Question for DW Savvy Folks!

[katmarajade]

Is there any way to schedule posts or post-date them so they show up in the feed at a later date? I see the edit date option, but it seems (from my limited testing here) that even post-dated entries appear on reading pages according to when they're actually posted, not according to the date/time you manually enter.

We are trying to use DW for Interhouse Fest, but dang! They don't make it easy! There are obviously some awesome aspects (hello super simple posting for really long fics!) but I really miss the ease of scheduling a week's worth of entries at a time, which LJ allows. Is there a way to do this that I'm missing? Or is it just not an option on DW?

Any other mod tips/tricks for managing fests/posting on multiple platforms would also be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for your help! And check out Interhouse Fest, which started posting today! (Opening with an awesome rare pair-- Colin/Astoria! Bet you've never read them together before, so better check it out!)

Comments

[gracerene]

Nope. There is no way to schedule entries to post at a later date on DW. There is also no way to have a community on DW cross-post the entries to your LJ comm. Those are the two main reasons (especially the scheduling one) that I've been struggling to incorporate DW into the fests I mod. :/

There is a really complex option that involves emailing in the post, since if you have an email app that allows you to schedule when emails are sent, then it can post at that time, but I've found that is pretty clunky and the formatting doesn't always turn out well. So really, the only option is to live post whatever you need to on DW. I've been encouraging people to contact DW and let them know this is a feature we really need, as it's very difficult to manage without it. I'd love to have a journal-based platform for fests, but without a scheduling option, I might end up moving my fests to tumblr instead. :(

[author_by_night]

I've been encouraging people to contact DW and let them know this is a feature we really need,

Ooh, good idea.

I will say I've been able to import posts from my comm onto DW. However, I can't instantly crosspost, which might be easier for fests. (I don't know, I've never run a fest on DW before.)

[katmarajade]

Oh man, if there was a comm crossposting feature, I'd be THRILLED! I do get why it's not available, but that would be sooooooooo helpful for anon fests! It's my first time using DW for a fest, so it's definitely a learning curve! (Especially as DW is still relatively new to me in general. I've had an account here for ages but hadn't really used it before recently.)

[katmarajade]

This was what I was dreading/thinking. How frustrating. It's definitely not a very mod-friendly platform for fests and comms, is it? As much as I think it's actually a better platform for general journaling. *sigh*

With so many leaving LJ this past year, I was hoping to get a larger base if we used DW, but so far it's really not done much of anything. That's partly on me, of course, as I didn't advertise it as I should have and it was a little last minute. The best thing about incorporating it for me is being able to host long fics in a single entry! It was so time-consuming to make multiple posts and add in all the links/coding, none of which could be done ahead of time as you had to wait for the urls! So that's a pretty awesome feature.

I appreciate the response. I'll definitely be interested to see what other mods are choosing to do/which platforms they're using/how they're running things as the fandom dynamics continue to shift.

[orangerful]

I don't think that is an option for DW mostly because I think they are approaching it more as a personal journal page and not a blog like Wordpress? I do like Wordpress though! I've never had issues with their scheduled posting feature. Maybe you could use that while waiting for DW to add the feature?

[katmarajade]

Yeah, I can see why they don't necessarily have it, but I totally used it on my personal journal on LJ many times, so it would be super helpful. Not just for fests/community situations like this. Thanks for the feedback! It's interesting trying to adapt as fandom grows, changes, and shifts. I always feel behind!