It's an interesting article and I appreciate the in-depth breakdown of the issues with such places, but "just don't interact with where the vast, vast, vast majority of people are online" doesn't...
It's an interesting article and I appreciate the in-depth breakdown of the issues with such places, but "just don't interact with where the vast, vast, vast majority of people are online" doesn't feel like a practical solution to the problem to me. Yes, it sucks that if you reply to someone it likely won't be archived and will eventually disappear compared to more open platforms, but simply never replying at all doesn't really seem like better distribution of information to me?
I think what these platforms contribute in terms of user-vastness they also bring in user-vacuousness, no? /rh I can't think of the last time I've had a conversation on any of the large platforms...
…but "just don't interact with where the vast, vast, vast majority of people are online" doesn't feel like a practical solution to the problem to me.
I think what these platforms contribute in terms of user-vastness they also bring in user-vacuousness, no? /rh
I can't think of the last time I've had a conversation on any of the large platforms that fed my hunger in terms of conversational sustenance.
What do you think would be an adequate— or viable, response to these issues? Or, I think taking a step back; do you think these are the issues plaguing online discourse right now? /g
I've pretty regularly had interesting discussions on Reddit, though I know that's not everyone's experience. That said, it's definitely more common for me on medium-sized subs, where there's...
Exemplary
I've pretty regularly had interesting discussions on Reddit, though I know that's not everyone's experience. That said, it's definitely more common for me on medium-sized subs, where there's enough people to get a lot of viewpoints but not enough that it becomes a YouTube comment section, but it does happen even in the bigger places too, just less often.
I'm not sure what the answer is, to be honest. In a perfect world people would move to a better platform that solves the issues the article talks about, but the infrastructure generally isn't set up for it outside the big companies, and I'm not sure what could cause a true migration—mods practically shut down the site for several days recently yet the only long-term result was it growing 1.5x in active users over the past year and becoming profitable for the first time in its history. Alternatives have gotten bigger, but they're still minuscule compared to the "big guys"—see also Twitter's stubborn refusal to die, even with smaller groups moving to places like Bluesky. And when people do move it's often to Discord, which—while pretty good as a chat app—is even worse for archival, searchability, and customizable experience than central forums are.
More specifically thinking of sites like Reddit or Tildes, part of what makes that threaded forum design great is they're a middle ground of sorts between the older more open formats. They have flexibility for long posts reminiscent of blogs, capacity for fast interaction reminiscent of instant chats, threadability reminiscent of email, and discoverability/categorization reminiscent of traditional forums. They aren't the best at any of what they do, but they're good enough at all of them in a way that makes them perfect for the sorts of discussions that (at their brightest) they draw people toward hosting on them. It's hard to truly replace that with any other style of platform, and unfortunately none of the alternatives like Lemmy or Kbin have caught much traction.
Private platforms also tend to have a more polished experience than open clones, which practically speaking is going to keep casual users on them despite the long-term issues and accessibility problems. Even as someone who I'd like to think is more open to such things, I find myself frustrated by all sorts of little conveniences I'm used to being missing like keyboard shortcuts for formatting when I just want to say something short and quick. They simply don't have access to the same development resources that a big company does unless they're something huuuge like Linux or Git, and as much as the inevitable enshittification is a major problem, many will stick to a place with too many useless features over a place with too few normalized ones. (That said the network size effect is probably the bigger blocker, this just adds extra friction to getting the ball rolling.)
I just have no idea what solution is viable, it feels like they all lead back to the same place eventually.
There is a strange courage in venturing and wading through these inhospitable areas to have good conversation. I applaud that in you, as this is something I have little faith in doing myself....
but it does happen even in the bigger places too, just less often
There is a strange courage in venturing and wading through these inhospitable areas to have good conversation. I applaud that in you, as this is something I have little faith in doing myself.
