#Site Usability

[jonayariley]

Hey, wanna remove the weird One Piece clown from the side of your tumblr feed forever? It's super easy!

1. First, download uBlock Origin for Firefox or Chrome

2. Then right-click on Captain Buggy and select "block element"

3. Click on the "create" button when the pop-up appears.

That's it, you're done!

You might have to refresh the site cache (CTRL+F5 for Firefox/PC - idk about Chrome or Mac) to make sure it clears, but it should work nicely.

[taffywabbit]

"why not just make your own website?"

with the announcement of cohost's death and amidst all the other tumultuous shit currently going on with social media as a concept (i am AMAZED twitter has survived this long given the circumstances), one suggestion that i've been hearing a lot is "we should just go back to the good old days of personal websites. let's all just make neocities pages!!"

(this is gonna be a long one sorry)

and like. idk! it's certainly something i've considered, i think it would be a fun thing to have, but it also feels like the equivalent of "capitalism sucks so let's all just run off into the woods and live in a cabin outside of society" to me. like it would be nice, it would be fun, but it doesn't ultimately solve the actual problems that are present with the modern internet, it just evades them. more importantly in my case and many others, it does not really help people who rely on the modern internet and the connections they're able to make there for their income. sure i can make a website and host my art and blog posts there, but who's going to see it? i can't build a consistent audience and make a living off of random passersby who peek at my website once, say "huh, neat!" and MAYBE add it to an RSS feed or whatever if they really like it. there's minimal potential for meeting and impressing new people outside my existing circles if i don't ALSO still have some manner of social media platform to promote the website on.

a lot of the "solutions" i see people proposing for the slow, painful decline of social media as a user experience keep coming back to old-fashioned, more isolated/insular systems. we miss forums, we miss personal webpages, we miss newsletters, etc etc. but like... those things were ideal in the "old web" because the old web was more about sharing hobbies and interests with whoever happened to pass by and check them out, and even just USING the internet was a niche hobby in and of itself for a lot of people. if you wanna be kinda cynical about it (and not unjustifiably so), web 2.0 is much more blatantly business-oriented, and its algorithms and carefully crafted UX's are primarily meant to funnel you towards viewing ads and spending money on products. looking at it that way, it sure does suck and Everything Was Better Before! but the modern web is ALSO more powerful than anything before it for just like. connecting people. spreading information and news. showing your art/music/writing/thoughts/etc to strangers who never knew you existed an hour ago. putting the tools to reach out to someone and tell them you think they're cool right there on the same website where their art is hosted, just a comment or a message away.

if you're able to avoid patterns of engagement-bait and obsessing over follower counts as a measure of self-worth (a big "if", i realize, but i view it like installing an adblocker - it's just kind of a basic prerequisite for modern internet safety and survival), a lot of these systems can genuinely be really positive and life-changing in ways that were simply not possible 20 years ago! almost all of my current closest friends are people I met through sharing our art on platforms like Twitter who were complete strangers at the time. all of the art clients that regularly pay my bills and support my work came from places like that too! the "social" part of "social media" is really what makes it ultimately worth keeping around in any form, and makes the pursuit of a Good social media platform still valuable.

there's a lot to love about the old web - its aesthetics, simplicity and freedom for personal expression - but every time someone says "just delete your socials and make a personal website" i am forced to confront the fact that i could never do what i currently do or be the person i am on the old web. if i was stuck hanging out in my own little space and only ever interacting with people who openly and loudly share my interests, i couldn't support myself with art full-time, i probably would never have met the kind and quiet strangers who are now my best friends and have made me who i am, and i'd just generally get a lot less insight into the vast range of experiences and perspectives that exist outside of my own. my life would be on a fundamentally different trajectory in countless ways without the advent of web 2.0.

and that's not to say "well twitter and facebook and tumblr all suck but you kinda still have to hand it to them" cuz you don't, obviously. they're corporations, and their job is to take the personalities and thoughts and art of the people who use their products and try to scrunch it all into something uninform and marketable that generates profit and pleases their shareholders. but like, you CAN still make a good thing out of them! these websites are tools just as much as geocities or myspace or IRC used to be. and the one thing these newer tools are pretty much all REALLY good at is discoverability. if you're just a hobbyist at the things you wanna share on the internet, then you likely don't have a lot of use for those tools, and perhaps you WOULD genuinely be happier just keeping a personal blog site or hanging out in private groupchats or sticking to specialized federated Mastodon instances or whatever. it just isn't feasible for me, and there are a LOT of people in my same situation. my entire industry of online freelance artists barely existed 20 years ago, and the web culture of that era is largely incompatible with my continued survival in the mid-2020s. i would LOVE to run off and live in the woods in concept, but all my survival skills are adapted for city living and i would just eat the wrong berry and die out there. i want- i NEED people to try and improve the spaces we're in, and support better forms of social media (like what cohost was trying and largely succeeding to do!) instead of just complaining that it all sucks, everything was better when we were kids, and digging ourselves little holes to hide in. much like all the other problems and frustrations and systemic issues of the world we live in, the modern web isn't going to go away if you just ignore it, so we may as well try to make it better for everyone.

anyways tl;dr i probably WILL make a neocities at some point. it could be fun, even if it doesn't help my career stability or whatever. but i do also need ALL THE SOCIAL PLATFORMS I USE FOR MY JOB TO STOP EXPLODING PRETTY PLEASE, and failing that, some actual half-decent alternatives that aren't going to fizzle out in a month would also be great thanks ✌

