Community (journal sites)

This article is about communities on social networking platforms. For other uses of the term, see Community.

Synonyms:	Comm
See also:	web forum
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On LiveJournal and other sites using LJ code (such as Journalfen and InsaneJournal), fans gather in communities to share fanworks, discuss source texts, debate, argue, form friendships, make enemies, etc.

The community feature was added to LiveJournal in December 2000. Communities are journal accounts that allow posts from multiple users.

Any user can make a community on LiveJournal. Communites can be open or closed -- that is, they may accept new members automatically or may require permission from a moderator to join. Some communities require age statements before fans may join. Some communities are friends-locked by default or convention, especially if the theme is controversial, like incest or RPF. Some communities have open posting, others have posting restricted to a few maintainers or moderators.

Communities vs personal journals

Some LiveJournal users prefer to post their fanworks in their personal journals, where they have control over who has access and can decide when and whether to delete their work. They may only post links to their work in communities (or not post to communities at all). Therefore, fandom on LiveJournal is more diffuse, and fannish discussion more frequently happens in personal journals than communities.

Kinds of Communities

• Newsletter communities compile links to a variety of fanworks posted on a given subject on a regular basis, such as The Sunnydale Herald or despatches
• Fic Finding communities are spaces for readers to seek out fanworks in a specific fandom, or on a certain theme
• Noticeboard communities are spaces for writers and other creators to announce new works in a given fandom.
• Recs communities such as crack_van or crack_broom provide scheduled recs by multiple reccers
• Flashfiction communities where short fiction is written to a themed prompt, such as DS_Flashfiction, and drabble communities such as wednesday100
• Capslock communities, FOR SHOUTING
• Daily communities such as Scans Daily, for regular posting of images related to a certain subject
• Fandom Wank and related spinoff wank communities, for pointing and mocking
• Stamping communities, for deciding what character a fan is most like
• Meta communities, for posting non-fiction and fannish essays, such as metafandom or ship_manifesto
• Screencap communities, for posting screencaps in mass quantities
• Multifandom resource communities, such as newbieguide, britpickery or Stop Plagiarism, for fans seeking assistance or guidance
• Anon memes, for anonymous discussion or fic writing