I'm looking for an article that was posted on Tildes in the last year I believe, on online communities and moderation.

I think it was a link to someones personal blog and the author was female. It talked about the challenges of moderating communities with free speech as a core value, because all it takes is a few bad actors pushing that to it's limits and it completely derails the community and puts too much strain on moderators.

The article itself was very good, but I also remember the discussion on tildes was a very good read as well. I have tried searching tildes, using google and chatGPT4 and while I can find a lot of good threads related to this topic, I can't seem to find this one with the article.

Does anyone remember this article/thread?

I realize it's maybe a long shot and it's just a vague memory, so I apologize if this is an annoying post, but it doesn't hurt to ask?

Maybe everyone knows this, but I suspect not. For years, I've been using the points I earn on a Chase Freedom card directly on Amazon. I just found out today that I'm only getting 80% of the value. Redeeming 26,345 points at Amazon yields $210.76. Redeeming 26,345 points on the Chase website (for an Amazon gift card) yields $263.45.

The Chase Amazon Prime Visa does give 100% of value directly on Amazon's site.

This is specifically about voting on comments, and not articles. I think voting for topics is clear and intuitive.

I've noticed that, while reading users' comments on topics, I have a tendency to think "This is right, so I will vote it up," or "I agree with this, so I will vote it up." I'm not sure I should be doing this, or rather, I'm not sure that's the best use of my ability to vote on comments. I always worry that sites I frequent will morph into echo chambers, and I want to avoid that for this site. I want to encourage expressing alternate viewpoints, because exposure to alternate views helps me grow a human. The vote button is a low-effort means of accomplishing that, and I intend to use it as such.

I think the vote button should be used on comments that enhance the discussion, and help engage people, and not necessarily only on comments that make me feel happy, good or righteous. So, lately, I've been trying to explicitly vote up comments which have replies, especially ones which have several replies, but aren't voted as highly as their children or peers. If someone's comment can engage several people to reply and contribute positively to a conversation, then that comment is worthy of being seen and so I vote it up. I do this regardless of whether or not I agree with the substance of the message.

I've noticed a trend where there will be a low-voted comment with many replies. These aren't trolling comments, because if they were, then they would be removed. These are comments which are engaging people and furthering the conversation, but it seems like the community doesn't value these comments due to their low vote count. This leads me to suspect that the number of votes on a comment might be merely a tally of the number of people who agreed with it.

So, I'm curious. Do you vote on comments?

How do you decide to vote on a comment?

How should we collectively be using the vote for comments?

(As an aside, I also wonder how the psychology of reading comments would change if vote tallies on comments were hidden.)

I've found I need to use the noise label a lot more than I used to.

Given the influx of new user, this was to be expected in some way but I also found that, at least in the first couple of weeks, new people were behaving a lot better.

So this is a friendly reminder to try to keep the noise level low. Recurring themes I would like to see less of:

• Shallow dismissals / dismissals based on zero evidence.
• Pointless cynicism
• Taking cheap shots

I don't want to see these being normalized. If this isn't you, then great, but this post is also for you: It's an invitation to (very politely) call these things out when you see them.

Hey everyone! Currently trying to make sewing more of a hobby by creating things rather than just tailoring/repairing clothes I already own.

I've dabbled but haven't done much (fanny pack humble brag here). Thinking a good first project to get back into it would be making a winter cloak for my gf, this one in particular. Hoping to make it with wool or another warm, fairly snow or proof fabric, open to suggestions for alternatives too.

I'm aware making clothing tends to be more $$$ than buying premade, but having trouble justifying the price on some of the sites I've seen and hesitant when I can't see or touch the fabric before purchasing.

Curious if anyone here would have a recommendation for an online retailer that ships to the US that they think is a good deal? I was hoping to spend a max of $40-50/yard but would be willing to spend more if I got some friendly assurance of a seller's quality and customer service.

Thanks!
(P.S. chronic lurker and think this is my first post on Tildes so just let me know if there is a better group or tags for this!)

Hello Tilderinos! As I am finally entering the holiday slowdown, I wanted to express my gratitude for the community here.

I ended up migrating here from Reddit during the Apocalypse. Before that time, I would have told you that Reddit was a pretty good place, but after having time to detox and spending time here, I realize it was just better, but still pretty awful. With a few exceptions (like r/3Dprinting), the negativity I would get hit with when posting anything was pretty toxic.

I also set up Lemmy Sync on lemmy.world, but it's pretty much only good for scrolling shitposts and memes. Which sometimes I want, but if I dig into the comments under a topic, the noise factor is so high that it's usually not worth it.

Tildes is really different. The intentionality that people post with, the quality and positivity of the discussion is all amazing. One thing I enjoy especially is seeing reasonable people express views contrary to my own, and being to learn something from them.

This year has been a year of big changes for me. I left a 10 year run at a startup that was starting to lose the plot, becane a stay-at-home Dad to relaunch my wife's career, and wrestled with major health issues. All of that has been pretty isolating, but Tildes has been a bright spot of connection for me.

Sorry if this comes off as excessively cheesy, but I feel like it's a good time to take a moment and say "Thank you!" I am hoping that if something was really helpful to others, that they will take a moment to share it here.

So far Tildes for me has been truly refreshing. Instead of the polarizing bashing that happens on other social media platforms, the discussions over here have been more than high quality. Actual discussions on topics is the norm and people are aware that other opinions exist.

Cheers to you all and let's keep it that way.

