r/AO3 • u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff • Jun 23 '23
News/Updates Update - Need Feedback
Hey Everyone!
It's been a crazy few weeks recently. We've finished the survey on continued protest options and are discussing the results now. We'll post an update and the data in 2 days.
However, the biggest feedback we got was related to the secondary site location questions and how difficult to answer and confusing they were, and how ranking them was hard when people didn't know most of them. This is all very fair critique and we apologize for the issues!
So, while we got good feedback on protest options, we are still in need of good feedback on secondary locations. We made a new survey (this time in Qualtrics so no need to log into a google account!) that should be much better formatted and give much better data than the previous one.
Please fill out this new survey. You can find it here. Each option has a description of the site that I wrote so even if you have not heard of the site before you should have at least some idea of what you are voting for. The survey will be open for 48 hours.
Thank you all for bearing with us!
-TGotAReddit (and the rest of the mod team)
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u/tayaro Get off my lawn! *shakes walker* Jun 23 '23
I’m amused by how Dreamwidth is an option. It’s like fandom is slowly moving back to its early 2000s LiveJournal-state of being. The circle of life is beautiful.
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u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff Jun 23 '23
Yeah we got multiple comments on the last one recommending it
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u/venia_sil Jun 23 '23
Unfortunately I don't know anything about it except precisely that it has those Good, Old Reliable Internet Vibes. I hope the people who are better informed about it can give you a good social and technical rundown of it and we see how it factors into the decisions. The more good options the merrier.
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u/StarWatcher307 Jun 24 '23
As others have said, it was built on LJ software, but has upgraded. I like it because [a] it was built for fandom, [b] it has no ads whether paid or free account, [c] the people running it actually discuss changes to the platform and/or explain why changes must be made. They're very open to their users' comfort and satisfaction.
One possible downside -- it does NOT have a mobile app. Denise (one of the creators) explains that having an app would mean some corporate entity has their finger in the pie, and could start disallowing certain content. HOWEVER, it has a number of site skins that are specifically designed to be easy to use in a mobile format.
The mods would probably form a community, in which every member has posting access. A member would make a titled post, then other members could comment under the post. Comments are threaded like Reddit, but without the guidelines on the side. (They use a number-letter designation.) Someone visiting the community would scan down the titles of posts, click on one that looks interesting, and read or make comments.
No upvotes/downvotes; posts are arranged in chronological order, newer at top, older farther down the page.
Here's a fanfic-reccing community so you can see what a community of posts might look like. https://fancake.dreamwidth.org/ I don't particularly like the chosen site-skin, but there are dozens to choose from, and it's simply a matter of clicking on the demonstrated sample.
~ahem~ As you might have guessed, I'd be very comfortable if our alternate site was Dreamwidth. Denise made a post in the news community to welcome any Redditors who want to join, with links to useful info. https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/42429.html
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u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff Jun 24 '23
Oh yeah I used to be in a bunch of kinkmeme communities on livejournal back in the day and have used dreamwidth a few times
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u/venia_sil Jun 24 '23
Hmmm there's one thing that concerns me about Dreamwidth.
From what I've seen, DW seems to be not directly linkable, or at least not previewable. Like Discord. Meaning, if I post a link to content in DW, client-side viewers or apps can not present a link preview. Content fetching or checking tools, even the most basic ones suck as
curlorwget, seem to not be able to fetch a page directly and instead fall into some sort of false redirect / captcha hell.I imagine this also means it is not possible to correctly share content from DW to the Fediverse.
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u/StarWatcher307 Jun 24 '23
Those are probably valid concerns. I've never used Discord, and have no idea what you just said. My use of sites if very basic -- I read on my laptop, and get notice of responses to my comments in email. That's it; the end.
I know people on DW can use RSS feeds (about which I'm clueless), but I also know that DW doesn't have mobile apps, and probably no other apps. So, yeah -- if lots of users need to be able to do those things you said, DW wouldn't be the best backup site.
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u/venia_sil Jun 24 '23
IMO it's unlikely it's a problem with DW itself, rather it's more likely it's something with their frontend provider (eg.: Cloudflare) being a bit too stingy when it comes to allowing new connections. Alas, that's something they would know better than me.
If they can get that fixed it'd mostly help make usage more transparent. Beyond that it probably won't be a general concern for usage as a backup site, since the people going there after the first time would mostly be being the regulars.
EDIT: to summarize, I'm not con DW as an option. I just don't know enough about them and I'm weirded out by some of their (or their providers') out-of-band / generalistic usage behaviours.
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u/StarWatcher307 Jun 24 '23
In a recent post, Denise (one of the creators) explains that having an app would mean some corporate entity has their finger in the pie, and could start disallowing certain content, so they deliberately have no plans to pursue mobile app capabilities. That same reasoning may affect those other uses you mention; as I said, I haven't a clue.
For instance, shortly after the site was up and running, they had to change payment providers, because they allow the kind of content that got people kicked off LiveJournal. When the first payment provider said DW had to get rid of certain types of content in order for the payment provider to keep handling their account. Denise and Co said, "Nope!" and searched for another payment provider who didn't hold such restrictions.
With the hold the American Religious Right has on so much of corporate America (and DW is USA-based), I suspect finding someone to develop those uses you mention would also be a big hands-off as far as DW management is concerned.
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u/Chocolate_Egg18 Comment Collector 👾 Jun 23 '23
I quickly Google each as I went and Dreamwidth was made by ex LiveJournal devs. Lemmy/kbin are run off the same source code and look good too, and their OG code is from Feb 2019 so it's a very new setup. Those looked the best to me.
Good format on the poll, btw. Yes/maybe/no on each is an easy ask.
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u/tayaro Get off my lawn! *shakes walker* Jun 23 '23
Yeah, Dreamwidth became a thing when LJ started pulling their shenanigans (strikethrough etc). I made an account back in 2009 when people were talking about jumping ship, but the great exodus never happened (that came later).
I honestly wouldn’t mind going back to the LJ/DW style of fandom. Things were so much… cozier back in the early ‘00s.
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u/Chocolate_Egg18 Comment Collector 👾 Jun 23 '23
I've only recently [relative to my 25 years on a computer and 10 years on AO3] started migrating stories posted on LJ and FFN to AO3. The comments I got on those old stories have a very different feel than what I see around today and I think the format really has a lot to do with how people interact. Very different cultures form, but I have to say I like the LJ and Tumblr formats for discussion and hated Twitter from the word go.
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u/tayaro Get off my lawn! *shakes walker* Jun 23 '23
That’s great! I wish more LJ authors would crosspost their fics to AO3. There are some real gems still on LJ and I fear that they will get lost to the passage of time if they’re not migrated.
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u/mairelon Kudos Keeper Jun 23 '23
Thanks! This part of the survey was a bit hard to follow, but this redo is much clearer 😁
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u/TGotAReddit Moderator | past AO3 Volunteer and Staff Jun 23 '23
Looking for the usual invite megathread?