sunshine_challenge | Journal Housekeeping

Check out the Master List to find links to all of the 2020 challenge posts.

As the

sunshine_challenge draws near, we invite everyone to take a look around their journals and take care of any tidying they might wish to complete before having new visitors next month. Of course, there is no right or wrong way to keep your journal. The possibilities are nearly endless and you can customize your space as you see fit.

As you peruse this checklist, please feel free to mark each item as being Up to Date, In Progress, or Not Applicable to your journals.

Many of us may benefit from the friendly nudge to neaten our spaces, but if you are already up to date, then please still use this post as a place to say hello and investigate new-to-you journals ... you may even have additional tips to share!

1. Transformative Works Policy + AO3 Profiles
There is no right or wrong way to feel about other people making transformative works, but having your feelings clearly listed in your various fannish profiles is a great start to more fannish interactions and collaborations — it’s also a great way to avoid awkward confrontations should someone incorrectly assume your stance! If you have an AO3 account, do you have anything on that profile page?

2. Friending Policy
Have you publicly stated your circle policy anywhere? Do you automatically add people back if they’ve added you, or do you want people to comment and introduce themselves first? Are all your fannish activities public anyway and only private stuff is access-locked? Are you only comfortable interacting with people through communities? Do you welcome people commenting on any random journal entry? What are your personal commenting habits, and do you feel it would be helpful to have that posted as well?

3. Sidebar + Profile Links
Do you have an AO3 or Tumblr page that people might like to visit? Do you have links to those accounts sites posted where people can easily find them? Your stickied About Me or Master List posts might be some places to link your other accounts. Your profile page also allows you to connect other services and list your account names there. You can also list links on your journal sidebar so that people visiting your journal can find your tags and links alongside your journal entries.

4. Interests (in profile) + Introductory “About Me” Sticky Page
Do you have an “About Me" page sticked to the top of your journal or in your journal profile? This can be a great place to list your interests (fandom or otherwise) and anything you'd like to share up front (pronouns, important tags or posts, etc.). Have you updated your interests on your profile page so that people can see at a glance what interests you have in common? People can search for journals by their listed interests, so this can help new friends find your page! Is your journal a fandom-only space, or do you also have personal posts and interests included? Having an About Me section on your profile or as a stickied post can really help new visitors decide if you both share interests in common, and can help them navigate your page and interact with you in more meaningful ways.

5. Master Lists
Some folks like to keep master lists linking all of their their fanworks, meta posts, fanwork rec posts … maybe they do weekly book/tv reviews? A master list can help organize your journal and allow people to find your content more easily. If you have any master lists on your journal, here is your call to make sure they are up to date and that no links are broken!

6. Post Tags
Do you use tags on your posts? Do you tag your fannish content only, or do you also tag your personal content? There is no right or wrong way to organize your posts, but using tags can help other people find your content in order to interact with you more easily. You can find more information about DW tags here at their FAQ page to see how you can best use tags on your journal.

7. Current Icons
Icons are a very quick way to visually advertise your interests to other users. Dreamwidth allows you to label your icons with keywords, comments, and descriptions.

The keywords help both you and the website know at a glance which image you’d like to use when creating a post or comment on the site. PRO TIP: if you edit the keywords on your icons after using them for a while, Dreamwidth will change past entries and comments to display your default icon unless you choose to rename keywords when editing.

The comments are a great place to give credit to the icon maker and/or the artist your icon image originated with. It’s not only polite, but it also gives people visiting your page an easy way to find more of the content you both enjoy!

Lastly, the icon descriptions allow you to describe what is happening in your icon visually. This is used to add a text description of the content of the icon, which shows as "alt" text for blind users and some other forms of assistive technology.

8. Access Filters
Have you remembered to access-lock that personal post about your family or your job that you might not want strangers seeing? Dreamwidth gives you the option to create posting filters that allow you to decide which members can read each post that you make. Perhaps you might leave your fandom posts public so that all users can read them. Perhaps you might lock your personal posts so that only users whom you’ve added to your circle can read them (Access List). Perhaps you create more specific filters so that certain posts can only be read by a selected group of users that you’ve added to a custom filter. Here is a post discussing how to set up access filters for your journal.

________

Once you’ve finished tidying, leave a comment to this post saying you’ve done it! Include a link to your pages if you feel comfortable doing so, and let everyone know if you are "Ready for visitors!" If you have questions about any tips that we’ve posted, please don’t be afraid to ask for help. We’re all here to make friends and improve fandom. Also, if you have any tips and tricks to add to this post, please do share!

Most importantly, please check through the comments and go visit new journals, comment on their shiny posts, and maybe make a new friend or two. We encourage everyone here to aim to comment on two new journals if they are able (of course, you are welcome to do more!). ♥