possibly moving to Dreamwidth in the next few days

[chibichan]

Well, guys. This might seem sudden, but I've been thinking of moving to Dreamwidth ever since people started moving a year or two ago. But only recently I really started thinking about it and looking into moving to Dreamwidth seriously.

You know, at first I didn't want to - not because I'm lazy or anything, I'd happily move over to keep in contact with my friends, and I don't really see any problem moving per se - but because LJ has been my blogging home for so many years, you know? All my entries are here, all my icons and all of my friends' comments, too. LJ has been my blogging home for almost 7 years I believe, and that's such a long time. I've also recently renamed my account to the username I originally wanted after LJ deleted and purged a massive number of accounts, plus I'm part of some communities on LJ.

But... you know what? I look at my flist and it's so quiet. Maybe people got busier while I was settling in at uni, but I think most of them just moved to DW over time. I look at all the changes LJ has made, despite its users (English users, to be specific) yelling, 'Please don't do it'. And I've come to the conclusion that right now... I really don't like LJ. I don't like what it's doing, I don't like the way its users are being treated and no offence to any Russian speaker in my flist, but I don't like the fact that LJ's homepage once you login is all 95% written in Russian. I understand that lots of Russian people use LJ, but unfortunately I cannot understand Russian (I sound like the bad guy in Iron Man 2, lol). LJ's homepage has no use to me, except to check the last three comments on my entries and possibly checking a birthday or two. Not to mention the changes to the comments, which have possibly killed half (if not all) the roleplaying communities on LJ.

The people at Dreamwidth really care about their users and they have already tweaked the code around (it was originally the same code as LJ) so that is can do more neat things that LJ can't - or, technically, that LJ could do, but doesn't. Which makes me think: why is LJ not making those changes in the first place, instead of redesigning comments pages, which is the last thing we want or need? This question led me to think that maybe LJ isn't doing these things... because the people that now run it couldn't care less.

I've done my research on DW, and after reading other users' reasoning here, I have decided that my next post will probably be there. My username is chibichan, just like here. :) If you guys already have an account there, then comment to this post and I will add you on DW, too!

I will be crossposting entries to LJ, too. I will still check my LJ flist and post in communities I'm a member of. I'm not sure if I will disable comments here or not, though it would be nice to have them all in once place. I'll start importing my journal to DW soon, too, so I won't lose anything. :D (That was the biggest thing that prevented me from moving earlier.)

I hope to find you guys on DW, too. Right now it's in open beta, so you can create a free account without needing an invite code. :D Alternatively, you could still comment on my entries using OpenID (everyone on LJ has one). We'll see next time.

Comments

[falkner]

Adding you on DW, I'm falkner over there. I don't use it for posting, but I do check the f-list from time to time.

My friends list on LJ is quiet, too, but even though a lot of people have made accounts on DW, they aren't updating those journals either. I feel as if most of my friends have become people who don't like to blog about their lives anymore, preferring things like Twitter and Tumblr, that while being nice, are so... fleeting. Stuff you post on there slides away so quickly, it really doesn't feel as nice as having a personal journal, sigh.

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll add you back right away!

I agree with you wholeheartedly. It makes me really sad, tbh. I'm one of those people who loves blogging and reading my friends' blogs. Personally, I wouldn't even feel half as satisfied if I just tweeted a couple of lines about my life (or my fandoms) every day... as weird as it sounds, I need a place to rant properly. Writing things down really helps me get what's bothering me out of my system and suddenly I feel so much better. If I didn't have a journal, I'd probably go crazy.

[royalbk.livejournal.com]

Seconding the user above me - I am very much active however my life is kinda quiet just as planned and no one seems to want to fangirl with me on anything on my F-list anymore.

RL seems to have killed everything anime-related. *sad panda*

I have a DW account, however I rarely if ever check it out. Everything is so quiet there. Added you - also royalbk there! <3

Despite all the critiques, LJ is still my favorite though I'm kinda thinking of moving my older entries there too because I have the feeling that LJ might suddenly have an access of madness and do something intensely stupid. Already catering for the Russian community almost exclusively is giving me a bad taste though they've done nothing to put me off too much. Yet

...

Do you have a tumblr by any chance? I fangirl there so much these days that it's taken precedence over LJ when I first open the computer.

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

I agree... and it seems to have happened so suddenly, too. Everyone was blogging so much just over a year ago - and now most people seem to have disappeared from LJ because of RL. I probably shouldn't be the one to talk, seeing as I disappeared during the year to adjust to uni and then I come back and wonder where everyone is

Thank you! I'll add you on DW right away! <3

You know, I have been fearing the same thing, too... That's another reason why I'm importing my entries and comments on DW. I don't think LJ will suddenly disappear, but they are making so many changes without warning the users - they just suddenly change stuff leaving the users to 'deal with it', but really, they're just pissing people off this way. It's kind of ironic, seeing as the internet should be a place for freedom and LJ in particular should be a place where people are heard... but maybe I'm just thinking too much about it.

