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    1. Font size?

      Ask
      I recently upgraded to a pixel 9 pro and noticed that the higher resolution resulted in text that was often too small. I went to my settings and increased my font size to 125%. However, I noticed...

      I recently upgraded to a pixel 9 pro and noticed that the higher resolution resulted in text that was often too small.

      I went to my settings and increased my font size to 125%. However, I noticed that this doesn't seem to apply to titles on Tildes, at least not in a uniform way.

      It's hard to say without going back to my old phone, which I can't easily do right now, but I do think I recall title font size varying depending on the length of the title. But perhaps the difference wasn't as drastic on my old phone due to the difference in resolution? Perhaps the titles with smaller font sizes were still easy to see so I didn't really notice? It's just very noticable on this phone. I don't want to increase zoom on Chrome for every website just to solve this issue.

      Ideas?

      11 votes

    2. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (November 2024) — Version 1.2 lets you save comment drafts

      Text 205 words
      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care...

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      Happy Thanksgiving! Three Cheers version 1.2 is out for Android and iOS! (Nov 27, 2024)

      • Save drafts of comment replies, edits, and private message replies
      • Manage drafts via Settings
      • Improved some error messages

       

      Does not yet support saving drafts of new submissions

      I know some of you were hoping for topic submission drafts, but I wanted to release what I've implemented so far with comment drafts. This version took a decent amount of time to develop, and I didn't want to delay it further by adding submission drafts in this release. Thanks for your patience!

       

      Previous topic: September 2024

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      90 votes

    3. Where does your username come from? (Following up on last year's thread)

      Ask (survey)
      We had a fun thread last year about what came to mind when other people's usernames come up. It ended up turning into a cool little online intro of the history of your username, if you have one....

      We had a fun thread last year about what came to mind when other people's usernames come up.

      It ended up turning into a cool little online intro of the history of your username, if you have one. There are so many usernames I don't recognise now that I'm back with a steady internet connection after a long time away.

      Mine is boring sorry - I switch usernames every 12 months or so for the illusion of control regarding anonymity. My main username used to be Iain M. Banks' Culture series related, so I do miss meeting fellow Culture fans, but this year it's just from a random number generator.

      Does your username have an interesting backstory? I recently learned that @chocobean wasn't a chocolate bean, and @cfabbro wasn't a Computational Fabrication Bro, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there.

      67 votes

    4. Follow up on the username thread: What Tildes users do you recognize when browsing and, without being rude or inflammatory, what is your impression of them?

      Ask (survey)
      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise...

      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise I kind of have username blindness. I was absolutely shocked to see someone tag me and more shocked to see that someone remembered even a single thing I had ever posted.

      I'll start:

      @cfabbro is pretty on top of things around here. Super knowledgeable about various topics and a stickler for the rules in a really positive way that demonstrates their love for the community and their desire to keep it special. One of the most important Tilderinos (or Tildos, which is my personal favorite that someone suggested a while back). Thanks for all that you do, and if you're the one who has to go though and fix my god-awful tags then a double thanks and a sincere apology.

      @boxer_dogs_dance, like cfabbro has a very wide range of interests and is quick to share interesting tidbits of information that a lot of people may not know. I think I have disagreed cordially with boxerdogs a few times maybe? But I have a good impression of them overall.

      @deimos is a bit like God, which I think works on multiple levels. The highest power, behind-the-scenes, hard to prove his existence. I have a conspiracy theory that he uses alt accounts to participate anonymously, which I think would be a really smart thing to do. Joking aside, I think Tildes' resiliency and ability to maintain its small town vibe while being quite large is due mostly to his political/philosophical genius. The guiding principles for this site and moderation style have made this a pretty awesome place to be. Case in point: The few times I saw people complain about Tildes' moderation on other websites, I was able to immediately see why that person wasn't a good fit here. They were people who didn't even understand that they were being antisocial or were playing coy when they knew exactly what they were doing. Keeping Tildes more or less free of that stuff is one of the greatest internet achievements I've ever seen.

      61 votes

    6. I've added ~society for topics related to politics, law, policies, and similar societal-level subjects

      ~tildes.official Text 788 words
      The quick summary and important info first: I've just added a new group to the site named ~society, which will encompass politics as well as some other similar subjects. Over the next few hours,...

      The quick summary and important info first:

      I've just added a new group to the site named ~society, which will encompass politics as well as some other similar subjects. Over the next few hours, I'll be moving many existing topics into it, and then based on those topics I'll be automatically subscribing users who have a history of regularly participating in them (based on commenting, voting, labeling, etc.). Feel free to subscribe manually now if you already know you'll be interested, and if you'd like to ensure that you're not automatically subscribed to it by me, go to your topic tag filters page, add politics on a line by itself, and click the save button (I'll be excluding anyone that has politics ignored). I'll edit a note into the bottom of this post later today when I've finished doing the automatic subscriptions.

      Adding a group like this is something that I've been thinking about doing for a long time, but I didn't want to make any major changes as it got closer to the US election, and then I've considered the last week to be a bit of a "blowing off steam" period, where I've been more lenient on the number and quality of political topics than I normally would have. However, I think now will be a good time to add it, since we're probably going to have a lull in significant political news for a short while until it kicks up again, and this will allow the group to get established.

      I've never wanted to have a group devoted to politics on Tildes, and I'm sure that a lot of the older users will be able to remember my explanations about why and find our old discussions about it. I don't think a lot of those reasons have actually borne out over the years. ~misc has effectively ended up as ~politics-in-all-but-name, and political topics are also spread over a lot of other groups (politics-but-with-a-financial-angle ends up in ~finance, politics-but-with-a-healthcare-angle in ~health, politics-but-based-on-a-study in ~science or ~humanities, and so on).

      The default topic sorting on Tildes being activity-based has also ended up making these types of topics feel too prominent. In terms of number, they're a small portion of the total topics posted to the site, but there's a set of highly-active users (who are also a very small portion of the active commenters on the site overall) that comment heavily and quickly in them, which keeps them being constantly bumped back up in the activity listings.

      And on the opposite side, many users clearly want to avoid these topics. "politics" is by far the most common tag that people filter out, with about four times as many users putting it in their filter list as the second most common one (to nobody's surprise, "elon musk"). In theory, tag filtering is a good solution for this, but it's not a visible enough feature and the large majority of users don't use it (or even seem to know it exists). The group system is far more intuitive for this purpose.

      I could continue with other reasons for a while, but the upshot is that I believe it's time to accept that the existing approach hasn't worked out and it's worth trying something different. There are also a few other similar subjects/tags that are generally spread across other groups for lack of an obvious relevant place, so I think going with ~society as a little broader of an umbrella will be able to give those ones more of a home as well. I'd appreciate input about which other subjects you think might fit (but to be clear, I don't intend for this to subsume or replace any of the other existing groups, and especially not ones like ~lgbt, ~life.men, and ~life.women).

