WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.

[matt1993]

(music tag should be: "Kid Icarus: Uprising soundtrack - The War's End (if you see scary/apocalyptic video game music in the music tag, that usually means I'm worried about something. But sometimes it doesn't.)")

Apparently I just posted one of the most popular entries on LJ. Which I guess is pretty easy to do if I'm one of the only people still posting to LJ at all...

So, hi new people! Sorry for all the inside jokes that would've made much more sense^{[citation needed]} if you'd been here 7 or 8 years ago. Before you go asking me what "HWHD" or "WTCN" or whatever means, visit my FAQ and glossary of Matt1993isms (taking into account that the former is fairly up-to-date but the latter was last updated in 2011).

Anyway, onto the important stuff:

I THINK I read all of your comments. I know why people are moving to DreamWidth (well, NOW I know, but until now I'd heard a lot of seemingly different reasons and wasn't sure which, if any, were accurate), and I agree that it would be a good idea for me to create a backup journal on DreamWidth (or maybe another site) because who knows how long LJ will be around and how long anyone else will be on LJ at the rate things are going.

But at the same time, LiveJournal has been one of my favorite hobbies, if not my #1 favorite hobby, for over a third of my life (I'm 23, turning 24 in July, and have been active since February 2009 when I was 15½). So I am NOT going to leave LJ entirely. There is no way I can - it's just too much of a part of who I am, and I really hope that one day it goes back to the way it was.

I've finally decided that my plan is to have a LiveJournal AND a DreamWidth (or a LiveJournal AND an account on some other journal site). In fact, I would start creating my backup account RIGHT NOW if it weren't for the fact that I need to decide what site to backup my LJ to.

I'm going to need a site that has most, if not all, of the features that I use on LiveJournal - I want to make my DreamWidth (or whatever) similar enough to my LJ that it will be REALLY easy for me to adjust to using both.

This means I want to find a site with:
- A way to make TWO accounts. I've been wanting to make a separate journal on LJ for dreams for a long time - now that THIS just happened, when I finally get around to making a LJ dream journal, I'd want to have a backup of that on DreamWidth or whatever as well.
- The ability to use at least 116 userpics, because that's how many "regular" userpics I have right now. (I'd VERY strongly prefer the limit be significantly more than 116, though.)
- A way to make a profile and interests list similar to what LJ has.
- A friends page.
- A way to automatically backup my old entries and the comments on them to the new journal - with the mood, music, location, repost buttons, images, videos, tags, timestamps, friends-only status, custom friends groups, and probably something else I forgot intact. (A lot of you said DreamWidth lets you import entries and comments with most of these intact.) Or, at the very least, I need it to be possible to manually add whichever of these things would not automatically be transferred. (cactus_rs, you said that I'd lose images and videos - you don't mean that images and videos can't be used at all in entries on DW, do you? :( Though I guess I could just have the videos be replaced with the URLs for them if I have to...)
- A way to upload images similar to ScrapBook - and with them having the same privacy settings as entries.
- A way to have comments be screened.
- A way to make the journal style similar to the one I'm using here. By this I just mean I don't want it to be TOO drastically different - I think any yellow layout would work. And this only applies to my journal - other pages on whatever site I backup my LJ to don't have to look anything like LJ in terms of design as long as the features I need are there.
- Probably something else I forgot. I'll edit this entry if I remember anything else.

How many of these features does DreamWidth have? Does another site have more of these features? Am I making any sense whatsoever? (I've been misunderstood a lot before. I REALLY hope that doesn't happen here...)

Comments

[paradisekendra.livejournal.com]

Your site wishlist is EXACTLY what my wishlist is. And I'm trying to figure out a way to backup LJ community entries that have a ton of icons/artwork/etc. I haven't figured that out .. just yet.

[matt1993]

:)

I just hope that it's somehow possible to make a nearly-exact copy of my LJ on DreamWidth, even if I have to do some parts of it manually. (I was even expecting at one point that I might have to copy all 1,000+ of my entries and their comments over one by one! But seems like I probably don't have to do that on DW. May have to look at each entry one-by-one to manually adjust things that don't get copied over, though.)

I really hope DreamWidth at least has a way to include images or videos of any kind in entries. I'm planning on maybe taking a week or so to calm down (even though I'm so upset right now that it'll probably take at least 20 YEARS for me to completely calm down...) before I decide what site to back up my journal to, if any.

driveby

[ironymaiden]

Dreamwidth has everything. I'm on mobile right now, so linking is awkward, but I have the same username on DW with a bunch of public posts that will answer your questions or link to posts that will.
I got a paid account and the only thing I lost in the move were youtube embeds.

[pathvain-aelien.livejournal.com]

I think DW is probably the best option for you, but you can definitely keep your LJ and use both if it doesn't have ALL of the same features. :) And it may have other features that LJ doesn't that you would like. It's okay. :)

[cactus_rs]

You can absolutely use images and videos on DW, but if you were hosting them on LJ, that's going to be a bit of a pickle (unless you've sent your scrapbook to public, I guess).

