I've been enjoying reading peoples conversations on Tildes. There's been in-depth discussions and debates and open dialogue with a genuine attempt at understanding the other side's opinions. I really enjoy discussing spirituality with all angles of beliefs, so I thought it could be fun to try that here :)

I think it will be important to understand while discussing this that we all have different understandings and definitions of loaded words when referring to things that, by definition, are indefinable. I think it'll help to keep that in mind. One person may use the word "God" and have a picture in their head of a literal being in the clouds with a robe and beard. Another may use the word "God" and it means something else entirely. Like the creative power behind the ongoing evolution of the universe.

Two very different things.

I'll start with a little bit about my own beliefs, and where I'm coming from.

I was raised conservative christian, being taught to believe in a literal 6-day creation, with God resting on the 7th. And we took the commandment to also rest on the 7th day very seriously. Seventh-Day Adventist. We were right in our interpretation of the bible, and everyone else was wrong and in danger of going to hell, including all other religions.

I had an experience about 7 or 8 years ago that shifted my perspective completely. Essentially, I fell into a state of samadhi, had a kundalini awakening, became one with god. Whatever the words used to describe it, or the belief structures that have been built around it, I was there. My body and mind fell away into stillness, and it was just conscious awareness of Peace and Love. No thoughts about it, or physical sensations in my body, just awareness of.

Since then, I've been opened up to an understanding about the universe that's bigger than beliefs. I see my experience and the "Truth" reflected in all sorts of religious texts and beliefs, as well as in non-religious things. I've said to many people while talking about these topics that I believe there are atheists who have a closer "relationship" with god. Looking into the makeup of the universe with curiosity. It's great. I don't believe anyone needs a belief in god or religious theology to be headed in the "right" direction. And at the end of the day I think that's where we're all at. Headed on a path. We've all got our own personal journey and having compassion and love for others where they are at is what Jesus was talking about and trying to teach to people who had no understanding of that level of understanding.

My wife and I are reading a book right now called Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today - by John Spong

My wife was raised conservative christian and is just starting the exciting journey of questioning all of it. We're reading it together. So far the author's understanding of spirituality, god, etc. seem to line up closely with mine.

In the book he speaks about the inability to use limited human language to discuss this sort of thing, and why christianity has gotten it so confused over the years, as it's hard to put into words, and then have others read it and understand it. Experience vs Belief. Very different things.

Anyhow, I think I've rambled enough. I'd love to see the kind of discussion we can get going about such a typically decisive topic :)

Tell me what you know...

I've got a server running out of my house that I use to create virtual machines for many different facets of what I enjoy (IE: A Plex Server, Discord Bot, PiHole, etc...). The server runs Ubuntu and is utilizing QEMU I believe for the the virtualization.

I've got issues getting the adapter (currently using one of those Xbox adapters to plug into an antenna and back into the computer) to relay into the virtual machine. On top of that, I'd LOVE to ditch hulu and these others (sling, PS Vue, etc..) and utilize local live television with a larger antenna on my roof, but I'll worry about that once I've got these technical aspects worked out.

I guess I'm looking for some advice as well as anyone with a similar setup and how you are running yours?

hey all,

if you're like me, or like most folks nowadays, you'd rather browse the web on your phone over dragging around an entire desk, tower, and monitor everywhere (that's the other alternative right???). but!! tildes doesn't have a mobile app, and probably won't until APIs happen and some kind soul builds a third party one.

tildes, if you haven't noticed, is pretty minimal and runs like greased lightning on mobile browsers. but if you go that route you don't get full screen or home screen shortcuts or any of that stuff!

this is where i tried using Hermit to decent results. it's basically a wrapper for webpages that turns it into more of an app-like experience. if tildes ever adds RSS feeds for comment notifications, it'll support that too. unfortunately it's only on android but i'm sure iOS has something similar.

maybe one day tildes will be a PWA and we won't have to worry about any of that! but for now, I think hermit works nicely. hopefully it helps someone else too!

are you doing something else that works just as well? better? on iOS? please share!

Most of my friends and my husband love board games- the more complicated, the better! My whole life, many board games have given me pretty bad anxiety to the point where I pretended I hated them rather than admit I was just scared.

Over the past few years, I have found a few games I don't mind playing- mostly cooperative (Sentinels of the Multiverse, Betrayal at House on the Hill) or anonymous ones (Cards Against Humanity, Jackbox Games). I still have a hard time playing strategy games like Catan or Ticket to Ride; games which involve guessing what others will do like Rook or The Resistance make me want to die.

