Eight posts a day max or you're out! ;=)
I have come to my first crossroads at Tumblr, or maybe I should say CROSS roads.
I’ve been on here for 4-5 months now and am subscribed to 134 Tumblelogs, with many others bookmarked. This has turned out to be far too many to manage, given that I read/view a great deal outside Tumblr as well.
I am also trying out Twitter for the first time and learnt only last night (no-one told me?!) that Tweets can be diverted right into the dashboard here at Tumblr as well. Which makes for a very crowded dash.
So to avoid feeling defeated before I even begin, comes a time to cull …
The problem most of us have with Tumblr, of course, is that we’re deluged with photo posts, which have obvious instant appeal but unfairly drown out a lot of good but quieter offerings.
What I am actually looking for and enjoying the most could be summarised as
~ unique voices and story-tellers
~ “curators”, by which I mean people who fossick and choose items sparingly, or pause as well for reflection on what is being offered
~ beautiful design (I can’t resist it)
~ arts — but offerings you don’t see every day
~ original or oddball humour
~ established friends from an old, almost moribund, network (they know who they are)
~ English eccentrics
~ unusual photos
The crush-meter gives an unfair advantage to frequent posters and those I’ve followed from the start, of course, but I’m certainly proud to recommend them: from the top left, Cloggo, TapwaterJackson, Handa, i12bent, ElleDark, Stumbot, Master-Li, Foxesinbreeches, Hookersorcake
____________
Obiously I am committed to those guys — plus quite a few others — but now here’s the bit that will cut some visitors to the quick if they have been posting too enthusiastically for me to keep up with:
I have decided on what I will call the Cloggo principle, which is to say: if you’re posting more frequently than him I’m going to have to let you go. Cloggo goes at a pace of about eight items a day and — this part is important — holds himself back.
That holding yourself back, or pausing for reflection or a reread before hitting “reblog” or CTRL C/CTRL V is as important as the blogging itself, IMO.
If you are one of those who post 100 pix a day, eg, you’re probably young and just haven’t “found yourself” yet. But take it from an old crone … you’re not going to “find yourself” by trying to be first or most with everything.
On my old network, Stumbleupon, I quit subscriptions because people were overdoing it just as frequently as I dropped those who had vanished. Because it was clear they didn’t really give a shit what they put on their page.
I have to let people like that go. They drain my (limited) energy and in Tumblr they invade my personal space as well, via the dashboard.
Those I stop following (soon) willl still likely be on my radar though — on an RSS feed or bookmark — I’ll just settle for seeing one post in 10.
