#tumblr tag system IS SO BUGGY

[sparkleonitstuesday]

scary jerma ive done a while ago

[adelle-ein]

tbh an important facet of "internet accessibility" is allowing and normalizing effective, easy blocking/muting/word blacklisting so that people with OCD/PTSD/eating disorders/etc can exist safely online. but "triggered" is universally a Funny Joke Word now so we're never in a million years going to be having that conversation

[venomous-ragno]

I've posted these before but Tumblr's tag system is buggy so it's not showing up for ppl, which is a shame cause if this dynamic rots my brain y'all have to suffer with me

Ghost x reader x Soap headcannons

I take requests btw;)

Tags: Ghost x reader x Soap, sfw, gn!reader, fluff

Warnings: None

Gif by @collinnmckinley

• Brothers in arms, these two have developed a bond that goes deeper than that of just any comrades. They work like a machine, gears oiled and intertwined, always moving forward and further into unknown territory.

• Ghost and Soap aren't romantically involved, but they don't mind it if it's the other. Both know and respect the other's boundaries; Gaz once called them psychics for understanding each other without so much as words exchanged.

• Their lives are anything but conventional so why shouldn't their relationship be too? It's a strange idea, sure. Much to your surprise though neither seemed taken aback or even shocked at the suggestion - not in the slightest, for they agree on more things than they disagree on.

• If you ever go on a mission with them and the team gets split up, both Ghost and Soap would find solace in knowing you're with the other, that you're well protected even in the face of death.

• Ghost and Soap are two different types of love; Ghost is more of a calm, quiet lover. No big words or pda but rather small acts of service and quality time. Ghost remembers all your quirks, all your likes and dislikes by heart. He prides himself in knowing you better than anyone else, reads you like an open book, and slowly... Opens up in and about himself, too.

• Soap is loud, if not a bit boastful. He doesn't mind calling you sweet nicknames, throwing a flirty line or two over comms. His love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch, and he isn't shy about giving nor receiving. He's quite sensitive to personal space and highly receptive of your emotional state.

• You know that Ghost has a hard time conveying his thoughts and feelings. Hell, he can't even decipher them himself most of he time. Comes with the life he agreed on living, doesn't make it any more frustrating when he refuses to elaborate on decisions he's made.

• Soap understands you both. He's had his fair share of troubles with the stoic Lt, and thus acts as a mediator. He jokingly calls himself the "peacekeeper of the 141", taking the deadly stares from both of you with stride.

• Ghost and Soap often share late night talks. It's an intimate moment between these two on an emotional level: Let the stars be witness to their hopes and dreams, their frustrations and fears, let their heart get lighter until the sun shines on them and reminds them of the hardships daylight brings.

• It's nights like those where Soap nudges Ghost in the right direction when it comes to you. Gentle but stern pushes towards an apology, in whichever form it may come in, Ghost's words carry nothing but candour. Be patient and he'll do his best to learn.

• "Live as if you're dead", they say, but how can one not feel alive when you love pulses hot through their veins? They should know better. They should know better than to let themselves fall for you like so and yet they're utterly powerless, for no knife may cut that damned red string.

Bonus:

Price raises a brow at whatever you three got going on, but chooses to remain ignorant as long as it doesn't affect work. If anything, he finds amusement in it; how the three of you bicker back and forth, how your dynamic confuses everyone not sharp enough to catch on. Besides, he's won quite a few bucks over drunken bets with Gaz - and he gets to see Simon more often too, rather than Ghost. A bonus if anything.

[damnfandomproblems]

(Not a submission, a response regarding 4845): Similarly to 4845, literally, when I follow a writer or artist, I came for their content. Then I see their updated bios which has “proshippers DNI” or any DNI regarding specific tropes in fiction. Like “okay, good to know that they don’t use a block button at all and it gave me huge red flags, so now I’m unfollowing.”