A lot of times, my friends just want to sit around and play board games, and I'm trying to build up a list of games I like to play so I can join in. Any advice for getting used to them/learning to play in advance, or games that are fun for serious board gamers, but still sort of low pressure?

Thanks!

Kafka once wrote in a letter that he thought we ought to read only the books that wound or stab us. The quote is longer (because it's German), but I think we all get the drift.

This thread was inspired by a question that @scituselectrum asked me in the last book-reading thread: what books have you read that have allowed you to see the world in a new light? Put in Kafka-esque terms, what books have impacted you like a disaster and acted as an axe for the frozen sea within you?

I thought it was such a good question that I wanted to know other answers. Maybe add some reading to my already intimidating list.

Hey folks!

I can only imagine I'm saying something that's been said many times before, but I'm having a bit of an issue with the rendering of the website on desktop Safari.

It seems that everything renders on top of everything else in an ugly way the first time I pull up the site, to the point that I can't read anything. But here's the weird part: if I click any link, then use my back button, everything renders fine. This has to be some kind of wonky JavaScript problem? Maybe? I'm not sure.

Honestly, I just want to know that I'm not the only one seeing this issue. It's very strange, and I'll help to fix it however I can if I can get access to the codebase for the site.

One thing I've been recently thinking about regarding ~'s tags is how much hate "Noise" gets. I realize that it doesn't further the discussion every time, but we also need to look at the context.

I've seen a few posts here tagged as noise when a community member posts something they've made or would like feedback on. In my opinion, when someone says "that's great!" or "I agree" that's completely acceptable. I've heard the "just upvote and move on" argument, but by our own admission, per the posted rules here and on reddit, the vote button does not equal "agree." It only means that the content is of value.

I'd love to tell someone "I really love the way you phrased that" or "I didn't know other people felt that way, too!" for something I agreed with but didn't have a whole lot to add without just being repetitive.

I'm not married to this idea, just something milling about in my head since on ~, it really seems like we're trying to use the vote button not for just "agree/ disagree." I posted on ~talk rather than ~tildes because I'm curious how other people see the issue, and I don't feel the need to lodge a formal suggestion.

I'm fairly new to the site as I came in from the hackernews post a fortnight ago. I enjoyed the fact that this site doesn't have downvotes. However, when I am reading through posts I am seeing the noise tag on multiple posts that don't seem to merit it, with examples linked below. The comments aren't literary masterpieces by any stretch, but they are concerning the topic on hand. The noise tag appears to be getting used as a downvote or "I disagree" button.

I know the user that was the first ban also used the noise tag this way, but this seems to be a more wide spread issue than one user. We can't prevent a de facto downvote tag from appearing organically everywhere. Eventually sub communities will form around a tilde and adopt a tag as a downvote, the same way all online communities change the meaning of some word or tool they already have. I don't think that we want this to be a standard tildes wide behavior however.

How should we go about preventing the use of tags as downvotes like this? Stricter moderation? Removing tags with negative connotations? Making tags visible only if they reach a certain threshold?

https://tildes.net/~talk/105/mozilla_to_remove_meritocracy_from_governance_docs_because_its_problematic#comment-6kb
https://tildes.net/~talk/105/mozilla_to_remove_meritocracy_from_governance_docs_because_its_problematic#comment-6mh
https://tildes.net/~misc/10r/furries#comment-6pq

I made one for Tildes

Just name it "apple-touch-icon.png" and place it on the root directory of the Tildes website. Then put this in the head tag somewhere:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png">

This way iOS users can add Tildes to their home screen and get a nice icon.

I ran a Lighthouse audit for performance and accessibility on a comments page (specifically this one); the results are pretty good on the whole, but there are definitely a couple of things I think ~ could do better.

Performance

IMO the performance of ~ is fine; Chrome thinks that the time to first meaningful paint is a bit high (3.1s on a simulated 3G connection with CPU throttling), but I don't know what you can do about that without doing things like inlining all the CSS, which would make the very first page load faster but hurt every request after that. Maybe minifying the CSS/JS would help? I don't know if the performance benefit would be enough to justify the increase in complexity to handle the minification, and you'd also lose the easy legibility of the source (which I personally really like).

Accessibility

There's some really small text on ~! The Lighthouse audits I ran don't catch it, but the SEO audit does, and it's not hard to see it with your own eyes either. The suggested minimum size for easy reading in that audit is 16px, which is the current size of all post and comment text on desktop, although mobile only gets 14px (I don't know if this is actually a problem, since you probably hold your phone closer to your face than your monitor).

Edit: posting this from my phone - yes, the 14px font on mobile is definitely harder to read than 16px would be. I don't know if that's just me (I have a fairly severe visual impairment), but I would definitely prefer 16px text everywhere, not just on desktop.

