okay so basically, let's say you see a post on your dash
before the update, if you clicked on a url, you could do 3 things:
- view that specific reblog on the blog you follow (A)
- view the previous reblog on the blog A reblogged it from (B)
- view the original post on op's blog (C)
however, staff recently implemented an update where clicking on a url no longer takes you to that specific post. now, clicking on a url just takes you to the blog itself.
this means that you now get 5 things:
- view ONLY that specific reblog on the blog you follow (A) -> changed location near header. also, you will now ONLY see that post and nothing else
- view ONLY the original post on op's blog (C) -> changed location near header. you will only see that post and nothing else. and ONLY if the op hasn't deleted it, otherwise it just shows an error
- view the blog of the person you follow (D)
- view the blog of the person D reblogged it from (F) -> option B no longer exists
- view the blog of the op (E)
you might be thinking: "cool! i get more options so that's good, right?" well, no.
there are SEVERAL things wrong with this and it goes beyond the prev tags issue
1) first of all, it's counterintuitive that A and C changed locations to the area near the header, especially if your userbase was already used to the previous functions. it just seems like horrible UX design to me but let's put that aside for now.
2) as you can see, option B which allowed you to see the previous reblog of a post no longer exists.
now, if you click on the previous url, you will just be taken to their entire blog. you can no longer view the post itself.
someone asked staff about this, and they replied in this post that the change was INTENTIONAL and if you want to view the previous reblog you would have to "go through the notes view".
to borrow what someone else said:
basically, this update just killed the prev tags culture in one fell swoop.
(sure, you can still use it to reply directly to the person you're reblogging from, but it's now literally useless to use "prev tags" for everyone else involved. sure, you can choose to copy tags or peer review them, but again, if people will have to copy them then the less people are likely to use them, and not every prev lends itself to peer-reviewing imo)
now, listen. i know not everyone likes the prev tags culture, but it just seems like such a poorly-thought decision to kill a culture that like... half of your entire userbase uses (see this poll as a quick reference) and that's UNIQUE to your site and sets you apart from other social media.
but it's also not even just prev tags. let's say you want to remove an annoying addition on a post's reblog chain? you can no longer do that.
however, i feel like this is the most important point:
regardless of how you may feel about the prev tags culture, the pure UI aspect of it should remain
what i mean by this is: even if you don't like prev tags, simply 1) being able to access the reblog chain, and 2) clicking on a post and actually have it take you to their BLOG (and not just a page with that one single post) is literally essential navigation.
this update threatens to drive down user engagement (which is already critically low) by making it harder to navigate. which is actually another point:
3) even if you click on A and C now to view those specific posts, it's NOT the same as it used to be.
before, you could view the reblog directly on the blog. so you could just scroll down and see the other posts leading up to it. now, you will be taken to a page where you will ONLY see that post and nothing else.
but also, you can no longer easily navigate other people's blogs.
you know how sometimes you would see like 50 notifications of someone going through an entire tag on your blog? that's going to happen a lot less, i'm afraid.
let's suppose you want to go to op's blog because they're an artist and you want to see more of their art. so you click on C and see that the tag they use for posts with their art is "#my art"
cool! before, you could just click on that tag and immediately view ALL of their art as long as the posts have that tag.
but now, if you click on that tag, it will take you to the ENTIRE tumblr tag with literally all the posts that everyone in the history of time has tagged with that specific tag.
now, to do the same thing that just took 2 clicks before, you would have to: click on C to view the post -> look for the tag you want to navigate -> click E to view their whole blog -> scroll and look for a post that just so happens to have that tag (the search function is literally useless) and hope to god that there's a recent one or you'll have to scroll for ages or simply give up -> if you happen to find it, click on that tag to navigate their posts.
you see how this is counterproductive, right? you see how this can literally drive down engagement with content creators, right?
if you make people's blogs harder to navigate, you will literally drive down the number of likes and reblogs on their posts, which have already been steadily declining for years now.
4) options D and E to view the blogs and not the posts are literally useless because you could already access other people's blogs before. you just had to click on their url to view their blogs starting from that specific post AND you could choose to just refresh it to view their newest posts.
either way, the change just seems completely unnecessary. and again, it's not just about the prev tags culture but about basic UI.
so what can we do about it?
i normally don't advocate for flooding staff with messages but i do feel like this is one of the worst updates staff has ever done (and that's saying something) and something needs to change.
even if they don't retcon the entire update, that's fine, but staff could at least add the option to view the reblog chain as a different feature (maybe even opt-in) for example. there are better ways to go about this than just axing an entire existing feature.
also, this same issue that makes it harder to navigate blogs needs to change. i feel like content creators will be especially affected by this unless this changes because you can no longer easily navigate their tags, so it will inevitably drive down engagement.
so please, contact staff and let them know we want a change.
you can contact support here!
here's a template for a possible message you could send, but feel free to edit it. (under category you can choose "Feedback")
Hi, I would like to politely request a change to the recent update that affects the reblog chain of posts. Regardless of the "prev tags" culture itself, the UI aspect of being able to view the reblog chain of a post is essential for navigation on this website. Even adding it as a separate, opt-in feature would be a huge help. Additionally, clicking on a post and then on one of the tags now takes you to the entire tumblr tag instead of the tag on that blog, which makes it harder to navigate blogs. Both of these issues have the potential to drive down user engagement by actively making it harder to navigate Tumblr, but especially for content creators. I hope you can do something to address these issues as soon as possible. Thanks in advance and have a nice day.
also, if you can and/or want, reblogs are appreciated to help spread the word!
that's pretty much the gist of the issue from what i've seen, but if anyone else has anything to add or a different way we could contact staff to make ourselves heard, please feel free to let me know!
TLDR: it's not just about prev tags, this update affects basic functionality and content creators as well
