#[ EMAIL ] Dash commentary;

[stanislawkowalski]

How well do you know Nastka

[rocket-mxn]

"I can assure you, a few other planets on my side of the galaxy are in... ehh.. slight dissaray as well. Koppai is starving , Tagwa has run out of drinkable water, and Ocobo is constantly flooded."

"So... I suppose we Hocotatians celebrate by appreciating that we're.... mostly fine."

[elitepoppy]

"...But I need to work."

Otherwise, she won't ever get to see her parents.

[escalaregalia]

“Why do I keep getting flyers in the mail about a new medicine to aid with erectile dysfunction?”

[asleepinawell]

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[fet1d]

fandom experiences i cherish and am glad i was there to experience:

Vocaloid (2009-2012) [aka the GOLDEN AGE OF FAN SUBBING]

Homestuck (2011-2013) [in it's original peak years]

Epic Mafia/Dangan Mafia (2013-2014) [Rooms were created BECAUSE of the DanMaf community]

Dangan Ronpa OC Community (2013-2015/2016) [better known as HELL]

Osomatsu-san (2016-2017) [directs everyone to my old ask blog @chorochan]

[auntie-browning]

"♫ Fresh from zones of moisture And afterward the meat With spangles on my long-tailed suits And songs to haunt the one that’s saved Just call me Desdinova I’m sure to be the lucky one When destiny assigns wisdom Known to me the starry wisdom ♫"

"♫ I am the one you warned me of I am the one who’d never, never lie ♫"

"♫ The writing in the notebook Notation from the stars Songs by Desdinova And frost warnings from the women’s farm Whose agents could not ever see His hilly eyes and too green rings Obscured sight and fancy dreams Holy mass, those thirteen fancy dreams ♫"

"♫ I am the one you warned me of I am the one who’d never, never lie ♫"

[notdrifting]

nada que é do pobre funciona

[sylviareviar]

"Snrk! I was talking to my dad yesterday... And... Pfft, hehehe... And he was talking about my birthday coming up soon. And how he wanted me to come back so he could host a huge party. I told him I'd want to invite all my friends from school, and he told me sure, but he can't pay for their tickets."

"Heh-- And-- teeheehee! And he looked up online 'birthday wishes in Japanese'-- And-- Ahahaha! And he told me... He told me 'I hope you give birth soon'-- And I guess now I'm pregnant! Hehehehe! Everyone go home now, because you'll never be nearly as funny as my dad! That mistranslation just made my day! Nothing against Papa, obviously, I love him so much, but like..."

She's rolling on the floor laughing. There's no suppressing her giggles. She's so incredibly amused by this.

[rocket-mxn]

"I am TRYING to respect this species' culture and sacred holidays! Surely, I'm doing things the right way...... at least.... I hope-"

He IS doing this right, isn't he? ... Oh, blasteroids...

"Well, it's unfortunately not a thing here. Then again, it probably should be given how-"

"Why is there someone kissing the ground...?"

[specialagentartemis]

fic director’s commentary ask game: more details about one of your fics focused on the preservation team?

I wanna talk about “Letters Sent (I’m Sorry)” as I was recently reminded of that again and I had a lot of fun putting that together.

Trying to capture their varied voices and concerns… and, as alluded to in the title, each letter contains the phrase “I’m (really) sorry” in some form. Some, like Ratthi’s, are genuine apology, some are apologizing for the tone of the letter, and some, like Pin-Lee’s at the end, are clearly exasperated. But every letter has an “I’m sorry” in it. None of them wanted this.