There's also a good amount of text that doesn't have a great deal of contrast (even using the default white theme – I'm sure it's much worse with Solarized). This is mostly all the grey text, although Lighthouse also complains about the links when they're on a grey background (especially the "visited" colour, which is much closer to grey than the normal colour).

Some specific examples: The timestamp and "Link" text for each comment is only 10px, which is a bit small for me, especially with the low contrast on "Link". Similarly, the post timestamp is a bit hard to read.

The worst offender by far, though, is the "Comment deleted by author" notice (example). It's tiny and grey and incredibly easy to miss, and is directly relevant to the flow of the conversation, unlike the timestamps. I'd really appreciate it if that could be bumped up to at least as large as usernames are currently displayed.

Some suggestions I think would improve navigation a bit:

1.Comment votes. I think comment votes should appear at the bottom of the comment. The reason for that is is to avoid "copycat voting" (I'm sure there must be another term). I think it's a common effect: you see a comment, you see it has 5 votes while the rest you've been reading have 1 or 2, you start being predisposed to see it as a valuable comment even before reading it, you end up voting it too, etc. Similarly to why the top level reply box is at the end of the thread, I think having comment votes at the end of the comment (or even hidden under an expandable menu, but maybe that's too much) would help users reading comments more open-mindedly. I would even argue that putting the user name at the bottom would be a good idea as well, especially since the user base now is small is easy to adscribe more credibility to some user names than others, which is not bad by itself, but might push a type of "authoritative bias".

2.Top level comments count. If we understand top level comments as the main ideas discussed in a thread, maybe it would make sense to show that in the post. Right now, what we get in the submission listing is the title, username, the ~, the tags and the comment number. I wonder how important is having the total comment number shown here. I guess it's an indicator of activity, but maybe it'd be more interesting having the top level comment number, indicating the ramifications of the topic. Total comment count could be maintained as well, or not, or just when entering the submission, etc. New comments could still be shown in the listing. After all, if we are ordering by activity, we care that there is some activity, and total number of comments is not that relevant.

3.Cascading tags. Not so sure about this one, but I though I'd mention it. When marking a comment Off-topic... I think most usually all comments under that one will also be Off-topic. Maybe it'd make sense that from that point on all comments would be marked as off topic automatically, and possibly collapsed. Right now it seems when there is an off topic comment thread, you just keep seeing off topic tags down the line, which is a bit distracting and probably unnecessary since they are almost surely going to be off topic, so it's probably not necessary for user to try and judge that. Maybe, if it makes sense, this would better be done when the tags are more developed.

4.Parent link for context. Thank you for adding the parent link! Much needed. However, wouldnt it be better if when tapping a parent link, the end page would be the parent comment (obviously) plus the comment where you tapped the link? What I mean is, to provide better context, I think it'd be better to show the parent and the comment I was reading, with all other comments under the parent AND above the origin comment collapsed. I don't know if that's clear...

5. Reply - Tag - Vote. Probably a bit nitpicking here, but I think inverting the current order of the Reply and Vote buttons would be a better fit. Since most people are right handed, and the action of voting is (probably?) more common than replying, having the vote button on the right side might be a minor enhancement in usability.

6.Highlighting OP's comments. Right now, OP's comments are marked by "(OP)" next to the username. I think it'd be better to make the indication more evident. For example, displaying OP's username in a different color or marking the comment with a different color (as with new comments in orange or own comments in purple). I would prefer the username color since it's less invasive while still being easy to spot.

Anyway, just some ideas I've had in the last few days, hopefully not too ridiculous or confusingly worded.

EDIT: Sorry for the generic title, I forgot to edit it before sending...

I thought it might be a good idea to make a thread for people to find other people to game with. Remember to put what console you're playing on, or if you're PC, and what games you're looking to play! Best of luck to all!

I work overnight so I usually play around 1 pm to 4 pm weekdays (I know, weird hours). Anyway my. Xbox gamertag is TreeBone. I have been playing a lot of fortnite lately but I also get into Halo 5, Overwatch, and on steam I've been playing Don't Starve Together. I'm up for anything though! Drop me a line.

Hi all. Registered several days ago and this is my first post.

After reading around this group and the blog, I'm very excited for the tildes project. It's not just another reddit-style forum but actually one of its own taste and style. I have some suggestions for the project and would like to share them with the community. They are the result of years of redditing with numerous frustrating experiences and few shower thoughts.

