I agree that it would be difficult to do without ruining the Tumblr experience, but I’m not sure that it is intrinsic to the whole experience not to have some solution to the need for negative feedback.
If there was a limit to the number of Dislikes you could use in a day (perhaps in relation to the number of Likes you use on average per day) that would help keep it civil. I heard somewhere that it takes 10 put-ups to compensate for one put-down. I doubt that’s scientifically based, but I think the ratio of Like to Dislike would have to be something extreme like 10 to 1.
Also, having some feedback with the Dislike is crucial but the more I think about it the more I agree with how Tumblr has excluded the typical commenting model from the public dialog. Private-only commenting would help that, but I’d prefer only getting one word (or a dozen characters) to describe why you Dislike a post or why you are unfollowing someone.
I agree that there should be a way to disagree, but I’m not sure if you added such a mechanism, Tumblr would still be Tumblr. There are plenty of places on the Web to feel the annoyance, discomfort, and anger of other people. While I like the idea of more robust feedback mechanisms in Tumblr, I also feel like Tumblr is a breath of fresh air because it hasn’t become a pit of name-calling and smack-talking. Much as we’d like everyone to exchange ideas in a civil, uplifting manner, most of the time it degenerates to the lowest common denominator.
Since my last post was a reblog of a photo where I was actually criticizing the messaging in the photo (even though I agree with what I think they were trying to say) I now have no idea if the people who Liked it actually Liked the original post and disagreed with me, or if they were Liking it to agree with my comments. Or if someone unfollowed me over it — was it because they agree with the photo and not my post, or because they were offended by the photo and didn’t read my post.
I think it comes back to how Tumblr needs some form of negative feedback. I’d like to know if people dislike my posts for whatever reason, and I especially want to know why someone unfollows me. Not that I want to cater to what people think, but it’d be nice to know what they think. Then I think we’d really know each other, and not just some uber-likable facade.
my disillusion with tumblr moves me to consider wordpress.
tumblr isn’t the right format for a civil exchange of ideas, but rather a self-absorbed platform fueled by congratulatory affirmation of existence by tumblrs who ‘like,’ ‘follow,’ or ‘reblog’ content… & i confess i’m ill at the thought of how much time tumblr has occupied my time.
i’ll most likely deep-six this tumblr account by the end of the year…
Coffeehouse Junkie 