I do have a Tumblr, I just never use 'cause I don't understand how Tumblr works XD; But anyway, I'm chibichan91 (http://chibichan91.tumblr.com/) over there :D

[lingers.livejournal.com]

I'm still posting on LJ, but crossposting to DW. Even though I've added most of the people I know to dreamwidth, either becauset hey have both or have moved there, it's the same as everyone else has commented, that people just aren't posting anymore. It's all about the micro-blogging these days, but it's been like that for the last two years, tbh. Lots of people who used to blog on LJ that I know of tend to use tumblr to post snippets about their lives instead of full blogs, which works, but tumblr is so multi-functional (since you could do what I do, and blog pictures and photosets, or microblog, it's completely open, it's not dedicated to one thing).

Both my friends lists on LJ and DW are very quiet: DW more so because I don't follow any communities, and LJ, I do, though that is generally what I see...

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

Mh, it makes really sad to see this happening. I wish people would go back to 'old school' blogging rather than micro-blogging. I've said it already, but personally I wouldn't feel half as satisfied with micro-blogging than I do with 'normal' blogging.

I do think that DW might be a bit silent because it's still young - it's been in open beta for just a year or so, after all. But LJ has been around for about 10 years, it shouldn't be this silent... which makes me think that some people here must be moving to DW... I'll just have to be patient and hope DW becomes as populated as LJ (was?) over time. :)

[lingers.livejournal.com]

I agree! It's one of the reasons I still blog. I like venting somewhere, with people I trust, you generally can't do that with current micro blogging sites. Thing is, unfortunately I don't think many new people come round to it, since they've had experience with microblogging first...

It's possible, but it is three years old (opened in 2009), and even though nearly everyone migrated to DW, it's mostly RP that that's effected (it's pretty obvious when you look at communities like dear-mun on lj, it's practicaly empty now wearas business is booming on DW). I hope so, though. :(

[kanki-yamato.livejournal.com]

Devo ammettere che non me l'aspettavo proprio!Mi hai colto di sorpresa!O___O
Ho anche io un account su DW (yelena_zaltana) ma non sono mai riuscita ad abituarmi a DW...=/
Cmq ti ho aggiunta,così non ci perderemo di vista!;D

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

Per caso non sei riuscita ad abituarti per il layout di DW? Perché ho recentemente trovato un modo per usare i layouts di LJ su DW e ora sto usando lo stesso layout che ho su LJ :D

Ti ho aggiunta anch'io! ♥

[kanki-yamato.livejournal.com]

Forse è uno dei motivi,in effetti sono così abituata a quelli di LJ che mi sembra strano usarne di diversi!XD
O forse perchè è in inglese ed ancora non ho trovato il modo per mettermelo in Italiano così da capire meglio che c'è scritto...@_@'

Awh,grazie mille!♥

[loving-dream.livejournal.com]

I've often thought about just giving up on blogging because no one ever even updates their journals or anything like that anymore. :/

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I could never give up blogging, even if I was the only human being on the planet still blogging. XD I often have no one to talk to in real life, so writing down my thoughts and rants (even fandom-related ones) on my blog really makes me feel better. That's why I need a place like LJ or DW.

Starting from scratch on DW can be a bit intimidating, but it's kind of fun and even beneficial to a certain extent - I needed to clean my f-list from dead journals and communities, but never found the time to do so, and now DW is a nice fresh start. I feel I can finally make some fandom friends that I always wanted to make on LJ, but for some reason or another couldn't... I also feel strangely less shy on DW... maybe it's because it's still a bit small and even fandom communities don't have thousands of members (yet). LJ communities have always been too overwhelming for me and I could never keep up with them.

Anyway, I've been babbling. XD If you ever decide to move to DW though, let me know! :)

[loving-dream.livejournal.com]

So...dumb question...how do you work the captcha on Dreamwidth? I'm thinking of just crossposting my entries...haha.

[mist-ball.livejournal.com]

Amber redirected me here. (Well, I was looking through her post and she said she read this post of yours so I came here as well.) I've been blogging for so long (not as long as you though :3) at LJ and I treasure all the memories and friends I've made via that. However, while I was at college, I guessed things changed too and I couldn't catch up. :( Actually, I just created a DW account days ago because I felt that LJ was rather quiet and most of my friends had moved to DW. However, I haven't really got the urge to move everything yet because my laptop's KO-ed and in this comp I'm using, there is no folders of mine or images... :'(

Btw, I'm skyness@DW so do add me there but I'll need some time to move everything. :) May I ask how you imported all your entries/icons/even comments? :) And your DW layout is gorgeous. *_*

[chibichan.livejournal.com]

This year has been pretty busy for me too and when I came back to LJ, everything was very quiet... which is one of the reasons why I decided to move. Also, for some reason I'm worried that something might happen to LJ and that I might lose all my entries... so having a backup at DW is somewhat reassuring. XD;

I just added you! :) Importing your journal is very easy: just go to Organize -> Import Content and start an import, DW will guide you through it. :) Also, you can use your LJ layout on DW, too! I just followed this tutorial (http://starlit.dreamwidth.org/272.html) - it can look scary at first, but it's quite easy. :) And aw, thank you! ♥