#Site performance optimization

[staff]

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[bizhubit]

Want to leave a lasting impression on your visitors? Discover the power of Website Optimization with our latest blog post. Learn how to fine-tune your site for maximum impact and engagement! Learn more -

[technology-and-beyond]

Learn how to maximize website efficiency with Drupal performance optimization techniques. Boost your site's speed and user experience with expert Drupal performance optimization strategies.

[synergytop]

Top 10 Ways To Make Your ECommerce Website Faster - SynergyTop

Revitalize your eCommerce business with SynergyTop’s latest blog on the “Top 10 Ways To Make Your ECommerce Website Faster.” In a crowded online market with millions of stores, standing out is crucial. Learn key optimization techniques, from selecting reliable hosting to leveraging Content Delivery Networks (CDN), controlling page size, and utilizing in-memory and caching technology. Uncover the impact of third-party extensions, pop-ups, and hero slides on site speed. SynergyTop, a San Diego-based digital commerce expert, shares insights to boost your eCommerce website performance, ensuring a seamless user experience and improved bottom line. Optimize your online store today!

[thewebflying]

"Mastering Technical SEO: A Complete Guide to Improving SEO Performance"

The Role of Technical SEO in Overall SEO Strategy Technical SEO is the invisible architect, shaping the digital foundation for successful SEO strategies.  It goes beyond content and keywords, focusing on website structure, performance, and user experience.  Technical SEO ensures search engines navigate and index content efficiently by optimizing elements like site architecture, URL structure,…

[jnexttech]

Advanced WordPress Caching

Speed is important in the fast-paced world of online presence. Users expect websites to load in the blink of an eye, and search engines reward faster sites with better rankings. If you’re a WordPress enthusiast, you probably already know how crucial caching is to maximising the functionality of your website. We’ll explore sophisticated WordPress caching strategies in this blog post, which can significantly increase the speed of your website.

[muklisprodigi]

Essential Tips for Blogging Success (That You’ll Actually Use)

Essential Tips for Blogging Success (That You’ll Actually Use). Want to achieve blogging success? Here are essential tips that you’ll actually use!

These essential tips will help you take your blog to the next level. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the 12 essential tips, that aspiring bloggers should focus on to create a successful blog.

[freemicrotools]

Code to Text Ratio Checker - Optimize Your Web Content

[babu-2022]

Bluehost Review 2023: Is it Still the Best Web Host for Your Website?

Are you looking for a reliable web hosting provider for your website?

Look no further than Bluehost, one of the most popular web hosting providers in the market. In this Bluehost review, we'll take a closer look at Bluehost and its features to help you decide if it's the right choice for your website.

What is Bluehost?

Bluehost is a web hosting company that was founded in 2003. It's based in Utah, USA, and is owned by Endurance International Group, a company that also owns other popular web hosting providers such as HostGator and iPage. Bluehost offers a variety of hosting plans, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and WordPress hosting.

Why choose Bluehost?

There are many reasons why Bluehost is a popular choice among website owners.

Here are some of the key benefits of using Bluehost: Reliability: Bluehost guarantees an uptime of 99.9%, which means your website will be available to your visitors almost all the time. Speed: Bluehost uses SSD drives and Cloudflare integration to ensure fast page loading times.

Security: Bluehost offers free SSL certificates and has various security measures in place to protect your website from malware and hackers.

Ease of use: Bluehost's control panel is user-friendly and easy to navigate, even for beginners. Customer support: Bluehost provides 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, and email.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost's pricing is competitive and affordable, making it accessible to small business owners and individuals.

Here are the pricing plans for Bluehost shared hosting:

Basic: $2.95 per month (renews at $7.99 per month)

Plus: $5.45 per month (renews at $10.99 per month) Choice Plus: $5.45 per month (renews at $14.99 per month)

Pro: $13.95 per month (renews at $23.99 per month) All plans come with a free domain for the first year, unmetered bandwidth, and a free SSL certificate.

Bluehost Features

Bluehost offers a range of features to help you build and manage your website.

Here are some of the key features:

One-click WordPress installation: Bluehost makes it easy to install WordPress with just one click. Website builder: Bluehost has a drag-and-drop website builder that allows you to create a website without any coding knowledge.

Domain manager: Bluehost allows you to manage your domain settings and DNS records from one place. Email hosting: Bluehost provides email hosting services, allowing you to create custom email addresses using your domain name.

eCommerce tools: Bluehost offers integrations with eCommerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify, making it easy to start an online store.

