Spanish conundrums: “Did they say oeste [west] or o este [or east]?”
Este es este. Este es oeste. Es o este o oeste. Es o oeste o este. ¿Es este o este? ¿Es este o oeste? Puede que este esté en el este, puede que esté en el oeste. Puede que éste esté en el este, y ese esté en el oeste. Es o este o oeste, o oeste o este.
“This is east. This is west. It’s either east or west. It’s either west or east. Is it this one or this one? Is it east or west. This one might be in the east, it might be in the west. THIS one might be in the east, and that one might be in the west. It’s either east or west, or west or east.”
Real talk, though, because it needs to be said: as much as we all joke that porn was the only good thing this place had left, the reality is that it being the only place where one could regularly engage with and promote sexual content being gone is really not understanding at all what makes this place special. I mean we all joke about “horny on main” and all that, but the reality is that for a lot of the LGTBQ+ community, particularly younger members still discovering themselves and members in extremely homophobic environments where most media sites were banned (but Tumblr wasn’t even considered important enough to be), this was a bastion of information and self-expression. For a lot of artists too, this was a great place to come and post NSFW work and get traction that became Patreon pages that became honest jobs.
The problem with “family friendly” social media is that more often than not, the ones hit the most by the whole family friendly nonsense are marginalized groups that have no vehicles to express themselves. Stuff like YouTube consistently bans or flags simple content featuring something as innocuous as two men kissing as “adult” content and makes it hard for LGBTQ+ content creators to compete with their non-queer peers for a lot of those reasons.
The ultimate problem isn’t even that banning of NSFW content, it’s the general mess surrounding it and unintended consequences to these groups. For MONTHS Tumblr has had a huge problem with porn spam bots and outright child pornography, and for MONTHS the majority of the userbase has been in general consensus that both of these things needed to stop. Tumblr did NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. When Apple finally removed their app from the store, SPECIFICALLY because of the child pornography, Tumblr decided to do what any rich corporation owning a social media site with zero understanding of what makes it popular would do, and decided that the best course of action was to eat itself like an Ouroboros. Rather than admit that they have done an absolutely shit job at keeping pedophiles off this website and rather than hiring the necessary staff to carefully moderate content, they decided to loose a poorly programmed bot that literally deleted perfectly SFW blogs with thousands of followers, and rather than properly handling moderation, they decided that it was best to simply go the lazy route and block anything even remotely NSFW.
They run this site in the worst way possible, and I don’t understand how @support or @staff or their completely oblivious “CEO” plans to keep this sinking ship alive.
the reason I like tumblr is because it’s so easy not to be found here. I don’t have to worry about people from real life being able to find me bc I can hide my blog from search engine results. I can be openly gay here and have a little space to myself to explore my interests and stuff. Social media has always made me really anxious as I’m a naturally reserved person. I’m reluctant to use such widely used sites like Instagram and twitter because I don’t want my family or friends I’m not too close to find me on there ! And also why the fuck do twitter and Instagram make your following and likes public
exactly like these sites DEMAND access to your contacts and phone number and even when you say no they still recommend you to other people based on your phone number and real life proximity to other users. That’s so fucking creepy. I do so miss the old days of the internet where everything wasn’t so connected to your day to day life.
From someone who’s survived MySpace, livejournal, deviantart, and fanfiction.nets’ content purges and bad policy updates, here’s some advice on how to get through tumblr’s recent bullshit:
– don’t knee jerk delete. I know it’s tempting to peace out immediately but hang on and do the other steps first. Out right ghosting and erasing everything is how fandoms die.
– archive everything on your blog you want to keep
– tell your followers how they can archive and keep your work too. A lot of fic and art were only saved from ff.net and lj because other people saved it first. If you’re cool with other people saving your work for them to personally keep, let them know this. You can absolutely discourage reposting but I really do highly recommend you allow people to personally save fic and art they like and are worried will disappear forever. Digital Dark Ages are a real thing.
– tell people where you’re jumping ship to. Give links. Keep that info up, even if you’ve left the site.
– go through who you follow and find out where else you can follow them. Save their work if they’ll allow it. It’s tedious as hell but if you want to keep up with people on here clicking on their page to check in is the best way to do it.
– support places like ao3. This is exactly why ao3 asks for donations a few times a year. They are a 100% anti-purging, judgement free, ad free non profit run by an elected board and protected by lawyers. Places like ao3 literally save fandom so please continue to support them and other similar archives. This is exactly why ao3 is so important.