      I expect to be busy for quite a while today figuring out which topics to move into the group and experimenting with some different possibilities for choosing which users to auto-subscribe to it, so I probably won't be replying much, but I'll definitely read through the discussion here later. I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank @mycketforvirrad again for their tireless devotion to keeping topics well-tagged across the site—it's a mostly-invisible and mostly-thankless task, but it makes doing a major reorganization like this so much more feasible than it otherwise would have been.

      Edit: Auto-subscriptions should be mostly done now, hopefully I managed to select a decent set of users (and didn't subscribe many people that don't actually want to be—please unsubscribe if you'd like)

      242 votes

    7. Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?)

      Ask (advice)
      Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen...

      Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen any videos like this anywhere else on Tildes, so I decided to post a new Topic. I wasn't sure how to word the description. I knew I wanted to hear other points of view, so I hinted at wanting a discussion and didn't really get into my own thoughts.

      I hit submit and went to bed, thinking that in the morning I might be able to clarify my thoughts, and add to the discussion without dominating it.

      But I woke up to a mess! A mess that I made. The post had been locked and deleted. Apparently this particular YouTuber is very controversial, and posting without any context turned out to be problematic. I was hoping for discussion and boy howdy did I get discussion.

      But since I never really voiced my original intent for posting, it all left me feeling like I had spilled some milk and then someone else had cleaned it up for me. The problem is that I never got to apologize for spilling the milk, and never got to thank the people who cleaned up for me while I was sleeping.

      So I suppose this is sort of a meta post. Has anyone else here had something locked/deleted before being able to "make it right"? Should I have provided more context up front? Vetted the creator better by researching their other videos or other online activity? Am I doing the wrong thing by talking about it post-mortem? I definitely don't want to make things any worse, and super duper do not want to be kicked from Tildes! I really enjoy interacting with people here, and want to make sure I'm adding rather than taking away.

      Also, I just want to say that I'm sorry if this reignites any problems related to the original (now deleted) Topic, and I will happily accept if this Topic also needs to be removed. Please excuse my mess. :)

      49 votes

    8. Can/should Tildes pull out of search engine results?

      Text 75 words
      The other thread about potential spam on the site got me thinking, can/should Tildes hide itself from Google and other search engines (aside from just the main page) to avoid the tentacles of SEO...

      The other thread about potential spam on the site got me thinking, can/should Tildes hide itself from Google and other search engines (aside from just the main page) to avoid the tentacles of SEO from infiltrating the site? I'm not sure how feasible that is, but I know reddit has the option to prevent your profile from getting indexed by search engines so perhaps that could be applied to the site as a whole.

      23 votes

    9. Tildes often takes me away from Tildes (via links) and that's a good thing

      Text 166 words
      It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external...

      It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external news article, an image/video hosted somewhere else or relying on external communication tools, is antithetical to your business model if you rely on ad impressions or sponsored content.

      So when I visit Tildes it's feels different. Often I stumble across interesting links or discussions that take me elsewhere on the web and encourage me to research or think about topics in a variegated way. So after an hour or two I can decide that I have gotten my share of curiosity, entertainment or social interaction and can move on to something else. It helps that the content on here is generally genuine and high quality.

      This is in stark contrast to the endless scrolling loop of other sites that keeps one busy, but never quite satisfied. It's a very good sign.

      37 votes

    10. Could we get a ~politics.us?

      Text 62 words
      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into...

      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into one corner so it can be hidden.

      While Tildes is quite US focused, there is still a lot of us non-us people here.

      40 votes

    11. I am missing a neutral way to flag low-effort or potentially spammy posts

      Ask
      Lately I have seen a few posts here and there from accounts that have been silent for a while, where I can't help but feel that these new posts are made by different people or that the initial...

      Lately I have seen a few posts here and there from accounts that have been silent for a while, where I can't help but feel that these new posts are made by different people or that the initial posts they made were intended to "pad" the account. In other words, they feel a bit like spam and because of that I would like to "flag" them somehow.

      The obvious question people will have is likely "Why not just comment about it under the post?"

      I have done that various times, and it has the opposite effect of what I'd like:

      1. Commenting boosts the post for people who sort based on comments or activity.
      2. From what I have observed, when a post has one comment, it is more likely to receive more votes as well. If it has more than one comment, it will receive more votes. This, to me, bizarre voting behavior is something worthy of a meta discussion in itself. But from what I gather, people seem to think that it indicates discussion. Making them think that there must be something worthwhile about the post. This obviously doesn't apply when it's just the OP sharing a quote and me raising a concern.
      3. Sometimes I am not entirely sure and would like to have someone with more insights behind the screens take a look at it. If I commented my suspicions while being wrong, that would suck for everyone involved.

      Basically for the first two points I am not sure what a good solution would be. I am not advocating for a downvote ability, though something would be nice.
      For the third point, I guess I am saying that I am missing the ability to report a post. With comments, I can use the malice label and write out a report, for posts there is no such thing.

      29 votes

    12. Has there been a discussion about labels on posts themselves?

      Ask
      I love the labels feature of Tildes and use it fairly regularly where I feel appropriate. But recently I wanted to label a post (rather than a comment) and realized that there is no option for...

      I love the labels feature of Tildes and use it fairly regularly where I feel appropriate. But recently I wanted to label a post (rather than a comment) and realized that there is no option for that.

      Is this something that has been discussed before? I did a cursory search but was not able to find anything specific to labels on posts. I'm not even saying that I'd be 100% for the feature, just wondering if it's been discussed before. Questions like 'would it provide a benefit?' or 'if so, should those labels be the same as the ones for comments?' were along the lines of what I was thinking.

      Might be a terrible idea, or difficult to implement for some reason or another, but sometimes I feel like a post could use a label (like 'exemplary' for a well-thought-out post, or 'malice' for one where the article posted feels deceptive and/or misleading) and right now there does not appear to be a way of doing that. Wondering what others think.

      18 votes

    13. Is there a way to hide or otherwise opt out of always seeing votes?

      Ask
      To hide votes on one’s own posts and comments from oneself, that is. I’d prefer the ability to choose whether or not to view the vote count on my own interactions, though I do enjoy having the...

      To hide votes on one’s own posts and comments from oneself, that is. I’d prefer the ability to choose whether or not to view the vote count on my own interactions, though I do enjoy having the option of upvoting other people.

      This isn’t a tildes specific preference, btw, just an aspect of social media I find trying overall.

      19 votes

    14. An export feature would be nice

      Text 41 words

      It would be nice to be able to press a button which would create a zipped file for me to download all of my content on Tildes. Just one markdown file for each post or comment I ever wrote on Tildes.