Bonus: two of the artists I unfollowed are from a country where being anything but straight is a crime or taboo and they were the ones that had “proship DNI” on their updated bios. They are unironically pushing away people who fight against censorship and they live in a country where any LGBT content or even any content that defies gender norms is censored or banned. I can get that they don’t want to come across content they don’t like, but as much as we love making fun of Tumblr for being broken and buggy, at least the filtering tags system and block feature work. It’s made my experiences in fandoms where incest ships are the most popular ships much easier because I don’t have to see it after I blocked certain tags.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

[triviallytrue]

Good recentish changes:

Making posts unrebloggable

Stealth change to what it looks like when someone blocks you

Checkmarks etc

Ad free tumblr

Slightly better tagging stuff

Blazing stuff

Neutral changes:

Video/image viewers. Weird rn but you'll get used to them so fast

Splitting reblogs and replies, 3 types of reblogs

Clicking on the name to get the blog and the timestamp to get the post

tumblr live (people think this is a bad thing but it's so easy to block)

all the weird shit that pops up sometimes on the desktop sidebar

Bad changes:

That week when you couldn't turn off based on your likes

The new post editor being insanely buggy (mostly fixed now)

The "why don't you add tags" prompt showing up for some people rn

The for you dashboard being the default for new blogs

Desperately needed changes:

Please please please let reblogs with inline links show up it would make my life so much easier

Private blog system that works like twitter's system with follower requests instead of the current password protected model

[simmyfrobby]

sorry if this seems naive but i am new to hockey tumblr and genuinely trying to work out the etiquette and there seem to be some tags/spamming ~discourse~ going on. what is the best practice? i'm scared reading these posts that i'm going to upset someone when i post

hi! i don't really keep up with anything at all so i don't quite know what discourse you're referring to, but tumblr is a buggy app and if you want to be able to find anything you always have to make sure to get the tags exactly right.

if i post (an original post) about a player i typically put their first & last name in the tags + the team they're currently playing for. i also consistently tag a few things (my own edits, other peoples edits) so i can find them more easily. the rest of my tags are just me yelling about things. as is my right.

tumblr politeness dictates that you don't tag your hate (don't put the name & team in the tags if you're being v negative about a player). do tag your live blogs ("pens lb," "bruins lb," "wild lb," just so that 1: other people liveblogging at the same time can interact with your posts and you can make friends and 2: people who don't like the team can block the tag). try to tag trigger warnings if you're aware of them ("cw: blood," "tw: blood," "blood," whatever system works for you). tumblr is not like instagram. the search function rarely (if ever) works and there is no algorithm, so tagging things "for exposure" doesn't work. you're usually better off just tagging the things you're actually posting about.

don't forget that the original poster of the thing you're reblogging!!! can!!!! see!!! your!!!! tags!!!!! they show up in their notes!!!! and they read them!!!! the blog you're reblogging the post from also sees your tags in their notes. if complete strangers in the notes of my post say something along the lines of "hey fuck you OP" i sometimes block them. this is fine and normal and recommend. block & blacklist whoever you want for whatever reason you want. for ur health. :)

[campdigimonth]

About Camp Digimonth 2024

Camp Digimonth is a create together event that takes place from January 1-31, 2024!

How it Works:  The purpose of Camp Digimonth is to establish creative habits for a new year by making Digimon content together!  Each participant is asked to set their own goals for the month to suit their creative needs.  All kinds of content creators are welcome (writers, artists, gif makers, cosplayers, whatever your heart desires!).  Participants do not need to stick to one medium; you can write and draw!  And remember that planning and refining are vital parts of creation.  If you want to spend the month outlining new projects or editing old ones, that’s great, too!  Content from all Digimon series/games/movies/drama CDs/novelizations/etc is welcome!

There are no prompts in this event.  Participants are encouraged to work on existing projects or projects on their to-do list.

How to Participate:  You can be as involved or independent as you’d like!  Use the hashtag #campdigimonth2024 and be sure to @ this blog to mark any post you want reblogged on this Tumblr blog. Tumblr's tagging system can be buggy, so dropping an @campdigimonth in your post is the safest way to ensure your post is seen.

-Declaring goals:  I will start checking the #campdigimonth2024 tag in early January 2024 for your goal announcements!  Once you have landed on a goal for yourself, you can share it with everyone following the Camp Digimonth blog :D  Share what you will make with everyone, so we can get hype for your upcoming content!  

-Share your content:  Use the #campdigimonth2024 tag and @ this blog to mark any content you would like shared on this blog from January-March 2024 (the later months are intended for more coverage for multi-chapter fics and comics, or any works too complex to complete in January).

