18 votes

Is there appetite for a broader conversation on British news in particular, or UK Politics?

I can see ~news becoming global or US specific and I think geolocational tildes would be useful. I do want to know if there is an appetite for this though - I recognise that there would be work involved in moderating such a news tilde, so there has to be the interest.

Cheers,

Manley

15 comments

  1. [6]
    EightRoundsRapid
    Link
    When we get, for want of a better descriptor, subtildes the tag system should be fine for locating topics. For example news.uk or news.politics.uk At the moment it seems we're very US orientated,...

    When we get, for want of a better descriptor, subtildes the tag system should be fine for locating topics. For example news.uk or news.politics.uk

    At the moment it seems we're very US orientated, but I hope it doesn't stay that way. For me, ideally the top level .news tag will be global, and then step down into localised stories.

    15 votes
    1. [5]
      Amarok
      Link Parent
      I'd like to see that as well. It seems like most social forums end up with a very US-centric news/politics arena. I'd much rather see a truly global news arena here on tildes, even if we have to...

      I'd like to see that as well. It seems like most social forums end up with a very US-centric news/politics arena. I'd much rather see a truly global news arena here on tildes, even if we have to take steps in the code/features/group design to bring that about.

      13 votes
      1. [4]
        EightRoundsRapid
        Link Parent
        I really hope we can stop that happening here. It's a source of huge frustration to me. Every single site suffers from this. There are big, interesting and important things happening all around...

        It seems like most social forums end up with a very US-centric news/politics arena.

        I really hope we can stop that happening here. It's a source of huge frustration to me. Every single site suffers from this. There are big, interesting and important things happening all around the world and it irks me that so much of it goes unnoticed and unremarked on.

        12 votes
        1. [3]
          KapteinB
          Link Parent
          Every single English-language site suffers from this. If Tildes was a Spanish-language site, I bet the situation would be very different. The explanation is probably as simple as the USA...

          Every single site suffers from this.

          Every single English-language site suffers from this. If Tildes was a Spanish-language site, I bet the situation would be very different. The explanation is probably as simple as the USA containing the majority of people who speak English as a first language.

          I believe Tildes will handle this problem better than most social media sites, because of the sub-tilde system.

          1 vote
          1. [2]
            EightRoundsRapid
            Link Parent
            Fair point. I recall seeing that at some point Tildes will be open to all languages, which will help enormously.

            Every single English-language site suffers from this

            Fair point. I recall seeing that at some point Tildes will be open to all languages, which will help enormously.

            1. KapteinB
              Link Parent
              As far as I know there's no rule against posting non-English content. I could for example post news articles in Norwegian to ~news. Maybe there should be such restrictions though, for at least two...

              As far as I know there's no rule against posting non-English content. I could for example post news articles in Norwegian to ~news. Maybe there should be such restrictions though, for at least two reasons:

              1. English is the most understood language on Tildes, so content in other languages will gain fewer votes and less visibility.
              2. Seeing lots of content in languages we don't understand in our feeds will be detrimental to the user experience.

              A possible solution might be to integrate automatic translation of languages we don't understand, like Facebook does. More likely they'll create language-specific tildes, so I could one day post those articles in ~norsk.nyheter or something along those lines.

              1 vote
  2. [3]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    ~news is global. News from all countries can and should be posted here. When posting a news article, it's strongly advisable to add a tag for the country(s) that the article relates to, as well as...

    I can see ~news becoming global or US specific and I think geolocational tildes would be useful.

    ~news is global. News from all countries can and should be posted here. When posting a news article, it's strongly advisable to add a tag for the country(s) that the article relates to, as well as any relevant tags for the news content, such as "politics". So, you would post United Kingdom news articles with a "uk" tag, like all these previous UK-related news articles. People can use these tags to find articles about countries and topics they're interested in or to filter out articles about countries and topics they're not interested in.

    So, feel free to post UK news here, including UK political news.

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      LordManley
      Link Parent
      It is simple to find them, I guess, but we have a global moderation pool in that instance - whereas I would like to see geotargeted moderation too.

      It is simple to find them, I guess, but we have a global moderation pool in that instance - whereas I would like to see geotargeted moderation too.

      1. Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Why do you need geotargeted moderation? I'm an Aussie and I moderated a subreddit for American political discussion. It's not hard to recognise insults and low-quality comments, no matter where...

