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Should lurkers make an effort to post more content?
I'm conflicted about this. On one hand, not prompting users to post alot may result in more quality content; however, on the other hand it may mean that the website is missing out on great quality posts and discussions. Your thoughts?
If they believe they have something to contribute to a conversation, they should. They should be encouraged to not be afraid of posting, but they should not be encouraged to spam the site with comments.
I agree. So much of "small talk" is saying things just to have said them. If one of the goals of tildes is to have less fluff, then I don't think we don't need to encourage lurkers to comment more. Also, practically, I'm not sure how one would go about encouraging lurkers to post more.
Eh, I don't think there's much need to force anyone to post, or even otherwise encourage it. People will come here for discussion in the first place, and I doubt that those who aren't liable to post much would start doing so with any kind of incentive. Karma is already easily one of the worst parts of Reddit, so I'm not sure what would be a viable alternative that would foster discussion and any actual cogency without also promoting vapid posts signifying little.
I wouldn't exactly consider myself a lurker or active poster. I definitely don't contribute much in the way of thread-making, but when I have a topic of interest I want to expound upon, I'll give a go of it when I can.
I've mentioned this before a couple of times, avoiding fluff posts making their way to the top is going to be achieved by re-defining what the upvote is used for. If we can slowly begin to treat the upvote with a lot more value and use it for posts which are high-quality and not just something everyone agrees on then hopefully all the decent content will rise whilst the low-effort content will stay where it is.
I do a bit of both, but honestly it doesn't matter where I find the conversation or how it comes about; if it's interesting to me or I have something I want to say, tildes is the perfect place to do so.
You encounter the bullshit asymmetry principle pretty fast with fluff, or a variation of it. The amount of effort required to sort through the fluff is much greater than required to generate it, so sorting it can get difficult fast.
It's fine to contribute and ask questions. I do have a problem with forcing other people to do so for participation points. It will keep conversations more interesting to allow people not to say anything if they don't feel like it.
I also think that assuming that the upvote, or vote feature will only be used for contributing is a naive proposition. The only way it will be treated that way is if there is something mechanistic ensuring that. Disposition is not enough. It's sort of like how the founding fathers of the U.S. were of the opinion factions were a bad idea. They didn't provide a mechanism to prevents factions, so factions pretty much immediately sprang up. I think if you're going to design something interacting with the general public you need to figure out how to make it function the way you want when its features are being abused. You can introduce stopgaps, but I think one might see better results if they design something keeping in mind that it will be abused
I'm not assuming that the upvote will instantly be used in the correct way by everyone, but I think it's worth trying to get users to use it correctly. Whether it's actively enforced or subtly suggested by reminding users and setting examples is really up Deimos as it will be a key factor in determining how the site is run.
You can tell people how you think they should ideally use something, but my experience is that you need to look at how things will be abused and assume that's how it will be used. It's one of the ideas that first showed up in the tildes subreddit, the evolution of trust game. You need to take a look at the game theory behind the system you designed; people will take advantage of something if they can. It's what people kinda do best, exploit advantages and disadvantages. Looking at those things should inform one's design decisions.
That’s only true for contextless and unauditable actions like voting IMO. If you assume the worst of everyone at all times and so avoid implementing any potentially abusable features for fear they will be abused then you wind up hamstringing your site. And by punishing everyone by removing/restricting those features as a result of abuse by a few bad apples, you also create all sorts of other downstream problems as well.
That is what reddit does and one of the reasons it’s suffering as a result. E.g. One community abuses the sticky mechanic to coordinate votes and dominate /r/all so they make it so no communities can get sticky posts to /r/all and even decrease the likelihood of them showin up on subscribed users front pages.
Some of ~ stated goals are to trust users and punish abusers... not all potential abusers and hamstring the site out of fear... punish the actual abusers. If one communiy abuses a feature like stickies, the specific users who did so and potentially that specific community itself where the abuse took place will get punished, not every community on the site by removing or restricting their ability to use stickies. This is a much healthier approach, for the communties and users here, than ”look at how things will be abused and assume that's how it will be use” IMO.
I really disagree with this. You can design a site keeping in mind how things will be abused. In fact, that's what makes a site useful in the first place. That's sort of what you're alluding to here:
Here you're saying there has to be some kind of mechanism of enforcement because there will be abusers, because we know there will be. From a design perspective you have to examine how things will be abused. You're saying that I am saying we should punish everyone and I'm not. I'm saying features should be designed with the fact they will be abused in mind, and how to withstand it. That way people can have nice things.
It is possible to assume the worst, within reason, of everyone and design something around that. I think where we disagree is that you assume that:
I don't think hamstringing your site follows from assuming people will abuse it's features and incorporating that into your design. I think that's how you harden it against abuse.
Fair enough and maybe I did misunderstand you. To be honest, it does sound like we’re on the same page regarding most everything.
i.e. Be cognizant of potential abuse when designing the systems (but don’t assume the absolute worst) and design the systems so you can identify abuse and punish those specifically that do (not everyone).
Sound fair?
Yeah, fair enough. I think we're at the same place here.
I see what you mean, essentially looking at the worst case scenario. I’m hoping that there will be less exploiters due to tildes currently being invite only, but I understand that it’s always advisable to plan for the people who will try and find a way around the system. Guess you’ve just got to have faith that most users will use the system for its intended purpose and those who don’t can be dealt with effectively.
