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    1. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      10 votes
    2. What creative projects have you been working on?

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on. Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just...

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

      Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

      If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      7 votes
    3. What languages do you speak?

      I'm always curious to see what languages people speak, especially given that most communication on sites like Tildes happens in English and as such it doesn't always come up. At one point, I was...

      I'm always curious to see what languages people speak, especially given that most communication on sites like Tildes happens in English and as such it doesn't always come up.

      At one point, I was pretty fluent in Spanish, but it's been about 4ish years since I've used it with any frequency and as such I am very rusty when speaking. I can still read and write it pretty well however. The big thing is that I have trouble these days recalling vocab I knew like the back of my hand... I should read more to stay sharp.

      I also took some French in college and can read it at a beginner-intermediate level, basically enough to understand threads on not super complex topics. I can write too, but require a dictionary for anything remotely complex. Speaking I'm shit however - despite having great teachers I always had a tough time with pronunciation.

      27 votes
    4. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      10 votes
    5. How do you convince someone of the value of egalitarianism?

      An odd question to ask, I'll admit, but I think it's worth asking. It's hard to have a public conversation today about political or politicised topics because people will pipe up and tell you that...

      An odd question to ask, I'll admit, but I think it's worth asking.

      It's hard to have a public conversation today about political or politicised topics because people will pipe up and tell you that you're crazy and your ideas are completely backwards. And the reason why people say this is often driven by conflicts between personally held values rather than the ideas themselves. As a result, these conversations usually end up with both sides arguing past eachother and no concensus is ever made; nobody is happy.

      One of the more common reasons for these arguements is typically because one party believes in egalitarianism - the belief that all people should be treated the same - and the other one does not. It's particularly strange to see given that so many countries have egalitarianism as a cornerstone to their government and laws. Yet we still see many people trying to take away rights and freedoms from certain classes of people.

      Regardless of any particular conversation, what do you think is the best way to convince someone in the value of egalitarianism? How do you convince someone that they're not part of a higher class who has power over another?

      13 votes
    6. What are your favorite Instant Pot/pressure cooker recipes?

      My husband and I are looking to do more with our Instant Pot in the coming year. The last thread we had on this topic was from 2018, so I figure we could use an update. What are your favorite...

      My husband and I are looking to do more with our Instant Pot in the coming year. The last thread we had on this topic was from 2018, so I figure we could use an update.

      • What are your favorite Instant Pot/pressure cooker recipes?

      Please link to the full recipe if possible!

      12 votes
    7. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      7 votes
    8. The results of the 2019 Census

      Hello everyone, it's 00:16 my time and I'm finally fucking done making all the data pretty for you after about 4 hours of coding to parse all those juicy CSV files cause guess what, the excel...

      Hello everyone, it's 00:16 my time and I'm finally fucking done making all the data pretty for you after about 4 hours of coding to parse all those juicy CSV files cause guess what, the excel files that JotForms gave me WHERE FUCKING GḀ͒ͬ̓ͦͅRͤ͊̔́B̴̼̫̟͍̅̆A̩̽ͮ̂̏͡G̸̭̜̑͑̃Ȇ͈͙͈̠̖̋́̌ͭ͂ͧhelp me

      Anyway :) Let's give y'all a brief rundown of the current Tilde demographics, and some highlights, CAUSE NOW I HAVE ALL YOUR DATA AND THUS INFINITE POWER TO MAKE JOKESdid I mention I've been doing for half the day and I'm really hungry? AND TIRED? Honestly you owe me this moment of insanity considering I'M RUNNING ON GREEN LEAF JUICE AND HOW MUCH DATA I WADED THROUGH AHHHH-.

      Also, most of these will be pictures because honestly I can't be asked to not pretty paste these figures into markdown tables or I'll legitimate go insane. Anyway, this post has plenty of sass, don't take this shit too seriously please, gracias.

      The 2019 Census

      Anyway.

      This year we got 249 responses in total, which really annoys me cause 250 is way prettier to look at at. However, one was completely empty and the other two are... Fishy. More on that later.

      Personal details

      Age

      When it comes to age, Tildes is heavily skewed towards people in their 20s to 30s, 45% of the responses came from people between 20 and 30. Overall, late 20s to and early 30s dominate the demographics. (before anyone screams at me about the proper use of graphs, don't worry I also took Statistics at uni, but the histogram in Excel refused to work and honestly go make your own census) There is also some statistical noise, which I'm not sure how it happened. Most likely someone typed too quickly.

      Our youngest user is 11! And either very intelligent, cause they also speak 9 languages, or a fraud. If you're not a fraud, I apologize and wish you luck on your future path in life, which will surely be extremely successful, if you really speak that many languages at such an age.Hint, this was one of the fishy responses

      Our oldest user is 70! I really don't know what to say, cause that's a pretty high number for an internet user. How was uhh... The cold war?Holy fuck I should stop I need to eat

      Geographical... Stuff

      Overall, the Tildes demographic hasn't changed much. US and Canada still lead by quite a lot, but we have acquired quite the little diverse userbase.

