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Welcome new Reddit refugees
Hey all, I think we're getting a lot of new people over the past and next couple days thanks to Reddit's latest ideas of how to manage a social media website.
First of all, welcome! Tildes caught your eye probably partly because of its community / friendliness and we'd all like to keep it this way.
Recommended reading:
- All the documentation is on docs.tildes.net. Most of it is current.
- The philosophy page especially will answer some of your immediate questions
- Since you're here and like the site, think about donating :)
Some personal words: Tildes is not Reddit. But, at least if you're anything like me, it can replace Reddit as your own online social/discussion outlet.
Tildes aims to:
- Grow slowly, not exponentially.
- Elevate the discussion, not lower the bar
- Offer an alternative, not be the new Reddit
Some assorted new user tips:
On your account settings page you can change the site’s theme to Dracula or something besides Dracula.
On that same page, you can also toggle
Collapse old comments when I return to a topicoff or on. Turning it on makes it really easy to keep up with new posts on the site.Tildes is private by design, so a lot of user data is dumped 30 days after it is created. This is why you cannot vote on older posts, or see a list of everything you’ve ever voted for. If you want to save a post, use the bookmark feature, which does not get discarded.
Tildes has no algorithm for showing you posts in order. Sorting by
Activitywill show you topics with the most recent posts. Posting on any topic, even an old one, will move it to the top of the activity feed for everyone.Because each new comment bumps its whole topic for everyone, Tildes as a community tends to have a lower tolerance for “noisy” comments (posts that don’t add anything to a discussion) because those shuffle topics to the top of the site without any real payoff or substance.
Because of our bumping method, there will invariably be topics that that keep popping up that you have no interest in. No problem! Click the
Actions ▼drop-down for any topic and then clickIgnore this post. It will disappear and you won’t see it again! You can do this for as many posts as you like.Ignoring posts is also a great strategy should you ever need to disengage with a particular topic or conversation.
When you are submitting links or making a self post, you’ll see an area for providing tags. It’s easy to get intimidated by this. What tags do I use? What if I use the wrong ones? Fear not! Tagging is collaborative, so if you aren’t sure what to do or do something “wrong”, other users will help you out and add/fix them!
These same users might also edit your title. If this happens to you, see it as a collaboration, not a slap on the wrist. We work together to have our titles and tags meet certain formatting and standards, but we don’t want to impose those on everyone because that would stifle posting. If we edit your post, we’re not mad at you — we’re actually more than happy to help you out! We want people to feel free to submit what they like without having to think too much about it.
If you are worried about edits made to your posts without your consent, you can check what has been changed and who did it by looking at the Topic Log in the right sidebar. Conversing with them via PM or in the comments can usually clear up any confusion or misunderstandings should there be a tagging/title disagreement.
Some comments will show up with a blue stripe on the side and an
Exemplarybadge above them (edit: like this one now, lol). This means at least one other user on the site thought the comment was particularly excellent and labeled it as such. Each user’s Exemplary label has an eight hour cooldown after use, which forces us to use them sparingly and thus thoughtfully.New accounts cannot use the label. Once you can (I think after you’ve been on the site for week or two?), you will be prompted to write a private message to the comment’s author when you activate it. This is your chance to let them know why you thought their comment was so awesome. It will show up as an unsigned message attached to the comment, and it is visible to only the comment author. Because it’s anonymous, if you want someone to know that it came from you specifically, you can sign the message with your username at the end.
For comments that directly break the site’s rules or norms, there is a
Malicelabel which escalates the comment to our site’s admin. It is not to be used lightly, but should definitely be used when warranted.Some great news is that, thus far, Tildes has been very good about establishing a positive and preventative culture that heads off the need for most Malice tags in general. Operating in good faith, assuming good faith in others, attending to tone and audience, and choosing to disengage instead of responding in anger are all common social hygiene tactics used by much of the userbase here, which keeps the use of Malice tags quite low.