Bluehost Review Summary

Bluehost is a reliable and affordable web hosting provider that offers a range of features to help you build and manage your website. It's an excellent choice for small business owners and individuals who are looking for a user-friendly web hosting provider with excellent customer support.

If you are in need of a good hosting provider, Bluehost is definitely worth considering. It is a perfect choice for beginners as well as experienced users who require reliability, speed, and security.

Finally, if you want to learn more about web technology, web design, and gaming, check out WebTechTips.co.uk. They have an extensive collection of articles, guides, and tutorials on these topics.

Get started with Bluehost today and take the first step towards a fast and reliable website. Fill out the form above to sign up now!

[creolestudios]

Do you want to speed up your WordPress site? Fast loading pages improve user experience, increase your pageviews, and help with your WordPress SEO. In this article, we will share the most useful WordPress speed optimization tips to boost WordPress performance and speed up your website.

[brandgurus]

Convert Images Between WebP and PNG Formats for Free

As someone who runs a small business online, I'm always looking for ways to optimize my images without sacrificing quality. That's why I was excited to find webppng.com, a free online image converter that lets you quickly switch between WebP and PNG file formats.

For those not familiar, WebP is an advanced compressed image type created by Google that can drastically reduce file sizes compared to PNGs. The only catch is that some older browsers don't support WebP.

That's where webppng.com comes in! Their free WebP to PNG converter lets me upload my WebP product photos and download optimized PNG versions compatible with more websites and apps. And when I have PNGs, their PNG to WebP converter lets me benefit from the smaller file sizes of the WebP format.

I love that webppng.com offers:

Fast bulk conversion right in your browser

Preserved image quality with customizable compression

An easy drag and drop interface that's simple to use

Unlimited usage with no hidden costs or limits

Being able to seamlessly switch between WebP and PNG has been a huge help for my small online store. I can have smaller WebP files for modern browsers while still supporting PNGs for maximum compatibility across platforms.

If you work with lots of product images like me, I'd definitely recommend checking out webppng.com's free WebP and PNG converter. It's an easy way to optimize your site's images for speed and performance.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm an A-Level student and so many of my classmates use ChatGPT for essays in Law and RS and stuff - like, they sound proud of themselves, as if they're cheating the system and being clever? Just makes me feel very bleak. What are we doing man

Well, the unfortunate news for them is that they are going to struggle if they make it to uni.

This is the big problem with AI - it cannot analyse a single thing. If I were to say to you "What are the features Tumblr users would most want and why?", you are a human being with a brain and experiences and decision-making skills, and you could probably sit and come up with an answer. You would base that answer on things you personally find lacking, or want to see; you would also base it in things you have seen others bemoaning on the site.

For example, I reckon I'd say something like:

The permanent ability to boop people with a cat paw, which is implemented as opt-in. Also customisable, so you can choose whether you want a random cat paw to appear on your screen each time it happens to you. Also a different animation for super boop/evil boop, and maybe more boop options than those two, and maybe also different paw colours.

Actual enforcement of hate speech rules. We all agree to them when we join, so it's perfectly legal to delete someone for spouting Nazi shit AND YET.

No more banning or censoring queer folks' accounts

More ability to adjust the interface for disabled bloggers, e.g. colour and contrast, font, layout, switching off moving GIFs or other animations by default, etc.

Tag editing, it's frustrating having to delete whole tags.

Tag memory! Where have my tags gone??? For a year now I have slightly better luck on desktop, but for the most part, which of my tags are remembered by autofill and which are never, ever offered to me has been wholly divorced from how often I've used them. And my tags are often lengthy and odd, so it's become much harder to use mobile.

No data scraping. This is the anti-cap site thank you. Also on that note, get rid of the For You section and any other algorithmic tracking, because it's just as likely to show you a Nazi blog as an anti-Nazi one as long as you have spent any time at all discussing Nazism.

Better blocking ability, on that note.

Better search function

I could go on, but you get the idea. That's analysis that I've done, based on discussions I have seen and taken part in, and my own experiences.

