Kenny's Head • An email to tumblr

An email to tumblr

Tumblr asked for feedback, I’m giving them feedback. Particularly to their threat to “suspend Accounts…at any time, in its sole discretion” for using Missing E.

Here is the email that I sent them. If you’d like to send one, the email address is policy@tumblr.com.

I see you’ve slipped an anti-browser extension policy into the new TOS (“You may not… (c) access or search or attempt to access or search the Services by any means (automated or otherwise) other than through our currently available, published interfaces that are provided by Tumblr (and only pursuant to those terms and conditions), unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate agreement with Tumblr, or unless permitted by Tumblr’s robots.txt file or other robot exclusion mechanisms;”). If you see fit to suspend or terminate my account based on the fact that I installed something that gives tumblr the functionality that tumblr itself flat-out refuses to provide, then I have to question your priorities.

I am part of a community on tumblr. We don’t just read each others’ posts, we communicate with each other. Without extensions like Missing E, this is very difficult to do. There is no way to reply to replies. Tags, which have become as content-rich as the posts in many cases, don’t wrap around, instead just disappearing into nothingness mid-word. There is no way to reply to a post from the person’s tumblr page, even if the user has replies turned on…you have to scroll to it on your dashboard to reply.

Before you punish us for using your social network as an actual SOCIAL network, consider adding the functionality that so many of us request, only to be ignored and then chastised for finding a way to get said functionality.

Oh, and maybe next time, don’t throw up the head-fake by saying “It’s worth noting that, while the Community Guidelines have gotten longer, the only new policy in the draft that we weren’t already enforcing is “Promotion and Glorification of Self-Harm” while completely glossing over the changes to the TOS.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I really hope you decide to put your users ahead of your egos.

Yours (so far),

Kenny Vee
kennyvee.tumblr.com