Somebody said GYOB... so they did
January 20, 2016 6:28 AM Subscribe
To try to structure some irritating obsessions into halfway constructive output, I want to a. get a blog, and b. make some fanvids. I need basic rundowns of how to do these basic things fairly basically, in terms adapted to the meanest understanding.
The blog I want to be mainly writing with some photos, with very good anonymising, pooossible ability to comment, and definitely ability to switch posts from private to public and back. I don't have a server or anything so all hosting (getting to the edge of my technical terminology there) will have to be online. Is Wordpress still okay / the easiest?
The fanvids I want to cut together mainly from avi files and add music mainly from mp3s, and probably upload to youtube. How are copyright issues normally dealt with?
I have a windows ?7 laptop, vlc media player, a nokia phone, none of this will change. I can't really spend much money on this.
I am drowning in info about how to do all this, so would appreciate good tried-and-tested links to concise, up-to-date and basic how tos or tutorials, as well as any latest best practices, basic assumptions I might not know about, and things to avoid.
The blog I want to be mainly writing with some photos, with very good anonymising, pooossible ability to comment, and definitely ability to switch posts from private to public and back. I don't have a server or anything so all hosting (getting to the edge of my technical terminology there) will have to be online. Is Wordpress still okay / the easiest?
The fanvids I want to cut together mainly from avi files and add music mainly from mp3s, and probably upload to youtube. How are copyright issues normally dealt with?
I have a windows ?7 laptop, vlc media player, a nokia phone, none of this will change. I can't really spend much money on this.
I am drowning in info about how to do all this, so would appreciate good tried-and-tested links to concise, up-to-date and basic how tos or tutorials, as well as any latest best practices, basic assumptions I might not know about, and things to avoid.
LJ is pretty much a fossil at this point IMHO.
posted by egypturnash at 10:11 AM on January 20, 2016
posted by egypturnash at 10:11 AM on January 20, 2016
I use Wordpress's free site, it's relatively easy to set up. I don't know much about setting things to private so you'd have to research that more. I insert videos into my posts all of the time through YouTube, so that's not difficult to do. But! I don't think that you have complete control over your content with the free site. You'd have to read the user agreement to see what the confines are, but unless you're putting up copyrighted material or porn, I think you're okay.
posted by patheral at 10:32 AM on January 20, 2016
posted by patheral at 10:32 AM on January 20, 2016
Best answer: Whatever you do, host it yourself, on a domain you control.
The only time you should be having to worry about whether your content meets someone else's editorial policy is when that someone else is paying you.
You don't need someone else deciding on a whim to remove your content. You don't need someone else deciding if and how to monetize your content (and then taking that money themselves). You don't need your words (and the ability of others to read them) at the mercy of anyone to whom you're a product rather than a customer.
And you especially don't need the toxic community-management problems endemic to many such sites infesting your user community.
I like Wordpress and use it myself. It isn't so much that Wordpress itself is great, but rather that enough other people use it that you can probably find a plugin that does whatever random thing you want, and if you have a problem, the answer is probably in the first three hits when you ask Google tech support.
If you use Wordpress, secure it. If you enable comments, you will need an anti-spam measure (I use Akismet) and be prepared to spend some time moderating.
posted by sourcequench at 11:28 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
The only time you should be having to worry about whether your content meets someone else's editorial policy is when that someone else is paying you.
You don't need someone else deciding on a whim to remove your content. You don't need someone else deciding if and how to monetize your content (and then taking that money themselves). You don't need your words (and the ability of others to read them) at the mercy of anyone to whom you're a product rather than a customer.
And you especially don't need the toxic community-management problems endemic to many such sites infesting your user community.
I like Wordpress and use it myself. It isn't so much that Wordpress itself is great, but rather that enough other people use it that you can probably find a plugin that does whatever random thing you want, and if you have a problem, the answer is probably in the first three hits when you ask Google tech support.
If you use Wordpress, secure it. If you enable comments, you will need an anti-spam measure (I use Akismet) and be prepared to spend some time moderating.
posted by sourcequench at 11:28 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
You would need a separate host for photos and video, though both LJ and DW allow embedded media.
Tumblr is popular, but it's not as good for text or conversations, and I don't believe it has the same privacy controls that some of the other platforms do.
Doing vidding: look for vidding communities and tutorials on LJ or Tumblr. There's a LOT of people out there making fanvids, and they're almost all very happy to help newbies learn.
posted by suelac at 8:52 AM on January 20, 2016