Maybe it's a difference in mentality or maybe I'm not hungry enough to dance through a minefield for a drumstick. /pondering–no snark
They aren't the best at any of what they do, but they're good enough at all of them in a way that makes them perfect for the sorts of discussions that (at their brightest) they draw people toward hosting on
I just have no idea what solution is viable, it feels like they all lead back to the same place eventually.
These points were particularly well-stated. Maybe you're right…
Your comment has given me a lot of to think about. Thank you. This is something I think I'd miss if we went solely to personal websites.
Ha, yeah, it sure can be an experience 😅 I don't tend to hang around the big places directly these days, I don't have the energy anymore. More often if I find something meaningful it's from...
Ha, yeah, it sure can be an experience 😅 I don't tend to hang around the big places directly these days, I don't have the energy anymore. More often if I find something meaningful it's from searching a topic directly and then skimming until I see either a long comment or a comment with a long reply chain.
Blogs do have a lot of benefits, don't get me wrong. Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" is great for humorous-yet-fascinating tech stories, for example—they are the platform for truly long-form content that needs lots of formatting or that you want to present without arguing a bunch, basically the museum equivalent of social networks. But they're not very good for interactivity, and most attempts to add comment systems prove... unpopular (though it can work sometimes, depends on the software and the audience). Crossposting to a bigger platform works well for starting a discussion, but responding to a tech support post or something with "here's a link to my blog about this" is often going to trigger people's "is this a scam" senses, or just going to make it plain awkward to go back and forth between places as the chain continues.
These are tone tags. I use the standard Wikipedia List and where I can't find one, I'll write out the entire tone. So '/rh' (or '/rt') is 'rhetorical question' and '/g' is 'genuine'
These are tone tags. I use the standard Wikipedia List and where I can't find one, I'll write out the entire tone. So '/rh' (or '/rt') is 'rhetorical question' and '/g' is 'genuine'
i agree with you. when its somethin i want to keep, i also send it to myself or maybe save a screenshot. no way woukd i refuse to help others or share with them in the moment simply hecause its...
i agree with you. when its somethin i want to keep, i also send it to myself or maybe save a screenshot. no way woukd i refuse to help others or share with them in the moment simply hecause its impermanent. that seems a bit much and a good way to make the internet a bit worse. im not here to make things worse when i dont need to.
to me this is like someone saying, dont every discuss (in person) anything interesting, useful, etc. save it all in a vault for your book.” im gonna interact with others where they are.
Anything that I write of length and/or importance, even comments for Reddit or Tildes, goes to my Emacs Org/Roam first, which is tracked on a private repository on GitHub as well as synced to...
Anything that I write of length and/or importance, even comments for Reddit or Tildes, goes to my Emacs Org/Roam first, which is tracked on a private repository on GitHub as well as synced to OneDrive. So I'm pretty confident I'm not gonna lose anything. I also have many other notes and all of my writing on Org. Some of that material may eventually be consolidated in posts for my blog, which I'll archive via Wayback Machine just in case. I think that's an okay system. I can have the same thing in more than one place it's not a big deal.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this I also recently discovered a neat package/extension combo that let's me write Tildes comments (or basically anything else on the web) inside Emacs:...
Anything that I write of length and/or importance, even comments for Reddit or Tildes, goes to my Emacs Org/Roam first
I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this
I also recently discovered a neat package/extension combo that let's me write Tildes comments (or basically anything else on the web) inside Emacs:
The Emacs package itself is atomic-chrome and the browser extension is chrome-emacs. Despite the name, the package and extension work with both Chrome and Firefox.
In that screenshot above you can see my use-package declarations for atomic-chrome and its dependencies, emacs-websocket and simple-httpd. Do note I'm using Elpaca instead of the built-in Emacs package manager. That's what all the weird :ensure lines are for.
I might take some inspiration from your system. I don't need my information to outlast me (I suppose that would require strong confidence that my ideas or connections between existing ideas hold...
