Interests on Dreamwidth
Oct. 18th, 2024 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
newcomersInterests are words or phrases that you use to list things you like or care about, like "nature" or "Star Wars." You put them in the Interests section of your profile. Use the Manage Profile page to add or edit them.
Each Interest may be up to 50 characters long. Free accounts get up to 150 Interests, Paid Accounts go up to 200 Interests, and Premium Paid Accounts go up to 250 Interests. If this is a feature which matters a lot to you, then you might want to pay for an expanded size.
Most people get by just fine with the basic 150 Interests. However, bear in mind that the Dreamwidth search engine is dumb. It only returns exact matches. "Fan fiction," "fanfiction," "fan fic," "fanfic," and "fanfics" are all different things that won't necessarily come up in the same search. For your most important topics, or if you're listing Interests for a community, you should try and think of all the ways someone might search for that concept and list them. This can eat up a lot of slots.
What should you list in Interests?
Examples of possible Interests include your main blog topic(s), fandoms, hobbies, state or other place you live, worthy causes, and so on. For instance, if you have come to Dreamwidth from Cohost, then listing Cohost in your Interests will help you find other people from that venue.
If you're not sure how to use this feature, then look at other people's profiles for examples. You can also view Popular Interests to see what other people like. Pick out some of those things that you also like and it will probably help attract traffic to your blog.
Use your Manage Tags page to sort your Tags by usage, and that will tell you what you are posting about the most often. You probably want to list at least your top 10 topics in your Interests. It's okay if that changes over time, as you can edit the Interests list whenever you wish.
What can you do with Interests?
Look on the Interests page. It lets you search for people and/or communities that list a specific Interest. You can also find people or communities with Interests similar to those of another user, or modify your Interests based on those of another user.
Another handy use is when you fill out a Friending Meme, make an introductory post in a community, or post on an Add Me community. When the form asks what you like, just grab 10-12 of your relevant Interests instead of trying to think up stuff from scratch every time.
Interests vs. Tags
Interests tell you what people generally care about. They might or might not post about those things. Tags tell you what people actually are posting about. That might or might not be among their favorite topics.
Dreamwidth gives you some complementary tools to find people, communities, and posts using these features. The Interests page and Popular Interests show you recent posts based on what people say they care about. The Latest Things page shows you recent posts based on the Tags they contain. You can also narrow the focus to a specific tag, such as Latest Things: Cohost.
In order to mark something as one of your favorite topics and main ideas, you should feature it in both your Interests and your Tags. Similarly if you want to find as much of it as possible, search for it using the tools for both of those features.
Both of these work only as well as people make them. Some people don't bother to fill in their profile page, especially the Interests; and some use few if any Tags. Without those, the search engine can't "see" your profile and post when other users ask for a list of who's into what. So check your Interests and Tags to make sure they suit your blogging purposes.
Each Interest may be up to 50 characters long. Free accounts get up to 150 Interests, Paid Accounts go up to 200 Interests, and Premium Paid Accounts go up to 250 Interests. If this is a feature which matters a lot to you, then you might want to pay for an expanded size.
Most people get by just fine with the basic 150 Interests. However, bear in mind that the Dreamwidth search engine is dumb. It only returns exact matches. "Fan fiction," "fanfiction," "fan fic," "fanfic," and "fanfics" are all different things that won't necessarily come up in the same search. For your most important topics, or if you're listing Interests for a community, you should try and think of all the ways someone might search for that concept and list them. This can eat up a lot of slots.
What should you list in Interests?
Examples of possible Interests include your main blog topic(s), fandoms, hobbies, state or other place you live, worthy causes, and so on. For instance, if you have come to Dreamwidth from Cohost, then listing Cohost in your Interests will help you find other people from that venue.
If you're not sure how to use this feature, then look at other people's profiles for examples. You can also view Popular Interests to see what other people like. Pick out some of those things that you also like and it will probably help attract traffic to your blog.
Use your Manage Tags page to sort your Tags by usage, and that will tell you what you are posting about the most often. You probably want to list at least your top 10 topics in your Interests. It's okay if that changes over time, as you can edit the Interests list whenever you wish.
What can you do with Interests?
Look on the Interests page. It lets you search for people and/or communities that list a specific Interest. You can also find people or communities with Interests similar to those of another user, or modify your Interests based on those of another user.
Another handy use is when you fill out a Friending Meme, make an introductory post in a community, or post on an Add Me community. When the form asks what you like, just grab 10-12 of your relevant Interests instead of trying to think up stuff from scratch every time.
Interests vs. Tags
Interests tell you what people generally care about. They might or might not post about those things. Tags tell you what people actually are posting about. That might or might not be among their favorite topics.
Dreamwidth gives you some complementary tools to find people, communities, and posts using these features. The Interests page and Popular Interests show you recent posts based on what people say they care about. The Latest Things page shows you recent posts based on the Tags they contain. You can also narrow the focus to a specific tag, such as Latest Things: Cohost.
In order to mark something as one of your favorite topics and main ideas, you should feature it in both your Interests and your Tags. Similarly if you want to find as much of it as possible, search for it using the tools for both of those features.
Both of these work only as well as people make them. Some people don't bother to fill in their profile page, especially the Interests; and some use few if any Tags. Without those, the search engine can't "see" your profile and post when other users ask for a list of who's into what. So check your Interests and Tags to make sure they suit your blogging purposes.
