Muting, Filtering, and More on Dreamwidth
Jan. 24th, 2020 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalloway posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fictional_fansOr "Some Advanced Reading Page Curation Techniques"
Or "I Don't Want To See My Fandom Nemesis' Stuff, Dammit!"
I've been experimenting for a couple of months with a variety of techniques for streamlining my Reading Page, mostly because I realized I was missing posts from friends and getting swamped with other content from communities/feeds that I was just scrolling past.I already have a Twitter, I get enough of that.
(Note: Some of these advanced features are only available to paid/premium users, mea culpa!)
Here's some of what I've been doing to manage all of that:
1. Icons and Images and Videos
Do you not like Christmas lights and wish you wouldn't see my dozens of festive icons? Block them with any Ad-Blocker browser extension. You'll never have to see them again.
Too many people posting videos and large images? Turn them off.
On your Account Settings/Display tab, images and videos can be set to placeholders. They'll be visible when clicking over to a specific entry, though. (Perfect for that week when everyone is posting fanart of their faves as spiders. Or when your internet is metered in general.)
(Note: As someone in an area that was late in acquiring high-speed internet, I've had images/videos turned off since LJ days. A few things sneak through on occasion but 99% of everything gets effectively placeholdered.)
2. Muting
Would you just never like to see a post or comment from your ex, your fandom nemesis, or just that randokalloway who posts too much ever again? Mute them.
muccamukk has a handy bit of CSS for that.
(Note: It will only work for pages loaded in your specific style. Either follow the directions to change the entire site over to your specific style or append ?style=mine to the end of a url for the mute to work.)
3. Banning
Has that randokalloway gotten on your last nerve and you never want to see that name in your inbox again? Go for a banning! It may feel like the nuclear option, but sometimes that's necessary. It won't stop the person in question from reading your public entries, but they won't be able to comment to you while logged-in.
4. Tracking
Tracking can be handy for those communities where you're only interested in specific content and absolutely don't want to miss it. Tracking and filtering basically share options, but tracking also can send out an email while also dropping a line in your DW inbox. You don't need to be subscribed to or a member of a community for it to work.
The easiest way to set up tracking is to just click on the tracking icon on a related post:
Then click More Options.
As you tick boxes on the left, boxes will appear on the right to get emails as well. This can be helpful to follow interesting conversations in the comments of a post, get notifications of fic updates, or anything else. Tracking is options!
(Note: You can absolutely track someone's personal account with the same options. What you get notified about depends on your relationship with them/access level. Frex- I have tracking on for a beta I lost touch with a decade ago. But should they ever wander back to DW and post, I'll get an immediate ping.)
5. Filtering
Filtering is a multi-step process, but good filters work wonders. DW has a few natural filters built in-
But that may not be quite what you're after.
Make a new filter on your Manage Subscriptions Page.
(Note: It's not impossible for someone to find out your private filter names, so I highly recommend giving them neutral names whether they're public or not, not things like 'kallowaysucks'.)
😇
What goes in the filter? Whatever you might want to read. Only want to catch up on MCU stuff during quiet time on Sundays? Make a MCU Sunday filter. Want to only get mod posts for prompt communities? Do that.
Put some stuff in your filter!
Then, if you want to customize more, click on the name of the journal/community you want to filter further.
Your options will depend mostly on how well the journal tags or marks age restrictions, at this point.
Want only Safe-for-Work Leverage and Star Wars posts from this community? You got 'em.
(Is your BFF writing an epic about your NOTP? As long as they tag well, you can filter that right on off, too, by toggling 'ANY' to 'NONE', selecting the tag they use, and bye-bye NOTP. You'll get everything else they post, though, not to worry.)
Options for combining all of the above are pretty much endless, and can make your DW Reading Page more accessible and less maddening!
Also, for even greater control, Dreamwidth Blocker is a thing that exists for Firefox and Chrome.
