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

[peoppenheimer]

First, a lexicon is a splendid thing; thank you. Second, perhaps I don't understand the question posed at the very end, because the answer seems to me obvious: you write something like “I would like to subscribe to your journal and get access to your private posts; may I?”. What am I missing?

Notes

[zvi]

The Interactions Menu and Navstrip are defined spatially. :(

There are some other things on DW that I don't know the name for but which I feel it would be helpful to have a name.

The "main menu" on the site scheme pages: Create/Organize/Read/Explore. I have been calling it the CORE menu but I know that's unofficial, is there an official term?

Also, the search bar which appears both in the navstrip and on site scheme pages, what is that called?

Also, also, the abbreviated menu which is also available on Site Scheme pages, the one which includes: Post/Reading Page/Inbox/Account Settings/Invite Someone/Help and maybe your icon and the logout button (not sure if that's actually part of the same block or if it's just put next to each other in Tropospherical.)

[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?

[jamie]

You describe site scheme by what it isn't, not what it is....

Interactions menu - strip on the left is visual language, no?

nav strip - visual language again both as 'top of page' as well as 'top center' and 'top right'

the access def: brilliant. clearest description I've seen yet.

should circle be a separate entry? I was expecting it to be.

[healingmirth]

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

I assume the same term also applies to those icons/links when they're associated with the "basic journal info" module on non-profile journal pages, though it may not always be present?

Maybe it is more confusing to refer to something that may or may not be there for a given layout, but I was curious about how to refer to those links before I ever thought about the profile page ones.

[florahart]

I hope comments from watchers are ok.

Unless this will change: subscribe (read on my reading page/list--you use list there, but the language on the site scheme says page) needs differentiating from notifications--the tracked items are still subscriptions (in the notifications tab, they're called subscriptions) which is not the same thing as the reading list, and also the language might carry over anyway.

Also might change, but if it's not going to: to view comments pages with site scheme rather than custom/layout design you uncheck a box that says something about the "app style." I think those app style words might ought to change anyway at some point because they're jargony, but until then, especially if they occur elsewhere, you might add that.

Is the interactions menu also the name of, on my layout, under the default icon, the new icons for change relationship, post, private message, and tell a friend? Your layout doesn't show these, but it's a module option ("basic journal info") in customization. It has similarity with the interactiness, but also is not the same. Does it have a name?

Zvi says CORE menu (and notes that's maybe not the real name), but in vertical site schemes (with stuff down the left rather than across the top), CORE would be a lot less apparent. Also, the Read section has Read: Reading page, Profile, Feeds, Tags, Inbox, and Comments, only some of which are things you read; I'm wondering if that word won't change anyway. I understand that the word Read there isn't what you can control, just if it's staying, it might need explaining, and if it's not, that might be relevant to what to call it

[reginagiraffe]

I always describe "subscribe" in relation to one's reading list. If you subcribe to someone, then their public posts show up when you call up your reading list. If they subscribe you, your public posts show up on their reading list.

Some quick comments

[rho]

"Dictionary" -- I'm not sure when I started hating this wor, but I am happy to do so if required!
Site-scheme pages -- personally, I prefer to call these "main site pages", but that may just be me.
Navigation Strip -- the links are even more different for logged out users. But yes.
Reading Page -- this only shows entries of people you subscribe to, not the entries of everyone in your circle.
Core menu -- I'd be perfectly happy with this term. No real preference. Call it what you want and I'll get behind it.
Spatial language -- Ideally, we want to describe things in several different ways. While it's right not to rely on spatial descriptions, I don't think that we should shy away from using them entirely. We want to make things as clear as possible to all types of people. That includes being accessible to those who use a screenreader (for instance) but also being clearer to the mainstream. So I think that it's good to describe things in terms of both function and appearance, where appropriate.

[zorb]

As to the last question, having played around for a bit now, I would say "join your circle" as the concatenation of subscription/getting access (and perhaps be one email instead of two? *bats eyes*)

In general, the circle terminology is something I found misleading when I first joined; it seemed to contrast the very straightforward "subscribe/give access". The imagery is nice and fits with the DW philosophy, though, so I'd like to see the metaphor extended.