Dear Tumblr: Update your UI already.
Simply put: If Tumblr wants to be a social networking site, it has to be easier to be social on here. Why is it so difficult to respond to people's questions when they post them on here? Or when they write a particularly interesting essay?
Let's start with a screen shot:
All I have to type is "How do I rep" and the number one search result from Google is "how do I reply to a reply on Tumblr?"
Now I wasn't actually looking for that, I was looking for the plain old "How do I reply to a text post on someone's blog?" Time for another screenshot:
Again, the number one search result return for "how do I reply to a p" is about Tumblr.
I exchanged emails with Tumblr support asking what was up and the gist of it (the correspondence was very pleasant, no complaints there) is that the only way to respond to a post on Tumblr is through your Dashboard; a post on your Dashboard will have a little Speech Bubble icon.
Now, if you are anyone like me, you follow lots of blogs and the idea of catching a given post in your Dashboard seems rare. The idea of being on someone's blog, finding a post you want to comment on, then having to go to your dashboard and scroll through all of the posts from every blog you follow until you find that specific posting is ridiculous. What if that was the case for reblogging things? Or 'Liking' things? Tumblr would have failed long ago if that were the case.
Hopefully the tech support person I exchanged emails with at Tumblr will actually forward my suggestion to the people upstairs and make this happen. Feel free to reblog or 'like' this in support (or if you happen to catch it in your dashboard, you can comment on this.)
Why can't they add a little reply button up at the top of the blog, where the "Like" "Reblog" and "Follow/Unfollow" options are?
EDIT: The way I got the answer box to appear below is by (a) Ending my post with a '?' and (b) checking the box to the right of the post window that says "Allow people to reply"
