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[soc_puppet]

...Fucking hell. I don't want to start wank, and this is a person I otherwise find interesting and want to get to know better and potentially have as a fandom friend, but uh. "If you like but don't reblog, I'm disappointed it you?" (Not you, alexseanchai; I'm linking your reblog because it includes the image descriptions. Also we are already friends, so.)

I feel like this is, in part, a major cultural difference between fans who primarily got started on FF.net and LJ and so forth, and fans who primarily got started on Tumblr. But I'm also not that huge a fan of the whole "Reblog or I will guilt you about it" thing, or the "This is how you fandom correctly" thing, no matter the context.

And I also feel like, if I bring any of this up on Tumblr, it is more likely to turn into wank than a productive conversation, due to the nature of Tumblr as a content aggregation site. Any productive conversation we may try to have will almost inevitably get lost as people reblog from one of us and not the other, and I just. Don't want to go there! Especially since I should already be turning the light out tonight, as I have work tomorrow, and trying to do any sort of damage control or prevention on Tumblr would necessitate me staying up probably another hour and a half, maybe longer.

But also, if I don't say anything I'll be disappointed in myself and probably toss and turn anyway for at least an hour and a half, still without getting any sleep?

So, compromise: Posting about it here. Hopefully tomorrow I'll either have gotten over this, or come up with a diplomatic/polite enough way to phrase "That guilt trip thing you're doing is making me uncomfortable, and the way you're trying to make me interact with social media on your terms rather than my own is not helping even a little" that I can send an ask or something and then get on with my life.

Comments

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

Honestly, I'm not convinced that the hierarchy of views > likes > recommends is necessarily a problem, and I'm starting to dread how nearly every online transaction these days is followed up with a request that I give away free marketing labor.

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[alexseanchai]

On AO3, that hierarchy is not a problem.

…on AO3, fanworks can be searched for with a reasonable expectation of success. On Tumblr, this is mostly not so. On AO3, as long as at least one tag is correctly applied, people who have never heard of the creator can find the fanwork. On Tumblr, this is mostly not so.

Tumblr is designed horribly for fandom, for a lot of reasons. It's also the least bad alternative to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, not least of which is media hosting—Dreamwidth has little image support and none for audio or video; AO3 has not got that much—and I find I cannot blame people for trying to work around Tumblr's disadvantages.

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

I can. In fact, I'd say that attempting to guilt-trip other people into doing fandom their way is a bigger problem for tumblr than a lack of reblogs.

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[alexseanchai]

Hell, maybe it is.

So what solution do you propose to the lack of reblogs, if "trying to get others to reblog stuff, recognizing that some proportion of those attempts will be guilt trips no matter how little we like guilt trips, and also reblogging stuff oneself" isn't it? Alternately, how do you propose to get others to reblog content without any of anyone's such attempts being guilt trips? Alternately, given Tumblr's current structure, what solution do you propose to the lack of content visibility if increasing everybody's reblogs isn't it?

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

Is there a lack of reblogs? My perception is that there is a lot of reblogging happening on tumblr. So I'm not convinced that reblogging is either a problem or a solution compared to discoverability.

I have no trouble with people asking for reblogs. I have a big problem with people wagging the finger and saying, "Hey! You, whose tumblr is 80% original content, half of which isn't even about fandom! You're the problem for not reblogging enough!" That's my problem with the original discussion.

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[alexseanchai]

A few years ago, I understand, like:reblog ratios of 1:1 were, if perhaps not the norm, certainly not rare. Now anything as low as 3:1 is pretty good. That is a key part of the problem here.

Sounds like your problem with the original discussion is that you think you're the target audience. Which, if you are not being hypocritical about it (and I have no reason to believe you are), you do not seem to be.

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

Or maybe, people still reblog as many as 100 posts per day and are more selective about what they're reblogging. like:reblog ratios don't say anything about the total volume of reblog posts. Certainly not enough to justify wagging the finger and trying to shame people into reblogging more.

