Something that generally works for most people, but you were an exception.

Something you were expecting to help, but it didn’t.

Something that promised a lot but failed to deliver.

Something that fell through.

Something you couldn’t get used to.

Could be an item, a piece of advice, a plan, a path, a relationship, etc.

Whatever it was, it didn’t work and that was significant.

What was it? Why do you think it didn’t work? How do you feel about it?

Submit your response here!

• Direct link: https://survey.tildes.community/-/how-optimistic-are-you-about-the-future-9/
• This survey closes on June 21, 2026 at 10:00 UTC
• The results will be published on June 21 shortly after the survey has closed. I'll edit this topic and post a comment about it!

The current plans for questions that will be asked in the coming weeks are as follows:

Keeping it very simple this time around with some Likert scales! (TIL the name of these)

The person that originally submitted this question also mentioned doing this periodically (like every six months) so I figured for this first one I'd ask both how you feel about the future now and how you have felt in the past six months.

Please submit your ideas for questions here! Even if they've been submitted already by someone else. All input is valuable! You can view all submitted questions on this dashboard.

Thank you all for participating!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 166 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the full results!

I was initially thinking of making a custom visualization with all the game covers in a big collage together, but I ended up not having the time to do it. :'( If anyone is interested in trying to make that though, please do! I think it'd look really cool.

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! Hope to see you in the next survey! :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 213 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the full results!

I'd like to thank @TaylorSwiftsPickles and @DefinitelyNotAFae once again for helping out with this survey! <3

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! Hope to see you in the next survey! :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

"Different" can be interpreted in any way, in any context, for any magnitude.

When did you realize you were different?
What prompted it?
How did you feel about it then?
Has the difference changed over time?
Have your feelings changed over time?

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 115 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the full results! And the next four surveys we will do are:

1. In first place with 26 votes: What is your gender identity?
2. Second place with 25 votes: What's your favorite video game?
3. Third place 24 with votes: How optimistic are you about the future?
4. And fourth with 23 votes: How often do you visit/read Tildes?

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! Hope to see you in the next survey! :)

Question for those interested, what would be a good way to pose the next question "What is your gender identity?"

I have some ideas but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts too since I think historically this has been one of the more debated questions in the demographics surveys. And I think this one's an important one not to mess up. Let me know!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 318 people that responded! Check out this special results page to see how the Tildes community chose!

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Could be something about you, your thoughts, priorities, health, etc.

Could be something about the world, the way things work, etc.

Could be anything really.

What has changed, and how do you feel about it?

You've just been convicted by the UN security council for being a Tildes user, and have been sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony, but you get a choice. Do you choose either:

1: Mars - 7 years without ever being able to go outside without a suit on, but afterwards you could travel back to Earth, if you desired.

2: New Mongolia: An Earth-like planet, almost as if Earth was new again. But it's a one way trip.

(Asking for a friend)

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 148 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the results! Here's a few quick stats:

• 50 total distinct languages were submitted!
  • 30 of which people responded speaking fluently
  • 40 of which people responded they are familiar with
• The top 5 languages (combining fluent and familiar):
  • English with 146 responses (not a surprise :P)
  • French with 54 responses
  • Spanish with 50 responses
  • German with 39 responses
  • Japanese with 25 responses
• And people responded with this many languages (combining fluent and familiar):
  • 1 language at 9.5%
  • 2 languages at 39.9%
  • 3 languages at 22.3%
  • 4 languages at 14.9%
  • More numbers on the dashboard!

• View the full results dashboard here
  • If you have any ideas for visualizations or stats I can add I'd love to hear them!
• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating!