      All I can do is salute my fellow other Austrian user. Can you say Oachkatzalschwoaf though? THAT'S THE SIGN OF A REAL AUSTRIAN.NONE OF THIS STARTING WORLD WARS SHIT

      Language

      Predictably, a large number of people does not speak a second language besides English, however, due to geographical diversity, a large number of languages is represented, most of them from Europe, which is Tildes' second largest userbase.

      Gender & Sexuality

      Tildes is heavily male-dominated, probably due to its IT-focused population and the fact that most of us came from Reddit.

      Of the 248 responses, 17 people hit marked that they were trans, pretty much all of them MTF (which is apparently the majority of trans people, Wikipedia tells me.) 3 preferred not to say and everyone else is cis.

      Now, let's get to the sexy stuff. And by that I mean the point where the numbers rub together in fantastic ways.

      The majority of Tildes is really fucking straight, though we have some fun sexualities represented, my personal favourite Still figuring that out. You do you mate, you'll get there eventually. Also, whoever wrote down O-Sexual also wrote X-Treme Wiccan as their religion, and at this point in I'm too afraid to google what any of that is. Clearly, we need more straight people, after all, we're in the 20s.Before anyone yells at me, THIS WAS A FUCKING JOKE For now I've defined that person as Fish numero dos.

      Religion

      So, here's a doozy. To that one person (probably part of the 9% of <20 year olds), WHO DECIDED TO WRITE THE WONDERFUL ANSWER atheism and angosticism are not religions, can you PLEASE read the question properly next time. FUCK.Honestly that is such a 14 y/o thing to write, by the Ǵ͙͔͔̻͖̜́ͅO̶̱̘͡D͓̞͉̲͓̥S̢̲͙̙̟̯̙͓̱͟

      Anyway, religion is probably the thing with the most diverse answers, honestly. There are words in there I have never read in my life before. Like what is Apatheist.1? Is there some sort of ranking? Does it work with natural numbers only? Is there a Apatheist.3,51? It can't be a typo, people take religions way too seriously for that.

      Politics

      I averaged out the scores of everyone who answered the political questions and got the following answers (remember, these are based on the 8values quiz):

      Economy - 7,02
      Diplomacy - 6,9
      State - 3,8
      Society - 7,48

      Only economy is really surprising here, though I'd also have expected diplomacy to be a little lower as well. Maybe the leftist skew ia bit of an illusion?

      Work, education and really everything else these sections were a terrible idea

      When it comes to education, Tildes is pretty university focused. Almost half people replying have a bachelor's, a good bunch are working or have aquired their master's. Also one (maybe soon-to-be) MD and a few PhDs. The Craftsmen and tradeship people barely balance us out, we need some more COMMON FOLK IN HERE.

      IT people, rejoice! WE STILL REIGN SUPREMEEveryone else will remember that All jokes aside, shoutout to the stay-at-home dad, proud of ya'. And to the disabled person, I hope life goes as well as it can for you. That goes for the longterm-unemployed person as well. Someday, you'll manage mate, someday.

      And to the person who said their job is a waste of time in exchange of money... Mate, you need someone to talk? I'm here. We're all here.

      Surprise section about technical shit and Tildes

      OS usage is as expected, due to Tildes' heavy skew into IT and the fact that Apple doesn't nearly dominate as much in other countries as in the US, it's to be expected.

      Due to said IT dominance Linux has almost caught up with the leader, Windows. Though my personal favourite is Anything cool that comes into existence, like can we make a Linux fork that is called literally that? You'd be the perfect match.

      When it comes to Tildes specifically, y'all need to chill out. Most people who answered the census visit Tildes multiple times a day, like the content here doesn't even move that quickly? WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING? IS THERE SOME SECRET CULT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?If it's a LSD cult I'm totes in lads.

      As expected, most people who answered the survey have an account, and most likely due to the heavy IT skew most people are visiting from their PC. But I have also seen some people requesting a mobile app in the free form questions, so maybe that would go up if a native app were to be created.

      The freeform questions

      Well, in all honesty, not much has changed. Most people like the dedicated community, site design, in-depth discussions (though that was sometimes a point on both sides), etc. and dislike the heavy domination of IT topics and US/Europe news & politics. Also, multiple people simply said @Deimos when asked what they like most about Tildes. Get a room, y'all. Though it's well deserved, I think we can all agree on that.

      Complete list of positive feedback: https://pastebin.com/KYCYLWP1

      Complete list of negative feedback: https://pastebin.com/Eng6jjay

      Complete list of ideas for change: https://pastebin.com/eery3mCt

      Why am I posting these? Cause in all honesty, freeform feedback like this is hard to analyze and summarize, so I'd rather just post it all so everyone can form their opinion. Also, I'm tired.

