deviantART, Google, etc’s TOS

Everyone is panicking over TOS-es right now as they find a new home as Tumblr gets flushed down the toilet. I don’t like those random TOS breakdowns because the analysis is always wrong. 

Anyway this is what people pay me to do and I will now do it for $0 because I’m tired of everyone spreading misinformation. This post is not a substitute for legal advice etc. Reblogs are appreciated because I literally see TOS nonsense on my dash every day. 

Any more experienced copyright lawyers please feel free to weigh in - it’s part of my field yes, but my wheelhouse is more film production COT rather than derivative works.

Google Drive (TOS)

deviantART (Submission Policy) (TOS)

AO3 (TOS)

Wordpress (TOS)

Dreamwidth (TOS)

Hope this helps. Feel free to force me to read and explain any other site TOS documents. Again, more experienced copyright lawyers, feel free to correct me if I clowned up somewhere.

u ever think about how these huge restrictions on tumblr and facebook n shit are primarily centered around ads, and like, in essence, we have become a product that these social media sites sell to their advertisers? its like, that facebook policy update is like “you better not even INSINUATE you have tits, you sick fuck”. shit even saidd you weren’t allowed to specify sexual attraction.

we’re too rowdy for like, lays potato chips or whatever. gays are TOO rowdy to be nestle customers, so are any sort of women that feel at peace or liberated enough w/their bodies to talk about them, the little debbie cakes foul in my gross tranny presence, right? 

facebook, tumblr, all shit like that, they’re Quality-Assuring their product, which is us, pal. They’re weeding out anyone that isn’t a homogenized boring shit that is cleared to ship to the corporate customer.

i feel like a cracked fuckin’ egg

with like a baby duck in it that hates the concept of money

going thru phone pics and found this thing that was tacked up next to the toaster at my old job, if anyone needs some light toast eating reading material

Would anyone be kind enough to transcribe this or link to a text version?

Everything Is AWFUL and I’m Not Okay: Questions to Ask Before Giving Up on Yourself

Are you hydrated? 

If not, have a glass of water. Dehydration can mimic or increase feelings associated with anxiety and a well hydrated brain functions optimally. Avoid excess caffeine. 

Have you eaten in the past three hours? 

Don’t be a victim of hanger! Get some food–something with protein, not just simple carbs or high-fat. Nuts, hummus, and veggies are great options to feed your studying brain. Keep healthy snacks within reach to avoid mindlessly chowing down on sweets. 

Have you stretched your legs in the past day? 

If not, do so right now. If you don’t have the energy or time for a run or a trip to the gym, just walk around the block or building. Even minimal exercise preps the mind for learning so that you can focus better and recall things easier, plus it’s good to get a change of scenery. 

Have you said something nice to someone in the past day? 

Do so, whether online or in person. Make it genuine! We bet your study partner would appreciate a compliment. 

Have you moved your body to music in the past day?

If not, jog for the length of a song at your favorite tempo, or just dance around your bedroom for the length of an upbeat song (singing along is a bonus) 

Have you cuddled a living being in the past two days?

If not, do so. Don’t be afraid to ask for hugs from friends of friends’ pets. Most of them will enjoy the cuddles too; you’re not imposing. 

Have you started or changed any medications in the past couple of weeks, including skipped doses or a change in generic prescription brand? 

That may be screwing with your head. Give things a few days, then talk to your doctor if it doesn’t settle down. 

If daytime: are you dressed? 

If no, put on clean clothes that aren’t PJs. Give yourself permission to wear something special, whether it’s a funny t-shirt or a pretty dress. 

If nighttime: are you sleepy and fatigued but resisting going to sleep? 

Put on PJs, make yourself cozy in bed with a teddy bear and the sound of falling rain, and close your eyes for fifteen minutes while focusing on breathing deeper with every breath- no electronic screens allowed! Adequate sleep is a necessity for stress management. 

Do you feel ineffective? 

