We offer a platform where people can speak their minds. Where people can be themselves and do so anonymously. This platform has given people the courage to do so many things. To live their lives beyond the boundaries that they might have at home. We have provided a community that allows people to find others like them - still without the fear of others they know in real life persecuting them for their beliefs, their lifestyles, their upbringings and anything else that might come in their way. We have built Tumblr as a destination for people to come together regardless of race, income, age, sexuality, and so many other factors. And we have done so by making changes to adapt the site for new users, and building up an infrastructure that can hold this amount of data and traffic.

We do this out of love and passion for the site and the community.

We do this because we enjoy our jobs.

So at the end of the day, the hate we get from a change that doesn’t make everyone excited, it affects us for sure. But the positivity we have from knowing what we have built makes us still love all of the users in this community.

Sorry we can’t please each and every last one of you - there are far too many. But hey - it’s ok. We’ll continue trying to make this a site that is great - even when somethings get hate - hate that we certainly don’t deserve. It’s ok though. We still love what we do, and we continue to make this a better place.

I can honestly say that I struggled with writing a proper reply to your heartfelt answer so I hope that reblogging serves as an adequate form of acknowledgement. As for what you say about tumblr being an open community where users can safely express themselves I am happy to say that I share the sentiment. Since creating this blog I have gained insight to myself and society that I never could have gotten any other way and have grown more confident with myself as a person. For this, I will never be able to repay you. So I hope you know that the work you and yours do to keep it running and for creating it is something I am immeasurably grateful for.

With kind regards,
Will Björkman (swedishcofee)

It is more than adequate! As I said - we know in our hearts that the work we do helps people - I would’ve loved to have a resource like this during my younger days (wow - I sound like an old foagie) - and that’s just based on the path that my life walked. There are so many more issues that people deal with now - so having that outlet is important. Us knowing that we are actually doing good for the community is one thing - hearing it from users makes it that much more significant. We have built a thick skin to handle the feedback we receive on some changes - and trust me, we stalk the tags like crazy after every new feature to see how it is received. In the end we know that we are helping people, even if some changes seem silly and/or are not well received. I appreciate the acknowledgment and hope you have a great weekend!

Elliott (sublimnl)

Unpopular opinion: I like the new reblog chains on the Dashboard. If you’re viewing this reblogged exchange between a user and Tumblr engineer on my blog, you’ll see the gray-lined reblog chain. That’s just four indents, and I don’t like the formatting at all. I know that many users are dissatisfied with the change and prefer those classic indented, gray lines. I’m not one of them.

the thing I want to know is, when you make these updates, why are they not optional.  especially something that may be inaccessible to a lot of users for various reasons.  doesn’t it say something when so many people have to use extensions and stylish scripts in order to get the experience they want out of tumblr?  like I understand that not everyone will be happy with changes, that’s the nature of change.  but why the lack of options?  and what tags do  you ‘stalk’ to find out how the changes are received?  many people who complain about it don’t necessarily use a specific set of tags about it.  your userbase is incredibly diverse and therefore has incredibly diverse needs.  

also there are issues people have been asking for forever, like blacklists, a messaging system that works reliably, that sort of thing.  

OPTIONS.

for instance, in order for this new reblog format to be even slightly logical to me without breaking my concentration to read it, I had to install a stylish script that got rid of the avatars and added a quote line.  other people installed xkit addons to bring back the old version.  OPTIONS.

So, this is a tough one to answer; mostly because some of it revolves about decisions within the company, and I am not a spokesperson for Tumblr - even though I work for Tumblr, I am not officially representing them - that’s what our amazing support team is for.

Options are not always possible. You need to keep in mind that we are dealing with a lot of users and a lot of data - last month there were over 2 Billion posts! I can’t explain the technical details of how Tumblr is set up, but believe me, when working at scale things don’t work the same way you generally would expect them to. Some features need to happen for a site to work properly as it grows. Some features may not be 100% right when they get launched, but with proper feedback and making us aware of what the issues are, it can be evaluated on how we can move forward. It’s not meant to make things inaccessible. 

Personally, I search “Tumblr Staff” - obviously the user base is very diverse and obviously I won’t see every single piece of feedback - but to be honest, if you want it to be heard, send it to support - real people see that feedback and real people talk about it. They want to hear your comments!

yes please be nice to @staff. in the past it's been clear they didn't care about users opinions. but the new tumblr staff clearly care a lot about the site and it's users. there's not much they can do if it's a call from the higher ups. especially the people that run the ask blog of all things.

This new Staff/old Staff dichotomy really annoys me. Tumblr experienced a lot of attrition during the Automattic acquisition, but Staff has always cared about users. It was whether whoever was IN CHARGE who got to decide what Staff spent their time working on.

There's people at Tumblr who have been there for 5-10 years. It's a hellsite of theseus. Staff has never been wiped out and replaced en masse.

When I worked at Tumblr, which was from the start of 2013 to the end of 2015 (before and after the Yahoo acquisition), the people I worked with were some of the best people ever - and I still keep in touch with a very large chunk of them today. People for the most part working at Tumblr were there because they loved Tumblr as a platform, and the communities it fostered. Outside of a few, staff was not filled with people who were there just to get a paycheck, but genuinely wanted to be a part of this special platform.

There are people who I knew then, who are still a critical part of this platform, and still bringing that love they have for Tumblr (and it’s users) to work every day.