Welcome to Work in Progress! Tumblr's official ask box, where we try to answer as many questions as we can about Tumblr: what we're working on, hope to work on, or even your suggestions! We hope it can be a little halfway between staff and you fine folk, the community.
Please note if you're experiencing an issue/glitch/bug on Tumblr, do not send here at WIP—please file a Support request instead of sending us an ask.
two questions...Will there be a time in the future where Tumblr users might be able to monetise their posts similar to that of twitter users do with some of theirs (obviously subscription based)? or if we buy a domain from Tumblr can we put our own ads into the website to make money…is that allowed?
Thank you!
Answer: Hey there, @nornirthefrog!
Thanks for getting in touch. We are glad you asked, but this is a complicated question. We have made some efforts with similar ideas before but with mixed results. Let us explore it in three parts:
We hope that helps to clarify things. Keep the questions coming, folks!
I wish there was an option to simply view all reblogs, rather than with tags or without separately, or even all notes- reblogs with and without tags and comments, and likes, all together and chronological. It's nice that we can filter!! But it would also be cool if we could have the unfiltered option as one of the choices.
Also wrt to notes, it would be nice, when someone reblogs a post and adds an image, if there were some indication of this having happened or way of knowing about this in the activity feed; currently this is not the case, at least on desktop
Answer: Hi, @b-a-n-d-e-r!
All good questions. You can actually still see the single feed of notes on the blog network if the blog has the custom theme option enabled in its settings. We used to have this in Tumblr itself, but honestly, it gets very overwhelming very quickly, and it becomes difficult to find the content you want, hence the separation now.
As for the second point: we agree! As it happens, we are still working on improving activity items and updating the reblog one to indicate when a reblog has just added an image without text is on our to-do list. We will have updates for you here, and hopefully before too long. Keep an eye out here and at @changes.
Thanks for getting in touch. Keep the questions coming, folks.
Tumblr now disables custom pages by default and no longer allows users to turn off promotional banners from displaying on them. From a user perspective, it feels like the use of custom pages is being discouraged. It also feels like Tumblr prioritizes the social media aspects of the platform over the blogging aspects. Interest in the web revival is growing, and with that in mind, it would be awesome to see Tumblr embrace it with a renewed focus on custom pages and improvements for bloggers. :-)
Answer: Hi there, @unicornwishes!
We also love the blogging side of Tumblr, but unfortunately we haven’t had as much time to focus on it with our recent work on Communities. But blogging on Tumblr isn't going anywhere! We’re just not sure yet when we'll work on features like custom pages.
If you're interested in custom pages or other blogging features, we also have a wonderful sister platform called WordPress.com specifically for blogging, so feel free to check that out too!
Thanks for your question. Keep ’em coming, folks.
This post has been edited for clarity.
I noticed that when you Blaze posts, one of the metrics you get back is the number of "Shares". I really liked seeing that data because it means people are sending your post outside the Tumblr ecosystem to friends or family.
Are there plans to add this to normal posts?
Naturally this feature shouldn't include the identity of who shared, just the number of total shares. And since the bottom of posts is currently cluttered, it could instead be placed in the Notes tab for each post. 🤔
Answer: Hi, @vaguelygenius!
We hate to disappoint, but right now, no, we’re not planning to show this for all posts—sorry. It remains a special thing for people using Blaze at least for the foreseeable future. It would also require considerable work to incorporate more widely, and that work is a little outside our current bandwidth.
That is only the foreseeable future, of course. If things were to change, such as if we saw more usage of Blaze, we’d be more keen to bring this out to more people. Keep the questions coming, and happy Blazing, people.
Will something like rss feeds be available for Tumblr Communities? Will communities be able to post to facebook or X(formerly twitter) or Discord or other online social regions?
Answer: Hi, @richardmurrayhumblr!
A great question! The short answer is that we have, as luck would have it, started opening Communities to the API. Find out more right here via @changes.
The longer answer is an even more emphatic yes—we hope to open it up as much as it can be supported. Public communities technically already have an RSS feed (because they’re shared blogs behind the scenes) but we just don’t have a friendly URL for them yet. Regarding sharing to Twitter and Facebook, we had to remove those integrations some time ago. For Discord, we are planning on using a similar set of features, like our existing Discord integration for communities.
Thanks for getting in touch here. Keep the questions coming!
will we ever be able to search for communities to join? i would use the feature but cant find communities without digging
Answer: Hi @darkswagamerpiratecowboyclown!
Thanks for getting in touch. The short answer is yes: we are currently testing it internally.
You can find a wealth of information here in this little preview of Communities discovery. We’ve heard loud and clear that folks want a way for other people on Tumblr to discover your communities, and we’re working on a new search results page to do exactly that.
