Talk:Do Not Interact

I'd like to track down some of the earliest uses of DNI/DNF/BYF on Tumblr and Twitter. If anyone has refs for those, please add them to the "History" section. I'd also like the page to cover whether there are noticeable differences in how the different terms are used. (So far, they've all looked about the same to me.) - Elf (talk) 23:24, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we have some screencaps as examples? It seems like this is a topic where screencaps would be very helpful and they would break up the text. --Doro (talk) 15:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

It's always been my understanding/my assumption that:

"DNF" is literally about following, or at least used to be?

• This 2016 about page talks about what the tumblr user posts and then says "do not follow me if you do not like this sort of content on your dashboard" while this 2015 tumblr RPer's about page has a section labeled "Warnings" with a bulletpoint that includes "If you are incapable of dealing with those emotions, it’s best that you do not follow or unfollow. I will hold nothing against you."
• This kind of note was, iirc, common in this era of tumblr and tumblr RP and frequently found on about pages, although these are the only two I could find while searching "Do Not Follow" site:*.tumblr.com/about before 1/1/2016.
• Expanding to 2017 found me this professional artist's about page which asks minors not to follow, while the "don't follow if you're under 18" note in the sidebar/blog description is there in Oct 2016 but not there in May 2015.

"BYF" is significantly different (in origin if not in current usage?) because in my experience BYF pages/posts seemed to grow out of and serve the same function as About pages/post. For me, "BYF" pages on Tumblr wouldn't include just telling TERFs or whoever to fuck off but also information about how the user tags posts, if they take requests for stuff to tag, and personal info, etc.

• retroelf's post is actually a really great example because you can see that the DNF statements are just a 'part' of the BYF, not the whole thing — the first three bullet points are just practical information about how following retroelf works.
• I think at some point the before you follow info stopped being put on /about pages and moved to their own /byf pages, though, probably under the assumption that it was important to make that information really easy to find? Searching site:*.tumblr.com/byf before 1/1/2018 only turns up one result: google dates this /byf post as August 2016, but its earliest archive was in 2017.
• This 2018 archive of kincringeemporium.tumblr.com/byf starts with a section that mocks other tumblr users' byf pages, then says "just joking, we actually just don't want you to comment on our posts if [criteria]". The current version of the same page is much more straightforward, but still doesn't ask people not to follow or interact specifically — these tumblr users are only concerned with comments on posts 'specifically' because their followers can see those interactions, rather than straight up demanding that people who disagree with them not interact or follow.

"DNI" meanwhile is also different again because "do not interact" applies to following, sending asks, 'and' liking or reblogging the OP's posts out in the wild, which is why it might get put on individual posts. DNIs can be folded into about pages or byf pages too, but they're also frequently seen on specific posts and in blog descriptions.

• I think putting them in blog descriptions probably got popular when tumblr started showing description info about blogs when you hovered over their icons and urls on the dashboard — this feature that makes blogs link you click on slide their blog out in the right side of your dash was rolled out in 2014, but I think the2015 reblog change was probably more influential because of the hovering.
• The early missing link for DNI is the practice of people putting "do not reblog if..." and "do not tag as..." notes on their posts I think! See this 2014 post that asks people not to rb to bbw/fat fetish tumblrs or 2015 post that has the tag "#PLS DO NOT REBLOG WITH CHARACTER HATE" and also "why can't people tag your art as kin?" (posted 2015). I have definitely seen artists asking people not to tag gen art of two characters with the character's ship, too, but I can't find any examples right now.

I think all three are VERY related, but I don't think I agree that all three mean the same thing and I'm not sure that all of them should really be discussed on this page only — a page about tumblr etiquette for following/reblogging/tagging/etc would probably be an easier place to cover all of the above and more for a full, detailed history, and I think separate (if shorter) glossary pages for BYF and DNF might be appropriate if we can dig up enough info?

Anyway that was a lot of rambling and hopefully some of those links are helpful! - Hoopla (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think they're related but different enough to have separate pages - DNI and BYF for sure; I'm not sure if DNF is different enough from DNI to warrant its own page, but it should have a section at least. (I discovered BYF about two days ago - I don't spend much time in those corners of fandom.) I was surprised to see it tied into DNI here because it seemed obviously different, but then I looked at several of them, and there's a lot of overlap in how they're used. But there are some differences, and enough examples of each that I think they're worth separate pages. Getting the history is difficult, though, because Tumblr doesn't allow date searches (you can search by recent and scroll back... a few at a time...), and Google searches will turn up old posts with a new user-header with the BYF or DNI link. - Elf (talk) 17:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, and a lot of the earlier tumblrs that started this stuff might have been wiped out in the purge! The google searching worked pretty well but was still a struggle because we have to rely on WBM to date things, oof. I have even less of an idea about how i'd research it on twitter, though, haha. - Hoopla (talk) 05:37, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

AO3 section start date

Does anyone have the source for who said the tags started with Stranger Things season four fans? This speculation is untrue so I'm not sure it's worth keeping on the page. I checked the Stranger things tag, and it looks like nobody in Stranger Things fandom used DNI tags until season four, but that's not what's being claimed here.[1]--aethel (talk) 00:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we should just axe that. I did spend a while recenlty trying to figure out when DNIs took off on AO3, and I got the impression it was in 2019 or 2020 -- definitely well before Stranger Things S4 came out in 2022! It might be worth discussing the rise of DNIs within the fandom, but probably on the relevant ship (or ship war) pages, not on this more general pan-fandom page. -- Quaelegit (talk) 06:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I removed it!--aethel (talk) 03:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Enforcibility/Enforcement

A lot of discussion of DNIs (at least on tumblr) focuses on or assumes the impossibility of enforcing them (e.g. I don't have an example to hand, but all those posts mocking "what makes you think <BAD PERSON> will read your DNI, realize they match your description, and the respect your wishes"). But anyways here's a post complaining about people actually trying to enforce DNIs: t’s always insane to me when people DM me to yell at me about breaching their DNI because I reblogged a post from them (alt link). Not sure where this could go on the page, maybe in the Discussion and Criticism section. -- Quaelegit (talk) 20:52, 13 February 2024 (UTC)