Also, go read the source policies and official Tumblr statements in addition to user analyses and reactions. It’s important to keep abreast of developments over time; staying informed is your power in this situation. Memes and reaction posts are funny and are a useful way to vent / provide commentary, but some of them create an inaccurate picture of what’s happening and should not be taken as evidence on their own of what developments have happened.
Soup.io – well-known alternative to Tumblr. Reblogging, post types, themes, collab blogs, dashboard, artsy, great community already there. Soup can auto-import everything you’ve posted on Tumblr.
TypePad – Includes reblogging. Dashboard and post types similar to Tumblr.
Okay, folks. So. Tumblr’s jumped the shark in a big way, and I’m not even just talking about indiscriminately blocking all “adult” content on a platform that IS, in fact, primarily 18+.
Many blogs, like the wonderful @blackkatmagic , that are not especially NSFW have vanished.
(And I for one LIKE being able to go to curated porn blogs run by actual people and have a chance of finding stuff to my taste, it was one of the things that kept me on this hellsite, but that’s another issue entirely.)
I know lots of people are talking about migrating, but none of us are sure to where yet. Pillowfort seems to be an option, some people are talking about Twitter. But for now, it’s a mess, and even if we knew where we were going, it’s often a huge process, and a lot of us have stuff on tumblr that ONLY exists there.
One possible quick solution to save your blogs, both NSFW and personal, is to import it to WordPress. I found this solution through from frantic googling on how to save an entire blog, text posts an all. There are several apps for downloading all the pictures from a tumblr, (Plently for Windows, but only a few paid ones for mac, of which Tumbelog Picture Downloader is working for me so far) but this is the only solution I’ve seen so far that allows you to save EVERYTHING. I downloaded my NSFW blog in like 10 min. My regular blog, which is significantly larger, is in the process of importing, but I don’t anticipate any problems. I will, of course, update you if I have any.
This tutorial I found worked really easily. http://quickguide (.) tumblr (.) com/post/39780378703/backing-up-your-tumblr-blog-to-wordpress
I put parenthesis around the .’s like we’re back in FF-Hell, just in case tumblr’s new thing about outgoing links kicks in. You know what to do.
To break it down, just in case:
Sign up for a WordPress.com account at wordpress (.) com/start
You’ll have to create an account, with your email, a username, and a password. They should send you a confirmation email immediately, check it, activate it, and you’re good to go.
On the site, it will ask you for a site name. That page asks you a bunch of other information too, but you only have to fill out the site name.
Then you have to give your site a URL. If you’re lucky, your tumblr URL is still available, if not you’ll have to come up with another one, sorry.
It will tell you if that option is still available for free.
Then it will ask you to pick a plan. Free is really good enough, I swear.
Now you’re set up! You can import your tumblr!
The only differences from the linked tutorial are that the Import button is now on the first level menu, not in tools.
Hit Import, then you have to follow the link for “other importers” at the bottom, to find the option for Tumblr.
Then you’ll have to sign in with tumblr, using your normal tumblr credentials. You’ll be redirected there automatically.
You’ll have to allow WordPress permissions on your blog.
Then your blogs, including all your sideblogs, will show up in wordpress.
Hit import, wait a WHILE depending on the size of your blog, and you’re done!
ALSO!!
I made my NSFW blog private for now, since I don’t know WP’s policy on NSFW.
This means that to access it, someone has to have an account and request access. But hey, part of our problem on this hellsite has been people going places they aren’t wanted, so I don’t personally see this as a bad thing. They can send a request from the landing site on your blog, you get an email, click a link in the email, and PRESTO, they have access.
To make it private, go to Settings > Reading > Site Visibility. Go back and check, it took me changing the setting twice for it to actually stick.
tl;dr, you can import your entire blog to wordpress in just a few steps.
Edited almost immediately to add that WordPress allows posting reblogging, commenting, AND following, and so it seems like honestly the most logical next place for fandom in my opinion. It also allows a high degree of customization.
I’m going to tag the hell out of this, in no particular order. PLEASE reblog this and spread the word so people know it’s an option. If you’re having trouble, PM me, and I’m happy to help.
There are a whole bunch more, but that’s a start. Please reblog the hell out of this, so people are aware of this one simple option.