Pause right now and get something small completed, whether it’s responding to an email, loading the dishwasher, or tidying up your room. Good job!

Do you feel unattractive? 

Take a darn selfie. Your friends will remind you how great you look. You are always insta-worthy. 

Do you feel paralyzed by indecision?

Give yourself ten minutes to sit back and figure out a game plan for the day. If a particular decision or problem is still being a roadblock, simply set it aside for now, and pick something else that seems doable. Right now, the important part is to break through that stasis, even if it means doing something trivial. 

Have you over-exerted yourself lately–physically, emotionally, socially, or intellectually? 

That can take a toll that lingers for days. Give yourself a break in that area, whether it’s physical rest, taking some time alone, or relaxing with some silly entertainment for a little. Time spent refreshing yourself is never time “wasted!” 

Have you waited a week? 

Sometimes or perception of life is skewed, and we can’t even tell that we’re not thinking clearly, and there’s no obvious external cause. It happens. Keep yourself going for a full week, whatever it takes, and see if you still feel the same way then. 

You’ve made it this far; and you will make it through. You are stronger than you think.

Now this is interesting

Article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned

YES!! I LIKE THIS TAKE!!

Basically, because I know Mobile is bad with links, the article points out hat the broad, “sfw only, no titties allowed” wave on the internet in recent years is largely due to Apple’s absolute stranglehold on the App Store. Apple has strict guidelines about NSFW content that choke creators right out of mainstream social media, even on sites like Reddit, for users of their products: 

remember though that this anger isn’t about Being Horny On Main, it’s about sex workers, their platforms and followers, NSFW creators and their art, and adult content communities that are continually being shoved out of spaces they created in recent years: 

it was mentioned before somewhere else, but 20% of Tumblr’s traffic is brought in by content they’re now flagging as “adult” 

and of course, Apple is also one of the companies that has repeatedly come under fire for censoring lgbtq/queer identities on their sites, the app store, and also caved to russia’s anti-lgbtq policies like a stick of rotten bamboo

PSA: Stuff You Maybe Didn’t Realize You Can Back Up To AO3, And How To Tag it

Tumblr seems to be in potential death throes or at least, incredibly volatile and unreliable lately, but we’ve done some pretty good and informative work on canon analysis and reference guides so I was looking for ways to back it up without losing it…and the solution became obvious to me: Archive of Our Own, aka AO3.  “What?” you might ask if you are less familiar with their TOS. “Isn’t that just a fanfic archive??” No! It’s a fanWORK archive. It is an archive for fanworks in general! “Fanwork” is a broad term that encompasses a lot of things, but it doesn’t just include fanfic and fanart, vids etc; it also includes “fannish” essays and articles that fall under what’s often called “meta” (from the word for “beyond” or “above”, referencing that it goes beyond the original exact text)! The defining factor of whether Archive of Our Own is the appropriate place to post it is not whether or not it’s a fictional expansion of canon (fanfic), though that is definitely included - no, it’s literally just “is this a work by a ‘fan’ intended for other ‘fannish’ folks/of ‘fannish’ interest?”  The articles we’ve written as a handy reference to the period-appropriate Japanese clothing worn by Inuyasha characters?  The analyses of characters? The delineations of concrete canon (the original work) vs common “fanon” (common misconceptions within the fandom)? Even the discussion of broader cultural, historical, and geographic context that applies to the series and many potential fanworks?  All of those are fannish nonfiction! Which means they absolutely can (and will) have a home on AO3, and I encourage anybody who is wanting to back up similar works of “fannish interest” - ranging from research they’ve done for a fic, to character analyses and headcanons - to use AO3 for it, because it’s a stable, smooth-running platform that is ad-free and unlike tumblr, is run by a nonprofit (The OTW) that itself is run by and for the benefit of, fellow fans.  Of course, that begs the question of how to tag your work if you do cross-post it, eh? So on that note, here’s a quick run-down of tags we’re finding useful and applicable, which I’ve figured out through a combination of trial and error and actually asking a tag wrangler (shoutout to @wrangletangle for their invaluable help!): First, the Very Broad: - “ Nonfiction ”. This helps separate it from fanfic on the archive, so people who aren’t looking for anything but fanfic are less likely to have to skim past it, whereas people looking for exactly that content are more likely to find it. - while “Meta” and “Essay” and even “Information” are all sometimes used for the kinds of nonfiction and analytical works we post, I’ve been told “ Meta Essay ” is the advisable specific tag for such works. This would apply to character analyses, reference guides to canon, and even reference guides to real-world things that are reflected in the canon (such as our articles on Japanese clothing as worn by the characters).  The other three tags are usable, and I’ve been using them as well to cover my bases, but they’ll also tend to bring up content such as “essay format” fanfic or fanfic with titles with those words in them - something that does not happen with “Meta Essay”.