1. Voting power should not be taken for granted. The ability for me to vote must be in some way tied to my contributions to the discussion. This can be implemented in a sort of formula that takes into account the user's 'score' and 'activity' which results in a finite number of votes at the user's disposal. The more you contribute the more voting power you get, and the more quality you provide in your contributions the more votes you get to use.
2. Deleted posts or comments must be reflected in a user's score. One of the bad effects of having a user score is the tendency to 'karma whore' in order to increase that score no matter what. The result is low effort posts and comments. Having a system in place that removes from the user's score if their posts/comments get deleted would act as a constant reminder to the minimum level of quality required.
3. Mods should not have dictator power over their groups. Sure they must have elevated accounts to run their groups, including the power to remove or ban, but they should not be invisible. There has to be an approved system where users can have the collective power to revoke the elevated account powers of a Mod if they reach a certain threshold. Not sure how to implement this exactly, may be through voting by the users of a group who have high scores or reputations. One of the cancerous ailments of reddit is the invincibility of Mods.
4. The availability of formatting tools and embedding in posts. This is 2018 and inserting a photo, video, table in the body of a post should be easily implemented. Constrictions on the use of certain attention-grabbing formats (eg. large fonts, ascii art, emoji) should be also be implemented to deter low effort contributions.

Here's to hoping this project flourishes into a much-needed hub for quality content and discussions on the internet.
Cheers

Edit: Not sure why the first point is indented or how to fix it.
Edit2: Fixed.

I was just thinking about something that I've noticed being an issue in a few cases on reddit. If you accidentally post something that's wrong or misleading, you might decide to edit the comment/post to be more accurate, once something was pointed out to you.

But lets say that you posted some tidbit like "David Firth is demonetized from youtube.. god i hate youtubes recent trend", which was along the lines of the things I'm talking about. But then weren't fully up to date on the story anymore as Firth had been re-instated.

With the post getting 90% of its upvotes before the "e: he's reinstated now", it's rife for accidental victimless misinformation. And once you make the correction (let's not make it 100%), you cant really go pm'ing everyone because that's annoying, and not everyone that saw it commented on it.

I'm not actually sure how much of an issue anyone else thinks this is so I'd be glad to hear if you've got a perspective on it.

The best thing I can think of is to give a little notification to people who have interacted with the post (or viewed it in the last certain amount of time?) so that you can evaluate the comment again. This isn't ideal because you'll be clued into everyone's spelling corrections.

A friend suggested a edit "pull request" thing where anyone could propose an edit, and then empowered users could approve the changes. Perhaps, if this is actually an issue and not just an over-caution, this could be rolled into that. If an empowered user thinks that it's worth pinging everyone that interacted with that post directly (vote/tag/comment) once the edit is pushed.

On Reddit, the reply notifications come with a "context" button, which will bring you to the topic and show a limited set of replies, to establish the context in which the new comment was made. From what I can see, there's no such feature on Tildes (yet). I'd like it if we could get a feature like that so I can easily read back what someone replied to, so I can understand the context behind it, and possibly reply again.

The default "activity" sorting means that topics which lead to a lot of conversation tend to get bumped to the top. It seems like, in the long run, controversial topics will end up drowning out topics where the link itself is interesting but doesn't provoke people to react with a comment. I find that a lot of the most interesting links for me on other sites are the ones with the fewest comments.

I think it could be worthwhile to experiment with different default sorting, or even different mechanics. For example, Everything2 has a feature where, at a certain rank, users are able to add pages to a "Cool User Picks!" sidebar.

The current solution, custom sort ordering, doesn't seem like it will scale very well. People will tend to vote on the posts they see; if most people sort by activity, most of the votes will go to the most active posts anyway.

Anyway, just food for thought. I don't think this is super urgent, but it seems like something that would be good to think hard about and get right in the long term.

Having notifications only go away when clicking Mark As Read is a really cool feature. However, once you start to get a large amount of these notifications, this can become a pain.

Could a 'Mark All As Read' button be added that solves this feature?

What are your go to workout songs? For me it's usually a toss up between the Doom 2016 soundtrack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm932Sqwf5E) and The Lifa album from Heilung (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1BsKIP4uYM). Both get me super pumped and make me want to get active.

For smaller threads, this isn't much of an issue, but once a thread reaches ~30 or so comments you have to scroll to the bottom before posting a comment. As tildes begins to grow this problem will only get worse and worse.

Is there any way this could be moved to the top of a thread? This would fix this problem.

What a great way to get rid of these. Hit me with a comment or PM and I'll send you the code. Claim like 5 at a time if you want, there's just so many.

e: If it's still up here, the key probably isn't claimed.