There isn’t a Tildes app yet, but one is in process from the developer of
reddit is funrif is fun, @talklittle. Android users can also create an app-like experience using a wrapper like Hermit.That said, Tildes is designed to work beautifully on both desktop and mobile browsers. If you’re holding out for an app, I highly recommend trying the site as just a bookmark in your browser for a bit. Most of us have been happily using it that way for years. Sure, you won’t get notifications, but that also fits with Tildes’ slower, more user-driven philosophy. Check the site when you want to — not when the site wants you to.
If you prefer, in iOS you can also just save the website to your homescreen. You just tap the sharesheet (box with upward pointing arrow) on the page in Safari and tap "Add to Homescreen." This is functionally just a bookmark, but will autolaunch the page in Safari any time you tap it. I do this with Wordle but haven't felt the need to with Tildes since I tend to check this on my desktop.
I also recently discovered how to make any website into an “app” on iOS, which is basically just a safari wrapper without the address bar and other browser interface elements, giving you more screen real estate. Works great with Tildes!
https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/turn-any-website-into-full-screen-app-your-iphone-0384426/
One thing I've never seen while poking around is adding tags. How do you do that on other people's posts? I see the option on my posts but not others'.
The site admin gives certain long-standing users the ability to add tags, move posts and edit titles for other people's posts.
Important to note that all these permissions can be given individually, so you may be granted the permission to edit tags but not titles, etc. It's not like an all-in-one thing.
Got it. Figured it was something like that. But I didn't know if it was something that opened up to more users as their accounts had been around a while.
One more thing to add - if you find yourself getting particularly tired of a specific subject (for me, this was
coronaviruses.covid19during the peak pandemic), you can filter out posts based on their tags by editing your filter list here (also accessible from the sidebar on the home/group page or your user settings).You can explore all the ~groups here, I'm not sure if new members are subscribed to all groups but existing users are not typically subscribed to new groups (exceptions made for groups like ~tildes.official).
Can’t figure out how to reply directly to a post on here. Is it because my account is extremely new or something? Mobile btw if that helps
The response text box is at the bottom of the page (unlike Reddit which has it at the top).
Thank you, I also thought direct replies were a locked feature for new accounts. My main confusion stemming from each sub comment having a visible reply button, but nothing like that in main post.
I guess it is more forum like in this sense. This might be bit inconvenient if there alot of replies to scroll through, especially on phone, but I guess it might also curb knees jerk replies on such cases; I guessing this might be intentional.
I still consider it to be very Reddit-like, but optimized. Deimos learned a lot from Reddit’s mistakes, and made the choice to encourage reading and discussion rather than rapid-fire responses.
Oh
I'd recommend enabling "Automatically mark notifications read when you interact with the source comment (by voting, labeling, replying, etc.)" for a smoother operation.
Love an easy to access post like this. The philosophy page really helped me understand how this site is different from Reddit when I first joined.
As a brand new user, it's invaluable. Definitely deserves the "Exemplary" flair!
What would you say are the main differences actually?
Not the person you are replying to, but I also like the Philosophy page and content.
I hadn't realised how much Reddit had become scrolling through image / video subs with quick reactions. The idea of making posts much more text-based appeals to me.
E.g. I might want to learn/get some information about cooking the best burgers. This place feels like somewhere I might get links to articles or in-depth comments from other users. On Reddit, r/burgers is just a stream of people uploading photos of their burgers for likes (upvotes) with the same "Great burger, love the cheese!" or "Not my style, you should cook the onions for 24 mins not 23" comments.
I found this funny, but my mind was too flooded with rage-inducing flashbacks to laugh.
It also reminded me of this post recently, in a funny way.
The way the communities are setup is a big one. No one "owns" any area to post content like on reddit. Anyone can just make new tags and post to them within a group. Heck, the tagging system in general is something new users probably have to get used to coming from Reddit. If you're posting you need to make sure you tag things appropriately. There are also some other ways that the site acts more like a forum format than a reddit clone - like new comments bumping a post.
There's also a very different philosophy here of deeper discussion instead of quick joke comments or memes that are common on Reddit. Plus no image hosting here and no porn.
Tildes honestly feels like how Reddit was in its earlier days.
