Dan Leveille

nikography:

“You don’t discontinue a system because of potential misuse, you build solutions to the misuse.”

—equalitopia

okay. everyone is spazzing out because LGBT was left off of a directory nomination form (that is probably still being ironed out). and this quote just kind of ruins the whole argument. the reasoning that people might abuse this (and trust me, they WILL abuse it) is perfectly valid. and maybe tumblr just hasn’t found the right solution yet. not everything is an attack on the LGBT community, calm down.

and let me warn you, when you make requests like that- you don’t really know what you’re asking for. i say this because if you did know what you were asking for, you’d offer an actual solution. “build solutions to the misuse” comes dangerously close to humans/arbitrary people monitoring and/or approving YOUR content.

how do you really expect them to monitor fake nominations (e.g. “i’m submitting my straight friend to the gay category lololz~11”) from the real ones? email people to ask about their orientation? have a single human make a judgement call that may or may not be accurate? (oh my god, you guys would FREAK OUT all over again if that happened)

so that said, sit and think for a minute about what problems really could come of this at the moment. and then relax. maybe if you’re so inclined, offer a solution.

Hey Nik,

Thanks for responding to my post. I do agree that some systems are very difficult to prevent abuse, but I could simply do the same with other categories. I could categorize a overweight person into the “fitness” category, or put someone in the “animal” category. Though I know “gay” is a term that gets used as an insult, the LGBT rights movement is trying to stop this thinking. Tumblr using that as an excuse makes it seem like they’re endorsing the fact that “gay” is an insult.

I didn’t state any solutions because I wanted to focus the message on the idea that the LGBT community is being excluded, rather than focusing on a specific solution. I don’t know what the best solution is. But I can definitely think of a few. Tumblr could add a feature to remove your own nominations. If I don’t want to be in a category, I should have the ability to control that, regardless if it’s something that offends me or not. I may post a few times about X, but I may not want categorized as X. What if a bunch of creepy old guys nominated me into the “cute” directory? 

That could be something that offends me. Or simply a setting saying you don’t want to receive nominations.

The process already has a notice saying that if you nominate someone into a category where they’re not, then your account may be suspended.

How should the LGBT directory be different from any others?

I also agree with your quote “not everything is an attack on the LGBT community, calm down.” I do admit that the post I made was a bit strong-worded, but helped to get the message out. But I think we can agree that the who want to be listed in the directory (who are primarily LGBT-related) were excluded from a feature. Perhaps you don’t want to be in the directory, but some of us do. Put yourself in our shoes if you’re not. My blog equalitopia can’t be listed properly in the directory, and I feel offended because the only reason it can’t is because it’s LGBT-related. I’d say that’s unfair.

I just thought to myself: “I wonder which team won the Super Bowl” followed by: “I wonder which teams played in the Super Bowl.”