- I’ve also found by poking around in suggested tags, that “ Fanwork Research & Reference Guides ” is consistently used (even by casual users) for: nonfiction fannish works relating to analyses of canon materials; analyses of and meta on fandom-specific or fanwork-specific tropes; information on or guides to writing real-world stuff that applies to or is reflected in specific fandoms’ media (e.g. articles on period-appropriate culture-specific costuming and how to describe it); and expanded background materials for specific fans’ fanworks (such as how a given AU’s worldbuilding is supposed to be set up) that didn’t fit within the narrative proper and is separated out as a reference for interested readers. Basically, if it’s an original fan-made reference for something specific to one or more fanworks, or a research aid for writing certain things applicable to fanworks or fannish interests in general, then it can fall under that latter tag. 

- You should also mark it with any appropriate fandom(s) in the “Fandom” field. Just like you would for a fanfic, because of course, the work is specifically relevant to fans of X canon, right? If it discusses sensitive topics, or particular characters, etc., you should probably tag for those. E.g. “death” or “mental illness”, “Kagome Higurashi”, etc. 

Additionally, if you are backing it up from a Tumblr you may wish to add: - “ Archived From Tumblr “ and/or “ Cross-Posted From Tumblr ” to reference the original place of publication, for works originally posted to tumblr. (I advise this if only because someday, there might not be “tumblr” as we know it, and someone might be specifically looking for content that was originally on it, you never know) - “ Archived From [blog name] Blog ”; this marks it as an archived work from a specific blog. And yes, I recommend adding the word “blog” in there for clarity- Wrangletangle was actually delighted that I bothered to tag our first archived work with “Archived From Inu-Fiction Blog” because being EXTREMLY specific about things like that is super helpful to the tag wranglers on AO3, who have to decide how to categorize/”syn” (synonym) various new tags from alphabetized lists without context of the original posting right in front of them.  In other words, including the name AND the word “blog” in it, helps them categorize the tag on the back end without having to spend extra time googling what the heck “[Insert Name Here]” was originally. 

Overall, you should be as specific and clear as possible, but those tags/tag formats should prove useful in tagging it correctly should you choose to put fannish essays and articles up on AO3 :) Oh, and protip sidebar for those posting, especially works that are more than plain text: you can make archiving things quicker and easier for yourself, but remember to plan ahead for tumblr’s potential demise/disabling/service interruptions. The good news: You can literally copy and paste the ENTIRE text of a tumblr post from say, an “edit” window, on tumblr, straight into AO3′s Rich Text Format editor, and it will preserve pretty much all or almost all of the formatting - such as bold, italics, embedded links, etc! But the bad news: keep in mind that while AO3 allows for embedded images and it WILL transfer those embedded images with a quick copy-paste like that, AO3 itself doesn’t host the images for embedding; those are still external images. This means that whether or not they continue to load/display for users, depends entirely on whether the file is still on the original external server! As I quickly discovered, in the case of posts copied from the Edit window of a tumblr post, the images will still point to the copies of the images ON tumblr’s servers. What this means is that you should back up (save copies elsewhere of) any embedded images that you consider vital to such posts, in case you need to upload them elsewhere and fiddle with where the external image is being pulled from, later.  Personally, I’m doing that AND adding image descriptions underneath them, just to be on the safe side (and in fairness, this makes it more accessible to people who cannot view the images anyway, such as sight-impaired people who use screen readers or people who have images set to not automatically display on their browser, so it’s win-win)

This has been in our queue since before ~Tumblr’s big reveal~ but post-reveal….! Please share widely. Those not-quite-fic headcanon posts, drabbles, ficlets from prompts, meta of all shapes and sizes: the AO3 is not just for traditional short and long fiction. And, of course, visual art of all kinds! 

On that note-

Capitalism is disgusting and ruins everything.

cool! unsurprising!

Please read this whole article. If you’re still clinging to the vague hope that it’ll all settle down and it’s gonna be business as usual, it isn’t. It can’t.

if you run a NSFW blog or post NSFW content, here’s how to export your blog 

Just a note on this - IT DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK. I lost the entire content of my old blog (thecheshirecass) and my writing blog because the whopping 65gig file was corrupted.

The larger the file (and a lot of blogs are HUGE) the greater the chance for corruption. Some important info/advice from Twitter:

IF you can get the backup function to actually work (and keep in mind it took literal DAYS for the file to be created) be sure to check everything to make sure it works. I know there are other programs/sites that will do this as well, but I have no insight on how they work. I’m also not sure how it works on Apple systems so YMMV.

@becausedragonage could you please share this since your following is so much bigger than mine? I’m hoping it can help some folks from suffering through major disappointment.

As we are moving towards a period of more decentralized fandom, if you want to support the artists who are going to be hard-hit by this loss of platform/audience, here’s what you can do to help to help the art-side of fandom stay motivated enough to produce content:

Erotic text is still currently allowed under tumblr’s new policy, but it might not be later, so keep these things in mind for fic authors too. 

And just in general, it’s not just content creators that need support and security. Look around at the friends you’ve made here. Think about how you’ll keep in touch with them. Think about how you might reminisce and be sad if the “next tumblr” comes along and they felt too lost to have stayed in fandom long enough to meet you there. Be kind; show love. Everyone’s a little scared and sad now - creators, rebloggers, and lurkers. We’re all looking forward at December 17th with uncertainty and indecision, and that’s okay. 

We’re not scared because we loved the blue background or the activity page design, we’re scared because of the people, friends, heroes, admirers, peers, validation, love, and happiness that we feel slipping away. And so long as we hold onto the bonds that matter most to us, this will all pass a lot less painfully than we fear. 

If you’ve been meaning to get in touch with someone, but have been putting it off or feeling shy, now’s probably the time. If you wanted to make friends, note down someone’s accounts, form a discord or mailing-list with your buddies, now’s the time.

“Fandom’s not a place, it’s a people.”  —Thor, probably.

Yknow, part of me want to be upset, or properly angry, but a larger part of me finds it, in a way, amusing to just watch the chaos unfold.

#I’m so completely unsurprised by all of this#it’s like#they’re desperately trying to heave water back out of the boat#but instead of using buckets they just drill more holes and hope the water runs back out on its own

Those are some excellent tags there phanter

Honestly, I don’t even post, consume or reblog all that much adult content on here.

But the way @staff has handled this makes me absolutely furious. It’s about so much more than wanting erotica on my dash.

Tumblr has always been a community that is very female.dominated, with lots of content-creators, fans, sjws and just women talking to other women about the things women want to talk about. Sometimes, these things are sexual in nature.

And on just about every other site, that’s an impossible thing to do, because on the one end of the scale, anything to do with sex, especially female sexuality, is shamed or prohibited (this is where tumblr’s headed! Yay, purity culture!) or on the other hand, dominated by male gaze and predatory behaviour.

