stepliana:

nerdgasms:

It seems like the algorithm for calculating Tumblarity has changed since it was first implemented, several (2?) long weeks ago. I thought I might share the wisdom I’ve acquired in the past few days. It was hard won, but I see it as my duty to make sure that no more lives are lost to the ravenous beast Tumblarity.

At the beginning, your Tumblarity increased with every post you made. It increased when someone liked something you posted, and it increased when someone reblogged your posts. It increased when you gained a follower.

A couple of days later all this stopped.

Now you can post all the live-long day and still watch your Tumblarity crumble before your very eyes. You can be reblogged dozens of times with nary a point increase to show for it. The difference is that Tumblr is no longer awarding points just for posting, but they’re awarding them for content creation.

Your reblogs only increase your Tumblarity if you already have a certain percentage of original posts. Looking at my pie chart this appears to be somewhere around 40 or 45% “original” posts. Considering that Tumblr thrives on re-purposing the artistic output of others, it seems silly to penalize reblogging (yet award the original poster points for others reblogging, when they will be penalized if they do so) when the posters of “original” content are just as likely to be “reblogging” from elsewhere on the internet. Some Tumblrs are, but most aren’t recording the songs on their blogs, or painting the pictures, or designing the intriguing looking chandeliers or what have you. Good for those who are, but they’re very much in the minority.

By that same token the new system also awards content stealing. (There is someone I follow who I am glaring at now. I love the stuff you post, but you NEVER CREDIT. Your photos don’t even link to the original source.) If you want to post something you see, but don’t want to be penalized by the algorithm for the hideous sin of the reblog, then you’re better off pretending you found the picture, song, quote, video etc first. Srsly, Tumblr?

It also encourages something else I hate, conversations held through reblogs, but the less said about that the better.

And so, like a highly trained dog, I am posting more “original” content. It was getting depressing to lose so many points each day and still be posting a dozen or more things. I’m not entirely sure how this benefits Tumblr, since it means more people uploading things to the server of their non-ad supported site, but this seems to be what they want.

Does this new system of awarding points for re-blogging “original” posts while penalizing those who re-blog them seem counter-intuitive to you? Is your experience of the Tumblarity algorithm different? I think I’ve nailed it, but still, is it?

This.