I just asked ChatGPT. Here's what it had to say:

"Tumblr users have diverse preferences, but there are several features that many users would likely appreciate: 1. Improved Content Discovery: Tumblr is known for its vast array of content, so improving content discovery mechanisms such as personalized recommendations, trending topics, and enhanced search functionality can help users find more of the content they enjoy. 2. Enhanced Customization Options: Tumblr users value the ability to customize their blogs extensively. Providing more themes, layout options, and customization tools can empower users to express themselves creatively and make their blogs unique. 3. Integration of Multimedia Formats: Tumblr is a platform where users share various types of multimedia content, including images, GIFs, videos, and audio. Enhancing support for different media formats, improving media upload and management features, and optimizing the viewing experience can enhance user engagement. 4. Improved Mobile Experience: Many Tumblr users access the platform via mobile devices. Therefore, optimizing the mobile app for better performance, usability, and feature parity with the desktop version can greatly enhance the user experience. 5. Community Engagement Features: Tumblr has a vibrant community, so features that facilitate interaction among users, such as improved messaging, reblogging, tagging, and commenting functionalities, can foster a sense of community and increase user engagement. 6. Content Moderation Tools: Given the diverse content on Tumblr, providing users with robust content moderation tools, including options for filtering, blocking, and reporting inappropriate content, can help ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all users. 7. Monetization Options for Creators: Many Tumblr users are content creators who would appreciate opportunities to monetize their content. Introducing features such as ad revenue sharing, subscription-based content, or integrated e-commerce capabilities can incentivize creators to produce high-quality content and invest more in their Tumblr presence. 8. Accessibility Features: Improving accessibility features such as alt text support for images, screen reader compatibility, and customizable text sizes and color schemes can make Tumblr more inclusive and accessible to users with disabilities. 9. Privacy and Security Enhancements: Enhancing privacy controls, data protection measures, and account security features can help users feel more confident and secure when using the platform, which is especially important given concerns about online privacy and security. 10. API and Third-Party Integration: Opening up Tumblr's API and allowing for easier integration with third-party services and apps can encourage innovation and development within the Tumblr ecosystem, providing users with more options and flexibility in how they use the platform. Overall, focusing on improving content discovery, customization options, community engagement, and user safety while also providing opportunities for creators to monetize their content can help Tumblr retain and attract users in a competitive social media landscape."

It's possible that feels alright, on first glance. But take a closer look.

Every point made is vague, and disconnected from any real life examples. In the very first point, it thinks we want better search functions (yes!) but also more algorithmic recommendations (no!). It wants us to have personalised recommendations AND better security, in fact, which are incompatible - but an LLM doesn't and can't know that. Monetisation of the platform is something that has historically faced appalling backlash from users, and this thing is suggesting ad revenue sharing and subscription services.

Because, its suggestions are generic suggestions. These are not Tumblr-specific. No mention of queerphobia, no mention of Nazis, and absolutely zero understanding of what the specific users on this site actually want.

... all of which is to say...

It's what is academically known as descriptive work. It lays out some facts, but there's no depth, no analysis, no interpretation of those facts at all. Why would we want third party integration? What apps are we calling for? Give examples. Would that aid ad-blocking? Search functions? In that case, wouldn't third-party integration be tackling the symptoms and not the cause? Shouldn't we work better ad-blocking and search functions into Tumblr at a base level?

And in school - even up to A Level - that's okay. You won't get top marks for that, because it's all too vague and too descriptive, but it's fine. School-level assignments tend to be more broad and less applied, too, which LLMs fare better with.

But in university, you start with descriptive facts, and then you are expected to analyse. If you cannot analyse, you run a very real risk of failing. Which means if you've spent your GCSEs and A Levels not bothering to learn those analytical skills and letting ChatGPT do the work for you, you are going to face an extremely uphill struggle when the expectations of study increase.

So, to round off, try not to get too discouraged. You know you aren't doing it, which means you are the one actually learning and developing and growing. Others will learn eventually, and probably more painfully. You do you!

[jades-typurriter]

Cache Clearing

A piece I did in a bit of a frenzy after working with (you guessed it) Bowsiosaurus on the design for a new OC: meet Posie!! The thought process here was literally, like, no sooner than we decided on "make a Renamon" i was like "hey what if she ate a bunch of data", so, I hope you enjoy it as much as she seemed to =^w^=

CW: Weight gain, tummy/breast expansion, stern office woman is so full from Information yum

A tall, stately fox moved down the drab, linoleum-and-drop-tile maintenance corridor with the same grace, the same level and unerring gait, that one of her four-legged, flesh-and-bone counterparts might display while stalking prey through the underbrush. Though her feet ended in points, modeled as a smooth taper from her knee to a single vertex apiece, the clack of high heels echoed down the empty hallway with each step. Her purpose was singular, and her focus undivided.

She was a Renamon who had adapted to a digital landscape that was as predictable as it was unforgiving; while her predecessors were more suited to the wild west of the adolescent internet, all the precision and discipline that they dedicated to roughhousing instead allowed her to operate within the razor-thin margins of error of the corporate world. She kept things running, and that was exactly what she made her way to the server room to do now.

