I would probably be considered asexual, but I've never really tied too much if my identity to it or anything.

The reason being that I find myself a little put off by the political nature of social advocacy. I'm non straight and non white and non neurotypical, but never in the "popular" kind if way. I'm not BIPOC or LGBTQ or whatever the hip neurological problem to have is.

I'm wondering if anyone else has this kind of perspective. I realize asking this in an LGBT forum is probably not likely to reach people that feel alienated from identifying with the LGBT community, but I'm just seeing if there's other lurkers like me on.

Hi Tildes! Long time lurker here who recently got an account. I love the long-form thoughtful discussion here and thought this might generate some interesting replies.

I and my partner left a high-control religious community (fundamentalist evangelicalism, think a Canadian version of the Shiny Happy People doc) eight years ago, and the experience was like a bomb going off in our life that we still find ourselves recovering from in many ways.

Growing up in that environment led to us having an extremely strong, and very possibly distorted, sense of what community is. People that treat you like family; bringing meals when you're sick, throwing you wedding showers, helping with home repairs, being shoulders to cry on... the works. Of course, as we later found out, this community could very easily be turned against you by certain powerful members of it, and it turned out there were many many strings attached that only became visible once we bumped up against them. When we left Christianity our entire community essentially disowned and ghosted us and we were left adrift.

It's now been eight years and we've managed to develop some friendships with folks that we hang out with once in a while, but nothing that even approaches the level of closeness and "family" that we felt in the church.

But maybe that's not normal or a realistic expectation? The funny thing about being so immersed in a subculture like that your entire life is that when you're suddenly on the outside of it, you realize you don't really have any idea what normal is. I still feel like I don't a lot of the time.

So: What insight can you share? Has anyone had a similar experience? What do your social communities look like out here in the real world? How do you find them?

+1 for slashdot, mainly because of intelligent topics and conversations about science, technology, scifi, games and all that fun stuff. Community participation and quality discourse made it interesting.

Everything on popular social media "out there" now is about click bait and sound bites, even comments and replies. Posts (and communities) are reduced to nothing more than grabbing a few seconds of attention.

Akin to this: https://tildes.net/~tech/1670/redditors_of_tildes_which_subreddits_are_you_missing_the_most_during_the_blackout

What can we leave behind?
What should we leave behind?

For me, the one BIG thing is the stupid puns.
Threads full and full and full of puns, one after the other.

Case in point:
https://tildes.net/~movies/16bf/chasing_horse_faces_sex_assault_charges

I can so live without that side of reddit.

edit: Yeah, that "thread" is two comments long, but I just got reddit flashbacks just seeing those.

Mine is a Facebook group called ALDI Aisle of Shame. I don't know if it's okay to link to it, so I'll just let you all google it if you want to check it out!

Not too long ago on /r/femalefashionadvice, someone mentioned a product in a comment section and I went to look for it online. This lead me to said group and the place was so unexpectedly incredibly wholesome..! It is the silliest thing. There are more than one and a half million members all praising the quality of ALDI products, and posting pictures of their hauls.

Recently, a trend was to post pictures of your dog and even a pony in hats gotten from ALDI and it is just so much fun! Even women doing the Spiderman meme in real life as they spot each other with the same outfit from ALDI.

PS: I am aware Tildes is text-focused so please let me know if this many images in a post is against the spirit of Tildes! Wasn't sure if it's ok to include images in a text post like this.

I'm relocating soon and trying to find the right spot for me. I don't want this to be an individual recommendation thread though. Instead, just tell me about your favorite urban neighborhoods — what you love about them, what isn't so great, and what makes them stand out from the rest.

There have been recent posts that reflect in-depth knowledge and significant effort to provide comprehensive information on a topic (examples here and here).

Yes, it's possible to bookmark these posts for individual reference. However, Tildes doesn't have a pinning feature given the current very loose organization of subjects/interest communities.

In that absence, I'd like to suggest a globally used ".wiki" sub-tag appended to topics, to narrow search results to highly informative entries on a subject.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

I'd go ahead and add the .wiki sub-tag to a couple of entries myself, but I've lost tagging privileges after a long stretch of inactivity. Please consider that I'm interested in volunteering again.

I, clearly along with many others, recently left Reddit and have personally decided not to return unless it sees drastic, lasting change. However, this has made it clear just how reliant I was on the site for multiple aspects of my life, ranging from local and world news, to hobby related announcements, to perspective, advice, and memes directly from marginalized communities. In Tildes I've already found some of what I've been missing, and I'm sure I'll find more as the community continues to grow, but Tildes doesn't have the same setup to allow for finding the same niche communities that I once had (nor should Tildes ever need to have that).

With all of that said, what gaps are you currently experiencing? Have you found any good sites or resources that have helped you or might help others in the thread?

