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

[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.