As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
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.
(Is it really that time again already?)
It's already started a little, but over the next day or so, the internet will be filled with jokes, pranks, fake "announcements" from companies, fun interactive activities, games, and so on. A lot of these can be quite clever and interesting so I think posting about them in general is fine, but in the interest of preventing them from completely taking over Tildes, let's try to keep as many of them restricted to this thread as possible. Ideally, a separate top-level comment for each individual item would be good.
If something particularly discussion-worthy comes up (like an ARG or activity that a lot of people want to talk about), a separate thread is reasonable, but please make sure it has the "april fools day" tag. That way, if anyone wants to avoid seeing the April Fools' Day threads, they can use the topic tag filters and filter that tag out.
I'm going to use the "official" styling for this topic (that's usually only for ~tildes.official topics) to make it stand out more to try to encourage people to notice it. If you notice people making individual topics for April Fools' Day things that don't really warrant their own topic, please (nicely) encourage them to delete and post in here instead.
Note: I'm posting this a day earlier than planned, just in case anyone forgot it was coming up and needed a bit more advance notice.
EDIT: I am just now realizing the unfortunate coincidence of posting this thread when I did. This is NOT an April Fools’ joke, I promise!
Tildes "Screenless Day" is a simple event aimed at encouraging people to take a temporary step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology and spend their time and energies elsewhere.
It takes place over the weekend starting on the first Friday of each month. Participants will choose that Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to take as their screenless day -- whichever works best for their schedule.
Some people might not be able to participate in that window, and that's fine too. They can choose to shift their day earlier or later as needed. It is also completely fine (and encouraged!) to take personal screenless days separate from the event if you like. This thread will be posted the first weekend of each month, but it is open for comments the entire month.
"Screenless" is an ideal, not a mandate. The spirit of the day is to deliberately step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology, and what that means is different for each person. Thus, it is up to each participant to determine what "screenless" means to them. Some might only choose to not use social media for a day; some might choose to eliminate all "screens" but still use their ereader; some may maintain some screen use but only for necessity (e.g. work; classes; GPS; etc.). Some might get rid of screens entirely, or go fully "unplugged" for the day.
You do not have to do anything formal at all to participate -- simply take your screenless day in whatever way is best for you! That said, I think it's more enjoyable and valuable to make this a shared experience, so the structured way to participate, for anyone interested, is as follows:
Consider the following questions:
To have your plan stand out from normal conversation, please use the # markdown to title your post "[yourusername's] Screenless Day Plan"
Post a response to your original comment in which you tell us all about your day.
To have your follow-up stand out from normal conversation, please use the # markdown to title your post "[yourusername's] Screenless Day Reflection"
Yes! The more, the merrier! Discussion from anyone, participant or non-participant alike, is welcome. Though, do understand that it might take a bit longer than normal for some people to respond. :)
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
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.
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
I floated an idea in the quitting reddit topic about setting up a sort of "Screenless Day":
Would anyone be interested in participating in a sort of designated “screenless day”?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about trying to organize for a while. I’m thinking it’s something we could set it up among us here at Tildes and shoot for, say, one day a month where we all agree to not turn on any of our screens and do literally anything else. The following day, once we come back online, we can talk about what we did, how it felt, etc.
It seemed like we have a few users here who might be interested, so I figured we could talk things out here about how we might implement it.
The main things I think we need to consider are:
Scheduling: having a specific calendar day centralizes efforts but also limits individual autonomy -- how can we organize this so it's simultaneously communal but also allows for individual flexibility?
Parameters: this is much more about the spirit of something than about hard and fast rules, but I think it benefits us to have a baseline guideline for what constitutes "screenlessness" (e.g. someone going on a hike might still use the GPS on their phone, and that can seem like a "violation" but is still very much in the spirit of the day)
I'll also qualify that I'm not beholden to "screenless" as the focus in the slightest. We could easily do something that's "unplugged" or "no social media" or whatever. Also I don't even have to be the leader of this! If someone else is wanting to take the reins I am more than happy with that, but I also don't mind driving the bus either.
Anyway, drop your thoughts here about how we can best roll this out. This is our brainstorming session, so nothing is set in stone and everything is up for consideration right now!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
If I add, remove, or change a topic filter, and then press the "Save" button, I get no indication that anything happened. It does work, but it's odd that it doesn't tell you it tried. What if something caused it to fail? (Maybe that case is handled?) I think it should say something like "Changes saved at 3:11:42PM", or something along those lines so you know it actually updated.
