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    1. [Language Learning] Telegram groups for practicing languages

      ~hobbies Text 280 words
      I'm an user of group of chat groups called Polyglossia Network, where you can speak with both native and learners from a given languages (and it has lots of languages) So if you wanna join, just...

      I'm an user of group of chat groups called Polyglossia Network, where you can speak with both native and learners from a given languages (and it has lots of languages)

      So if you wanna join, just send a message to @polyglossia_bot (PG's bot) on Telegram and click "Group Links", it'll show you links to every group. I'll leave a list here with the groups from more popular languages just in case, but it might get outdated as sometimes links are changed (to see the full list, send a message to the bot @polyglossia_bot)

      16 votes

    3. The Browns will win the Super Bowl this year

      ~sports.american_football Text 74 words
      The Browns have the best receiving corps in the league right now (upgraded from the worst last year), the Browns have a Journeyman QB who doesn't throw picks (Thanks Kizer), and we have a...

      The Browns have the best receiving corps in the league right now (upgraded from the worst last year), the Browns have a Journeyman QB who doesn't throw picks (Thanks Kizer), and we have a under-study QB who may be franchise QB in the future.

      Furthermore, we have a better than average backfield with receiving backs and "downhill" runners (god I hate that term, it's like corporate speak for "let's circle back"....cliche cliche)...

      4 votes

    4. Anyone here play squash?

      ~sports Ask
      The community here on Tildes is very small just like the Squash playing community. Wanted to see if there is any overlap. So anyway where are you from? How regularly do you play? What's you skill...

      The community here on Tildes is very small just like the Squash playing community. Wanted to see if there is any overlap. So anyway where are you from? How regularly do you play? What's you skill level? What's your main motivation behind playing squash? Favourite player?

      5 votes

    9. Would you visit Westworld?

      ~tv Ask
      Westworld Season 2 is in full swing and I love it so far, but would you live in Westworld if you could? A world with no consequences other than its own societal pressures seems pretty enticing...

      Westworld Season 2 is in full swing and I love it so far, but would you live in Westworld if you could? A world with no consequences other than its own societal pressures seems pretty enticing...

      10 votes

    14. Daily Tildes discussion - starting some moderation

      ~tildes.official Text 396 words
      Alright, this is very late today, but I had some other things to get through first. If you missed it, I locked this topic earlier today (which involved quickly hacking together a lock method...

      Alright, this is very late today, but I had some other things to get through first.

      If you missed it, I locked this topic earlier today (which involved quickly hacking together a lock method because I didn't have one). There was nothing wrong with the subject itself, and some reasonable discussion did happen in it, but overall it was disappointing to see it start devolving into the same old tired arguments, and it was unlikely to go anywhere productive if it had continued. I don't want to focus on that specific post though, and let's (please) try not to turn this thread entirely into a debate about it.

      The thing that I'd rather discuss is that I think this marks the first time I've done any sort of "strong" moderation-like action that wasn't also associated with banning a user (and there have still only been a few of those total). This shouldn't be a shocking or surprising event—introducing some moderation was inevitable if we want to have any hope of maintaining quality, and I'm honestly impressed that we managed to make it a month before it was necessary. From this point, I'm probably going to start doing it a little more (especially as we continue growing), and at least for the near future the actions should mostly be restricted to:

      • re-tagging topics (and I'll give other people the ability to do this as well)
      • editing topic titles
      • moving topics between groups
      • (hopefully rarely) locking topics, or removing topics/comments

      The main thing I'm working on finishing up now is a sort of "topic log" that will show which actions were taken on a topic, and who took them. So for example, once this is deployed, you'll be able to see things like "Deimos added tags x, y, z" or "Deimos changed title to ...".

      So what I'd like to talk about in this thread is just general thoughts on moderation—would you like to see a bit stricter moderation to try to set the bar a bit higher to start? How aggressively should I move topics if I think they don't fit? Do you think we need some sort of global log to list topics that are removed? Opinions on those sorts of questions are welcome, so I can take it all into account as I figure out how I want to approach it.

      62 votes

    30. The identifying terms we use (and the political history behind them)

      ~talk Text 342 words
      Today's political climate has all sorts of terms being thrown around with varying meanings and history behind them. There are Liberals (political ideology for FREEDUM), and Liberals (foreign...

      Today's political climate has all sorts of terms being thrown around with varying meanings and history behind them. There are Liberals (political ideology for FREEDUM), and Liberals (foreign policy), and Liberals (economic policy), and Liberals ("conservatives"), and Liberals ("centrist, anti-absolute monarchists"), and Liberals ("democrats"), and Liberals (some other field that annoys the shit out of me). There are Progressives, and Conservatives, Nationalists, Socialists, Social Democrats, unreconstructed Monarchists, Reconstructed Monarchists, Anarchists, and I'm sure some other political identity that I've missed.

      So, given the rather long list of ways to identify politically, and the just about as long history for those ways to identify politically, I thought we should have a discussion focused exclusively on the political history of the terms we used.

      So, the questions:

      1. What terms do you commonly use to describe yourself and others in your political environment? 
2. What is the relevant history that informs the way you use common political terms to describe yourself and others?
3. Got any links, movies, books, etc., that delve into that history?