      Special mentions

      Someone was nice enough to add the mention in parantheses that I should add them to the bisexual list instead if no one else marked pansexual. Well lucky you, exactly one other person marked it! You two can go find yourselves a room with lots of sexy pans in it now and have some fun.This is how it works, right? Or just, slide into each other's DMs or something and talk about your love for pans. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

      I also appreciate the one person who entered their religion in the languages section on accident. That's fact now, you speak Raised Catholic, now spiritual/atheist now, no shh, no talking back, that's your language now.

      To that one person that said that Tildes is too serious, this one's for you.

      And cheers to Deimos, without whom I couldn't be so silly on this overly serious but fantastic platform.

      Anyway, Grzmot out, I need sleep. I'll come back in 8 hours or so to regret the shit I just wrote down at 2 AM. Please don't ban me.

      83 votes
    9. How do you explain tech topics when your audience doesn't understand the details?

      Hive mind: What advice would you give to someone who has to give a presentation to a non-technical person, and it's important that the listener actually understand the details? How do you go about...

      Hive mind: What advice would you give to someone who has to give a presentation to a non-technical person, and it's important that the listener actually understand the details?

      How do you go about it? Specific tips appreciated. Pretend it's for a friend you care about.

      (This is for an article. Ideally we could refer to you by reference for context and credibility, eg "an IT security pro at a midwest insurance company" or "aerospace engineer" so please give some kind of identification to use).

      12 votes
    10. What are you reading these days?

      What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit. Previous topics Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

      11 votes
    11. What are some games like VA-11 HALL-A and Read Only Memories : 2064?

      I played VA-11 HALL-A quite a while ago and recently played ROM 2064. Both have similar aesthetics, sound, themes although they have different mechanics. I really liked how ROM had voice acting...

      I played VA-11 HALL-A quite a while ago and recently played ROM 2064. Both have similar aesthetics, sound, themes although they have different mechanics. I really liked how ROM had voice acting too which is a shame to say is not the case of VA-11 HALL-A but I still quite enjoyed both. 2064 perhaps more since it felt more engaged but perhaps that's just memory tricking me.

      I know there's N1RV Ann-A and ROM Neurodriver coming in 2020 but well, after that, I'll still have nothing so, what games have you played which are similar?

      PS : Have a happy new year and hope I've not posted in the wrong place, I'm not sure if it would've fit in the recurring topic.

      9 votes
    12. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      8 votes
    13. Use this, not that: Positive swaps for the New Year

      This is a bit of a sibling topic to the one about changing habits for 2020. Rather than looking at habits specifically, I want to look at "swaps" that people can make. What's something someone...

      This is a bit of a sibling topic to the one about changing habits for 2020. Rather than looking at habits specifically, I want to look at "swaps" that people can make.

      What's something someone could change out for a better alternative?

      A swap should be recommended if it is,

      • more ethical,
      • more sustainable,
      • heathier,
      • or just overall better in an individual or collective way.

      Importantly: the swap should be both feasible and sensical, and should be something that is relatively easy to do. This isn't about making huge lifestyle changes but about taking what we're already doing and making it better.

      Please give your reasoning for your swap, as well as any important caveats. Mentioning specific brands/companies is fine if that's an important part of the swap. Also, swaps can be for anything so don't feel limited to consumer products. Feel free to give good food/service/app/software/store swaps as well!

      See my post below for an example, if the setup I've given here is unclear!

      54 votes
    14. Explanatory narratives - tell your stories!

      I've commented on explanatory frameworks before. These are the unifying narratives that we use to make sense of ourselves, political concerns, economics, and even science and mathematics....

      I've commented on explanatory frameworks before. These are the unifying narratives that we use to make sense of ourselves, political concerns, economics, and even science and mathematics. Narratives are accounts of connected events or phenomena that attempt to express the connections in an explanatory story.

      We're often afflicted with "just-so" narratives that attempt to reconcile or explain the way the world works with little or no evidence, like claiming inequality of inborn capacities, innate racial differences, or the intervention of supernatural entities and forces.

      So this is everyone's chance to tell a story, at whatever length they find convenient, which explains something that concerns them. Possible examples of story topics:

      "Why finding work is a struggle for me"
      "Bayes' Theorem accounts for everything"
      "Political parties can't handle reality"

      These examples aren't about me or my beliefs - I'm just flinging things out there. This also isn't a college narrative essay exercise. So just tell a good story about something you care about, that's likely to engage others' interests and concerns.

      Conspiracy theories are probably not a good idea here; the tendency towards them is a dysfunction of humans' ability to create, and desire for, narratives.

      I ask that participants in the thread refrain from attempting to argue with or disprove others' stories here, but they can become jumping-off points for new Tildes topics.

      If this exercise is well-received, it could become a monthly recurring thread. Feel free to advise on better structure.

      17 votes
    15. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      7 votes
    16. What creative projects have you been working on?

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on. Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just...