A lot of them allude to minor OCs. One kf the big things I wanted to do with this fic was make it clear that the PreservationAux members, as it stands as of ASR, are not necessarily all best friends or each other’s most important people yet—they all have people back home, too. The first one, unsigned, is from Ratthi, dashed off to a friend (it comes from his feed address—like an email to a friend, you know who it’s from, signing is unnecessary). Sasha and Diyar are friends of his from his extended social network. Arada’s letter mentions a Maja—I loooove the awkward, uncomfortable idea of Arada (and Overse, and Ratrhi, kind of naturally) having a close friend who’s not really a fieldwork scientist who Wasn’t There. Who keeps not being there. Who’s drifting apart from her friends because she wasn’t There, she doesn’t Get It. The cracks in their relationship :’) Somedayyyyyy she is going to appear in “Home Again” (“Letters Sent” is strongly tied to “Home Again”).

In this fic I’ve declared Overse an outdoorsy person who’s experienced in Wilderness First Aid. I think I use this characterization of Overse a lot: outdoorsy, big into hiking. Not a scientist herself, more experienced with mechanical repair and first aid medicine, but active and enjoys being along on survey activities.

Bharadwaj’s writing-during-fieldwork woes are very much inspired by true events lol.

Most of the fellow Steering Committee councilmembers mentioned in Mensah’s letter are names you also see in “what you believe in.” The odd one out is Councillor Xue, who I imagine has ended her term and a different councillor has been elected in her stead by the time of “what you believe in.” I was originally going to use all names from that fic till I considered that it’s likely that things would change in the multiple years and politicians switch in and out. Verisimilitude no one else cares about is ~important~.

you can tell I was running out of steam for coming up with OC names by Pin-Lee’s letter because I just went “fuck it” and had her refer to “whatshisface from the Khukri.” This does, however, allude to my fanfiction rule of thumb that corporation rim gunships are named after old earth weapons. The choice of “Khukri” for the corporate gunship in question is, naturally, a shout-out to Dracula Daily.

[kithtaehyung]

Hiiiii~

Actually for reals this time gonna reread 3tan (cause I said so to your face and now I have Accountability <s>at least in my head</s>)

BUT I have a question as to which way you'd prefer my feedback* :3

Commints on the chapter post

Screams in your inbox (like this)

Rb's and my rambles in the tags (May get long who knows)

On ao3? Have to disable auto-"whole work" so I'll actually comment every chapter but I can show 3tan love on ao3 as well

Secret fifth option?? (tell me)

Looking forward to rereading this masterpiece and remembering all my favourite parts 🥰💜

*I bingeread when I can so you'll likely be getting multiple activity notifs per day when I'm reading it. Spam, if you will :3

WAIT this is amazing and so cute🥺💕 thank you for even asking!! That’s incredibly kind of you. Truly, anything is amazing, any ask/comment/reblog, etc. But you really wanna know my personal ranking of coolest to get? I can list them!

Top would be reblogs! Reblogs with comments in the body or comments in the tags. This way, I can directly reply/scram to you while getting to reblog the fic to the dash again for people that may not have seen it yet🥳

Comments also are welcome on the post! I can reply directly to y’all there, too, especially with the new tumblr update💕

Asks are always always amazing🥺 honestly my favorite part of being here is getting to talk to you all, and we can do that through asks because they can spark conversations (and you can join in even if you’re shy bc of the anon feature!) It’s a great way for the community to be involved.

The anonymous feedback form i have linked on the chapters! It’s so cool because your anon feedback goes straight to my email, so i get them right away. I’m the only one that sees them, and people even post so much feedback sometimes that they have to submit multiple answers😂 it’s fantastic, literal essays and dissertations and i get to relive the fics through commentary🥺

Wattpad and AO3 comments are cool, too! They’re other ways to build community in other spaces🥳 Just not here!

But yes, anything you decide to do helps build energy and motivation🤍 Thank you for even asking, and have lots of fun on the reread!

[wildkitte]

Aeneas and Creusa

As much as there is discourse on Aeneas’ part in Creusa’s disappearance, it is made clear that Creusa was indeed important to Aeneas (this is what I will personally fight Perkell on, even when I find her other opinions on the topic to be fascinating). Not only is there the mad dash to the burning city (“I’m determined to incur every risk again, and retrace all Troy and once more expose my life to danger”) and the admittance of this being “the cruellest sight” in all of the destruction of the city (her absence), but also some little details like word choices and intertextual references. So let’s talk about my favourite Aeneid couple for a moment.

