Why I'm Still Posting to Livejournal and Dreamwidth
I use and enjoy Tumblr, but here’s the best explanation I’ve ever seen of the invaluable thing fandom always previously had, but lost when it shifted here.
One other perk of LJ and DW: If the post you’re reading has anon comments enabled (mine do!), you don’t need to have an account in order to interact. Just jump in.
“In Tumblr, you follow people, not conversations. If I’m following A and B, I will never know that person E has shown up unless A and B find it worthy of a reblog. Neither will C or D. If F replies to A or B, E will never know about it, because the chain of replies has branched, and E isn’t on the same branch as F. C and D are still out in the cold.
It is hypothetically possible that A and B are reblogging all replies, but it isn’t likely. I want to be able to have a conversation in which new people can participate, and in which people hanging on the pool can see the whole thing. I don’t want a conversation whose continuation is entirely up to the choices of the person who started it.
You may say “Well, use another platform”, but the point is that the new platform where many fandoms have moved lacks, by design, a feature provided by all fandom platforms before it provided. Each of the previous platforms valued extended, branching conversations. Tumblr prevents them. I used to make new friends by entering into existing conversations. I can’t do that now, unless the initiators of the conversation follow me back. I can’t easily tell one of my friends “Look, there’s an interesting conversation about X going on”, because following just one conversation between two or three people isn’t practical given Tumblr’s insistence that I individually follow each person, and its inability to say “I want to see what Jane and Joan say about X” instead of “I want to see everything Jane and Joan posted during the period they were also talking about X”.