I just saw this post: NY Times defends hiring of editorial writer after emergence of past racial tweets. Now the article is a whole discussion in itself and just to openly reveal any bias I might have I personally do think the comments that were made are very much racist as they generalise a large group of people based on their skin colour in a negative light. I also consider myself a centrist (That's in UK terms, very much a supporter of the democrats in the US), although this information isn't crucial and not strictly relevant I feel biases should be known and taken into consideration.

My issue with the post wasn't with the article that was good and provided good discussion that I feel suites Tildes perfectly, it's a controversial and divisive subject and generally online this would be a atrocious thing to debate. Yet I view Tildes as a place of openness and willingness to debate that doesn't resort to generalisations and sweeping statements. This is the kind of post that would be great for Tildes as it would allow discussion that wasn't a complete mess, it's a rare place where you are able to talk about such topics that are debates not fights.

11 Hours after the post went live it was locked by Deimos.

This is frankly shameful and appalling. Now I don't blame Deimos. As far as I'm aware he's the only one currently moderating so I can only imagine the difficulty to moderate such a topic, yet I feel rather disappointed, I don't see any justification or reasoning for the post being locked and in future I would like some statement explaining why. In a perfect world I would prefer no post to be locked but I'm aware that's difficult with lack of moderators. No post should ever just be locked with no reason given.

Now, I must confess I am unaware of any comments being removed and I must assume there must of been to lead to the post becoming locked which would help be understand as to why it happened, this is purely speculation and would greatly appreciate a direct statement from Deimos explaining why even just a sentence saying there was lots of hate.

Although I think this is a issue I can understand why this happened in the early days of Tildes, it's still being developed on and I get the vibe he enjoys creating a community and a place for discussion not moderating and removing comments. Later on I do not expect or want this to happen.

My main issue though arises from the users. Looking in the comments there was a specific comment that stood out as being especially un-Tildes like:

I think Ms. Jeong's tweets about white people are hilarious. The fact that she annoys conservatives is reason enough to hire her.

Although the first half I disagree with it's the user expressing their opinion, that's OK. My main issue is the second half "The fact that she annoys conservatives is reason enough to hire her" that one sentence alone infuriates me. It's such a ignorant statement. The comment provides little input into the discussion and just feeds the us vs them mentality of politics which thrives in today's political debates everything is now a black and white issue. I view Tildes as a place that looks past meaningless statements like this, the comment also had 7 votes. Thankfully the response criticising this had 20 votes which does suggest the majority of the community dislike the comment as well.

Although I selected this comment as I felt it best represented the problem but there were a noticeable presence of low input comments which merely just resulted in people passively aggressively arguing with each others comments and very little comments focusing on the actual article itself.

Perhaps this is what people want, but it's the first time on Tildes I have seen a noticeable presence of low effort and poor comments. Admittedly maybe I just have the wrong opinion on Tildes and I'm in the minority but to me it felt very much unlike what Tildes should be. It feels there's a growing minority of Reddit like comments. I must acknowledge that a lot of the comments I disagree with had few votes and perhaps there just wasn't enough comments to drown them out, low effort comments are easier to make and more frequent than good quality comments, and maybe once the user base increases so will the high quality comments.

In summery I think locked posts should be clearly shown why they are locked, perhaps it's time moderation increased to prevent this in the future, this is a whole issue in in itself. More crucially I think we need to keep an eye on users that post low quality comment and call them out on it for being un-tildes like, If nothing is done It's a threat to the quality discussion that tildes is based on.

I’m still in awe of what’s happening here and wish I had a crystal ball to see the change this type of community will drive in broader social discourse. If that goal is realized, there will be very sophisticated folks looking to disrupt that progress.

As a security guy (especially in light of Reddit’s recent announcement) I had a few questions!

1.) How open are we to integrating some type of optional 2FA for users? Maybe a simple TOTP integration?
2.) Are the admins of the site implementing the right amount of fundamental controls for the backend? I’m 100% happy to provide thoughts on this if necessary! The decisions you make now, could impact us 5-6 years from now. And they’re oh-so-easy to change this early :-D.

This is just a fun little part of a story I put together a little while ago. Might go somewhere later, but probably not.

The symbols looking like: [^1] are footnote links. (Pandoc's format, a kind of extended Markdown).

Edit: It may be easy to read as rendered html

A leaf was slowly falling towards their face.

It was golden, three-tongued, and burning with fire.

Last one wasn't hyperbole.

Unfortunately.

It was all sort of their fault.

But then, everything always was.

That's why everyone called them Slag.

The trees hadn't always been on fire, but they had been on fire before.

That had been their fault too.

Being the smallest Ork in a tiny Orkin village, reporting to a tiny Orkin warlord who somehow believed he had the brass balls of a god, Slag wasn't exactly well cared for.