I was curious if there was a way to filter all posts that link to, say, example.com? There are some websites I don't want to see any articles from. If not, I'd like to see such a feature added.
Similar to other discussions we've had in the past, I think this topic will be most beneficial if we elevate and consider the voices of people on the spectrum who choose to answer. Please consider how a thread full of neurotypical voices on this topic can drown out or be unwelcoming to the people this question is aimed at.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
(Topics like this need people to have more sympathy for the other because we're talking about real people's sexualities and discrimination these people often face every day and have deep feeling abouts, so be nice.)
If I had to (uneducatedly) guess, some of them would be:
Your sexuality (and the word allosexual) being as good as unknown by most people.
Asexuality being a big umbrella (hence the title being demisexual/demiromantic/asexual/aromantic rather than just asexual)
Allosexual and aromantic people being confused for "people who only want sex"
People not believing you when you say that.
Being perceived as an anomaly or lying, along with people promising that you will realize the truth one day.
Overly religious people seeing your sexuality as a virtuous rejection of degenerate lust/sin and as an unnatural anomaly simultaneously.
People seeing your sexuality as being "free" from dating or porn consumption or above identifying yourself by how un-sexed you are. (True, but obviously very reductive and usually contingent on the insecurities of the people seeing you that way.) (This is admittedly something I struggle with.)
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
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.
I have some music links I was thinking of posting. However, I didn't want to flood ~music with 10 new links at once. It can make a category look like it has really homogenous content to newcomers when a single poster has posted a bunch of links at once. What I'd like to do is post one per day for the next several days. But I don't want to potentially forget one day because I got a little busy, or whatever. Would it be useful to be able to create a topic but set it to not post until a particular day or time?
Hey all! I got the idea for this from looking at the thread asking the users what they want to see more of on Tildes. While I unfortunately don't feel I have much to contribute in the way of ~arts, ~books, or ~humanities, I do have a love of ~music! (And an electric drum-kit, that I hooked up to my laptop yesterday)
I remember there being a thread about music collaboration a while back, and while it looks like nothing came of it then, I figured the time was ripe for another try! My idea is this: People record themselves playing any instrument they want (or know how), and post that recording as a top level comment. Others in the thread download the format (midi, wav, whatever) and add their own instrument into the mix, posting as a reply to the top level comment. Think of it like crowdsourcing a song, I suppose.
To start us off, have a link to a google drive folder of mine which has a couple drum beats (3 wav, and 1 midi). Import those, riff off em, and post what you got! I'll see if I can do the same if anyone else has audio they'd like to share.
If this thread goes well, maybe we could make it a recurring topic!
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
There's been quite a bit of discussion lately about people don't want to see, but not that much about what sort of content we do want to see. What would you like to see more of?
For the official stance, I'll repost the instructions that most of us are probably skipping over by now.
Tildes prioritizes high-quality content and discussion
Please post topics that are interesting, informative, or have the potential to start a good discussion.
Please avoid posting topics that are primarily for entertainment or that don't have discussion value.
This seems vague, and we probably have different ideas of what's high-quality and what counts as good discussion?
I'm also wondering if we should be here more for the links or for the discussion. When I arrived, I was just happy to find a quiet place where I could post links to articles that I found elsewhere and were particularly interesting to me. (But I think I had gotten into a rut for a while after getting obsessed with the pandemic and politics.) Maybe we should try posting more links?
Lay it on the line in our March club posting! This time, let's submit short stories, chapters, essays.
@eve suggests that the optional theme be "liminality/liminal spaces. It could be about them, the creation of one, a dissection, the destruction of one, or just take place there. Anything and everything liminal."
Liminal is a sort of between. The definition is: relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
You can also look into liminal spaces. These can be real places (like a train station that's simply a point people transfer to other trains to) or even the emotional betweens; coming to realizations or on a precipice of something. Like, summer vacation could be a liminal space even!
If you're not into borders and transitional spaces, or if you've been incubating a polemic all pandemic long, you are still encouraged to share your writing! You may draw inspiration from any theme (fictional or real).