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

      Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

      If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      9 votes
    17. Anyone has some good recommendations on economics and geopolitics channels?

      So far I know of Economics explained for economics and CaspianReport for geopolitics but neither has really convinced me of their credibility and these 2 subjects seem to be the dark sheep of...

      So far I know of Economics explained for economics and CaspianReport for geopolitics but neither has really convinced me of their credibility and these 2 subjects seem to be the dark sheep of educational content, due to being primarily speculative and subjective in nature and being quite niche for being such general topics.

      7 votes
    18. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      7 votes
    19. Feature request: Just like with votes, disable labels after vote retention period expires

      I think that if we aren't allowed to vote on old topics, we shouldn't be allowed to label them either. Not out of any privacy standpoint, but rather from the fact that this way, people can affect...

      I think that if we aren't allowed to vote on old topics, we shouldn't be allowed to label them either. Not out of any privacy standpoint, but rather from the fact that this way, people can affect ordering of comments even in old topics, which isn't something one would expect to happen. This is potentially confusing, as newcomers to a topic can affect comments even years after.

      16 votes
    20. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      8 votes
    21. Suppose we make Tildes topics a bit more like little blogs by adding support for "updates?"

      I've previously written about long-running topics and I've asked about software for blogging. But I keep coming back to doing some simple blogging on Tildes. I don't think Tildes should try to...

      I've previously written about long-running topics and I've asked about software for blogging. But I keep coming back to doing some simple blogging on Tildes. I don't think Tildes should try to compete with real blogging software, but maybe Tildes can support a minimal version of it, enough to make it worth doing it here when starting an independent blog isn't worth the effort? An example would be a project diary (like for my accordion synthesizer project). We could encourage people to start a topic for each of their creative projects that they want to talk about and to post updates as they make progress. Or, perhaps this would be a way to cover some ongoing story that they want to live-blog?

      I've refined my ideas a bit about how it might work: Suppose a Tildes topic contains a list of zero or more updates in chronological order? Only the original author can post an update, but anyone can write comments responding to any update. When you post an update to one of your topics, the comment tree for each previous update gets collapsed, encouraging people to comment on the latest update.

      When a topic gets an update, it reappears in the topic list with a separate set of votes, showing both the original topic's title and the update's title concatenated. Any old listing is removed, so we don't show the same topic twice. However, maybe the topic heading shows the last three updates or so if the topic is getting multiple updates in a short period of time, as might happen when live-blogging.

      12 votes
    22. What are you reading these days?

      What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit. Previous topics Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

      14 votes
    23. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      9 votes
    24. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      10 votes
    25. What creative projects have you been working on?

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on. Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just...

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

      Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

      If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      9 votes
    26. What simple features would you want in a new browser?

      So, I'm planning on building yet another browser (based on Firefox, since we already have too much Chromium forks around) I'm intending to target the people worried about their privacy, but aren't...

      So, I'm planning on building yet another browser (based on Firefox, since we already have too much Chromium forks around)

      I'm intending to target the people worried about their privacy, but aren't technical enough to dabble with about:config tweaks and deal with any site breakages.

      So, for this project, I'm planning on doing the following modifications to Firefox:

      • Tweaked by default to get a balance between increased privacy, and less site breakage
        • Tweaks include cutting any "background" communication with Mozilla (while I trust them, some people might not) and Google (safe browsing, geolocation)
        • Maybe, possibly, an "advanced privacy settings" menu for more privacy settings in exchange for site breakage?
      • Integrated ad blocker (Decided on uBlock Origin, maybe adding Nano Defender to bypass any nag screens)
      • Maybe a way to "pretend" to be a Chromium browser, since some sites require that nowadays (More user agent complexity, yay!)

      So, this is where this thread comes in. What would you guys want in a (Gecko-based) browser, that I can provide?

      I am definitely not planning any substantial under-the-hood changes, since that would
      a) make maintaining it a pain
      b) be way out of my skill level.

      I am only looking for stuff that can be applied with some simple source code patches, or an integrated extension, as I will not "fork" the entire FF source. This project is essentially a rebranded patchset. (Also allows for faster updates!)

      ps: Please be realistic, and remember that this is a one man thing. I can not make any substantial changes, like bringing XUL add-ons back, if you know what those are.

      pps: If you can, and are willing to help with anything, let me know and I'll put up a repo online :)

      ppps: Please let me know if I've made a mistake while creating this topic.

      15 votes
    27. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      5 votes
    28. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      11 votes
    29. What are you reading these days?

      What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit. Previous topics Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

      8 votes
    30. Tildes and multi-dimensional weighted votes

      hello, I've been wondering a little bit about what a well-designed voting system on a website like reddit or Tildes would look like, and as I do not have a definitive answer, I do have a...

      hello,

      I've been wondering a little bit about what a well-designed voting system on a website like reddit or Tildes would look like, and as I do not have a definitive answer, I do have a suggestion to make. I've originally posted this on another website, but I thought that it could also be fruitful to discuss this here, seeing that efforts have already been made in that direction (similar features have even already been implemented).