        Why do you need geotargeted moderation? I'm an Aussie and I moderated a subreddit for American political discussion. It's not hard to recognise insults and low-quality comments, no matter where you're from.

        However, if you really see a need for local moderators in local sub-groups, that will come in time.

        1 vote
  3. samhh
    Link
    Three quarters of my comments on Reddit take place on /r/ukpolitics so I'd certainly be interested. One thing that's always bothered me about that subreddit is the lack of moderation; not in terms...

    Three quarters of my comments on Reddit take place on /r/ukpolitics so I'd certainly be interested.

    One thing that's always bothered me about that subreddit is the lack of moderation; not in terms of abuse of Reddit's terms, but in terms of quality control.

    The meta changes over time, but there are always certain cliques that spam each thread with lazy comments and then upvote one-another into the stratosphere regardless of the quality of the comment, thus severely harming discussion and pushing better users away. For example, anything Brexit-related (this meta has changed over time, this pertains only to right now, and does not speak to the validity of either side) is dominated by those who want to reverse the result. Anything related to immigration, refugees, etc is dominated by what I would describe as the alt-right. Dissenting opinions aren't typically welcome.

    Further, so much stuff is posted there without citations. Although it can feel a little overbearing at times, I think the approach that /r/PoliticalDiscussion takes is the lesser evil here.

    I think there could also be much stricter rules imposed upon submissions, though I'm less clear in my mind on what those should be.

    3 votes
  4. precise
    Link
    I'm an American, I'd be delighted to see news headlines pertinent to other nations in here. The world is an interconnected system and no one country can exist completely isolated. What happens...

    I'm an American, I'd be delighted to see news headlines pertinent to other nations in here. The world is an interconnected system and no one country can exist completely isolated. What happens across the pond impacts us here, whether economically, geopolitically, etc.

    1 vote
  5. [4]
    spit-evil-olive-tips
    Link
    I'd be interested in a way to handle local content as well, beyond national US news or national UK news. I live in Seattle, and read the Seattle subreddits (there are several, it's a long story)...

    I'd be interested in a way to handle local content as well, beyond national US news or national UK news.

    I live in Seattle, and read the Seattle subreddits (there are several, it's a long story) as a way of getting local news from the variety of local TV stations, our main newspaper, our alt-weekly, local blogs, etc. I'd love to be able to subscribe to a ~news.usa.wa.seattle or something like that for similar content.

    1. [3]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      Come back in a year or two, and you probably will be able to subscribe to that group! But groups & sub-groups won't be created until there's a demand for them - and they'll be created...

      I'd love to be able to subscribe to a ~news.usa.wa.seattle or something like that for similar content.

      Come back in a year or two, and you probably will be able to subscribe to that group! But groups & sub-groups won't be created until there's a demand for them - and they'll be created hierarchically. Also, @Deimos has to add one minor feature before he can create sub-groups.

      So...

      • First, Deimos adds the ability to unsubscribe from a sub-group.

      • Second, he creates a few country-level news sub-groups: ~news.usa, ~news.uk, ~news.china, etc.

      • Third, some moderators appear for these sub-groups.

      • Fourth, the future moderators of ~news.usa observe a lot of state-specific news articles being posted (i.e. tagged with state abbreviations like "ca", "ny", "wa", etc). So they create some more sub-groups: ~news.usa.ca, ~news.usa.ny, ~news.usa.wa, etc.

      • Fifth, the future moderators of ~news.usa.wa observe a lot of news articles tagged "seattle". So, they create ~news.usa.wa.seattle.

      It's all in the long-term plan, but it's not going to happen any time soon.

      In the meantime, you can post news articles about seattle in ~news, and tag them with "usa" and "wa" and "seattle".

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        name
        Link Parent
        Is there a plan for migrating sub-tags? 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...

        Is there a plan for migrating sub-tags? 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.

        1 vote
        1. Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          That's the sort of thing you should ask @Deimos. My answer is based on what he and his official assistants have said publicly; I'm just synthesising the process they've described in bits & pieces...

          That's the sort of thing you should ask @Deimos. My answer is based on what he and his official assistants have said publicly; I'm just synthesising the process they've described in bits & pieces throughout various threads & documents. I have no special access or inside knowledge - and they've never publicly discussed the scenario you describe.

          I suggest you make a post in ~tildes to get an answer to your question.