#community knowledge

[586ondisability]

Collective writing and authorship

(Or: Why tumblr is a nightmare for academic citation, but actually pretty great)

Academic writing puts a heavy emphasis on authorship and ownership of ideas. It enforces citation structures that prioritize hierarchies within multi-authored works, publishing bodies, and strict adherence to guidelines - often at the cost of actual clarity.

The first time I tried to cite a tumblr post for a paper, it took me nearly an hour to find a template for how to structure the citation, because APA does not value non-academic sources, especially ones as informal as social media blog posts.

Tumblr’s format complicates authorship and collective writing. Most people access posts through a second, third, or 20th party, rather than from the original poster, via reblogging. Many posts, particularly ones intended to be informational, have contributions from multiple blogs. Sometimes, the bulk of the content is only tangentially related to the original post or comes from responses in the notes. People will often put commentary or expand on ideas in the tags – if someone who follows them sees those tags and thinks they are particularly relevant or add to the post, they may copy-paste or screenshot them and add them with a link to the person who’s tags they were. This is affectionately referred to as ‘passing peer review’ and often is accompanied by a comment along the lines of “this was too good to leave in the tags” (1, 2). This kind of interactive contribution is characteristic of tumblr and is commonly accepted practice across communities.

Collective writing is a cornerstone of tumblr. Posts are conversations, collections of information and perspectives. I think this is one of the key consistencies amongst disabled writers and thinkers, whether it’s online or academia – we are drawn to collective work(3). Our lives often require us to seek support and assistance from each other and our communities to meet our needs – if we survive collectively, why would we create in isolation?

Tumblr also offers anonymity – this may seem counter to building community, but it isn’t. Disability is often messy and complicated, and many aspects of our lives are not acceptable by ‘public’ standards. Anonymity allows some of us a place to express openly without fear of judgement or consequence – particularly for those in situations where expressing their frustration or thoughts could be actively dangerous and lose them the care they rely on for survival. This also complicates crediting work, as often the only way to attribute work is to a username (which is also the URL for the blog) that can be changed at any time, with almost no way to ensure someone looking for post can connect the old and new name. This is both a challenge and a feature even on tumblr, as it allows people to regain some degree of anonymity after going ‘viral’ or just change with their interests, but is a pain when trying to keep track of people you follow.

All of these factors making citing tumblr in an academic format challenging at best, and a nightmare at worst. Yet it’s generally clear to people within the ‘tumblr ecosystem’ who is responsible for any particular contribution, which illustrates the limitations of the strict structures of academic citation.

By nature, tumblr doesn’t have a particular format for citing or sourcing material. Media literacy and the importance of sharing and checking sources varies dramatically by community and user – as is to be expected for a social media site with a varied userbase. Generally speaking though, people sharing information on tumblr prioritize clarity and convenience when including sources, because while there is a significant number of academics using the site, most users have not been taught how to interpret an APA, Chicago, or MLA citation, and they are wildly inaccessible to many people with disabilities. Instead, people include links – sometimes alone, with brief summaries, or just titles and names of authors (4). Other times people use simplified footnote citations (as I have), which keeps the body of the text clear and is familiar enough that most people can understand them. The information included is only what someone might need to find a source – the priority is on making the content easily accessible to the audience.

1: https://www.tumblr.com/theinnermeyoullneverknow/757506025382445056/im-sorry-laughconfetti-this-is-too-good-to-hide?source=share

2: https://www.tumblr.com/2-the-moon-and-2-saturn/729982055601045504/my-favorite-thing-in-the-genre-of-tumblr?source=share

3: Learning Disability Justice through Critical Participatory Action Research (Laura J. Wernickin in Crip Authorship, 2023) https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89491

4: https://www.tumblr.com/reasonsforhope/770202625015693312/indigenous-resistance-has-cut-us-and-canadas?source=share

[cryptidtumbleweed]

It's 2025, can we agree that you can be straight and LGBTQIA+ finally? Or is the concept of asexual straights and straight trans people still too complex for this world?