-Join the Discord:  The Camp Digimonth discord is an amazing community of digimon creators and fans! We support one another and foster a friendly, fun, creative environment.  We are currently brainstorming ways to invite new members who will mesh with the community, so please stay tuned.

[gittessimsadventuresog]

Storytelling secrets

I was tagged by @Danjaley totally out of the blue omg thank you I feel sincerely honoured.

I am non-straight myself, and like my sims/characters to be quite diverse in terms of sexual orientation as well; however, I play legacy style. Leading to very creative ways to produce the next heir...

I've been looking up info about the clone drone elixer, how it works, how buggy it is etc. This may or may not be related to the previous point, but most likely in a way you don't expect.

I have a naming system which I will use until I get tired of it or can't think of good names; my character's romantic endgame is consistently someone with the same first letter of their name. This can make things very obvious, but also confusing.

One of my sims caused a zombie apocalypse which I am not doing ANYTHING with right now but I keep mentioning it because I am 100% getting back to it at some point. Somehow. Just not yet.

I have a weakness for Conall (scarred werewolf who was mistreated by his mom as a child, nephew of Gen 2 heir Bianca. Poor boy : ( ) and he will be IMPOOOORTANTTTTTT because of it.

I only recently started getting active on tumblr, which is why I was so surprised to get this, and people who I've been following somewhat closely who are storytellers already got the tag... I don't know a lot of people yet and don't know who to tag : ( so if you happen to see this and want to do this, feel free to consider yourself tagged!

[5ummit]

I regret to inform y'all that I have a new blorbo and it's that fuckin tumblr dashboard jumpscare clown

in my defense, long-haired, morally questionable, poor little meow meows with self-esteem and abandonment issues are my Type so I really never stood a chance (me, realizing Buggy is just Loki and Shanks is Thor, his blood brother, adored and respected by everyone, who he thinks betrayed him and who was destined to be king but turned it down: oh)

anyway apologies in advance for the clown posting. don't worry, I'll be tagging thoroughly as usual (#one piece) and just like the tumblr ad campaign he'll only be taking over your dash briefly until I get this out of my system

[suppuration]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about the Community Labels debacle, and I figured I really need to make a post about why it's particularly fucked up that it's happening.

First things first: some definitions. Explicit content and mature content are two different categories, for the intents and purposes of Tumblr's ToS.

Explicit content filtering

Implemented in 2018, as a direct result of the porn ban.

Algorithmic. One filter checks at time of post. A second checks once the post is complete. At any time after a post is made, any user can flag a post as explicit.

Allegedly, flagged posts/blogs are reviewed by a real human, as posts/blogs that get reported aren't yanked instantly.

Both blogs and posts can be flagged as explicit.

If a blog is flagged for explicit content, its avatar and header are censored, it's removed from search results, cannot be viewed at blog level on PC, and its posts can generally only be viewed by appearing on the dash of a user who already follows it.

The only way a user can toggle whether they see explicit content on their dash is to simply not follow explicit blogs.

Explicit content doesn't abide by Tumblr's ToS. As such, having too many posts flagged as explicit can get the blog and/or entire account banned.

Community labels (AKA "Mature Content")

Implemented in 2023, part of "bringing back the tiddy"

Not algorithmic. OP can mark the post themselves to benefit other users. At any time, literally any user can flag a post as "missing a community label."

Besides being broadly labeled "Mature," OP can additionally mark a post as specifically containing sexual, violent, or drug themed. To label a post as mature, OP doesn't have to specify. If a user that is not OP flags a post as missing a community label, that user cannot specify what mature theme(s) they believe the post contains.

Allegedly, the flagging system is algorithmic. If any user flags a post as missing a label, the system will automatically mark that post as mature.

Only posts can have community labels. If you're viewing a blog on PC and receive a "This blog may contain mature content" warning, that means that one or more posts loading on page 1 of the blog have a community label. Both original posts and reblogs will trigger this message.

Most users can change the visibility of mature content in their settings, and can change these settings to make certain types of mature content visible but hide others. On Android, users can do so in the app, and all users who are not minors can change these settings in a browser. iOS users cannot change the visibility of mature content in the app at this time. Mature content is hidden by default to new users, and cannot be toggled on for users who are minors.

Mature content abides by Tumblr's ToS. At this time, I'm not sure whether a user can get banned for consistently neglecting to apply community labels to their posts, but I do know that as long as it follows all other community guidelines, mature content will not get a user banned.

