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How did you guys find out about Tildes and how actively did you follow its development up until receiving an invite?
For me, I was just browsing a random thread and somebody complained about a reddit-specific thing and then another user linked them to r/tilde with a message implying that Tilde was better about that issue and I checked it out and decided to follow to see how development went with the site. I never actually actively followed news about it, just mostly waited for invites to be handed out so I could see for myself. I like it so far, it feels more communal.
I had a very similar experience, but it was only once I'd received an invite code on reddit. I came here and read the welcome message, which suggested reading the docs, so I pored over them page by page and was immediately impressed with the concept, the amount of detail already presented regarding the future direction of the site—it all clicked with me as an almost fully-realized concept, if not a complete project. I hit the "user donations" section of the docs and thought "would I pay a few bucks a month to have a place somewhat similar to reddit in layout, but with a higher level of discourse and people who were interested in more than just memes, circle-jerks and pictures of people who lost weight," and the answer was a resounding "yes."
Nice. I kinda get the feeling that a lot of users found out about this site through their interest in CompSci blogs and whatnot.
Hold on - what? I thought GitHub and GitLab were related concepts, just like StackExchange grew out of StackOverflow. Are they separate entities? I've been using the two names interchangeably.
Ah. Thanks for that.
Seems like I'm in the minority here, but I knew nothing of Tildes until someone tossed me an invite after I'd been complaining about how Reddit's devolved over time.
For what it's worth, I've not made a single comment or post on Reddit since joining.
Tildes is significantly more pleasant.
Actually your story seems to be semi-common at least. Word of mouth has been pretty powerful.
yeah, I saw it in a Reddit thread as well. Its a really interesting idea and im all for an actually neutral social site.
It's more pleasant here, but the volume and variety of discussion aren't enough for me to abandon Reddit yet.
Same, though I'm mostly done with reddit's more popular areas at this point. As Tildes attracts more users it'll diversify and groups with more specific subject matters will start becoming more common. The real trick will be maintaining quality while that happens. It's walking a tightrope - more users means more activity and more diverse topics/groups, but it also means progressively more risk of toxic users becoming prevalent - and we only have basic bans to deal with that risk right now. Taking it slow and using the invite-only model seems like the best way to walk that rope.
Yeah, I think it will be the moderation and trust system that makes or breaks it in the long run once it goes public.
I'd say an alternative option would be a small pay barrier on sign up, but then MetaFilter already exists.
Well, I do still browse/read Reddit. I just don't actively participate anymore.
Deimos pinged me with the idea around a year ago, invited me into the tildes slack to give feedback. Found like half of reddit's best ex-admins there, and we spent months arguing every aspect of reddit-like social forums back and forth long before there was an alpha site. Deimos just sat there patiently listening to our inane ramblings. One day it was in alpha and we were off. I invited every sane/solid reddit user I knew during the first week.
Nice! I hope the site really takes off.
I'm sad we never tracked down Blackstar9000 (and not for lack of trying). Dude was a legend on early reddit for coming up with ideas to help improve the site, he created /r/theoryofreddit just for that around 8 years back. He got fed up with reddit long before the rest of us did and nobody has seen him in a long time. He had some pretty unique ideas for how to improve reddit, didn't think about these issues the same way most of the rest of us do.
Interesting to know the history. This is only my second day here and it's already feeling like the old reddit I missed. Once the popularity took off you get a ton of the issues that comes along with that fame. While I do like a more diverse community, I also hate the will of the masses. Hopefully we can all build something interesting here.
It does seem like we are in good company here.
I am flat out until September now, but I will try and actually help in Q4.
One of my Reddit co-mods and I have been keeping our eyes out for Reddit alternatives for a few years, because it's getting harder and harder to keep the negative aspects of Reddit out of our subreddit, and we'd be interested in finding a new home for those discussions. We checked out voat and Imzy when they first started, and I know he's watched some others.
So, when I saw a post on Reddit about yet another Reddit alternative, I sent him a message to let him know about it. He replied a few hours later: he already knew about it; he'd been on Tildes for a few days - and, by the way, here's my invite code. From me finding out about Tildes to me being on Tildes took less than 24 hours!
That was exactly 2 months ago. Today is my 2nd moniversary of joining Tildes.
And I like what I've seen so far. I like what Deimos is doing and what he's planning.
Thank you!
Sorry, but I don't remember this. It has been a while since I hung out in that subreddit. I did end up making a podcast about the calendar, though.
