Oh, lovely followers, I think I may have an idea of how you can help me that stands a chance of practicality!

I’m going to post each week a list of links to posts that need descriptions and/or descriptions and links to the product listing, and I’m going to ask anyone who feels like donning the wings and glitter baton and Tangle crown of the Description Fairy to reblog, describe and tag the post descforstb (which I chose because nobody else is going to be using that tag).

This means two things: I can track the tag to find and reblog described posts and everyone else can see if that post has been described by also checking out that tag. This means, hopefully, a minimum of multiple people describing the same post, which is my worst fear with offering up a post list this way.

(If I get a thousand people doing this, it may not work so well, but if that’s the case, I’ll go back to the mod option.)

What this means is that if people help me out this way, I don’t have to worry about trying to get up four descriptions a day (and if folks are really enthusiastic about helping, I might even be able to go up to five scheduled posts a day) which gives me more spoons for messages and researching asks. It means that the really hard posts for me to describe stand half a chance of actually being seen by you! It also lets me continue to be my obsessive, somewhat-possessive self with regards to tagging and queuing without running the risk of alienating innocent co-mods. Lastly, it means people can help out as their own spoons and lives dictate.

(It also means you don’t have to feel guilty about asking me anything, because I hate that a likely consequence of this conversation, this week, has been people thinking twice about asking me for info. I really like answering questions!)

What I’d ask potential Description Fairies to do for each post is:

- Check the tag to see if another Description Fairy got there first! I’ll try to delete taken posts off my list every day or so, but do check the tag.

- Write an image description. I’m less concerned with background and setting, and more concerned with focusing on the stim toy - colour, shape, texture, how it’s put together. If your description is running long, break it up into a couple of paragraphs  - this makes it easier to read.

- Tag the post #descforstb and post it (side blog, junk blog, just somewhere on Tumblr). Please make this tag one of the first five tags you use, or otherwise Tumblr won’t pick it up for me. Don’t worry about trying to copy my categorisation tags; they’re only needed on my reblogs.

If my potential Description Fairies are feeling especially helpful and glittery (although none of this is a requirement) they also might:

- If the OP didn’t provide a link to the product, provide one.

- If the OP didn’t mention the price of the item or in what currency the item price is, mention it.

- If there’s any shipping limitations you notice (I think Etsy and Amazon are the only stores where this is really a thing) or any other information you observed you think should be added, do so. No such thing as too much information!

I’m not sure how well this will work (it may not at all) but I think it is at least worth trying.

I’ll say that the incredible kindness and generosity of my followers this last week is the only thing that makes me feel even a little comfortable about making this post (asking for help is another thing on the Things At Which I Am Terrible list). The fact that you’ve offered help or asked how you can help is just so amazing I’ve cried about it at least five times.

Thank you, all of you. You’re absolutely wonderful and I am so glad to have found a place in such a fantastic community of people.

ETA: @zukoandtheoc says,

Will you be able to find reblogs with the tag though? how does that work?

Wow, it’s been another busy hand day! And I’m still behind on messages!

Please check out this post for information on why this list exists and how you can help me in a very big way by reblogging one of the below posts, adding image descriptions to your reblog (the way I do to most stim toy bloggers featured here) and tagging it #descforstb. (I can then go in, add tags and queue the post.) Even one post helps me out a lot, because that’s one post I don’t have to describe myself.

All this allows me (a disabled autistic with mental illnesses and chronic hand pain) to keep on trying to make this blog as accessible as possible - meaning a larger variety of disabled stimmers can fully access the information here, which (in addition to collating and archiving information) is one of my goals for this blog. This will, I hope, leave me enough spoons to keep up better with asks, messages and my own posts, allowing this blog to better serve the stim community without sacrificing something as important (but spoon-consuming) as image descriptions. It may even allow me to increase my daily posting schedule, giving you more regular information on stim toys and DIYs.

I’ll update this list (this is a fraction of my draft folder) as I see posts taken, but please do check the tag ( #descforstb) in case someone claims a post while I’m asleep or absent. (I am away from the computer, sometimes...)

A tremendous, flapping, stimmy thank you to everybody who has expressed interest in helping me find ways to make running this blog a little easier (and is understanding of my quest to be accessible). Thank you so very much! You’re all just so incredibly amazing I don’t quite know how to process it, truly.

(Please note that none of these posts are particularly time-sensitive, so please don’t feel there is any rush, at all, to have these done. There really, truly isn’t.)

Links under read more cut to save on scrolling:

And it seems that Tumblr ... cannot tag? Cannot bring up posts with tags? Is once again proving itself to not fulfill a basic function of “showing posts on this site that are tagged with this tag” even though that’s what a tag is for? Because my posts come up in the tag, but nobody else’s posts come up, and I absolutely cannot figure out why, except that I apparently made a critical error in once again assuming that Tumblr will work.

(Come on, Tumblr. Come on. I’m searching for that tag on Tumblr, not my own blog, so this is basic tagging function at which you’re failing.)

I have incredibly kind and wonderful people already helping me out and Tumblr is being Tumblr, apparently.

I will ask my lovely, lovely people to not help me out for the moment, while expressing mountains of gratitude that they did so, because I need to figure this one out (or decide that this just isn’t functional) and I don’t want to cause you all more grief over doubling up until we know this will work.

But, oh my goodness, thank you, thank you, thank you so very much. You’re kind and amazing and that you’re so enthusiastic about helping me is just the most wonderful thing ever, I swear.

*glomp hugs followers*

ETA: @extraordinary-arbiter-bluebird says,

when you search tags, it doesn't usually show reblogged posts? so that might explain it

Oh, I thought it did when text/info was added, for some reason! (Why I thought that, in hindsight, I don’t know, because now I think about it, I don’t remember seeing those sorts of posts in my other tracked tags...) But yes, that would explain it! Thank you. And apologies to Tumblr, because I’m the noob, not Tumblr. And thank you, thank you, thank you so much for supplying this correction. Thank you.

And now, I believe, the next solution is the modly one...

ETA the second: @cutarose says,

yeah it definitely only shows original posts when you search tags, unless you’re searching someone’s blog!! which can be a bit of a pain!