Also I'm making a change to the schedule! The survey for the coming week will be a simple one: "Pineapple on pizza? Yes or no". I have an idea I'd like to work out to make the surveys more customizable and easier to set up but that will take some time, that's why I'm deciding to have a fun in-between survey and next week we'll have the vote on the next surveys coming up. :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 174 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the visualizations and a rough comparison with the previous survey! Here's a few quick stats:

• 41 distinct countries are represented!
• Spread across the following continents:
  • America at 45.7%
  • Europe at 39.9%
  • Asia at 8.7%
  • Oceania at 5.8%
• With the top 5 countries of most responses:
  • United States at 36.2%
  • United Kingdom at 8.6%
  • Canada at 6.9%
  • France at 4.0%
  • Australia at 3.4%
• And the results for whether people were living in the country they were born in:
  • Yes at 74.7%
  • No at 23.0%
  • No answer at 2.3%

• View the full results dashboard here
  • If you have any ideas for vizualisations or stats I can add I'd love to hear them!
• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! I hope to see you in the next survey. :)

An event, a moment, an experience, etc.

Can be big or small; significant or insignificant; serious or funny.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing. You could be glad you missed out on something!

What did you miss out on?
How do you feel about it?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 244 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for a map visualization and a breakdown per continent, region and country! Here's a few quick stats:

• 43 distinct countries are represented!
• Spread across the following continents:
  • America at 48.5%
  • Europe at 39.0%
  • Asia at 6.2%
  • Oceania at 5.8%
  • Africa at 0.4%
• And the top 5 countries with the most responses:
  • United States at 37.7%
  • Canada at 8.2%
  • United Kingdom at 8.2%
  • Germany at 4.9%
  • Netherlands at 4.9%

• View the full results dashboard here
  • If you have any ideas for vizualisations or stats I can add I'd love to hear them!
• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! I hope to see you in the next survey. :)

I keep thinking about this post from @first-must-burn and the genuinely amazing way he helped one of his family members, and it inspired me to ask this question.

No need to be modest or downplay your efforts in your answer. Feel free to pat yourself on the back and acknowledge the good job you did (even if it feels awkward to do so!).

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Many of us were dinosaur kids (I assume), but I know that our understanding of dinos has changed a lot from my childhood: more feathers, warm-blooded, and the brontosaurus survived its deletion attempt! Land Before Time, Dinotopia, We're Back! a Dinosaur's Story, Dinosaurs, and Jurassic Park have been supplemented by Jurassic World, Velocipastor, and many dinosaur "documentaries".

So Tildarianitearinis, what is your favorite dinosaur?

(For purposes of this question dinosaurs will be inclusive of prehistoric archosaurs without pedantry. Aka pterosaurs count. )

Breathe Deep Seek Peace Ψ

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 324 people that responded! It was honestly a bigger number than I was expecting so I'm really happy with how it turned out. :D Here are some stats that I can put in Markdown:

• 34 years old is the median age
• We have lived a combined 11615 years
• And the generational breakdown with:
  • Millennials at 59.0%
  • Gen Z at 26.9%
  • Gen X at 12.3%
  • Baby Boomer at 1.5%
  • Greatest Generation at 0.3% not sure if this one is legit ;)

View the full results here

• Tip: You can set a custom age range using the "Set age range" filter to get a better view of results! All the graphs update along with that filter.
• Or get a ZIP download here of the data

Let me know your thoughts about the survey, what you liked, what you didn't like, if you'd like something different about them, you name it!

Thank you all again for participating! I hope to see you in the next survey. :)

Seriously!

My husband brought me a tiny little bubble wand he got as a party favor and it somehow has managed to provide me with hours of entertainment. It's kind of perfect for me because it gets me to stop thinking about all the shit I'm worried about and instead get out of my head. Here's some fun things to do if you're looking for a fun time.

Games you can play with bubbles

Bubble catcher

Catch bubbles with the wand. Try to get it directly in the loop for maximum fun.

Bubble bouncing

If you've made small enough bubbles, you can use a bubble you've caught to bounce other bubbles with! I notice that

Bubble multiplication

Catching a bubble on your wand re-establishes the surface area needed to blow bubbles with! Turn one bubble into 20!

Your homework

Go buy some bubbles and report back so I don't feel like a crazy person.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I've been thinking about the demographics surveys recently and how they usually draw a good reception, but are difficult to compile in a privacy-minded way and finally visualize the data. I think the 2024 survey never ended up getting its results published?

So I thought maybe instead of one big yearly survey we could organize smaller weekly or monthly surveys that ask one or a couple questions at a time. And then while the current survey is running the question+answers for the next survey could be plannedy out. And the questions could be about anything and not just demographics related things.