Not aimed at the community as a whole of course but some of y'all gotta stop being so uppity about straight people existing within the community.

[m4g0hun]

lost child

[khoirbin]

could you imagine if everyone pretty quickly figures out Loops identity but doesn’t mention it because it’s rude to talk about who someone was before they Changed? like Odile finally reveals to the rest of the party that loop was SECRETLY SIFFRIN THE WHOLE TIME!!! and everyone’s like “madame that’s very rude you should apologize” because of course they already figured it out, people they know go through changes all the time, they know how to spot a friend that looks different

[reality-detective]

* * * News Interruption * * *

[a-path-by-the-moon]

[feelo-fick]

i thought the reason was obvious..??

but you dont seem to get the implication so i guess ill just keep talking and you can listen if you want to

—

that one meme but its them :] sort of a sequel to this

[cognitivejustice]

Across Africa, many rural communities face a growing sanitation crisis. Wastewater treatment systems, where they exist, are often old, overloaded, or broken. In some towns, untreated sewage flows directly into rivers, contaminating water sources and harming both ecosystems and public health.

For decades, the global response to wastewater has been to clean the water in large wastewater facilities designed to remove physical, chemical and biological contaminants from domestic wastewater (toilets) or industrial effluent. Wastewater plants produce treated water that is safe to discharge into rivers.

But they’re expensive and energy intensive. They’re also difficult to maintain in rural areas where local government doesn’t get much revenue.

 a team of scientists led by environmental management researcher and professor Paul Oberholster, who set out to look for a much simpler and greener solution in a small town in South Africa’s Limpopo province. Our research found that algae – the same green organisms often dismissed as pond scum – could offer a low-cost, low-tech way to clean domestic sewage.

The team inserted tiny microalgae into the ponds at the Motetema Wastewater Treatment Works in Limpopo. The microalgae removed pathogens without using any chemicals or mechanical equipment that runs on electricity. They cleaned up the sewage from 1,560 homes.

This is a sustainable, low-cost approach to wastewater treatment that can improve public health and the environment in small towns, especially those with limited infrastructure and unreliable electricity. And it’s especially important to find ways of cleaning wastewater that don’t cost much or use electricity because climate change increases water stress and energy costs across the continent.

[thatonebirdwrites]

(I wrote this article to help remind myself that even small actions like maintaining my microlibrary matters. I've included my methodology below and why I do it. I also includes some resources that go into further depth).

Archiving Our Works Offline

Since we are entering a fascist era where I live, archiving literature of all types becomes more pertinent. Especially with the current rise in book-banning and censorship (much of that focusing on marginalized groups like LGBTQIA people and Black and Indigenous people).

So how do we archive literature and keep knowledge safe from censorship or destruction by authoritarian regimes? There’s various methods, but I’ll speak of a way one can do this without a degree or beforehand knowledge of archival practices.

I’ve been archiving my eBooks and the studies I’ve read for a long time now, but it’s only recently I’ve been working on transferring them to a safer, offline drive. I also have a large physical library of books from various genres and covering many different topics. I collect books and can often find them cheap at book sale fundraisers, estate sales, sales in book stories, discounts in online stores, etc. 

Due to how extensive my library is, it’s inspired my friends to read new authors or genres or to tackle new topics; the archive gave us room for discussion. It also helped friends or community members who don’t have access to a library still access a digital copy by checking-out a copy from me. Now, one doesn’t have to share their archive with anyone, but I find it helpful to do so.

The goal however should not be to archive the most famous books — as if everyone did that we wouldn’t preserve much knowledge, so focus on unique and lesser known literature and media to preserve those too. This is why I focus so much on marginalized authors, who are not well known.

Archiving knowledge is why physical libraries in a town is so crucial. They are bastions of knowledge and archived books, media, and documents. Supporting your local library and fighting with your library to keep them open is crucial. This also requires fighting against book bans that would censor/restrict what a library is allowed to put on their shelves and archives.

