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Let’s all go back to Tumblr

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101–110 of 138 posts

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#101
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just doesn't seem to be easily monetizable, so a big commercial entity isn't pushing it. The existence of Wordpress would argue otherwise.

Isn't wordpress more the technology? Or do you mean otherwise? Who would you see as pushing it? Or do you mean it's monetizable? It's definitely an excellent piece of software.

https://wordpress.com/pricing/

wordpress.com (not .org) is a platform for blogs.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#102
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that individual blogs that emit an RSS feed to follow are a great thing. However, most bloggers don’t really have the skills to host their own blog on a dedicated server. So, even if they did avoid Tumblr, they would be relying on another such hosting service like Blogspot or Wordpress.com.

It isn't that hard to install a blog on a shared hosting plan or VPS somewhere. Just find something with CPanel and some sort of auto installer (I think it was called Fantastico or something) and Bob's your uncle. Don't even need to know how FTP works or how to code anything to do that...

>It isn't that hard to install a blog on a shared hosting plan or VPS somewhere. Just find something with CPanel and some sort of auto installer (I think it was called Fantastico or something) and Bob's your uncle.

That's already above the 'interested enough to do it' threshold of 99% of the population

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#103
post #4

Main takeaways, in my view: - Longer form allows for less heated conversation - Allowing randos to emplace their screeds immediately below your post encourages fighting That second point I think bears more exploration. Maybe we shouldn't allow trolls to inject themselves into every conversation, eh? My favorite format for post/discussion is still the blog format, where comments are moderated by the author of the post…

I think Reddit and sites alike cause a problem with activism. I see topics for great initiatives on sites like Reddit however everything about its engagement is just wrong. Comments are poor - people know how to game it, posts have a limited life span affecting comment quality, when a post disappears from the front page engagement drops to what seems 0%. Re-posts are looked at negatively, reddit community gets bored…

Reddit is not a one size fits all solution. The internet is a large place and there's always room for independent communities.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#104
> Maybe you’re familiar with the many reasons why people hate Twitter. It’s a time sink, it enables the spread of fake news and bigotry,

Yup. Tumblr totally doesn’t do any of that. I guess we are supposed to pretend it doesn’t because it’s a platform for the right kind of lies and hate?

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#105
post #77
post #63

This article utterly misrepresents Tumblr as some kind of paradise. It's definitely not. It's as good and bad as Twitter or Facebook or whatever else. I used Tumblr for years, from probably 2008 until 2017. The real problem as I see it is there's a large, vocal, vicious echo-chamber effect at play. A lot of its userbase are quite radical and aggressive in their beliefs, and the reblogging system makes it easy to use…

> I was also reblogged and targeted by a group of people who had decided that by "gendering" my female dog, I was a bigot. Ah, you've run into an anti-trans false flag operation. Obviously they need to be banned for posting death threats, but they will be a hydra since their main organisation is not organic and is outside the platform.

I think you seriously underestimate the level of mental illness present on tumblr.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#106
post #3

A radical idea, lets all go back to blogs, hosted and owned by ourselves, on our own sites, which will enrich only us, and where you can write as long and as short as you want, and link to whatever you want.

That's what I've been doing for the last few years (approaching 200 posts) and highly recommend it.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#107
post #77
post #63

This article utterly misrepresents Tumblr as some kind of paradise. It's definitely not. It's as good and bad as Twitter or Facebook or whatever else. I used Tumblr for years, from probably 2008 until 2017. The real problem as I see it is there's a large, vocal, vicious echo-chamber effect at play. A lot of its userbase are quite radical and aggressive in their beliefs, and the reblogging system makes it easy to use…

> I was also reblogged and targeted by a group of people who had decided that by "gendering" my female dog, I was a bigot. Ah, you've run into an anti-trans false flag operation. Obviously they need to be banned for posting death threats, but they will be a hydra since their main organisation is not organic and is outside the platform.

What basis do you have for concluding it was an anti-trans false-flag operation in this poster's case? Nothing in their post would lead me to naturally reach that conclusion. Downplaying or instantly dismissing this kind of anecdata as the result of a "false flag" is naive at best and dangerous at worst.

Speaking from my own experience, I've seen a lot of stuff on Tumblr that leads me to think there's a very active, very angry, very threatening trans lobby on the platform. I've seen repeated threats of violence and worse from trans-identified individuals directed at feminists who want maintain female-only safe-spaces. These posts are rarely taken down and the community will often rally against the "TERFs" being threatened ("Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists").

I know one woman who'd posted about keeping changing rooms for females separated on a sex basis. Her employer and college were contacted repeatedly by a pair of people who said she was spreading hate-speech online. Their goal seems to have been to have her fired. These same people had been making threats of violence against her, culminating in a rape threat. At this point the police became involved and I'm not sure how it's since been resolved.

Obviously this is a tiny minority of people but it's a tiny minority that often aren't actively censured or disowned by the larger community, and whose extreme views are reinforced by a sympathetic echo-chamber of like-minded people. Some may be "false-flags", but I don't think they're in the majority by any means.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#108

Only if tumblr promises to close down account/blogs promoting pedophilia/zoofilia/similar degenerate stuff. The moderation after the Yahoo buyout got quite stale, they don't even block nazi, or anti-zionist stuff which is a red flag in liberal media.

Um...why should criticizing Israel be lumped in with Nazism and pedophilia?

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#109

Here's the deal with replacing Twitter: first realise it is (under a sane interpretation) a really badly designed product, because it doesn't know what it is. Let's say that roughly it comprises: 1. A way to hear about news from people or organisations you like (Elon, Yankees, WTO, Lady Gaga, whatever) 2. A way to microblog and share with your friends or (more usefully) with colleagues or interest communities. 3. A d…

There's also (4) - a discussion medium with an increasing number of partisan bad actors both at state and corporate level, whose interest is to gum up communication, switch the overton window or foster division by trolling.

In my opinion, an increasing problem with twitter and other discussion media is astroturfing and bot re-signalling, so I feel this needs an additional category different from (3), in that (3) is people who are incompetent. (4) would be people who are agenda-driven and/or malicious.

Or, to put it differently, (3) is about problems caused by people who can hide their incompetence. (4) would be about problems caused by people who can hide their identity.

I'm extremely pessimistic about this section of users, because in my opinion, an identity-based internet would just as radically screw up the internet in a different direction. I do feel, however, that that's the way governments are heading if things carry on the way they are.

Re: Let’s all go back to Tumblr

#110

Tumblr is guaranteed one-upmanship. The reblogging feature causes escalation. We need to look at the brain, and figure out how neurons work together in networks to produce truth. Then use that model for our social networks.

What makes you think that neurons produce truth? Neurons mostly produce actionable thoughts.

Neurons produced the modern world. I'd say they're doing a bit better at producing truth than all other matter in the known universe...
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