      22 votes

    16. Announcing Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo) for 2024!

      Text 896 words
      Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of October. The best way to get a feel for Timasomo is to check out our previous Showcase...

      Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of October.

      The best way to get a feel for Timasomo is to check out our previous Showcase topics, where creators share their creations with the community at the end of the event:

      There are no hard and fast rules on what you can create. You can make anything!

      All of the Timasomo topics will be over in ~creative.timasomo, so if you're interested in participating or following along, make sure you're subscribed there.

      All people who respond to this topic will be added to a notification list that I will ping each time I put up a new Timasomo topic. If you do not wish to be added to the list, or you wish to only be notified for the final Timasomo showcase, please let me know.

      The Roll Call thread will be posted in ~creative.timasomo on October 1st. That is the official beginning to the event and is where people will formally commit to their projects for Timasomo.

      FAQs

      What is Timasomo really though?

      Timasomo is a chance to create something/anything!

      There are no restrictions on what you can choose to make.

      Can I participate?

      Yes! Timasomo is open to anyone on Tildes! Please make sure you are subscribed to ~creative.timasomo.

      The greater Tildes community is also encouraged to participate in discussion threads even if you are not actively working towards a creative goal. This is meant to be an inclusive community event -- all are welcome!

      If you are interested in participating but do not have a Tildes login, please e-mail the invite request address here for an invite to the community.

      If you do not want to create something but still want to check out the showcase, let me know in a comment here and I will add your name to a separate notification list that I will ping for the showcase topic only.

      How do I sign up?

      Make sure you are subscribed to ~creative.timasomo and/or are included in my notification list (simply comment on this topic to be added).

      On October 1st, there will be a Roll Call thread. By posting your plans to participate in that thread, you have formally signed up for Timasomo!

      Didn't it used to be in November?

      Yes. Timasomo was originally inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November.

      Initially, I wanted people participating in NaNoWriMo to be able to share their work with Timasomo as well. In the entire time it has run, however, no participant has publicly submitted any work from NaNoWriMo to Timasomo. Instead, Timasomo has gained its own identity independent of NaNoWriMo (which, after recent events, is probably for the best).

      Many participants from previous years have shared that October would be a better month for them personally, so we moved the event to October.

      Also, the event was so fantastically popular that it regularly upstaged American Thanksgiving, thus we only felt it fair that Canadian Thanksgiving be targeted as well.

      What are the rules?

      Timasomo is self-driven and its goals are self-selected.

      On October 1st, participants will commit to a creative project (or projects) that they plan to complete within the month of October.

      There is no restriction on the methods/products of creativity: writing, painting, code, food, photos, crafts, songs -- if it's creative expression for you, it works for Timasomo!

      Though most will be participating individually, collaborations are welcome too!

      What is the schedule?

      Timasomo begins October 1st and ends October 31st.

      All creative output towards your goal(s) should be confined to this time.

      This week prior to the start of October is for planning. There will be a few days at the beginning of November given to "finishing touches" before we have our final thread, which will be a showcase of all the completed works.

      Below are the dates that I will be posting weekly threads:

      Tuesday, October 1, 2024: Roll Call Thread
      Tuesday, October 8, 2024: Update Thread #1
      Tuesday, October 15, 2024: Update Thread #2
      Tuesday, October 22, 2024: Update Thread #3
      Tuesday, October 29, 2024: Final Update Thread
      Tuesday, November 5, 2024: Timasomo Showcase Thread

      Do I have to share my creation(s) publicly?

      Tildes is a privacy-respecting site, and you are not obligated to share your creation here if you do not want to. We'd still love to hear about it though, if you're willing to share process and details!

      Is it Timasomo or TiMaSoMo?

      Either.

      I personally use "Timasomo" because I think it looks cleaner and because too much time on the internet has made my brain incapable of reading "TiMaSoMo" as anything other than sarcasm, but go with whichever you prefer.

      The best option, however, is “𝑻𝑰𝑴𝑨𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑶” for reasons that are self-evident.

      This Thread: Planning!

      Post your ideas.

      Give feedback to others.

      Set up collaborations.

      Ask questions.

      Everything in this thread is non-commital! Bounce around ideas and figure out what you'd like to do in our communal brainstorming session.

      Also, please do NOT start work on your project yet! Stage setting, planning, and other preparations are allowed (e.g. getting supplies/materials, setting up workspaces, etc.), but save the creation initiation for the 1st.

      Get excited for another GREAT Timasomo!

      50 votes

    17. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (September 2024) — Version 1.1 adds an in-app YouTube player

      Text 366 words
      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care...

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      Three Cheers version 1.1 is out for Android and iOS! (Sep 14, 2024)

      • Added an in-app YouTube player
      • Added 2 settings related to YouTube and autoplay
      • Tweaked the labels dialog UI
      • (Android) Fixed Back button navigation in the WebView
      • (iOS) Fixed UI bug commenting on a deeply nested comment

      Android version 1.1.2 (Oct 4, 2024): Fixed YouTube player setting, should take priority over Browser type setting. Fixed a UI bug with ignored topics appearing unignored.

       

      Some technical details: The YouTube player uses the YouTube IFrame Player API using the Android and iOS wrapper libraries. They are both open source and I was able to submit some improvement patches to them.

       

      Regarding release schedule: Prior to version 1.0 of the app, I was working (a little too) hard on the app and putting out monthly megathreads. These days I'm allocating my time differently, so topics won't be monthly. Please continue to feel free to reach out, whether posting in the megathread even if months old, or emailing me using the contact info on the app store pages, or using iOS TestFlight feedback functionality.

      Huge thank you to the few people who have set up a recurring donation in the app. From a worker perspective, it's still a tiny tiny amount if comparing with an actual wage developing apps, but luckily for my users, I'm not trying to make a wage from this app, and plan to continue developing it at my own pace. That does mean that updates will be somewhat unpredictable though.

       

      Previous topic: May 2024

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      91 votes

    18. Tildes should recognize the Gaza Genocide, and moderate accordingly

      Ask
      This has been on my mind for a while, and I've voiced a similar concern 1.5 months ago in the recurring topic, but it went unnoticed. Israel has been and still is actively committing genocide...

      This has been on my mind for a while, and I've voiced a similar concern 1.5 months ago in the recurring topic, but it went unnoticed.

      Israel has been and still is actively committing genocide against people of Gaza. You can read a summary of the reasons it's being called a genocide in the Wikipedia entry (and its sources) . Wikipedia itself has recognized it as genocide, naming the entry Gaza Genocide, and it's a major feat considering the contentious nature of the topic and the heavy regulation and debates in Wikipedia culture. Even a UN human rights experts said in March that there are reasonable grounds to think a genocide is being committed, and UN is dominated by US influence, and is much slower to act and react, especially when western or US interests are concerned (which applies in this case, because Israel is an ally).