DW is identical to LJ functionality except that "adding" someone is no longer automatically "I want to read them AND let them read me." You can follow someone's journal without letting them read yours, or you can let them read yours without adding them to your reading page.

Importing is really easy (it's just going to take HOURS at the moment because EVERYONE IS IMPORTING). These days I update directly to DW (via a client), and I have DW set to automatically cross-post to LJ. That way my backup is automatically updated alongside my main journal. If you're updating in the web interface, there's a little ticky box for crossposting (assuming you connected DW to another account, but you have to do that to be able to import anyway).

Like ironymaiden said, DW has basically everything you want in your list. I'll go through each point on your list:


- A way to make TWO accounts.

Yes. I have my regular journal and a Tarot journal both here and on DW.


- The ability to use at least 116 userpics

A regular paid account has space for 100 userpics; a premium account has space for
250.


- A way to make a profile and interests list similar to what LJ has.

Identical to LJ.


- A friends page.

Identical to LJ, except I can't figure out how to add myself to my friends page (called your "reading page").


- A way to automatically backup my old entries and the comments on them to the new journal - with the mood, music, location, repost buttons, images, videos, tags, timestamps, friends-only status, custom friends groups, and probably something else I forgot intact.

You can automatically crosspost entries, and that will keep almost everything you want here. I'm not sure about repost buttons (since I don't use them), and it will keep images/videos as long as they're hosted somewhere both places have access to. Everything else it will keep.


- A way to upload images similar to ScrapBook - and with them having the same privacy settings as entries.

This is the only thing that seems to be significantly different. You can upload photos in the most basic of ways and set them to public/friends/private, but you can't organize them into albums like you can with LJ's scrapbook. (Yet. I get the impression they're working on the photo hosting functionality, so this might change in the future.)


- A way to have comments be screened.

Identical to LJ.


- A way to make the journal style similar to the one I'm using here. By this I just mean I don't want it to be TOO drastically different - I think any yellow layout would work.

There aren't as many journal themes/styles on DW as on LJ, but there might well be more variety in the future now that more people are moving over there permanently. At any rate, you can choose any style you like and then customize the colors to make it as yellow as you wish. :) There's a pastel yellow one called "Poppy Fields" under "Base Styles" if you want to start there.

[matt1993]

My ScrapBook albums are anything BUT organized anyway (my images pretty much only make sense in the entries and comments I use them in, and sometimes not even then!), so DreamWidth not having albums isn't going to be an issue.

I did think of some more things that are in some of my entries that I want to make sure I can still have: polls, LJ-cuts (DW-cuts?), at least two sticky entries (because my list of userpics by order added is one and my glossary is another, although the latter is really just an entry with the date set to 2024), a way to postpone entries until a certain date (because I use that pretty often nowadays), and a profile bio as long as the one I have right now. And a pony and a Nintendo Switch. :P

[cactus_rs]

You can still have polls and cuts. LJ legacy code works on DW, too, so you don't have to learn new markup tags. You can have two sticky entries, but only two. There's no limit on your profile, though.

[matt1993]

Yay!

[paradisekendra.livejournal.com]

Ooops, okay forget that I asked about Dreamwidth in my other reply. It doesn't have a way to include photos/videos in your entries? Huh, that's strange.

It's not so much my entries that I'm most worried about losing. It's everyone else's! Yikes.

[matt1993]

Since I still haven't set up a DW account yet, I'm not the one to ask about what features DW does or does not have.

So don't quote me on any of this, but from what I've heard so far, I'm about 99% and 50% sure that images and videos, respectively, can be included in entries - but it's possible that they won't automatically be copied over and will have to be added manually. And it's possible that videos can't be embedded in entries on DW but can still be linked to. (Or maybe they can be embedded after all. I don't know, ask someone who already has a DreamWidth account! :) )

I was worried about losing both my entries and everyone else's at first... though that was when I thought it was possible that LJ would shut down entirely. I had no idea at all what was going on at first. :P

[padabegood2me.livejournal.com]

If you have a Dreamwidth, you can import your LJ entries to DW pretty easily. You just go on this link and follow the steps. :) We should give each other a follow on there. I am mostly there right now. My username on there is mooseygirl in case you do not know. I hope to hear from you soon. :)

[matt1993]

I don't have a DW yet, but I decided I would eventually. (Don't get me wrong, I definitely still like LJ - the main reason I'm going to make a backup on DreamWidth is just because so many other people are moving to it now and I want to be able to keep up with them.)

I plan on waiting until I'm feeling a little less upset about all of this before I make a DW. (Since I'm already feeling a tiny bit better, maybe I'll set up my account this weekend when I know I'll probably have plenty of time.) :)

[padabegood2me.livejournal.com]

I understand. If you do, please, remember that I am there and I want to follow you. :)

[matt1993]

:)