discussion of Dreamwidth features in MetaTalk

[brainwane]

Some MetaFilter members who currently discuss US politics in "megathreads" on the blue are discussing whether to try to move that kind of synthesis and discussion to some other platform(s), and I mentioned Dreamwidth communities. I'd love for folks here who have experience modding or administering DW communities to comment in that thread; darkstar and, later, TWinbrook8 have multiple comments asking questions that I could use help answering.

Comments

[brainwane]

I posted a long comment but could still use help from anyone who has experience modding lively or paid communities on DW!

[moem]

Wish I could help here, but I've only ever modded very small and calm communities. Well, I'm a moderator on the Linux Mint forum, but that's a very different kind of experience.

[viggorlijah]

I am wavering on quitting MF altogether. I have a generally okay experience but then I rock up against awareness of the hidden shoals and remember that I'm self-censoring on the site and that lots of other people are too. I put a lot of effort at one point into engagement there for fanfare and women's posting, and I don't know if I would do the same again.

[falena]

Anything that brings interaction and discussions to DW sounds excellent to me, so thanks for suggesting DW (I'm not superfamiliar with MF, BTW, I only lurk there sporadically). Wish I could jump in to help you buy I've never been a mod on a comm here.

[grayduck]

I really love the DW/LJ format and think it could work well for a megathread-type community. I probably wouldn't be a part of it - I'm one of the "you took away my megathread fix!...thank you, I actually really needed someone to take away my fix" contingent. But I think that the posting/threading/commenting set-up could do what needs doing for the megathread in exile.

[moem]

I agree... I don't know whether it's a good idea and I don't know whether the social side would work, but I feel that from a strictly technical point of view, the infrastructure that Dreamwidth offers could work.

[foxfirefey]

Okay I made a biiiiig long post about how things could potentially work, but apparently I already missed the target which has moved to here!

[brainwane]

foxfirefey, THANK YOU, and I am sorry I neglected to update this post saying that the discussion had moved to the new MetaTalk! I am grateful for all the details, and in particular appreciate your offer to help customize a community's skin to look reasonable on mobile for people used to the MeFi styling - there must be some existing theme that gets 75% of the way there but I poked around a bit and wasn't sure I was looking in the right places. And comm admins have a tab called "mobile" in the account settings but I don't know what options are in there because the tab is greyed out for me.

Your DW profile says you're working on DW; is that currently the case?

[foxfirefey]

Ha no worries! I don't feel bad about it myself--that thread is pretty darn new so I don't feel too negligent.

I haven't in a while but I've been meaning to pick it back up--I have a weird problem where I'm trying to host my dev box on a subdomain and for some reason my journal subdomains redirect endlessly and I haven't quite figured it out yet! However, they do provide dreamhacks and I could get ahold of one and do development on it instead. I keep my eye out on the DW Discord where the insider crew hangs, and I can tell you that someone is making some good mobile changes that are being reviewed right now. One development thing we could do without much fuss if the site admins thumbs up is add Metafilter as a profile Other Site maybe? The tricky part about that is user profiles on MeFi don't use the username, but a number, so I'm not sure how we could link to the profile on MeFi.

And yeah, making a MeFi styling for the community that's mobile friendly will not be difficult, given how simple MeFi styling is, and I know S2 (wrote a lot of the wiki documentation on it actually) and can do more than just CSS skinning changes. So if, for instance, people didn't want user icons to show on comments or posts, or to have the info about a comment below the comment body, that could be arranged.

Megathread comm boosting

[brainwane]

Hey - will you be making a post here in this comm about megathread?

Re: Megathread comm boosting

[foxfirefey]

I should! I think I have an actual gameplan post that's worth posting about here now.