What I’m suggesting here isn’t to replace libraries. It’s to augment the community’s archives of knowledge, media, documents, and books. Since Public Libraries are the forefront of the fight against banned books, it can be crucial to make sure the banned or censored books are preserved somehow.

While the authoritarian state may easily target Public Libraries, they can’t so easily target civilians, especially if the archival project is done quietly among small groups of people. These smaller projects are how some of the lost knowledge from before the 1930s Nazi book-burnings were salvaged; everyday people like you and me archived books and documents and kept them safe.

Experts often discuss four stages to censorship:

Stage one: Not allowing certain topics to be discussed. This is similar to laws in Florida, where speaking of LGBTQIA folks (trans in particular) can be penalized. This primarily impacts schools, but not necessarily the publishing industry as a whole.

Stage two: Bills that censor the Internet. The terrible KOSA bill (Kids Online Safety Act) is an example, where it sought to censor the existence of LGBTQIA and/or Black and Indigenous literature, media, and documents on the Internet. This is where sites that carry these media may start to go dark digitally.

Stage three: Penalizing anyone who sells, disseminates, or produces censored materials. This is when authors, publishers, bookstore owners, libraries, and others are attacked directly and penalized for having any literature or media the state deems ‘bad.’ The penalty can range from fines to jail time to death.

Stage four: book burnings. This is full-on blatant Nazi-esque book burnings and trashing of any institution or public archive of knowledge and media that holds the censored materials. For example, the Sex and Gender Institute in Germany in 1930s was the first targeted institution for book burnings by Nazis. A century worth of data on LGBTQIA (and specifically trans and intersex individuals) were lost. The only remnants that survived was documents smuggled out before the book burnings.

For the country in which I reside, we are hovering between stage one and two. I suspect by the end of these four years, we’ll be closer to stage three. This is why it’s crucial to keep an archive of knowledge, and if many people are doing this, the higher likelihood that more data can be preserved. It may seem daunting, but that’s why it’s helpful to work with other people and focus on a specific genre or topic for the archival project you start.

I personally started with Leftist books focused on anti-capitalism, anti-racism, building communes, and science fiction and fantasy by marginalized authors. I was a little broad in my choice of topics, but there’s no need to be this broad.

For example, one could pick to archive only trans literature or only literature by Indigenous authors. Also remember, you cannot archive every book in your chosen topic. You will be curating these archives to some degree because that’s inescapable. Do not fret over this or agonize over being unable to archive all the books.

Preserving some knowledge is better than losing it all. That’s the goal. Take it a step at a time. For me, I’ve been adding to my archive for over four years. It’s sitting at around 25 gigabytes, and it’s something I added to slowly over that time. I took breaks. I set aside time each month to update the archive, and I asked others for help during high pain times. (This was helpful during the start of Covid, where I started up a digital archive of studies. Friends helped catalog them.)

Preserving knowledge and literature is crucial in times where censorship and book bans are on the rise. There’s a lot of great knowledge, literature, and media out there that should be preserved for future people to read or watch.

When an authoritarian regime starts to censor the sharing of knowledge, data, and stories, this is when archival practices become crucial for the survival of people’s history, culture, and stories. Anyone can work on an archival project, though I recommend building up a group to help make it easier in the long run.

1. Hardware. 

Obtain a large storage drive, as in a 1 or more terabyte SSD drive. This will serve as the data repository for the digital portion of the archive. This drive must not be used regularly. It’s meant to store the data, then be placed in a safe storage area (at just the right temperature to avoid degradation of the drive).

Since books can range in size, multiple storage drives may be needed. If one is seeking to also rescue/archive media such as photographs, videos, music, podcasts, etc — then you’ll need larger storage drives. This storage drive should not be connected to the Internet in any way. It’s meant as an offline archival device.

Servers can also be used as archives, where the data is stored on the server, but a server is connected to the Internet. Depending on the circumstances, it may not be wise to have the back-up archive in the cloud. A back-up should be stored offline for any archive security.

