What is post trimming and how does one do it?
//Okay, post trimming is sort of a standard courtesy for your followers so they don’t scramble hopelessly, trying to scroll past GIGANTIC walls of ‘ back-to-back RP replies. It’s even worse on your followers if you’re replying to that same thread VERY quickly. This bumps back your followers’ posts they’re watching on their dash just to see redundant text over and over again that no one will want to see repetitively.
Here, I’ve crudely drawn a diagram of what we see.
It’s super bad for mobile Tumblr users following you. Constantly, mobile has proven to be an utter mess of glitches, loading failures, and dashboard cutoffs. Why this is such a problem I will never know, programming’s a bitch. ;3
Anyway! What you see on the left is your post chained in an acceptable format, where your post is shortened to a sweet three last recent replies prior to yours.
The example on the left in the image is the stressful nightmare the rest of your followers have to endure. It gets so bad that it BREAKS the dashboard column entirely, crushing and stretching text into super thin, one-letter-wide posts.
Imagine if your friend’s RP post from like, 15 replies ago was just one long strip of vertical letters you had to read through. What an eyesore, right? Well that’s what’s happening to those old posts no one wants to re-read or scroll past. It’s just garbage filler blocking desktop users from getting to posts they want and sometimes ‘prison-barring’ people on mobile from reaching new posts at all, causing their apps to crash from this jarring mess.
XKit, and the wonderful Reblog Display Options plugin!
This plugin can be added in seconds and will give you the ability to easily edit posts you’re replying to, including PAST REPLIES. Just set it to ‘nested’ style as seen above and boom, you’ve got yourself in true, classic RP mode for Tumblr dashboard browsing.
The whole point of this is to make it possible to shorten your reply.
Start by scrolling up to the post you’re replying to.
Skip your way down to the 4th URL listed in the top of the post and begin selecting…
Drag downward, following the light-gray line directly to the left of the URL you started at and scroll down.
Stop right when you run out of text adjacent to that specific gray line.
Delete what you’ve selected.
If done successfully, you will have cropped a MASSIVE chain of replies down to what’s considered respectable without leaving you or your RP partner guessing what you two recently did.
KEEP DOING THIS in your future replies if your RP partner doesn’t. Every time YOU reply, shorten your chain by selecting the fourth URL at the top of the post and repeat the previously listed steps. You’ll help make a difference in making Tumblr RPing SO much easier on your followers. Your mobile followers will REALLY appreciate it too. Trust me.
blakekathryn
origamiaround