      Israel's online propaganda machine has been hard at work about this issue, in order to control the narrative (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Israel also now ranks among the world’s leading jailers of journalists., another evidence of their commitment to suppress dissenting voices and control the narrative around this issue. It's also worth noting that western coverage of Israel's acts has been said to be legitimising Israel's behavior.

      I think most things in the world are some shades of gray, and it's very understandable for people to have ambivalent attitudes about it, but I do not think this is one of those cases, for the following reasons.

      • There is an active, ongoing genocide.
      • The genocider nation-state has been spreading its propaganda to control the international narrative, especially in US (because US is its biggest ally and funder). It's doing this because it knows support from US and its allies is crucial to keep the genocide going. This involves manufacturing consent in the citizens of these nations.
      • Tildes is heavily populated with citizens of US and other western nations.
      • Not actively opposing this propaganda means one is helping -albeit indirectly but still significantly- the genocider nation.

      I should clarify that, as of this moment, I'm not blaming the moderators, and I'm not saying they are doing this consciously and with full consideration. Instead, I'm trying to illustrate what is going on in the wider context, and what the actions in this mini-environment mean in the wider context. Simply put, genocidal propaganda is not an issue where you can follow the middle-ground, especially when you have power over a community.

      For these reasons, I propose two changes in terms of moderation.

      1. Both from now on and retroactively, change the names of the "Israel-Hamas war megathreads" to "Gaza Genocide megathreads".
      2. Create and, both from now on and retroactively, use the tag "Gaza Genocide" when tagging.

      The first point is self-explanatory. As for the second point, there comes up only 4 topics when I search for "Gaza Genocide" in the site, even though there have been numerous discussions about it. None of them have the mentioned tag, but they have the Gaza and Genocide tags separately. Furthermore, one of the topics is mine, and I had put the tag Gaza Genocide but it was later removed by moderation, and replaced with other tags mentioning this topic. Again, not throwing personal shade to anyone, but I think this is not a good way to go about this topic. A special tag would give it more visibility, which the victims of the genocide need.

      These are my suggestions. If anyone can think of anything else, they are welcome to share as well.

      64 votes

    20. It is time to do away with the empty recurring weekly threads

      Text 166 words
      It's time to do away with the recurring weekly threads about US politics, about Israel and Palestine and other similar threads that clearly do not need weekly recurring threads. Those who do not...

      It's time to do away with the recurring weekly threads about US politics, about Israel and Palestine and other similar threads that clearly do not need weekly recurring threads.

      Those who do not wish to see topics on those events should unsubscribe from the relevant keywords for their own browsing, as all of us with other interests unsubscribe from those keywords.

      There is no flood of this content that makes gathering things in weekly threads relevant.

      No content is drowning on tildes, as no group has issues with too many posts.

      It's uninviting to folks who are actually contributing submissions to the site to be told they shouldn't be making these, but should rather make them in empty, dead posts. That is not fair to them, nor is it a good look for the site.

      These dead recurring threads should be done away with. They serve no function. The experiment has shown they are not needed, are not used and are simply auto-generated robotic clutter.

      109 votes

    21. Crossposting on Tildes, general thoughts?

      Ask
      It seems like the last real discussion about the subject was about 6 years ago I am mostly wondering what the thoughts now are on crossposting something in different tildes groups. This was...

      It seems like the last real discussion about the subject was about 6 years ago

      I am mostly wondering what the thoughts now are on crossposting something in different tildes groups. This was inspired by a few things. Last week I was unsure where to post something and ended up posting it in the most topical tildes group even though previous posts that took off were posted in a different group. Meaning that people that are subscribed to ~comp but not ~life might have missed the post even though they might be interested.

      Then there is this post. I was about to post the same link before realizing it was already posted. The post in question is posted in ~games, I would have posted it in ~tech. I feel like the overlap between ~games and ~tech subscribers likely is a bit bigger, but also here I feel like people might potentially be missing out.

      I realize this might not be the biggest issue, the majority of people on tildes seem to be subscribed to all groups. But it still, it tickled something in my brain and this is the second time in a short period that I find myself thinking about this.

      Ideally, in my mind, this would be solved on a technical level where you can post something in two groups with a consolidated comment section. However, I don't see this happening in the sort term.

      Tags sort of cover this, but given they can be anything and quite numerous, browsing through them is not something I personally would ever use or actually address this.

      The second-best solution, and the one I'd like to discuss, is to simply cross post and in one of the posts leave a comment linking to the other post to consolidate discussion a bit.

      Am I overthinking the issue? Probably. :) But overall, what are peoples thoughts on allowing cross posts between groups? Any real downsides besides double entries in the listing?

      22 votes

    22. Comment fields are hard to use on mobile

      Text 185 words
      It seems like the input fields for comments are missing some required HTML meta parameters or something like that. When I'm typing in them, on mobile, I don't get any autocorrect or...

      It seems like the input fields for comments are missing some required HTML meta parameters or something like that. When I'm typing in them, on mobile, I don't get any autocorrect or autosuggestions, I can't use swipe input, I can't move my cursor with the space bar, etc. This doesn't happen with any other text field on the site (search, post body, ...), so the problem must be in something like the type param of the input element. This is incredibly annoying and there have been multiple times where I didn't want to write a comment just to avoid dealing with this experience.

      Edit: it also seems like it happens when editing a post, but it doesn't happen when making a new post

      Edit 2: I just tried clicking around and for some reason it only happens when entering a text field for the first time, but not when clicking off and the back into the text field? Might be a GBoard bug then, weird that it doesn't happen on any other site though

      Edit 3: the issue only happens that use markdown_textarea with auto_focus=True

      11 votes

    23. Tildes growth

      Ask
      Do we have any information on how Tildes growth is going? I only use Tildes, used to only use reddit until they pulled their bullshit last year. I don't use any social media and I feel like I am...

      Do we have any information on how Tildes growth is going?

      I only use Tildes, used to only use reddit until they pulled their bullshit last year. I don't use any social media and I feel like I am missing out on a lot of news and things. When I used reddit I had curated my subs to my interests and I feel like I was up to date on everything I wanted to be.

      But now, due to Tildes being a much smaller community, the news I receive is much more generalized and I've been noticing a lot of times I miss things. For example because all video games are clumped together in one Games Tildes, only the most popular kinds of gaming news gets posted there, so more specific or niche things I miss.

      Another example, I had never heard of Ozempic before the South Park episode, and a friend was shocked and told me I was so out of the loop for not knowing what it was. I'd never seen anyone talk about it on here, so how would I know?

      I also notice there's just significantly less engagement overall on Tildes. I can scroll through the front page of Tildes every morning, see maybe half posts I've already seen and half new ones, and by the end of the day there will be a handful of new posts but not many. In its golden years, Reddit would have new posts every few hours with new info or news about different things. Tildes feels really small still.

