It’s hard not to miss the news, and I know that there are few followers of mine that will leave due to these changes, both out of protest, and out of the possibility of being striken out from this site or just because they fear to be.
I’ve always tried to make sure that my blog was safe for everyone. So I made sure of I knew what I reblogged or talked about, keeping it on the level with the comics or TV series. Never really did go into the movies though.
But there is a way for non-tumblr users to keep up with those posting on tumblr, without having to rely on the blogger to make a twitter or facebook just to post there that there is a new post. One of the basic features of blogging is still there on Tumblr.
RSS. It’s an old technology that’s still up and running because it is pretty cheap to set up and requires next to no maintenance.
Every tumblr blog has it. To find it, simply go to “whatever-blog-name.tumblr.com/rss”. There, you might end up being a bit overwhelmed by what looks like a bunch of code. But that code is simple, and there are a lot of RSS services that translates it to a living feed that alerts you when there is a new post that has been made. And
I use it pretty often. There are a lot of webcomics that have a supporting RSS feed, several blog sites that I don’t bother visiting unless the feed pops up for me, I used it even when I was job hunting, both recruiters and job ad places had RSS feeds. I even figured out how to get instagram into it!
There are a lot of solutions that can be used, chrome has the addon Slick RSS that is standalone, I use feedly.com in conjunction with their addon for Firefox. There is probably an app that connects to whatever RSS sites that are available for free, but I’ve not found the need to keep track on my mobile just yet. I have to admit that I can’t really figure out how to do a proper tutorial, nor is this really the blog for that sort of stuff.
So for those that are thinking about leaving tumblr because of the new changes, there is at least an option to keep track of those that have chosen to stay.
Pillowfort—->goingtomymindpalace
Will have to figure out the site still but I’m on!
So, my dears, here is my Tumblr migration info post. I’ll use it to
collect info and updates about saving your stuff, finding new homes and
all that dealio. You can also find it on my Twitter, my Dreamwidth and my Pillowfort.
I’ve seen some people panicking, but remember all us Fandom Olds have been through this before. It
sucks to lose all that investment, but it is not the end. In fact,
we’re well-prepared these days because we learned from those times.
We’ve got tools for archiving content–both yours and the content from
others you can’t bear to lose–and for migrating and staying in touch
with your friends.
And while I have your attention: Support AO3. Support the OTW. Support EFF. Support the ALA. Fight for net neutrality. This is just the beginning of what happens if we lose it.
I may have found some help to archive my blog (thank goodness). I just posted about it below.
If you need help with your blog or know of blogs that are in danger please reach out to them so we don’t lose it!
One post that I had under review has been unflagged, at least we know the process works. And takes about 2 days…ish.
I just got my pillowfort key so I’ll be on today!
This blog will be diverging a bit until this whole tumblr thing is over, I’ll have Sherlock posts sprinkled in among posts to help archive and find fandom after December 17th
Please submit all endangered Tumblrs you care about in this form. Also please spread the message.
Hello Tumblr users,
we are the Archive Team, the Archive Team is a loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers,
writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage. Since
2009 this variant force of nature has caught wind of shutdowns,
shutoffs, mergers, and plain old deletions – and done our best to save
the history before it’s lost forever. We already worked on other Yahoo related projects like GeoCities and Flickr.
