Importing multi-journal posts into a single community.

[beet]

Title:
Importing multi-journal posts into a single community.

Area:
Personal journal and community importing

Summary:
Allow users to import posts from one or more personal journals and/or single-poster LJ communities to a single, unified DW community.

Description:
I was a noob. It's true. And I'd love to use Dreamwidth to clean up my mess.

When I started playing with art at LJ, I posted to my personal journal. At the point I decided I wanted to have more adult themes and that it would be responsible to f-lock them down at some point, I realized that I didn't want my personal journal f-list to be synonymous with the list of people who could see my art. So, (stupidly) I started a separate personal journal for my art. And then, when I realized what a pain in the ass it was to have to constantly log in and out, so I created yet another place for my art--a single-poster community.

I have art and comments across all three places and would really, really love to correct my noob mistakes and be able to import them all into one journal on DW. I imagine I am not the only person with (at least some of) these issues.

I know that there have been discussions on various parts of this issue, but I am not sure where things have gone. I see in the FAQ that there are currently no plans for community importing, even for importing single-poster communities.

For that reason, I want to reiterate how very much I would like to see this kind of functionality added to Dreamwidth. I know that importing communities is a contentious issue. Nevertheless, I hope that you continue to work on finding a way to make this happen.

Poll #1774 Importing multi-journal posts into a single community.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
15 (57.7%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (7.7%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (3.8%)

(I have no opinion)
7 (26.9%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (3.8%)

Comments

[noxie]

I would love to be able to do that so much.

[triadruid]

Huh. Interesting idea, that could also be used for importing content from two different personal journals into one personal journal.

It begs some questions about ensuring ownership, but that should be solvable. I'd like to see it.

[sofiaviolet]

I was able to import multiple LJ journals into this journal without difficulty. Unless you're talking about Dreamwidth-to-Dreamwidth importing or some other use case, and I'm failing at reading comprehension again.

[beet]

Interesting.

Out of curiosity, were your posts from the different journals distinguished or were they all imported into sofiaviolet identically?

[sofiaviolet]

No distinction whatsoever. Which doesn't surprise me - the importer doesn't add "originally posted here" info, and all I did was run it for each journal I was importing, one at a time.

This didn't bother me, since it's mainly a backup of several successive personal journals, but I can see plenty of reasons why other people would want a distinction made.

[beet]

Thanks.

It wouldn't bother me to have them all under my beet acct, either. And, in fact, it seems like keeping them under different attribution might create a situation where any beet_alt posts would be abandoned or un-editable by anyone except beet_alt who doesn't have an acct and doesn't exist.

But then again, I know nothing about what happens behind the scenes and have not imported anything in quite a while. :)

[triadruid]

I apologize; not being an importer, I spoke without any real knowledge of what the system can do NOW.

[sofiaviolet]

Oh, okay then. :)

[beet]

Ownership or attribution? It seems like the ownership would be clear. You should only be able to import your own posts. However, if you are importing multiple LJ personal journals into a single DW journal, I am not sure how the two identities would be attributed.

In a community, they could remain attributed to the various posting identities. Except then, I suppose the DW account couldn't edit them... Hmm. I don't know. I guess they would all have to be attributed to the DW account name?

[havocthecat]

I love the idea, with the caveat that it would probably have to be a single-poster comm, or maybe a two-or-three person comm (like a shared fic au) where the importers can import only their own entires.

I would also like the moon, sun, and the stars, while you're at it. And a solid gold pony. ;)

In all seriousness, I have no idea if this is even possible, but if it were, I would be ALL FOR IT.

[lassarina]

YES. Seriously.

(Although I already went through and manually imported 300 freaking entries from my fic journal just shoot me now)

[havocthecat]

All I want to do is import my fanfic from ALL OVER THE PLACE (my personal fic comms, my shared au comms, the occasional ficathon) onto my Dreamwidth journal. Like "import this URL into your Dreamwidth named X."

I have no idea at all if this is possible, mind you. But. *grabby hands*

(I'm uploading all my fic to the AO3 and wailing at how much of it there is. While simultaneously debating hiding all my BtVS fanfic until some random cosmic event brings it up to the same level of quality that my later Stargate writing is at.)

[lassarina]

Ah, see, I am paranoid and every ficathon/comm/shared-thing I do, I also cross-post to my personal journal, because I am afraid the mods will delete the comm and my fic will never be seen again. So at least mine is all collected (with the exception of 10 early fics on the Pit of Voles that I have now imported to AO3.)

AO3's import is going to make it actually functionally possible for me to import all my drabbles, and for this I am grateful. Even if I feel like maybe I shouldn't have them there. XD In my head, fic archives are not for drabbling!

Hah! Yes.

[beet]

I imported my teensy fic to AO3 just to see how it worked. (And because all my writing is microscopic.)

But! In the service of humanity, I also suggested that they add size options to the filters and not just as a sort option. That way, people can unselect all the "under 100" or "under 500" -word fic, if they choose.

[garryowen]

Wait, so you can't import beetarty into your dw account? I'm not sure what to click on the poll b/c I'm not sure I get the question, but I think you should be able to import beetarty.

[beet]

You can click whatever you like on the poll--I don't want to tell you what to do. I just wanted to point you here in case you have an opinion.

This is the current situation as far as I understand it, DW does not allow importing communities at all--even single-poster communities. Part of the issue has to do with multi-poster communities and figuring out how to ethically deal with the fact that the community maintainer doesn't really "own" the content of the posts made my others.

For a single-poster comm, that isn't so much an issue. And, anyway, I would want to import it into a community account, not my beet account, anyway. However, there is also an issue with converting personal DW journals to community DW journals without losing content--which my mixed accounts on LJ would require. And another issue where (I think) you cannot import a personal LJ journal into a community DW journal--which would be the other way it seems like I could deal with the issue. So, there are lots of issues here, and possibly more that I don't know about.

Still, I am very interested in seeing the issues worked out so that I can import all my art with comments attached to a community on DW.

Regarding which option to pick...The poll structure is a little awkward since it is the same for every suggestion posted to this comm and I didn't really pose a specific answer to the issue. So... sorry?

[garryowen]

I agree with you about single-user comms, so I think I should choose option #1?

Is there a way to change your lj comm to a normal account, since you are the only user/poster? That would solve the problem, yes? My guess is that there's a way to manipulate lj to do that for you.

I have imported a couple of journals to DW w/ success, but I don't want to import all of my main lj. I kinda wish I could do selective import. Something like that might solve your comm problem because maybe it would allow importing of comm posts that YOU made... I dunno. Complicated.

[beet]

I don't know. I tried to look in LJ's FAQ about converting a comm, but couldn't find anything. I should ask if it is even possible. Sadly, everything would still be in a personal journal on DW if I didn't it that way. And since I've already gone that route once and regretted it... I just keep thinking about how awesome DW's content rating system is and how much easier it would make running my comm.

As for importing some posts... There is a poll here about filtering imports by tags, so that may be something they are looking at.

[garryowen]

Hm. Okay. Well, that's just silly. Both journals should allow converting private journals to comm and vice-versa if there is only one user. I'll look into the tag import. I just don't want to import the WiPs...

[yvi]

Coverting a community with entries to a personal journal is not possible, as far as I am aware.

[beet]

I forgot to say this immediately after I saw your comment, but: thanks. I didn't think it would be possible.