ponyrequestfuckyeah.tumblr.com March 13, 2011 11:34 AM   Subscribe

Could we please add tumblr to the list of social app links that we can display on our profiles? tia
posted by jason's_planet to Feature Requests at 11:34 AM (56 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

I assume you want to do the same thing as suggested here by pb.
posted by phunniemee at 11:42 AM on March 13, 2011


When I asked this in December, the answer was no.
posted by Mizu at 11:44 AM on March 13, 2011


Sorry, we're not going to add Tumblr. They don't have profile pages that include a summary of activity across the system. In the link that Mizu added we discuss it a little more.

You can add your Tumblr blogs to your profile description, or in the more prominent "website" link that shows up next to your username.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:52 AM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


And I would just like to note my opinion here that if we're going to have such arbitrary distinctions on what goes on the list, we shouldn't have the dropdown box at all, and instead encourage people to post links in their profile. Calling it "Social Apps" and not including particular, definitively social, websites, for lack of an automatically generated profile (something I see as a feature of tumblr, not a bug,) seems unclear; and can give unintentional endorsement via nifty little button icons where none is intended.

Harrumph.
posted by Mizu at 12:02 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


This is not arbitrary, we've been clear that this is for apps/sites where you have a profile. The point is to be able to link to users on social sites, not just say "Here's my content elsewhere."
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:10 PM on March 13, 2011 [5 favorites]


we shouldn't have the dropdown box at all, and instead encourage people to post links in their profile.

So you want to the site to rid of the other 79 social sites in the dropdown menu that do have a profile page because Tumblr doesn't?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:10 PM on March 13, 2011 [4 favorites]


What is this Tumbler? Is it a BBS?
posted by Splunge at 12:14 PM on March 13, 2011


Yep! I think it's an unnecessary and small-problem-causing part of the profiles. Nix them all encourage more linking in the "About" area.

It's not that I want to fight about this or anything. It's just that the previous thread closed up before I formed my opinion and could come back and say that. I know the mods have explained it clearly and I know we're in "agree to disagree" territory. Metatalk's just where I'm supposed to express these sorts of opinions so I have.
posted by Mizu at 12:17 PM on March 13, 2011


Dude. The correct syntax is fuckyeahponyrequest.tumblr.com.
posted by desjardins at 12:34 PM on March 13, 2011 [8 favorites]


there's a lotta nakedness on tumblr. I'm just saying.
posted by jonmc at 12:40 PM on March 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


It's not that I want to fight about this or anything.

Clearly.
posted by special-k at 12:40 PM on March 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


I'm going to say that people that don't use tumblr don't really get tumblr. I have no idea if the mods use tumblr.

Daring Fireball did a short bit about tumblr, and how it's hard to link to anything on the site, since you have no idea where it originated. The fact that it doesn't have a profile is seen as a feature of the tumblr folk. It's little d democratic. I just find it confusing.

This said I question if this is a decent exclusion from the listing rules in that while it doesn't meet the "needs a profile page" criteria, it could also be the exception to the rule. I'm perfectly fine not having it linked, but this seems like the one case where that rule does seem arbitrary. It's almost like that rule was written specifically to exclude tumblr. (I know that's not the case.)

I'm not sure if I see a reasonable destination (in this case) between this is me and this is stuff I find cool, since in the second case the posted content is what makes you you on tumblr.

There's also something to be said for not fighting this fight over and over again. It'll keep coming up as long as tumblr is around.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:59 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yes, all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:13 PM on March 13, 2011 [3 favorites]


Mizu: And I would just like to note my opinion here that if we're going to have such arbitrary distinctions on what goes on the list, we shouldn't have the dropdown box at all, and instead encourage people to post links in their profile.

I do not endorse this argument. Just sayin'

jessamyn: This is not arbitrary, we've been clear that this is for apps/sites where you have a profile. The point is to be able to link to users on social sites, not just say "Here's my content elsewhere."

But you did make an exception for twitter. The inference I draw from that exception is that there's another principle informing your decision and that is the need to keep users happy. Twitter doesn't fit the template you set out above but it is a very popular site and allowing people to link to it contributes to user happiness and satisfaction. If you can include twitter on that basis, why not tumblr which includes similar features?

