hungariantoast's recent activity

  4. Comment on Political discussion here seems to be really bad. Is it even possible for it to be good? in ~tildes

    hungariantoast
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I am suddenly reminded of a message that I sent you two days ago. I am also suddenly reminded of a comment you made recently. You mentioned that you wanted Tildes to be more of a "neighborhood...

    I am suddenly reminded of a message that I sent you two days ago.

    Things like shoving politics into a sub-group that isn't shown by default or rate-limiting how often users are allowed to post in political threads probably won't actually solve anything, just hide or slow it down a little.

    I am also suddenly reminded of a comment you made recently. You mentioned that you wanted Tildes to be more of a "neighborhood pub" rather than a "public square".

    I don't want to be rude, I don't want to insult you, but Tildes is never going to solve the issues you have identified with online communities at the scale you wish for it to exist at. Those issues will persist, inside and outside of Tildes.

    Tildes will never solve them outside of itself because it will never be, at the scale you want it to be at, large or influential enough to do so. At best, Tildes can survive, as a refuge, over the next decade or two while social media evolves and the corporate giants like Facebook crumble (hopefully), and then maybe the next few generations of websites will be better than what we have now, and they will follow Tildes' lead as an example.

    But Tildes will still never solve those issues within itself. Those issues will always exist here, because they originate outside of Tildes, and find their way in. To solve these problems, you have to exert influence. Tildes will not be, at the scale you have targeted, large enough to do that.

    I am not saying any of this to discourage you. What you've accomplished here is inspirational and Tildes is already a success. You should take pride in what you have accomplished and, to be honest, I'm not sure you ever had "fixing the Internet" planned as one of Tildes' goals.

    If that recent comment of yours is any indication, I think you always just wanted Tildes to be a place where people could get away from all the nasty shit elsewhere, and any influence projected outward would just be a bonus.

    So we cannot solve these kinds of problems. Political discussion on Tildes will always be problematic at times.

    What we can hope for though, and what you have already largely accomplished, is reducing the occurrence of those issues.

    As others have pointed out, political discussion here on Tildes really is not that bad, compared to other places. Is it perfect? No. Is it good enough? Not yet.

    But we can't solve the problem of bad discussion, we can only reduce its occurrence.

    How? I have no clue. I do have some suggestions though:

    Implement the ability to apply additional effects to topics. If a topic gets posted that you think might be especially problematic, go ahead and disable the visibility of comment votes (including for our own comments).

    Does this break our rule about trusting users and what not? Yep. Are we at that point? Maybe. I think yes, especially if you find yourself busy and unable (or not wanting to) watch a specific topic.

    Or randomize the sorting order of comments.

    Or rate-limit replies.

    Or do two, or all three of these things at once.

    Additionally, the ability to lock specific comment threads also might be useful.

    In the end though, implementing these features is not going to solve the issue of problematic discussion. On their own, they probably won't do much to reduce it either.

    I think, for maximal effect, this is the kind of problem that just requires moderation. If you have to ban users, do it. You have done it before. Hand out temporary bans if you feel like that would be more suitable, but get the point across: we need to improve.

    New features might slow down rapid, problematic discussions and allow you to remove them before they balloon into dozens of comments, but to really reduce the occurrence of issues like this in the future, moderation is needed.

    And frankly, you do moderate, a lot. I've seen you remove countless comments, lock topics, and publicly reply to users (even several at a time) asking them to knock it off. I have no doubt you also send plenty of private messages.

    But it clearly is not enough...

    And you clearly cannot be online 24/7...

    Do you see where I am going with this?

    I know you have been... hesitant, is perhaps the correct word, to instate additional moderators who can lock topics and even remove comments, but I think now is the perfect time to do that.

    There is an election coming up. It is going to, in a lot of ways, decide the fate of the most powerful entity on our planet, and affect the lives of billions of people. There will be "problematic occurrences" on Tildes as a result. There will be plenty of outrage and other nastiness throughout the rest of the Internet as well, and I would not be surprised if we see another influx of users from all of it. While as a community we are equipped with tools to moderate ourselves, as we have seen recently, that is sometimes not enough.

    So please, I am asking you personally, because I really think this is a strong, opportune moment, instate a moderator aside from yourself that can help to maintain the site under your direction.

    I know Tildes is small, I know "problematic occurrences" are rare, but I think that's all the more reason to start sooner, than later.

    Now is a good time to look ahead.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Pixel art in GIMP in ~comp

    hungariantoast
    Link
    Honestly, Aseprite is the pixel art editor of choice, whether you are doing animations or not. If anyone wants to get into the medium, as a hobby, professionally, or just to learn, then I cannot...

    Aseprite seems to be the editor of choice for animated pixel art though.