The explicit content algorithm has been notoriously buggy and inconsistent from the beginning. For example, I personally had a toy duck marked as explicit without appeal. This algorithm has always been heavily skewed to flagging LGBT posts--including text posts, and including posts that didn't even contain "Mature Content"--to the point that Tumblr recently settled a lawsuit for discrimination allegations. Entire tags were hidden from searchability, and just adding certain tags to a post could get it flagged. I'm not sure whether it's gotten all that much better.

Now, the current issue is with the Community Labels. Transwomen in particular seem to be disproportionately getting swaths of posts marked Mature, and appeals aren't removing erroneous labeling. The posts can be about literally anything, and be any type of post, but most commonly it's transwomen's selfies.

The only algorithmic way for a post to become flagged as "missing a community label" is if a user adds "NSFW" to the post's tags, either when OP makes or edits it, or when any user reblogs it. Every other way a post will gain a Mature Content label is user driven.

I believe this can only mean one of two things: 1. Transphobes are abusing the "missing a community label" button to purposely hide transwomen's posts from minors and people who've opted out of mature content. If appeals are in fact handled by human review, that means staff is either just as prejudiced and/or is siding with the transphobes. 2. Or, staff is testing a feature which will eventually algorithmically determine whether a post contains mature themes automatically, and their current algorithm is just as prejudiced as the one that dictates explicit content. If so, that means the company learned nothing from the discrimination lawsuit.

It could be both, but I'm inclined to believe this is the work of some particularly nasty transphobes, just based on how many screenshots I've seen of people's activity feeds where they suddenly get dozens of Community Label flag notifications for posts of ANY age. (Really, if it's people doing this, I'd say they're being rather immature, hm?)

If anyone has more information about the situation, please don't hesitate to add onto this post.

If this has been happening to you, you have my deepest sympathies, and I really hope that @staff fixes the issue with utmost priority. I know that the staff blog made a post recently that mentions that they know there's a serious problem with Community Labels right now, so hopefully that means they're actually working on a fix.

[rpschtuff]

I also thought I'd make a quick post going over my experiences and observations using the beta editor, as someone who put off switching for months and months and has now been using it for about a week. If you're putting off making the switch because you're not sure what it will be like, and are worried about committing to a broken editor, this post is for you.

General Observations

Overall, the editor itself really isn't that much different. A few things are in different places, such as blockquotes being under the dropdown and being called indented now, but it's not the buggy, broken mess that I half-expected it to be. A lot of the bugs that various people have reported on have already been fixed by staff. (And you can report bugs or just general complaints to staff! There's a feedback section of their form and they are actively taking user suggestions into account. Just remember to be nice about it.)

Sometimes bold, italics, and small text will act up and not apply correctly. But frankly, those would act up on the legacy editor, too. And if things are being weird, it's fairly easy to select the offending text and just fix it.

Things I Like

By far my favorite feature of the beta editor is the ability to disable reblogs on a post. As someone who runs a roleplay blog for a pretty popular canon character, I've gotten used to typing all of the names L.ike Th/is in order to prevent my posts from showing up in search, and slapping a huge "do not reblog" disclaimer onto everything -- only to have some personal who apparently can't read reblog it anyway. But now I can simply take my OOC posts, headcanons, metas, whatever, and set it so that no one can reblog them.

I love the ability to edit tags without having to completely delete and rewrite them. I've gotten so used to having to redo tags over a single typo that the realization of this the other day left me in shock. You can just click inside the tag and change any of the text that you want.

The new content label system is pretty good. You can clearly designate a post as having mature content, and your followers can choose in settings whether they want to have those flagged posts viewable or not. It's another feature I'd love to see Tumblr expand on, and add some more options to flag a post as, it's a really good start.

The post scheduling system is much more clear than before. You can actually schedule a post and feel confident in the exact date and time that it will go up, unlike the previous system that felt like a wild shot in the dark.

You can add colored text to posts pretty easily. There are a bunch of preset colors, and while I haven't played around with it much, I understand that adding custom colors via HTML is pretty straightforward. It's not a feature I personally use much, but it's neat.

There are also additional font and styling options, like Lucille, Chat, and Quote. Again, not things I use very often, but cool features to have.