• A bunch of AwesomeNauts YogsCast Packs

• Bezier

• Bomb Defense

• Chainsaw Warrior

• Chime Sharp

• Clusterpuck 99

• Dimension Jump

• Filthy, Stinking Orcs

• Offensive Combat: Redux!

• Painters Guild

• Scanner Sombre

• Team Racing League

• Tiltagon

• Wasted Pizza

That's it! Have fun!

This is a very hard puzzle. There is a solution that guarantees 100% chance of escape.

You and your friend are incarcerated. Your jailer offers a challenge. If you complete the challenge you are both free to go. Otherwise you are condemned to die. Here are the rules:

-The jailer will take you into a private cell. In the cell will be a chessboard and a jar containing 64 coins.

-The jailer will take the coins, one-by-one, and place a coin on each square on the board. He will place the coins randomly on the board. Some coins will be heads, and some tails (or maybe they will be all heads, or all tails; you have no idea. It's all at the jailer's whim. He may elect to look and choose to make a pattern himself, he may toss them placing them the way they land, he might look at them as he places them, he might not …). If you attempt to interfere with the placing of the coins, it is instant death for you. If you attempt to coerce, suggest, or persuade the jailer in any way, instant death. All you can do it watch.

-Once all the coins have been laid out, the jailer will point to one of the squares on the board and say: “This one!” He is indicating the magic square. This square is the key to your freedom.

-The jailer will then allow you to turn over one coin on the board. Just one. A single coin, but it can be any coin, you have full choice. If the coin you select is a head, it will flip to a tail. If it is a tail it will flip to a head. This is the only change you are allowed to make to the jailers initial layout.

-You will then be lead out of the room. If you attempt to leave other messages behind, or clues for your friend … yes, you guessed it, instant death!

-The jailer will then bring your friend into the room.

-Your friend will look at the board (no touching allowed), then examine the board of coins and decide which location he thinks is the magic square.

-He gets one chance only (no feedback). Based on the configuration of the coins he will point to one square and say: “This one!”

-If he guesses correctly, you are both pardoned, and instantly set free. If he guesses incorrectly, you are both executed.

-The jailer explains all these rules, to both you and your friend, beforehand and then gives you time to confer with each other to devise a strategy for which coin to flip.

What is your strategy? How do you escape?

Original source and answer: http://datagenetics.com/blog/december12014/index.html

Hey friends.

I've got some spare Steam keys for games that I already own (being subscribed to Humble monthly leads to a bunch of this ha.)

First come first serve if anyone is interested.

Moon Hunters - haven't played this yet but I've been wanting to for a while. It has online co-op so maybe whoever picks this up, we can play some time.

Also some stuff I don't want that I'd love to get rid of:

NBA 2k17

EDIT: Well that went fast, ha

So at the moment I'm guessing most people probably have just a single account, but eventually people are going to start wanting multiple accounts. How is this going to work? Only when public signups are allowed or can we use our invitations to invite ourselves in as it is? (since they're specifically allowed in the Terms of Service, but there's currently no way to get them except by invitation)? Are we going to require a certain amount of reputation to allow alts? Or will we introduce a nicknames or "identities" feature on top of a single account?

To me one of the biggest problems on the internet is the lack of a "hub" or somewhere it sort of centralizes. In my opinion the current "staleness" of the internet is due to a lack of central hub.

So i thought about how I could solve this problem. You see without a central hub, starting anything is a problem.

Imagine I am a new user on the web, and I want to learn 3D modeling. Where do I go? This is a problem I am facing right now, like which site do I goto to be part of a community. I don't want to make an account on facebook and join ragtag groups with no real activity. There is no sense of community or anything, just random noise. All I can do is google, and youtube videos to learn 3d modeling. If I goto forums, they are all very stale or "dead" and I leave cause I don't know what to do there.

I basically wanted to have a starting point where I knew for a fact that everyone knows this place and starts here and belong to a community. Two months, and I still have the same problem. I don't belong to a community within 3d modeling or feel like I belong there. Just hardly any chitchat, irc channels barely anyone speaks. Days go by without a new thread.

The biggest problem I notice is that everyone is spread apart, some devs on twitter only, some on that certain site only. No one is really connected or rather there is no central hub. Still using 3d modeling as an example, I noticed that without a central hub, there is no real "right" way to do something. I mean this, no one has any idea on what software to use. I keep asking myself am I using the right software, what is he using, what are they using. It turns out they all have this question, I'm still not sure. NO ONE IS. So if no one is sure, then the communities unintentionally keep closing themselves off.

But There is one rule that must be set

YOU CANNOT EVER ALLOW A USER TO CREATE A GROUP. Do not make this mistake.

