I wrote back and asked if she needed this for a school project or for something else where there's a deadline looming, for the simple reason that the more time I have, the more in-depth I can go with my research and the more material I'll be able to get for her.

And she answered that no, it's for her personal use because she's interested in abandoned buildings in general.

This place matters, and our goal is to keep Tumblr thriving for a long time. That means Tumblr has to keep evolving. There are things we know could be better. You probably have a list too. Some of it will be easy to fix. Some won't. That's exactly why we want to work with you.

The Tumblr User Panel will be a group of people on Tumblr who'll work with us over time to give feedback on how this place works today and where it's going. We know we have to earn your trust, and we want to change how we build features and include you more in the process. We’re looking forward to shaping this together.

If you're interested in joining: https://tumblr.survey.fm/tumblr-user-panel-interest-survey 

Here's what you probably want to know:

Why a panel instead of just listening to everyone?

We won’t stop reading tags, comments, reblogs, and support tickets, but a panel helps us paint a more complete picture before we build, and go deeper than a reblog thread allows.

Who are you looking for?

A mix of experience levels, devices, countries, posting habits. People who've been here a decade and people who showed up last month. 

Will everyone who fills out the survey get in?

No. We're keeping it small enough to have real conversations. If you're not selected, it's because we're balancing across a lot of dimensions, not because your response wasn't good enough. We may expand or rotate members over time.

Will critical feedback affect my account?

No! We want your feedback and criticism, and that will never result in any action against your account. 

Can I leave?

Whenever you want. No penalties. 

From the article:

“If you look only at the trend of species declines, it would be easy to think that we’re failing to protect biodiversity, but you would not be looking at the full picture,” said Penny Langhammer, lead author of the study and Executive Vice President of Re:wild. “What we show with this paper is that conservation is, in fact, working to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. It is clear that conservation must be prioritized and receive significant additional resources and political support globally, while we simultaneously address the systemic drivers of biodiversity loss, such as unsustainable consumption and production.”

This massive meta analysis (for those not familiar, a study analyzing the results of many studies on similar topics) found that the vast majority of conservation efforts show much much better results than doing nothing. In many cases, biodiversity loss was not only stopped but reversed.

Arguably the most massive and influential study ever proving the supposed inherent cruelty of humanity was proven a few years ago to be literally fraudulent

"The Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous and compelling psychological studies of all time, told us a tantalizingly simple story about human nature.

The study took paid participants and assigned them to be “inmates” or “guards” in a mock prison at Stanford University. Soon after the experiment began, the “guards” began mistreating the “prisoners,” implying evil is brought out by circumstance. The authors, in their conclusions, suggested innocent people, thrown into a situation where they have power over others, will begin to abuse that power. And people who are put into a situation where they are powerless will be driven to submission, even madness.

The Stanford Prison Experiment has been included in many, many introductory psychology textbooks and is often cited uncritically. It’s the subject of movies, documentaries, books, television shows, and congressional testimony.

But its findings were wrong. Very wrong. And not just due to its questionable ethics or lack of concrete data — but because of deceit.

A new exposé based on previously unpublished recordings of Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist who ran the study, and interviews with his participants, offers convincing evidence that the guards in the experiment were coached to be cruel. It also shows that the experiment’s most memorable moment — of a prisoner descending into a screaming fit, proclaiming, “I’m burning up inside!” — was the result of the prisoner acting. “I took it as a kind of an improv exercise,” one of the guards told reporter Ben Blum. “I believed that I was doing what the researchers wanted me to do.”

The findings have long been subject to scrutiny — many think of them as more of a dramatic demonstration, a sort-of academic reality show, than a serious bit of science. But these new revelations incited an immediate response. “We must stop celebrating this work,” personality psychologist Simine Vazire tweeted, in response to the article. “It’s anti-scientific. Get it out of textbooks.” Many other psychologists have expressed similar sentiments."

"Many of the classic show-stopping experiments have lately turned out to be wrong, fraudulent, or outdated. Yet many introductory psychological textbooks have yet to be updated. And it’s high time that we teach the next generation of students to understand them this way."

-via The Internet Archive, via Vox, June 13, 2018. Paywall free. Extensive citations and links to primary sources in article. Emphasis mine.

One of the rare situations where science turning out to be fraudulent and/or wrong is actually very GOOD news!

Don't know how to do something? Look it up.

See a piece of news mentioned on social media? Look it up.

Not sure if something is making it to the broader public consciousness, either because you don't see it much or you see people saying nobody is talking about it? Look it up.

Don't know what a word means? Look it up.

It will make you a better reader and a better writer, but it will also just make you more equipped to cope with the world.

So often, I see people talking about something as though it is the first time anyone has ever acknowledged it, when I've been reading reports about it on the news for months or years. Or I see someone totally misinterpreting an argument because they clearly don't know what a word means--or, on the other hand, making an argument that doesn't make sense because they aren't using words the right way.