      Looking forward to reading you!

      I was wondering whether Aether should support downvotes or not, seeing that they are often misused on other discussion platforms to suppress content that is disliked rather than non-contributory or low-quality. People may then not view content that was heavily downvoted, even though it may have been high-quality.

      Should we rather use some other mechanism to serve that function? If so, what would it be?

      Personally, I'd suggest that we experiment with two-dimensional weighted voting.

      In a word, it would allow users to express both whether they agree or disagree with (alternatively, like or dislike) a piece of content (and how strongly so) and whether they think that that piece of content is high-quality or low-quality (and how strongly so).

      In practice, it could look like this (for users): upon clicking on the voting icon, a square with two scaled axes would appear. One for the quality of content, the other for the level of (dis)agreeance. A user, who had for instance found a piece of content to be very high-quality, but who somewhat disagreed with it, could then express that opinion by click and dragging right to the top of the square, but somewhat left of its center.

      That simple mechanism would therefore allow us to distinguish between those two criteria and better capture the intention behind a vote, and help alleviate the issue of seeing deeply unpopular content being buried despite its high quality. It would also allow users to express how strongly they feel about a piece of content by letting them adjust the weight of their vote. Plus, it wouldn't be too cumbersome to use (in my opinion).

      (Voting strongly should be slightly inconvenient or cumbersome to do, so as to deter users from voting strongly every time, thereby rendering strong votes meaningless. In practice, that could mean having to move one's mouse only a little for a soft vote, but more and more as the vote gains more weight.
      Axes should also be sticky, so as to make it easy to vote with respect to one criterion only (we shouldn't need to try and aim precisely).)

      We could also put in place some additional mechanism to let users rate content with regard to other criteria (how informative it is, or impressive, exciting, funny, etc.). I do not expect users to rate all the content they read, but allowing them to do so could still be useful. They may still bother to do it for content they find especially informative, impressive, etc., and that would then allow other users to sort content with regard to one or several of these criteria and find content tailored to their interests.

      (We could then also display for any piece of content a chart (that could look like this) showing how it was rated with regard to all these criteria. That's not really important, but I find that cool.

      We could also plot the number of votes as a function of vote strength, find the average vote strength and so on... That would also be cool, and interesting.)

      What do you think?

      24 votes
    31. I've created a temporary sub-group for this year's Advent of Code, subscribe if you're interested!

      In this thread, people have been starting to post and discuss their solutions to this year's Advent of Code problems. To help make this easier to organize and discuss on Tildes, I've decided to...

      In this thread, people have been starting to post and discuss their solutions to this year's Advent of Code problems.

      To help make this easier to organize and discuss on Tildes, I've decided to create a sub-group devoted to it: ~comp.advent_of_code. We can keep this sub-group around for a couple of months or so, and this way we can split into separate topics for each day's problems, people getting started later can still get involved easily, and it will also make it simple for others that aren't interested to avoid the posts (just don't subscribe).

      I've automatically subscribed everyone that interacted with that original topic (by commenting in it, or voting on the topic itself or any of the comments), but nobody else. So if you're interested in participating in Advent of Code or discussing it, please subscribe to the sub-group. Posts from the sub-group won't be shown to logged-out users by default either, so any logged-out users that want to observe will need to visit the sub-group directly (or you're welcome to email me and request an invite so you can register and subscribe).

      I'll also be setting up scheduled posts to post automatically for each day's puzzle and possibly some other things, but we can discuss all of that inside the sub-group.

      Edit: All of the topics have now been moved back into ~comp under the "advent of code.2019" tag, and the group deleted.

      37 votes
    32. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      9 votes
    33. Timasomo Post #6: Finish Line and Next Steps!

      Timasomo has officially ended. Congrats to all participants! The Community Showcase is coming up on Saturday, December 7th. Next Steps If you want to be featured in the showcase, please PM me as...

      Timasomo has officially ended. Congrats to all participants!

      The Community Showcase is coming up on Saturday, December 7th.


      Next Steps

      1. If you want to be featured in the showcase, please PM me as soon as possible with a quick "I'm in!" just so I can get a headcount to plan around.

      2. All participants have until December 6th to put the finishing touches on their work (or just plain finish up, as I already broke the rules so it's only fair that everyone else gets the same opportunity!)

      3. For those who will be in the showcase, please PM me again by December 6th with the following information:

      • The title of your work
      • A link to whatever it is you would like to display for the showcase1
      • A short (a few sentences) artist statement introducing your work

      For the showcase, I will randomly split up participants' work between three threads, posting one thread each day on the 7th, 8th, and 9th. I will post the title, link, and artist statement in the topic itself. Featured creators are strongly encouraged to post a top-level comment in their showcase thread in which you go more in-depth about your work, talk about your creative process and final product, and solicit feedback if desired.

