Hey folks, thanks for trying things out so far. I know it's in a bit of an awkward phase right now where everything is inactive, but this should improve as more people join. Unfortunately I've had some bad timing today with fun things like a surprise early-morning trip to the vet, so I haven't been able to pay as much attention today as I wanted to.

Anyway, a few updates:

Site mechanics

I did manage to spend some time writing up a page that explains some of the basic site mechanics, which is here: https://docs.tildes.net/mechanics

Hopefully that helps explain things a bit better, since so far you've just basically had to try things to figure out what they are. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about the info on that page.

Issue tracker

There's not much there yet either, but I set up an issue tracker here on gitlab (which is where I'll host the site's code eventually): https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues

I'm not expecting anyone to register on there and submit issues or anything, but that will be kind of the "formal" location for issues and plans (and I'll transfer things there that get reported on the site itself).

Invites and other plans

So far, I've only invited people that already knew what I was working on and that I've been talking to about it. Today and over the weekend, I'm going to start inviting some more specific people that I'd like to have involved but I haven't previously talked with about Tildes. While doing that, I'm also going to be working on the things mentioned in this post yesterday: https://tildes.net/~tildes/a/high_priority_things_to_fix_add

If any of you have suggestions for people you'd like to invite (who won't be turned off by an inactive site), please let me know. I can contact them or give you some invite codes.

Early next week, I'd like to start trying to get some public attention and expanding more quickly. This will probably include posting the announcement blog post to some places, as well as giving you all some invite codes. I don't have very specific plans yet though, so again, please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks again, and please keep posting a bit just so we can get some base activity going - if you read an interesting article or anything, just take a minute to post it here as well. Like I said, I know it's a bit awkward for now, but it will get better.

Here's a quick list of things that I'm working on getting ready in the very near future. Please let me know if you have particular thoughts on any of these.

1. Fixing the site icons for link topics (currently just shows the blue dashed square).
2. Putting some information in topic sidebars - any thoughts on what would be good to have here? I think I'd like to have some of the more-detailed metadata about the topic once there's more of that being generated (for example for videos, this could show which channel it's from, how long it is, etc.), but that still won't be very much and there's a lot of space. Commenting rules? Something else?
3. Inbox/notifications for replies to your comments and topics, as well as username mentions. Any opinions about how it would be good to do this in a way that's convenient and not too annoying?
4. Collapse buttons for comment threads (possibly by being able to click the line as well, similar to the reddit redesign)

Welcome to the alpha version of Tildes! If you haven't read it yet, please start with the announcement post on the blog, since that explains a lot of my goals and general plans for the site: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

Also check this page for some info about some of the basic mechanics in place: https://docs.tildes.net/mechanics

Beyond that, there are some other pages on the Docs site with a fair amount of information, and I'm working on gradually adding more to them.

Please don't spread this too much yet

I'd still like to keep it a bit quiet for the first little while, so I can make sure nothing explodes and pay more attention to the site instead of having to worry about who's talking about it and where. It's fine if you want to mention it to some people, but please ask them not to spread it around much as well. If you do tell people, it's probably best to send them to the announcement post as an intro.

It won't have to be this way for long - this upcoming week, I'm intending to start trying to get some more public attention.

Things that are missing, coming soon, etc.

There's still a ton missing, obviously. Some functions have been disabled deliberately for now as well, because I'd like to see how things work without them before we start jumping to too many conclusions about what we "need" and how to use the site. I hope to have regular discussions about a lot of these ideas so we can figure out exactly how best to implement some things.

Make sure to check on your userpage (by clicking your username in the top right corner or sidebar on mobile) - there are a few things in the side menu on there that are useful, like the light/dark theme toggle.

There's a post here with some specific things I'm working on in the very near future: https://tildes.net/~tildes/a/high_priority_things_to_fix_add

If you just want to experiment, please use ~test

I set up a group named ~test that's specifically for trying things out and making a mess. It's the only one that you're not auto-subscribed to when you register (so that your home page isn't spammed up with the stuff from there).

Please feel free to test things out in there, try to break things, whatever. I may periodically wipe it just to get rid of a lot of the garbage, so please don't post anything in there if you're not okay with it disappearing at any time.

How you can help

One of the best things you can do would be to just post things. Getting the initial activity going on the site will be one of the most important steps, so please just post things here (and comment on others' posts).

I'd also appreciate any feedback, posts about bugs you discover, etc. You can just post anything like that in the ~tildes group as well.

Inviting other people

If you have other people that you'd like to invite, I think we should be able to start doing that very soon. I haven't given anyone their own invite codes yet, but it's something that I can do. If there's people you really want to get in right away, please let me know and I can give you some codes or otherwise help get them in. Message me here on Tildes about it, email me at deimos@tildes.net, or send me a message through Discord/Slack/whatever and we can figure it out.

Please expect some turbulence

Please keep in mind that, for the most part, this has been a one-person endeavor so far. I'm the developer, sysadmin, designer, writer, lawyer, manager, chair of the non-profit board, etc. I'm not very good at a lot of these things.

There will definitely be some roughness for a while, whether it's awful design/UI choices, the site crashing and staying down for a while until I can get it back up, etc. Thanks in advance for your patience, it's all only going to get better from here.

I'm excited to finally be able to let people see what I've been working on. Thanks for being here at the start with me!