Their name was their job. They were an Ork, after all.

The blacksmith beat the metal, made the weapons. Tossed the slag in a pile.

Molten metal twisted and smouldered, and Slag would grab it by the handful, and toss it into a cauldron of water, and when that was full, kick it down the hill into the dumpsite.

When the dumpsite was full, Slag would summon the demon, who would demand some strange price, then vanish with the lot.

The demon's prices weren't helping their standing with the rest of the tribe.

Like today.

Slag craned their neck, looking up at the red fiery, and rather horned creature, "Say again?"

The deep earth-rumbling voice laughed, "I want you to sing! Sing like a girl! Like a tiny little human girl!"

Slag winced, "I am a girl, demon." [^1]

The creature blinked in surprise, "You? Little squelchling?"

Slag shrugged, "I'm a girl. I don't got tits... I ain't pretty. But I am."

The demon winced, "Figure out which god cursed you little girl... After you sing."

Singing? An Ork?

Orkcakes.

The demon would go, and she'd be blamed there was no room in the dump, and then the Orklord would be in her face. Again.

Then threaten to marry her to his son. Again.

She blanched.

The demon laughed, "Last chance, little orkling."

She coughed nervously, and then a squeaking voice emerged, singing a quiet rhyme she'd overheard one day.

Something about stars and diamonds. Humans were weird. [^2]

Unfortunately, her voice was less like a starlet, and more like diamonds scraping across sandglass.

The demon shreiked and disappeared back into their realm.

Without the slag.

She winced, glancing towards the village, "Orkcakes."

A hand like iron clasped her head, "Slag."

She smiled weakly up at her father, and at his one eyes staring out from a bushy grey beard. [^3]

The warrior released her and spoke gruffly, "Was that you singing, again?" [^4]

She blushed, looking down in shame, "The demon's price."

The old man groaned and reached for a whip on the wall, "Please tell me he took the slag."

"I don't lie, father." She answered. [^5]

He winced and glared at the doorway, unravelling the whip, preparing to hit the next person who came in. "Go to you room, Slag."

"It's my honour." She crossed her arms, pretending not to notice that her chest didn't show any bigger, "I want to defend it."

"Now, Slag." He growled through his tusks.

She turned and moped away into her bedroom.

She couldn't fight, all she could do was listen to the glorious blood-curling screams as the emissaries dies. [^6]

Slag picked some metal from beneath her fingernails and flung it into the wall, pinning a fly by one wing. [^7]

It wasn't fair.

She wanted a real fight.

Why did boys get all the fun?

The guts and the murder?

All she got was... Slag.

An axe blade broke through her wall briefly, before being pulled back quickly, followed by a strangled sound.

She rolled her eyes and flopped onto her straw bed, staring at the ceiling tiredly.

Humans made life look so simple.

Find a man, get pregnant, take care of the litter until you died.

Just cooking, singing and cleaning.

She licked the edge of her tusk, yawning. This was going to be another, she must get married because she's useless argument with the Orklord. Which would inevitable lead to my son is too stupid, fat and ugly to possibly get married, and then... Ew.

She didn't want the bastard.

He certainly wanted her though, all drooling and slurping.

She wanted to be a Knight. [^8]

That was it. All of it. Her only dream.

A glorious warrior, protecting the weak, hunting the monsters that pray on people in the dark. [^9]

Her sword would have a name, and glow with power when evil was near. [^10]

She would yell out it's name, and light up the dark.

Then she'd kill the bad guy, cut off his head, and ride home with it, and stake it to her wall. [^11]

[^1]: Really? Wow. Never would have guessed... But orks are always hard to apply gender to.

[^2]: Understatement. What other species looks around themselves in wonder and decides blowing stuff up is the best way to get something out of the ground?

[^3]: Stories on exactly how he lost his eye vary. Most involve a dragon, a bet, and a gallon ale. And perhaps a wet, old sock.

[^4]: Oh gods. She'd tried to sing before? Had birds died?

[^5]: Not strictly true. She did lie, but only about unimportant stuff. Like what she wanted for dinner. Or what job she wished she had. Or who she wanted to marry. Nothing big.

[^6]: It's an Orkin thing. Send some messenger to die when your upset with your opponent, and then turn up when their bloodlust was sated. Good way to not die.

[^7]: She was a practiced hand at this now. Sociopath, or bored teenager? Let the public decide! Blast her in this week's Orks magazine!

[^8]: ... Should someone tell her human knights usually hunt down orks?

[^9]: So... Hungry orks. Seriously. Someone should tell her.

[^10]: So, it would always be lit up. Because you're on Ork, girl.

