#did i use that tag here or just on my other blogs?

[sillylotrpolls]

About Reblog Graphs

Have you ever clicked on the "reblog graph" button of a post? I think they're one of the... well, maybe not greatest features on tumblr ever (polls are probably better), but they're still pretty darn neat.

I want to show some cool patterns I noticed on some recent posts of mine, but first I'll explain how reblog graphs work so you can more easily follow along.

This is pretty long with a bunch of pictures, so click the cut to read more.

How reblog graphs work

If you've never done so before, I invite you to click the notes button on this or any other post and then the icon with four circles. You will then see a bunch of dots connected by lines.

For example, if you click the graph for the "blorbo in Elvish" post, you get something like this:

Now, let's zoom in a bit. You can do this by using the mouse wheel and clicking and dragging around the graph until it's showing what you want. (I don't know how it works on mobile, but presumably it's similar to using Google maps?)

This next screenshot is the bit in the lower right of the graph shown above. However, the graph may not always display in the same way because reblog graphs are re-generated each time you click the "reblog graph" button.

Here you can see that I'm viewing the root post, which is the original post made by me. It's indicated by a circle with a dot inside. You can also see that six people reblogged that post. Each reblog shows as a dot with a line connecting it to the post it was reblogged from.

Now here's a cool thing about reblog graphs: they're interactive! You can click on any dot and see the post it represents and the reblog chain that led to it.

For example, clicking this dot that has several lines emanating out from it shows that it is "2 reblogs deep" and was posted by @cycas.

Got it? Close enough? Cool, now let me show you some neat things I noticed. :D

The Swedish Chef poll and very popular bloggers

My polls tend to average between 500 and 2000 votes, depending on subject matter. The Swedish Chef poll, however, took off and eventually garnered over 22,000 votes. How did that happen? A very popular blog reblogged it about five days in.

Initially, the graph looked like this. (This is the first 200 reblogs.) There's nothing unusual here. You can see that the root post had several reblogs, and that there's another cluster developing around a post by @zagreus. There are also several reblog chains where just one person reblogs someone else's reblog. Some of these chains peter out, while others find their way onto the dash of more popular bloggers, creating clusters.

A quick note about "popularity"

Yes, yes, it's all about "popular." However, it's not just about having a bunch of followers. What's more important is that the "popular" person reblogging your post has followers who are specifically interested in your post.

For instance, if I, @sillylotrpolls, make a poll about LazyTown, it's probably not going to get very many reblogs because my followers aren't here for that. However, if @silly-lazytown-polls reblogs the poll, that reblog might then get quite a lot of reblogs itself. It's not that silly-lazytown-polls has more followers than sillylotrpolls, it's that it has more followers specifically interested in LazyTown content. Make sense?

Back to the Swedish Chef poll

The poll eventually got over 5,000 reblogs. Since you can only add 200 reblogs to the graph at a time, you can roughly see how a post spread over time.

With 600 reblogs loaded, a new cluster bursts onto the scene. This is @bunjywunjy, who reblogged the post from @beecreeper who reblogged it from @soggypotatoes who reblogged the original.

Bunjywunjy didn't add any tags or comments, so I didn't even notice at first because it didn't show in my activity feed. However, I did notice a sudden uptick in notes on the post, which caused me to investigate. It had been five days since I posted the poll, and usually polls that are going to take off do so sooner than that.

By continuing to click the "load more reblogs" button I can see how the post further spread, especially from bunjywunjy's post.

When the post reached @beggars-opera (whose icon I am somewhat proud to announce I identified on sight), they added a screenshot of @stylishanachronism 's tags which said:

# all of these are incorrect it's the 'meat's back on the menu boys!' scene

This would become the dominant version of the post as it further spread. Interestingly, this was the only reblog of stylishanachronism's reblog. Literally thousands of people loved their tags and agreed with them, but they quite plausibly never saw it unless they specifically went looking.

By 3,200 reblogs, you can see even bigger clusters developing. @thebibliosphere shows up 10 reblogs deep, and leads to yet another cluster via @teaboot (12 reblogs deep).

