I am tech-challenged...

[ratcreature]

It's no secret that I'm not fond of Tumblr. It's hard to talk there, so you can't get or give comments only "reblogs" and "likes" (unless there is some external Disqus thingie set up), and if artists don't provide art themselves for reblogging (so you can click-through), art and photos seem to be posted there without attribution more often than not.

However, I have been name-squatting there since 2007, and with the uptick in fannish use I thought, okay, maybe I'll try it out as a reader. So I log in, then go to a fanartist's Tumblr that I'd come across in a rec, go there and want to subscribe to the Tumblr. Where do I click?? I did manage to subscribe by doing a c&p on the name, and then going to my dashboard, then going to the "follow" page and entering it manually, but surely with the supposedly "easy to use" appeal of the thing there has to be a simpler method?

Comments

[ileliberte.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a tricky thing to get used to. You lose the interaction of LJ, but ngl, the ease of use and sharing making your art seen by more people can be a little heady, at least, it is for me.

As for following, when you're logged in, on the upper right corner of all pages, there should be a follow button on a semi-transparent background. You just click on that to subscribe.

[ratcreature]

I don't see that button. I see a "+ Follow on tumblr" button in some layouts in the sidebar, for example your tumblr show that, but for example when I'm looking at say
http://erikandcharles.tumblr.com/

I see nothing of the kind.

[ileliberte.livejournal.com]

Are you logged in? Do you have any sort of javascript blocking program like NoScript and don't have tumblr fully enabled? I see a "+Follow" button on the top right for the tumblr you mentioned above, on the home page as well as on individual post pages.

[ratcreature]

I am logged in afaik, at least my tumblr dashboard is open in another tab, and looking at my cookies I have one from tumblr that shows me as logged in. I have NoScript (with Firefox, still on version 3.6 I'm afraid), but I allowed tumblr.com and only see google-analytics as blocked scripts.

[ileliberte.livejournal.com]

That's really weird. Maybe try temporarily allowing all on that page just to see if you might not have accidentally blocked something that tumblr shares with some other site to show the follow button? And you're looking on the very top right of the page, correct? Where there should be a "dashboard" button on a semi-transparent background as well?

[ratcreature]

I tried temporarily allowing all, no luck. There is no dashboard button either, which I thought was another inconvenience that I had to use the URL field to get to my dashboard. Clearly Tumblr hates me.

However if I log into Tumblr with another browser, I see the buttons you mean. So it seems something in my FF is interfering, but I have no idea what.