It was lightly leaked in the Admin Zone community for admins when announcing free-to-join communities:
Updating your community to free-to-join will make it appear higher up in the discovery features we’re building! This is the best way to get your community discovered.
We hope this is good news. Plenty more to come on this, folks.
hello, how do we hide the communities feature on the nav bar? i am not part of any and will not be. this is very inconvenient.
Answer: Hi, @brandycranby!
Thank you for your question here, we wonder if this might be a bug.
We will assume here that the nav bar refers to the bottom bar on the native apps. We have confirmed that Communities do not appear in the nav bar on web unless you’re part of one.
If you, or anyone else, see the Communities icon in the bottom bar, without being a member of a community, please contact Support.
Keep the questions coming, folks.
Hi wip! I'm wondering if there's a reason for, or if there are any plans to change, the fact that there are two For you pages on Tumblr desktop? They are different (noticeable when you look at the page urls), so shouldn't they have different names to separate them and make it less confusing? I know I prefer one to the other strongly, and that others do as well. There's the one accessible through the dashboard tabs at the top, which is the "stuff for you" page, which seems to be a mix of posts I haven't seen from people I don't follow, and reblogs from the people I do follow (which I have often already seen on the regular Following dashboard). Then there's the one accessible through the Explore page, which is the "recommended for you" page, which does not contain reblogs I've already seen, seems to have different non-reblog posts, and is the one I personally prefer very strongly overall (and it isn't available on Tumblr mobile anymore as far as I can tell, which is a shame!) Part of me worries that there are plans to remove the recommended for you page, please keep it! I think giving these two pages different names, to better reflect the difference between them would be great and remove a lot of confusion for new users, and annoyance for old users. It would also make it easier to put the recommended for you page back into the mobile app.
Answer: Hi @trulytragiclesbian!
Thanks for your question about the duplicated "For you" page on web. It's true that they have the same name, but they also have different content.
The "For you" dashboard tab, available on all platforms, is a place to find the best posts from blogs you follow, mixed with recommended content. The "For you" page under Explore is purely recommended and trending content.
Thank you for mentioning that you often see reblogs from followed blogs, that you have already seen on the Following dashboard. We'll look into this!
Now that Communities is getting closer to a beta phase, we want to take the opportunity to refresh the Explore page. The goal is to make it easier to know what is trending and to discover other great stuff.
Thanks for the feedback, and have a lovely day.
hi tumblr wip! is there anything that can be done about images stretching to the full width of a tumblr post? i make art and images that are sometimes under 540px, and there seems to be a point where they will stretch automatically to 540px. it makes things like pixel art or otherwise small images look terrible!
Answer: Hi there, @moxley!
We’re really glad you asked this question, as we love getting the opportunity to share the tips and tricks that are applicable in this area.
First off, here are the rules of our image stretching:
However, the vast majority of devices and browsers use antialiasing in their default image scaling algorithms. This, as you point out, doesn’t play nicely with pixel art at all. Boooooo!
So, how can you preserve your sharp pixels with 100% consistency for your viewers? The answer is simply to upscale the image yourself before uploading. To keep the pixels square, you’ll need to resize by factors of 100% (200%, 500%, etc.) and use a simple upscaling algorithm that doesn’t use antialiasing. For example, in Paint.NET’s image resize dialog, you can use “Resampling: Nearest Neighbor”, or in GIMP’s, “Interpolation: None”.
The trick here is to resize your pixel art to dimensions above 540px wide so that every viewer’s device is actually forced to downscale the resultant image instead. That way, instead of the resizing algorithm making up details by blurring the pixels, each original pixel is preserved as a perfect square.
We really hope this helps you and the other pixel artists out there. Please, have a great day, week, and month. No, in fact—a great rest of your Tumblr experience, however long it may last. Of course, if you have any other questions on this subject, we will be happy to answer those too!
Hi, there! I've noticed a couple of things.
First, it's often the case that when a web page offers the visitor one of those "share" button thingies, there is very rarely a Tumblr widget available. Why is this, and what can be done to improve the situation? (I hope that I'm using the right terms here; I'm a humanities person with very little tech vocabulary.)
Second, when you are offered a Tumblr widget, it's always — always! — the old post editor. I barely remember how to use this anymore, and I'll bet other people are the same. Are there any plans to update this somehow?
Thanks, and have a lovely week.
Answer: Hello @paulinedorchester!
Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do about forcing other sites to have a Tumblr share button. That is a decision those sites will need to make.
Fortunately, a lot of sharing button plugins for WordPress still include Tumblr, like Jetpack: https://jetpack.com/support/sharing/. Folks can also get a Tumblr share button code for any site at https://www.tumblr.com/buttons!
It is true, though—this is the old post form. While we can say that it is on the long, long list of stuff that we need to migrate into the new editor, it can’t be said there’s a definitive timeframe for this work. The best we can say is to keep an eye on the usual channels for updates.