Things I Dislike

Tumblr will remember your old tags, but without any capitalization. If your frequently used tags have capitalization and you want them to be consistent, you'll have to retype or paste them in every time.

When you paste an image URL into a post, it will insert the image as before, but include that link below it, with no way to easily remove it. This is an issue for those using gifs or icons with transparency, and simply pasting the image in directly will cause it to display incorrectly. As someone who uses a webpage of my icons when working on threads, I now have to download the icon I want to use and upload it, which is a minor annoyance compared to simply copying the image link and pasting it in.

[batboyblog]

That clown is buggy (baggy? IDK) from one piece, no clue if that's a cosplay or the real thing from the live action series

Also, his superpower (if I remember correctly) is that he can cut off any part of his body and still control them remotely and make them fly around

every day I learn new things I had no interest in knowing.....

I mean I assumed he was from One Piece, I've never seen or... uh is it... which one is the one you read, Manga?

any ways I know less than nothing about One Piece, like I think the guy who dresses like he's on a river boat is from there but thats the start and end of my knowledge.

I just know like some people on Tumblr were excited and for some reason Netflix paid Tumblr of all places, which like good for Tumblr make that coin

I just think like... we have a tagging system etc, like... maybe... target your add to people who've ever tagged or reblogged something to do with One Piece? or anime and manga? not me who doesn't with any of that stuff? like I'm not gonna see it

though I guess I'm talking about it so free ad? idk.

[tau1tvec]

On tumblr mobile if I hit someone’s icon it takes me to their page and I gotta scroll down which would take forever to see everything they posted &desktop has the pages?so how do I get the side view thing you mentioned?I feel like there was a post awhile ago that shows this for looking at your own likes page but it makes it easier to see everything …might actually have to quit sims sadly I can never be happy with it ;( finding cc is hell when it’s not just in one place &like why can’t there be a mod in the game ?for people to upload there cc into the game so nobody gotta waste time searching and downloading the cc like then ya could select which cc you want to even use and see all the cc created…

Idk, I don’t rlly mind clicking through the pages, bc I’ve been doing it for forever, and a lotta ppl prefer it over endless scroll on themes, so it’s pretty common to see when looking at someone’s actual blog.

Though truly, it sounds like you’re more fed up with looking for cc, than you are with tumblr’s UI, to which I do not blame you. I can’t stand it either a lot of the time, which is why finding a go-to ccfinds blog is so crucial to keep your sanity. EA doesn’t rlly give a damn to implement anything of that sort, let alone extend an arm to modders and mod users, bc if anything they just get blamed either way if something goes wrong, and with how buggy their games are I can’t imagine how swamped their help line is as it is. Plus, modding The Sims has been like this for a while tbh, it wasn’t much better and back then in my TS2 days, when everyone had their cc on obscure ass forums and websites that hardly worked, but at least it didn’t have the add on of subscription costs, and timed exclusives.

So go find you a ccfinds blog, preferably one with a rlly good tags system so you can sort out only what you need when you need it. Then get into the habit of checking it daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything, and then end up having to spend hours looking for it, and sending wcif’s. These blogs work hard to do a lot of the find it work for you, so send them a message showing your appreciation from time to time. ✌️

Either way, between all the searching, downloading, installing, and organizing, modding this game is a process, and a fucking miserable one, and I absolutely get why ppl just choose to go without it.

[theriu]

Hey guys! So I have definitely had some Feelings about this post, but you know what? Despite my severe dislike of some parts of this, there are some good concepts in this plan, too. I do want to acknowledge the bits I think sound like good ideas and show that we as users aren’t JUST raging about everything. So in an effort to be fair, I’m going to point out a few points that are smart AND a few that do not make any sense from my 10+ years experience. I hope this will be helpful!

✅

This is a little vague, but I do like the direction. Tumblr CAN be cofusing when you are just getting started; the tag system especially was mystifying to me when I first logged on in 2012. I’m all for exploring ways to help new users understand how to get started! Perhaps a simple popup tutorial when a person makes their first account, like on some game apps?

❌

What… I don’t… what???? Literally every person I have ever talked to or heard from on this subject (in OVER TEN YEARS) has said that the ability to curate our experience is a PRIMARY OPTIMAL FEATURE of tumblr! Who are you guys talking to who made you think this only serves a small portion of your audience?!? Curatability is one of your most unique and biggest assets!