Produce a short story, essay, or chapter of a longer work. Your submission should not exceed 7,000 words. Let's aim for pieces 350-3500 words.
Watch for the March 14 submissions thread to appear... on March 14! Reply to it with a link to your work, which may be housed anywhere you like, including on Tildes. Prioritize venues that are not known to be aggressively anti-privacy (e.g., Google Docs). You may provide questions for readers in hidden expandable text, if you like.
You must provide feedback on 3 submissions if you are posting a submission. Only one needs to be a substantial critique. Our first outing was a trial run, and the offerings were extremely short. I anticipate proportionally longer responses to come easily this time. If you see a post without feedback, consider giving it preference in the order of your responses. No one likes to be left hanging.
Feel free to post questions in this topic. We had a stimulating and moderately edgy trial run. I'm excited for the longer prose to come!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I don't think I saw a feature like this in the gitLab, apologies if it's already in the works or been suggested.
The gist of it would be to have an @/help ping so if someone needs an edit to a title or tags or something, they can use that and it'd flag the topic or somehow show those who have the permissions that this thread needs attention. This might be helpful for users (like moi) who might not know the people who CAN do this already off the top of their head, beyond Deimos.
Let me know your thoughts or if this could be a useful feature for anyone else.
Hello loves!
A wonderful individual reached out to me recently and proposed the idea of creating more of a community within Tildes, rather than being a smaller part of the Tildes community as a whole. As it is right now, Tildes feels like a single place with a single voice that's the average of its members, and we'd like to change that. We've started a discord server for queer individuals on Tildes. This server is meant to define itself as its own thing. ~lgbt is a place to organize posts on a topic, not a community, so we'd like to fill that hole.
Here's the invite link: https://discord.gg/FmhWYVAhFs
One particular aspect of forming a community I think is important, perhaps even more so for a minority identity, is that Tildes can be frustrating and alienating at times, even when it doesn't intend to be. This space is meant to be somewhere you can go to vent when you run into any of the many trials and tribulations you may run across on this wonderful website. You know, the times where you want to bang your head against a wall because you're just not getting through to someone else or when you open a thread, read a few replies, shake your head and close it - disappointed in the tone or direction it has taken. After all, sometimes we don't want to be direct or confrontational to people who say hurtful things when often they're just mislead, uneducated, or misinformed.
Anyhow, I hope to see many of you wonderful folks in there and I'm looking forward to knowing you all a little bit better! 💜
Last week I woke up to yet another PM from someone I've come to admire from afar on tildes. This was a user I'd seen many times on Tildes, bringing with them a unique and powerful voice. This person was a minority. They brought a voice to the table that was like a breath of fresh air - I'd frequently see them enter threads dominated by a single opinion and make everyone challenge their assumptions. They would enter and offer their shoes to anyone who'd like to try them on and get a glimpse into how the world might work for them, should they be brave enough to walk a mile or two.
This is not the first PM I've received from someone who decided this website had become too troublesome to continue participating and it's likely not the last I will see. While it is heartbreaking to see them go, it is equally heartbreaking to me that the reason they are going is often not because people are trying to push them away. By far and large, I see a majority of tildes users actively participating in discussions with good faith. By the results of the last census, increasing diversity was of importance to the majority of users and I do not think they were free-text typing that in without good cause.
This post is one that I've been contemplating in the back of my mind for a very long time now. It first really occurred to me nearly a year ago when a fairly well known person of minority status got banned for being too confrontational and aggressive to the kind of voice they didn't want to see on Tildes. I wasn't sure how to address it at the time, and I wasn't entirely certain it would be a problem, but the year since this post I've become hyper aware to its existence in a way I wasn't previously. In fact, I've had a bit of this conversation on more than one outlet on the internet already, because my recognition of this behavior has had me upset many times since. To this extent, I thank that user, because it truly did open my eyes to a behavior which I believe is self-sabotaging, but often genuine in nature.
I believe the simplest way to explain what is happening is through the law of large numbers. While not everyone responded to the 2020 Tildes Census (in fact I would imagine maybe 10% of us did), I'm going to use it as a model to touch on these issues. There were a total of 350 responses to the survey. Of this 86% were male, 67% were heterosexual, 75% were atheist or agnostic (50, 25 respectively), 52% were from the US, and 47% identified as white or Caucasian. I point all of this out to say that as a population we tend to trend towards a particular kind of individual. To be clear, this isn't necessarily bad - we are still quite a small website and we need to start somewhere with a base we know how to pull from.