I found it on a Hacker News thread first, emailed Deimos for an invite and got one. I found everything he said about the goals very intriguing.
It didn’t even occur to me that there was a Reddit sub for a while.
Note: it’s officially the plural, Tildes.
I saw someone mention it in a thread on /r/politics as a positive alternative to reddit, which led me to the Tildes blog, and the subreddit. A kind person there gave me an invite.
Here, too! Seems pretty promising so far; definitely a nicer userbase than Voat.
That's because voat started at just the right (or wrong) time, and was ready and waiting when a lot of free-speechers were looking for a Reddit-clone. So, even though the original small group of users on voat were a mixed bunch, they were quickly overwhelmed by the people who jumped ship when Reddit banned subreddits like /r/CoonTown and then /r/FatPeopleHate.
Ah, that's why they're so toxic over there. I had lowered my reddit usage around that time and pretty much missed all the drama surrounding those bannings. So they got all the people who were looking for a place to continue their hate unfettered. I wonder if they also got all the creepshots and jailbait types as well.
If I remember right they did, but then Voat had to kill its jailbait site too due to outside pressure.
Saw it mentioned in one of the complaint threads on reddit about the site re-design.
So I subbed /r/tildes and just basically stalked it till I could get a invite request in.
Really liking it so far.
Funnily enough, it was actually in an argument with another reddit user about something completely unrelated and I might have gone through his post history to see what else they posted (I know it’s not cool to snoop through users’ post history to find things to exploit in an argument but I was curious for whatever reason), and I saw he posted to /r/tildes pretty frequently. I was pretty curious as to why the hell there was an entire subreddit based off a single character, so I checked it out and ended up reading all of the documentation and got an invite as soon as the next round of invites started. At first I thought it was another fringe reddit group like voat or something, but when I saw it was actually built from scratch instead of cloned that inspired some hope. I’m of the opinion there’s something fundamentally wrong in Reddit’s design so I don’t think just cloning it and giving it a different name will fix the problem, and maybe that’s why I was attracted to this site
Someone linked to /r/tildes in a thread in /r/theoryofreddit. I checked it out, saw the top posts by deimorz (@Deimos) and evilnight (@amarok) and that was all I needed to see. I got my invite code a few minutes later, and was pleased to see that some of my old listentothis mod buddies were already here.
I'm the oddball who came from G+, of all places, and wouldn't have heard of Tildes but for the intervention of @dredmorbius, who's an avid curator of new social media models. It's been years since I spent much time on Reddit, the IRC communities I used to spend time on have died, the Facebook account exists only to keep track of family, Hacker News was too narrow and competitive, G+ is abandonware. I was coming to the conclusion that current social media are toxic, depressing, unfixable wastes of time.
At @dredmorbius' recommendation, I'd also dipped my toes in Mastodon, and just didn't have the focus or interest to chase communities across instances for mainly low-content Tweet-length posts.
I'm still a little skeptical about Tildes' model. The platform has technically refined underpinnings, it's open-source, not monetized, it's exciting to make any contribution to a new community, and we're in the comfortable gated-community phase. Tildes seems well-positioned to avoid past mistakes, and I'm trying to spread a few more invites outside the usual places, among other burned-out old hermits or the young, interesting and uncynical.
If the moderation, trust and reputation pieces of Tildes work as planned, it might avoid flame wars and active wreckers, but it's going to remain a place for "content", not full human interaction. My suspicion is that the irreducible psychological difference between real-time synchronous conversation (even via IRC), and asynchronous throw-it-over-the-wall posting, contributes to eventual community breakdown or (if heavily policed enough) dusty academic sterility.
Meanwhile, it's an interesting journey, and I'm grateful to be among people actively trying to create a better "nation".
I just was browsing reddit and found a thread talking about how reddit was becoming more and more like facebook and jazz, someone asked about alternatives and someone else linked tildes. After that I just lurked a sub until someone handed out like 80 invites and I was lucky enough to obtain one.
I check /r/redditalternatives every once in a while to see if any actual good alternatives to reddit have been made. I saw @Deimos's post, and got really excited since it actually seemed well-thought out, not based on a gimmick, and not just a straight-up clone. Then I lurked /r/tildes until an invite thread went up (the second I think), and here I am.
Wow, it's the exact same for me! I missed the first invite thread by a couple of hours so I stuck around until they posted the second one.