    Honestly, Aseprite is the pixel art editor of choice, whether you are doing animations or not. If anyone wants to get into the medium, as a hobby, professionally, or just to learn, then I cannot recommend Aseprite enough.

    And while Aseprite is not open-source, it is source available and can be installed on many Linux distributions. (Though I highly recommend buying it if you like it.)

    That being said, pixel art can also be created with just about any art application. I used Krita and Paint.net for the longest time.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on Qt, Open Source and Corona in ~comp

  11. Comment on Recovering from a computer science education in ~comp

    hungariantoast
    Link Parent
    I guess that depends on just how short "short stories" can be before they only qualify as something else. But yeah, writing in general is a very easy habit to pick up for certain people. I don't...

    I guess that depends on just how short "short stories" can be before they only qualify as something else.

    But yeah, writing in general is a very easy habit to pick up for certain people. I don't just mean creative writing either, but other stuff, like keeping a journal (or "diary", if you're braver than I am).

    As for sketching, yep, that's also something you can pick up very quickly. You might be sketchptical, but think about it like this: it's sketching, not drawing. Totally different concept. Sketching is, as the name implies, sketchy, fast, and loose. Easy.

    Pixel art? Pffft. That's pretty much the only art form I will ever claim to be decent at, and it's really just about placing colored blocks in correct positions to make something nice. If you can be creative in Minecraft, you can do pixel art.

    Obviously though, the ceiling on any of these things is very high.

    Short stories become novels.

    Sketching becomes drawing.

    Pixel art... remains pixel art, but it just keeps getting better and better.

    Making music? I am less sure. I have never heard of a famous musician.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on GNOME Shell is moving towards a convergent, mobile-friendly UI in ~comp

    hungariantoast
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I agree that (seemingly) having to drag up the app launcher with a mouse would be a hassle, but with touchpad gestures, touchscreen support, and keyboard shortcuts, that at least stops being a...

    I agree that (seemingly) having to drag up the app launcher with a mouse would be a hassle, but with touchpad gestures, touchscreen support, and keyboard shortcuts, that at least stops being a major issue for anyone who isn't using GNOME on a desktop.

    As for the huge bars, I agree. Title bars annoy the fuck out of me and I generally want them to be as small as possible in a desktop environment and non-existent when only using a window manager.

    (My current, small-enough XFCE titlebar.)

    It's important to remember that these are just mockups though and, if I am going to be honest, I think these look absolutely stunning as an interface for phones or tablets. These designs rival Plasma, in my opinion (and I say that as someone who really does not like using GNOME, and has used KDE for years).

    If there is anything I am taking away from these mockups, it's that desktop environments on Linux could be a lot more useful, streamlined, and better by continuing to embrace a touch and gesture oriented interface.

    I'm not saying that KDE, GNOME, or any other desktop environment should start making changes at the expense of mouse-and-keyboard controls, but they should also continue to focus on making support for touch, gestures (mouse/touchpad), and keyboard shortcuts first class. Ideally, each of these environments would be navigable exclusively through one single input method.

    Unfortunately, doing all of these things well, this sort of "maximalist" approach to development and design, seems to be exceedingly difficult, especially for large projects like KDE and GNOME.

    Anyways, are these mockups perfect? Nah, far from it. There are plenty of quirks and bumps, some of which you pointed out, but overall I am ecstatic to see GNOME moving in this direction. Godspeed.

    4 votes

  17. Comment on Recommendations for Android messaging app, please in ~tech

    hungariantoast
    (edited )
    Link
    The only app I have experience with and can recommend is QKSMS. I have never encountered the issue you mentioned, so I do not know if QKSMS will also have the same incompatibility. It is free and...

    The only app I have experience with and can recommend is QKSMS. I have never encountered the issue you mentioned, so I do not know if QKSMS will also have the same incompatibility. It is free and open-source software though, so it doesn't hurt to try.

    However, depending on what the issue is, Textra might soon be updated and start working fine. I would recommend investigating exactly what the issue is (such as the name of the new protocol) and figuring out if/when Textra will support it, or what other apps already do.

    Good luck!

    6 votes

  18. Comment on Recommend FLOSS games in ~games

    hungariantoast
    (edited )
    Link
    Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a lot of fun. I don't really know how to explain the game other than that it's a post-apocalyptic survival game, with a roguelike aesthetic. That does not really do...

    Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a lot of fun.

    I don't really know how to explain the game other than that it's a post-apocalyptic survival game, with a roguelike aesthetic. That does not really do it justice though. In terms of simulation, it is the post-apocalyptic survival game.

    (And yes, there are no screenshots on the homepage, because there are dozens of different graphics packs for the game. Just search images for the game on your preferred search engine.)

    4 votes