meridian_rose

So I was going to come back and Do More Dreamwidth/LJ and that didn't really happen. I did today read back as far as LJ and then DW will let me. I've written and posted more fic for the 100 fandoms challenge.

I have over the last couple of months tried to tackle my AO3 stuff. To sort and backup my bookmarks and Marked For Later lists. The backup took longer than expected (found a script that downloads info but only 1 page at a time, then had to merge each of those spreadsheets into One Spreadsheet To Rule Them All). Around 900 bookmarks including private ones!
Then I've tried to weed out my Marked For Later list, removing some fics I'll probably never read now for various reasons, downloading some to read on my ereader because they are too long for me to enjoy sitting at the pc, and reading others to then comment/kudos/bookmark/mark as read. I had about a billion or it seems and I've still got between 160 and 170 left to go. The problem being some of these are long, 10k or 50k or longer than a published novel or a whole series of published novels, which is why they ended up on the 'later' list in the first place. And then there's the struggle not to add (too many) more fics to that list, as I've read more fic again recently.

I'm mostly content with where I'm at with dabbling in fandom. There might be exchanges/challenges I want to go back to but I'm not pushing myself. I'm not so happy my original fic blogs are languishing but I do have original fic content I've worked on the last 2 years (1 incomplete in script format, 1 incomplete but I did win NaNo with it novel). I don't want to restart the fic blogging if I can't keep it up regularly.

I'm not who I was a few years back and the things I read, write, think, believe, do, continue to change and to surprise me. I think about trying to explain them here and I'm not sure I can or want to. There are parts of me that are immutable however. It's complicated and that's okay.

Hello everyone! For newcomers, welcome! Once a month I try to make a personal post aka a BAG post, named for a Fluent Self article where you look at where you've Been, At, and are Going.
It's often more rambling than structured like that but I've been tagging BAG post for so long I'm still doing so. Also these posts are often short if I haven't got a lot to say or don't feel like going into details.

( Read more... )

I've been having issues with the automatic LJ tags. The ones LJ implemented without consultation so that anytime you use a hashtag in the body of the post it gets added as an automatic and public tag.

I've no objection to the idea of public tags – I think if DW had an optional tagging system to have public tags the way canonical AO3 tags work it would help people find more audience. But as an opt-in with wrangled tags so "public: fandom: star wars" for example chosen from a list; your other tags would remain solely visible on your journal.
LJ's owners in their infinite wisdom managed to take a good idea and screw things up.

I import from LJ every 4-6 weeks solely to pick up new comments made at LJ. For some reason the DW importer doesn't let you untick the Tags box when you want comments; you have to have entries, comments, and tags all ticked. You can however just import tags.
So every time I import from LJ to DW I get blank tags. That is tags like hashtag012 entries 0.
The tags don't even show up on the 'manage tags' at LJ! (This is because they're public tags I now realise and not my tags)
If the entry count is zero, how can I find and remove the #?!

I mentioned this annoyance when doing prompt 1 of the sunshine_challenge, about journal housekeeping and enemytosleep offered some tips though sadly they didn't work. Reinvigorated by this conversation however I did some more googling and finally hit on the faq
Frequently Asked Question 226. How do I tag my entries? Where can I manage my tags? https://www.livejournal.com/support/faq/226.html

Which mentions "You can also add hashtags to your entry tag)* - they will be automatically added to the entry's tags, and the entry (if public) will appear in search results for the hashtags it contains. Click on the hashtag in the entry to view search results for this hashtag."

*There's a hashtag at the start of tag but I'm not putting it for fear of it somehow getting reimported when I crosspost to LJ and then reimport to DW later!

Using that link to find the page https://www.livejournal.com/rsearch/?tags=%23tag let me search these mysterious public tags. And lo and behold, deep in the 84 results for hashtag 012 I found one of my entries!
The entry had several hashtags where I'd mentioned prompt numbers from various comms. I removed all the hashtags. Deleted the empty hastags from DW. Reimported from LJ. The empty tags still show up.

I now tried deleting the hashtags from the DW entry too since it was a crosspost. Delete the DW tags, reimport the tags; same problem.

Also any hashtags I've deliberately used at LJ are now hidden from my journal including things like hashtag personal post so yay LJ, way to truly screw things up. I hadn't realised how badly the screw up was until I tried to fix the DW side of it. (I could re-do all the hashtags as something else but that's a lot of work and I'm 99.9% only posting entries at DW these days, using LJ for communities rather than posting to.)

On the plus side I'm not in danger of running out of tags so I can just quickly select and delete all these numbered tags after an import. It's just annoying.
If anyone knows of an actual fix for this please do let me know! I may have to contact support but it's such a weird and complicated issue to describe, but maybe now I've got this entry I can link to it!