She waved a paw over the electronic lock on the door, an uncannily smooth, mechanical motion, made with the other paw primly held behind her ramrod-straight back. It was a far cry from the jerky, stiff displays one might expect from a physical construct, though the knob turned under her touch as though she was solid as steel. As it swung closed behind her, she approached the subject of her attention for her next task: server rack B-0, a cabinet of solid-state drives stacked even higher than she was, each loaded to the brim with trade secrets, proprietary information, logs of confidential exchanges, schematics, financial records. All of it was outdated. She had been sent by the management to ensure that it was properly deleted.

Her lip curled into a sneer at the thought. Data disposal was so… undignified. It was beneath a woman of her stature. She had thoroughly demonstrated her particular capabilities: the multitasking necessary direct intra-system traffic in real time, reducing latency; her knack for optimizing data for the most efficient storage; she had even taken the initiative to create financial projections from the figures under her care. And still they expected her to perform a task so crude that any program picked up on a shovelware site could handle it without complication! She huffed, her eyes narrowed into her typical glare, as though she wished she could melt the damned server with the infrared beams she would otherwise use to communicate with it.

Nonetheless, there was no use putting it off any longer. The 2.6 seconds she had spent ruminating could have been better spent elsewhere, and she would be remiss to waste even more time. She was the Renamon assigned to maintaining the integrity of the company’s data center, and she would not shirk that duty, no matter how uncouth it was. She unlatched the wire-mesh cabinet door, reached into the rack, and removed the first drive in the array with a soft k-chk.

Closing her eyes and bracing herself with a deep breath, she brought the disk to her snout, opened her mouth, and moved as though to take a bite out of it. Her pointed, polygonal teeth passed harmlessly through the metal, phasing as she could through any of the other surfaces in the building (though she made a point of logging her activities by using her credentials at doors, like any other employee). The data on the two plates within, however, were far from unscathed—bits parted like the muscle fibers in a succulent cut of steak, zeroed out as she pulled the drive from between her lips, swallowing the information once contained within.

She let out an almost-gasp—Pahhh!—like she was trying not to gag. It wasn’t that the data were unpalatable. Far from it; she could, begrudgingly, understand why her wild cousins were so apt to chew through any unsecured files they could get their paws on. It was the task itself that was distasteful: this was only the first bite of the first drive in the entire rack! She resented that her superiors seemed to think of her as a bottomless recycle bin. Besides, work of this nature came up rather infrequently. Reacclimating herself to the sensation of eating was always a touch uncomfortable.

She powered through regardless, knowing the feeling would settle as she got further underway. She brought the drive back up to her face, taking another bite further into the plate, as though she was gnawing off segments of a particularly thick chocolate bar; with her other paw, she disengaged another drive from the rack. She nibbled off the last morsel of data from the first drive and brought the second immediately to her maw; it was… more efficient to do it that way. As fast as possible. The sooner she could get all these units formatted, the better, of course.

Replacing the first, now-empty drive, she replaced it in its slot and reached for a third as she chewed on the second. On and on she went, paws working in perfect unison to maintain an unbroken chain of drives to deplete; she might have compared herself to a juggler if her cheeks weren’t already burning from the indignity. Electrons slid down her tongue—her mouth was watering more than she cared to acknowledge—and down the back of her throat. Bite. Swallow. Bite. Swallow. Replace. Switch. Bite. Swallow. Bite.

Her pace only increased as she continued. Of course it would. A computer performs better after it’s had time to warm up, after all. And, of course, she simply wanted this to be done and over with as quickly as possible. It was a mercy that she didn’t need to pay any mind to her volume controls, as far away from any other personnel as the data center was. Not that she was paying attention anyway, fully-focused on completing her task as she was. Nobody—not even herself—would notice the muffled mmphs and nnffs she made as she pressed on.

All the data on the disks had to go somewhere, and it was at this point in the process that that tended to become apparent. Beneath the fur on her chest, meticulously brushed and fastidiously fluffed, her breasts became gradually more prominent. At first, the tuft was enough to mostly obscure them—after all, so what if she seemed slightly fluffier that day?—but was soon outpaced. Electrical charges by the millions, now unmoored from their tidy array inside the drives, now sloshed into her, taking up more and more of her own storage space. In short order, the fluff was scarcely enough to cover just her cleavage.

One third of the way through the server rack, now. Still, her pace only increased, one drive in each paw.