In any event, it just seems weird to me that we can link to Monkeyfilter -- which I don't have any quarrel with at all but is definitely not what you'd call a huge or active site -- and not to tumblr.

There. I've said my piece. I will respect whatever choices you make.

Thanks!
posted by jason's_planet at 1:14 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Thanks for adding Untappd, pb!
posted by box at 1:21 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Twitter has profile pages.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:23 PM on March 13, 2011


The point is to be able to link to users on social sites, not just say "Here's my content elsewhere."

On tumblr a person's blog basically IS their profile, and up in the right hand corner you see the link that lets you follow that person (if you are also logged into tumblr. Same as Twitter mostly, as others have said).

But I don't really care about this much, because it's easy enough to link to separately in my MeFi profile.
posted by hermitosis at 1:52 PM on March 13, 2011


I think jason makes a good point. And I don't even use Tumblr, so definitely no dog in this fight for me!
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 2:04 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


"Thanks in advance," I think.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 2:13 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


I would like Tumblr to be listed in this way- it is kind of like Twitter in that there is a heavily social aspect to it. I would like to be able to see at a glance in someone's profile if they are on Tumblr, and it would be helpful to see a list of all Mefi users on Tumblr, the way you can with other sites people list in their profiles.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:42 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


One nice thing about our rule that it should be profile pages is consistency across users. So if you look at user a's profile page it's going to be about the same as user b's profile page. When you link directly to content that's not the case. So you could click over to a Tumblr that looks like a blog. One that looks like a picture book. One that looks like a static page. Sometimes there's information about the person behind the content, most of the time there isn't. The ambiguity and wild variance in design is half the fun of Tumblr. It also means it's not quite right for this particular feature of MetaFilter. Twitter was grandfathered in before we had this rule completely forumulated. But Twitter also has a certain set design that is consistant across accounts. There is always information about the user on the page when you click to visit.

I think all of us here at MetaFilter have tumblr blogs—this rule isn't designed to keep Tumblr off profile pages. We love it. We don't include other blogging systems for similar reasons.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:06 PM on March 13, 2011


I'm a little bit confounded that this is so hard for some to understand. The social site links are similar to the instant messenger links, where you go "this is my username" and they know where to go. Tumblr doesn't even have usernames. That sounds to me like the exact opposite of arbitrary.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 3:57 PM on March 13, 2011


Tumblr doesn't even have usernames.

Of course they do? You have a username and your tumblr is YOURNAME.tumblr.com, and you can "follow" other Tumblr users and all of them are shown to you on your Dashboard (kinda like how you see all the people you follow on Facebook in your News Feed).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:00 PM on March 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


Hi mods! I understand why you don't want to add tumblr to the social apps - because it doesn't fit the rules you have made about social apps, but I just wanted to chime in and say I am bummed about this and hope you will consider rethinking this at some point in the future. I would use this both to link to my own tumblr (which I already do in my about text, no biggie!) and to easily see the tumblrs of other mefites to see if I want to follow them. This would be a feature I would enjoy.
posted by SoftRain at 4:03 PM on March 13, 2011 [3 favorites]


Of course they do? You have a username and your tumblr is YOURNAME.tumblr.com ...

I think it's more that you have a primary blog name and that primary blog name becomes your user name. The only three things they ask for you when you sign up are e-mail, password and the URL you want to use.
posted by girih knot at 4:09 PM on March 13, 2011


Another thing about Tumblr is that I suspect there are a number of people who would probably want to add several tumblrs to their Metafilter profile. The accounting of users to tumblrs isn't one-to-one either way: one person can have several and several people can contribute to a single one.

I kind of wish it were in the social list, but I understand the reasoning for why it's not.
posted by immlass at 4:21 PM on March 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Another thing about Tumblr is that I suspect there are a number of people who would probably want to add several tumblrs to their Metafilter profile. The accounting of users to tumblrs isn't one-to-one either way: one person can have several and several people can contribute to a single one.

Same thing's true of Twitter, Flickr, etc.
posted by John Cohen at 6:02 PM on March 13, 2011


Same thing's true of Twitter, Flickr, etc.

