Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows you to share several different types of content, making it fairly flexible to the needs of its many users. No social network is perfect, however, and Tumblr could use a few upgrades or new features.
While different users might want vastly different services and alterations to the platform, there are some changes that would be beneficial to the majority of the Tumblr community.
See also: The Complete Guide to Tumblr Subcultures
Whether it's avoiding Game of Thrones spoilers without add-ons or figuring out which cute cat photo has earned the most notes, here are six changes we would make to Tumblr.
Communication on Tumblr can be a bit of a hassle. While using the ask box can sometimes be enough to convey a point or have a short conversation, it isn't ideal for users who want to hold longer chats, since the messages disappear after they send a reply. Fan mail is another option, but users cannot see messages they have sent, so they only see half of the conversation.
A chat function, especially one similar to Facebook Chat, would solve this issue. Select users could send you a message, and then you could engage with them in real time. This way, both users could have a record of the full conversation and chat with friends, all while reblogging posts.

Tags are often used to either add commentary to a post or to help others find it. Still, with tags like #nsfw, #spoilers and #trigger warning, it's equally important for users to be able to block posts with certain tags from appearing on their dashboards.
Many Tumblr add-ons will accomplish the task, such as Tumblr Savior, but it's a feature that would be easy to build into the site. It would also be useful for people who work in offices, since not all offices allow you to download outside software.
The updated search function is a vast improvement on the former system, which only allowed users to search the tags on a particular post. By searching through posts and blog titles for selected keywords, it makes finding quality content and blogs easier, rather than hoping someone used tags in a specific manner.
Still, the search function could be taken further and used to find blogs by Tumblr username or handle, rather than users going through the Following tab. Being able to search by content type — text, audio, link, etc. — would also be helpful while searching for songs or GIFs.
Tumblr currently allows users to receive replies from their followers on certain posts. While this is a great way to interact with different types of media, in order to respond to the replies, users have to go through they awkward process of copying and pasting the notification into a text post and responding from there.
While most users are accustomed to the old way of doing things, an updated comment system would benefit many blogs on the platform. It could be as simple as clicking on a reply and having a new post pop up with the reply already in the body.

Tumblr recently added the Activity tab, located at the top right of the dashboard. It allows you to see who reblogs and interacts with you the most, recent activity on your posts and the total number of notes you received in a given day.
While these are all important statistics for users, Tumblr could improve the Activity feature by including more information, such as the post with the most notes or a user's most active day. It might not be a tool all users would use, but it would be especially helpful to businesses and publications with Tumblr accounts.
Tumblr has always included ads on the right side of the dashboard, mostly away from other posts. Now, however, it places advertising directly in the dashboard's feed, much like Facebook, without letting users block or remove it.
It's understandable why these ads are present: Tumblr is a free service, and would otherwise have difficulty surviving without the ad revenue. But allowing users to hide ads from their feeds would still keep the advertisements in place, while giving the user a certain amount of freedom.
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Image: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid