Poll

[ash48]

Just curious (even though posting it on LJ will skew any sort of "real" results. Though I am hoping to entice some tumblrites to answer also).

I'm thinking about this because I have noticed a lot of LJians migrating to tumblr and it makes me wonder if that's because it offers a more rewarding fandom experience than LJ. For me, it's LJ. I enjoy tumblr but I can (and did!) go days without visiting it, but I can't go a day without checking into LJ.

[Poll #1944482]

I consider "rewarding" to mean where you get the most pleasure. Perhaps your "go to" fandom place. The one that is most satisfying as a fandom hangout. The one you feel most at home or perhaps the place you feel you belong.

Comments

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Tumblr frustrates the hell out of me. I love finding pretty pictures on there but it annoys me that I can't then easily tell the artist or whoever how much I like their work. I fail to see the point of posting fic or meta or anything longer than a paragraph on there as it is just not the right sort of format for longer pieces of text - plus there is the fact that you can't give or receive feedback.
I haven't found any sense of community on there because most of the 'conversations' I've seen happening on Tumblr seem to be largely rants and wank. Overall the level of maturity (and I don't necessarily just relate that to age) is low.

I find it depressing because when I do venture over there, I see that there is a considerable number of people who are using it more and more, and feel I will be missing out - but as I find navigation yet another issue with it, even if I was to migrate there I'd be no better off. It is a black hole that sucks you in.

[raloria.livejournal.com]

It is a black hole that sucks you in.

Haha! So true! When I do check out Tumblr (which isn't every day like I do with LJ) it's easy to get caught up in looking at things. Much like Youtube I can easily lose a an hour or two on Tumblr. "I'll look at just a few more posts and then quit..." Yeah, right. :P

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

+1

[scarletscarlet.livejournal.com]

I love finding pretty pictures on there but it annoys me that I can't then easily tell the artist or whoever how much I like their work.

You know, thinking about this, it's about as hard as it is on LJ. If you don't have an LJ account, you have to hope the LJ user has anon commenting turned on. If you don't have a tumblr account, you have to hope the tumblr user has anon "asks" enabled. If you DO have an LJ account, you can tell the artist you liked it to your heart's content - this is the same on tumblr.

I fail to see the point of posting fic or meta or anything longer than a paragraph on there as it is just not the right sort of format for longer pieces of text - plus there is the fact that you can't give or receive feedback.

And again, this depends on format :). It posts a bit like the blogger sites, where you can choose to have the entire text post visible, or put it under a "read more" cut. Usually with text posts, people leave on the option that lets people reply directly with a comment, which will show underneath the entry in the notes, much like comments on a blog entry would.

I think it's like LJ, in a way - you've got to find the people you connect with. If I'd tried to get into SPN fandom via one of the episode squee communities, it wouldn't have worked for me - I find those kinda alienating, and don't want to go flail with strangers. Instead, I got into it by engaging with people whose work I liked, so we had something to talk about :).

Tumblr can be bigger - I mean, you're less likely to make friends with someone who has five thousand followers or whatever, since they're likely to be bombarded with noise - but then, LJ's always had its busy types who got too many comments to ever reply without turning it into a full time job :).

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

"If you DO have an LJ account, you can tell the artist you liked it to your heart's content - this is the same on tumblr." Actually - no. ON tumblr a lot of people have this setting whereby you can only comment if that person follows you back. Hence my frustration. Not everyone's tumblr works like that but many do.

[scarletscarlet.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah? Well, that's a bummer. I've yet to come across a fanartist that doesn't have asks turned on at all, though I've seen posts without comments enabled. Ah well. I suppose in that case, though, they may just not want comments/feedback/engagement, which is their choice. I can't imagine there's a scenario where with an account you can't hit the "like" button, though, and if they have all commenting options turned off, notes are going to be their feedback.

I know it's not the norm on LJ, but I do remember being extremely frustrated one time trying to leave a (deliriously happy) comment on some sort of Weasley/Malfoy fic only to find that the only comments allowed were members of the challenge community, even though it was a public post. Odd and annoying, but still, their call to make.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I suppose, but I just don't like the restriction on communication...there are times when you just want to say more than a 'like' and going via some sort of ask a question facility isn't what I'm looking for.

So tumblr is ok to visit occasionally (when I have a LOT of time to get lost for a few hours!) but not somewhere I want to be every day.