This is how the Archive Team is going to save Tumblr (and you can help us)
There is a website in trouble like Tumblr
We have hundreds of warriors machines, which run a special operating system made for archiving the web.
There is a tracker which is a central ToDo list worked on by each warrior. The warriors keep the files for archiving only for a moment before they hand them to the staging servers.
The staging server collect and process the data into huge .warc files which are accepted by archive.org
archive.org process and indexed our .warc files and makes them available in the wayback machine. It takes care of the long term hosting. Each TB stored costs somewhere between 1500$ and 2000$ in the long run.
Our minimum how much we will save is above 60 TBs. An estimate of the total size of the NSFW part of tumblr alone is 10-20 times that. Even when we will archive only a fraction it is going to be expensive. When you donate to archive.org today. Your donation will be matched.
Soup.io - well-known alternative to Tumblr. Reblogging, post types, themes, collab blogs, dashboard, artsy, great community already there. Soup can auto-import everything you’ve posted on Tumblr.
TypePad - Includes reblogging. Dashboard and post types similar to Tumblr.
A directory of social media handles so people can find you on other sites. Once you fill out the form (none of the questions are required so in theory you can just hit “submit” without answering anything, but you can also just View Here) you will be able to access, but not edit, a spreadsheet of everyone’s handles across their social media.
As the disclaimer banner says, EVERYTHING you enter into this form is made public so you know, be careful. If you don’t want two of your handles linked…don’t put ‘em both in there.
I can’t think of a genuine reason this would be a bad idea but it’s a lot of data about people and their personal names that’s easily scrapeable so you know, if you can argue that this is a really bad idea for X reason, I’m willing to listen and delete as necessary.
Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.
Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).
Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.
So what is changing?
Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.
Why are we doing this?
It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.
So what’s next?
Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.
Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.
Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.
Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.
Jeff D’Onofrio CEO
What was the title of one of your recent posts again ? ah yes, it was “"The internet could change next week, and not in a good way" - well, here we are then, it was quick! Thank for letting us know that “adult content is bad and negative”. Will that take care of the hundreds of porn bots swimming around ? or will they remain as a reminder of how bad and perverse sexuality is ? Bye, you were fun while you lasted!
Fandom: due South Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski Additional Tags: Fanart, Digital Art, Traditional Media Summary: Ray and Fraser against the Northern Lights, falling toward each other.
Notes:
Made as an illustration for Feroxargentea’s excellent fic Life in Freefall, - the compelling central metaphor of the story stayed with me. The trees and figures are inked with markers, and the background is a separate watercolour. The inked part is also for my Inktober challenge artworks.
