so mok wi dat.

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

It will also mean that if someone has something hateful to say, it will not get back to the original author and they will not be able to respond or clarify or set the record straight. It will make it so that someone can reblog a post and turn it into a vehicle of hate against that original creator, without any recourse for that original creator. It will lead to more toxicity and ridicule and hate on the site.

It will mean that if somebody downstream reblogs a post of mine with a question about some aspect of what I said, I will not be the one answering that question because I will have no idea that it was added.

It will also mean that if someone reblogs a work of art and adds a meme of someone weeping for joy at how beautiful it is, and then that gets reblogged and liked a million times, the original creator will not get any of those notes, and the original post on their blog will still only have 20 notes even if it becomes the most popular piece of art on the entire site.

Just FYI everyone, because of this change I will be disabling reblogs on posts where I am sharing my own thoughts and ideas. If it's just a photo set or something I will not disable them, but anything else is going to get disabled because I do not want to feel like I'm putting my work out into the wilderness and have no idea what's happening to it, and have a reblog suddenly turn it into somebody else's post, and any further engagement go to them.

Because let's be realistic, no one's going to go back through a thread to interact with previous iterations. All of the engagement is going to stick with the current version that is in front of someone, which is cut off and separated from the original creator. If for no other reason than that no one will understand how this new system works, and they're going to (understandably) use the site the same way they always have and expect the same results.

I can think of so many ways that this could be weaponized and used for harmful purposes, and I'm totally not here for it.

Even if things are handled in a well-meaning way by people, it would still make it difficult, if not impossible, for creators to have any involvement in what happens to their own content once it is out in the wild, and will potentially cut them completely out of the conversation.

If you are as horrified by this change as I am, please do not stay silent. Please give some strong feedback through the feedback form so that the staff can realize how hated this change is.