(Here I use Austin’s commentary as my main source.)

I spoke a little of Aeneas and Creusa’s parallels to Orpheus and Eurydice in my first post – Creusa’s name being ‘Eurydica’ in some versions is the most obvious clue, but Creusa’s loss mirrors the way Orpheus loses Eurydice. The commentary of today’s email had a good interpretation of this parallel: they’re a bit of a reverse Orpheus and Eurydice, Aeneas loses Creusa because he doesn’t look back. But a direct parallel can also be drawn – technically Aeneas does not lose Creusa until he looks behind. There are also textual references to Vergil’s Georgics, like how Orpheus and Creusa both call their spouses “dulcis coniunx” (Aen. 2.777 and Georg. 4.465), and like i.e., Austin’s commentary points out, this is certainly no accident.

I also find the repetition (of Creusa’s name and the iterumque iterumque vocavi I mentioned in the last post) in the passage where Aeneas searches for her interesting. This reminds me of the last passage of Orpheus and Eurydice part in Georgics: Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae (‘Eurydice’ echoed the banks all along the river; 4.527), the theme of calling out for the lost wife’s name, all in vain. I don’t really have too much to say about this parallel in particular more than this (I haven’t perused Georgics closely enough to dare a further interpretation/comparison, but if someone else has please let me know your thoughts). Truly this interpretation of them, as repeating the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, makes these two all the more dear to me.

But let’s talk about those vocabulary choices now!

Every once in a while, Vergil does this interesting register change from the language of the epic to Roman comedy. This happens a couple times in scenes featuring Creusa. In 2.739, erravitne via seu lassa resedit (did she stray from the path or sit down in exhaustion), Austin directs the focus to lassus, tired. Outside of comedy, it is rarer than fessus (though it has been used by other authors like Horace, Ennius, Lucretius, Cato and Catullus). Another example of uses of Roman comedy’s vocabulary is in Creusa’s line to Aeneas in 2.786: aut Grais servitum matribus ibo (nor will I end up as the slave of Greek matrons). Here Vergil uses a supine, servitum, that is more common in colloquial and early Latin, being especially common with Plautus. Austin’s interpretation is that this register switch, from epic Latin to a more colloquial level, makes Aeneas and Creusa seem more relatable to the audience. The conversation, with its grounded vocabulary, communicates to the Latin-speaking audience a sense of familiarity: this couple is just like us, and they talk like married couples do. The casual language communicates affection.

Creusa’s speech is overall really sweet, with her calls of “sweet husband” and trying to console him in his immense grief and finally the request to protect the love for their child. My favourite line here is lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae (banish your tears for your beloved Creusa; Verg. Aen. 2.784) and Austin has something to say about the adjective dilectus. This is also a bit of a rare word in the Aeneid, it appears three* times in total: Sychaeus is dilectus (1.344) as he is loved by Dido, and Atys is called dilectus (5.468) in relation to Iulus (poeroque puer dilectus Iulo, boyish love of the boy Iulus…whatever that means in this context), and of course here in Creusa’s speech. Dilectus is used to emphasize an especially warm and deep relationship between the characters.

One could, and will, make the observation that in Aeneas’ telling, Creusa calls herself dilecta, that she is the one who calls Aeneas dulcis coniunx – but here I think it is useful to remember that Aeneas is also the one narrating this. He may be putting words in his wife’s mouth, but he is the one choosing to speak of their marriage in these terms. Her loss is devastating (I bring up vidi crudelius again) and Aeneas never utters her name again in the rest of the epic (though Andromache mentions her, and Ascanius namedrops her in Book IX). I think that Creusa’s loss haunts the relationships he has with women in the future – he can never give himself or his love fully, as it was lost like a light breeze, a winged dream.