But this does present a unique problem when it comes to interaction. Let's imagine for a second that 1 in 100 individuals has some sort of problematic behavior on Tildes that manages to find its way into discussion. This behavior might be that they have a strong intolerant opinion on a specific subject but manage to obscure it enough to get past the intolerance detecting capabilities of others. Or perhaps their views are not intolerant, but they simply possess a strong opinion on how something should be worded or an aversion to a particular kind of venting. Because I don't want to throw anyone under the bus I'm going to pull from an upsetting behavior I used to have in my childhood - I couldn't shut my mouth when people would bring up that women make '70 cents on the dollar'.
It's very hard for me to look back and definitively say it was one shaping experience that led me to behave like that. If I had to attribute this shameful behavior, I think there's a few major players. First off, I grew up in an upper middle class family who happened to be located in an area that was very homogeneous. I went to school with the children of tech millionaires, many of whom were white and quite privileged. I think there were a grand total of 4 people of color in my middle school. Things got a lot better once I had made it to high school (by numbers, whites were in the minority), but there's a subtle cultural indoctrination that happens through absorbing what you hear from parents and teachers at a young age. As a young child, I also latched on to early internet behavior. People who were pedantic about grammar, who could use logic effectively, and otherwise followed the rules that rich white people before them set up as the 'correct' way to do discuss were revered on the internet. I remember when being the grammar police was behavior that was actually celebrated. This kind of mindset lead me to read into the research on the matter (also primarily conducted by rich white folks, another bias I'm trying to undo in my life) and the modern research suggested that this figure was outdated and poorly controlled.
I was the 1 in 100 users with the problematic behavior. It took me awhile to learn that I wasn't helping anyone out by offering this information up (turns out there were a lot of people already doing the same work I was and people are smarter than I gave them credit for), but that only scratches at the surface of the real problem. The real problem is that I didn't have the lived experience of a woman entering spaces where this discussion was happening. I wasn't the woman who received less pay than their colleagues, who put in more hours, who spoke up but was talked over, whose ideas were restated by their male peers, or who clicked on an article link talking about pay inequality or women's rights and how far we still have to go and was met with hostile comments. I didn't know how soul-crushing it could be to be met with nearly the same resistance in every public sphere where this was being discussed. I didn't know how tiring it was to have to justify my existence and to explain my struggles to those who hadn't lived the same life as me. I didn't know how heart wrenching it would feel for someone I valued, trusted, and loved to express opinions like these years after I had built up a strong bond with them and for them to be entirely unaware of the damage they were causing.
To be clear, when I say understand I mean to have either experienced it directly enough to begin to actually place myself in the shoes of others or heard about it enough for their experience to truly sink in. It's one thing to acknowledge and know that this behavior exists, it's another to live it and see it first hand on a day where you're hanging on by a thread. To truly understand how mentally exhausting it can be to treated this way was something that escaped my comprehension because I could only live this experience through the words of others. I didn't really start to appreciate this until I got older, because I started recognizing how universal this experience truly was. I don't think I know a single female who doesn't have a story of sexual assault - the rate at which they respond with something in their lives is a stark reminder of how far we still have to come.
What I knew, but didn't truly understand is that if 1 in 100 users have problematic behavior and 1 in 100 users are transgender, we have an equal number of transgender individuals as we do users with problematic behavior. I want you to stop here and reread the last sentence and really absorb it before moving on. Ask yourself what problems might arise by these inequality existing.
In this hypothetical we have an even number of individuals who are going to participate in a thread about a transgender issue as we have transgender individuals. If even 1 of these transgender individuals decides they do not want to engage with this behavior, we're on a downwards slope to eventually having nearly no transgender representation as now they are outnumbered and their voice is more likely to be drowned out by the problematic individuals. As less and less people of the minority engage, because they are discouraged by the expressions of the problematic individuals, less people will wish to engage as the threads become increasingly more hostile.