Try to avoid cloud storage, especially if based in the USA. Do not use googledrive or dropbox or any similar cloud storage. If you must use cloud storage, always have an offline backup on your own SSD drives, and seek out a storage service that is based in a country with good privacy laws that has encryption embedded in it such as cryptpad.org.

Next make sure the computer hardware needed to open those drives are kept in top-notch shape. The digital archive will end up useless if there isn’t a device capable of connecting with the storage drive. Most devices with USB ports have the capability to connect to a storage drive.

2. File types.

You need to make sure the file types used in digital storage can be easily accessed by the majority of devices currently in existence. At this time of writing in January 2025, PDFs, ePub, .Doc, .mp3, .mp4, .wave, and .zip  are the most common file types and the most accessible. Could this change in the next decade? Maybe, but for now, focus on the most common file types that are accessible by the majority of systems.

3. Avenues of procuring the literature for archiving.

There’s two forms of archival data: Physical form and Digital form. 

For the physical form, that consists of print books, magazines, newspapers, photos, etc. These can be purchased online or in physical stores. They also can be traded for using a grey market system. (Grey market is where the item is obtained legally but then sold by someone who may not have a license to sell. Black market is when item is obtained illegally.) Physical forms of literature are the superior archival forms. Books can easily outlast our lifetimes if stored in a dry, lukewarm temperature storage space.

Digital forms do not have a physical version of the data. The storage device or server is the only sign it exists in the physical realm. Digital forms can be compressed into smaller file sizes for long-term storage. Buying eBooks is also cheaper than a print physical copy. There is also online PDF/eBook libraries where one can download the book for free (for legal reasons, I cannot recommend. For ethical reasons, I maintain archiving literature to make sure it doesn’t disappear or is destroyed by censorship is important in the long-term).

Once the item is procuring (in hopefully legal way as I in no way suggest breaking the law), then it becomes important to store it appropriately.

4. Storage of archival data and literature.

The storage drives in point 1 become crucial for the digital forms of literature and other data. Storage drives need to be kept in a relatively dry, cool space and kept offline. When I saw cool, I’m speaking of between 50 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Best to keep it at a steady temperature. I prefer 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. This prolongs the shelf-life of your drive. To avoid stressing the drive by using it often, try to time the storage so that you store as many files as you can in one boot-up.

Another important component to using storage drives is the power of encryption. A drive can be encrypted, and the key needed to use it safely guarded. I’d recommend this only if there are concerns of increased scrutiny to penalize the possession of certain types of literature and archival documents and media.

For example, if a law is passed to ban trans or queer literature, there’s a few ways the law could be written: it can focus on who sells or prints this literature, which means possession of it is not part of the law. A second way is to penalize both selling, printing, and possession. It’s this latter form of law that needs to be watched out for, and if it comes to be, that’s when encrypting the drives and keeping that key safe is crucial.

I am not an encryption expert, however. So be sure to research encryption to determine the best way to build up this security.

For physical storage, the area needs to also be dry and in that same temperature range. Storage in bins such as metal or plastic bins can also help preserve the books and magazines. Finding a space big enough can be difficult. Sure, a storage center could be used, but if you lose access to it or one is raided, you’d have no control over rescuing your archive. Better to work with your community (and friends) to store it yourself, so you have control over who has access to it.

5. Building up these archival Libraries in your communities.

If this feels daunting, then take a step back and think about who you know that may be interested in assisting. You can then talk with those people and work out a system to spread the tasks and make the project less intense. By working together in community, you will lessen the risk of burnout, which is crucial since it can take anywhere from weeks to years to recover from burnout.

What is burnout? It’s when stress on the body and mind pushes one past their limits and causes illness — physical or mental illness. The body and mind are exhausted, and so activities becomes increasingly hard to do. The best way to avoid this is to share the burden in projects like these. Take breaks often to give your body and mind rest. Spend time with family and/or friends and/or pets to help recharge. Take some solitary time too.