✅

That sounds like a good idea, honestly! I personally enjoy getting lots of notes, but I know lots of people seek ways to mute notifications when they have a post go viral. This seems like a nice way to help users be less afraid of their posts blowing up (or at least minimize the debris XD) I don’t use push notifications myself but I assume this would also apply there.

❌

I’m guessing this is one of the points that had people thinking you guys were messing with the chronological feed. I point again at my confusion over your claim that a curated dashboard experience is a negative—we do not want random posts from people we don’t follow showing up on our dashboards, mainly because we do not trust algorithms to understand what we as individuals like. Consider how many of us never touch the For You tab because most of the posts on there completely miss the mark.

✅

I’m down for this! The app is certainly slow and buggy sometimes. (As I type this, my keyboard is lagging at least one letter behind what I am typing.) The second claim is kinda vague, but I think we can all agree fewer bugs would be appreciated!

❌❌❌

Tumblr.

@staff .

I am holding your face gently in my hands.

I am begging you with tears in my eyes

PLEASE OH PLEASE PLEASE NO DO NOT!!! COLLAPSE!!! THE REBLOG THREADS!!!

There is NO WAY an algorithm can reliably differentiate “clutter” from “vital pieces of a reblog conversation that are essential to making it funny.” This will inevitably truncate the conversations that are the main reason most viral tumblr posts go viral! More times than not, it’s not the FIRST part of a post that makes it classic—it’s the responses that build off it.

And remember your point about making it easier for new users to engage with the site? Skipping to the end of a chain or not being able to see WHY a post is funny or compelling without the extra (annoying) action of clicking some tiny dropdown arrow will make new users AND old users even less inclined to engage with posts! If ANY bullet point on this list can be rescinded, I BEG you to make it this one!

To wrap up: I do think some of the changes and improvements you guys are working on sound good! I just ask on behalf of myself and other users: Please consider how you can improve the TUMBLR experience, not how you can make us into a new twitter or reddit (both sites that use collapsible reblogs AND are currently having Major Issues). We’re not looking for more of those sites; we love tumblr because it’s the only social media site like it: a self-curated place to interact at the level each of us is comfortable with and share each others’ great posts and interactions, without feeling like products instead of people. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we stay.

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.

[tormie-tormie-chopper]

Hey, I'm Tormie!

You can also call me Tor. Whichever. I'm an artist! I also write.

I intend to post a variety of different things for One Piece -- ship art, general/non-ship art, fluff, memes and shitposts, sfw, nsfw, whump, gore/body horror, blorbo appreciation, and so on -- so hopefully there'll be something here for everyone! I may also post things for other fandoms or for original characters, but I have a separate blog for ocs so I probably won't post too much of that here. I will always try to tag my posts and artwork accurately, especially when it comes to potentially triggering subjects. I have a sideblog specifically for reblogs @grand-line-tormie and an account for ocs/personal art and writing @tormentum-ab-intra.

Do not repost any of my artwork or use it for AI. Reblogs, however, are welcome and greatly appreciated!

Here there be freaks, and here freaks are welcome. Let's be weird and fucked up and into weird and fucked up things together <3 (This should go without saying but I'm gonna say it anyway: Me writing about, talking about, or drawing something does not mean I endorse it in real life. Cool? Cool 😂) My blog is not intended for minors.

My pronouns are it/its. I won't smite you if you use he/him for me, but it's not really my preference lol. However, both gender neutral and masculine gendered terms are welcome! Feminine gendered terms are also fine but better saved for silly or joking contexts.

Bigotry, hate speech, and so on are NOT welcome. TERFS are not welcome. I'm not interested in starting or engaging in discourse, so racists, homophobes, transphobes, bigots, zionists, and the like will be blocked expeditiously. Like just be chill and I'll be chill back.

Commissions: open! you can find my info post for them here. You can also find my Ko-fi page here!

Look below the cut for askbox info and info on my tagging system!

Some common general tags I'll be using: -#tor draws for anything with my own artwork in it -#tor thinks for original posts just talking and sharing my thoughts, whether fandom or unrelated. -#tor answers for answered asks. -#tor speaks for announcements. -I will usually tag fandoms where applicable, characters in the post, ships in the post, and any other relevant aspects.