Technically the same thing is true of any social networking site: profiles are linked to accounts and more than one person can share any account regardless of rules. I've seen a married couple who share a Facebook account, for that matter. But it's not common on most sites the way it seems to be on Tumblr for people to have access to and post to three, four, or more generally subject-specific Tumblrs. At that point they just look like a bunch of blogs, not a social networking account.
posted by immlass at 6:36 PM on March 13, 2011


there's a lotta nakedness on tumblr. I'm just saying.

It's a feature, not a bug.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:38 PM on March 13, 2011 [2 favorites]


I suspect there are a number of people who would probably want to add several tumblrs to their Metafilter profile.

I think I have three twitter accounts listed under my profile.

I also didn't realize multiple people could contribute to one Tumblr page.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:56 PM on March 13, 2011


Hey, I have a question: Are there any other sites out there that offer a way to link your MetaFilter profile (in the manner that MeFi allows the kind of profile links we're talking about here)?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:46 PM on March 13, 2011


Librarything does. I've seen it in other places too although I don't remember details.
posted by shelleycat at 9:21 PM on March 13, 2011


(which actually reminded me to delete my librarything profile since I just got rid of most of my books)
posted by shelleycat at 9:23 PM on March 13, 2011


I use tumblr a bunch, and am middling about any notional inclusion of it in our social stuff because on the one hand it's neat stuff that mefites make and that's great, but on the other hand their shit is so far from being together on the whole Controlling Your Presentation Of You Independent Of Your Tumblr(s) that I can't even change which goddam tumblr associated with my account is the one that is "me" for any given interaction.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:44 PM on March 13, 2011 [3 favorites]


If you really want my collection of reblogged corgi pics and housemade My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic macros, uh, I guess you could ask me politely and I'd tell you. Tumblr is my shame sink.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:50 PM on March 13, 2011 [3 favorites]


If someone here has a sufficient bug in their bonnet about this, maybe they could make a third-party "social networking" web site that exists only to provide a user profile for one's existing Tumblrs.
posted by grouse at 11:47 PM on March 13, 2011


Just out of curiosity, what is the reason for the 'must have profile page' rule?

In what way is a personal Tumblr--or any other blog, for that matter--not itself a profile page? Why the narrow definition of 'profile'?

Full disclosure: I don't have a Tumblr, don't list any social apps in my profile, and don't particularly give a crap what's approved as a real-ass social app. Just curious, is all.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:37 AM on March 14, 2011


If someone here has a sufficient bug in their bonnet about this, maybe they could make a third-party "social networking" web site that exists only to provide a user profile for one's existing Tumblrs.

Alternatively, MeFi could easily perform that function itself by including Tumblr in the drop-down.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:40 AM on March 14, 2011


Are there any other sites out there that offer a way to link your MetaFilter profile (in the manner that MeFi allows the kind of profile links we're talking about here)?

Ravelry allows you to list other social sites, including both MetaFilter and Tumblr. Sadly, you can't view anything about Ravelry profiles without being logged in, so MetaFilter doesn't include it in its list of social sites.
posted by JiBB at 2:17 AM on March 14, 2011


Seems like a totally arbitrary rule. If tumblr made a profile page that only had a link to your main tumblr page, then it would be added as an option? How silly.
posted by smackfu at 7:01 AM on March 14, 2011


(Especially since cjorgensen's profile shows that people are already linking multiple profile pages for sites like Twitter and Facebook.)
posted by smackfu at 7:02 AM on March 14, 2011


When you click each of cjorgensen's Twitter links you get to pages that all look the same. There's a username and description right at the top of the page. It's pretty easy to quickly determine why there are multiple accounts and what they are. A Tumblr link can go to a page with a single animated .gif of an elephant waving a flag. That might seem like a subtle difference, but it is a difference. We want the social links to be high signal, low noise. Requiring a profile page is a way to ensure that.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:40 AM on March 14, 2011


I also didn't realize multiple people could contribute to one Tumblr page.

I have a personal tumblr, run one group tumblr, and participate in another. I think a lot of the fyeah tumblrs are group projects.
posted by immlass at 7:50 AM on March 14, 2011


Yes, all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

GRAR patterns showing up on a Monday? eenteresting.

*scribbles note to self on chart paper*
posted by infini at 11:08 AM on March 14, 2011


When you click each of cjorgensen's Twitter links you get to pages that all look the same.

