Tumblr Just Makes It Impossible To Communicate

I know Tumblr is not email, or Twitter, but why make it so infuriating to communicate with others on Tumblr?

marksbirch created a note on a post of mine, and of course I can’t reply to it (see Notr). So I went to his blog and asked a question, which he answered. But of course I can’t then add a follow on question to that existing ask. Of course not. So I tried to ask him a follow on question in a new ask, with a link to a post. Got this:

Hmm. Of course you can’t put links in questions. Why would you want to do that?

So I tried to send him fan mail, thinking maybe I could put a link in that. Turns out you have to follow someone to send fan mail. So I followed him, and tried to send fan mail:

Ok. I give up.

1 August 2012 4 Permalink

Trying To Capture A ‘Conversation’ On Twitter

@emergentfutures and @futureamb are discussing how they might capture a conversation — about the downsizing of American cities — using Tumblr’s reblog mechanism:

Emergent Futures Tumblelog | Multiple Re-Blogging as a Conversation - Should we do it?

futuramb (P A Martin Börjesson) and I have been reblogging a single post on the down sizing of American cities in a way that creates a conversation.

We can easily have that conversation off-line from Tumblr and we are concerned that doing it this way will confuse or annoy people who follow us.

You the reader can help us make that decision

Should we have Tumblr conversations in this way?

If we do should there be a limit to the number of reblogs - say three each?

My response:

You have bumped into a limitation of the Tumblr platform.

Karp et al decided early on not to support comments, even though a large number of Tumblr users include them via Disqus. Instead of excluding comment-style conversation, Tumblr could have been innovating, so that forms of iteration of the sort you are discussing could have been invented.

For example, imagine an extension or variant to the chat post, which is now hardly used, and is a minor recast of text posts. Instead, what if an author could create a group chat post, and invite other authors to be contributors. In this way, you and @futuramb could have a dialog, with whatever sort of interaction you wanted, and we could have watched that grow.

Again, if Karp had opted to implement comments as a first class sort of Tumblr object — like other sorts of posts — integrated comments could conceivably be associated with specific chat ‘strokes’. So in this fictional future Tumblr world, I would be able to make a comment on a remark of your and another on a remark of @futuramb’s, all within the same group chat.

But none of this is possible at present, alas.

Given the limitations of the blog/reblog/reblog paradigm — ugly styling, multiple posts, etc — I wouldn’t suggest that option for a long conversation of perhaps tens of interchanges between you two. Even if you limit the number of reblogs, it will be a mess.

Another option: Have a series of conversations on video, and transcribe each discussion into chat posts.

I didn’t touch on ‘Asks’ — another specific sort of Tumblr conversation, but they are also inadequate for a freeform, give-and-take sort of conversation, too.

Source: emergentfutures

14 April 2011 7 Permalink