Have Things constant at times, I'm tired of unlimited everything. A limit creates a sense of belonging.

Why?

Reddit's biggest flaw and strength is the subreddits and it made a mistake when it allowed anyone to create one and you are seeing the cascading effects now. When you can make a new group, you are no longer a tight nit community with set focus. You are separating the community on a large scale, right off the bat and as you can see on reddit, subbreddits clash which leads to drama and ultimately the destruction of the site from within.

So what am I getting at?

We go back to a tried and true method and something that we know everyone will like. Something that Appeals To Everyone ish.

YOU BRING BACK THE GEOCITIES NEIGHBORHOODS AND KEEP THEM NAMED AS GROUPS.

Have 29 Groups, or let the community decide the # of groups and lets start naming them. No petsburgh please

Simple Short Descriptions. and the name creates an INSTANT connection with someone who might have an interest in that group.

The Only Time You Add A Group is every 6 months to a year and ONLY THE OWNER CAN. Community Decides the name.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SET # OF GROUPS. This creates unique culture.

List of IDEAS:

1: Add a count for the amount of posts in the group list if you can, might be database heavy.

2: Everyone is subscribed to all the groups but can unsubscribe.

3: A list of trending "topics" or call them "marks" or "underscores". (Suck it twitter)

One of the consistent discussion points of why this place is so great is because it's small. Do you all have any mechanics thought up for how communities can limit growth?

I think I saw some discussion about parent/child relationships for the ~tildes groups where it looked like you were using dot notation - is that your mechanic? Endless children? Will ~tildes be able to cap their subscribers? I don't have answers, just questions now. :)

I'd like to see everyone favorite games to start a discussion and maybe get some recommendations. My favorite game is either the pokemon series or skyrim. I've played pokemon all my life but skyrim was my first big RPG, which I loved, I have owned it on 4 different platforms!

I don't need to reset my password, and I really appreciate the way that it is done to maximize anonymity. However, I think there is a bit of a problem with how it is done in terms of users getting locked out.

If you're locked out, as far as I can tell, there is no way to view the email hint associated with your account. It seems a bit counter intuitive to me that in order to see the hint for how to regain access to your account, you have to already have that access! I also think that it won't work in the case that someone has been away for a few months and has forgotten their password. I'm not sure what a good way of displaying the hint would be, however, since if it is done by username anyone who has seen your posts can look at your password hint.

Hopefully with a bit of discussion we can cook something up that can solve this catch 22!

In preformatted text blocks (three back ticks), group syntax with ~ doesn't get rendered as a hyperlink, but it does with inline preformatted text e.g. ~group.

This seems like it would be undesirable and unintended behavior. That being said, I'd rather have this verified before opening an issue on gitlab.

Is this a bug or a feature?

It seems like a large percentage of us that are also moderators on Reddit-- myself included.

It seems that there's a generally negative attitude toward moderators on Reddit, which I totally get. Moderation on Reddit is flawed. Community members feel a sense of ownership in the community (which they should have), but bad moderators can ruin that. How do you guys think moderation should be handled here?

Here's a link from the docs that describes current plans: https://docs.tildes.net/mechanics-future

It highlights plans for a reputation system, which I think is the right way to go.

I also just realized that the same discussion was posted 18 days ago, but perhaps discussion with some of the newer users is worthwhile nonetheless:
https://tildes.net/~tildes/6e/community_moderators

Can we get a tag next to usernames for Tildes staff? Kind of like an admin tag, but might as well just call it staff or whatever you prefer. For example in that donations thread I was unsure if it's an admin posting that or not at first glance. Would apply to comments too.

(Are red titles from staff? But that doesn't apply to comments I guess)

Hi everyone, I'm a frontend developer and do a bit of backend work as well. I'd really like to contribute some of my downtime to helping build this site. I've checked out the issue tracker on gitlab and some of the docs, tech goals and announcement, but I'd like to start getting my hands dirty and contribute some code.

• Is there a roadmap for development?
• A feature list to implement?
• Bugs to fix?

How can I help out? What's the best way to get started?

Also for all non-devs, what is the best way that they can start helping out?

If not Friday, then replace your start-of-weekend day for off-business week schedules, but what's your usual 'get home and do what?' tradition to start your weekend time?

I enjoy getting home, setting my stuff down, pouring just a bit of port wine into glass and enjoying it for an hour or so just to unwind/disconnect.

Saying hello to the cat and dog fits in there, intermittently, too.

Tilde pretext - I have no idea what to tag this, but if anyone likes Shadowrun or Earthdawn pnp lore this info is a pain in the ass to find.