In terms of technical setup I've been using a self-hosted n8n instance for a while and with tinkering around with it I've come up with a decent proof of concept to make these surveys happen via n8n's Form nodes. This makes it so all the data is in our own control and it's just a matter of building out any visualizations we may want.

And at the end of a survey the data could be anonymized and published so any further analysis can be done by whoever wants to.

One other thing I've come up with is a way to "authenticate" responses so we can know when a response was made by a real Tildes user. In the survey flow the server can generate a UUID and give it to the user to put in their profile bio. Then we scrape the user's bio and check if that UUID is present and now we know that yes, this is a real user. And then the UUID can be removed again from the user's bio (so it can't be linked back to them). This would also enable us to not have to save usernames at all (yay privacy). Edit: this would be entirely optional if it were to be added. There would be no requirements to fill in the survey unless we start seeing a bunch of spam or bogus responses.

What do you Tildoes think? That's what we settled on right? Is this something you'd be interested in?

Edit: Since the topic has a good amount of votes I quickly set up a server and a form to collect questions for anyone that has ideas! :)

-> https://survey.tildes.community/form/submit-your-question

The "nobody" in the title doesn't have to be literal -- it can be a battle that very few people know about. The important thing is that it's mostly hidden.

What is the struggle?
Is it hidden by choice?
Do you want more people to know about it? Why or why not?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

You're the glue, the leader, the center of gravity, the one making it happen.

Without you, it would probably fall apart, cease to function, or stop.

What is it?
What do you do?
Do people appreciate your role, or is it invisible?

I've been working on an ocean life repository website for work, and I found myself randomly rambling about sharks because they've always been such a fascinating example to me of how evolution can keep a very recognizable blueprint while splitting into a ridiculous range of lifestyles.

A whale shark, a thresher shark, an angelshark, a tiger shark, a goblin shark, and a reef shark all still read instantly as "shark", and yet they're doing such different things that it almost feels wrong. Filter-feeding giants, ambush predators, open-water hunters, deep-sea weirdos, tail-whip specialists. All while still sticking to this unmistakable shark... ness?

I've been trying to pin down what I even mean by that "blueprint". Not just body shape exactly, but some deeper structural identity that survives a lot of diversification. Other groups feel a bit like this too. Felines, canines, birds… they can branch into very different niches, sizes, and behaviors while still feeling strongly constrained by a common template. A tiger, a lynx, and a house cat are all very clearly "cat". Wolves, foxes, and chihuahuas are very clearly "dog". Canaries, hawks, parrots, and hummingbirds are all still "bird".

It fascinates me how common this is in evolution: nature finding one robust structure and then radiating outward in very different directions without losing the core design. Not the most morphologically extreme variation possible, maybe, but variation under a very conserved plan.

Sharks just feel like one of the wildest examples of that.

So: what's everyone's favourite shark, and why?

Mine is probably either the lemon shark or the thresher shark because of how smart they are. Lemon sharks are fascinating for their social behavior and learning, then threshers are incredible both for that absurd tail and for feeling like such a weirdly specialized, clever branch of the shark blueprint.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

The rules are as follows:

• If you can lift an object above your head unassisted, you can put it into your inventory.
• There is no limit in the total quantity, volume or weight of objects in your inventory.
• You can immediately store or produce a stored item to and from your inventory at will.
• Objects will remain in their original state when stored in an inventory. From their perspective, no time has passed.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Could be from a place you visited or moved to. Could be from a community or group you joined.

Whatever it was, there was something new or unfamiliar to you, and you had to wrap your head around that something that you weren't used to.

What was the culture shock, how did you respond to it, and how do you feel about it now?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

What's something you grew out of/moved on from/phased out?

How do you feel about it now? Fondness? Embarassment? A nostalgic ache?

Why did you end up moving on from it?

Was it a conscious decision, or was it something that happened over time?

What have you tried lately that hasn't quite worked out? Small things like hobbies gone wrong, or social experiences that were slightly awkward.

Sometimes it can be cathartic to both get these things off your chest and to hear what others have struggled with as a reminder that no one is perfect.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!