Working with other people in community is crucial for surviving fascist regimes. We are not islands, as that saying goes, and even islands are not isolated and independent. For the island relies on the larger, interconnected ecosystems of earth to exist. 

Mariame Kaba, who wrote ‘We Do This Till We Free Us,’ wrote about her father and something her father shared with her: “You have a responsibility to live in this world. Your responsibility is not just to yourself. You are connected to everyone…. because the world doesn’t work without everyone.” 

We are interconnected with other people and the environment as a whole. No one is “self-made” as that is individualistic capitalist propaganda; all of us had people throughout our lives that taught us what we know, socialized us into society’s norms (or out of those norms), assisted us in hard times, and so forth. Humanity are inherently social creatures, so do not discount the power of community.

Resources

For ways to build up your own groups and communities, I recommend starting with Surviving the Future edited by Branson, Hudsen, and Reed and How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong. Group-building can be as simple as a book club, who meets monthly, deciding to take on archiving the books they read.

For further reading, the following article discusses archiving and rescuing trans literature, but it’s tips apply to everything I’ve discussed above and to many other types of literature: A Practical Guide To Resisting Censorship. It includes tips for ways people can work together to safeguard knowledge and literature, which is nicely organized based on your role in the literature ecosystem. 

Feel free to share thoughts and tips below. :)

[pratchettquotes]

"I want a school, sir. I want a school here on the Chalk. I've been thinking about this for a long time--in fact, for longer than I had worked out the name for what I wanted. There's an old barn on Home Farm that isn't being used right now, and I think we could make it quite acceptable in a week or so."

"Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months," said the Baron.

"Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late. [...] There have been times lately, when I dearly wish that I could change the past. Well, I can't, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having."

Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

[586ondisability]

Tumblr: the quiet home of crip & queer theory.

Despite its reputation for being full of teenage fangirls and ‘blue haired social justice warriors’, there are a lot of academics and professionals on tumblr. In fact, I’ve been all of the above myself over the last decade that I’ve on this site.

Aside from using it for entertainment, community, and all the other reasons that are no different to any other user, some academics and professionals also use tumblr to talk about their work. Many of them take advantage of the anonymity the platform gives them, allowing them to speak about things they might otherwise be sanctioned for, or just share ideas and thoughts without being a public figure. Others make it a part of their work and portfolio.

Dr. Devon Price, a multi-bestselling author, professor, and psychologist, got his first book deal from a blog post that went viral, largely on tumblr, titled ‘Laziness Does Not Exist’1. The book that came from that post was the first step to changing how I viewed productivity, and I can draw a direct line from there to my own acceptance of my disability. Dr. Devon Price has since written one of the top books on autism, titled ‘Unmasking Autism’2, which is especially important as it draws heavily on his own experiences while integrating research and psychological and social theory to support his points. Throughout this, he has continued to post regularly on tumblr (@drdemonprince), having conversations and discussing theory with other users of the site – and occasionally getting into arguments (there is no such thing as community without conflict).

As a blogging platform first and social media site second, tumblr is much more supportive of long form content than most other social media sites. As discussed in my other posts, it also allows for anonymity, minimal censorship, and curated communities, while encouraging collaborative thinking. This makes tumblr a site for academics and others interested in theory to converge and discuss their perspective without the oversight of ‘legitimizing’ bodies like academic and publishing institutions determining which ideas are worthy of promotion. This ‘underground’ for theory is particularly fertile ground for queer and crip theorists whose ideas are far from widely accepted or mainstream in most academic and publishing circles. It also breaks down the walls of the ivory tower, demonstrating that it’s absolutely not necessary to have an advanced degree or to use highly inaccessible language to participate in theory.

I learned as much about queer theory from tumblr as I did from my gender studies minor (and that is a compliment to tumblr, not a diss on my minor program). The foundational piece of writing that summarizes queer theory and identity to me is a tumblr post (3). I learned about the social model of disability from tumblr long before I heard about it in school. Searching ‘crip theory’ brings up dozens of posts explaining language (4), sharing quotes and accessible readings (5, 6), and discussing firsthand experiences through a lens of social context (7). I’ve found tumblr is an excellent resource for finding popular and foundational works, especially in these less mainstream disciplines and theories.

