Askbox

[razielim]

One thing I always feel DW is missing is an askbox. And I remembered earlier today that there theoretically is a way that I've heard about to get "anons" and "asks" by pinning a post with approval-only comments. Which had me excited, thoroughly, right up until I realized I wouldn't really know what to really DO with that if I set it up. DW isn't very fannish in the grand scheme of things.

(I'm alive!)

Comments

[kalloway]

I've thought about basically doing that before, but I don't know if anyone would ever want to ask me anything. ^^;;

(I feel like DW is fannish but not in the ways I generally interact, which is a specific but also broad problem.)

[razielim]

"fannish but not in the ways I generally interact"

Yeah, that's probably more accurate. Even as I wrote it, I was thinking "but this is THE platform for exchange letters so it's def fannish." But that still translates to a non-fannish experience for me because I don't participate in exchanges.

We ran a large Big Bang this year and occasionally mentioned to our participants that all info can also be found on DW, to which the responses were always somewhere between "...why?" to "What's DreamWidth?" For posterity's sake, I guess, that's why! 😭

[kalloway]

Like, there are certain very active pockets on here and I'm always impressed by them, but a lot of it is also tied to AO3 and transformative fandom, not so much curative fandom or simple discussion for a lot of things. (And also very specific fandoms- I'd love more general video game discussion, etc. but if it's there, it's ??? hiding.)

Walking away from AO3 also kind of puts me in a weird spot, since so many multifandom events are run here but posting is there.

[razielim]

You know, I put a lot of weight on the importance of transformative fandom, but an injection of more curative content around here would also go such a long way of rounding out the experience here. DW is very much my preferred place to hang up all of my long LoK rants/essays, and for good reason. It's a good place for that sort of thing!

(Also that icon is hilarious hhhhh.)

[spiralicious]

Good to see you

[vriddy]

Good to see you!! :D :D

I feel like Dreamwidth is pretty fannish... just not in my fandoms, haha. But I've seen lots of people in my circles get fannishly excited about OMFD s2 and Good Omens also s2 recently, which I'm happy for them :D I haven't gotten into a TV fandom in a very long time sadly. Book fandom probably also alive and well around these parts!! Animanga, comics and cartoons... I don't see as much 🥲

I saw people on a Discord just today mentioning setting up an anonymous google form to reproduce the anon ask format! (That was for their AO3 though, not Dreamwidth.) Maybe it'd be more familiar to anyone finding you here? I thought about doing something similar with the post and anon comments but I think it's just not a popular interaction pattern on Dreamwidth, where conversation is more expected to be two-ways in general... Ask box feels more like a creator/audience kind of interaction pattern? Idk, I never really received any during my Tumblr stint, haha. I hope you're keeping well.

Edit: It'd be a nice thing to have as a Dreamwidth-default though, especially for people who want to post but are never too sure about what!

[razielim]

The next anonymous comment you get will be from me but sometime when you least expect it :)c

[dr_zook]

We ran a large Big Bang this year and occasionally mentioned to our participants that all info can also be found on DW, to which the responses were always somewhere between "...why?" to "What's DreamWidth?" For posterity's sake, I guess, that's why! 😭

Gosh, I feel old now, haha. But really, I also don't see this place is where fandom actually HAPPENS. Everything seems to be super-delayed and/or happening in backyards and dark dead-end roads. 😭

BUT I'm always glad to see you around, and I recently re-read your lovely Batfam comic you also shared over at AO3, and it was still as brilliant as rembered. ♥

[razielim]

re-read your lovely Batfam comic
I'm kissing you on the mouth. I can't believe that comic is a real thing and real people still read it, thank you for telling me.

where fandom actually HAPPENS
That's a good point. Fandom kind of wanders past and looks in the windows maybe, but then shuffles past.

[elf]

DW is not designed to invite interaction from random strangers. It's possible, but the feature set isn't arranged to encourage it. It's meant to encourage friend-of-friend-of-friend communication.

You can see your readlist. You can see other people's public readlists at [username].dreamwidth.org/read. (You can't see the locked stuff on other people's readlists.) This includes communities, so that's a good way to find other people interested in a topic.

But there's really no way to announce things site-wide to the general public, so there's no "ask me anything" feature.

[razielim]

You know, it's funny, because I guess that's the general impression of it is that it's very impersonal, but I've never considered tumblr's askbox to be primarily for stranger-interaction. I think that was really only the case for mega large NON-fandom blogs.

Even anonymous askers who don't identify themselves (ex: "I'm the anon who sends you niche Batman info") still generally mark themselves through tone as being within my circle or otherwise familiar with me. And I only ever send anons to friends or friends-of-friends.

Especially before the porn ban, the greatest thing about the anon ask system is that it allowed more freedom of sexual fannish activity for users who didn't necessarily want the fully impersonal experience of a kinkmeme, but still wanted to keep a degree of separation between their online persona and their kinky ideas. This allowed people to participate in fandom who otherwise wouldn't have felt comfortable to do so by filling in that grey area between double-blind anonymity and full pseudonymous accountability.

But even for non-sexual content, it was also just fun to sort of fun to walk into a friend's space wearing a mask (or top of the usual mask), you know? It's just another form of shenanigans. Which, I guess, might be the really difference here - I'm not sure shenanigans for their own sake are really part of DW culture.