Couple questions about tagging etiquette

[probablynotbees]

EDIT: Thank you all for the guidance! I think I've got a pretty good understanding now.

Hello all!

I'm very new to Dreamwidth (showed up with the latest wave of Tumblr ex-pats) but thinking about using it to post some of my media-criticism thoughts that I've been collecting in a private journal for the last year or so.

However, I want to make sure I can tag these appropriately, so I have some questions.

1. What's the etiquette for posting tagging discussion of a piece of media that paints it in a negative light?

On Tumblr, it's often considered rude to bash something in its main tag, so if I wanted to make a post criticizing the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I'd tag it something like #mcu hate so that it doesn't show up in the main #mcu tag where people are trying to enjoy their thing.

(I'm primarily asking because I have some quite critical pieces about Harry Potter.)

2. Does Dreamwidth allow users to block tags? Is this something I should anticipate when tagging entries?

On Tumblr I'd tag something like #eating disorder / to hide it from people who are avoiding that topic, including the slash so that the tag isn't searchable (on my own blog or in general). Is that a thing here?

I think that's all I've got for now, but I'll probably think of more later.

Comments

[grayestofghosts]

I think along with everything else said, like, the culture is pretty different on DW right now in that people usually don't post just to dunk on things. Posts in general tend to be more substantive so even negative posts tend to be substantive which typically makes them less inflammatory than quick Tumblr posts in general. So "not tagging hate" is not really a thing not only because of the differences in the tagging system but also because it's generally not hate, it's just criticism.

[probablynotbees]

Makes sense. I've definitely encountered scenarios where people (including me) just don't want to see criticism of the thing they like, even if it's substantive, well-reasoned criticism.

But I can see from the comments I'm getting that the culture on Dreamwidth is different -- which makes perfect sense given the typical length of a post, the ways in which people encounter posts, the volume of posting, etc.