Some photos and some thoughts

( Read more... )

http://www.livejournal.com/18
http://l-files.livejournal.net/birthday_infographics/meridian_rose/

#mylivejournal #lj18 #happybirthday

The sky is falling again at LU but I'm not concerned about my data because I use DW primarily, keep my journal as "contains adult content", and if things got more dicey I'd post to DW and just have a links to my DW post once a month at LJ so I wouldn't be hosting anything "questionable".

In fact I rarely make an entry at LJ these days unless it's to a community, this being an exception because at DW I'm preaching to the converted. My personal DW journal is my default and I crosspost from there. I got a DW after a major DDOS attack on LJ a few years back and while I didn't immediately default to it, I got to know and appreciate the DW culture (the staff are committed and approachable, users are listened to, equality and accessibility are built into the site values).

Many comms I belong to host at both sites now and others seem to be considering dual hosting or moving. If the same people and communities are available at DW there is no difference between DW and LJ in terms of use. I'm sad that people would rather delete and give up journalling than make the easy switch and import their entries. If a coffee shop you liked was under new management and sucked would you give up going out for coffee with your friends or would you try out the shop next door which looks pretty much the same and will expand the menu if more people come along?

A few useful links
How To Move To Dreamwidth and Like It
https://promethia-tenk.dreamwidth.org/33951.html

Brief Tutorial on Crossposting
https://evilawyer.dreamwidth.org/198592.html

Getting Started
https://getting-started.dreamwidth.org/

Community Promo (for finding new comms or promoting your comms)
http://dw-community-promo.dreamwidth.org/

lj-refugees (if you need help with how do you do X on DW this is the place)
http://lj-refugees.dreamwidth.org/

Style System (get your DW journal looking nice)
http://style-system.dreamwidth.org/

Dreamwidth News
https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/

DW suggestions (suggest improvements and vote on submitted ideas)
http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/

Fandom Calendar (for finding fannish events, comms, bingo/fests/exchanges)
https://fandomcalendar.dreamwidth.org

Fandom on DW (as above)
https://fandom-on-dw.dreamwidth.org/

2017 revival (find your friends)
https://2017revival.dreamwidth.org/

I so miss community. I miss threaded conversations. I miss being able to post a question or ask for a beta at a community and getting responses that were always helpful/supportive even if they weren't immediate solutions. I miss the way you didn't have to be a Big Name Blogger to gain audience because of the way communities provided spaces for individuals to gather. (Something I wrote in a response to a comment where the commentator and I were commiserating over the Tumblr culture vs LJ/DW culture.)

I complain a lot about the "click like" culture of Tumblr; with no communities you'll often go unnoticed when posting unless a Big Name Blogger in your fandom/interest reblogs you, and you should be grateful for a "like" let alone a reblog and as for helpful commentary, it is like gold dust.
And yes at LJ/DW journals the constant "no comments" on your entries becomes soul destroying, but that's the thing about journals, the modicum of effort required to participate goes beyond a "I clicked like" interaction. And comments allow for conversation.

Yet now LJ wants to introduce a "like" feature: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/91232.html
And they haven't even learnt from the FB debacle that finally led to the use of different emojis to be used instead of just the thumb's up - because you don't want to "like" someone's tale of woe, you want to sympathise.

I'll be over here, still missing community in the sense of belonging and communities in the sense of shared spaces where individuals can find each other without needing to be super popular. And I'll no doubt succomb to the laziness of the like culture when I can't be bothered to write even "nice fic" or "interesting post", and I'll hate myself for it but I'll argue that it's "better than nothing".
Settling for "better than nothing" is something I already do far too much.

I've finally responded to all the comments on my previous personal (BAG) post, I think. Apoloiges for the delay, and posting my next update before replying to the comments on the previous one. After my much needed rant I took a very short break and I seem to have been playing catch-up ever since - see also ISP issues, below.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my post, which received a decent amount of attention at Tumblr too. I've polished it up and posted it to my professional blog and promo'd at my professional Tumblr: The Myth of the Relationship Hierarchy Strikes Again wordpress tumblr
I'll reblog the original post with links to the professional post when my ISP lets me properly access resource hungry sites like Tumblr/Feedly/Facebook/Photobucket. I'm having serious issues with Virgin Media and from what I've read, I'm not the only one.

I posted a brief note/mini meta about Leverage's Parker here

I've got three trope bingo fills to post and then I can claim bingo, fingers crossed.

It snowed briefly today, didn't settle, but highly unusual for this time of year in the West Midlands. We're almost at Mayday, Beltaine, where is our late spring weather?

Banners, fic, graphics, a vid, and a few other things made for the Legendland Final Battle behind the cut.( Read more... )