Right- BUT, when I follow multiple Tumblr accounts, they all show up on my Dashboard (which is just for my view) as pages that look the same. Nobody who uses Tumblr in an active, social way bookmarks each page on their browser- they use the Tumblr Dashboard and it shows all the content in a uniform fashion. This allows them to comment on pages, reblog posts, and do any of the other social things Tumblr allows. Given this, I think it makes sense to add Tumblr as a Social link- it would certainly help me identify Mefites who use Tumblr and engage with them socially on Tumblr, which I think is the point of those links.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:45 PM on March 14, 2011


Many people will browse the links who are not already Tumblr users. That's why we have the requirement that profile pages must be available to the world, not behind a login. Even existing Tumblr users will have to go an extra button click to 'follow' someone for a more uniform view, and even then there's no requirement to show username or member info. I get what you're saying: as a Tumblr user the feature would be handy for discovering content. I agree, but the potential for noise for others is too great. We want those social links to be highly valuable and trustworthy. If they often lead to mystery content they won't be as useful, and that's the problem with linking directly to content instead of a description/summary of content.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:01 PM on March 14, 2011


I really don't get it. I am a user. I have a tumblr page. I want to link that page from my MeFi profile with a tumblr icon. Your issue is what exactly? That I might possibly link to someone else's tumblr page?
posted by smackfu at 1:07 PM on March 14, 2011


I mean, I thought this place was grounded on the idea of "assume good faith".
posted by smackfu at 1:13 PM on March 14, 2011


No, we're not worried about you linking to someone else's Tumblr blog. We want to use those links to link to other pages that are similar to MetaFilter profile pages. I'm sorry this is so frustrating. Anytime there are rules around a feature there are going to be frustrations at the edges of those rules and this is one of those cases. Without rules, the social links become less valuable because they become less reliable. There are other routes for linking to your Tumblr content, so it's not closing down the possibility of linking your profile to your stuff at Tumblr.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:15 PM on March 14, 2011


You may want to fix the Flickr links too, since they are not pointing to the profile pages.
posted by smackfu at 1:16 PM on March 14, 2011


Tumblr is a weird beast. I get the comparisons to Twitter and Flickr, but honestly this would be a slam dunk if username.tumblr.com simply listed all your public tumblr blogs instead of being a blog itself. It may seem arbitrary, but we really want to help people identify their other work and Tumblr is really muddy when it comes to who owns/writes a blog, what other blogs that person runs, etc.

It's like when people demand we add "blogspot" as a social app, but it's a blog, not really a social profile page of any sort and better fits in the web page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:32 PM on March 14, 2011


it would certainly help me identify Mefites who use Tumblr and engage with them socially on Tumblr, which I think is the point of those links.

Have you seen this thread? Its what helped me get started.
posted by infini at 1:48 PM on March 14, 2011


You may want to fix the Flickr links too, since they are not pointing to the profile pages

You have all four mods commenting politely and patiently on why the policy we created is the way it is; there's absolutely no reason to be shirty about it. If you don't like it, we're sorry and we've explained our thinking. Twitter and Flickr are special cases that pre-date the rest of the social app features which is why they function slightly differently.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:46 PM on March 14, 2011 [2 favorites]


I do understand the thinking - and I do see how tumblr is kind of not really 100% a social site since it's also just a hipster livejournal and one's tumblr is pretty much just a webpage - but I also find it to be kind of a bummer. Thanks for explaining, at length.
posted by SoftRain at 4:08 PM on March 14, 2011


there's absolutely no reason to be shirty about it. If you don't like it, we're sorry and we've explained our thinking.

I'm sorry about that. You know that AskMe post about the guy who would say anything to attack in an argument that he didn't even care about? Rang a bell.

Anyways, I feel you will run into future examples where a single user on MeFi doesn't map to a single user on other sites, where this rule will continue to be a problem. And I'll leave it at that.
posted by smackfu at 4:46 PM on March 14, 2011


it's also just a hipster livejournal

I cracked up when I read this. So true.

a single user on MeFi doesn't map to a single user on other sites

I was the one who pointed that out as a confusing issue. /not a mod
posted by immlass at 4:49 PM on March 14, 2011


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