hope that's ok.

S.

[erda]

It's fine, and welcome.

[viklikesfic]

I love the idea in theory. Unfortunately I couldn't post in anything involving fic b/c the way I organize, I just really need to crosspost all my fic as I write it or the train would go off the trails. That said, I would be interested in hosting a comment fic meme. And additionally, I would really love it if this were open to non-fandom stuff, because to me that's the beauty of DW! It's mostly a bunch of fans, but we're coming together and building community beyond our fanworks. I love the idea of using this as a way to get more content in existing comms -- maybe comms could agree to participate and have their own challenges/fests for the six-week period, which you would link to at the beginning on the round-up comm and then round up the entries for at the end? I'm all for anything that integrates comms, gets more members to existing comms, and generates more content.

[erda]

These are all good ideas. I'm still considering how to work it. And please don't feel pressured to participate more than is comfortable. Hosting a comment fic meme would be great!

[princess]

I have an "alternate" journal which I am using for research for my SCA persona, and dress diaries and the like. I'll commit to creating content for that (which isn't fiction per se, but might be of interest) if this thing happens...

[erda]

I'm still working out the details, but that sounds interesting. I am hoping I can get people to post a link to their content on one central comm.

[without_wings]

I think this sounds like a lot of fun. :)

I usually don't find out about these kinds of things until they're over, so the idea that there would be one place to find all the different kinds of content, comment memes, etc.

[erda]

Hee!! I usually don't find out about things until they are over either, so I know the feeling. I feel strongly about having a central comm so I'm going to go with that.

[jain]

The more I think about it, the less I like the exclusivity aspect of the fest. A fest that disrupts how people post content and that artificially (albeit temporarily) cuts DW even further off from other journaling platforms and the friends that many of us have on them seems a little unfortunate to me. Plus, as noted in comments above, because of feeds, the actual exclusivity of the content would be very uneven.

What I personally would prefer would be no exclusivity clause and instead a focus (as you mentioned in your post) on creating and participating in comment fic memes and on producing content of various sorts and posting it to DW communities. Possibly also some friending memes--they seem very "first anniversary" appropriate to me. Oh, and maybe a DW community recommendations post in the main fest comm, where fest participants could talk up some of the communities they're in (and thus help generate an even larger audience for the content that they'll be producing throughout the fest).

[erda]

I understand your concern, but my main objective here is to keep the conversations at home, and if a significant portion of the content is available elsewhere, I think we are seeing that conversations tend to peter out here. I am probably going to shorten the time, as several people felt 6 weeks was too long, but I want to keep the better part of this fest at home. It's not a big deal if some of it reaches people through feeds, as long as we can get people involved talking and sharing more here.

I do want to have a main comm, and I'm thinking enough people have expressed an interest in a friending meme that that is also a good idea. I hope you will join us, but if the idea makes you uncomfortable, I certainly understand that. I'm sure lots of other people will have ideas to celebrate, and there will be fun things for us all.

[redsnake05]

Here via princessofgeeks, and I think this is a great idea. I would definitely contribute and comment on things. I think having a central comm with links and tags for easy searching would be great. I had an idea for something else, but managed to forget it while typing this. No fannish interaction before coffee, obviously

[erda]

Hi! Welcome! I am refining the plan based on the feedback I am getting here. There will definitely be a central comm. Let me know if you remember your idea.

[hermitsoul]

I love this idea. I already post my icons to DW only, and am more than willing to contribute a few more icon sets. stock_icons can always use a little more love! \o/

[erda]

Icons would be great! I am working out some details, and will soon be posting more info.

[shopfront]

Here via fandomcalender. This sounds like a great idea, but I was wondering how strict your don't-crosspost-fest-content rule would be? I've been pondering changing my posting habits so that I crosspost everything with the non-DW version set to private, and then edit the post so it's very RSS feed like with a few lines of content and a link to the full post on DW. The idea being it's like a feed to draw people to DW for the content, but it still gives me the option of importing non-DW comments or re-editing the posts to crosspost the content at a later date if I wish.

Would a posting system like that be acceptable to you for fest content?

[erda]

I'm not going to worry if a few people have feeds that allow off site people to access their content, but please keep in mind that the purpose of this fest is to celebrate Dreamwidth's anniversary and have fun with each other here at our home, not to try to entice people not on Dreamwidth to join us.

I leave it to your discretion.