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Preliminary review of Waterfall.social
May. 30th, 2019 12:44 am Link to waterfall.social; this is not a pitch, endorsement, or denouncement. I recently joined Waterfall.social, marketed as an alternative to Tumblr (the creator pretty much said so:
I'd argue with 'fastest growing' though I admittedly don't have the internal numbers. At the least, content output seems small, but... compact in a sense of the word. There's also a lot still in development.
Registration, Pricing
You are required to have an account to browse. Accounts are free. There is no need to frantically download X-Kit to get rid of bizarre surrealist ads. The developer runs the site on their own servers.
NSFW policy
Sexually graphic art and writing are allowed as long as they do not depict underage characters, and are adequately tagged. Bloggers that post large quantities of such are requested to flag themselves NSFW. Not a huge issue for me, as I'm not a big nsfw writer, but I know some folks will take issue with not being able to post their vent/cartharsis stuff and will want to know. The developer's explanation is that it is simply illegal in the countries where they reside and have the site servers.
Policies on hate speech/etc
Those are here. Reports are submitted by users and reviewed manually rather than by an automated system, which is good, but also does allow for biases on the part of the reviewer. No Nazis, no hate speech, no harassment, no harming minors, stuff covered in NSFW policy, no glorification of self-harm or suicide. No attempting to bypass do not reblog-tagged posts, no spam, no scams. Hopefully this is all adequately enforceable.
Feature set #1: Reblogs, likes, queue, posting, tags, messages/asks
Posting is as it is on Tumblr for the most part, with some critical differences. There is a separate uploading option for "art." If you upload under this option, people who try to re-post the art will have it automatically turn into a reblog instead, preventing a repost on Waterfall, at the least. Reposting is a major problem on Tumblr, so I'm pleased there's some initiative about this. Developer says it's still a prototype, and working on expanding to written content, but promising.
Another thing I like: Posts tagged "dnr" or "do not reblog" are not rebloggable by other users... A thing I don't like: when I reblog something, it takes me to the top of the dashboard again. Which is inconvenient, particularly if I'm on page 3 or something.
I have not tested the queue function, but you can add a tag for all queued posts and set how many per day. You cannot appear to toggle the timeframe in which they post. Likes and queue were broken for a bit but were fixed. Likes seem to function for me similarly to Tumblr. A direct messages function is in the works, so far you can only communicate in reblogs and asks.
Feature set #2: Blogs and accounts
Blogs are entirely separate. When you make a new blog, it's not a sideblog of your main. You don't need 50000 email addresses to have main blogs. I like this. Unclear on whether you can add users to your blog as mods. I couldn't find an option so I guess not.
With the blogs being entirely separate, they get their own following/followers list, likes, etc. I like this becasue I can choose what kind of content I want to follow for each blog and then switch between them without having to be inundated with all of it on my dash.
It does not appear you can enable 2-factor authentication for additional security, but you can log out all devices at once if you believe your account has been compromised. I'm not sure how blocking users affects stuff either, but I assume it works similarly to Tumblr.
The creators of Waterfall, transparency, etc.
Apparently is one developer; the site's servers are in Europe. The dev seems to be running all this on caffeine and spare time, and I hope they don't burn out soon. (I suspect a staff will get in place if there's a site population explosion, the dev has mentioned getting grants).
So far the creator/dev has been extremely transparent in their Waterfall-social Tumblr and on their staff.waterfall.social account about bugs, issues, themselves, etc.
The creator of Waterfall was also apparently the dev behind an ill-fated venture called Tanburu, which was when the dev, according to their explanation, was far more ignorant and they try to do better now. That's generated some controversy, but I'm going to stick around and benefit of the doubt until they demonstrate otherwise.
Conclusion
I think Waterfall.social is a promising platform with room to grow that will attract fewer of the criticisms Tumblr has. The dev is problematique, as people would say, but I'm hopeful that they've learned and will be able to show that. And there's also the question of, will they be able to handle an influx of users if/when Tumblr sinks? Time will tell.
