#tumblr user manual

[jessiarts]

[Shut off last version of this post to avoid possible continual spread of misinformation that was corrected by staff. Reposting clean with corrected info]

So I'm sure almost everyone knows about the porn bot problem by now, so here's a post detailing why it's a problem, and what we need to do about it.

First off, yes, always block the porn bots. Don't be mislead into thinking they're ok to keep around because they 'inflate your follower count.'

Firstly, no one cares about, nor can anyone even see, your follower count. Be free from the shackles that are the bullshit other socials told you was important. Don't let your ego be tied to a number. Having a lot of followers won't earn you any clout here.

Secondly, bots only follow blogs to try and legitimize their malware (and other dodgy) links. This post goes into more detail about that.

Now that that's out of the way, you'll need to know how to recognize a porn bot. This round the template seems to be:

A profile photo of a pretty lady or guy, usually in their underwear, with a similar header photo.

A bio with some combination of: [Age] // [Name] // [Location] // [Emoji] // [Top Bullshit% OnlyFans]

URL consisting of a name followed by a number (i.e: firstlast999)

Typically an empty blog, or if there is content, it's all dodgy links. Visible, but empty, Likes Tab, & occasionally a visible Following Tab.

You likely recognize the pattern.

So, what you want to do is, first, report the blog as spam On mobile it'll look like this:

On mobile you'll need to report spam first, and then go back to the menu again to block.

On desktop it will look like this, and unlike mobile, you'll be able to report spam and block in the same motion:

If I remember correctly,* be sure to "Report Spam", not "Report sexually explicit material" to feed the bots to the proper channels. Because the blog is empty, they haven't posted anything explicit that would violate TOS. However, staff can recognize a bot, and if you report the blog for spam (the actual problem) they'll take a look, more than likely find that the blog is posting or DMing dodgy links, and dispose of it.

And I think that's it. Here's wishing you all a happy and safe blogging experience!

[UPDATE: It was suggested on another post that the bots track your IP if you click on them to send more your way. However, someone from staff corrected and said this is incorrect. They also corrected the 'guilt by association' myth that bots following you can get your blog flagged by tumblr.

That said, that trail all led to another, easier, way to report/block the bots all from your Follower Tab instead of visiting each blog separately, unfortunately it only works on desktop:

(For newbies, click on the little person icon at the top right of your screen and scroll to find the Followers tab under the blog/sideblog you need to block a pornbot from.)

*I remember this information from a blog that used to be all about taking down the pornbots. Unfortunately I do not know if that blog is still active, nor can I remember the URL. If anyone knows what blog I'm referring to, and/or if they're still active, please feel free to tag them so others can follow them for more tips!

[ninjamonkeystudios]

♥ = ¢ 🔁 = $

[rain-after-thunder]

Are you actually supposed to chat with your mutuals? Or do you just vaguely exist on each other’s dashboard as a person who reposts funny stuf an ocasionally posts something of their own that makes you exhale slightly more than normal.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[heckling-hydrena]

to the chicken smoothie mod that checked the flight rising link in my signature, read through my flight rising bio, saw the name of this blog typed out in Plain Text (!), went out of their way to manually look up my blog with their own two hands, checked my posts for inappropriate content (swearing and also "other content" which I can only assume means they also decided to check the carrd link I have exclusively on my tumblr and saw that I have a dni), and then gave my account a warning about Linking Inappropriate Content:

you couldn't even fucking follow me after going through all that effort?

[qvincvnx]

on an unrelated note, if you've been using xkit / tumblr savior for a long time, i heartily encourage you to try out tumblr's native filtering system, which is excellent.

IT WORKS ON MOBILE! (unlike browser extensions)

it's located on little person outline -> (gear) SETTINGS on dashboard or person outline -> gear (settings) -> general settings -> content you see on mobile.

this will turn any post of any length into a little block that's like "post blocked for containing [thing you have filtered]" and then you can decide if you want to click to see or if you want to simply move along.

you can filter tags - this will block a post if your friend OR THE OP used a specific tag.

super, super helpful way to find posts made by t/erfs that had been circulating unnoticed - if you block tags like 'g/ender critical' and 't/erfsafe' (with no slash, i am putting the slash in so this post will appear to people who might otherwise want to filter that content!), that'll be blocked on tumblr if OP tagged it that, even if the post is now circulating in genuinely trans-inclusive spaces.

also helpful if your friends have their own weird tags for stuff like one of my friends posts a lot of long screenshots of books and has a tag for that that i have filtered because the posts are always really long and i hate scrolling past them when i'm not in the mood to read. or one of my friends is a wonderful person and i absolutely hate one of her major ships, but she uses a weird individualized tag for that fandom so i just get to avoid her posting about that thing and still see other fandom content for a fandom i don't hate.

this one is going to filter things that are exactly the same as what you put in the filter field. that means that you may have to filter "content", "content cw", "content /" separately, but you can literally add as many versions as you need to. my friends all have slightly different systems for tagging and ykw? it matters more to me that they are consistent in whatever way works for them, so that i can filter what i need to filter, than that everyone uses MLA vs Chicago tagging style.

you can also just filter content. this is for any word that appears in the body of a post (or perhaps also tags? not actually sure)

PARTICULARLY USEFUL WHEN YOU ARE UPSET BY SOMETHING THAT ISN'T REGULARLY TAGGED

for instance: there are certain users who have a tendency to show up in reblog chains. they have consistently rancid takes and annoy me. i filter their url, and then i don't have to see those anymore! or: i know they're going to be in there and when i click through to the post it's not an unpleasant surprise anymore.

for instance: sometimes people tag politics but not specific issues, or you filter the tag "#politics" but then find it hard to click through, expecting funny uk prime minister goofs and instead get posts about genuinely bad things happening. you can instead filter words or phrases like 'crisis,' 'abortion,' 'election' and decide what you wanna see

tumblr's filtering has gotten so so so much better, it's extremely usable, it's cheap and it's easy and it's free to add as many words as you need to. literally no one can stop you and no one is going to notice. you can do anything you want.

[darkfrog24]

There's a phenomenon I call "break the other arm."

I go to a boss or a doctor and talk about a problem. I say which solutions I've already tried. The boss says, "Try solution C."

"But I just told you that I already tried solution C. It doesn't work."

"Try solution C again."

"I did try it again. I tried it again before I talked to you. In fact, solution C is why my left arm is in a cast right now."

"Try solution C again."

I hold up my broken left arm. "Do you understand why I don't think it's worth it to try solution C again? I'd have two broken arms!"

This seems like the sort of things psychologists should have a name for, when a proposed solution involves such high risk or high cost (time, energy, frustration) that trying it again just for show is not feasible. What sort of dissonance is going on in the boss' mind? Do they want to pretend that the problem isn't a problem? Does it feel like solution C isn't real unless it happens after they've talked about it (like how we think of our future selves as other people)? Do they want to shift blame for failure to the employee (schoolroom "They did it because you reacted to it") or find a way to take credit for success (similar to visitor effect)?

What IS this?

[pawbeanies]

convinced puppies shouldn't have jobs because why am i getting fucked by a fax machine when i SHOULD be getting fucked !! yknow just regular fucked !!!

[retconomics]

The pornbots and spam posts are fr beginning to make this site unusable

[mycherrycola]

the desktop equivalent of the tumblr app just randomly rocketing you back up 20 posts or so is when the dashboard decides to revoke your 'next page' rights

[sandinthepipes]

Hi, new Tumblr user! It's great to see you here! We love that you appreciate this community! Before tagging things make sure you learn how to use them!

Tags for clout: BAD! Nobody will appreciate you tagging something with unrelated tags. If you look or follow a tag you just want to see posts about that specific thing, right? Not adjacent unrelated things. Make sure others have the same pleasant experience! Also did nobody tell you clout on Tumblr is usually bad?

Warning tags: GOOD! Make sure you write them correctly and not using weird writings to avoid censorship. Here on Tumblr you can hide tags you don't want to see by yourself! That's why writing things like "unalive" instead of "death" is bad! Somebody who knows might get triggered will filter the tag "death" and not some unique writing they don't even know exist! Are you worried about the algorithm hiding your post? Not to worry! We have no algorithm here!

Comment tags: GREAT! You can leave secret messages, usually just for the original author or people who follow you! It's great even if you just have a tiny personal thought that doesn't add much to the conversation. Make sure to not forget actual comments still exists tho! We don't want this site to become a threadless place!

And remember kids: if you hate something, filter it out!

Happy tagging!

[littlerosetrove]

Heyyyy a reminder to new and old users to go to their setting and turn on “Enable custom theme.”

Why? Because if you don’t, the only thing people can view is essentially a blog preview, which looks like this

I’m using a screenshot of my own “blog preview” right here. See how there are two links (below “cool story, bro”)? The one on the right has littlerosetrove.tumblr.com. <-- Because I have my “enable custom theme” turned on, anyone can now click on that link and go to my actual blog. If you don’t have “custom theme” turned on, people can’t go to your actual blog, and will only be able to view your blog in this perpetual preview thing. Which, uh, kinda sucks. 

I personally love being able to go to peoples blogs to look around, especially to someone’s archive page. Why? Because this is such a quick way for me to see and decide if I want to follow someone or not. If I have to rely on going through someone’s preview blog setting/thing, page by page, it takes longer and is more tedious. 

Like, Tumblr has free themes you can use if that’s something you’re worried about. You can truly just pick one at random if you’re not fussy, and you don’t even have to bother customizing it in any way. This can be accomplished in a minute or less, I promise. 

[icarus-died-laughing]

help does anybody know anything abt replacing pinch rollers in a cassette player. specificallt a sony cfd-s05

[annefraid]

tumblr pls tell me you aren’t serious with this shortened posts thing i’m begging you

[8pxl]

PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. if you don’t have the option available, update your app or close your browser/refresh a few times. important to note you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)