The problem we have on tildes is that the only way I see for us to become more diverse is to ask for more from those who have, to protect those who do not. I'm calling on everyone to pay closer attention to the intended audience of a thread. We need to look at how discussions are happening throughout the entirety of a thread and do a better job being welcoming of the minority opinion. We need to elevate and celebrate the voices of the minorities in these threads so that they are equal in paradigm to the voices which counter theirs. If a thread's topic is about a minority class such as gays we need to ensure that gays get an equal voice - if one person is dominating replies to gays in the comments, we need to be good allies and help balance the scales.
We also need to stop and think about how these discussions usually play out on the rest of the internet. Do you ever see something like this on twitter and go "definitely not checking the comments"? We need to pay attention to this, and strive to ensure the same doesn't eventually apply to Tildes.
A common example of this that I've seen is present in threads directed at specific minorities. The early discussion in a fantastic thread titled What's hard about being a woman? exemplifies this issue - because there aren't enough women on Tildes, the thread was dominated by male voices. Only one of these individuals were particularly problematic, but there was a hesitation from women I knew to enter this thread because an environment dominated by the male voice is not welcoming. Some of the women who entered this thread were met with replies challenging some of what they said, rather than elevating their voices and celebrating their participation. A small minority of men were in this thread to learn, but weren't aware of how the way they engage with other men on the internet was not appropriate for this venue. They didn't stop to consider that a thread dominated by male voices was neither welcoming nor a good start. If they had merely waited for women to start populating the thread, and replied to them, or opened soft with commentary on what they had seen in women without providing too much analysis they may have made the thread more welcoming.
Another common example of this that I see happened in a thread I posted titled Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome. I actually had to stop myself from posting in this thread because I had an inkling that it was going to exemplify the behavior I wanted to address in a thread like this and I didn't want to disrupt what would naturally happen on Tildes absent my intervention. Nearly every reply in that thread criticizes the author for not mentioning that men can have impostor syndrome too. Imagine entering this thread as a woman - even if you emotionally connected with the author on some level, would you bother engaging when highly regarded comments focus on nitpicking the author for not being 'inclusive' enough? As far as I could tell, even the title doesn't call upon the reader to critically examine what imposter syndrome is and who is eligible to suffer from it. It's calling upon the reader to stop telling women that they have imposter syndrome (or to stop others when they make this statement), when the problem is a sexist environment. I've even received recognition from women on Tildes outside of this thread (through DMs and discussions on different platforms) who thank me for posting these threads, but their voice is often conspicuously absent from the thread itself. I do not want to speak on their behalf, but I can guess that a major reason for that is the environment we are creating here on Tildes is not welcoming enough for them to feel it is worth commenting.
The insidious part of this problem is that very often the people creating a hostile environment do not intend to do so. They truly wish to be inclusive. Or they see behavior like this and they don't understand why it's problematic - it doesn't cause a flag to go off in their brain which tells them that they should jump in and fight on behalf of the people they want to protect. But this behavior is slowly causing minority individuals to flee this website. I don't know and cannot know them all, but waking up to PMs about someone else leaving makes my heart sink. Entering threads about the intersectional minorities that I find myself and my loved ones a part of often makes me feel similarly upset, downtrodden, and makes me feel like I want to engage less and less with this platform.
I wish I had an answer. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everything better. To give everyone omniscience, or at least a day's firsthand experience of someone radically different than them. Unfortunately, I do not. I think the best I can offer at this time is this post - a call on all of us to do better; a start of an ongoing discussion on how we can protect the minorities among us so that we can be bettered by their presence.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
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.
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
You are invited to cut right to the heart of things for the first Tildes Writing Club event. Let's road test the club with brief fiction or verse. Got a sonnet that needs airing? Want to weave a brief spell and dip before the magic fades? Let's read it!
Length: less than 500 words of prose, or 30 or fewer lines of poetry.
Theme: Optional. But if you're in search of inspiration, @acdw suggests you work with this palette: love/unlove/hate/red/heart/viscera.
Guidelines: Post your short work in the submissions topic, which will open on 2/14. Throughout the next couple of weeks, leave feedback for at least two other submissions. Brief rules for a brief, trial-run writing event. To opine on the rules that are taking shape for 3/1, reply here.
Let's discuss themes for our March 1 Writing Club submissions. (If prompts or themes aren't your thing, you may write what you like and post when the submission topic opens.) Feel free to suggest a prompt (a scenario, dilemma, or background), a theme, or an ambiguous title to jump-start writing efforts. What do you want to suggest?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!