EDIT: We’re not sure yet about wordpress’ stance on NSFW, so definitely mark those blogs private for now. I had one person tell me they got nuked for one NSFW post on a 7 year old blog. Definitely look into other solutions for backing up your blog just in case Private isn’t good enough. There seem to be lots of options for Windows, including Python. A quick google search will turn up several. I’m still looking for a good option for Mac. Anyone know any?
Update on Migrating to WordPress
Back up your block somewhere else as well.
I’ve been forwarded the content guidelines for WordPress, and while they do allow nudity, they do not allow visually explicit pornography, not even drawings.
From their site:
We do permit mature content on WordPress.com, including text, images and videos that contain nudity, offensive language, and mature subject material. However, blogs that contain such content must be marked as Mature in our system.
If you are publishing a blog that you expect will contain content that is intended for mature audiences, we ask that you provide us the courtesy of reporting your blog or website here.
A blog or website that is marked as Mature is excluded from public areas of the WordPress.com service. This means:
• It will not appear in the Reader or other tag listings
• It will not appear in Top Blogs listings, recent posts, or related posts listings on other blogs
• The blog’s users cannot use that URL as a link in their WordPress.com Forums profile
Mature blogs and their owners are permitted to utilize all other aspects of WordPress.com. We do not suspend blogs solely for the presence of mature content and there are no interstitials or other “age gates” on WordPress.com.
However, there are limitations to the mature content permitted on our service. Please don’t:
• Post visual depictions of sexually explicit acts (such as, but not limited to, images, videos, and drawings) that can be considered pornographic;
• Post links or ads to adult-oriented affiliate networks, such as pornography site signups;
• Post links, text, or images promoting or advertising escort or erotic services;
• Post images of extreme violence or gore without associated context or commentary;
• Post images of child pornography;
• Post content that promotes pedophilia, such as blogs with galleries of images of children where the images, content surrounding the images, or the intent of the blog is sexually suggestive.
Blogs found to be hosting the above material will be suspended. In cases of child pornography, we will report all incidences to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and fully cooperate with law enforcement.
What does this mean?
I would hope that completely private blogs would not be flagged, but make sure that you back up your blog elsewhere, if it has any NSFW.
This seems not to include NSFW text, so fic should still be okay, but AO3 is really probably best for this.
WordPress is still an option for fic and fanart, but is probably not the best option for porn. (Even the excellently curated blogs that can be found on Tumblr. Am I bitter? Yes.)
Other options:
I’ve been seeing a lot of support for Dreamwidth. Though I don’t use it myself, it’s definitely a good option. Pillowfort is still inder construction and doesn’t seem to have a long term finance plan, but it’s probably worth getting an account and trying it out.
I haven’t found a good one for Mac yet, but I’m on the hunt.
Tumblr has a native export option, but I haven’t gotten it to work for me yet? Which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work.
Mentioned problems:
Guys. This post has gotten over 14k notes in 4 hours. I’ve seen very few of the comments.
But some of them mentioned that they weren’t seeing the free option? I don’t know, guys, I still see it. Maybe it’s a country issue? Dreamwidth is absolutely free, if nothing else.
Not importing:
Again. 14k notes. I’m sure their servers are heavily overloaded. Be patient. Set up your computer somewhere plugged in and come back tomorrow. Mine is 4 hours into 8k posts and less than a ¼th of the way through. It’s gonna take a while.
There is also a petition up to change Tumblr’s mind on this situation.
Who knows if it would work, but it’s worth signing.
Does tumblr have a porn bot and actually illegal child porn problem? Yes.
Is the solution to that the nuke the blogs of a bunch of consenting adults? No.
Hopefully this is all a passing storm that will result in them getting their act together.
Am I hopeful? No. But it’s worth signing.
The Take away:
WordPress is a possible solution for text-based fandom, but it’s not the new tumblr.
DON’T PANIC, at the risk of plagiarizing Douglas Adams. Backup, protect your stuff, let people know where to find you, but don’t panic.
I’m personally gonna continue to use this site until it implodes, which it might not even do. It’s my main social media platform, and I do have some hope that they might pull their heads out of their asses.
Good luck everyone.
I’m tagging the hell out of this again, and I would really appreciate it if everyone could reblog this just as far as the previous one. I’ve tagged as many people as tumblr will let me XD