i’m just gonna post all the ways i’ve found so far to get RSS Links They Don’t Want You To Know About from social media sites, because people keep Leaving Tumblr Forever in favor of sites that i’m not going to use
(if you don’t have an rss reader yet just make a feedly account, it takes about one whole minute, if you decide to use a different reader later you can export your whole list, it’s fine)
i’m gonna use strikethrough to indicate the text you need to replace and also include examples of feeds that seem to work
A General Rule
on almost any website look for the icon that looks like this
that’s the button that means ‘the rss feed is here’
Tumblr
just add /rss to the end of literally any blog’s url, including tags
i.e. unpretty.tumblr.com/rss or unpretty.tumblr.com/tagged/original/rss
now you can Leave Tumblr Forever and still follow blogs until such a time as tumblr implodes in earnest
Dreamwidth
use username.dreamwidth.org/data/rss
i.e. gallusrostromegalus.dreamwidth.org/data/rss
WordPress
if it’s hosted on WordPress.com, just add /feed to the end of the url
if it’s self-hosted (i think around 20% of people who have their own website use wordpress to host it, i know i do bc it’s easy as sin) also just add /feed to the end the url
i.e. en.blog.wordpress.com/feed or kittyunpretty.com/feed
ArtStation
use username.artstation.com/rss
i.e. beccahallstedt.artstation.com/rss
Mastodon
just add .rss to the end of someone’s profile url
i.e. cybre.space/@kittyunpretty.rss
deviantART
use backend.deviantart.com/rss.xml?q=gallery%3Ausername
i.e. backend.deviantart.com/rss.xml?q=gallery%3Aarvalis
YouTube
this one’sa goddamn pain in the dick because you need to find the channel id first
in general youtube channels have a nonsense url like youtube.com/channel/abunchofbullshit
you have to take that last bit and plug it into youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=abunchofbullshit
i.e. youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCbpMy0Fg74eXXkvxJrtEn3w
Tapas
this is mostly handy for webcomics that were hosting on tumblr and crossposting, i think? i don’t know how tapas works for creators tbqh. anyway they’ve actually got a button at the top when you go to the comic page.
the one between ‘add to library’ and the paper airplane will give you the rss feed
LINE Webtoons
ditto wrt tumblr-hosted webcomics, and also having a button
the button to the left of the one that says +subscribe will get you the rss feed
Twitter & Instagram
these are the only two sites i’m including that don’t have native rss support, just because so goddamn many people have literally no other web presence at all for some reason
twitter used to have rss feeds but killed them, and i don’t think instagram ever had them. you have to use workarounds for these, and a lot of them end up getting killed, like TwitRSS.me. fetchrss seems to work okay but it costs money. if you pay for inoreader they’ve got built-in support for following twitter accounts but that’s not a practical solution for most people.
right now i use rsshub.app/platform/user/username
i.e. rsshub.app/twitter/user/dasharez0ne
… but the instagram one doesn’t actually seem to work, like, most of the time. i don’t know if i’ve found one that works ever. if you’re jumping ship there please consider doing the world the enormous goddamn favor of just making a free wordpress.com account and cross-posting all your instas with ifttt or something, rather than being totally at the mercy of mark zuckerberg
word of advice to anyone exporting/downloading their blogs – anything below a cut will not be included in the download. i downloaded my art blog and it didn’t save any media files or text from below the cut on those
so, just fyi: if you have a post with a “read more” you’ll want to manually save that information
s e r i o u s l y ? ?
I have not verified this, but something to check if you’re exporting posts.
this post will be updated as I find more websites to add! please check with the original before reblogging to see if there’s an updated version, and message me with corrections or more suggestions if you have them!!
websites in red have explicitly forbidden the posting of NSFW content.websites in orange allow certain types of NSFW content or have questionable / unclear guidelines.
instagram.com – photo and video posts, excellent tag search
newgrounds.com – an oldie but a goodie, allows a ton of media types
piczel.tv – allows both streaming and posting art / photosets to a gallery
pixiv.net – huge anime art community, allows livestreaming
vero.co – app only, similar to insta but with MUCH more privacy control
chat or forum based
aminoapps.com – community-based, has blogs + chat, custom themes
discordapp.com – great chat app, text + voice, can join infinite servers
reddit.com – literally a community for everything, SO MANY CAT PHOTOS
18+ only
bdsmlr.com – microblogging + social media for people into kink
blogr.xxx – a tumblr clone created specifically for sharing porn
fetlife.com – considered one of the biggest kink communities online
libertine.center – beautiful + modern site for posting irl nsfw and kink stuff
thefetlibrary.com – for posting of erotic stories, replaces bdsmlibrary
paid platforms
patreon.com – subscription-based access to many diff types of content
typepad.com – similar to wordpress but with reblogging and a dash
up-and-coming platforms
pillowfort.io – closed beta. should function almost identically to tumblr but with many many improvements
poizen.me – development alpha. gorgeous website for artists to post art AND track comms
this one’s still early in development but looks incredibly promising as a platform and super pretty to look at!! go snap up a username before all the good ones are taken! favouritism what’s that
qink.co – pre-alpha. 18+ only. plans to be a kink-oriented replacement for tumblr.