Eventually, with all 5,371 reblogs loaded, the reblog graph looks like this:

Like I said: neat. :D

Cool, but if you've seen one, you've seen them all - right?

So what prompted this (extremely long) post was actually the reblog graph for my poll on inspirational LotR quotes.

Here's the reblog graph with 200 reblogs loaded:

And here's the graph with all 1,890 reblogs loaded:

It's just one big cluster around the root post. I've never seen that before!! Almost everyone reblogging this post saw it either because they follow this blog, saw it in the #lotr tags, or because their non-influencer friend reblogged it. (Or maybe it was in some kind of algorithm/the explore feed, but I have nearly zero experience with those.)

And this wasn't just a small post. This poll got over 15,000 votes and more than 4,000 notes. That puts it in the top 10 polls for this blog.

What does it mean? I have no idea. I would really like to know! But really, I got nothing. If you have a theory for why this particular poll should result in a reblog graph like this, I would very much like to hear it.

Orphan clusters

To round things off, I'd like to show another interesting facet of reblog graphs: orphan clusters.

This blog's current undisputed poll champion is the fmk wheel poll. That's not really a surprise, as it combined sex with a fun game where you just had to tell everyone what you got, which meant either a reply or a reblog. So it spread pretty far.

However, if you look at the graph, there's something odd going on.

This is with just 200 reblogs loaded:

Notice how some of the dots don't connect to the root post? That's because somewhere along the chain, a reblog was deleted.

This cluster in the bottom left got pretty big! This screenshot is at 800 reblogs loaded. The missing link is from a blog called @gendertaliban that doesn't exist anymore, as near as I can tell. That makes it impossible to trace the full path of any of these reblogs.

In conclusion

This concludes today's deep dive into a tumblr feature you probably never paid any attention to. Admittedly, there's not a huge use for it outside of determining which of your mutuals is an "influencer," and they get quite difficult to navigate after loading about 1000 reblogs, but I hope you enjoyed staring at dots and lines with me. :)

[silusvesuius]

this tree from my new drawing looking goated afffffff 👑👑

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[rouge-fauna]

I think you’re talking about these posts [here & here], I don’t know if there have been others.

I'm not gonna say what I did was right, you are correct I should probably just not respond to asks getting me to talk about other people. I will say for these two posts those people had already blocked me I’m pretty sure, so it’s kinda hard to talk directly to them in that case. And I was not doing so anonymously and had not blocked them so I wasn’t hiding what I was saying. I did not follow them, I am not part of the innitor community, and not that that makes it right but I do think it is kinda different. Though you make a good point, perhaps we should stop this pattern of responding to asks about other blogs and such.

Still, the biggest thing to me I realized, back in elementary school when I first dealt with this, was that honestly all the time we talk about people behind their back. Talking about people when they aren’t always in the room is kinda just inevitable and part of socializing, however I think the important part is how you are talking about other people. It’s when you are insulting them, talking negatively about them to people they know, spreading false information and so on that it becomes not okay. Hopefully that makes sense.

In these cases I merely focused on the lore. I didn’t insult them or talk shit about them, as a person, as a blog or say their takes were stupid or they are stupid or speculate about their trauma or mental history. I just talked about reasons why I disagreed, or saw things differently and why we might see things differently. They were also not the only ones I saw to say similar things so I think in my mind I was making more of a general discussion, not trying to target them specifically. I didn’t post beyond that about them. But you are right, regardless it was probably not the right way to go about things.

But just to be clear, if I am a hypocrite it is not my intention. I haven’t vague blogged anyone or meant to vague reblog anyone. I think this week is pretty much the first time I’ve ever been not naming, passive aggressively talking about blogs, and even then I’m not trying to insult them, trying to cancel them. I’m just expressing that before you go off about how I’m stupid and unable to have a discussion about it, the very least you could’ve done was give me an opportunity to try.

[sportsthoughts]

.

