Dear tumblr staff, you recently robbed us of our beloved comment system.
Rumor has it that one of the reasons you took our comments away was that the feature was hardly being used. I find this hard to believe, because
we in the so-called simblr community used comments all the time! We
might be a small niche to you, but a really huge part of people who like
to play the Sims games and show their gameplay and their mods, have
gathered here, on tumblr, because our needs have been met here. So far!
With the comment system gone, many talk about leaving tumblr to look for a new virtual home.
Considering going back to forums, checking out other blogging
platforms. There is not much use for half a community to stay whereas
the other half goes somewhere else. Platform movements like this have
happened in the past in the simming community and there is a chance that
if you do not bring comments or something similar back asap, the simblr
community on tumblr will fall apart. If you really care for your users,
then please also take into account what you believe is a minority – the
people who love the comment system!
Let me tell you why we love comments so much. Comments
are directly linked to a specific post and can be directed at someone in particular, but still be read openly. They will not appear on the
replier’s blog, but on the post of the originator. People who will
browse the replier’s blog might not care about that specific discussion,
and with comments, the blog does not get cluttered by reply reblogs.
People reading the originator’s blog, however, are able to see the
comments belonging to that post. This is really useful to us!
Why do we prefer to comment instead of writing a fanmail, an ask, or a reblog? Other options do not feel as straight-forward as comments. For
one, for a fanmail, you have to follow that person. Then, you have to
visit the message board and leave the dashboard. The fanmail is
physically separate from the context the fanmail might be written. The
writer is in need to explain the context of the fanmail. Especially if
the comment is about a specific post, it is much more convenient to see
the it directly in conjunction with the image that’s been talked about. A
fanmail is more time-consuming than simple comment. Also, when replying
to a fanmail, the original post gets taken away, making it hard to
revisit a conversation later on.
For asks, you also have to leave
your dash to go to a person’s blog. It disrupts the flow of browsing on
the dashboard and you have to rely on the person receiving the ask to
post it publicly or privately or not at all.
Finally, reblogs…
of course we also use reblogs! But huge text post reblogs are of a rarer
kind, those are mostly statement posts where a hot topic is discussed
that garners a wider interest. We like to fill our blogs with original
content and reblog the things we feel passionate about.
The fun thing about comments is that you see something on your dash that
you like, open the bubble with one click, type a few words and scroll
on to the next post on your dash. It is effective and feels good to use
comments!
Not every post is worth typing a reply to
(that’s when the like button comes into play), but there is a lot of
communication going on through comments. Not everyone wants to plaster
their dashes with reblogs all the time, because it also dilutes their
own original content. This can be very tiring for people who visit blogs
to follow up on original content. Endless scrolling to get to the good
stuff…
Why take a perfectly good, simple comment system out
when you do not yet have a new one in place? Swapping a core feature is
okay, but just taking it away with vague promises of a new system that is “coming soon” seems unfair. Further taunting us by
limiting the enable-replies-with-a-?- feature, the next best thing to a comment, to just a couple a day feels ridiculous. Are you experimenting on how we cope this way?
Is this some sort of devious plan? We sure know you like those 🙂
We
would really appreciate the return of the old comment system until it
gets swapped for the new one. We hope you will consider this option! Thank you.
Signed, the simblrs who miss the comment bubbles
@staff
when I see some other simmers posts I was overwhelmed with emotion and I want to say how I like it, but then I remember that no comments and I’m like:
The Faery's Gifts 