Two things of interest in this post. First up, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
angelofthenorth is hosting a love meme. If you're new to the space, and haven't encountered one before, the love meme is a thing where you put your name (and preferably your pronouns, if you have them) as a comment, and then other people come along and say nice things about you. You can specify in the comment what sort of things you'd like to hear and what things you don't want to hear about (yes, there are DNWs for love memes). If this sounds terrifying to you, you can also opt out entirely of the process. Other people might also nominate you as a person who gets love. You can opt out of this as well.
If you would like to leave comments on my thread, you can do so at the destination of this handy link.
Okay, here's the other thing, and the fact that I'm writing this really means that I haven't seen someone else doing it, and probably better, so that I can link to them instead.
When I see subscription notifications in my inbox, I do a happy dance of joy (or occasionally a squawk of terror) that there's someone else who has decided to subject themselves to the stuff that I'm writing. I will also go examine the account that added me to see if I would like our subscriptions to be mutual. There are some accounts where it is very easy to make that determination, yea or no, and there are other accounts where it is damn hard to this, and in those cases, I usually default to no, because I don't know you well enough yet to know that you're an awesome person and we'll get along like a house on fire.
In case you are interested about how one entity makes their decisions about subscriptions and such, here's what I'm looking for when I take a look.
Your mileage will vary. If there's anything here that makes you go "Oh, gods no, don't want to do that," then don't do it. If any of this makes you go "oh, shut it,silveradept, you pretentious [REDACTED]," then you don't have to do any of this. It's my opinion and what I'm looking for, and my size definitely does not fit all.
I have a suspicion that others might be looking at the same things, though. Let me know in the comments. Or tell me that I'm wrong. Either's fine.
angelofthenorth is hosting a love meme. If you're new to the space, and haven't encountered one before, the love meme is a thing where you put your name (and preferably your pronouns, if you have them) as a comment, and then other people come along and say nice things about you. You can specify in the comment what sort of things you'd like to hear and what things you don't want to hear about (yes, there are DNWs for love memes). If this sounds terrifying to you, you can also opt out entirely of the process. Other people might also nominate you as a person who gets love. You can opt out of this as well.If you would like to leave comments on my thread, you can do so at the destination of this handy link.
Okay, here's the other thing, and the fact that I'm writing this really means that I haven't seen someone else doing it, and probably better, so that I can link to them instead.
When I see subscription notifications in my inbox, I do a happy dance of joy (or occasionally a squawk of terror) that there's someone else who has decided to subject themselves to the stuff that I'm writing. I will also go examine the account that added me to see if I would like our subscriptions to be mutual. There are some accounts where it is very easy to make that determination, yea or no, and there are other accounts where it is damn hard to this, and in those cases, I usually default to no, because I don't know you well enough yet to know that you're an awesome person and we'll get along like a house on fire.
In case you are interested about how one entity makes their decisions about subscriptions and such, here's what I'm looking for when I take a look.
- Did you fill out your profile? A blank profile is not an immediate disqualification, but if there's nothing there and your account isn't relatively new, I feel like it's a missed opportunity to let me know something about you and what you might like. It's a very nice opportunity to do a mini-bio in the spot that's marked as such. I'll also probably scan and see if we have subscriptions in common and do at least a cursory glance over your interests to see if there are matches there, too. (I probably need to go back and update mine, because I probably last looked at it several years ago, but it's there.)
- Your sticky post(s). Free accounts get at least one post that you can decide will stay at the top of your journal, no matter what else happens. Paid accounts get more, of course, if you want to split your stickies into multiple posts. Since a sticky post is always at the top of your journal, it's the best place to stash the most important things for people to know about your Dreamwidth. Do you primarily use it as a place to write fic? Great. Are you using it solely as a way of leaving comments on other people's entries? Go for it. Is it going to mostly be composed of daily entries and the occasional full-capslock rant? Most excellent.
This also works as a way of telling people about whether or not you want comments, how you'll respond to them, if you give access freely, reservedly, or not at all, and for what reasons, if you want to say, and other things that a person stopping by to see you might want to know right off the top. Since a lot of friending is done on challenges or memes, there's a lot of people having a look at your space, and it's really nice if you've set it up in such a way that they can be relatively certain whether or not you are going to be a person they want to subscribe to or not. After all, you want people in your circle who are going to be interesting, and a lot of people find having to wade through someone's entries to get a sense of who they are somewhat tiring.
And speaking of... - Some unlocked content. It doesn't have to be much, but when I'm looking at a person, and their profile isn't filled out much and their sticky post is "I'm all friends-only, thanks" and there's nothing else that's visible, it's unlikely that I'm going to subscribe, because I have no feel at all for the kind of person you are. Now, we might get to know each other in comments and comment sections over time and then strike up a subscription from there, but it's going to take time and effort on both of our parts to kindle that friendship. Not bad, not wrong, just time-consuming. If all you want is a small circle of people that you've gotten to know very well in other places before you let them in, that's great. But if you would like more people, and you don't have any example entries for them to work with, then you don't know if they're the kind of person who spams links endlessly and then spends several paragraphs at a time on singular topics as the chaser to those linklists (Hiiiiiiiiiiii!), or whether they'll post a single line at a time about the thing that is making their life suck the most (or squee the most) right at this moment. Or if they're using it as a place to announce and/or archive creative efforts. Or any other sort of thing like that. Hang your shingle out and let people who come across you have a taste of what they're getting into after they've read your profile and your stickies.
Your mileage will vary. If there's anything here that makes you go "Oh, gods no, don't want to do that," then don't do it. If any of this makes you go "oh, shut it,
silveradept, you pretentious [REDACTED]," then you don't have to do any of this. It's my opinion and what I'm looking for, and my size definitely does not fit all.I have a suspicion that others might be looking at the same things, though. Let me know in the comments. Or tell me that I'm wrong. Either's fine.
