a journalfen newbieguide
I know there's more people trying to get active and get community going on this site, and community creation is turned on, so I thought I'd do a directory post for journalfen newbies in the style of newbieguide on LJ, to help people find their way.

General fandom (or general nonfandom) communities that are *not* all about wank or mock:
ask : for asking questions of any kind, whether jf related, fandom related, or completely random.
community_promo : For promoting communities on jf.
fandom_lounge : for fandom-related links, questions, comments, and discussion of all sorts, and for lolling around in your smoking pajamas drinking martinis while listening to Julie London records.
random_lounge : for things that you *would* post on fandom_lounge, except they aren't fandom-related.
feline_lounge : for things that you would post on fandom_lounge, except they're about your cats.
fandom_discuss : For serious discussion of fandom topics.
fandom_rant : for overwrought discussion of fandom topics.
random_rant : for things you *would* post on fandom_rant, except they aren't fandom related.
unfunnybusiness : for when the internet is serious business! Dammit!
fic_fusion : for posting fiction and fanfiction of any topic, any rating, genre, anything.
wankas_write : Discussion and concrit for writers, both fanfic and original fic.
all_about_rps : for posting RPS-related fiction, discussion, or anything else.
cons : for cons.
icons : for icons.
icontest : for icontests.
shywank : for making new friends on jf. (friending meme post currently active as of 8/6/7!)
otps_r_us : Um, nobody seems to remember what it's for. Take your best guess.
fansites : for discussion of making and running fannish websites.
metaquotes : for quoting cool things other people said on jf.
metafandom : currently, an active mirror of lj's metafandom (hopefully there will be a working rss feed for this soon.)
fanficrants : mirror of the lj community.
guiltypleasures : General book discussion comm.
journalwhores : for people who want an account on every journal system out there.
system : for updates on the journalfen system.
jf_tech : for updates on changes to the journalfen system.
welcome2jf : to help jf newbies get oriented. (No, I didn't know about this one when I posted here.)
petpeeves : for working together to improve journalfen.

Mock comms
spitting_image : For showing off bad fanart
If you want to find the official wank communities, there's a list on the fandom_wank userinfo.

For RPs and fandom-specific communities ... um, good luck! Or try interest search or community_promo. (anyone want to volunteer to make a specific-fandom directory? ... didn't think so.)

Other useful stuff:

http://journalfen.net/stats.bml : Journalfen stats.
http://www.journalfen.net/poll/create.bml : to create polls.
http://journalfen.net/syn : for syndicated feeds.
http://www.journalfen.net/support/ : support for all jf users.
prioritysupport : support community for paid users.
rename_me : journal rename requests.
anon_no_more : for when you really need a journalfen account.
But why can't I create an account? : Free account creation is turned off. You can buy a paid account, beg at anon_no_more, or ask a paid user at leavin_eljay on lj.
Also, thanks to some dedicated volunteers, the FAQ is getting more and more useful lately, and will probably even answer your questions.
For more useful JF links, try adbaculum's 10 Features You Should Know About On Journalfen.

Mhari's fake lj-user tag generator : For automatically coding little lj user guys to actually link to livejournals instead of journalfen. Thank you freezer for finding the less-annoying one of these.

Many of these communities are *very* quiet, but everyone is happy when they get less quiet, so post away.
However, nobody (including you) is happy when you post to communities without reading the userinfo first.

And please, link this wherever you want! Spread the word!

And if anyone has another general-fandom, general-jf, or generally useful jf note they think should be up here, drop a comment and I will add a link - I know this list isn't nearly complete.

(Updated 9/20/07)