you were pulling your punches

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.

Others have made the point already about the impacts to creativity and engagement within the site far better than I could, and those are far and away the most impactful parts of this change. But to address something that I haven't seen said yet, that concerns users from other sites that you're trying to court -- this update visually clutters the posts. They are harder to read and follow, especially if you're scrolling quickly. The new demographic you are trying to target will not parse these the way that they are parsed on Twitter.

I wanted to meme before the big day.