[the-kipsabian]

kip sabian 420 twitch subscribers celebration makeup stream (part 2)

[spaciebabie]

I don’t think I’ll be on this platform anymore, at least for now, due to everything that’s happening. I’d just like to keep away from it and supporting it at all. See you later, maybe.

-heartbeat anon

i understand heartbeat!! safe travels wherever you find yourself!! thank you for sticking around <3333

[darkestrellar]

Svern didn't have non-pokemon verses until the start of this year!! I have discovered The Joy of making other verses for him because of intense brainrot + getting a better grasp of his character

I don't know if I could ever try to make him look not-pokemon ranger focused though. If I finally get around to making him a promo I'd specify there that he's not strictly a pokemon oc (anymore) but I Need to stamp my pokemon ranger blogs with the Big Pokemon Ranger Stamp

[lurking-latinist]

?

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

what were a few other url ideas you had?

at first i was thinking of something from the song day after day because i always think "that's me about all of my band boys"

I REMEMBER FIIIINDING OUT ABOUT YOUUUUU

EVERY DAY MY MIND IS ALL AROUND YOUUUUU

LOOKING OUT OF MY LONELY GLOOM(and/or "looking out from my lonely room")

DAAAAY AFTER DAAAYYY

BRING IT HOME BABY MAKE IT SOOOON

I GIVE MY LOVE TO YOUUUUUUUUU

but of course just 'dayafterday' was taken, and day-after-day etc. which isn't that surprising because it's a common thing to say. i wanted a shorter url like that but it's not easy to find one that isn't taken. then "looking out of my lonely gloom" would be the blog name.

i was thinking of using "mymindisallaroundyou" for the url instead or with dashes but decided against it

another one i almost picked was from maybe tomorrow where tom sings "let the light of your love shine through the window of my heart" so my url would have been "letthelightofyourlove" or "let-the-light-of-your-love" and then my blog name would be "shine through the window of my heart". i just really love that line and still applies to my band boys.

i was also thinking of the line from shine on where pete sings "don't think of tomorrow, yesterday is past" because sometimes i get a little too caught up in the past and i think it would be a good reminder to not do that so much.

AND there was a part from tom's demo, love my lady(about his wife which is super cute), where he says "like a sunshine on a rainbow" which would be the url and then the next line i was gonna change for tumblr reasons, he says "black nights, broken ways, got your bed to sleep on" where i would have put "got my blog to post on" at the end instead. my boys are the sunshine on a rainbow

i also considered using "knock down the old grey wall" from no matter what because i love that line and, for me, it would mean like my walls of anxiety in my head that need to be knocked down, and then the blog name would be "be a part of it all" because i want to be a part of things more instead of just hiding from everything all the time.

and and and i was thinking of the start of "i'm in love" where he says "i'm not well can't you tell" but i feel like "i'm not well" in all url variations would most likely be taken so i'd have to include both of those into the url, hope that's not taken too, and then i'd have nothing that i would want for the blog name to go with that.

i was trying to make one from pete's demo ostrich because sometimes i feel like the ostrich in that scenario, but it wasn't working for me.

SO i was stuck between a lot of these and still listening to more songs trying to come up with any different ones that would apply to me without it just being like "i don't relate to this but i like the song" because there are too many of those

i told myself that if i don't choose one by new years day, i'll just pick one that i already had in mind that stands out to me/relates to me the most in the moment and go with it. so i chose this one from name of the game.

it's a good song by the way and i think everybody should go listen to it right now and for the rest of your lives forever

[kingspuppet]

I'm finally combing through all my tags and putting them in a document to keep them organized so I don't have to fist fight the tagging system for not keeping my tags. (I refuse to give up my capitalization. I won't do it. You can't make me.) But that meant I also had to go back onto the old blog because I wasn't sure if I moved over every single one when I remade. I wasn't too hopeful because towards the last few months of me using the old blog it was not saving my tags at all so I had to keep remaking them. (This was a legacy issue, not beta related at all.) So, like I expected, a lot of the tags were just not going to show themselves to me. Either way, I think I got all the important ones. I hope. It was really weird though going onto the old blog though. I feel sentimental and at the same time glad that I had remade Goro because that blog was a mess. Still, it's kinda nice to just revisit it even for a few minutes. Though it is kind of annoying to see that random blogs reblogged IC and HC posts on there. Not that it matters now I suppose since it won't clog up my current feed. But it's still oddly disheartening in a way (and frustrating that personals will never know to respect the RPC's boundaries by not reblogging their things). Regardless, I think I got all of the tags I need. And if not I'll have to search for them later...But I'm glad to finally have this done because now I won't have to worry about it every time I go to make a post!