Recently my daughter (third grade) has started learning to type at school. It's a Montessori program, so it's a pretty low tech environment overall, which I mention because I don't necessarily expect them to have a nuanced view of technology issues.

One of the typing programs they use is nitrotype.com, which adds a competitive gameplay element. However, it also has mechanism to friend another player. Friends can only communicate with stock phrases, so there's not too much "Internet leakage" beyond being able to choose a username.

I set it up for my daughter on her Linux Chromebook (I whitelist things I want her to have and everything else is blocked at DNS). Seeing her interact with it the first time, I realized that she spends as much time "adding friends" as doing the typing.

On its face, this activity is pretty harmless. But I am worried about the patterns it might be creating for her. I'm worried about her uncritically engaging with the dopamine hit of getting a new friend. Or how it shapes her idea of how many friends she has or where idea of her self worth comes from. Or what she thinks friends are.

So after that long preamble, here are some questions:

• How would you explain "friends" in this context?
• Would you distinguish them from other kinds of friends, either real or virtual?
• Would you attach a moral component to the activity? E.g. that it is good/bad or helpful/harmful
• How would you frame it to the teacher? Not so much in terms of whether or not they should do it in the classroom, but what kinds of conversations should they be having about the friends experience?
• If I'm asking the wrong questions, what questions should I be asking instead?

I'm really interested in seeing the perspectives people have on this. My own ideas are a bit murky, but I will put them down as a comment.

So, I have my group of IRL friends, and we have a Discord, as I'm sure many people do. I spend a lot of time there, and we've all played games online together since we were in middle school.

Well, now that we're all in our mid to late 20s, real life has caught up with most of us. Scheduling is hard, having free time is hard, having energy is hard, and now we've all found our genres we like, which all adds up to none of us ever playing much together anymore. I'm sure many of you can relate.

I ventured out into LFG groups trying to find a community. I'm not into competitive games, I prefer more cooperative and casual experiences (Satisfactory, NMS, and Snowrunner are my big 3 at the moment). That makes finding a group difficult as is. Finding a group that is primarily my age is harder. But nonetheless I persevered.

I've tried a number at this point, and it's always one of a handful of issues.

1. The group is hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of members big. Everyone gets swept in the masses and there's little individuality. These usually also have problems 2 and 3 due to their size.

2. There's just blatant -obias in the chats. Incels, toxic masculinity, racism disguised as "humor."

3. Supposedly I'm in a group of people who are 21+, but the maturity level might as well be a 14+ server.

At this point I feel like I'm losing my mind, that I'm being gaslit by the online Discord community. There is no way I should be feeling "too old" for this kind of thing, I'm only 26!

So far I only managed to find two online communities in which people are able to hold a productive discussion and share interesting stuff - Tildes and LessWrong. Do you know if there are any other great online spaces like this?

Whizy Kim

The Rejuvenation Olympics, an online leaderboard launched by tech millionaire Bryan Johnson earlier this year, takes the rivalry of the rich to the next level. The game? “Reversing” your age

Link to the article

Participants compete not on physical abilities but on how quickly and by how much they can slow their “biological age.”

Competitors do this mostly by adjusting their diets (like which macronutrients and supplements they consume), being physically active, and retesting their “age” regularly. They’re not actually reverting to a more youthful version of themselves — that’s not biologically possible. Rather, these competitors are racing to see who can age the slowest; as the Rejuvenation Olympics website quips, “You win by never crossing the finish line.”

The point isn’t merely being healthy. It’s laser-precision optimization of his health.

Johnson, for example, never eats pizza or drinks alcohol. It’s simply not a part of his algorithm. “I was just a slave to myself and my passions and my emotions and my next desire,” he said in an interview with Vice Motherboard. That doesn’t mean he never stumbles, but when he does, he calls it an “infraction,” as though he has committed a minor crime.

Leaderboard

Johnson tops the Rejuvenation Olympics leaderboard; he created the game along with Oliver Zolman — who leads Johnson’s team of 30-plus doctors and other health experts — and TruDiagnostic, an epigenetics lab based in Kentucky that provides the biological age test kits that participants in the Olympics must submit. The cheaper version costs $229. The more expensive one, at $499, provides more data on your results, including how habits like smoking or drinking alcohol have impacted a person’s aging speed.

Ultramarathon

It’s a contest that participants hope never ends — the most ultra of ultramarathons. The most dedicated members in the longevity community are, in essence, spending their lives obsessing over living. Says Lustgarten: “I plan on doing this for at least the next 70-plus years.”

And I don’t mean that in a good way. In just a few years, Reddit has devolved from a place to find relevant and quirky information, to basically a platform pushing outrage porn, political divisiveness, and mindless memes, with occasional humor sprinkled in.

The outrage porn is the worst, just exhausting and tiresome. The voting mechanics are mostly to blame for this. Since outrage draws the most engagement, the more people who interact with the site, then the more this type of material will surface and thrive.

The political divisiveness germinates similarly, with the added impetus of state actors throwing fuel on the flames.

The memes are seemingly harmless, but are no substitutes for actual dialogue.

I would just like to see a platform that places a premium on meaningful social dialogue for the future betterment of all involved.

Seeking recommendations for Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM) apps for a bi gal like myself for cute dates with other women only?

So far most of what I've tried have been very limited/one way interactions (unsure if people have forgotten how to ask questions!?). ONLY SEEKING FOR SELF, NO UNICORNS/NOT A UNICORN. Sorry just had to make that clear....

Any recommendations would be appreciated! PS am Au based not USA...