Some common CW tags to look out for or block according to need: -#nsft for explicitly nsfw posts and artwork, or for posts with links to explicitly nsfw fics or artwork (because I expect tumblr won't let me post certain things and I may have to share links to those things instead) -#suggestive for posts and artwork that are risque or mildly nsfw in nature but don't describe or depict anything explicit. somewhat hit or miss whether i actually use this one ngl -#nsfwhump for posts and artwork that are nsfw and depict noncon -#gore for all posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood or graphic depictions of severe injuries -#cartoon gore for posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood or depictions of severe injury that are described or drawn in a cartoonish way -#body horror for posts and artwork with body horror, particularly when depicted in intense or grotesque ways. I won't be using this tag for the canon-typical body horror that's often seen in One Piece -- for example, Luffy's rubber powers or Buggy's chop-chop powers -- unless I am specifically talking about or drawing them in ways intended to invoke disgust, discomfort, or horror, with the main focus of the post or image being on the body horror in question. -#blood for posts and artwork with excessive amounts of blood in them. I probably won't use this tag for posts that only have small amounts of blood in them unless the blood is somehow the focus or part of the focus. -Additional tags for relevant triggering subjects will be added when applicable.

Askbox rules: -Just don't send me bigoted shit and we're most likely good 👍🏾 Asks and anons containing hate or bigotry will just be deleted. -Don't ask me to write or draw anything suggestive or nsfw about characters who are minors. -I will do my best to answer asks and anons quickly! But if I don't get to it right away, I'm not ignoring you, I'm probably just busy.

I will try to make sure my artwork has image descriptions in the alt text. If I forget to add an ID somewhere and you'd like me to add one, please let me know! I'll either edit my original post or add a description in a reblog.

[xxxjarchiexxx]

here's a rundown of the sites that have popped up for people to move to if they wanna leave tumblr for ur own comparison (you know what twitter and reddit are already so they are NOT included)

cohost: this one is the most popular one suggested, it's my personal favorite but it's very much not made for you to garner or interact with a large audience and there is 0 way of finding people outside of tag browsing and the broken 'global cohost feed'. the site culture is very friendly but very anti-judgement or dni type lists, so if you have any group you don't want interacting with you that isn't against the site's rules, it's probably not the site for you. it's a little buggy too by virtue of being so small. it also does not have a messaging system, which is by design as it's meant to be used with other websites

bluesky: factually just twitter 2, it's by the same guys and is built the same way and is literally just twitter

pillowfort: this is almost a 1:1 tumblr clone, though with less discourse on the site overall. there's a focus on fanworks and fan creations with the site culture making it the norm to follow and interact with people who don't share your fandoms because of the small userbase. it has limited customization but what is there is really useful. you can find people to follow through "communities" that you can join or browse, and there's a group dedicated to introducing yourself and finding people via browsing their tags. it's easy enough to use, but has a VERY limited userbase. it does have the best image upload system in my experience, so for artists this is probably the best option other than bluesky for visibility

dreamwidth: it is just a livejournal clone, mainly good for posting fan creations and joining fan challenges and not much else

mastodon/fediverse: site culture here ranges wildly from instance to instance, it's basically an open source code that provides a skeleton for a twitter-like where anyone can host their own 'instance' which is like a unique social media site with unique rules and url, but anyone on ANY of these instances can follow and interact with each other. you can discover people within your instance and people your instance interacts with fairly easily, but branching out or finding active tags is a little harder. finding an instance that works for you can also be some trial and error.

spacehey: a sort of myspace revival clone that's good if customization and css is a big draw for you to tumblr, it's mostly a really young userbase though there are some 20-somethings floating around too. there are forums and groups but the community culture seems to be based mostly on blog posts and comments, where forums and groups are basically a comment once to answer/ask a question and that's it situation rather than thriving subcommunities

neocities: you probably know what this is, but neocities is a website builder with a community tab for updates from people whose sites you follow, it's probably my favorite option overall but is also the hardest to use because it requires you to have an entire website to create. i maintained one for 6ish months until i had to wipe my harddrive and didn't back up my site files, but it's a good community if you like coding (though there are a lot of free to use templates/themes you can use if making a site from scratch is too hard/not in your wheelhouse)