[maukuja]

oh. oh I got blocked by a mutual because of a misunderstanding with another blog. hm. well that sucks.

[osmiabee]

Hi. I'm a biologist of colour with PCOS. There is significant amount of error and misinformation here.

Hirsutism is NOT a diagnostic criterion for PCOS - let alone the most important one - it's one of many indicative symptoms which can include adult acne, infertility, "male pattern" excess hair growth and "male pattern" balding - There are not considered diagnostic criteria as these are secondary symptoms that occur due to excess testosterone.

The diagnostic criteria are all direct symptoms: you need 2/3 for official diagnosis: Irregular periods (self-reported), Visible cysts on ovaries (via ultrasound), and Excess "above range" Testosterone (via blood test),

When you test for what is considered a "healthy range" you have to exclude people who are unhealthy and exhibiting symptoms, as they will skew the data. Worst case scenario this can lead to people NOT getting the diagnosis and treatment they need because they are considered "normal" even while exhibiting secondary symptoms.

The 97.5th percentile is a common statistical tool that excludes the extremes of the data to set a realistic average range. When someone comes in with symptoms of a disease (in the example above, men with osteoporosis) and you test them and find their hormones are different to 95-97.5% of a healthy, asymptomatic population, you can then point at that hormone as a potential cause of disease and correct it.

I cannot describe to you how important it is to exclude people with the "makes too much testosterone" disorder, while testing a baseline population to get an idea of the "normal/healthy" levels of testosterone.

Because PCOS is so common (2-10% of the population depending on your statistical model) that bar/threshold for testosterone in women is set high. Likely because even while trying to exclude people exhibiting PCOS symptoms (including excess hair) so many people with underlying PCOS (and high androgens) are largely asymptomatic (half of cases accourding to the NHS), and either live their whole lives unaware or do not get tested until they have significant fertility or secondary health problems later down the line.

In my own case when I got my results back I was the third woman that *day* that my doctor had to call to say "sorry, your androgen results were quite high but technically within the normal range," likely because that 97.5 percentile bar they're using as a baseline is skewed by the fact that a huge proportion of women have PCOS, and even while exc they can't exclude us all from the baseline based on diagnosis, family history, and secondary symptoms obvious to doctors (like hirsutism) alone!

These are all tools made to inform individualised medicine: despite my "normal range" androgens I am currently taking Spironolactone (a testosterone reducing drug - commonly used in HRT) to combat the effects of PCOS because my "in range" hormones were still clearly too much for my individual body, and caused symptoms that made me unhealthy (anaemic and in severe pain due to periods + painful acne) and put me at risk of things like diabetes and heart disease later down the line.

This isn't about just arbitrarily excluding women with "too much" hair. But about setting a useful baseline for XX-female high-androgen disorders.

BECAUSE BEING ABLE TO ACCURATELY DIAGNOSE PCOS IS A GOOD THING.

The linked study above that was immediately dismissed as weird and racist, looked at the symptoms of a diverse group of american women with PCOS, and found preliminary data that the areas of skin that respond to high androgen levels (due to PCOS) differ depending on race. (for example - African Americans commonly developed facial hirsutism under their chins, while hispanic individuals were more likely to develop it on their arms and legs).

STUDIES LIKE THIS ARE GOOD, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE IF WE ONLY HAVE DATA FOR WHITE PEOPLE, POC WILL BE UNDERDIAGNOSED.