For Staff to pretty much shrug and say “you want sex, go someplace else” means to ignore the user base that built this website, that found a secure community here, that dared explore their identities in a relatively safe space.

The pornbot plague is an intrusion of those “other places” into our space, and instead of dealing with it, Staff decided to punish those who have been here all along. Like shooting a patient because they contracted the measles instead of nuking the infection.

Nipples are nipples, tumblr. There is nothing inherently sexual about some and not others, depending on the shape of the body they’re attached to. We’ve had this discourse for years. Adding the word “presenting” doesn’t tidy that over.

It was actual real child pornography with real victims that got you in trouble, tumblr, not nsfw-fanart of consensual adults getting it on.

This is betrayal of the users that have been here all along, it sucks, and I hope the backlash gets bad enough it forces Staff to reconsider. Until then - enjoy the Exodus and meme the hell out of it as you go, dear mutuals - hope to see you out there!

It’s perfectly fine to reblog it, please do! And feel free to add your own thoughts and comments as well - this is an important angle to the discussion, and it should be heard, loud and clear!

I think the real problem here is that big media corporations seem to believe that social media userbases are fungible, and persist in acting on this belief no matter how many times it’s demonstrated to be wrong.

There’s a specific pattern of events that plays out over and over (and over) again, and it looks something like this:

1. Social media platform becomes popular

2. Social media platform is purchased by big media corporation in order to gain access to it large user base

3. Big media corporation realises that social media platform’s demographics are not the demographics they want to sell things to.

4. Big media corporation institutes measures to drive away “undesirable” users, apparently in the honest belief that the outgoing users will automatically be replaced by an equal number of new, more demographically desirable users

5. This does not, in fact, occur

6. Social media platform crashes and burns

You’d think that, by the sheer law of averages, at least one person who’s capable of learning from experience would become involved in this whole process at some point.

*Looks back at Bolt and Bolt 2.* Yup pretty much spot on.

Now this is interesting

Article: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3mjxg/apple-tumblr-porn-nsfw-adult-content-banned

Alternatives to Tumblr if Yahoo goes any further

Reblogging cause one day it just may be neccessary.

It became necessary

WordPress will also import Tumblr blogs.

i’ve gotten a lot of suggestions for pillowfort and mastodon and even newgrounds, but here are some other alternatives.

From someone who’s survived MySpace, livejournal, deviantart, and fanfiction.nets’ content purges and bad policy updates, here’s some advice on how to get through tumblr’s recent bullshit:

- don’t knee jerk delete. I know it’s tempting to peace out immediately but hang on and do the other steps first. Out right ghosting and erasing everything is how fandoms die.

- archive everything on your blog you want to keep

- tell your followers how they can archive and keep your work too. A lot of fic and art were only saved from ff.net and lj because other people saved it first. If you’re cool with other people saving your work for them to personally keep, let them know this. You can absolutely discourage reposting but I really do highly recommend you allow people to personally save fic and art they like and are worried will disappear forever. Digital Dark Ages are a real thing.

- tell people where you’re jumping ship to. Give links. Keep that info up, even if you’ve left the site.

- go through who you follow and find out where else you can follow them. Save their work if they’ll allow it. It’s tedious as hell but if you want to keep up with people on here clicking on their page to check in is the best way to do it.

- support places like ao3. This is exactly why ao3 asks for donations a few times a year. They are a 100% anti-purging, judgement free, ad free non profit run by an elected board and protected by lawyers. Places like ao3 literally save fandom so please continue to support them and other similar archives. This is exactly why ao3 is so important.

If you think your art blog is going to be deleted:

You can save all your posts with these instructions I’ll do it too just to be safe, I honestly don’t remember what I’ve posted here over the years.

You can also import a copy of your blog into wordpress. YMMV if you have a huge amount of posts.

Oh thanks!! This is also a good one!! In case the first doesn’t work or you don’t have the memory for a whole zip of your blog~