I spent way, way too much time trying to track down information on Verjigorm. I enjoy exploring the lore of the Shadowrun universe, and the hoops I had to jump through to get this info was way more than I expected. I kept seeing references to books I didn't have, and finally actually got a copy of Earthdawn's Horror book to copy this down.

I realize no one requested this, but I'm just posting this excerpt in the hope it will save people the massive amount of time I spent fumbling around trying to get anything substantial on this subject.

This is verbatim from the Earthdawn Horrors book. If this is somehow violating a policy I missed let me know and I will edit and change as needed.

I'm not sure who specifically wrote this, so here are the listed writers for the book:

Writing: Robin D. Laws, Teeuwynn Woodruff, Greg Gorden, Sam Witt, Allen Varney, Chris McCubbin, Caroline Spector, Fraser Cain

Additional Writing: Louis J. Prosperi, Rob Cruz, Dian Prion-Gelman, Andrew Raglan, and Rich Warren

pg 66 Eathdawn - Horrors

The following account was graciously provided by the Great Dragon Icewing. The Library of Throal, and indeed all the Namegivers of Barsaive, owe this generous dragon a debt of undying gratitude for the information he has provided on this entity. Scholars throughout the land agree that Verjigorm is the most powerful Horror that has ever existed-- a terrible, vile abomination whose strength towers above that of all other Horrors. May the Passions protect us all against the curse of the Horror called Verjigorm and its unnatural spawn, for its unmatched power and malevolent intelligence may yet spell the end of all that we know.

-- Leranto Myrn, apprentice scholar, Library of Throal, 1507

Generations of Name-givers throughout Barsaive and the lands beyond have learned to fear the great dragons. Even your most powerful magicians are but bumbling children in things magical when compared to us, and your most celebrated heroes cringe like frightened old women at the thought of facing the sword-like teeth and scythe-like claws of a dragon in battle. There is no shame in this fear. Beings of much greater power than you little folk have learned to fear us, for we great dragons are ancient and powerful beyond imagining. We walked these lands and rode the wind thousands of years before the first t'skrang tasted the waters of the Serpent or the first windling unfurled its wings in the cool morning air.

But one being exists that even great dragons fear, a being that existed long before my ancient race appeared in Barsaive. Some call if the Horror of a Thousand Faces, or the Corrupter. Others know it as the Horror That Is Worshiped as a Passion, or the Great Hunter. Even today, dragons speak its cursed Name only in whispers, for it is said to have ears that hear all and eyes that never close. It is the Horror that always was, the Horror that is, the Horror that ever shall be. It is Verjigorm.

The words of Name-givers cannot describe this Horror's all-encompassing evil, but I will try to do so in the hope that some day the monster might be banished forever from our world. Perhaps the following story, which I heard often as a hatchling, may help you understand.

Long before the first dragon soared through the sky, the world was darkness, a never-ending moonless night that even the sun and stars could not penetrate. Thick, black clouds choked the sky and spawned cold, biting rains that scoured the barren land like a plague of hungry locusts. The seas and rivers were foul, bubbling cesspools teeming with plague and death.

This was the age of the Dark One. One thousand and seven eyes sprang from its head, so that it might watch forever its cursed kingdom. Its terrible ears never shut, so that it might always hear the gnashing of teeth and the wailing and moaning of all living things. From its mouth flowed countless foul poisons into the waters and the winds. Its decaying flesh gave birth to countless abominations--creeping, sightless many-legged things that crawled and slithered across the land; black-winged, cloven-hoofed creatures that swarmed in the storm-filled skies; powerful, many-toothed beasts that ruled the dark waters.

As the ages passed the Dark One grew bored with its foul minions, for they were mindless entities. And so it spawned others in its own image. Soon the children of the Dark One, the horoi, began to birth their own foul spawn into the world. Each tried to outdo the others by creating the foulest creature to impress the Dark One, and soon the horoi grew insanely jealous of one another. Then the Dark One's children began to attack one other[sic], directing their terrible spawn as a general commands troops against an enemy. Their vile blood filled the oceans, and their minions fed on the putrid corpses that littered the land. The Dark One rejoiced at the carnage and spawned new horoi to replace those devoured by their brothers.

Some time during the world's endless night, the Dark one bore a horoi that was not like the others. At first it seemed a little different from its vile brethren. But as time passed, the horoi slowly changed. First, it withdrew from the terrible battle that consumed all the others. It stretched its dark, webbed wings and soared into the sky. The grotesque minions of its brethren pursued it, clawing at its skin and pecking at its eyes, but it paid them no heed. It continued to climb higher and higher, until it passed the dark storm clouds and its tormentors could no longer follow it. It soared on the winds until it reached the other side of the world, a place the Dark One had not yet corrupted. Exhausted by its journey, it set down and fell into a deep, deep sleep.

