As you all have noticed, we now get flooded with “Recommended” posts from Tumblr on the mobile app. And as you all have noticed, these recommendations have no respect for your actual topics of interests (for that given Tumblr account, that is). To make matters worse, we now get so many of these recommendations that we get to see very little posts from the blogs we actually chose to follow and are eager to see. And here’s an obvious example.

To begin with, I don’t think that my interest in nude men is a huge disclosure. But let me bring this fact forward for clarity’s sake. Frankly, I think anybody who follows my blog understands this, but in case there’s any doubt, my publicly browsable likes should make this crystal clear… Yet, for the last three days, every single time I fire up Tumblr’s app, this is the first post I see, happily recommended by Tumblr :

Seriously ?Is that the only recommendation Tumblr can come up with for a gay guy whose blog features nude men gloriously masturbating ? That’s a massive algorithmic fail, Tumblr !

Please understand that I’m not allergic or opposed to seeing girls. That’s not my point here. Not at all. My point is : this picture is a galaxy away from this account’s subject matter. And I’m sure that this is painfully obvious to anyone. Except Tumblr, apparently !

Worse, for a site that purports to pride itself on being open to diversity, queerness and everything, I’ve seen very little gay recommendations ever since this fiasco has begun. I have seen, however, my fair share of anime, ice-cream cones and bacon-laden hamburgers (as if I actually cared). And now this.

As they stand, Tumblr’s recommendations feel like a demonstration of bad faith. Because my reblogs for the last 6 years, the blogs I’ve followed over this same period as well as all my likes would make it exceedingly easy for an honestly purposed algorithm to bring up pertinent suggestions.

Either that or this algorithm was written by a group of incompetent fools that should be ashamed of themselves.

hismorningglory:

The “suggested” sites and ads on the mobile app are super annoying.

… and totally unrelated to the content we chose to follow. Exasperating !

The first number above (90056) is the number of people Tumblr currently shows as following me on the Activity page.

The second number (89947) is the number of followers I had late last evening (before midnight), same source.

The third number (12) is the number of new followers I’ve met today, according to the Activity page. Somehow, the math doesn’t add up ! Seems to me it should rather be 109… Anyway, that’s what I get from substracting one number from the other. Or maybe is that Newmath?

Hello guys, I have a problem on my tumblr account: every night it posts automatically a note I already posted over and again. And I see no option that could allow me to cancel that. If you have any idea it would be awesome, thank you!

If you’re like me and have an RP blog, you might have noticed several of your followers showing up in your activity with a 404 error under their URL and that you’re unable to go to their blog either on mobile or on desktop. So I did some hunting and discovered a new feature in settings that Tumblr just sprang on us once again.

I don’t know if this is an automatic feature or not but if you’re an RP blog, make sure this is turned off. Otherwise your followers cannot check your pages without asking you for links which is a hassle for everybody.

- mod manda