![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kriegorI have been meaning to write something about this for years; my perfectionism and vague goals led to a bunch of scattered notes. Now it's either too late, or more relevant than ever. So: I'll forgo the notes entirely and make this argument from memory-- I've certainly retread it enough...
Let's not be coy-- transplanting from any other social media site to DW (or, really, between any two nonfederated sites at all) is a culture hop. And when you ask for something that is familiar to do, and are told 'that's not the way we do it here', a bit of hostility is natural. I think 'tough, we don't have that' is a pernicious response, if only by sake of omission.
An example-- one I've already seen in the wild a few times now-- is looking for a 'like' function. Personally, I don't like 'likes'-- I think they encourage obnoxious or degrading behaviors, like beancounting-- and I definitely don't think they fit with Dreamwidth's format, which funnels users toward a more direct response in the form of the comment box. But even though I may not like them, I am not so naive to imagine they serve no constructive purpose under any conditions. I've seen them used to express 'I hear you' in contexts where that was helpful and a myriad other -helpful- things that would not really be elucidated by a worded reply.
I am neither so naive to imagine anyone else ought to share my opinion simply because it's my opinion. That's culture for you, though.
There is something valuable in the confluence of social features Tumblr has, including that one-- it's easy to post, disseminate, acknowledge and collect images, which encourages formats of creativity and sharing you can't really find anywhere else. Its tagging system is powerful and double-edged and handles 'discovery' better than nearly any other platform I've seen-- if you want something more niche, you use a more niche tag, and you can find those -through- less niche ones by association. And it's -quick- by merit of how visual most of the website is-- and how its format encourages that.
If you're paying attention, you may notice that most of these points could be easily rephrased as criticisms.
I would argue, in spite of all this, Tumblr's ownership history, incompetent programming, flippant approach to user privacy, and design practices that are at best shortsighted and at worst predatory, offsets much of the potential value its strengths would offer. It could be so much more. Perhaps if you aren't affected by one or more of the downsides-- or aren't aware of the loss, like so many people I've met who had no idea that real privacy and authorization locks in online journals were the norm pre-tumblr, not just an unspoken accord that other peoples' personal reflections might not be your business-- the potential strengths look that much better.
Therein lies the danger of trying to succeed Tumblr by replicating Tumblr; if the party doing so doesn't have a firm, grounded and wide angle view of what Tumblr did wrong, as well as what it did differently from its predecessors (if other social media sites can really be called 'predecessors' to it-- I mostly refer to 'sites it siphoned many of its users from), then the only model they'll have to go off of is a lemon.
Let's not be coy-- transplanting from any other social media site to DW (or, really, between any two nonfederated sites at all) is a culture hop. And when you ask for something that is familiar to do, and are told 'that's not the way we do it here', a bit of hostility is natural. I think 'tough, we don't have that' is a pernicious response, if only by sake of omission.
An example-- one I've already seen in the wild a few times now-- is looking for a 'like' function. Personally, I don't like 'likes'-- I think they encourage obnoxious or degrading behaviors, like beancounting-- and I definitely don't think they fit with Dreamwidth's format, which funnels users toward a more direct response in the form of the comment box. But even though I may not like them, I am not so naive to imagine they serve no constructive purpose under any conditions. I've seen them used to express 'I hear you' in contexts where that was helpful and a myriad other -helpful- things that would not really be elucidated by a worded reply.
I am neither so naive to imagine anyone else ought to share my opinion simply because it's my opinion. That's culture for you, though.
There is something valuable in the confluence of social features Tumblr has, including that one-- it's easy to post, disseminate, acknowledge and collect images, which encourages formats of creativity and sharing you can't really find anywhere else. Its tagging system is powerful and double-edged and handles 'discovery' better than nearly any other platform I've seen-- if you want something more niche, you use a more niche tag, and you can find those -through- less niche ones by association. And it's -quick- by merit of how visual most of the website is-- and how its format encourages that.
If you're paying attention, you may notice that most of these points could be easily rephrased as criticisms.
I would argue, in spite of all this, Tumblr's ownership history, incompetent programming, flippant approach to user privacy, and design practices that are at best shortsighted and at worst predatory, offsets much of the potential value its strengths would offer. It could be so much more. Perhaps if you aren't affected by one or more of the downsides-- or aren't aware of the loss, like so many people I've met who had no idea that real privacy and authorization locks in online journals were the norm pre-tumblr, not just an unspoken accord that other peoples' personal reflections might not be your business-- the potential strengths look that much better.
Therein lies the danger of trying to succeed Tumblr by replicating Tumblr; if the party doing so doesn't have a firm, grounded and wide angle view of what Tumblr did wrong, as well as what it did differently from its predecessors (if other social media sites can really be called 'predecessors' to it-- I mostly refer to 'sites it siphoned many of its users from), then the only model they'll have to go off of is a lemon.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-15 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 05:55 pm (UTC)I hope the next one that starts to spool people in by attrition does it right.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-19 06:51 pm (UTC)it was great for fanartists, memers, and advertisers, but kind of terrible in all other ways for fandom.