the new content filters and the flagging system require every reblogger to appeal independently from the poster.
What is happening?
With the latest tumblr content filter updates, every reblog is flagged independently from the original post without the OP knowing. This means that if your post is reblogged by someone and that reblog is flagged, you won't know. The note count will go up, but the note is hidden: you can't see it on the rebloggers blog or any other reblogs branching from the flagged post.
What should I do?
Every reblogger needs to appeal for their own reblogs. Thankfully the review time on Tumblr's side has been fast, usually in a couple of hours they restore the post. If you can notify the OP, grand. If you have time, leave a support ticket, choose feedback and tell them why you think this is a bad model.
Why and how should I do it?
We all know the latest and contested change about the note counts that was thankfully rolled back, but its ramifications are still in use. Tumblr now considers every reblog a post in its own right, as you can see from the new banners for the same post as above:
The turn this website has taken regarding the ownership of posts is at best discouraging and at worst a massive disrespect done to all the artists, creators, gifmakers, fic writers and meta writers out there, making fandom fun and alive. If artists, writers and gifmakers don't get autonomy over their own art being shared on this website, how is a reblog different from a repost, something tumblr actively discourages from doing? How can the OP appeal for a post if they don't even know it's flagged? Why are we taking away ownership of the art from the artist, the human behind it?
How do I appeal?
Tumblr has this very useful feature, both on the website and on the mobile app:
You can find all the flagged posts on your blog either by going to the relevant blog>right hand menu, below Posts, Followers, Activity>Review flagged posts on the website OR by going to Settings>Review flagged posts on the mobile
Then you click on Appeal, and write a very short reason why, describing the post. You can even write this:
This post has nothing that is against the User Guidelines.
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!
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.
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!
It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things that makes this place special.
As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.
Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.
If you’d like to talk directly beyond the comments, leave a reply and we’ll follow up with as many of you as we can. We want to work with you to make Tumblr better.
As a heads up, tumblr support forms are mentioning for everyone to comment on the @/changes blog post regarding the update and NOT on the official post. It's being "monitored by engineers" per their note.
so as long as tumblr keeps this, here's the tumblr version of etiquette that was maintained when twitter's quote-retweets affected artist visibility/notes:
for art that someone has added reblog commentary to (or removed the caption from), reblog from the source
otherwise, avoid adding reblog comments to art (as this will affect the artist's notes/visibility)—utilize tags and replies to provide commentary (which artists will absolutely appreciate)
reblog comments are comments added to the body of a post, not the tags and not replies.
the way this works is, someone up the chain gets an idea in their head that "tumblr is too hard to use for new users" (which is true, more on that later) and the easy scapegoat is "why are there THREE different ways to reply to a post: replies, reblogs, and tags???"
they bounce a few brain cells together and come up with a plan, albeit not a good one. they usually try to copy what other platforms are doing because those are known, working methods for building a feed with likes and re-(verbs). in this update's case they finally pulled the trigger on the idea that reblog chains should split off from the main post because they're effectively new posts (in the tumblr DB, every reblog is its own post but that's not important)
i'm gonna be honest: when I was working at tumblr, I had this same exact thought. I thought "why don't I get activity on my reblog comments that get their own likes/reblogs/etc". Then I thought about it for more than 10 minutes and realized it's a bad idea. I was also an engineering grunt and not a product decider so I had no real say anyways.
Anyways, plan from above gets executed with "A/B" testing, sometimes. In this case I'm not sure if it was but, in my experience, even when Tumblr had more competent knowledgeable people working on it, they never did a real A/B test the way you should. They got close, but in the end things just got rolled out if they didn't disturb things "too much". They also look for signals that it's working if people post more. do they separate out "people posting about this saying this is a bad idea" vs "posts in general"? No.
I was there for the "no more replies" then "replies are back!" fiasco. The justification for ditching support for a feature (any feature, not just replies) is that anything that's an extra thingamajig upon the Tumblr codebase requires you to maintain it and fix it if it breaks. Less unique features = less stuff to fix. In this case, they saw replies were barely used vs other methods of communicating, so they figured they could get rid of replies when they introduced Messaging! Because now you can just DM the person rather than leaving a reply!
obviously that backfired. Tumblr once again touched the hot stove of "small but vocal group of users use this, actually" and they had to revert it. What they did do, at least, is fix a bunch of stuff with replies before bringing them back. I can't remember off the top of my head what they fixed but it was something like making them easier to use and read.
back to "tumblr is too hard to use for new users". it is because not many people use tumblr vs other places. so its patterns are not familiar. but that's not a good enough excuse for companies that own tumblr because infinite growth is the goal. most posts = more users therefore friction between users and making new posts must be eliminated. however this conflicts with what makes tumblr unique, which is why people stick around to use it. catch 22.
this is going to keep happening as long as people, at any company, in charge of "product decisions" do not actually use the product they're making decisions for, or don't bother to use it in a way that people who really like it use it.
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