Someone posted the rough stats earlier, but apparently 90% of users lurk, 9% comment and 1% post. Clearly the more people commenting and posting the better, but I don't think users should be pressured into always voicing their opinions. A lot of people are quite happy to simply sit back and see all sides of the argument which is perfectly fine. I think what is most important is that users, especially new ones, realise that tildes is different from places like Reddit. If you post a slightly unpopular opinion or thought on a subreddit, most of the time you will get shouted down and downvoted to oblivion. On tildes users should feel the opposite when wanting to post an opinion, they should realise it's a good thing to create a discussion and other users will respond in a civil manner. The more the community enforces this kind of attitude, the more users will see how every opinion is welcome and therefore feel more inclined to post/comment. Setting a good example right from the beginning is the best course of action I believe.
You're definitely right with setting a good example. Having a better community will probably prompt people to post more quality content naturally anyway. The last thing I want is for people to be discouraged from posting the good stuff.
Exactly, you can't force new users who are used to lurking into doing something they are not comfortable with. You can however build a community in which they feel comfortable and after some time hopefully they'll feel that they can speak their mind.
That was me, and they're not statistics. Certainly not statistics from this website, considering that this so-called "rule" goes back to at least 2006 (although, more recent reviews seem to confirm this "rule" still holds true). To me, they're just indicative numbers to remind me that a lot of people will lurk, some people will comment, and only a few people will actually post.
Thank you for posting them earlier! I shouldn’t of called them stats but yes I can see how they do a good job of respresting the overall makeup of a message board.
I've been lurking since I joined. I don't really feel like I have a lot to contribute to most discussions, so I don't.
Someday someone will ask something in my wheelhouse, and I'll post a huge essay. Until then, I'll hide here silently.
I used to moderate a subverse on there, but I gave up because navigating that site is like wading through an ocean of shit to find very occasional pearls.
It would be nice not to have to be part of the 1%, but I understand that not everyone wants to or even can post content.
Forcing people to post (or even just expecting them to) might lead to lower-quality posts, as people start posting stuff just to make up the numbers, rather than because they've found something that's actually interesting. I'd rather us have a small number of posts that live up to the higher standards we want, rather than a large number of fluff-posts just for the sake of having more activity.
I don't think it would do any good to pressure people into posting more. It'd just make people feel stressed about meeting a quota, I think, and would muddle meaningful discussion with half-hearted remarks.
I posted a new thread once, I can not for the life of me figure out how to do it again on mobile. If it were easier to see how to post a new topic, maybe more people would. There should be a link at the top of the page and in the side bar.
You open the sidebar in a ~, for example ~tildes, and click on the button create a new post.
I could swear I tried that! Thank you.
I would gladly post more, but unfortunately the type of stuff I enjoy posting on reddit (funny cat gifs, cute animal gifs, oddly satisfying gifs, beautiful female athlete images and gifs) is not allowed to be posted here. I asked for a ~humor group to be able to at least post funny cat gifs, but even that wasn't accepted. I've since tried posting a couple news articles, but tbh it just doesn't interest me. Believe it or not, there are some of us who really enjoy making and posting cat gifs for their own sake and not just to "make karma", so unless and until a ~humor and/or ~aww type group is allowed here my posting activity will probably be very limited.
What about a "exploring the gifs" post, where you outline how you make them, with an explanation (giving you an excuse to post the gif ;) ) and a walkthrough or something? Or maybe some thoughts & examples on patterns you noticed, etc. I mean I'm always super interested in the behind-the-scenes/how-internet-communities-work type of posts
I would be happy to make a post explaining how to make a good cat gif, but why should I invest the time and effort into a post that will likely be dismissed as "fluff"? I did manage to post a cat gif 24 days ago before it was made clear that fluff type content wasn't wanted, and that may ultimately be the only cat gif ever posted here.
Fair enough (and congrats on getting the honour of the last legal cat gif)
I guess what I'm thinking is if you have a more in-depth explanation of how to make something like that, and then post it to ~hobbies it isn't fluff anymore. Like webcomics might be considered fluff, but a how-to would not be, because it's explaining your hobby and passing on knowledge, and you might get a discussion started on the hobby, or the methods, or whatever. Things that wouldn't've happened if you had just posted the gif (it got one comment about music).
I mean I don't make any OC or anything, so mostly end up commenting or asking questions in different places. I decided a year ago or so to make good-faith assumptions about comments, and respond only if I can do so level-headedly and expecting a good conversation (I slip at times, ofc). It's improved my experience on the web, but it has meant I post less frequently.
There are those who would say that Tildes is not the proper place for "low effort" stuff like funny cat gifs, animal gifs, etc.
Personally, though I understand where they're coming from, I think we need to hash out what we do and do not want to see here.
I would point out that Reddit, Facebook, Imgur (etc) all do very well with the kind of content that you brought up, because it's popular, but there are those here who would say that if we want that stuff, then to go to those sites, that the mission of Tildes is a bit more.. up-market.
Personally, I love a good cat or bear photo/video. I am a firm believer that every day is Caturday on the internet.
I get that. However, the more you limit what content can be posted here, the less content will be posted. When OP asks for more content, they should understand that there are people like myself who don't really have anything to post here because of those limitations. When the current rule is "nothing funny, cute, or otherwise that's for entertainment purposes only" that knocks out a lot of people that might post something. I still comment here, and will continue to do so, but I just don't have much interest in posting "serious" content.