These kinds of studies are important, because it tells dermatologists where to look for secondary symptoms of PCOS in their patients, which is important because 92% of people with PCOS have symptoms affecting their skin, and 1 in 4 undiagnosed people are referred for PCOS diagnosis by a dermatologist.

IN CONCLUSION: This isn't about defining "woman" or "normal female" or setting "arbitrary" "spider eating" statistical rules for what is an acceptable testosterone range. It's about creating an accurate model for disease, which despite potentially affecting 1/10 people with uteruses, is massively underresearched and underdiagnosed. Because of medical misogyny. And racism to boot.

It's true that huge swathes of medical practice are rooted in misogyny and racism, and uphold a gender and sex binary that is, in reality, far more flexible and complicated than historic tests would allow for, but this post is inaccurate and relies on borderline deliberate misinterpretation of the medical data to make that point.

I forget why, but I was on the Wikipedia page for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and I started researching hirsutism in women, and I learned the following things in this order:

there's a diagnostic criteria used to evaluate how hairy a woman is

This is important because being too hairy is a diagnostic criteria of most disorders that cause hyperandrogenism

Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism can be diagnosed by...measuring how hairy you are (this is the main and most important diagnostic criterion for PCOS)

Disorders that cause hyperandrogenism are important because they are correlated with obesity, infertility, and...being too hairy?

I think to myself, wait, what is a normal range for testosterone in women? I find this article...which set reference ranges for "normal" testosterone levels in women...EXCLUDING WOMEN WITH PCOS?

Quote: "Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is another notable condition in genetic (XX) females, which is characterized by excessive ovarian production of androgens. This condition is included for comparison with DSD, as the affected females with PCOS are genetic and phenotypic females. The elevated levels of testosterone in these females can lead to hyperandrogenism, a clinical disorder characterized variably by hirsutism, acne, male-pattern balding, metabolic disturbances, impaired ovulation and infertility. PCOS is a common condition, affecting 7%-10% of premenopausal women."

So: the study claims to demonstrate a clear distinction between the normal range of hormone levels in "Healthy" men and "healthy" women...with "healthy" being defined in the study as...having hormones within the "normal" range.......................

So I researched what the clinically established "normal" range for testosterone in women is

THERE ISN'T ONE????

Quote from the above article: "Several different approaches have been used to define endocrine disorders. The statistical approach establishes the lower and the upper limits of hormone concentrations solely on the basis of the statistical distribution of hormone levels in a healthy reference population. As an illustration, hypo- and hypercalcemia have been defined on the basis of the statistical distribution of serum calcium concentrations. Using this approach, androgen deficiency could be defined as the occurrence of serum testosterone levels that are below the 97.5th percentile of testosterone levels in healthy population of young men. A second approach is to use a threshold hormone concentration below or above which there is high risk of developing adverse health outcomes. This approach has been used to define osteoporosis and hypercholesterolemia. However, we do not know with certainty the thresholds of testosterone levels which are associated with adverse health outcomes."

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

It's batshit crazy to make a diagnostic criteria for medical disorders by placing arbitrary cutoffs within 2-5% of either end of a statistical distribution. What the actual fuck?

"The results came back, you have Statistical Outlier Disease." "What treatments are available?" "Well, first, we recommend dietary change. You should probably stop eating so many spiders."

Another article which attempted to do this

Quote: "Subjects with signs of hirsutism or with a personal history of diabetes or hypertension, or a family history of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) were excluded."

"We're going to figure out the typical range of testosterone levels that occur in women! First, we're going to exclude all the women that are too hairy from the study. I am very good at science."

Anyway I got off topic but there are apparently race-specific diagnostic tools for "hirsutism." That's kinda weird on its own but when I looked more into this in relation to race I found this article that straight-up uses the term "mongoloid"

[brazen-art]

Chiropractors near you:

(continue your art journey today by looking at this cool murkrow that my friend drew!)

[winter-spark]

Paused my queue and started using it as a secondary drafts box but I think I'm gonna try and go through it & unpause it. I'm sorta getting confused on how to use this site and need to return to my "roots"

[neverendingford]

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