Her thighs were already rather prodigious. They were the majority of her curves, under normal circumstances, and she took some pride in the matronly figure that she cut as a result. Now, they pressed closer and closer together beneath the skirt of fur that she sported, the conical abstractions of her lower extremities widening bite by bite (and byte by byte). They pressed further and further outward, straining the “garment” itself, pushing the hem further and further up along her legs; the circular patterns on her hips, reminiscent of loading symbols, became distorted, stretched. She would have thought it was a crude change, not unlike resizing an image file with improper scaling—if she were capable of focusing on anything other than the gigabytes upon gigabytes she was so doggedly downloading.

Well over halfway now. She was shoving storage into her maw two at a time, with both paws. If she was able to hold more drives at a time, she would have; as a matter of fact, it didn’t stop her from trying.

The largest component of her directory—her midsection—naturally took the brunt of the new load. Slowly, the soft, icy-blue fur of her tummy billowed out, first simply swelling as her stomach filled, then folding onto itself, rolls smushing down on each other under their newfound, still-growing weight. Soon enough, she found herself pressed up against the lower racks of the server, though even in her focused state, she hadn’t realized that she had stepped closer. She hadn’t moved any closer, of course, but she needed to step further back regardless: she found that she was beginning to struggle to bend over, straining against herself to reach the lowest-mounted drives in the array.

Finally, heaving for breath, she extended her paw for another drive and found none remaining that needed to be cleared. She blinked and, once she was more aware of herself, pushed down a sense of disappointment. Instead, she straightened herself (allowing the new mass to settle to a stop after the motion), dusted her skirt, and conjured a good riddance air about herself as she closed the server door once again. She could still find pride in a job well done, even if she was loathe to do the job.

As she stepped out once again into the hallway, ensuring that the door was securely closed—not that there was a single trace remaining of anything sensitive that had been stored there—she folded her hands behind her back and surprised herself with a burp that was most definitely ladylike. One paw flew to her snout as it echoed down the hallway, both in shock and to hide the near-glow of her cheeks. She glanced in either direction: mercifully, still vacant. Her shoulders slumped in relief, one of the rare occasions on which she relaxed her posture. Thankfully, nobody but her would know that she’d had to do one of her dirtier jobs today. She set off back the way she had came, her footsteps now playing at maximum volume—not even a clack anymore as much as a clomp.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it =^w^= If you'd like to see more of my writing, have a look here and here!

[technology-and-beyond]

Learn how to maximize website efficiency with Drupal performance optimization techniques. Boost your site's speed and user experience with expert Drupal performance optimization strategies.

[girlyholic]

SEO for Informative JFashion Blogs

You might have noticed it by now, but it is a major pain to get your Tumblr blog to show up in the results of the various search engines. This is mainly because most of them switched to "mobile-first" indexing over the past few years, meaning the mobile version of your blog is what counts and that one is pretty bad by default for Tumblr.

So here a few general tips on how to get your content properly indexed:

get a responsive theme, meaning that it adjusts to the reader's screen size and therefore works as both desktop and mobile version

go into the "advanced options" of your theme editor and turn the default mobile theme OFF, it will make your desktop theme also act as your mobile one

while it's important for hashtags to be visible below posts, make sure they don't show up on the main page as the clutter can make your blog being mistaken for spam

if not already, change the inside of your title HTML to {title}{block:PostSummary}: {PostSummary}{/block:PostSummary}

fill-out the "keywords" meta with what your blog features (example: "jfashion, japanese fashion, information, outfits, inspiration, articles")

add your blog (username.tumblr.com) to Google Search Console and confirm via meta tag as it will help to optimize and boost your blog's performance on the web

at the above, go to "sitemaps" and make the search engine track your latest posts by adding /sitemap.xml

set your custom pages you want indexed to "show"

if you have any important posts you really want to make sure are properly indexed, put their link into the "URL inspection" bar on the top and it will tell you the current status as well as allow you to force indexing

After all of the above it might take a few days to see any results, and if there is anything causing issues preventing your blog from being properly indexed Google Search Console will let you know in its notifications. I recommend to check the site once a while in general as it also gives a nice overview of how people find your blog and what kind of posts they like, making it easy for you to tailor your content to their tastes. It's handy, isn't it?

Let's make jfashion info blogs great again!

[mistswalker]

Genuine question!! You'd mentioned hating scholar runes and I keep looking for alternatives because they're so UNGODLY expensive (because of how recommended they are for builds). What recommendation would you have for a DPS build instead of Scholars? (@ratasum)

I'm trying to get more into endgame content so I really would love the advice!!