For ages it slumbered, as the carnage and suffering continued unabated in the domain of the Dark One. Then one day a break appeared int he ever-present clouds overhead, letting in a stream of sunlight that warmed the horoi and wakened it. As it looked about, it noticed that its slimy, pockmarked, blackened skin had turned into gleaming white scales. The formless hulk of its body had been replaced with four strong legs, a slender tail and neck, and a pair of graceful wings, all connected to a stout and powerful middle. As the horoi gazed at itself in wonder, it realized that the air was silent-- free of the cries of pain and fear that filled the Dark One's domain. As it surveyed its surroundings, the horoi realized that it was alone. Nothing crawled underfoot or slithered through the seas or swarmed in the sky. For a moment, the horoi felt a great relief. Then the horoi closed its great eyes for a moment and felt something else. For the first time in its life, the horoi knew it was lonely.

As the thought entered its mind, a wonderful thing happened. Beneath its feet, it felt grass burst through the earth: then bushes and trees and entire forests. Suddenly, the sound of waves crashing against the shore reached its ears, and the horoi knew that an ocean lay over the horizon. Next came the sound of running rivers and waterfalls, then the sounds of animals in the forests. As the horoi surveyed what its loneliness had called forth, its heart grew full of something it had never know--joy. At that moment, nine large tears formed in its eyes and fell to the ground. At the spot where the first drop struck, a handsome winged creature resembling the horoi appeared. This created, it called Dragon. The second and third drops yielded creatures the horoi Named Elf and Human. The fourth and fifth drops created Obsidiman and T'skrang. The sixth and seventh formed Dwarf and Windling; and the eighth and ninth, Troll and Ork.

These new creatures traveled across the new land, swiftly producing other of their kind. Their voices were like music to the horoi's ears, and their settlements were like jewels set upon a giant tapestry. As the days passed the horoi taught its children all it knew. It taught them how to harvest food from the forest and rivers, how to sing and write and paint. And with great sadness, it taught them how to forge and wield the sword and shield. The weapons puzzled the horoi's inquisitive children, for they knew not war; but the horoi told them that one day a darkness would descend on them and they must be ready to fight.

Meanwhile, the Dark One's domain grew until its spawn reached the edge of the untouched lands. When the foul things saw the wonders that their transformed brother had wrought, they hurried back to their dark master and told it what they had seen. When the Dark One heard their news it cowed to destroy the heroi and its children, and fathered its minions together into a terrible army.

The Dark One's army filled the sky like a storm cloud and teemed across the untouched land like a giant shadow. From all sides the Dark One's minions attacked the horoi and its children, spewing venom and gnashing teeth, cutting, and burning and striking and killing all in their path. For seven days and nights the battle raged, as the horoi's children fought with sword and shield against the overwhelming foe. Finally, only the horoi and its nine firstborn children remained standing against the Dark One and its legion of abominations.

At that moment the horoi reared up on its hind legs, spread its wings and shouted in a voice that echoed like thunder across the plains, "I am Nightslayer, Mother of Beauty and Father of Good. Protector of All That is Light! I command you to leave this place! Be gone!"

As the horoi's children watched, a strange thing happened-- the land itself, the water rose up against the Dark One and its spawn. Terrified before a power greater than their own, the wretched creatures fled, flying higher and higher until they disappeared from view. The Dark One watched helplessly, shouting at its minions to remain and fight, but it could not stop them. Enraged, the Dark One turned toward the horoi.

'Ungrateful horoi, you know not what you do," the Dark One said. " But you will pay for your insolence. I, Verjigorm, will hunt your children for the rest of time. I will slay every last one of them, and my minions will feed on their pain and terror. But I will not give the mercy of death to your favorite--- The Dragon, the one you created in your image. The Dragon will know eternal pain. As you betrayed me, the children of the Dragon's line will betray you. I will corrupt them, twist their souls and make them my own. Then I will return to reign over all the world."

With that the Dark One fled after its minions, throwing an enormous ball of fire at Nightslayer as it did so. As the flowing orb approached, the horoi gathered its children under its wings. When the ball struck Nightslayer, it exploded like a thousand thunderclaps. The earth and sky rumbled, and a vast cloud filled the sky. After a time the great rumbling stopped and the sun shone once again. Nightslayer's children then gathered near the horoi's head, but the great creature had died. They were left alone to await the return of the Dark one called Verjigorm.