"It's what on the inside that counts" - SILO (2023 -) season 2

I say this with love. Do not cite the old magic to me, friend. I was there when it was written.

I appreciate this ... acceptance? It's nice to be acceptable.

But I feel obligated to point out that I've been posting on this hellsite (affectionate) since at least 2008.

I don't know what this invasion is, but I am not part of it. I've been here so long, I'm part of the furniture.

I'm not going to play the Elder card, but I am going to tap the sign.

It's almost as if celebrities are people! Who do things like join social media platforms!

This is the man who wrote a 1,000-word essay about his childhood experience going to see Goncharov, for heaven's sake. He belongs here.

I didn't expect my original post up there (which, honestly, was amusing to me in a wry, gen x way) to blow up a little bit like it did, but I'm just overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and kindness and all the things that continue to make this hellsite (affectionate) worth protecting and defending until the sun goes out.

I am deeply grateful for your acceptance!

But that's not why I reblogged this. I reblogged this because that thing I wrote about Goncharov is one of my favorite things I have ever written. I don't recall another time I had that much fun writing anything. And it made me so happy to read it all over again, I wanted to share that happiness.

Remember how fun that was? That wonderful moment when we all just agreed to play a global improv game, and celebrated each other's creativity? There were no bad ideas, just fun additions and the largest online gathering of Theater Kids And Associates the world has ever seen?

That only happened because Tumblr can't not be Tumblr. And to bring it all back around, I've been here so long, I'm really happy to be one of the many Elders who care about nurturing it for the future, if I am ever allowed the privilege.

Tumblr Hack Day, September 2024 Edition

Once again it was Hack Day at Tumblr! You've probably seen one of these posts before. A couple of times per year we slow down our normal work and spend a day working on scratching a personal itch or features we want as user and see how far we can get with our hacks. One thing from the last Hack Week in January made it out: new default blog avatars!

Here are some of the projects that got built for our most recent Hack Day in September. Some of these things you may also end up seeing on the site… and one of them isn’t included here because it’ll likely be a fun Halloween surprise. 👻

Advanced search operators

Instead of telling you about this here, we have the extreme pleasure of telling you that this already launched! Read all about it over on the Changes blog. Instead, what we can preview here are some potential new interface elements for these advanced search options, now that we have them thanks to @lesianlen:

“Live” engagements on posts

There are many thousands of reactions, likes, and reblogs happening on Tumblr every second. Right now you can only really “see” these happen if you are frantically refreshing your feed (which, we know, some of you do). Wouldn’t it be neat if the note count, reactions, etc, all update automatically as you scroll your favorite feed (or many feeds at once with Patio)? Check it out this hack from @leogcrespo:

Communities activity tracker

Likewise, some of our beta testing Communities are extremely active, with new members, comments, and reactions flying around. Right now we don’t have a way to show those actions, as they happen, inside the community, but we know we’ll need something like this. @yi5h hacked together a sidebar widget “activity tracker” that shows recent activity happening inside a community in near-real-time:

As always, stay tuned to the @changes blog to see if any of these hacks make it on Tumblr for real! Especially the aforementioned-but-as-yet-unrevealed Halloween surprise…