      Discussion: The END

      • How does it feel to be "done"?
      • Does what you ended up with match your intentions at the beginning, or did you have to course correct?
      • What's next for you, creatively speaking?
      • What did you learn along the way?

      1: This can be a link to a website, pictures, blog post, download -- whatever it is that best captures your creative work. It does not need to be the complete work itself, so if you'd rather share only portions or an excerpt, that's fine.

      If your work is entirely text, I can include it right in the topic itself on Tildes. Anything else will have to be linked to, since Tildes can't host images or downloads. If in doubt about how best to present your work, let me know in the PM and we can figure it out!

      14 votes
    34. Tag formatting inconsistencies

      I've been noticing a couple of weird formatting issues with tags on topics. For some posts, the first tag is shown before the metadata, then the rest of the tags are on a new line below. This...

      I've been noticing a couple of weird formatting issues with tags on topics. For some posts, the first tag is shown before the metadata, then the rest of the tags are on a new line below. This isn't always the case, and so far I can't find any rhyme or reason for whether it does or not. It's not like some CSS float issue or anything, it's actually creating two <ul>'s. — example

      The second issue I've noticed is sometimes the dangling part of a letter like lowercase "g" will be cut off by the footer. It seems like this is caused by .label {line-height: 1.2;}, but it's also inconsistent, and I haven't figured out why. In this example the "g" in "climate change" is not affected.

      Maybe it's just me, I dunno. Firefox 70 on linux. I'd create a gitlab issue, except I am very lazy.

      7 votes
    35. Tildes Pen Pals

      So today I decided to ditch instant messaging / texting / whatever in favor of longform emails, phone calls (which I'm terrible at), and proper physical letters. I want to focus on the physical...

      So today I decided to ditch instant messaging / texting / whatever in favor of longform emails, phone calls (which I'm terrible at), and proper physical letters.

      I want to focus on the physical letters part because that's a skill I'd like to train, but I only have a couple people who it looks like will go through with that. Most will either let me float away (understandably!) or will contact me in the more convenient ways I'm allowing myself to engage in. So after playing Kind Words, I'm thinking that writing to strangers could be a fun exercise! This could be a couple people meeting here and writing letters, or it could be a whole thing, depending on interest. Casual letters are beautiful things, let's try to make some :)

      If you want to participate, please post at least the following:

      Age group:
      Topics of interest:
      Country / Region (please don't post your address, that can be done through PMs):

      27 votes
    36. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      9 votes
    37. Timasomo Post #5: Reflection for Week Four of Four

      Timasomo FAQ What is Timasomo? Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month," a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National...

      Timasomo FAQ

      What is Timasomo?

      Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month," a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.

      What are the rules?

      Timasomo is self-driven and its goals are self-selected. On November 1st, participants will commit to a creative project (or projects) that they plan to complete within the month of November. There is no restriction on the methods/products of creativity: writing, painting, code, food, photos, crafts, songs -- if it's creative expression for you, it works for Timasomo!

      Though most will be participating individually, collaborations are welcome too!

      What is the schedule?

      Timasomo begins November 1st and ends November 30th. All creative output towards your goal(s) should be confined to this time. This week prior to the start of November is for planning, and there will be a few days at the beginning of December given to "finishing touches" before we have our final thread, which will be a showcase of all the completed works. The showcase date is TBD and will be decided by the participants toward the end of the month, once we have a better idea of what we'll need to do wrap up our projects.

      Can I participate?

      Yes! Timasomo is open to anyone on Tildes! If you would like to join, post your goal here. The greater Tildes community is also encouraged to participate in discussion threads even if you are not actively working towards a creative goal. This is meant to be an inclusive community event -- all are welcome! If you are interested in participating but do not have a Tildes login, please e-mail the invite request address here for an invite to the community.


      Thread #5: Reflection for Week Four of Four

      Timeline for the Close of Timasomo:

      • Timasomo officially ends at the beginning of Monday Sunday (lol), December 1st, wherever you are.
      • I will post a closing thread at that time with next steps for all participants.
      • You have until Thursday, December 5th to put the finishing touches on your creative works to ready them for the showcase.
      • The showcase will begin Friday, December 6th.

      Give a Progress Update

      This is the final stretch! What do things look like for you as we close in on the finish?

      Remaining Work

      What still needs to be done? Are you going to be able to easily finish in time, or will you have to cram things in at the last minute?

      Wrap-Up and Polishing

      How do you plan to spend the few days of wrap-up time? What edits do you need to make or polish do you need to add, if any?

      Discussion Topic of the Week: Ideas for Other Events

      Timasomo was my first experiment in doing a Tildes-based "event." I plan to post a thread at the end of it specifically diving into whether we want to do another Timasomo down the road, and, if so, what changes could be made to the processes and setup, but for now I'm curious as to what other ideas are out there: what other Tildes-based events would be people be interested in?

