my fic < advertising fic < Tumblr < my ignorance let me show you it

[lettered]

So I was going to cross-post my Star Trek fic to st_reboot and maybe singularity, but then I realized it might not be polite to post it to reboot-verse comms, since the fic is about the problems I had with the new movie. Although it is totally possible to like the movie and like the fic, I think. And it might be possible to have those problems and still love STID, but I feel sort of guilty, like I might harsh someone's squee. But those were the main Star Trek comms I was involved in, because of the 2009 movie. Does anyone know a comm that takes all Star Trek fandoms, that is still active, that might be an appropriate place for a fic that sort of calls STID on its fail? I just want people to be able to enjoy the fic, maybe get something out of it, but I don't want other people to feel like it's in their face.

Anyway, this leads me to another question, which is really less of a question than an observation: I really no longer know how to "advertise" fic anymore. It used to be you could cross-post to certain comms and people would be sure to at least see your fic, but it doesn't feel like that's the case anymore. Is that because everyone's going to AO3 for fic? I love AO3, but I do feel like because it is so searchable, you're going to see, say, all the Kirk/Spock or all the Spock/Uhura or all the John Harrison fics, instead of, say, the fic with the OCs that's gen and mostly meta. Or maybe it's just that people use Tumblr and Twitter to find fics, which is even more confusing to me.

Anyway, this leads me to another question, which is really less of a question than an observation: I don't get Tumblr. When other people say they don't get Tumblr, I feel like what they're saying is, that they don't get why people use it, or why they use it for purpose X, or why they like it. What I mean is, I don't get it. I literally don't understand how I can search for a tag I know to exist, but Tumblr tells me it doesn't. I literally do not understand how sometimes it seems like you can leave a comment on stuff, and sometimes you can't. I do not understand how to reblog a conversation.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

So I was at the tumblr panel at WisCon, and basically EVERYBODY, including the people on the panel, frequently admitted they had no idea how some aspect of tumblr works.

Essentially, nobody knows what the designers of tumblr think that tumblr is supposed to be for. Essentially everything that makes tumblr work is a user hack of some kind. And while there is probably something website out there by now that walks people through how tumblr works but I don't know what it is, and the only way I've found out to learn about this stuff is word of mouth.

I can explain the extreme basics (like reblogging and commenting) if you are interested, though I'm far from an expert. But if I can explain basics, probably anybody can, I would say? I don't know if you're asking or just venting.

BUT, networking wise, I can say that tumblr is probably a GOOD place to 'advertise' a fic with the characteristics you're describing -- there are a lot of star trek tagged conversations, and a lot of people talking about fail. Honestly, tumblr seems like a better place to find discussions of fail than to find actual enthusiasm.

[jjhunter]

Maybe we need something like crack_van for DW? I know crossovers can get advertised on crossovers, but otherwise fic reccing / advertising seems to be done on fandom-specific comms.

[eruthros]

What I mean is, I don't get it. I literally don't understand how I can search for a tag I know to exist, but Tumblr tells me it doesn't. I literally do not understand how sometimes it seems like you can leave a comment on stuff, and sometimes you can't. I do not understand how to reblog a conversation.

I'm afraid that the answer is often "because tumblr is broken?" There are a lot of things that just plain don't work on tumblr, and they include tags with hyphens and sometimes the search bar for individual tumblrs. (For the site-wide tag search, it only counts the first five tags on a post, which can also be why things don't show up there.) Commenting happens in two ways and both of them have to be enabled by a tumblr user - people can enable disqus commenting or replies. And even if people have replies active, they're usually limited to people who mutually follow each other, so sometimes other people can reply to a post but you can't! To reblog text posts and keep the long text, click the button on the top right next to the gear there's an option for reblog as text. (If you mean, how to reblog a conversation involving asks ... you can't, there's no reblog option for it. For reasons.)

I find tumblr's UI hilarious and tedious, but because I don't have much invested in it I can just sort of eyeroll at it. I know a lot of people who don't use it at all because of the idiosyncrasies, though - it's frustrating to run up against problems all the time.

[katie_m]

As far as I'm concerned, "I wrote this story because I wanted to call the movie on its fail" is sufficient warning and if people are traumatized just by knowing people were unhappy about some aspects of the movie they need to get a grip. (And I say this as somewhere who didn't read the story, because that very description informed me I didn't want to! So I think you were very successful.)

[natlyn]

I still discover fic through fandom-specific LJ or DW newsletters. Surely there is a Trek newsletter that you can submit your fic to? I don't read Trek fic so do not know.

[cest_what]

As well as only counting the first 5 tags on a post, tumblr.com/tagged/YOURTAG will only show things that were posted for the first time with YOURTAG attached to them. So if you use e.g. the tag "super individualistic and witty tag about black widow" for all your avengers reblogs, but never put it on original posts, then tumblr.com/tagged/super-individualistic-and-witty-tag-about-black-widow won't show any posts. (But YOURURL.tumblr.com/tagged/YOURTAG will.)

Possibly that wasn't what you were talking about, but it's something that used to confuse me :/

[everbright]

*looking at comments* *writing down tips* Tumblr: how to make a profoundly broken interface that replicates a good Skinner box. Every post on your dash is a hit of happy chemicals, and then everytime you get someone to response to YOUR POST is practically a high. The only thing Tumblr does really well is get you addicted!

[melannen]

So, for the record: a) nobody knows how Tumblr works; and b) in direct contradiction to all the above, it is possible to comment on Tumblr posts without Disqus or any other add-ons being installed. Because I don't have any add-ons installed and I can comment and get comments on my stuff (I work with a Tumblr that is not only broken-as-designed, but also broken because I insist on using Opera and even half of the stuff that's technically 'functional' doesn't work on Opera.)

As a result I seem to actually know more about Tumblr than most of the power users who have dozens of third-party fixes installed, though.

...by which I mean, NOBODY knows how Tumblr works.

(for the record, you can leave comments on a) original posts (but NOT reblogs, ever) if they are b) on your dash, and made by people you have been following for a set length of time (I think it's a few weeks?) and c) they have the 'allow comments' option turned on. If any of those three conditions do not apply, however, then, uh, possibly there are still add-ons? I don't know anything about Tumblr add-ons.)

(Also you can only leave one comment per post - trying to leave multiple comments makes earlier ones magically go away; there's a teeny-tiny character limit for comments; and you can't reply directly to comments, they're mixed in with all the other notes.)