Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes
The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve.
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.
Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.
This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!
Let's talk about reblog notes.
We rolled out a significant change to how notes work on reblogs, and the reaction has been strong. We're not going to pretend otherwise.
First things first: We're reversing the change. Your feedback in comments, emails, and especially reblogs, made clear that the rollout created problems we need to address before moving forward. We also should have communicated this differently from the start, and we didn't.
We still believe there's a better version of how reblogs can work. One that gives every voice in a chain the credit it deserves. But we want to get there with you.
In the coming days we'll share more on how we plan to do that, including ways to work directly with some of you on this and future changes before they ship.
Keep an eye on @staff for updates to come soon.
I’m well aware this doesn’t mean we’re in the clear as of right now, but I wanna take a second and say I’m proud of all of us, here.
We submitted polite, clear feedback and it worked, folks. They listened. They rolled it back. Staff still wanting to change things isn’t great, and I won’t pretend it is—but this at least shows they’re willing to listen when we say “hey, this legitimately breaks Tumblr’s functionality and makes people unsafe.”
@Staff, someone else has already put this into words, but there’s definitely a better way to implement this sort of thing. Make it a toggle/optional view if you like, but everyone should still be able to see everything from their branch of the post onwards if they want to—and this should never, ever effect things like control over whether your post can spread or the block function. It shouldn’t wall creators off from their communities. This sort of thing would only work in theory if it didn’t isolate anyone or put them in danger of harassment. Don’t take away people’s control, please.
Good work, everyone. Auntie Triple P and I will keep keeping an eye out, and like I said yesterday, we’ll figure out the next step together if we need to—but this right here? We did something, and they listened, at least for now. You should be proud of that.