I signed onto Reddit six years ago because that was where I could discuss stuff I liked intelligently. Due to social awkwardness and poor conversational skills, I feel like I contribute nothing to the conversation anywhere, on forums or IRL. I even signed up for Stack Exchange, Hacker News, and Ars Techinca for discussion, but they all look like you need a Ph.D. to contribute anything meaningful?

Am I alone on this? How can I be a productive part of the conversation?

I’ve been here three days. I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what makes this place tick, and have only had a glimpse of the culture encouraged here - and I love what I’ve seen thus far.

Thanks to @deimos I now have five invites to share. Sure, they’ll be tracked if I’m being irresponsible by sharing them with nutcase randos, or if I put them up for sale on eBay (obviously I won’t!).

But I love this place so much already that I’m going to be super selective in my distribution.

I love that responsibility! As a newbie I get to be adulting, and it’s SO welcoming!

In the worst case scenario that Reddit dies; I'm going to miss the /r/exmormon community the most. It's a religion that is not easy to leave (many societal repercussions); and many ex-members experiencing a "faith transition" rely on the discussions in that sub (275K+ subscribers).

Further questions:

• If you go by both, do you ever mix them or do you keep them totally separate?
• Do you let your real life friends, family and peers know about your online pseudonyms?
• For people building an online presence as a kind of brand, how does this impact your choice?

I love to skydive even though I'm relatively new. It's given me lots of motivation to lose weight and the community so far is great! As a trans woman in the US South who jumps in the South, I've found them to be incredibly accepting and welcoming, and there's nowhere I'd rather be than hanging out at the drop zone on a pretty day!

Anyone else like to skydive?

I've been a reddit user for a long time, it scares me how big the number is (death is marching my way quickly).

Before reddit I was on digg, and before that, usenet (before google ruined it). God I miss usenet. I know it technically still exists, but it seems to be mostly binaries and spam.

But the new interface really stinks, and since they've killed .compact, I decided it was time to go. (There were dozens of us using i.reddit.com! Dozens!)

And like the title says, it's a lot like kicking smokes. I was pretty jonesd the first couple days, and the experience comes like an impulse (Brain: "I'm bored! Check Reddit!"), followed by my conscious, no thank you, followed by, "What? No! We have to check reddit! Have to! We must do it now! Now! NOW!" followed by a gradual diminution in intensity of that same message, then a period of life, then repeat. The repeats slowly diminish in frequency, duration, and degree, so that now, only once or twice to I want to hit it.

A couple exceptions: I still check my relevant geographic reddits once in a while, and if relevant, I'll add "reddit" to my google results. I also use stackexchange and wikipedia more for some of those informational reasons, but those two, due to their labyrinthine and fiefish rules constrain content. Another discussion. There are also certain, ah, visual distractions for which reddit is still a good source (and for that I use teddit.net, thanks friendly tilderino!).

To ease withdrawals, I've been clicking tildes a lot more, also slashdot, and fark, and also ibooks. I'm proud of myself, and happy I've done it.

A moment of reflection-why do I like these sites so much? And why not facebook, twitter, etc.? I do like to argue, occasionally even as a third grader, but facebook and twitter have plenty of opporunity for that sort of thing. No, the difference is that reddit (and tildes, and usenet) are structured around ideas, whereas facebook etc. are structured around personalities. I'm an introvert, smarter than most people I encounter (at least along certain axes, many of which may be of dubious merit), curious and interested. Interested in ideas. Which is not to say I do not find people interesting, or do not value close, intimate, personal relationships. But I like to talk about ideas, and most people do not, except on places like reddit and here.

Perhaps I will start my own substack now.

Someday when I leave for good, I'll very likely say r/politicalcompassmemes. The place has always had a right-wing presence but at some point pretty long ago it just became the dominant POV and the place is now solidly a no-go for minorities and 95+% of leftists unless they were turned into a term of 'endearment' on 4chan first like how 4chan users call themselves autists and whatever. The place is also pretty bad at sourcing the articles it posts about purported leftists doing ridiculous things. I have mostly looked at the place from the POV of "rightwingers saying stuff" for quite some time now, but I haven't gotten around for leaving for good because occasionally there's a moderately critical post of the sub and that I am accustomed to the jargon used more often there that's less commonly used elsewhere.

So I browse Tildes, Hacker News, and Reddit, but I'm wondering if there are online communities or hubs out there where entrepreneurial folks discuss actionable business problems and projects, instead of news or memes.

I notice that people will spend endless time online discussing the minutiae of their personal lives, celebrity lives, politics, and son, which are fine. But I want to read about how people are working out the kinks of drone delivery, improving access to and availability of mental healthcare, making municipal permitting more streamlined, and other processes.