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So, I set up a Dreamwidth account. I’m rivkat there too (having given up the fight to avoid small furry animal-ness). NB: I got an account because I left a couple of comments there using openID, not via invitation from someone with an invite code. I don’t know if I have invite codes to give out, but if it turns out I do I’m happy to pass them on. My own plans: crosspost, possibly forever. I will not make any attempts to figure out further customization until the semester ends and I have slept for 20 hours straight. And then I want to get a damn moodtheme set up. It was so friggin' hard to put the LJ moodtheme in place that I hope it won't be equally awful to do so at Dreamwidth.
Larger thoughts: Dreamwidth is really not very much like the Archive of Our Own. Among the oppositions, none of which imply good/bad but merely difference, which plays out in a variety of ways:
for-profit/nonprofit;
employees/volunteers;
journaling/archiving;
code fork/coded from scratch
They are tangentially similar in that, as I understand it, they are both trying to figure out how to handle increasing server loads and other mysterious database-y type issues, which is why open account creation at AO3 is not yet active.
At this point, a really good way to get an account at the AO3 is to leave feedback about the archive (not feedback on the stories, though obviously I’m a fan of doing that too!). To take an entirely non-random example that would make me feel loved, you could leave feedback that says “hey, guys, how about, when a story is part of a series, putting the link to the next story in the series at the bottom of the page, where a reader might use it easily, and not just at the top?” The coders are awesome, but become even more awesome with feedback! And feedback puts you on the list for new account creation as we slowly ramp up to open beta.
Journaling has been and remains great for me—it’s really changed my fannish experience. But I started out in fandom combing through archives, and that’s actually a much nicer way to read fic, especially long fic. Tags and “next part” links on a journal can only do so much. As someone who began with Gossamer (Text-only! Funky line breaks! Asterisks for emphasis, unless it was underscores!), I am incredibly excited to see an archive that uses current developments like commenting, tagging and bookmarking.
Larger thoughts: Dreamwidth is really not very much like the Archive of Our Own. Among the oppositions, none of which imply good/bad but merely difference, which plays out in a variety of ways:
for-profit/nonprofit;
employees/volunteers;
journaling/archiving;
code fork/coded from scratch
They are tangentially similar in that, as I understand it, they are both trying to figure out how to handle increasing server loads and other mysterious database-y type issues, which is why open account creation at AO3 is not yet active.
At this point, a really good way to get an account at the AO3 is to leave feedback about the archive (not feedback on the stories, though obviously I’m a fan of doing that too!). To take an entirely non-random example that would make me feel loved, you could leave feedback that says “hey, guys, how about, when a story is part of a series, putting the link to the next story in the series at the bottom of the page, where a reader might use it easily, and not just at the top?” The coders are awesome, but become even more awesome with feedback! And feedback puts you on the list for new account creation as we slowly ramp up to open beta.
Journaling has been and remains great for me—it’s really changed my fannish experience. But I started out in fandom combing through archives, and that’s actually a much nicer way to read fic, especially long fic. Tags and “next part” links on a journal can only do so much. As someone who began with Gossamer (Text-only! Funky line breaks! Asterisks for emphasis, unless it was underscores!), I am incredibly excited to see an archive that uses current developments like commenting, tagging and bookmarking.
