FIRST DRAFT OF DREAMWIDTH LEXICON

[ivorygates]

This exists because I am an enormous dork. An enormous *picky* dork. And I was typing along and got to the phrase: "Interactions Menu" and realized that if *I* didn't know what it was (I had to go ask) people suddenly showing up on the site with gun and camera in a week or so wouldn't have any bigger clue. So I figured maybe we could do a little lexicon (because Momma rho hates the word "dictionary") of the really confusing stuff. At the bottom, there's a question that doesn't really fit into the dictionary format and may need to become a FAQ, but it showed up in my "confusing terms" solicitation.



DREAMWIDTH LEXICON

Site-scheme pages: These are any pages on the site that you can't change the look of (aside from choosing a "Site Scheme" from the "Display" tab on the "My Account Settings" page). All of the Site scheme pages except "Lynx" display the Dreamwidth logo.

Interactions Menu: The strip on the left of the Profile Page with the icons for options like Modify, Access, Send Message, Track.

Archive: This displays past entries of a journal or community by year or by month.

Navigation Strip: This strip displays at the top of your journal or community page and can also display at the top of your Reading Page and the top of other journals and communities in your Circle if you make that selection from the "My Account Settings" page. This strip always provides hotlinks for "Home" "Post" "Reading Page" and "Inbox" — the other hotlinks it displays at the top center of the strip will change depending on what page of the site you are viewing. At the top right of the strip there is a box into which you can type a search term, a pulldown menu that allows you to choose "Interest", "Region", "Site & User", "FAQ", "Email", or "IM Info" as your search area. Beside the pulldown menu there's a button marked "Go".

RTE: This stands for "Rich Text Editor" which is something that lets you add formatting and pictures to text when you post an entry without knowing or using HTML tags. The RTE can only be used when posting an entry, not making a comment. The RTE can tend to be a little temperamental.

HTML editor: This is sometimes also called Plain Text, where you add <angle brackets> around your HTML tags (manually) when you post either an entry or a comment to change the look of your text.

Subscribe: Journals that you Subscribe to or that Subscribe to you are the journals of people who can read your Public/Unlocked/Open entries, and you can read theirs. Once you Subscribe to a Journal or a Community, it appears on your Reading List.

Access/Give Access/Have Access: When you give someone Access to your Journal, they can read your Private/Locked/Protected entries. They can't read entries you have further protected by using an Access Filter, if they are not on that Filter. You are not automatically able to read their Private/Locked/Protected entries in return: they must choose to give you Access to their Journal.

Reading Page: Your reading page is where you read the latest entries of your Circle. Your "Circle" is all the people, communities, and feeds with whom and with which you have a relationship of any kind.

OpenID: OpenID is a way for you to take the account you've created from another site that supports OpenID and use it to log in to Dreamwidth Studios with an OpenID account. There's more information on creating and using OpenID accounts on Dreamwidth in FAQ #62


HOW DO I...?

Say "may I subscribe to AND get access from you?" at the same time.

Comments

[rainbow]

Hmmm. Well, you don't have to ask to subscribe to someone, since all you're reading is what they've made public, any more than you have to ask permission to go to blog x and read the public posts entries by god...

So I'd say if you want someone to give you access, you ask them for it?

[pne]

My thoughts, too -- I kind of hoped that permission to subscribe would simply be taken as given and that you would only ask for access, not for permission to subscribe.

[ivorygates]

entries by god... *snicker*

I am not completely sure what the deal is: I think the person asking the question (it's over in my DWJ if you want to see the original post) comes from a different part of LJ culture than I do and it's a matter of a form of etiquette that I'm just totally unfamiliar with and so can't map onto DW forms.

[rainbow]

personally i want god to post more entries.... ;)

re the question, maybe it would be a good idea to make the point that subscribing to someone is like reading a blog -- whatever's public is for public consumption and you don't need permission to read it. if you want to ask someone if you can subscribe to them, you can, but it's not required. To ask for access you can either comment on a public entry and ask or pm and ask for access to their protected content.

maybe i'm in the minotiry, but i don't see why friend/defriend will come over when it's so clearly not the same thing here (which i love. *g*).

[ivorygates]

I'll have to ask God to post more entries the next time I see Her.... *G*

I would really like the whole "high school clique" aspect of friend/defriend to die the death and not become an issue here. But only time will tell.

[azurelunatic]

Yes, there are parts of LJ culture that get all *huffy* over people not asking "Can I add you?" before adding someone. These are generally the same parts that would really like all relationships to be completely mutual.

I sort of understand it intellectually, but don't really trust my emotional understanding of that particular subcultural phenomenon. (Read: I don't get to punch people in the nose through the internet.)

[ivorygates]

We're working on the orbital laser platform and the Ninja Strikeforce honest...