      Point being, I'm curious how Tildes is doing in terms of growth and whether it looks like it'll be getting larger communities which will split more subcategories into the broad categories we have now. Or if it has plateaued and this is how it'll be for good?

      55 votes

    26. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (March 2024)

      Text 319 words
      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app, which is currently in alpha testing. I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can...

      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app, which is currently in alpha testing.

      I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      Three Cheers version 1.0 is out for Android! (Mar 25, 2024)

      • Submit topics!
      • Added donation option in Settings
      • Share links from other apps to create a Tildes submission
      • Edit topic text
      • Delete topics
      • Require minimum Android 7.1.1
      • Fixed refreshing feed after login/logout

       

      iOS v0.11.3 (Mar 28, 2024): Fixed UI bugs and crashes on large iPhones (Pro Max series), particularly when using the in-app WebView browser.

      iOS v0.11.2 (Mar 8, 2024): Fixed crashes in Inbox under the Comments tab.

      Android and iOS v0.11.0 (Mar 3, 2024)

      • Added sort options for topics
      • Tap username on comment, and topic OP, to view profile
      • View markdown of topic OP
      • Fixed minor UI bugs
      • (Android) Fixed wrong profile showing via bottom tab, after logging into a different account

       

      Android and iOS v0.10.0 (Feb 15, 2024)

      • View and send private messages
      • Added button to send private message from a user's profile
      • Added "Tap to refresh" when a feed is empty
      • Show posted time in topic OP
      • Renamed bottom tab to Inbox (instead of Notifications)
      • (Android) Removed animation when using bottom tabs
      • (Android) Fixed crash when replying from a user's profile
      • (iOS) Fixed crash toggling Details in topic OP
      • (iOS) Fixed layout bugs with markdown tables
      • (iOS) Fixed UI bugs when replying in a user's profile
      • (iOS) Fixed minor UI bugs and crashes

       

      Last month's topic: February 2024

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      iOS version on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      116 votes

    27. Additional length tags?

      Text 106 words
      Sniffing around in the topic history here, I see a single mention of "medium length/watch", which would fit in with what I have in mind. However, what I'm really angling for here is "very long...

      Sniffing around in the topic history here, I see a single mention of "medium length/watch", which would fit in with what I have in mind. However, what I'm really angling for here is "very long read/watch" tags, as I've seen articles here that are at least twice the length of others with "long read", and anything by, for example, NeverKnowsBest, is going to be an order of magnitude larger than the 30 minute minimum for long watch.

      "Very short read/watch" is probably fine too, but I imagine that anything that would actually fit that label is probably against the posting spirit of Tildes.

      7 votes

    30. Personal blogging

      Ask
      Hey there everyone, I've been on here since near the start, and spend too much time finding content to post on here, but I just love this place. One thing I've noticed over the years is a severe...

      Hey there everyone,

      I've been on here since near the start, and spend too much time finding content to post on here, but I just love this place. One thing I've noticed over the years is a severe lack of personal articles, blogs, or the similar and I think it's to do with the 'officialness' of a lot of the topics.

      Would it be beneficial to just have a ~blogs section, to post links and thoughts on our personal writings? Even if that includes things like ~tech or ~cooking or whatever? Just to have a central place for our articles.

      I don't mind posting my own in ~tech, but I can imagine the hesitation for everyone else as those areas feel more in-tune with "news" than personal thoughts. We have ~creative, but that feels more for artistic endeavors and projects.

      Any ideas how we might be able to encourage more topics or links to personal (small-web) blogs (either your own, or someone else's) in the culture here? We seem to be becoming more and more a news aggregator, which is great because of the relevance and discussions (best on the web) but we have no real culture for small-web indie blogging.

      48 votes

    31. Introducing Surfboard for Tildes

      Text 449 words
      Hello, Tildes Allow me to introduce myself. I came over to Tildes fairly recently after Twitterriffic died and Apollo announced it would shut down. As a relative youngster, I tend to mostly browse...

      Hello, Tildes

      Allow me to introduce myself.

      I came over to Tildes fairly recently after Twitterriffic died and Apollo announced it would shut down.

      As a relative youngster, I tend to mostly browse on mobile.

      While I do appreciate Tildes' philosophy of having a simple website that works well on desktop and mobile, I've always preferred mobile apps. I'm a strong believer that a well-built native application will always provide a richer experience than a website.

      But enough talking.. showing is way more fun - here's a lil' something I've been messing around with:

      Introducing Surfboard for Tildes

      The goal is simple: to be the best way to interact with Tildes on mobile.

      Features

      Surfboard is still extremely early, and is missing many features.

      With that said, here is what it currently supports:

      • Login to Tildes (supports 2FA)
      • Browse topics
      • Filters & sorting
      • Browse comments
      • Advanced rendering is still in early stages..
      • Supports comment collapsing behavior from the web version
      • Reply/vote/bookmark/ignore on topics, comments, & notifications (requires login)
      • Search topics
      • Global search
      • Search within groups
      • Option for in-line images
      • Clean browsing interface
      • In-line markdown preview when composing replies
      • Share topics & comments
      • Notifications
      • View read & unread notifications
      • Reply, vote, bookmark, mark as read...
      • Customizable
      • Toggle settings, set custom gesture actions, etc.
      • Free, as in beer

      The design draws some inspiration from Apollo for Reddit, an app that I loved & am very sad will be discontinued.

      Try it yourself

      I would love to get some feedback from other Tildes users on the app. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, you can get it here via TestFlight

      Surfboard is built for iPhone, and requires iOS 16.0 or higher.

      Inside the app is a 'roadmap' of sorts which is basically a list of things I know are missing, but if there's something you want that isn't listed there, I'm all ears.

      Formatting is a little rough at the moment, although I made enormous improvements on the parsing & rendering there over the last day.

      It should support just about anything you throw at it other than a <details>

      (I'll get around to them, I swear..)

      If you run into issues viewing a post/comment, you can easily open them in an in-app safari window from the menu.

      As mentioned above, it's very early, but it's already becoming my favorite way to browse Tildes. I hope that others will enjoy it as well. Consider it my gift to the Tildes community.

      Cheers !

      Edit:

      The best way to submit feature requests & bug reports is to add it to the issue tracker and/or leave a comment on this thread and I’ll get around to adding it myself.

      Thanks !

      278 votes

    33. Put an "ignore" link next to the topic name in topic lists

      Text 39 words
      It would be convenient not to have to open a topic to click the "ignore" link. Being forced to open a topic to click the "ignore" link isn't going to make me give the topic a second chance. :-)....

      It would be convenient not to have to open a topic to click the "ignore" link.

      Being forced to open a topic to click the "ignore" link isn't going to make me give the topic a second chance. :-).

      Thanks.

      12 votes

    34. Better reply features

      Text 431 words
      Not too much to say here. It's pretty barebones right now. Dunno if it's a major goal, but given the whole point of tildes was for it to encourage better discussions, it'd probably help if the...

      Not too much to say here. It's pretty barebones right now. Dunno if it's a major goal, but given the whole point of tildes was for it to encourage better discussions, it'd probably help if the reply feature was looked at a bit.

      1. I believe that the formatting help should contain the word "Spoilers" in the header for expandable sections. It's probably the most common reason I find myself going to the help doc of a site, because most other things just follow markdown format these days, and yet that word doesn't exist on that page and I still consistently see people asking how to do it.

      2. I like that you can resize your replies. I hate that it's possible to accidentally resize the box UNDER the sidebar making it impossible to get to the scroll bar or the resize "'grip" on the lower right corner.
        https://imgur.com/a/xDVTigJ

      3. How much of RES can be emulated?
        The normal reply view, with most of the shown buttons pushed:
        https://imgur.com/a/GW5eNeY
        And the large editor mode for more substantial posts:
        https://imgur.com/a/XCdNEfN

      It's a pretty clean interface that does 3 important things in my eyes:

      1. Gives you LIVE previews. Matters more on reddit where it's easier to accidentally screw up your line breaks and get formatting you were not expecting, but for more complex posts it can be annoying clicking back and forth between the preview pane.

      2. Quick buttons for common features. I know the markdown for most things, but buttons are nice, especially for "oh shit i want this whole section to be a quote/codeblock/spoiler" moments.

      3. The "i'm going to write the wheel of time in this window" large mode which can help ensure somewhat decent flow for more complex topics.

      Some of this matters more due to reddits nature as a community resource (games/hobbies/whatever all have large pinned threads, and hell their own mini wikis), but again just wanted to bring this stuff up as it's either kicked me in the teeth or prevented me from making larger posts/topics more than once.

      Edit- and i suppose to make my case I had to edit this because I screwed up my line breaks and forgot how they get handled with numbered lists. If i could just see the preview and make the change i'd use it more, but since it requires just clicking off, scrolling down, checking my work, clicking back, finding my place, and editing, I find it just easier to post and uh...fix it in post.

      23 votes

    36. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (April 2024) — Version 1.0 is out for Android!

      Text 257 words
      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app, which is currently in alpha testing. I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can...

      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app, which is currently in alpha testing.

      I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      Three Cheers version 1.0 is out for Android! (Mar 25, 2024)

      • Submit topics!
      • Added donation option in Settings
      • Share links from other apps to create a Tildes submission
      • Edit topic text
      • Delete topics
      • Require minimum Android 7.1.1
      • Fixed refreshing feed after login/logout

      Android v1.0.2 (Apr 13, 2024): Validate submission tags, fix submit UI bugs, fix comment UI bugs with horizontal rules.
      Android v1.0.1 (Apr 1, 2024): Fixed crashes on home feed

       

      iOS v0.11.3 (Mar 28, 2024): Fixed UI bugs and crashes on large iPhones (Pro Max series), particularly when using the in-app WebView browser.

      iOS v0.11.2 (Mar 8, 2024): Fixed crashes in Inbox under the Comments tab.

      Android and iOS v0.11.0 (Mar 3, 2024)

      • Added sort options for topics
      • Tap username on comment, and topic OP, to view profile
      • View markdown of topic OP
      • Fixed minor UI bugs
      • (Android) Fixed wrong profile showing via bottom tab, after logging into a different account

      Last month's topic: March 2024

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      iOS version on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      111 votes

    37. Tildes as a bug tracker

      Text 141 words
      I've seriously been thinking about this for.... four years. There might even be a comment somewhere in my long history of using this place about it. But, I think tildes could be a fantastic and...

      I've seriously been thinking about this for.... four years. There might even be a comment somewhere in my long history of using this place about it.

      But, I think tildes could be a fantastic and perfect tool as a bug/feature/discussion/news tracker for both software and hardware projects. The only thing that would need to change is displaying a number index on each post.

      To the developers and tinkers out there, what else do you think would be needed feature-wise? Tags are quite versatile, and if we got the #tag.children visible only search working it would work great for setting priorities, etc.

      Has anyone been able to spin up tildes on their own system? I tried about two or so years ago to work on this very slight modification, but never was able to get it going.

      19 votes

    38. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (May 2024) — Version 1.0 is out for iOS!

      Text 365 words
      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if...

      This is a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

      Recently:

      Three Cheers version 1.0 is out for iOS! (May 2, 2024)

      • Submit topics!
      • Added donation option in Settings
      • Share links from other apps to create a Tildes submission
      • Edit topic text
      • Delete topics
      • Fixed bottom tab bar bugs

      Three Cheers is now on the App Store! (As of May 7, 2024.) This enables in-app purchases for donations, as well as installation on older devices that don't support TestFlight, such as iPhone 5s and iPad Air 1st gen.

       

      iOS v1.0.2 (May 29, 2024): Fixed links shared from some apps going into wrong submission form field. Fixed lost spaces when editing a submission tag. Fixed <small> HTML tags in comments. Fixed crash replying in a topic, if visiting that topic from inbox.

      Known Bug in v1.0.0 on iOS: Scroll bugs preventing access to some submission form fields when sharing link from another app. (Fixed in v1.0.1.)

       

      Android v1.0.4 (May 29, 2024): Fixed scroll-to-top button bug. Fixed <small> HTML tags in comments. Fixed unwanted space added when editing submission tags.
      Android v1.0.3 (May 1, 2024): Added username to Submit screen, improved donation animation, fixed Expand all comments bug.
      Android v1.0.2 (Apr 13, 2024): Validate submission tags, fix submit UI bugs, fix comment UI bugs with horizontal rules.
      Android v1.0.1 (Apr 1, 2024): Fixed crashes on home feed

      Three Cheers version 1.0 is out for Android! (Mar 25, 2024)

      • (Same features as 1.0 on iOS)
      • Require minimum Android 7.1.1
      • Fixed refreshing feed after login/logout

      Last month's topic: April 2024

       

      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      111 votes

    39. Some observations about some of the conversations here

      Text 66 words
      A number of people on Tildes tend to be contrarians. If you say black, they have to say white. They pick knits, they split hairs, they are persnickety. A number of people on Tildes jump at any...

      1. A number of people on Tildes tend to be contrarians. If you say black, they have to say white. They pick knits, they split hairs, they are persnickety.

      2. A number of people on Tildes jump at any chance to defend the status quo.

      There are others who are neither of these things, of course. I've just been noticing the two patterns above ( "no you haven't!" lol ).

      31 votes

    40. [SOLVED] Who do I contact to apply to "A Layperson's Introduction to" series in ~sci?

      Ask
      Hello, I wrote an introductory post titled Introduction to the physical basis of global warming. I think it would be a good fit for A Layperson's Introduction to... series, but I don't see any...

      Hello, I wrote an introductory post titled Introduction to the physical basis of global warming. I think it would be a good fit for A Layperson's Introduction to... series, but I don't see any contact info on that page, and the person who started the series doesn't seem to have been active in the last 5 years.

      So, how do I apply? Also, I think it would be better if the page was updated with info on how to apply.

      11 votes

    41. Should moderation be more transparent?

      Ask
      Before starting this topic, I thought I'd start a discussion that wasn't held before. @cfabbro and other commenters who have better memories than I pointed out that this isn't the case. They've...

      Before starting this topic, I thought I'd start a discussion that wasn't held before. @cfabbro and other commenters who have better memories than I pointed out that this isn't the case. They've also laid out it's been tried and was unsuccessful. I stand corrected.

      I do not want to contribute any noise to the website, so I'd appreciate it if @Deimos can lock or remove the topic all together, if he deems it appropriate. I'd also appreciate it if no further comments are made so as to not put any further burden on moderation. I apologize for wasting everyone's time.

      My original post

      Frankly, I'm not sure if I should even be writing this as it will likely end up consuming more of my time than I intend to spend on it, but as someone who's relatively a veteran member of this community1 which I'm happy to be a part of, I want to voice my only disappointment with it to see what the rest of the community think and try to explore if there might be better way to do things.

      Let me preface my post with some baseline opinions that I do hold.

      Tildes is a private platform, in that it's owned by a single person and managed by a few select moderators. These people have, I assume, shared opinions on how to run a community based on their priors. This is well within their right. This post is not about some misguided criticism of Tildes because it lacks free speech or whatever. It's a private community that we're a part of because we're allowed to be in it. It'd be disappointing, but people who have the power to do so can show me the door today and I'd not hold it against them.

      I have no doubt moderating the website as well as moderators have is a time consuming, thankless job and they do it not for any gain but to contribute back to the community they too are happy to be a part of. My post does not intend to criticize the moderators themselves.

      What prompted me to write this post was the apparent removal of Macklemore's Hind's Hall topic. It was a topic of personal interest and I had followed the discussion as well as I can without contributing to it myself, other than some voting and a couple of labeling that I thought was justified. I understand and somewhat agree that the last time I read the comments the conversation had veered off topic to the election and voter preferences2 but, despite the conversation getting circular, it seemed civil. It had valuable contributions from opposing views and I learned from it but now it's gone. Maybe something happened and people started to attack each other in the comments when I was asleep but as of late last night my time (I'm currently in a GMT+3 zone), that was objectively not the case.

      Regardless, this post is not about why that specific topic was removed3. It's just the most recent example of a trend, or rather the general pattern with which the moderation decide on how to handle topics that can sometimes be controversial. I'm not a native speaker and it can be hard for me to turn a phrase sometimes, so let me be clear: there are topics that should be removed without seeing first how the community will respond to it. For example, I personally don't take kindly the posts that seem to think someone's existence or dignity as a human being can be a matter of discussion. I think these topics should and rightly do so get nuked out of existence. But in the case of the most recent example, I don't think that was the case.

      What I'd suggest, or rather like to put forward is the idea of some kind of a moderation log that show the rest of the members of the community how and why a moderation decision was made. We already do have this system as "Topic log" in each thread, but its scope seems narrow. I, as someone who enjoyed following the aforementioned topic, would've liked to know why moderation decided to take the action that it did, instead of, say, a seemingly more agreeable action to lock the topic down to new comments. It would've helped preserve the discussion and frankly, be more respectable toward people who put their time into contributing to it as it had long, thoughtful posts in it.

      I guess that's the crux of the issue for me. The moderation is so opaque that I don't even know who the moderators are, even as a long time member of this community. They're not listed anywhere that I can find. I know that @cfabbro and @mycketforvirrad often add tags and @cfabbro has in their bio that they're a moderator, but I also seem to recall, maybe wrongly, that there's a hierarchy between the mods themselves with regards to what they can and cannot do. I do believe that who ever they are, they are acting in good faith but I also think there's a great information asymmetry between moderators and the rest of the members of the community. Deimos and the moderators shoulder the thankless burden of maintaining the health of the community, but I don't think it'd be far fetched to say that the rest of the members play a part, too. So why not give us the benefit of the doubt sometimes, trust us to have respectful disagreements without getting involved too much, but when you do, let us know why you did4?


      I'm sorry if this reads as disjointed mumbo jumbo. I'd appreciate it if my post is taken in good faith that it is written and if you want me to clarify something, you can ask me directly to do so. My intention with this thread was to start a conversation to see what the community's opinion on how the website is being moderated, so while I'll read every single comment, I will not be contributing to it further unless it's necessary.

      1: I had a different account from early 2019 that needed to be removed due to privacy reasons. Since name change was not possible, I created this new account with the advice and help of @Deimos.
      2: Though it could be argued that it was a relevant discussion, given the spirit of the video and the part where the artist reveal their own voting preference.
      3: I will refer to it to help me make my point but please do not assume I'm obsessed about that particular topic.
      4: I do realize this would inevitably increase the workload of moderators. My suggestion isn't that moderation should justify every action they take but there are some actions that are irreversible, which happen few and far in between, that I think should be justified. (Keep in mind what I mentioned in my preface.)

      20 votes

    42. Happy 6th Birthday, Tildes!

      Text 38 words
      Happy birthday, Tildes! Thanks again to @Deimos for making the best little link aggregator community on the net, and keeping it running so well. And thanks to all you lovely people for all your...

      Happy birthday, Tildes! Thanks again to @Deimos for making the best little link aggregator community on the net, and keeping it running so well. And thanks to all you lovely people for all your worthwhile contributions here too. :)

      195 votes

    43. Creating an official politics group?

      Text 262 words
      So this topic is something that could very easily just be bothering myself, but I figured I’d share before unsubscribing to ~misc. If this is the wrong group, I apologize, please feel free to move...

      So this topic is something that could very easily just be bothering myself, but I figured I’d share before unsubscribing to ~misc. If this is the wrong group, I apologize, please feel free to move it to the correct location. I will also preface this by saying I only really view Tildes occasionally, and am not the most active user, so those two things might be contributing to this.

      I am wondering if creating an official Politics group would be beneficial to Tildes. I’ve noticed that the majority of recent posts in ~misc is mostly regarding politics. I don’t want to necessarily just unsubscribe from ~misc, in case something non-political and interesting to myself ends up getting put there, but if that’s the solution I’m more than happy to do it.

      I just figured that with the amount of activity going on there fairly regularly, either a dedicated ~politics group or a sub group (maybe ~misc.politics or ~news.politics?) would be better? That way other users similar to myself could unsubscribe to that instead of unsubscribing to the much broader ~misc group.

