 | When creating a post, you can now attribute its content (eg. a pull quote or image) to a source outside of Tumblr. That source gets clearly attributed everywhere that post is reblogged on Tumblr. The bookmarklet will automatically set the source, confirming that the current page is in fact the content’s origin. |
Looks like a nice technical improvement. But the basic argument is all wrong. First, the content attribution problem ―which is not exclusive to Tumblr― is not fixed at all. Second, the bookmarklet may automatically set a source but in no way will it be able to confirm that the page reblogged is the content’s origin.
If you’re surfing ffffound and happen to stumble upon a nice picture, the bookmarklet will display this : “fffound.com photographed or created this image”. Which is wrong, as wrong as before.
The fact is that no simple software implementation is capable, for the moment, to replace human judgement. The problem remains : if one wants to know the “source” of any content, one will have to make the effort to think and to do some research. Unfortunately, this condition for attributing the right source to a content seems to contradict one of Tumblr’s main tagline: “Tumblr makes it effortless to share anything you find or create” (Why Tumblr).
• Sep 04, 2010 link notes reblogged from staff [via] tagged: Tumblr attribution blog bookmarklet content interface research source technology adequate references
