Something I’ve learned about Tumblr is that the longer you’re here, the more likely it is that you’ll learn of a user who has, entirely unbeknownst to you, been nursing an overwhelmingly powerful grudge against you for several years.
Girl what the fuck is going on in tumblr offices right now to let the decisions they just dropped be made
To the executive who made the decision and the RND staff that told said exec to make that decision: the only reason you’re winning the race right now is because you’re the tortoise. Don’t be the fucking hare.
“Valley what the fuck are you talking about”
Today, tumblr staff posted a very long announcement on their blog, which you can find here.
It’s a long post that’s pretty hard to read, mostly because the entire thing reads like the writer was held at gunpoint by the zuck himself. (To the poor staff member who had to write this shitshow, I’m so sorry, may you get a raise for your efforts) Here are some of the main points:
Tumblr (the company) is concerned about gaining more users from outside sources, such as other social media sites
They’re planning on doing this by updating their advertising practices to the industry standard (basically, advertising tumblr the way Meta advertises Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, or the way Twitter advertises itself)
They want to change how tumblr looks when you’re not logged in so that more people are convinced to sign up (they didn’t say how, exactly) but that’s not fully fleshed out yet
Gave a very interesting statistic that the average tumblr user scrolls though 25 posts a day and did not specify wether or not this is good or bad (most likely because it’s fucking wrong)
Plan to improve their “algorithmic ranking capabilities on all feeds” (which I don’t understand fully, but it sure fucking sounds like data mining)
Plan to change thread mechanics again, but this time they’re collapsible
Plan on putting new creators in the forefront by boosting their visibility on all dashes, and “improving the feedback loop for creators” (which once again I don’t understand fully)
Plan on implementing spam filters when posts make rounds
There’s a lot more RND on their end about to happen, regarding notifications, emails and staff-to-user communications
Want to make emails more personal per creator (??????????)
Backend stuff regarding site stability and performance on mobile
TL;DR: Tumblr is attempting to catch up with other social medias by becoming more like Twitter, even though the whole reason they had a massive influx of users recently was because of their lack of invasive, intrusive and vile business practices to sell themself.
Needless to say, people are fucking pissed. A lot of this is the exact opposite of what tumblr users want, and feels like the thing that’ll make this site finally crash and burn alongside the others. Which is terrifying!
So if staff are reading this, I’m gonna repeat my statement: the singular reason your site ended up being refuge in this time of dying socials is because the bar is in hell, and you barely jumped it by not having the bells and whistles that everyone’s tired of. Don’t trip while you’re still ahead.
This is not at all what they’re doing and spreading this panicked information is not helping.
Tumblr is making their dashboard controls open source so that the community has full control over how their dash is curated and can develop tools to customize it how they want. This was announced DAYS ago, but has been getting zero attention compared to people who only want to read everything as bad faith as possible.
Twitter would *never* make a move like this in a million years because keeping their model proprietary is too important to them to the point that they’re suing Meta over Threads.
Tumblr are also extremely against data mining and their stance against it has cost them money they could have been making in order to make up for the deficit this site costs Automattic annually. Tumblr Live doesn’t even “data mine” like the popular rumor states, because if you check what they collect it’s username, age, and IP. The only identifying bit of this is IP, and if you use a VPN it will render that part moot.
I have a longer post about all this that includes my sources if you check the Tumblr Live tag on my blog. Look, I want Tumblr to improve too but the misinformation needs to be dealt with or we are never ever going to be able to give a scrap of useful feedback. Because asking them to stop doing something they’re already not doing is flooding out all the actually useful critique.
further points:
changing how tumblr looks when you’re not logged in is almost certainly about removing the “oooooops you’re not cleared to see that teehee! better sign up first!” they explicitly mention wanting people to actually see what tumblr is like before deciding to sign up. this is a good thing.
the statistic is 25 posts per SESSION not per DAY which is completely normal and expected. i don’t see more than 25 posts most times i open tumblr (unless i’ve been gone for a while) because i don’t get that much new content on my dash OR because i don’t have time for more than that. they did not say it was good or bad that 25 is number, just that the first 25 posts should be good because that’s mostly what people see when they open their dash. and when half of it is your own posts or your mutual all reblogging the same post that makes it not an awesome experience. which is what they’re trying to fix.
“algorithmic ranking” just means how well their algorithm uses the data it already has. you interact with x tag a lot so you would probably like more of x tag. tumblr is notoriously horrible about this rn because if you reblog one thing about that and then hop over to the for you tab it’s nothing but that thing. if they were going to mine more data they would be talking about gathering data. “algorithmic ranking” is literally just moving around cells in a spreadsheet of data they already have, there’s no conversation about gathering more data.
improving the feedback loop for creators means getting them more reblogs/comment when they post original art/writing/content so they feel like it’s worth it to post to tumblr. which is what creators want.