      They don't have to follow the same format as this, and they don't have to be entire months. The format and function are totally open. Would you want to do a Tildes game jam? A poetry contest? A donation drive? Pen pals?

      Share your ideas here for what community-based "events" you would like to see here on Tildes.


      Let's go FINISH SOMETHING.

      12 votes
    38. What creative projects have you been working on?

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on. Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just...

      This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

      Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

      If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      5 votes
    39. Better support for long-running topics?

      I feel like with our weekly recurring topics, comments are getting posted all over the place. For example, if you want to read about what people think of a particular game, it's going to be spread...

      I feel like with our weekly recurring topics, comments are getting posted all over the place. For example, if you want to read about what people think of a particular game, it's going to be spread out among a lot of different topics.

      It seems like it might be nicer if in the games group, there were one topic for each game? Similarly for movies or books, or creative projects. This is how we did things on the Well, though there was also a "movies that didn't get their own topic" topic. But it seems like that was a limitation of a system that didn't deal well with having lots of topics in a group.

      To support this well, we'd need to make coming back to long-running topics more pleasant to read somehow. With a linear conversation the software can start you off wherever you left off. I'm not sure what's best for threaded conversation?

      In short, maybe there should be a way to do things more like forum software and less like Hacker News or Reddit? Or should we just try it out without changing the software?

      11 votes
    40. Discussion time: What are your opinions on digital censorship?

      Given the furor on Youtube over the new COPPA laws and the way they will affect content creators, I'd sort of like to know the opinions of tildezens on the topic of digital regulation. What do you...

      Given the furor on Youtube over the new COPPA laws and the way they will affect content creators, I'd sort of like to know the opinions of tildezens on the topic of digital regulation. What do you guys think about heavy moderation or even censorship on social media platforms? Do you think it's a necessary way to keep online communities safe for all, or is it stifling open discussion on the internet?

      (Not sure if should be placed in here or tech, please don't flame)

      12 votes
    41. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      7 votes
    42. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      13 votes
    43. Timasomo Post #4: Reflection for Week Three of Four

      Timasomo FAQ What is Timasomo? Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month," a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National...

      Timasomo FAQ

      What is Timasomo?

      Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month," a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.

      What are the rules?

      Timasomo is self-driven and its goals are self-selected. On November 1st, participants will commit to a creative project (or projects) that they plan to complete within the month of November. There is no restriction on the methods/products of creativity: writing, painting, code, food, photos, crafts, songs -- if it's creative expression for you, it works for Timasomo!

      Though most will be participating individually, collaborations are welcome too!

      What is the schedule?

      Timasomo begins November 1st and ends November 30th. All creative output towards your goal(s) should be confined to this time. This week prior to the start of November is for planning, and there will be a few days at the beginning of December given to "finishing touches" before we have our final thread, which will be a showcase of all the completed works. The showcase date is TBD and will be decided by the participants toward the end of the month, once we have a better idea of what we'll need to do wrap up our projects.

      Can I participate?

      Yes! Timasomo is open to anyone on Tildes! If you would like to join, post your goal here. The greater Tildes community is also encouraged to participate in discussion threads even if you are not actively working towards a creative goal. This is meant to be an inclusive community event -- all are welcome! If you are interested in participating but do not have a Tildes login, please e-mail the invite request address here for an invite to the community.


      Thread #3: Reflection for Week Three of Four

      Only one week left! This is your chance to wrap things up or, if you're like me, make up for lost time!

      Give a Progress Update

      How's it been going? Tell us where you're currently at!

      Breakdowns and Breakthroughs?

      With any creative process, there'll always be unexpected flashes of brilliance or unexpected fizzles for what seemed like good ideas. Have you encountered anything that didn't go like you wanted it to, or something that up and surprised you out of nowhere?

      What's Coming Up This Week?

      What is this final week going to look like for you?

      Discussion Topic of the Week: Meta Housekeeping

      This week's discussion focus is more functional than the others, as there are two main areas I want to get everyone's thoughts on:

      Finish Timeline

      Officially, creative work for Timasomo should end at the end of the day on November 30th, but I want to give some time for people to put finishing touches on their work and get it ready to share. How much time do we need? Should I just keep the weekly rhythm going and make the even officially end on that next Friday, the 6th? I'm open to any and all ideas here, some of which might be influenced by what we decide on the item below:

      Showcase Logistics

      I'd also like to hear people's thoughts on how we can best show off our work. I have a few ideas:

      • One topic, where each participant posts a top-level comment with their work.
      • One topic, where I post participant-submitted blurbs for each work in the topic itself.
      • Individual topics for each work (posted either by the participant or me)

      I like the idea of having all the works "under one roof" in a single topic, but I also like the idea of having each work being its own topic. I even think it could be neat to coordinate a "showcase schedule" where, say, only one work gets posted per day until we go through everyone's contributions. This would space out discussions rather than flooding ~creative with everything all at once, but I don't want people at the end of the line to feel cheated from their moment in the spotlight if people get sick of seeing a new Timasomo post each and every day.