      This has the potential to get hairy because of how broad it is, so I'm going to try to remind people of some best practices that I use when engaging in meaningful discussion:

      • Understand before criticizing. - Be able to frame someone's view in a way that they can agree with themselves before critiquing their view. Questions are your friend, but make sure the questions are focused on better understanding someone's view, not on biasing reactions to a view.
      • Assume good faith. - Calling people "trolls" makes me very angry. Don't do it. For any reason. To anyone. If your case is so bulletproof that you'd be willing to call someone out for it here, take it to @Deimos instead. I don't want to read it here.
      • I Could Be Wrong - There is nothing wrong with having confidence in your view, but there should be some part of you that recognizes you can be wrong about whatever claim you make. Nothing is 100%. Absolutely Only Sith Deal In Absolutes, etc.
      11 votes

    46. Daily Tildes discussion (and changelog) - "new topic" page and process updated

      ~tildes.official Text 327 words
      I'm going to cheat a bit today and combine the daily discussion with a changelog post, since I'd like to get input on the changes and talk about what else should be done. I've just updated the...

      I'm going to cheat a bit today and combine the daily discussion with a changelog post, since I'd like to get input on the changes and talk about what else should be done. I've just updated the "new topic" page in a few ways that we've discussed over the last while:

      • There's a note at the top asking people to post informative or interesting content with discussion value, and not to make posts mainly for entertainment.
      • You can now fill in both the Link and Text fields, and if you do so, the text will be posted as the first comment on your post. This allows people to make a sort of "submission statement" if they'd like, or give their opinion about the content. I've seen some conflicting opinions about this lately, so I tried to make it clear that adding text is optional. Personally, I don't think mandatory submission statements add much value, since in my experience most of them just end up being "I thought this was an interesting article", or a quote or two taken directly out of the article.
      • I added a "Formatting help" link above the Text field that links to the page on the docs site that @flaque was nice enough to write up. This link has also been added above the markdown fields for comments as well.

      As I mentioned yesterday, I'm also working on a "tagging guidelines" document which I'm hoping to get into decent shape today, and I'll add a link to that above the Tags field once it's available.

      Let me know what you think of the changes, and if you have any other suggestions for things we should do with the submit process. We'll definitely need some group-specific submission info before too long as well, so I may end up adding a sidebar to the submit page that can contain more info (though that doesn't work very well on mobile since it's hidden by default).

      39 votes

    47. ~music Listening Club 0 - Outline and Prep

      ~music Text 447 words
      Alright, so in the ideas thread, several of you expressed that you'd like / it would be more active if we went for a listening club that goes for something more general. As I think ~music is in a...

      Alright, so in the ideas thread, several of you expressed that you'd like / it would be more active if we went for a listening club that goes for something more general. As I think ~music is in a bit of a rough spot right now and needs a little more to bind it together, I'm going to try and have a bit of a hybrid solution that can hopefully be interesting for a lot of us.

      Again, the idea is to come together and listen to the same record each week, discussing our thoughts on that album over the course of that week in these threads. For now, let's make our goal to build a community and become familiar with the thoughts, tastes, and musical histories of each other!

      For every odd numbered week, we will listen to an acclaimed or important album of some kind that will hopefully have far-reaching appeal. I'm going to exercise my own judgement in picking these out of the qualifying albums, but expect them to be the OK Computers, A Love Supremes, and Illmatics of the world. If and when we reach a point where we've exhausted too many of these classics, we can restructure or retire this listening club.

      For every even numbered week, we will listen to a more obscure record as voted on by the participants of the thread. For an initial guide, as stolen from @Eva, we will define "obscure" simply as not being certified Gold (or anything higher, of course). This is of course a very loose definition of the term, but it's at least a concrete starting place. As ~ gives us a raw vote count, we will do this through voting on comments. All nominations must be made as a reply to my top level comment. Everything else will be ignored, and this will help keep things organized once this voting occurs on a thread that's dedicated to its own week's record. If it becomes necessary, we can vote on an external platform.

      I'm open to suggestions on how to change this process, but let's try to run it like this for a little bit. I don't want to get caught in that loop where you have so many tweaks and find so many flaws that you don't end up doing anything at all.

      The first thread will be posted tomorrow (Thursday the 21st here) and will continue on from there weekly.

      When we start our first record, feel free to listen, comment, and vote throughout the week. ~ gives us an opportunity to bump things and keep discussion going for a bit longer than Reddit, so let's take advantage of that where we can.

      16 votes

    48. In need of a recommendation.

      ~books Ask (recommendations)
      I'm looking for something challenging to read that is sort of on the fringe of philosophy and makes some interesting arguments. I would like to read classical philosophy but the girl I'm reading...

      I'm looking for something challenging to read that is sort of on the fringe of philosophy and makes some interesting arguments. I would like to read classical philosophy but the girl I'm reading it with just finished a philosophy major and doesn't want to, so I guess I'm looking for something a little "softer".

      4 votes

    49. Suggestion: Change the subscribe button to make it more clear whether a user is subscribed

      ~tildes Text 46 words
      The subscribe button is very attractive, but it's a little hard to tell the difference between "Subscribe" and "Subscribed" Options: Use more dissimilar colors Change text for subscribed users to...

      The subscribe button is very attractive, but it's a little hard to tell the difference between "Subscribe" and "Subscribed"

      Options:

      1. Use more dissimilar colors
      2. Change text for subscribed users to say "Unsubscribe" like another site does. Alternatively, change text for unsubbed users to say "Not subscribed".
      7 votes