Proposed Solution to People Deleting Captions
Please note: 'Captions' is used above as a catch-all term to refer to any original written content attached to an image post. This includes comments, discussions, journal-type posts and stories which can be hundreds or even thousands of words in length.
Could you please provide some way of preventing other users from deleting captions/stories/other original written content when they reblog image-based posts?
There are a number of us who are primarily here to write, share our written content and have discussions rather than posting pictures and we are getting really fed up with people who repeatedly delete captions despite being asked not to.
Having an inbuilt option to prevent people from doing this so that we can retain control of our original written content would be very greatly appreciated by many users.
Could you please look into adding an option that individual users can enable in their blog settings which would prevent anyone but the original poster of the written content from deleting written content attached to image-based posts? Alternatively, adding a button that would allow us to 'lock' a caption into a post could also work.
Failing this, can you please have a look at how blocking works sitewide? To my mind, when you block another user that person should no longer be able to engage with you or your content, even indirectly. It really isn't ideal if I block someone and they can still reblog my posts or comment on them using the old comments system if they come across them on someone else's blog as is currently the case. This is a flaw that I think needs to be addressed more generally, but it could be one way of managing the problem of people deleting captions. If blocking were more robust, at least then we could block people who do this without them being able to do the same thing again if they come across a reblog of one of our posts on another user's blog.
Many thanks.
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"Could you please look into adding an option that individual users can enable in their blog settings which would prevent anyone but the original poster of the written content from deleting written content attached to image-based posts? "
I think this is an excellent idea. Just as there is a red X to give people the option of immediately deleting a caption/text this gives the mirror option of allowing those who have invested time and effort into what they have written of keeping their thoughts attached to the image which they are posting. Those who are not concerned about their caption would not have to choose the option. It seems a happy compromise between two camps.
As a general point, some people write very personal things with their captions. It must be incredibly frustrating for them to see something which is important to them discarded so casually and easily.
I think not having something which addresses this issue will ultimately discourage writers from using bdsmlr and that would be a shame as for some the writing is as important or more important than the images.
Thank you to the original poster for raising the issue.
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@ tom r - The practice of reblogging posts and adding comments and having discussions and being able to read all of that in a single thread is a very important part of the community aspect for many of us, though. Linking to a reblog in a text post completely interrupts the flow of discussion. If there was an option to reblog something as a text post so that someone couldn't come along and erase it because they just want to reblog the picture, that could be an option. There could be an option in blog settings to allow people to reblog your posts as text posts so that individual blogs retain control over what people can do with their original posts. That could also be a way for purely visual blogs to stop people adding captions if that's something they don't want - they could just choose not to enable that setting.
There's an aesthetic issue with using text posts in that text posts don't display images in the same way as image posts - you can't make them fit the full width of the post in the same way - and they truncate all of the text below the image if you insert an image no matter how long it is, whereas an image post will only truncate the text after a certain word count. If the text post template could be amended to fix these issues so that it's essentially an exact copy of the image post template only with the image and text embedded instead of just the image, this could help.
There's also the issue of past posts. If we could edit posts to change the post type - in this case changing an image post to a text post retrospectively - this would help make this a viable option. Some of my posts have lots of reblogs with comments and additions and conversations attached and I don't really want to lose all of that by deleting those posts to replace them with text posts, and I'm sure many other people feel similarly.
Being able to delete an image from a post after you've posted it without deleting the entire post if you're the OP would also be helpful.
I don't know how feasible any of these suggestions are from the perspective of the devs, but there is a level of demand for some sort of solution. I don't think anyone has an issue with people who just want to reblog images on their blogs as long as they're not erasing the purpose and intent of other people's posts against their wishes when they share them.
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+1.
There needs to be some way to keep images and text that the creator though should go together, still together.
Some creators don't mind and some do, so to make it work each creator needs an option they can turn on/off.
Tumblr has that thing where you can't delete the text the original poster put, but you can delete text added through reblogs. The downside of tumblr's solution is people adding links to sites which aren't removable and then the links end up everywhere. Maybe any text with non-bdsmlr link in it can never be "stuck".
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No. Sorry, but I'm generally here for the pictures. I don't want to be forced to take someone else's words. I may enjoy the picture and hate the text. Why should I be limited? Yes, you've put in effort to add text, so what? At some point, if all text had to be carried along, you could end up with pages of text for one picture. No thank you.
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No, it isn't fine. All I want is the image, not the text. If you can "lock" it, then I can't reblog the image without including the text. If there was someway I could get the original image before text was added, then, sure, go ahead. But there doesn't seem to be a way to get to where the image was originally reblogged from before you added the text. So, no. Thank you, but no.
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You can very easily get the original image by downloading it and making your own post if the caption is on the original post, going back through the thread of reblogs to find someone who hasn't put a caption on it and reblogging from them instead if it's a reblog or - if you're hung up on attribution of images - doing a reverse Google Image search to find the original source. Some people really don't like it when people delete their captions and would prefer that you didn't reblog their posts at all if you're going to do that.
It should also be noted that alternatives to 'locking' a caption into an image post have been proposed above. If the text post template was improved, more people would use it for captions and stories with images but at present it doesn't work very well in terms of inserting images. If we could get image 'blocks' so we could insert pictures that are the same size and quality as with image posts and get a fix for the way text is cut off in a text post, this would help.
There are plenty of options on the table and there may also be other ideas, but people who write on BDSMLR want a solution in place so that this stops being an issue for us.
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Yes, you've put in effort to add text, so what?
I mean, I can turn this around on you. Why should I let you use my page, my posts, my effort, in ways I don't approve of, just so you can save the incredibly marginal effort of downloading and reuploading an image? It cost me anywhere from thirty minutes to hours or even days to write that post; it'll cost you maybe thirty seconds to reupload that picture.
Communities work because people care about each other's time and respect each other's labor. They decay and fall apart when people ... don't, especially when the gap is of multiple orders of magnitude like the above. That goes double for a community like BDSMlr, that's fundamentally unsupported by mainstream society.
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I'm only using the picture. Did you track down the original poster of said picture, and ask them if it was alright to add the specific text you added? You used their effort at finding and uploading their picture and then decided it was fine to add text they might find objectionable without asking them first? Surely not. So were you fair to the original poster?
You mentioned: "...going back through the thread of reblogs to find someone who hasn't put a caption on it and reblogging from them instead if it's a reblog..." But say there were 50 notes for that post. And the notes only point to the blog, not the actual picture. So, go to the first note and find out that person has 1000 pages in their archive. Just page through until I happen to find the one picture? And if not on that blog, go to the next note? I can appreciate your taking days to come up with the added text, but unless you tell me you had that extra text approved by the owner of the picture, I think I should be able to take the simple route to posting the picture. If someone wants to see what the added text was, all they just have to do is go to the notes and go through all of them and track down your blog and then they'll see your text. No problem.
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First of all, I'm not HFW, so you might want to keep us separate.
Second, most of the time, the captioner is the original poster; the person posting the story is someone who tracked down a picture that fit with the story, or was inspired by that picture, and posts the picture and story all at once.
I completely agree that it's a pain to hunt down the original post in a chain of reblogs, but that's fundamentally unnecessary when you can always just right click, download the image, and then reupload the image within like, 30s, whether or not the caption was on the original post.
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Now, it might make sense to ask that we get the ability to 'lock' captions, and also get a better reblog system that makes it easier to backtrack through chains and access the original post. But, well, that's fundamentally only going to be relevant to captions added by not-the-OP.
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Thanks for raising this topic and for all the comments. Normally I don't care too much about captions. I delete them if they are nazi or white trash talk or violate in any kind legal guidelines and whatsoever - you probably got the point. On the other hand many of us claim that they post no original content and they took it from the internet assuming it being public domain. So given this goes also for your blog it would mean you make something public available to your own. Again, I would re-blog as it is if it does not hurt my ethical feelings and I would strip off disgusting captions as long as I can if I don't can bring it over me to spread the text. When it won't be possible to cut off not wanted captions I will either ignore your blog or more likely block it. It's simple like that. But this is not what BDSMLR is about - at least in my opinion. It's about freely flowing sexual fantasies and each of us has to stand that other folks fantasies are not our own ... Cheers! JK
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... and furthermore: If someone likes a pic you posted and not the story you see behind it why would you want to force your 'customer' to take both and not have a choice? The longer I think about it the less I would be going to support the request. Maybe we can agree that there is no need for an option 'clear all comments and captions' ... JK
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The vast majority of the original posts and re-blogs on my blog contain captions I've written. However, I'm fully on-board with Ram Schramsch and Mastrsteven on this.