      I personally do enjoy the way that Tildes is setup, and don’t see any bad interactions in those posts. It’s definitely more of a personal thing.

      That said, I don’t want to make people think that I’m telling them how things should be run, merely throwing my two cents out there, no matter how worthless they are.

      Thanks to everyone for posting, and to the mods/admin for keeping everything running smoothly. This really is a solid community!

      19 votes

    44. Tildes is changing the way I use and think about online engagement. How about you?

      Ask
      I'm used to browsing places like reddit, mastodon, kbin.social and midnight.pub. If I'm lucky I can find something lighthearted, witty or interesting. But there's a lot of outrageous posts as well...

      I'm used to browsing places like reddit, mastodon, kbin.social and midnight.pub. If I'm lucky I can find something lighthearted, witty or interesting. But there's a lot of outrageous posts as well as personal ramblings that make the effort feel like a slog.

      I was slow to get into Tildes because I didn't find much "quick hit" posts, such as a good topical quip. I also wasn't as sure how to navigate to places I might want to post. But I did find it very easy to engage with existing posts.

      It's in these existing posts that the transformative stuff happened for me. On other sites, long-form posts were often not in my interest or self-indulgent. But I found myself taking my time here, perhaps guided by the thoughtful comments that I saw already beneath the posts. Looking back, it's like a tone was set that I respected and didn't want to diminish.

      The result is that I find the other sites under-stimulating, in spite of their design. Tildes has been really good for helping me reform my internet habits. I don't have that regret of excessive internet use as much now. Thanks to deimos and everyone on the site that makes it what it is.

      If I miss one thing, it's using my native language. But at the same time, my gut says that things are good just as they are.

      63 votes

    45. If we can't block users can we at least filter out topics posted by those users?

      Ask (survey)
      It seems like Tildes is not going to ever get a block user function. But it would be really handy if I could get a filter to auto-ignore any topics started by certain users. Would this be...

      It seems like Tildes is not going to ever get a block user function.

      But it would be really handy if I could get a filter to auto-ignore any topics started by certain users. Would this be something that Tildes would ever implement?

      48 votes

    46. Feature suggestion: Show the "Post a new topic" button on the front page

      Text 190 words
      Hi everyone, first of all, thank you for creating and maintaining this site - I don't think I've ever seen a more constructive and friendly general-purpose community online. :) In the last few...

      Hi everyone, first of all, thank you for creating and maintaining this site - I don't think I've ever seen a more constructive and friendly general-purpose community online. :)

      In the last few weeks, after getting access to tildes, I stumbled multiple times over an interesting article that I thought that would fit on Tildes. But I didn't see a button to post it on here. I assumed it has to be something related to rating or account age. I was wondering how long it would take. Maybe a month?

      The volume of posts here is pretty low, so I never saw a reason to visit one of the groups - I only visited the front page. Only now I found out, that the button to post something is only visible if the user is currently on the page of a group.

      I don't know if this happened to someone else, but I personally find it really unintuitive that there isn't a button on the front page to post a topic. Reddit, Lemmy, Discourse etc. all have it like that.

      Did anyone have a similar experience? Or was this a concious choice?

      20 votes

    47. Hey, monthly mystery commenters, what's up with the hit-and-runs?

      Ask
      You might ask yourself “monthly mystery commenters”? Well, let me attempt to explain. I have noticed that on a semi frequent basis, someone will reply to me in a comment. The sort of comment that...

      You might ask yourself “monthly mystery commenters”? Well, let me attempt to explain. I have noticed that on a semi frequent basis, someone will reply to me in a comment. The sort of comment that does invite a reply and isn't a stand-alone comment. Yet, in the case of these comments, whenever someone replies they never do reply in turn.

      Of course, it is entirely possible for people to decide to not reply and still reply elsewhere on tildes. In this case, however, I noticed that there is a group of people who only ever leave single replies and never respond to any follow-ups. More often than not, I have noticed these are people who only leave a comment once per month or every few weeks. Hence, the title referring to the practice of monthly hit-and-run comments.

      It is a bit of a curious pattern, isn't it? To me, this doesn't make a lot of sense. Like, I get that people sometimes don't want to continue a conversation. But to structurally leave comments to never follow up on replies is entirely alien to me. Even more so for comments that really are replies to other people, not stand-alone comments.

      This whole thing has got me scratching my head just enough to make this post. Are they dropping these comments with the best of intentions to return, only to get swept up in other aspects of life? Or is it more about leaving a mark, however brief, to say, “I was here” without the commitment to a full-on conversation? Maybe it's something completely different I haven't even considered.

      So, hit-and-runners, what drives you? I am genuinely curious about this and looking forward to any replies.

      Edit

      This already did get a lot more responses than I ever thought it would get. One observation so far is that a lot of people that replied seem to identify with the title. Yet, so far, for all people I checked they don't fit the type of commenter as I describe in the post itself. It is possible my description just sucks, maybe there is room for a future discussion about commenting based on titles alone. ;)

      It's still interesting to read all the different perspectives people have about commenting!

      Tiny edit: because of the subject, I almost feel obligated to respond to most people. I really shot myself in the food there :D As that is an impossible task, sorry to the folks I don't end up replying to.

      49 votes

    48. Seems like all socials are being scraped for AI and personal/aggregate data. Is Tildes?

      Ask
      I was just reminded of that again when going back and looking at some of my old posts on reddit which is openly selling online data. Prompted me to use Redact which erases and overwrites comments...

      I was just reminded of that again when going back and looking at some of my old posts on reddit which is openly selling online data. Prompted me to use Redact which erases and overwrites comments before deleting them. But that got me wondering if the same is true of Tildes? And how would we know?

      34 votes

    49. Special tag: "Active"

      Text 45 words
      Based off of a suggestion @lou made about special tags, I wonder if would we could make a tag that is automatically applied when a lot of comments are added all at once and then removed when it...

      Based off of a suggestion @lou made about special tags, I wonder if would we could make a tag that is automatically applied when a lot of comments are added all at once and then removed when it reaches a more normal level of behavior?

      16 votes

    50. Requesting feedback on my implementation of Nord into Tildes

      Ask
      Hello fine people. I recently patched the Nord theme into Tildes. I am requesting some feedback on potential changes to make to it. This is my first time doing something like this so please be...

      Hello fine people. I recently patched the Nord theme into Tildes. I am requesting some feedback on potential changes to make to it. This is my first time doing something like this so please be patient if I am a bit slow. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you in advance!

      Dark theme preview
      Light theme preview
      Nord
      Gitlab merge request

      Edit: Thank you everyone for the feedback! I'll try to get the merge request out tomorrow with the fixes.

      20 votes