Dreamwidth comm: thoughts
Jul. 30th, 2011 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aceeccentricHey y'all :) So lately people have been talking about starting a new ace community on Dreamwidth for asexual, demisexual, grey-asexual and other folk to talk. The advantage being that with a community that we created and moderated ourselves, it'd be easier to shut down any attacks than it would be on other sites.
Below are just some thoughts I've had about creating a community. I'm very curious about other people's thoughts and opinions. I'm pretty sure, also, that I have anonymous and Open ID commenting enabled.
Also, just to warn y'all, I'm going to be largely unavailable from the 2nd to the 7th -- my girlfriend is coming to visit! :D So unless some people decide to help mod (or, babysit mod for just those days) I don't want to start the community while I won't be able to check on it.
Oh, and I have more Dreamwidth invite codes for anyone who still needs them. You can leave a way to contact you in a comment or leave an Ask through Tumblr (I have anon asks enabled). If you only have an e-mail to have the code sent to, I promise not to do anything nefarious with your address.
Name
Right now the suggested names for the community (that I've seen) are Group_X (suggested by captainheartless and modified with an underscore by various people) and acecommunity (suggested by epochryphal). ETA: acesabroad has also been suggested (byshiyiya). ETA2: ace_umbrella also came up as a possibility (theletterfour).
I was going to make a poll but I don't know right now whether I want to buy a paid account, so instead I'll just create a dedicated name thread where people can comment with other name suggestions or which one of the suggestions they like.
Purpose
The main purpose would be to create a community space to talk about ace continuum things that would be safer than the current Tumblr environment. People could get to know each other and know attacks against the community within the community could be frozen, deleted, blocked, etc., more easily than the "asexual" and other tags on Tumblr, which anybody can use.
If anybody has any other ideas about giving the community more of a focus, leave them below.
Open Threads
One thing I would like to do is have a weekly Open Thread. A post that's just a free-for-all in the comments, where people can talk about anything, get to know each other better, and ease into the community. Probably each post could also have a specific prompt to get people talking about something in particular (favorite jokes, videos, candies, etc.).
Other Posts
One thing I like about Tumblr is the way it can mix personal posts and discussion-oriented posts, so I think it'd be nice to allow either here. Being able to talk about something personal that you want or need to share with fellow community members. Maybe the guidelines would be to keep them related to the focus of the community and to put long posts or big images behind cuts so as not to clutter up people's reading lists or slow down their load times.
Safe Space Policy
Considering the environment that prompted people wanting an extra space, I think it's important that we write a safe space policy. I've never written one of these before, so I'm not exactly sure how to go about it, but it'd probably include putting trigger warnings on posts, putting potentially triggering material behind cuts, not attacking people's identities, and avoiding derogatory (anti-trans, ableist, ageist, sexist, racist, classist, etc.) attitudes and language.
Also, possibly making entries default to members-only security? I think the Open Threads would necessarily be members-only, for the protection of those who felt comfortable only discussing things in a locked entry. We could ask all entries to be members-only if people wanted things that way.
If anybody wants to help out with this it'd be much appreciated. Anything that gets written would, of course, be posted for people to review and make suggestions or comments on.
Accessibility Policy
The Dreamwidth team seems to be pretty good about coding accessibility into the website. Beyond that I'd like to include warnings and cuts on flashing images or video in case anyone visiting the community might have a seizure because of something like that, and image descriptions on any images included in posts. And maybe summaries or transcripts for videos that people post, because a lot of time videos don't have captions or the option to try auto-captioning (when auto-captioning is even reliable).
Admin
Right now I don't mind starting up and modding the community. I have enough time on my hands to do that, I think (of course I'm saying this before the new semester starts, but last semester wasn't that bad, so…), and I did start a specific discussion about it, so it's only fair. I'd appreciate hearing thoughts on being able to mod from anybody else, even if you'd only be free on the weekends or something.
Membership
Moderated membership doesn't seem like it would work at the moment -- there are a lot of new accounts and little-used accounts (including my own), and I'm not sure how we would "verify" people, since most moderated policies I've seen have been based on the age of the journal and how much activity it's had. But we'd have the option of creating a moderated membership policy if we were having trouble. We could also write up a policy for suspending/banning members if we wanted to have one.
And, of course, offer your own opinions on this.
Design
I figure we could just pick an easy-to-read theme out of the ready-made themes Dreamwidth offers. But if anybody wants to design a layout, banner, icon, or profile, that'd be cool too. I don't know how to do much more than fiddle with layout colors. I'd prefer to pick something neutral colored (like![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
asexual_fandom has).
Tags
I almost forgot about tags! So, tags I can think of off the top of my head:
asexuality, demisexuality, grey-asexuality, attraction, sexuality, relationships, dating, romantic relationships, zucchini, community, coming out, family, invisibility, gender, media, video, images, representation, pride, merchandise, meet-ups, open thread, mod post, sex, erasure, tagging (for a master tag post where people could request new tags?).
ETA: Also suggested are discussion, intersectionality, tag request (in place of requesting things at a master tag post), and 101, if we wanted to put 101-type entries into the comm.
I know there should be more but I'm not sure how to phrase them or what they should be exactly. Like, aromantic and wtfromantic are adjectives but everything else is a noun … I'm probably the only one who would even notice that though.
That's it for now!
Below are just some thoughts I've had about creating a community. I'm very curious about other people's thoughts and opinions. I'm pretty sure, also, that I have anonymous and Open ID commenting enabled.
Also, just to warn y'all, I'm going to be largely unavailable from the 2nd to the 7th -- my girlfriend is coming to visit! :D So unless some people decide to help mod (or, babysit mod for just those days) I don't want to start the community while I won't be able to check on it.
Oh, and I have more Dreamwidth invite codes for anyone who still needs them. You can leave a way to contact you in a comment or leave an Ask through Tumblr (I have anon asks enabled). If you only have an e-mail to have the code sent to, I promise not to do anything nefarious with your address.
Name
Right now the suggested names for the community (that I've seen) are Group_X (suggested by captainheartless and modified with an underscore by various people) and acecommunity (suggested by epochryphal). ETA: acesabroad has also been suggested (by
shiyiya). ETA2: ace_umbrella also came up as a possibility (theletterfour).I was going to make a poll but I don't know right now whether I want to buy a paid account, so instead I'll just create a dedicated name thread where people can comment with other name suggestions or which one of the suggestions they like.
Purpose
The main purpose would be to create a community space to talk about ace continuum things that would be safer than the current Tumblr environment. People could get to know each other and know attacks against the community within the community could be frozen, deleted, blocked, etc., more easily than the "asexual" and other tags on Tumblr, which anybody can use.
If anybody has any other ideas about giving the community more of a focus, leave them below.
Open Threads
One thing I would like to do is have a weekly Open Thread. A post that's just a free-for-all in the comments, where people can talk about anything, get to know each other better, and ease into the community. Probably each post could also have a specific prompt to get people talking about something in particular (favorite jokes, videos, candies, etc.).
Other Posts
One thing I like about Tumblr is the way it can mix personal posts and discussion-oriented posts, so I think it'd be nice to allow either here. Being able to talk about something personal that you want or need to share with fellow community members. Maybe the guidelines would be to keep them related to the focus of the community and to put long posts or big images behind cuts so as not to clutter up people's reading lists or slow down their load times.
Safe Space Policy
Considering the environment that prompted people wanting an extra space, I think it's important that we write a safe space policy. I've never written one of these before, so I'm not exactly sure how to go about it, but it'd probably include putting trigger warnings on posts, putting potentially triggering material behind cuts, not attacking people's identities, and avoiding derogatory (anti-trans, ableist, ageist, sexist, racist, classist, etc.) attitudes and language.
Also, possibly making entries default to members-only security? I think the Open Threads would necessarily be members-only, for the protection of those who felt comfortable only discussing things in a locked entry. We could ask all entries to be members-only if people wanted things that way.
If anybody wants to help out with this it'd be much appreciated. Anything that gets written would, of course, be posted for people to review and make suggestions or comments on.
Accessibility Policy
The Dreamwidth team seems to be pretty good about coding accessibility into the website. Beyond that I'd like to include warnings and cuts on flashing images or video in case anyone visiting the community might have a seizure because of something like that, and image descriptions on any images included in posts. And maybe summaries or transcripts for videos that people post, because a lot of time videos don't have captions or the option to try auto-captioning (when auto-captioning is even reliable).
Admin
Right now I don't mind starting up and modding the community. I have enough time on my hands to do that, I think (of course I'm saying this before the new semester starts, but last semester wasn't that bad, so…), and I did start a specific discussion about it, so it's only fair. I'd appreciate hearing thoughts on being able to mod from anybody else, even if you'd only be free on the weekends or something.
Membership
Moderated membership doesn't seem like it would work at the moment -- there are a lot of new accounts and little-used accounts (including my own), and I'm not sure how we would "verify" people, since most moderated policies I've seen have been based on the age of the journal and how much activity it's had. But we'd have the option of creating a moderated membership policy if we were having trouble. We could also write up a policy for suspending/banning members if we wanted to have one.
And, of course, offer your own opinions on this.
Design
I figure we could just pick an easy-to-read theme out of the ready-made themes Dreamwidth offers. But if anybody wants to design a layout, banner, icon, or profile, that'd be cool too. I don't know how to do much more than fiddle with layout colors. I'd prefer to pick something neutral colored (like
asexual_fandom has).Tags
I almost forgot about tags! So, tags I can think of off the top of my head:
asexuality, demisexuality, grey-asexuality, attraction, sexuality, relationships, dating, romantic relationships, zucchini, community, coming out, family, invisibility, gender, media, video, images, representation, pride, merchandise, meet-ups, open thread, mod post, sex, erasure, tagging (for a master tag post where people could request new tags?).
ETA: Also suggested are discussion, intersectionality, tag request (in place of requesting things at a master tag post), and 101, if we wanted to put 101-type entries into the comm.
I know there should be more but I'm not sure how to phrase them or what they should be exactly. Like, aromantic and wtfromantic are adjectives but everything else is a noun … I'm probably the only one who would even notice that though.
That's it for now!