Hey there! I'm happy to help how I can. Unfortunately this is going to be one of those questions that has a longer and more beneficial answer as well as a shorter, more direct but less beneficial answer, so I apologize in advance and thank you for bearing with me lol. The short and direct answer is that there are many instances in which runes of the Eagle, the Pack, Strength, and Rage can perform just as well as Scholar for a fraction of the cost. And even when they don't meet the exact output, whichever one works best for your build will get you pretty darn close. Berserker and Ogre are other very solid DPS runes for condi/power hybrids and power DPS respectively, but they've become frequently recommended alternatives to Scholar and their price has risen nearly as high now.

That said, my longer answer is that there is no general direct substitute rune that will work better for all DPS builds all the time, but this is also part of what is wrong with the way that Scholar runes are ubiquitously recommended on meta build sites.

Every rune in gw2 has a fairly unique set of circumstances in which they function best, just as the different classes and specializations all have different benefits and limitations, and the key to a well optimized (or min-maxed) build is to play into a particular niche of combat as hard as you possibly can. Scholar runes provide a total of 175 power and (now) 225 ferocity in pure stat points, but their main claim to fame is their 6th slot bonus: "Increase strike damage by 5% while your health is above 90%".

For clarity, "strike damage" in gw2 refers specifically to power-based damage or "direct damage". Damage that can critically hit. It does not apply to condition damage. Strike damage is also mitigated by the target's armor and Toughness stat. Condition damage, on the other hand, is not.

Scholar runes became so recommended because of two misguided notions:

That "strike damage" amplifiers increase all outgoing damage dealt by the player, making them the most important "stat" to stack. And,

That the best defense is always killing something dead faster than it can hit you, and that if you ever take damage the answer is always "git gud". (People treating defensive stats as "training wheels" for gaming is certainly not unique to scholar-runes enthusiasts, but nothing displays it quite as potently as tying your stats to how often you can keep your HP at 10k/11k.)

The truth of the matter is that there is no shortcut stat to a solid build in this particular game, and it takes balancing a number of stats and fine-tuning traits and skills to optimize your build.

As an example, I'm going to use this Power Deadeye build copied from a popular raid build website. Full details can be seen at the link, but notably it uses full Berserker armor, Scholar runes, and sigils of Force and Impact. These are the final stats on the Power Deadeye build as given:

This build is noted by its creators as not being beginner friendly, and having a rotation which requires "extreme precision and pristine conditions". I cite this only to better illustrate that this build is intended to be the most optimal thief build for endgame content.

The rotation's main loop is as follows, and the skill screenshots' numbers are based on the attributes of the equipment given assuming the player is above 90% health. It is stated that Malicious Backstab must be used from behind.

This loop provides a maximum total of 15,464 direct damage, plus an additional maximum 5,288 condition damage from one loop. Accounting for the build's perpetual fury bringing critical chance to 99.33%, and the fury-increased critical damage of 270.47%, this increases the total direct damage of this loop to 41,545, and leaves us with a grand total of 46,833 damage per loop. Now, how close can we get to those numbers on that exact rotation without Scholar runes?

For this comparison, I swapped the Scholar runes for Runes of Strength. Also, noting that the Impact sigils were only giving their base 3% strike damage bonus since this build has no stuns or knockbacks to make use of its secondary feature, I exchanged the Sigil of Impact for Sigils of Strength to synergize with the new rune choice. [Rebuild Link] The sigil choice plays on the build's near-100% crit chance by giving a stack of might on each critical hit, and with the runes' increased Might duration, this means you will passively accumulate and maintain 15 stacks of might while in combat. So what do the numbers look like now?

In this version of the loop, we get 16,565 direct damage, and 10,418 bonus condition damage. When we account for critical hit the same way we did before, this amounts to 42,035, giving us a grand total of 52,453 damage dealt per loop. So in this instance, replacing Scholar Runes and Impact Sigils with Strength Runes and Strength Sigils gave this build a DPS increase from the recommended build.

Now, this doesn't mean that every build could be improved by those same changes, but there are often very few changes that would need to be made to adjust a build for the removal of Scholar runes. If nothing else, I hope this helps to illustrate how there is no one-size-fits all answer to runes, let alone to builds as a whole, no matter how popular a specific item is with metagamers.

The key to all builds, DPS or not, is synergy between elements. When equipment, traits, and skills build on each other rather than acting alone, you're going to find way better performance, and usually, have way more fun with your build.