Developed solo over the course of six months, Waterfall is built from the ground up to provide a familiar, functional experience, focusing on creators and community, taking all the good bits from Tumblr and making them worth using, quickly becoming the fastest growing alternative over the last six months!
I'd argue with 'fastest growing' though I admittedly don't have the internal numbers. At the least, content output seems small, but... compact in a sense of the word. There's also a lot still in development.
Registration, Pricing
You are required to have an account to browse. Accounts are free. There is no need to frantically download X-Kit to get rid of bizarre surrealist ads. The developer runs the site on their own servers.
NSFW policy
Sexually graphic art and writing are allowed as long as they do not depict underage characters, and are adequately tagged. Bloggers that post large quantities of such are requested to flag themselves NSFW. Not a huge issue for me, as I'm not a big nsfw writer, but I know some folks will take issue with not being able to post their vent/cartharsis stuff and will want to know. The developer's explanation is that it is simply illegal in the countries where they reside and have the site servers.
Policies on hate speech/etc
Those are here. Reports are submitted by users and reviewed manually rather than by an automated system, which is good, but also does allow for biases on the part of the reviewer. No Nazis, no hate speech, no harassment, no harming minors, stuff covered in NSFW policy, no glorification of self-harm or suicide. No attempting to bypass do not reblog-tagged posts, no spam, no scams. Hopefully this is all adequately enforceable.
Feature set #1: Reblogs, likes, queue, posting, tags, messages/asks
Posting is as it is on Tumblr for the most part, with some critical differences. There is a separate uploading option for "art." If you upload under this option, people who try to re-post the art will have it automatically turn into a reblog instead, preventing a repost on Waterfall, at the least. Reposting is a major problem on Tumblr, so I'm pleased there's some initiative about this. Developer says it's still a prototype, and working on expanding to written content, but promising.
Another thing I like: Posts tagged "dnr" or "do not reblog" are not rebloggable by other users... A thing I don't like: when I reblog something, it takes me to the top of the dashboard again. Which is inconvenient, particularly if I'm on page 3 or something.
I have not tested the queue function, but you can add a tag for all queued posts and set how many per day. You cannot appear to toggle the timeframe in which they post. Likes and queue were broken for a bit but were fixed. Likes seem to function for me similarly to Tumblr. A direct messages function is in the works, so far you can only communicate in reblogs and asks.
Feature set #2: Blogs and accounts
Blogs are entirely separate. When you make a new blog, it's not a sideblog of your main. You don't need 50000 email addresses to have main blogs. I like this. Unclear on whether you can add users to your blog as mods. I couldn't find an option so I guess not.
With the blogs being entirely separate, they get their own following/followers list, likes, etc. I like this becasue I can choose what kind of content I want to follow for each blog and then switch between them without having to be inundated with all of it on my dash.
It does not appear you can enable 2-factor authentication for additional security, but you can log out all devices at once if you believe your account has been compromised. I'm not sure how blocking users affects stuff either, but I assume it works similarly to Tumblr.
The creators of Waterfall, transparency, etc.
Apparently is one developer; the site's servers are in Europe. The dev seems to be running all this on caffeine and spare time, and I hope they don't burn out soon. (I suspect a staff will get in place if there's a site population explosion, the dev has mentioned getting grants).
So far the creator/dev has been extremely transparent in their Waterfall-social Tumblr and on their staff.waterfall.social account about bugs, issues, themselves, etc.
The creator of Waterfall was also apparently the dev behind an ill-fated venture called Tanburu, which was when the dev, according to their explanation, was far more ignorant and they try to do better now. That's generated some controversy, but I'm going to stick around and benefit of the doubt until they demonstrate otherwise.
Conclusion
I think Waterfall.social is a promising platform with room to grow that will attract fewer of the criticisms Tumblr has. The dev is problematique, as people would say, but I'm hopeful that they've learned and will be able to show that. And there's also the question of, will they be able to handle an influx of users if/when Tumblr sinks? Time will tell.
