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Jul. 25th, 2015
Dreamwidth: The Last Stop?
Jul. 25th, 2015 08:35 pmI thought I might have been banned from "Latest Things", Dreamwidth's page for all the latest posts. My journal entries were not showing up. I considered that it might have been because of that episode when a fellow Dreamwidth blogger friended me. It was a gay couple, and I privately mused my disappointment that there are not more regular straight people around. When they suddenly and quietly defriended me, I suspected that they were close to the administrators and perhaps had access to private journal entries. I should know better than to think one enjoys true privacy online, but it is such an attractive fancy that I cannot help giving in to it. Now I wonder if this might be why my posts are not showing up on Latest Things, as a kind of shunning.
The funny thing is, immediately after that episode with the gay couple, I made a point of making sure that my entries would not show up for the browsing of the general public. I concluded that there was no real hope of connecting with others; so, why court temptation when nothing can come from it? Then, recently, I had a change of heart. I did not feel better about my social prospects, but I thought it was silly to make Dreamwidth seem deader than it is. Moreover, even if I cannot make friends, nor find a lover, I would not mind more readers. It seemed silly to hide myself. I am quite obscure enough.
It was at this point that I discovered that my posts could not show up on Latest Things, not even when I want them to. However, I just now saw one of my entries there, and I suppose that I was letting my paranoia get the better of me again. Maybe your posts do not make it into the queue if you use the 'update' option, which I commonly do, since I seldom post anything immediately without giving myself an opportunity to revise and try to pick up the level of the writing, along with the level of my thinking.
This got me thinking, though, about the possibility of losing Dreamwidth, for whatever reason. Where would I go next? I have only lived on these LJ-type websites, and Dreamwidth is the last one. One could argue that I might just have to grow up and use WordPress or some such outfit. These LJ-type sites were always geared toward young students, both high school and college. However, the reason why I was content to stay on these sites is because they always had much more social life, at least until the last few years. To go to WordPress or some similar, more adult, place would have meant adhering to the dry exercise of maintaining a solitary blog with nary a visitor. As it so happens, this is the dead, sterile state into which my e-life has fallen anyway.
So, if I lost Dreamwidth, why not go to WordPress? Maybe I would if I were a playful, hopeful forty. At this point, however, I think I would simply give up on the blogging game altogether. It was fun, and it picked me up when I was down, but I think I would have to recede back into my hardcover journals, the old pen and paper, collecting my quotations and making the occasional banal note on the passing of my sorry days.
So, why not quit now? Habit, I guess. It is also appreciably easier to type than to write in longhand, and I like being able to keep longer excerpts from my books. I also like keeping excerpts from online news sources, with just a couple of clicks. It is just that if I were to lose Dreamwidth now, these excerpts might not be enough incentive for me to start shop elsewhere. I think I would take it as a sign that it is time to put away adolescent fancies: nobody is reading, and I am not going to make friends or meet any sexy girls. Books will be my social life, and my hardcover journal my friend - with a few cats to keep me on my feet.
The funny thing is, immediately after that episode with the gay couple, I made a point of making sure that my entries would not show up for the browsing of the general public. I concluded that there was no real hope of connecting with others; so, why court temptation when nothing can come from it? Then, recently, I had a change of heart. I did not feel better about my social prospects, but I thought it was silly to make Dreamwidth seem deader than it is. Moreover, even if I cannot make friends, nor find a lover, I would not mind more readers. It seemed silly to hide myself. I am quite obscure enough.
It was at this point that I discovered that my posts could not show up on Latest Things, not even when I want them to. However, I just now saw one of my entries there, and I suppose that I was letting my paranoia get the better of me again. Maybe your posts do not make it into the queue if you use the 'update' option, which I commonly do, since I seldom post anything immediately without giving myself an opportunity to revise and try to pick up the level of the writing, along with the level of my thinking.
This got me thinking, though, about the possibility of losing Dreamwidth, for whatever reason. Where would I go next? I have only lived on these LJ-type websites, and Dreamwidth is the last one. One could argue that I might just have to grow up and use WordPress or some such outfit. These LJ-type sites were always geared toward young students, both high school and college. However, the reason why I was content to stay on these sites is because they always had much more social life, at least until the last few years. To go to WordPress or some similar, more adult, place would have meant adhering to the dry exercise of maintaining a solitary blog with nary a visitor. As it so happens, this is the dead, sterile state into which my e-life has fallen anyway.
So, if I lost Dreamwidth, why not go to WordPress? Maybe I would if I were a playful, hopeful forty. At this point, however, I think I would simply give up on the blogging game altogether. It was fun, and it picked me up when I was down, but I think I would have to recede back into my hardcover journals, the old pen and paper, collecting my quotations and making the occasional banal note on the passing of my sorry days.
So, why not quit now? Habit, I guess. It is also appreciably easier to type than to write in longhand, and I like being able to keep longer excerpts from my books. I also like keeping excerpts from online news sources, with just a couple of clicks. It is just that if I were to lose Dreamwidth now, these excerpts might not be enough incentive for me to start shop elsewhere. I think I would take it as a sign that it is time to put away adolescent fancies: nobody is reading, and I am not going to make friends or meet any sexy girls. Books will be my social life, and my hardcover journal my friend - with a few cats to keep me on my feet.