My problem is that the original discussion involved a bad inference from the wrong evidence, and a moral claim which I think can't be supported.

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[alexseanchai]

…total volume of reblog posts is not a relevant consideration in the way you seem to be suggesting? if you are wanting at least one of more people consuming your content and more content for you to consume, you want total volume of reblog posts to increase! because if total volume of reblog posts stayed the same while total original content being reblogged increased, then reblogs per original post would have to decrease, which hurts that content's visibility and is thus counterproductive.

if the moral claim you refer to is the guilt trip: I already said guilt trips bad, I am not interested in this time at arguing with anyone who holds any contrary position, and I am not interested in supporting or being perceived to support any contrary position myself. I am interested in addressing the problem that the guilt trip is a perceived solution to.

and I am hearing a lot of you don't think it's a problem at all because—since you don't seem interested in greater visibility for your own work, nor in greater visibility for stuff you want to find that you might not otherwise encounter, and further you don't want to reblog much to your main blog at all and you don't seem interested in having a sideblog (and, to be clear, I do not think any of that is a wrong way to do fandom or to do tumblr!)—it is not a problem for you.

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

Ratios here are misleading. 33% of 100 is more than 100% of 10. If I run a fanblog devoted to art, is it a problem if I only reblog art? What about if it's meta or fic? What if I don't want wank on my blog, and I don't see the post before the wanky comments? What if I like Kirk/Bones but only reblog Spock/Kirk? What if I appreciate slash but curate gen? What if I think fashion blogging about the show is hilarious but a bad fit for my theme?

What if, out of the hundreds of things I scrolled through on my feed, your piece just didn't get into the top 10% that I wanted to reblog?

So no, I don't think like:ratio reblogs are sufficient to demonstrate a problem. And even in a gift economy one isn't entitled to either likes or reblogs. That has nothing to do with my own blogging, which isn't involved in the tumblr "economy" at all.

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[alexseanchai]

What if, instead of criticizing people who are involved in the tumblr fandom gift economy for attempting to address problems we perceive that the tumblr fandom gift economy has, you as someone who is not so involved kept your opinion to yourself?

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

Well, tumblr is just implementing systems that have become ubiquitous across social media, and I still end up reading material on tumblr anyway. So unfortunately this particular drama driven by the influence economy that's increasingly baked into everything from tumblr to the house that sells my sewing patterns is becoming unavoidable. There's already AO3 drama along these same lines.

It's no longer a gift economy if you're demanding marketing labor as your price, and bad arguments are bad arguments. Arguing first that I'm overly involved and then uninvolved doesn't change that.

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[alexseanchai]

(1) you are the one arguing you are uninvolved; I'm pointing out the logical extension of that argument

(2) criticizing people for trying to solve problems they perceive to the extent the site architecture allows still doesn't seem the world's best use of your time; if you have a better solution to the problem we're perceiving, then by all means present it!

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[soc_puppet]

...Dammit, I knew I should've refreshed before posting that comment; I meant to reply to whatever was the most recent in this thread.

Anyway, comment still applies; this is approximately enough of this business for my taste, please and thank you.

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[cbrachyrhynchos]

*rolls eyes*

These arguments are not limited to tumblr and don't stay on tumblr. They're also made about ao3 and other sites. And since I'm professionally involved in online community development, I'm entitled to my opinion about how these norms are shaped. As tumblr goes to heck, so does the rest of fandom.

Sorry, like:reblog ratios don't say what you think they say, but I'm done arguing that.

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[soc_puppet]

I would have liked to believe that you were done arguing when I, the owner of this blog, asked you politely to be done, but that was clearly not the case! I will be freezing this thread and the other one you're in. In the future, I would very much appreciate it if you were to stop when I ask you to. (Yes, I could have been slightly more clear. No, that does not mean I appreciate your further commentary.)

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[soc_puppet]

Okay, I think we've gotten all the productive discussion we possibly can out of this topic. Thanks very much for your input, both of you, but at this point I think we're going to have to chalk things up to philosophical differences and social media culture differences. I appreciate your cooperation!