      Nothing's decided yet, but let me know your thoughts!


      As before: best of luck to ALL participants! Let's go MAKE SOMETHING.


      Meta

      Suggestions

      If anyone has anything they want me to add to this post or suggestions for the next one, let me know either here or by PM!

      12 votes
    44. The voting on topics and comments now ends when they're 30 days old and all individual vote records are deleted, retaining only the count

      This is a privacy-related update that I've always intended to implement on Tildes, and I finally spent some time on it this week. Keeping eternal records of everything that every user ever voted...

      This is a privacy-related update that I've always intended to implement on Tildes, and I finally spent some time on it this week.

      Keeping eternal records of everything that every user ever voted on is some of the most sensitive data that sites with a voting system have. Your voting history says a huge amount about you, your interests and opinions, and can even serve as a decent proxy for showing what times you were active on the site, what posts you were reading, and how long you spent reading the comments on each of them. In exchange for these major privacy implications, you get the tiny benefit of being able to tell which old posts you voted on (if you even go back to old posts).

      So now, to match up with Tildes's general approach of deleting as much sensitive data as possible after 30 days, the voting on posts closes when they're 30 days old. After a post's voting is closed, the records of which individual users voted on that post are deleted, but the count of how many votes there were is kept. So old posts will continue showing their same "scores" exactly the same as before, but there will be no record of which individual users cast those votes.

      However, this isn't a purely positive update: the main downside is that the voting does need to be closed (otherwise there would be no way to prevent people from voting again after their first vote is deleted), which prevents the occasionally useful ability to vote on old topics or comments. Overall though, voting on older posts is extremely rare, with less than 1% of the votes on Tildes ever made on something that was over 30 days old at the time of voting.

      When the "delete old sensitive data" job runs for the first time after this update later today, 97% of the voting data in the database will be deleted. That's a massive decrease in the amount of sensitive data the site is retaining, and something that most sites would never consider doing, because of the value of that data for behavior analysis and ad-targeting.

      121 votes
    45. What are you reading these days?

      What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit. Previous topics Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

      14 votes
    46. Bon Appétit - Making Perfect Season 2: Thanksgiving

      Rather than post this new season's episodes individually as they came out, I decided to wait until it was complete before I submitted anything. The final episode came out yesterday, so here is the...

      Rather than post this new season's episodes individually as they came out, I decided to wait until it was complete before I submitted anything. The final episode came out yesterday, so here is the season in its entirety. Enjoy!

      Here are all the episodes in order:

      What Makes the Perfect Thanksgiving Meal? | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving - Prologue
      Brad and Andy Try to Make the Perfect Turkey & Cranberry Sauce | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 1
      Molly and Carla Try to Make the Perfect Mashed Potatoes & Gravy | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 2
      Chris and Rick Try to Make the Perfect Stuffing | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 3
      Claire & Christina Try to Make the Perfect Thanksgiving Sides | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 4
      Claire & Brad Make the Perfect Thanksgiving Pie | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Ep 5
      The BA Test Kitchen Makes the Perfect Thanksgiving Meal | Making Perfect: Thanksgiving Finale


      p.s. The reason this is a text topic is because it turns out the BA playlist of this season, which I originally submitted, is out of order and so I decided to delete that and resubmit this.

      10 votes
    47. Feature Idea: Tildes Playlist - Would it be useful to have some sort of automated, easy to use, media categorization?

      My use case: I watch videos (YouTube) and listen to audio (Podcasts) as a major part of my weekly media intake. I would love some sort of generated Tildes Playlist . IANADev, but it sure would be...

      My use case:
      I watch videos (YouTube) and listen to audio (Podcasts) as a major part of my weekly media intake. I would love some sort of generated Tildes Playlist . IANADev, but it sure would be nice if Tildes was able to parse, scrape, and categorize media posted as topics and in comments. Then present them to me with a date filter, and allow separating audio only and video media. Maybe something like tildes.net/?tag= but at tildes.net/playlist. I guess it would be nice to be able to sort media by tag as well.

      Possible other use case:
      Accessibility?

      I see that some videos are already being tagged "videos." So there already is some organic interest in this special category, right?

      What do you all think, is this useful?

      From a dev perspective, is getting that correct enough difficult? Does Embedly categorize audio only and video?

      edit: in the playlist view, there should of course be a link back to the topic or comment where the media was found. Also, @Deimos, I certainly don't want to take Tildes away from the text-first/only direction of the site, but sometimes I am doing stuff conducive to audio/video media intake like cooking, driving, etc. It would be cool to be able to easily consume it then, and come back to comment later.

      13 votes
    48. What are you doing this week?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week. If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

      If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

      16 votes
    49. What are you doing this weekend?

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend. If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't...

      This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

      If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

      A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

      So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

      4 votes