(Btw, Sarah Ruden translates ‘lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae’ as ‘so weep no longer, though you love me’. Devastating. Sobbing inconsolably. Never the same again.)

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about divine Creusa and also why you should be a little unwell about her too.

*later edit: i actually made a mistake here, it does appear more than three times - perhaps i was thinking of those three times as an epithet for a person

[dvilsdesire]

GETTING TO KNOW YOU.

respond to the following prompts out of character. then, tag others that you'd like to get to know a little bit better!

ROLEPLAYER NAME: Owl or Sam, I go by both.

ROLEPLAYER PRONOUNS: He/him.

MUSE NAME: Haarlep

PREFERRED COMMUNICATION: Discord if we've had a few interactions, I don't mind IM's but we all know what tumblr is like when it comes to IM's here. IM's is great for when I'm not at home tho, since I literally only use discord while I'm on my PC.

EXPERIENCE: I'm old, I've got a lot of experience, been doing it for well over a decade, from MSN times through to email and forums back in the day, or devART notes.

PREFERRED ROLEPLAY TYPE: I like making relationships and seeing those muses grow from said relationships (or not lol). I want connections, though. I don't want to feel like it's a chore to write with someone. I want to have fun. I like a good mix between dark, nitty gritty and absolutely fluffy and cute, soooo.

PET PEEVES & DEALBREAKERS:

Please for the love of god read my rules. I don't expect anyone (including myself) to remember everyone's rules, we all write with a multitude of people, but when it's blatantly obvious that you've not even glanced over my rules, it's not going to make me want to interact with you. (:

Blog policing. Seriously, if you don't like something, then don't indulge in it? It's that fucking simple. Let people write villains, let people write problematic characters that are morally grey or whatever else. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean you have the right to abuse those that do. Writing evil characters doesn't make you a bad person. Have you ever actually picked up a book and read it? This just boggles my mind... Why do you think you can do this? And sadly enough, this has legitimately pushed fantastic people and Rpers away from the hobby they once loved.

One liners. I have a really difficult time... NOT writing paras. And that's a me thing. If you write one liners and that suits you, then by all means, please continue! But it does mean we're simply not compatible. Unless it's little dash commentary shenanigans, I can't stand one liners.

PLOTS OR MEMES: Both. I think memes are a REALLY good way to break the ice, especially when if you're anything like me, a person who comes home from work and is thoroughly exhausted that my brain can't possible think of anything super heavy when it comes to plot. But in saying that, I do love getting to plot with my mutuals and chatting and building character development through this. So both are good. :)

LONG REPLIES OR SHORT REPLIES: 99% of the time long. Like I stated previously, it's HARD for me to write short responses, and I like having something I can work off. Also... the inner monologue gets away from me at times :'D I only like short if it's silly dash commentary or maybe just a simple ask meme or something that isn't intended to be plotted out into a thread.

BEST TIME TO WRITE: A day off X'D Honestly, I'm MUCH more energetic and a better writer when it's early morning. Once it hits noon, I'm like a potato sack.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES: Haarlep? Lol, no. Not at all. He's charming and evil and swanky and sexy (and quite literally a sex addict). I'm literally a metal head nerd that likes my own solitude and just listens to music and does art and plays games. I'm also very asexual. I'm socially awkward af (: Haarlep is ALL charm. The only thing I could say is MAYBE... maybe my Libra charm, but... I'm so tired these days that that hardly shines through lol. I am just a sleepy hoot.

Tagged by: Stole it. Tagging: Yooouuuu

[fantastickkay]

A bit of commentary on the state of the music industry today:

I have noticed in the past few years, they are trying to make CD singles a thing again which would be great (!) if they had extra songs or remixes on them.

If they had just one extra track, I would be all over them! A marketing email just came through that extended mixes and instrumentals are available for Ariana's new song, so I dashed over to see if the physical versions had them... nope just the one song which is truly pointless. Even in the CD single heyday, they always had an extra track to entice a purchase!

