Couple questions about tagging etiquette
Mar. 19th, 2026 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
probablynotbees posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
newcomersEDIT: 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.
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.
no subject
Date: Mar. 19th, 2026 03:44 pm (UTC)There's an edge case in Dreamwidth's Latest Things page; it's a feed of every public post that someone has made recently. (If a post is access-locked, it won't show up there.) It's about as close to how Tumblr works as you're probably going to find here. In general, I would say that Dreamwidth users who browse that page are prepared to find takes they don't agree with, though that might change if we get a lot more users. If you want to be extra cautious about this, then putting your negative opinions behind a cut tag might be the way to go, but by and large you should be fine.
As to blocking tags, yes, it is possible to block tags! I don't know how to do it myself (oops 😅), but it is possible! That said, since there are no site-supported tags, people generally have to pick one that's really broadly applicable, and hope that others use it. "Politics" is one that I use for this purpose, and I imagine that others block "eating disorder" and even "harry potter"—though that one might be a double-edged sword on the Latest Things page, since you can surf by commonly used tags there.
I hope that helps!