My kink may not be your kink. Your kink may not be my kink. Sometimes I re-blog other's posts and include their captions. Sometimes not. People re-blog my posts with and without including my captions. No problem. My kink may not be their kink. I'm glad they enjoy whatever they get from my blog.
I assume you have a public blog. Rather than asking the admins to implement some restrictive new feature, have you considered using an existing restrictive feature, that is, making your blog private? At least then, as I understand it, you'd be able to control who has access to your blog and could un-follow someone re-posting in a manner you find objectionable and thus be able to "retain control of [y]our original written content". Just a thought.
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Let me remind you, the original poster of the picture has full control. We could simple delete the original post. Leaving jerks with a blue wall of deleted post notifications.
Which is a crappy thing to do. I don't want to do that because of a few jerks who don't understand respect.
I am going to point out this is about respect and if you can't respect this request you don't belong in the BDSM community.
Assholes don't belong in BDSM they give kink a lousy name.
And if you don't want me to judge your kink or mess with it, then don't mess with mine. -
I find it rather amusing that people who have no problem infringing the copyright of photographers or other copyright owners get their knickers in a twist when their caption is removed.
I do think that captions are great in general, often they really enhance the picture. Quite often, I create them myself when posting images from my collection and I keep them 95% of the time when reblogging posts of others, but they are some, I don't like, e.g. when they are incest related, and I do delete them. I don't believe, there is something wrong with that.
If you feel so protective of your creative work, take a camera, book some models, make your pictures, digitally add the text to the image and watermark it... Otherwise, *you* are stealing content anyway, and you shouldn't whine about others doing the same.
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@ram schramsch this is very simple. Either you care about people's feelings by respect them or you don't belong in a kink community.
Because if you can respect this simple request it demonstrates lack of empathy, respect (especially respect of someone's boundaries)
Someone deleting peoples work, all that lovely ignorance that all of you have spewed is the same thing we here when it comes to respecting POC, trans people, women, etc.
If you can not do this simple little thing and act respectfully towards all artist then you don't understand the fundamentals of BDSM.
I read a considerable amount of gas lighting in these posts. Many of you are much to self-evolved to care about the community. You will come up with any excuse to avoid doing the right thing. -
@Livanym: Well, right! Maybe I'm ignorant because I don't bother too much about captions but as I said in my first comment: If they don't violate ethical basics I Ieave them intact - we need to stay civilized, don't we? So here comes a question for you: What is wrong with deleting captions of nazi trash or with deleting captions hinting that child abuse might be ok or other illegal stuff? Still the pic itself might be innocent enough. So reblogging it without caption might be advertising for your blog - even without caption. In my opinion every righteous person is oblegated not to spread social sickness. Kink is one thing crime another. But all this is only general talk as long as I don't know your blog - perhaps I would like it ...
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Let's be real here.
Unless you have a legal, signed licensing agreement with every single site [the original producer/copyright owner] covering every single image you used that allows redistribution of those said images with your own captions, then any talk "boundaries" or "ethics" regarding the captions attached to the copyright-violated images are out the window.
ALL images (even "free", "sample", or "royalty free" images/gifs, or snapshots taken on you iPhone), are still copyrighted unless it's been 70 years since the producer died (Unified EU copyright law, where the servers are located) or have an explicit license placing it into the public domain. And free/sample images still come with redistribution restrictions.
You own the copyright on your caption. The distribution rights of your copyrighted caption is subject to the terms and use of the bdsmlr ToS, which are independent from the distribution rights of the image it's attached to (for which you own neither the copyright nor distribution rights). And those bdsmlr terms of use include granting me the right to hit the little red 'x' if I choose too.
We're all breaking the rules. Don't get self-righteous.
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There is a difference between doing what you want and what is right.
We aren't talking about sharing images we are talking about people experience.
And if someone tells you to stop doing something because it hurts them, because it is respectful, because it crosses boundaries the only right and proper response is to stop doing it.
This is a simple black and white situation. You can find excuses to keep being a dick. But it won't change the fact that you are.
None of your excuses change the fact that your actions are negatively impacting people.
Why would you be okay with that?
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