It's just one of those things that are too bad, obviously nothing worth truly complaining about but this is my platform to talk about my music collection and this is part of that!

[littleapocalypsekitten]

If you like someone's art, fiction or commentary, you don't absolutely have to make commentary on it in a reblog if you do not know what to say. You can just reblog dry, to get the art seen. It's a way of saying "Hey, I like this!" that is seen on your dash by your followers and spreads the original poster's art around, get s the eyeballs on it. (Spoken as an artist and writer). Much of this applies to my sideblogs, You can own alternate blogs on here, which I do to keep my fandoms organised. My dash would be all over the place with people in my fandoms seeing politics reblogs that they might find unpleasant or random junk and/or fandom stuff for fandoms they are uninterested in, while my regular followers would be "Wow, she's so into Trigun right now when I followed her for the Zelda fanart she used to do, this is kind of obnoxious!" - Hence my creation of side-blogs to be Yeah, this is my Zelda-space, this is my She-Ra space, this is my Trigun-space. You don't even need to have different emails (you can only like from your main), but you can have a full blog to post on and reblog to that's a sideblog if you go into your settings and create one if say, you want to have a single-fandom specific space, or a space for your short story writing or just a spam-folder if you want to post random weird shower thoughts that you don't want all over your main. I don't think you can do side-accounts on any other social media like this. Including this one, I have 6 blogs. (This one, one for original art, one for writing and three different fandom-specific blogs). It's a nice way to do things. It's a pretty common feature here.

so i have a mildly popular “reblog and put in in the tags” post going around and its. very clear how many people don’t know how to interact with a tumblr post

so, first of all, tumblr’s culture has changed a lot in the past couple years. there’s a genuine community effort to not start any drama, and ironically a lot of the current hostility is an effort to keep things calm. there’s also a change in how people interact with posts, so if you haven’t been here in a while please skip down to the tags/replies/reblog with text section.

for newcomers: you should be reblogging posts about as liberally as you would like something on twitter. if you only like stuff, people will think you are rude/a bot. you’ve probably heard people talk about “cultivating your dash,” and thats because this platform is 100% centered around your dashboard. trending matters less, unfollowing and blocking in order to shape your dash into it’s best form is widely accepted, the majority of the content you’ll find and interact with will be because of your dash, and the only way to put things on your dash is to reblog them. tumblr users are deeply distrustful of algorithms and have largely turned off the “see posts your friends have liked” function (i recommend you also turn of the various algorithms in settings → general settings → dashboard preferences).

so, once you’ve reblogged a post, there’s three ways to add content to it. the tags, replies, and reblogging with text. all of them have different connotations

the tags: an inside voice. originally they were meant for organizing your blog (and they’re still used for this), but they’ve also morphed into a way to share thoughts that aren’t funny/insightful enough for non-followers to be interested in. when in doubt, put your comment in the tags

replies: basically talking to your friends in class. your followers have no way of finding your replies (they don’t pop up on the dash, nobody gets notified except for the original poster) so chances are, only the person who made the post is gonna see your comment. it’s for quick one-offs that you’re okay with other people overhearing, but really is only made for one person. they’re like a public dm

reblog with text: an outside voice. you’re getting up on a stage in town square and entertaining people. make sure it’s funny or insightful— bottom line, add something new to the conversation. you should use this the least

general rules of thumb: 

when in doubt, reblog. people will judge you if your blog is only personal posts and you only interact with other content by liking it.  

the only things people will judge you for reblogging are personal vent posts. leave a like to give a little virtual hug

if a post is asking about your personality/opinions (i.e: tell me what’s the last tv show you watched, that kind of thing) put it in the tags 

also if you see a nice edit, gifset, or art, reblog and say something nice in the tags! it’s that nice sweet spot of common enough that no one will notice but uncommon enough to make the artist’s day