rob's recent activity

  1. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - new groups added, please subscribe to them if you're interested in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    Very informative, seems like you've given it a lot of thought. Thanks for the reply!

    Very informative, seems like you've given it a lot of thought. Thanks for the reply!

    6 votes

  2. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - new groups added, please subscribe to them if you're interested in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    It wasn't a hard limit, you could add them to your subscriptions but it would pull posts from 50 (now 100) at random to create your front page. More info here:...

    It wasn't a hard limit, you could add them to your subscriptions but it would pull posts from 50 (now 100) at random to create your front page.
    More info here:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/664qqq/increasing_the_amount_of_subscriptions_on_the/

    To be honest it's pretty trivial, was more curious than anything.

    8 votes

  3. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - new groups added, please subscribe to them if you're interested in ~tildes.official

  4. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - new groups added, please subscribe to them if you're interested in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link
    Quick question, will there be subscription limits on groups? Reddit IIRC has it set to 50 and 100 with gold, will there be similar restrictions on Tildes?

    Quick question, will there be subscription limits on groups? Reddit IIRC has it set to 50 and 100 with gold, will there be similar restrictions on Tildes?

    14 votes

  5. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - on civility, political content, and over-extrapolating in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    The problem with that is you create echo-chambers where blatant falsehoods go unchecked. I despised going into that Trump thread, but the only thing worse than the thread is the idea that someone...

    The problem with that is you create echo-chambers where blatant falsehoods go unchecked.

    I despised going into that Trump thread, but the only thing worse than the thread is the idea that someone could present the notion that the Mueller investigation is somehow a "hoax", or the Charlottesville situation was somehow down to "fake news", and having nobody challenge those stances and let them to be normalized. (those statements are blatant oversimplifications, but you get the idea).

    Next thing you know users know they can go further and further into controversial areas and steer the narrative where they want, which ends up being a one-sided and misleading soapbox under the guise of "discussion".

    So the only alternative is to go into a thread and be miserable, and pray I don't get bitter enough to get the banhammer for being "uncivilized". See the problem?

    I'm not sure what the solution is, but "just don't go in there" is definitely not the answer.

  6. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    And on the other side, blanket banning doesn't help either. Yeah it protects the community, but the banned individual will feel indignant and persecuted and won't be able to resolve their anger,...

    And on the other side, blanket banning doesn't help either. Yeah it protects the community, but the banned individual will feel indignant and persecuted and won't be able to resolve their anger, and will bring that bitterness elsewhere. There needs to be clear paths for reform on both sides instead of just shutting people out instantly without giving them a chance to improve.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    Maybe there needs to be some sort of limited use function to express intense anger or disagreement? A polite expression of strong disagreement. You'd get maybe one of them a day so it can't be...

    Maybe there needs to be some sort of limited use function to express intense anger or disagreement? A polite expression of strong disagreement. You'd get maybe one of them a day so it can't be spammed or abused and it actually has some weight behind it.

    It can highlight certain "problem comments" and let people know that they aren't the only ones who are upset which can help alleviate strong feelings of anger and the urge to personally attack someone with insults.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - more growth, more groups in ~tildes.official

    rob
    Link Parent
    To provide some anecdotal experiences on the benefits of geographical groups, I personally love them. Reddit in particular is very US-focused, and it can be difficult to feel at "home" online when...

    To provide some anecdotal experiences on the benefits of geographical groups, I personally love them. Reddit in particular is very US-focused, and it can be difficult to feel at "home" online when the front page is full of the superbowl, or the 4th of july, etc. It's nice to have a group where you know that people will understand particularly niche areas or local issues.

    For example with the recent referendum in Ireland it was a godsend to have a reasonably safe and focused area to discuss the issue without being subject to external scrutiny or judgement and to actually have a conversation on a relatively local level. It applies for general news and events as well, and can be a great resource for tourists or visitors as well.

    11 votes

  9. Comment on Reddit is now #3 most visited site in the US, below only Google and Youtube in ~tech

    rob
    Link Parent
    The tilde blog posts go through this with some proposed solutions, the main factors to keep a site from devolving is An open-source codebase, to ensure that predatory code doesn't sneak in. A...

    The tilde blog posts go through this with some proposed solutions, the main factors to keep a site from devolving is

    1. An open-source codebase, to ensure that predatory code doesn't sneak in.

    2. A non-exploitative source of income, which means not relying on advertisements. This unfortunately needs some other source, like donations. And, to be fair, it's not impossible. Wikipedia is one of the biggest sites on the internet while relying entirely on donations (as far as I know!).

    Everything else is down to community maintenance and moderation. Subreddits like /r/AskScience and /r/AskHistorians do a decent job of it, but it requires not just strong moderation but smart moderation and a robust set of rules.

    6 votes

  10. Comment on What long term goal are you working towards right now? in ~talk

    rob
    Link Parent
    As a side note, I found https://regexr.com/ to be a great resource for learning regular expressions. It gives real-time feedback of an expression on a piece of text of your choice. Trying to do a...

    As a side note, I found https://regexr.com/ to be a great resource for learning regular expressions. It gives real-time feedback of an expression on a piece of text of your choice.

    Trying to do a whole example and learn off rules can be cumbersome, so having the real-time feedback and cheat sheet made the whole process much more engaging. Just thought I'd include it in there since it's a resource I wish I had starting out.

    1 vote