Thanks for your question! Keep ’em coming.
I'd love to see a feature that allows us to make a reblog act as an original post in notifications. Like if I were to reblog a post and add writing or art I'd like to be able to see more than just the direct interactions with my post. (As in, if some reblogs it, I'd like to see the interactions with that reblog too)
I know you can have notifications for a post that isn't yours, but that's for the original post as a whole
Answer: Hey, @1randomperson15!
We *think* we have good news for you, here.
If you’re asking what we believe you are asking, then there is good news. The Bell icon on the top right inside the notes view accomplishes what you want. As you can see in this handy little screenshot:
If, however, this wasn’t quite what you were asking, please do get in touch again at @wip and we will see what we can do. Thanks for your question, and we hope this helps.
Keep the questions coming, folks!
Before, for quote posts, in the editor you had a) special location for author; b) hyphen. Now, with new editor, these basic feats are gone, it's degraded version of the quote type posts. Check imgur[.]com/ITRn3ID. It's been 1 year, and since then I've stopped posting because of it. Tumblr support said it’s not a bug. Maybe you have a work around? It may sound like a detail but it’s these little things that make our experience good and tumblr neat, for us, quote lovers. Please give us some love!
Answer: Hello there, @d1kiz!
This is simply something that we deprecated and will not be bringing back anytime soon. In truth, not enough people were using it to keep it around. While it saddens us to have to cut neat little things like this, they tend to add to our maintenance burden, which is already significant. So we have to make difficult decisions like this.
Thank you for your question, and keep them coming, folks.
With tumblr premium increasing the likes and posts limit, will that impact the limits for those who use the free version?
Answer: Hello, @fandomsareforlife!
As it happens, our own @cyle has answered just this question recently, which you can find here. We have also included it below.
Premium subscribers get double the normal limits. But there are otherwise no new limits. These current limits have been in place for over a decade, but the vast majority of people don’t know there are limits because they’re never in danger of hitting them. Some people hit them every day, and now they can get higher limits.
The limits are documented across various help docs, our API documentation, and we tell you when you hit them. XKit Rewritten has a nice little limit checker, too, if you fly close to them frequently.
Thanks for getting in touch, and we hope this helps. Keep the questions coming!
i have a couple of small questions about communities that i figured id compile and you guys can answer whatever
will posts made in communities show up on your blog? i’m assuming the answer to this will be no so as a follow up will you be able to see all the posts you’ve made in communities somehow? will you be able to reblog posts outside of communities into communities? I think this would be helpful for artists in multiple communities who could then just post their art on their blog and reblog it into their different communities. will sideblogs be able to post in communities?
(also any updates on collections now that communities are starting to be rolled out)
Answer: Hello there @who-needs-sleep7!
All good questions. Let us address them one at a time.
Will posts made in communities show up on your blog?
No.
Will you be able to see all the posts you’ve made in communities somehow?
Not likely. We could introduce a tab on your blog that only you can see, like Likes and Following. But we should add here that it’s unlikely we’ll add something to the community feed itself.
However, we are going to be adding your posts from your communities to your blog backup—so you could get a list of them that way.
Will you be able to reblog posts outside of communities into communities?
Yes, you can do this today if you’re on web or in the latest Android app, and it’ll be coming to iOS soon—make sure you’ve updated your app!
Will sideblogs be able to post in communities?
We are working on allowing sideblogs to be invited to a community. Only one of your blogs will be able to be a member of a community at a time, however.
Finally, we can say that unfortunately there are no updates on Collections as yet—but stay tuned.
Thanks for your questions. Keep ’em coming!
If I create a community and am the admin of it, will my filters still work when viewing the community? I have a community idea, but I realized that something a lot of people would want to post in it is something I don't want to see. I don't want to ruin everyone's fun by making it against the community rules, but I would still like to avoid seeing it.
Answer: Hey there, @maplerosekisses!
Your content filters should still work, yes. If they don’t, however, it’s a bug—so please let us know!
Right now, the only thing that doesn’t work the same as everywhere else if you’re a community admin or mod is blocking other users. This means that if you’re an admin or mod, you’ll still see posts and comments inside the community from people you’ve blocked—so you can moderate them. Otherwise, the filter overlays for content and tags should work exactly as you would otherwise expect.
Anything that doesn’t will probably require our attention. So file a bug report or get in touch with Support.
Thanks for your question, and have a good day!
I've set up a community and it has a few members, but the engagement is low. I think part of this is that there's no ability to reblog external posts into the community. Any chance that's on the table?
Answer: Hi, @alessandriana!
Good news for you, here. Not only is it on the table, it’s already launched in the latest version of the Android app if you have it! It’s also coming soon to the iOS app, too. We agree—it’s extremely important. So we hope this comes as welcome news.
Thanks for your question, and keep ’em coming.
