December, Day 3
Dec. 3rd, 2019 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grundyscribbling(What the heck are you talking about?)
wendylove asked what's your take on Discord vs. Tumblr vs. Dreamwidth vs. Other Fandom Discussion Options (esp. in Tolkien fandom) these days?
I think these platforms are different tools, and I find some of them better discussion options than others, but to each their own.
I know I'm not alone in thinking Tumblr is a terrible place to have a conversation, and I've pretty much stopped posting meta there because of it. The nature of reblogs/lack of threaded comments mean you can easily miss half a discussion, be wholly unaware of threads, and have no good way to see when a discussion happened - unless you've been around and seen a post before, there's no telling if it's from today or three years ago. And of course, it's all public except messaging. There's no friends/circle/whatever you want to call it. Which is not to say Tumblr doesn't have its good points. It's an excellent place to squee over the art or other crafts. That's pretty much why I stick around there. (That and I do like reblogging photos that fit my idea of what various locations/cultures of Middle-earth might look like.)
Discord is more directly for discussion, and better for building community. You can have real time conversations there with more than one person at once. If you want to, you can set up your own server so you can have a group of like-minded fans, or at least fans who all agree to the same ground rules of discussion/behavior. (I think the latter is really more important than the former.) I like Discord, but again, it's not perfect. It's not where I'd go to put up any long meta.
Dreamwidth seems to be the new LJ for anyone leery of LJ because of its many past kerfluffles (yes, I've been around long enough to remember Strikethrough) or its current TOS. Obviously I'm comfortable with DW, because here we are. I do like threaded comments, tags that are specific to my part of the site as opposed to universal to the entire site, multiple usericons (ask me about my terrible mental quirk of associating people I 'know' online on sites like Tumblr or Twitter with their icons and getting very confused when they switch), and the ability to have locked entries. Having given cons for everything else, I'd say the con here is that there just aren't as many folks around. For anyone who is interested in getting lots of views/interactions/whatever, this may not be enough.
Other fandom discussion options...I don't think Twitter's going to stay a viable fandom alternative for much longer given their new TOS. If you can't post content without it being theirs to use, the artists and writers are going to drop it like it's hot. I feel like Pillowfort is still something a lot of people are in 'wait and see' mode on. (If anyone wants invites, let me know.) If there are other options kicking around, feel free to let me know.
wendylove asked what's your take on Discord vs. Tumblr vs. Dreamwidth vs. Other Fandom Discussion Options (esp. in Tolkien fandom) these days?I think these platforms are different tools, and I find some of them better discussion options than others, but to each their own.
I know I'm not alone in thinking Tumblr is a terrible place to have a conversation, and I've pretty much stopped posting meta there because of it. The nature of reblogs/lack of threaded comments mean you can easily miss half a discussion, be wholly unaware of threads, and have no good way to see when a discussion happened - unless you've been around and seen a post before, there's no telling if it's from today or three years ago. And of course, it's all public except messaging. There's no friends/circle/whatever you want to call it. Which is not to say Tumblr doesn't have its good points. It's an excellent place to squee over the art or other crafts. That's pretty much why I stick around there. (That and I do like reblogging photos that fit my idea of what various locations/cultures of Middle-earth might look like.)
Discord is more directly for discussion, and better for building community. You can have real time conversations there with more than one person at once. If you want to, you can set up your own server so you can have a group of like-minded fans, or at least fans who all agree to the same ground rules of discussion/behavior. (I think the latter is really more important than the former.) I like Discord, but again, it's not perfect. It's not where I'd go to put up any long meta.
Dreamwidth seems to be the new LJ for anyone leery of LJ because of its many past kerfluffles (yes, I've been around long enough to remember Strikethrough) or its current TOS. Obviously I'm comfortable with DW, because here we are. I do like threaded comments, tags that are specific to my part of the site as opposed to universal to the entire site, multiple usericons (ask me about my terrible mental quirk of associating people I 'know' online on sites like Tumblr or Twitter with their icons and getting very confused when they switch), and the ability to have locked entries. Having given cons for everything else, I'd say the con here is that there just aren't as many folks around. For anyone who is interested in getting lots of views/interactions/whatever, this may not be enough.
Other fandom discussion options...I don't think Twitter's going to stay a viable fandom alternative for much longer given their new TOS. If you can't post content without it being theirs to use, the artists and writers are going to drop it like it's hot. I feel like Pillowfort is still something a lot of people are in 'wait and see' mode on. (If anyone wants invites, let me know.) If there are other options kicking around, feel free to let me know.