[^11]: Oh geeze. Are you the hero, or the villain, Slag?

bishop.

tw: death

i remember the day that they died.
you called me at work in the
middle of my shift shooken up,
you wailed and cried
you were hours away
divorce was on the horizon
your mother
she went to get the last of her things
brothers in tow, each under her wings
wanting to grab their toys, their cars,
living in an apartment, left the trampoline

the pool's mostly empty now, and green.

i was always taught that ghosts scream
that any haunted house is a broken record
out of a low-budget horror scene
blood on the walls, ripped at the seams,
what they never tell you in the movies
is that the real scare is going to the house
six months later and finding it empty

and silent.

all that's left is the memory of the violent
no one left to water the yard
grass is yellow, in the garden
wilted violets
and the paintings still hang on the walls.
the lamp is still there on the nightstand
the pots and pans are still in the kitchen
the paper is still on the desk
everything is still where it should be
every item right where it was left
except this sudden void in your soul
and the unending feeling of being depressed
and lost,

scared

a lost lamb in a land once shared
a home where you would draw or write
and now all that's left is light
flittering in through the windows
that just feels so out of place
paintings on the floor covering up
the holes where the bullets laid
open casket you broke down
at the sight of his little face

god what a fucking monster

two years now since the day you lost her
and i have no idea how you are.
i took it upon myself to watch over you, a foster
and hoped to show you real love after this imposter
came into your life and ripped it in pieces
with this targeted hatred and ceaseless screaming
god if i could go back in time.

even still now i wish to trade their lives for mine

even if it just meant another day,
maybe one last time for you to
share a smile or say goodbye
to make peace and hug your mom
or read harry potter to your brothers here
in person and not occasionally from beyond
the grave that plays that same god-fucking-forsaken
song as the house does when you visit.

silence.

why dont they play music in the graveyards.

why dont they play music in the graveyards.

Was asked to post here about this:

Is there a plan for migrating sub-tags (or top-level groups too)? The scenario I'm thinking of is that things may either fork, or change their name unanimously.

Let's say a tech product changes its official name from XX to be YY, Would there be a way to migrate
~tech.XX.stuff to ~tech.YY.stuff?

I can't say that this will be a common occurrence, but may affect historical usefulness of the tagging system, as people looking for things in the past won't be able to easily - plus it may divide communities once existing (do they keep posting in the old tag or the new one?).

For now, this isn't too important as @Deimos (from what it seems?) is in charge of creating new topics and presumably modify them too, but for the future (according to this) we may start having user created groups pop-up.

Cheers,

There must be a few people here that write and record. It doesn't even have to be good. If I can be bothered to find some way to put it online, I'll try to find some way to share a goofy (read: kinda shitty) Monty Python/Doo Wop mashup I made in Ableton a few months ago.

Forgive me if this has been posted before, I am still pretty new here.

Coming here having the option to "Gild" was something I kinda just assumed would be a thing.

Obviously it wouldn't need to be call "Gold" or "Gilding", those are just terms from some other site that I know all of us will understand.

I have always liked the idea of users buying made up medals for topics and comments they felt the need to reward. It gives the users a sense of accomplishment/reward and gets the devs little micro donations.

Currently the most valuable material in existence is antimatter, so maybe a little "AM" medal?

EDIT: Something I also meant to mention, but forgot, was the badge system on DeviantART.

dA has always had these little pixel llama badges that I thought were really cool. The basic concept was/is that you can gift someone a little llama if you think they or their art is cool or for any reason you want. These llamas stack on your profile. People can additionally gift gear for existing llamas and the site occasionally gives out rare llamas (and other badges) for milestones, events or promotions.

I think a hybrid of reddit's gilding system and a badge system (like dA's) could be really cool.

Hi folks, sorry for the late post. @Whom is sick and wasn't able to post this today so she asked me to do it.

Hello all you good people, here we are in week number 7! It's time for another classic record discussion: Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited!

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Highway 61 Revisited. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

Don't forget to nominate and vote for next week's obscure record in response to this comment!

I'm in the midst of an interview process with an employer that insists on an "Introduction to Algorithms"-type test for all of its white-collar workers. Their claim is that it selects for "smart" people. [I'm anxious because my relevant coursework was many years ago, and there's no way I'll have time to master it again before the scheduled test - there's some age bias, noted below.]

Based on review of Glassdoor's comments about this company's interview process and demographics, what they really want is recent college graduates with fresh CIS degrees that they can abuse and use up quickly, giving them no market-relevant skills in the process. The product relies on an obscure, specialized database architecture and elderly front-end code.

However, the company is a market leader in my industry, and I'm interested in working there in a customer-facing technical liaison/project management role because the product is better fitted for task, has better support and customization, and better interoperability than anything else. There's huge R&D reinvestment as well, and the company is just that little bit more ethical in the marketplace than its competitors.

Do you believe that the ability to do sorts and permutations in code genuinely selects for general intelligence, and would you want to work with a population of people who all mastered this subject matter, regardless of their actual job title?