There are likely other tweaks and tricks that I didn't cover, but I've found all of this to be a good start towards getting what I want when I want it, basically. 😅 Hopefully you'll find it helpful too.
Or "I Don't Want To See My Fandom Nemesis' Stuff, Dammit!"
I've been experimenting for a couple of months with a variety of techniques for streamlining my Reading Page, mostly because I realized I was missing posts from friends and getting swamped with other content from communities/feeds that I was just scrolling past.
(Note: Some of these advanced features are only available to paid/premium users, mea culpa!)
Here's some of what I've been doing to manage all of that:
1. Icons and Images and Videos
Do you not like Christmas lights and wish you wouldn't see my dozens of festive icons? Block them with any Ad-Blocker browser extension. You'll never have to see them again.
Too many people posting videos and large images? Turn them off.
On your Account Settings/Display tab, images and videos can be set to placeholders. They'll be visible when clicking over to a specific entry, though. (Perfect for that week when everyone is posting fanart of their faves as spiders. Or when your internet is metered in general.)
(Note: As someone in an area that was late in acquiring high-speed internet, I've had images/videos turned off since LJ days. A few things sneak through on occasion but 99% of everything gets effectively placeholdered.)
2. Muting
Would you just never like to see a post or comment from your ex, your fandom nemesis, or just that rando
kalloway who posts too much ever again? Mute them. muccamukk has a handy bit of CSS for that. (Note: It will only work for pages loaded in your specific style. Either follow the directions to change the entire site over to your specific style or append ?style=mine to the end of a url for the mute to work.)
3. Banning
Has that rando
kalloway gotten on your last nerve and you never want to see that name in your inbox again? Go for a banning! It may feel like the nuclear option, but sometimes that's necessary. It won't stop the person in question from reading your public entries, but they won't be able to comment to you while logged-in. 4. Tracking
Tracking can be handy for those communities where you're only interested in specific content and absolutely don't want to miss it. Tracking and filtering basically share options, but tracking also can send out an email while also dropping a line in your DW inbox. You don't need to be subscribed to or a member of a community for it to work.
The easiest way to set up tracking is to just click on the tracking icon on a related post:
Then click More Options.
As you tick boxes on the left, boxes will appear on the right to get emails as well. This can be helpful to follow interesting conversations in the comments of a post, get notifications of fic updates, or anything else. Tracking is options!
(Note: You can absolutely track someone's personal account with the same options. What you get notified about depends on your relationship with them/access level. Frex- I have tracking on for a beta I lost touch with a decade ago. But should they ever wander back to DW and post, I'll get an immediate ping.)
5. Filtering
Filtering is a multi-step process, but good filters work wonders. DW has a few natural filters built in-
But that may not be quite what you're after.
Make a new filter on your Manage Subscriptions Page.
(Note: It's not impossible for someone to find out your private filter names, so I highly recommend giving them neutral names whether they're public or not, not things like 'kallowaysucks'.)
😇
What goes in the filter? Whatever you might want to read. Only want to catch up on MCU stuff during quiet time on Sundays? Make a MCU Sunday filter. Want to only get mod posts for prompt communities? Do that.
Put some stuff in your filter!
Then, if you want to customize more, click on the name of the journal/community you want to filter further.
Your options will depend mostly on how well the journal tags or marks age restrictions, at this point.
Want only Safe-for-Work Leverage and Star Wars posts from this community? You got 'em.
(Is your BFF writing an epic about your NOTP? As long as they tag well, you can filter that right on off, too, by toggling 'ANY' to 'NONE', selecting the tag they use, and bye-bye NOTP. You'll get everything else they post, though, not to worry.)
Options for combining all of the above are pretty much endless, and can make your DW Reading Page more accessible and less maddening!
Also, for even greater control, Dreamwidth Blocker is a thing that exists for Firefox and Chrome.
There are likely other tweaks and tricks that I didn't cover, but I've found all of this to be a good start towards getting what I want when I want it, basically. 😅 Hopefully you'll find it helpful too.