Not really "need to". It would be appreciated if people gave it an honest effort, but it's not mandatory. @mycketforvirrad (the God of tags), myself, and a few others can edit tags... so it's no biggie if people don't add tags when they post something. :)
Yeah for sure. My point was more just don't ignore the tagging function when posting and try to get them right.
I like more in depth discussions and more positive communities. Here's hoping that Tildes can maintain both!
My own quick "new user experience" after I got an invite, with a slight technical bent:
I love how the account settings page straight up shows the TOTP seed/secret key instead of just the QR code. It may look like a minor detail, but that's a huge thing that who built the site actually cared about things like that.
I like the "don't reinvent the wheel" approach with using popular terminal/editor themes to theme the site. I'm gonna need the Catpuccin ones though, nothing a code change can't fix.
Feels refreshing to see a text-heavy site made in the vein of old-school boards. No lazy-loaded megabytes of JavaScript and with that you don't need skeleton screens.
A page is a page, a link is a link. Things work natively with your browser history instead of single-page app and infinite-scrolling madness. You link something, it loads the exact same thing every time, instead of loading the single-page app and maybe after a few seconds it decides to show you the content you're looking for (I'm looking at you, the Gmail settings page)
A text heavy site combined with modern CDNs are a powerful combo. Reminds me of the new Nokia 3310 that has a month of standby time thanks to modern batteries.
Thank you!!
Hey! Joined today. Was a long-time reddit user. I'm very angry by the changes they're making. I hope I can get used to Tildes. So far so good, it feels a little bit like old reddit though part of what I liked about reddit was the niche communities I could join.
Very interested in seeing how this will shake up.
I have to say after stepping up my engagement on Reddit from being essentially a lurker to highlight the admins shenanigans, it reminded me why I hated commenting and posting on Reddit. People make asinine arguments after I spend time to make a thought out statement, and then some proceed to block me when they can't bring up a strong argument or string the argument along getting further from the original topic. This place is a breath of fresh air.
Thank you so much for including me in fostering an alternative to Reddit! Even if Reddit wasn't going in such a crappy direction, it would still be fun seeing something that is better than Reddit! :)
Hi. I just joined today. I am liking Tildes so far. I like the themes. My favorite one so far is Love Dark.
Eyy, same here. Though I do wish I could make my own theme. My eyes aren't that great (I need to update my glasses but, y'know, no money atm). I'd like to be able to separate the color of the titles of posts from the link to the comments, poster's username, and the categories that use the ~ sign.
I'd also like to expand the front page so I can read more than a couple lines of text.
So, here's a question I think many may have, including me. How do you pronounce the website's name?
With a hard G
Please elaborate, or if you can type it phonetically.
I was just making a joke about how people argue over the pronunciation of "gif."
FWIW I pronounce Tildes in the Spanish way, with a soft T sound, with the tongue behind the teeth as in "this," unlike the hard T sound in "tile") and a long E sound like the A in "day."
Someone asked the same in the newcomer questions thread. My answer from there:
Thank you for being helpful. I appreciate your comment.
I think I have never had need to speak it out loud.
Now that you have made me stop to think about it, I'd probably say /tɪldz/ (rhyming with "builds"), but I guess that's "wrong" because the "correct" pronunciation of the singular is /tɪldə/, unambiguously with two syllables. However, I pronounce the singular as simply /tɪld/; one syllable (possibly with the tiniest of schwa /ə/ afterwards, releasing the plosive /d/), rhyming with "build" (which I think no one would consider strange if pronounced with a released plosive /d/).
Tildes.
/ˈtɪldz/
And tildes members are pronounced /ˈtɪldoʊzərz/
Ahem. Tildestians.
We agreed on Tildos!
I like Tilderinos
I personally just use "Tildes users". Boring, I know :P
But accurate!
What about Tildies? Hm. Might be too close to tiddies. :p
Tildos is my favourite precisely because it sounds like Dildos, and we need some more silliness here sometimes. ;)
Thank you for the informative post!! I need to read up on the rest of the site, learn how to use tags and such. I'm looking forward to learning more and hopefully enjoying the communities on the site! I like hearing that the rif developers are working on an app for tildes as well!