[letmebegaytodd]

I can't get the goddamn poll to work on the goddamn post so we'll do a separate post then

[bromantically]

if i see any of u putting pro crab day stuff on my dash im not giving u a second chance before softblocking u. if tumblr will not take care of its userbase, it will negatively impact them. basic cause and effect.

giving them money is not going to get them to use it to improve the site its going to make them go "yoo we can get money even if we ignore them!"

u would not give a dog treats for ripping up the couch in the hopes that itll stop ripping up the couch. so dont give tumblr treats for ripping up the couch. they are going to keep ripping it. ur just showing them their userbase is going to give them money regardless of whatever the fuck they do

[zvaigzdelasas]

personally i think it's pretty cool how quora has just automated its users posting factual inaccuracies & relegated it to a bot now

[curiousitycollective]

if one more anti-endogenic blog calling themselves a 'safe space for cdd systems' posts in the plural tags we're going to fucking lose it.

even if you don't believe in endogenic systems there are pro-endogenic cdd systems who don't want to see your shit and are in inclusive tags so we don't have to.

stop being hypocritical asshats and destroying other cdd systems' safe spaces because you can't deal with people who disagree with you or exist in a different way.

you aren't helping anyone and you're directly hurting the people you claim to support do better or fuck off

-smile/Scarlet

[pwhl-mybeloved]

repeating my mantras bc I’m on the edge:

I am NOT downloading Twitter

I am NOT downloading Twitter

[thespongebobsquarepantsmovie]

having to remind myself constantly that life isnt just a mind prison intrusive thoughts of a violent variety wanting to self-destruct in the most damaging ways possible one bad mental episode away from possibly perishing. it doesnt have to be like this and i have the reassurance that this wont be forever but im so stressed out over everything in my entire life at the moment. what im saying is that im not doing too great but i will be soon hopefully very soon

[leupagus]

Oh my god @staff how on earth did you manage to make the search tag function WORSE???

Now if I want to check my tags, I can't just click on the "Search Tumblr" bar and click one of the tags on the dropdown menu, I have to MANUALLY DELETE the last search I made, even if it's one of my tags I've had for months or years. Are you kidding me with this nonsense.

[deancasforcutie]

listen I so cannot vibe with any posts calling this fandom dead or feeling nostalgic about 2021, all I see is nature truly healing as it proves my theory the Real Ones will stay like we have for the other great old guard like Buffy and X-Files while being stopdon'tcomeback.gif about the worst people here ragequitting to become every newer fandom's problem. Cas voice why would I miss the end of times, why would I miss tens of thousands of bitches in my ear contributing nothing but abuse and derailment of all legitimate conversations on queer media. if they're not careful we're returning to 2014 levels of non-toxicity from before everything changed when they attacked. the toxic cloutchasers are so mad we're not only thriving but better off without them they're just flailing and I love to see it. y'all know I want the reboot more than anything but I want to keep/improve upon this Quality Content:Wank ratio even more, I meant it when I made this image

[karliahs]

the thing about having been on this website for infinitely too long is that i am deeply surprised every time it has...features. built in. with which you can do stuff

was reblogging a post and didn't want to have the commentary in the reblogs included, which for many years meant going to a blog before the additions and reblogging it from there. now there's just a little x you can press (on mobile anyway) and the reblogs disappear...

realised i wanted to have posts in my bnha tag separated by character even tho i hadn't been tagging them that way for the last couple months...was prepared to either do it manually or search for a third party add-on thing to help do it but. that's just a thing now. there's a mass post editor you can use to add tags

[rosemarytrash]

whenever i see you post on twitter its like spotting an old school acquaintance in public like bro what are you doing here

oof yea that does describe it 💀💀 idk quite how to put it but yknow like how people will be like "i'm a grown man i don't have snapchat"? that's my mood rn with twitter. that's my energy for X. it's like embarrassing :"//

[favouritefi]

much better than 2140 but now i must go through the arduous process of slowly checking every blog and deciding whether i want to unfollow and THEN i can start following new blogs again

[oneshotdepresso]

god punished me for the bojeroost chipmunk drawing by making my tumblr refuse to load images At All

[briefcasejuice]

man idk if i have ever mentioned this. but back in late 2015 when i hadn't even finished reading everything and still was open to reading mcu fic, i remember going into the daredevil kink meme livejournal page, ctrl f searched for foggy fic, and after a while i saw this one mattfoggy mirror sex fic. and just by skimming through it i saw matt was straight up sighted in it. and in the replies, once people pointed that out, the author was like "oopsie i forgot, my bad". How

MY JAW DROPPED. HELP????? just the concept of mirror sex alone??? not to defend them but i feel like there are so many steps here where even if you forget at SOME point, there are so many chances for you to remember. not to mention it's your writing. you read that shit over and over and over???? jail honestly

[bdor1995]

like, i would consider myself fairly adaptable to UI changes most of the time. i was "ok" with the sidebar addition. but this icon/pfp change is actually pissing me off to the point any (minor) goodwill i had toward staff has basically eroded instantly.

@staff you need to change this back, or offer a toggle to put the icons back on the dash. this change is making your website actively harder to use and impeding any enjoyment i had on your site so far