defunct platforms
(so people will stop telling me i forgot them)
jux.com – shut down in 2014 due to lack of funds
shoandtell.me – now redirects to someone’s personal blog
soup.io – more or less closed down this year due to GDPR issues
ways to save your current tumblr posts
use the wayback machine! you do have to archive each page of your blog individually but once you do all the content, including media, will be saved exactly as it was at the moment you archived it.
wordpress allows you to directly import whole tumblr blogs, and if i recall correctly it’s something both dreamwidth and pillowfort have said they are working on.
tumblthree is a great tool with a ton of functions including downloading whole blogs, only posts tagged with a certain tag, all the posts you’ve liked, etc. etc. along with being able to download every type of media hosted on tumblr (pictures, videos, audio, everything). it also has a proper GUI so no computer knowledge required beyond downloading and running programs!
if you have some knowledge of computers you can try this github solution which uses a python script to download your whole blog to your computer. even if you don’t know anything about programming or the command line they give a very good beginners tutorial on how to use it so you should still give it a shot!
if that’s still a little daunting you can try soarcodes’ tumblr post that also has a decent tutorial!
here’s another python script that should allow you to archive all the images from your blog or your likes, though it requires some knowledge of python and the command line or very very good google skills.
some notes
edit: please stop commenting on this post to self-promote your porn accounts on other sites. those replies / reblogs will be deleted or hidden.
please note that every site on this list will have pros and cons, and i haven’t listed them here since this post would be a mile long otherwise. please do your research before moving completely over to another site in case they have policies you disagree with.
also, because I see a lot of misinformed people ranting about this: deviantart does not own the art you post. some years ago hot topic stole a ton of art from DA and sold it on merchandise and people assumed that DA gave them permission to do it despite there being literally zero evidence for that claim. DA explictly states in their TOS that you retain copyright and sole license of the art you post.
and related, mastodon does not allow or condone CP or pedophilia. the people spreading this info are misinformed about what mastodon is. it is not an exact twitter clone; anyone anywhere can host a mastodon instance using their personal computer as a server, which means mastodon as a company can’t do jack shit to moderate them. what they DO is permanently block all users from every other instance from viewing or interacting with that instance, and add that instance to a publicly viewable list along with the reason for the block. please give their post about anti-abuse measures a read before making snap judgements.
post version 5.1, 2018-12-04 23:46 AST
UPDATE: Tumblr Doomsday Day 2
I’ve gone through my fanart tags and the TJLC tag, sent some posts off to be reviewed if I was able (sometimes I have the option to and I’m not sure why) or sent them to the OP to have them fixed.
There are posts on those tags that will disappear cause the OPs are gone due to deactivation or they haven’t been on in ages. I will be backing up those posts starting tomorrow and reposting them making it VERY clear that these are not mine/will put as much info as a I can to show that and are only being reposted for archival purposes. Should the filters be fixed, I’ll delete the reposts.
I’ll be heading through the ship tags next. And then focusing on meta/theory posts
Next week I’ll start backing up my entire blog elsewhere and continue searching for flagged posts.
I’ve backed up my content from this account and my Fandomfanworks sideblog, and am in the process of creating a public-facing archive of the latter at fandomandfanworks.wordpress.com.
My contact and other sites are in my AO3 profile, which I’ll keep up to date. For the moment, I’m splitting time and efforts between recently_folded on pillowfort and recently-folded on dreamwidth.
I’ll be leaving tumblr because I just cannot endorse censorship. And given the things that are being flagged vs what remains legit, I feel that this is clearly a case of censorship rather than “safe” space maintenance. Further, I don’t actually support the notion of a squeaky-clean sex-free world.
That means that as of Dec. 16, I’ll be deleting both of my accounts. I am not going to move on and leave my work here for tumblr to continue to monetize. Anything you see after that date that looks as though it’s me: it won’t be.
I’ll miss all of the folks I currently follow. I’ll miss my followers. I’ll miss the random people who’ve reblogged my posts whom I’ve never gotten to know. I’ll miss the fans and artists and writers and other cool folk who’ve populated my dash here and gave me so much entertainment and pleasure. At a time in history where we’re all losing so much as western capitalist society implodes, I hate to give this up too. But censorship is not something I can participate in, even if I am powerless to stop it.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 