“tldr”ing this as “tumblr is trying to become like twitter!” is ragebait nonsense. nothing about these changes make it “more like twitter” and i don’t know where you got half the stuff in this post except by willful misreading. i get that the language isn’t familiar to you and that you don’t understand it, which yeah is not great messaging on tumblr’s part and i wondered at them posting it (though super appreciate the EXTREMELY TRANSPARENCY which no other social media site is doing). but please don’t try and speak authoritatively on something you don’t understand, and especially don’t put a tldr that is a completely inaccurate summary of what’s going on.
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I will reiterate this on every meme & post I can. The other entertainment unions CANNOT GO ON STRIKE.
Please stop passing these kinds of posts around and understand that it is just not possible. The other Unions are still working under valid contracts. They will only be able to strike when their contracts expire.
There is a process. Most contracts are on a 3 year cycle, but these cycles are not in sync. Some do line up.
You may remember the news that the WGA went on strike, but then the DGA (the directors) took a deal.
Both Unions were in negotiations. The WGA didn’t like the deal they were being offered. Their members voted to authorize a strike. They continued trying to negotiate, but couldn’t reach an agreeable deal. Their contract ran out, so they went on strike.
Meanwhile, the DGA continued to negotiate, decided their deal was good enough, signed it and did not go on strike.
That’s what the whole press conference from SAG-AFTRA was about yesterday, the process. They were at negotiations as long as they could - they even issued a contract extension so they could continue trying to negotiate a deal beyond strike authorization. They were still offered a bad deal, so they went on strike.
That’s how it works. Contract -> Negotiations -> Strike Authorization -> Strike
Unions that are still under contract - including other SAG-AFTRA contracts that cover things like Voice Over, News Anchors, etc, IATSE (costumers, lighting, movie craftspeople etc), MPEG (editors) OPEIU (studio clerks, mail folks, WB tour guides etc)… all of these other unions, and now also the DGA because they signed a deal, are under continuing contracts and CANNOT STRIKE.
I just don’t want people to think that because the other unions are not striking, doesn’t mean we’re not supportive. If we strike while under working contracts, we can and WILL be replaced.
- additional point -
Some of us literally have it in our contracts that we MUST cross pickets lines to continue working if our work continues. Some, like the Teamsters, have the opposite provision and are allowed to refuse to cross a picket line. Those of us on the first kind of contract are not scabbing. Scabbing is accepting work covered by the striking unions ONLY.
every gym leader is like “I lost!?! UNBELIEVABLE!” buddy you live in a world where every ten year old child has always been offered a free fire breathing monster at least once and you brought nothing to this fight but anthropomorphic flowers
gym leaders’ whole job is to provide a specific challenge, a battle of a certain type and difficulty level. if you’ve brought the tools and skills to complete that challenge, you’re going to win by design. the pokémon in that battle are probably not actually the strongest pokemon they have.
when gym leaders go “argh, how could i lose??” they’re acting to give your victory legitimacy because you’re 10. they’re like a villain cosplayer letting a baby knock them over. they’re being nice!!
yk what i hate though. is when i find a meme and im like THIS IS SO [cool intimidating mutual i never talk to] I SHOULD SEND IT TO THEM but then i remember ive never talked to them ever and so i cant just like give them a meme out of the blue and so the meme just withers and rots in my camera roll 😔
Reblog if a mutual who’s never spoken to you can randomly send you memes that made them think of you.
So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,
And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that’s a lot of red.
And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don’t know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it’s normal there?
“The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.
“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”
”The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.“
Reblog if you’re comfortable receiving crabs on Crab Day (July 29th) so all your beloved followers know who they can comfortably crab on crab day (July 29th) without feeling nervous about crabbing someone 9n Crab Day (July 29th).
🦀🦀🦀
Plaintext: Reblog if you’re comfortable receiving crabs on Crab Day (July 29th) so all your beloved followers know who they can comfortably crab on crab day (July 29th) without feeling nervous about crabbing someone on Crab Day (July 29th).
just a reminder - do NOT boycott streaming services or not watch new things. the unions have not called for one for a reason. for one, it affects residual payments, which as minimal as those currently are, actors are still getting them during this time, and for two, studios will use lack of viewership as an excuse to cancel shows because you are showing them there is no demand. it deeply affects the industry the writers and actors stand to come back to once the strike is over
Also: going to these places puts pressure and demand on the company. Demand they can’t meet without actors and writers. That puts stress on them, and stress is good.
^^^^ive been looking for a rb with this addition because YES. if a customer wants a burger and there is no cook to make it, that puts pressure on the owner to pay the cook what they want so the customer will still give them money. if there is no customer, the owner has no reason for the cook to make burgers
Stop watching IF AND ONLY IF the unions call for a boycott. For the time being since they haven’t, streaming the shows actually helps. You’re not crossing a picket line to watch because that picket line does not exist unless a boycott is called for.
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