This bridging of academic and public spheres shifts who controls the narratives, what voices are recorded and shared, how our lives are imagined.

“Narrative justice can serve as a form of affirmation: it ensures that disability narratives and disabled people are not erased in stories about them, and it presents their lived experiences as celebratory joy and individual experience, rather than the usual tale of trauma and overcoming. Moreover, it is imperative that these stories are made accessible to disabled people as well—these are their as well as our histories and experiences, after all, and providing access serves to both inform and confirm these narratives.” Jaipreet Virdi, “Public Scholarship as Disability Justice”8

The disabled community on tumblr blurs the line between author and audience, theory and action, knowledge and activism. Theory is shared and discussed because it informs the way we see ourselves and our place in the world. Resource sharing, emotional disclosure, and sociopolitical discussion happen in the same spaces, in the same posts, at the same times. This gives us a site for cultural knowledge and understanding, which exists outside and often in direct contravention of dominant perspectives on our lives(9).

We are just one of many groups, communities, and peoples who are carving out and defending our right to think, know, and care for ourselves as we see fit. I see similarities to Indigenous decolonial theory in the resilience, refusal to be convenient, and commitment to collective existence1. We share a declaration of counter-normativity with the queer community. Many of us are part of more than one of these groups, and even within the disabled/crip community there is so much variety of experience, and so much that is shared.

1: Laziness Does Not Exist (Devon Price, 2018) https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01

2: Unmasking Autism: Discovering the new faces of neurodiversity (Devon Price, 2022)

3: https://www.tumblr.com/eternalgirlscout/185308695773/eternalgirlscout-not-gay-as-in-happy-but-queer?source=share

4: https://www.tumblr.com/queercripintersex/762014773273624576/crip-and-cripple-are-different-words?source=share

5: https://www.tumblr.com/tiny-steps-forward/770067686372917248/disability-justice-readings-google-drive?source=share

6: https://www.tumblr.com/the-poetic-mathematician/749845734561611776/the-culture-asking-such-questions-assumes-in?source=share

7: https://www.tumblr.com/chronicallycouchbound/723612103381073920/internalized-ableism-as-means-for-unhoused?source=share

8: Public Scholarship as Disability Justice (Jaipreet Virdi, in Crip Authorship, 2023) https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89491

9: Chronic Media Worlds: Social Media and the Problem of Pain Communication on Tumblr (Elena Gonzalez-Polledo, 2016) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305116628887

10: Decolonizing Research Practice: Indigenous Methodologies, Aboriginal Methods, and Knowledge/Knowing (Michael Evans, Adrian Miller, Peter J. Hutchinson, Carlene Dingwall, 2020) https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190847388.013.18

[pinkcultgirl]

i wish for the world to become a kinder place

[littlecubreg]

hii hiii!! sort of a psa(??) for the agere community on here because its a "problem" ive seen a lot on here! not targeted at anyone eitherrr just wanted to share!!

plleeease reblog creators posts! unlike instagram, tiktok, and most other social media apps, tumblr works off of the reblog system! - if you only like a post, the post in question gets nooo push and does not circulate. if you like a post, reblog it! if something is relatable, reblog (and comment)! if its agere content for some niche interest that you want to see more content from, reblog it so it circulates!!

[manifestmoons]

Magical Herbal Properties by Manifestmoons - Part 1

You’re setting up for spellwork, the energy is building, and then—ugh. You go blank. What herb do you need? Do you grab Bay Leaf for protection or Basil for abundance? Now you’re digging through notes, scrolling through your phone, completely breaking the flow.

Been there. So I made something to fix that. Print it, keep it, use it. Spend less time searching and more time casting.

[saturnvs]

and what if i pulled myself together and contacted the local riding school to tell them i'm interested in joining ....