Cfabbro mentioned it in a /r/announcements thread on reddit talking about the redesign or some other horrible feature they were implementing.
Someone mentioned it was created by a former reddit admin, and then I found it was based in Canada, so I immediately put two and two together. I'd spoken to Deimorz a few times before, and always admired his vision of what a social media site should be, so I immediately knew I was on board. Once I finished reading the docs site, this was all confirmed. Posted in the first invite thread, and I've been here every day since.
Not to belittle you in any way, but I really think people were over-estimating the requirements to get an invite here. They've been handed out by the hundreds (thousands?) in /r/Tildes, mostly on a "first come, first served" basis.
I still have my five invites, because I'm rarely on reddit anymore to find someone to give them to, and I really don't want to just give them out randomly. I've been an admin on a decent-sized private forum, and we had semi-strict rules for receiving an invite—mostly that they spoke decent English (it was an international board) and that they owned or had access to the subject of the forum. That mildly influences my idea of who I would think I should offer an invite. Is the idea that people who don't really contribute will end up either lurking or leaving? We had to have quite a few bans on that forum for plain bad actors.
I made a post in /r/Tildes to hand out a few invitations, but I imposed a condition for applicants. That didn't go well, so I deleted the post.
I saw one where the guy said he was lightly checking post history and it had I think 95 comments, and another where another said "you should have some kind of joke in your comment history" (he was saying it tongue-in-cheek, which he even explained) and it was full of joke posts by people who didn't read his short topic. It's really a mixed bag over there.
My message was even more underwhelming: "So...um...invite me?" Got an invite within 24 hours.
Haha, nothing wrong with keeping it simple.
It was in an /r/privacy thread on reddit. People were on about how the Internet used to be a few years ago, and someone commented that Tildes was doing a good job of trying to recreate that. Looked into it immediately, read all the documentation and emailed the invite address. Received a reply same day.
@Amarok had been talking about this site and how it would knock our socks off in the /r/listentothis slack for a while. When it finally went live he sent me an invite and I've been here since!
Yeah, I may have been guilty of teasing the l2t mod team with bits of info for a couple months before the alpha launched. :D
Yeah, I'm the exact same as you. I heard about Tildes two days ago on Reddit when people were talking about how the ad/profit incentive means that Reddit leaves a whole bunch of undesirable content on their site. Someone mentioned r/Tildes and I had a look, read the announcement and I was hooked. Solid concept.
Direct invite via Reddit DM.
Never heard about the website before until somebody on a Private Tracker mentioned they had some invites for the site. Did a couple minutes research and decided, why not? Always looking for Reddit alternatives, though most of the projects I look at never end up going anywhere and die pretty quickly.
That's very cool, and kinda what we were all hoping would happen by handing out invites to the users. It's tapping into the 'network effect' of other smaller, functional communities. A lot of the earliest users got in via reddit-related slack/irc/discord channels.
Deimos dropped a message in a super secret, high society Slack channel where only the best of the best, and the worst of the worst gather to mull over the important issues of the day.
I found out when I saw another user I mod with on reddit (@vxx) complaining about the site, and saying he was waiting on an invite to some supposedly great reddit alternative.
I brought the site up in a slack chat I use to chat with some reddit friends, and one of the users in there gave me an invite.
I saw the post (not from reddit, but I can't remember where exactly,) read the announcement post+docs, sent an email, received an email back about an hour later or so, joined the site, and have been enjoying it so far. (June 5; it's been quite a while since.)
I check /r/RedditAlternatives about once every few months, and by pure chance, I happened to check a couple of hours after the Tildes announcement.
I actually just learned about it today, from a random thread mentioning alternatives to reddit. Decided to check out the sub and got lucky enough to see an open invite thread, and here I am! Checking things out and lurking a bit after this comment but I like what I see so far.
Curious to know where that thread was. r/redditalternatives? r/opensource?
I believe I found it in the reddit thread about the security breach, someone randomly posted it while people were discussing alternatives. Sorry I can't find the comment string now.
For a while I've been interested in the design of online communities. In particular I noticed certain design choices on reddit were leading to poor outcomes that keep on repeating across different subreddits. This place has some cool features that I think could make it really successful.
I didn't really know about tildes until a week ago but I've read some of the docs and looked at the gitlab repo.
My fiancee found out about it on reddit and kept giving me updates about it.
Reddit and I think in a r/askreddit for reddit alts. I followed the sub and just happened upon a freshly made invite topic