soulcookie://nsfw

Dear Tumblr,

I would like you to explain Tumblarity.

I would like you to explain how normal, consistent interaction with Tumblr can subject a Tumblelog to wild swings of hundreds, if not thousands, of points within a span of hours.

I would like you to explain the secret sauce^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H algorithms that you’re using to determine our Tumblelogs’ “value” in the Tumblrverse.

I would like you to explain why you still apparently think this is a good thing, and why you’ve been silent about it.

I would like you to explain these things, and I don’t think I’m alone in wanting this.

Oh, look, my Tumblarity is 0 again.

Still have never heard an actual response from anyone on the Tumblr staff. Why should they care, right?

“I’ll take ‘Things that Annoy Me’ for $800, Alex.”

Of interest to none but me, and I’m not even sure I’m sold…

It appears my Tumblarity has finally been lodged free from its permanent position at zero. Its single-digit number tells me, though, that there was no sort of retroactive accounting for my activity.

No worries, though; all I’ve been interested in is appearing in the Directory. That still hasn’t happened, but I’m assuming I’ll start to appear following some sort of Directory polling. (To have it update in realtime would be sooo taxing on their databases.)

And all it took was five emails to support over four weeks, and then one more email yesterday on which I CC:ed the president of Tumblr.

To date, though, no one has ever actually written me back.

Edited to add: Well, never mind. Half an hour later, and after peaking at 11 my Tumblarity is back at zero. In. Half. An. Hour. What a fucking joke.

Edit2, 12 hours later: Tumblarity’s finally back in double digits. Might it hit triple digits again? Maybe? Can I stop talking about this now? Please?

Zero, zip, nada, nil, zilch

Does anyone have a special “in” with the Tumblr folks?

My Tumblarity has been stuck at zero for close to a month now, and the amount of activity in my Tumblr stream would seem to suggest that that’s not right.

It’s broken.

As frustrating as that is, what’s really pissing me off is that in my ~3 weeks of inquiries and entreaties to Tumblr Support the only response I’ve gotten back, other than the “we received your email” autoresponse, is a form letter.

No Hey, we’re not blowing you off; we’re busy and still looking into why your Tumblarity is borked.
No Your Tumblarity is operating as intended.
Nothing.

And really, the only reason I care about my Tumblarity is that Tumblr’s Directory filters out “0 Tumblarity” tumblelogs.

Like mine.

Once it goes back to a nonzero number like I think it should, I can go back to ignoring it.

So… does anyone have any suggestions on where to go from here?

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

Well, that was a fun 2am pouty foot-stomping, wasn’t it, folks? /embarrassed

Thank you for the comments and notes/likes on my posts. After some time AFK, I realized that I’m not quite done with Tumblr.

I am done with Tumblarity: done thinking about it; done talking about it.

I’m not going to waste any more energy trying to unlock the mysteries of The Number, and I’m not going to spend any more time trying to articulate how I think it’s profoundly damaged the community.

It is what it is.

I’ve reactivated the Tumblarity-hiding Greasemonkey script (edit: I switched to this one, though both are good) and will get back to blogging for my own enjoyment and, hopefully, for the enjoyment of those of you who are following me. ;-)

Done.

For those curious (and based on the complete lack of response to my first table, it’s just me), here’s an updated table of my Tumblarity metrics over the last hour or so. Come and watch the number drop arbitrarily!

(Note that although the table looks all jacked-up in the Dashboard, it looks okay on the actual web page.)

I think I’m done with Tumblr.