I might take some inspiration from your system. I don't need my information to outlast me (I suppose that would require strong confidence that my ideas or connections between existing ideas hold some kind of long-term value to humanity), but ideally I'd be able to look back as an old man and be able to laugh (or take solace) in my earlier ideas.
Hello Tildes, in pursuit of my passion for PIM (Personal Information Management), I've stumbled across the personal blog of one Karl Voit. He talks at length on subjects such as "Don't Do Complex...
I understand from posts like this one that there is an interest (or need) amongst Tildes users for strong resources such as these.
As for the primary link, I'd like to know if users here generally feel the same, as I know there has been a strong voice/sentiment of opening up self-hosted personal blogs as a way to escape the dead internet, and retain ourselves in an age of censorship. Thoughts?
Thanks for sharing the main link and these other ones. I may not fully agree with his conclusion but his points are valid. I'm in favor of personal blogs, especially for people that are prolific,...
Thanks for sharing the main link and these other ones. I may not fully agree with his conclusion but his points are valid.
I'm in favor of personal blogs, especially for people that are prolific, thorough commenters. Voit mentions one method, posting to your own site and syndicating elsewhere (sometimes abbreviated POSSE), but there's also the option to post elsewhere then to your own site (PESOS).
That way you can share in the web forum but retain a copy you control. The main downside here is that Reddit or whomever can still sell your data, but the AI crawlers are probably stealing it anyway.
Regarding the Tildes post you linked to, I generally find PKM to be serious overkill in my life. I didn't keep up with Johnny Decimal either though I see the usefulness.
Let me ask you a question. I don't have any frame-of-reference for how other people structure their thoughts or categorize their life. Sometimes, I wonder if everyone is just letting life lead...
Regarding the Tildes post you linked to, I generally find PKM to be serious overkill in my life. I didn't keep up with Johnny Decimal either though I see the usefulness.
Let me ask you a question. I don't have any frame-of-reference for how other people structure their thoughts or categorize their life. Sometimes, I wonder if everyone is just letting life lead them by the seat of their pants.
Do you organize your life/thoughts/notes? Do you have a strong need to? If you do, what level of organization do you see yourself at? And has it helped or hindered you in life?
I decided to write this out as a blog post: https://scojjac.com/anti-pkm/ It's a cheeky URL. But basically, I take a just enough approach. I keep a lot of PDF references with related notes in a...
It's a cheeky URL. But basically, I take a just enough approach. I keep a lot of PDF references with related notes in a single folder in Apple Notes, virtually no tags or interlinking. Johnny Decimal is set up in OneDrive but I'm not strict about it. I prefer to delete things I don't need anymore. Personal and study notes are handwritten, reviewed to get the main points to sink in, and then become disposable. It helps because I don't feel bogged down by an overly complex system but can still find everything I need.
It's an interesting article and I appreciate the in-depth breakdown of the issues with such places, but "just don't interact with where the vast, vast, vast majority of people are online" doesn't feel like a practical solution to the problem to me. Yes, it sucks that if you reply to someone it likely won't be archived and will eventually disappear compared to more open platforms, but simply never replying at all doesn't really seem like better distribution of information to me?
I think what these platforms contribute in terms of user-vastness they also bring in user-vacuousness, no? /rh
I can't think of the last time I've had a conversation on any of the large platforms that fed my hunger in terms of conversational sustenance.
What do you think would be an adequate— or viable, response to these issues? Or, I think taking a step back; do you think these are the issues plaguing online discourse right now? /g
I've pretty regularly had interesting discussions on Reddit, though I know that's not everyone's experience. That said, it's definitely more common for me on medium-sized subs, where there's enough people to get a lot of viewpoints but not enough that it becomes a YouTube comment section, but it does happen even in the bigger places too, just less often.
I'm not sure what the answer is, to be honest. In a perfect world people would move to a better platform that solves the issues the article talks about, but the infrastructure generally isn't set up for it outside the big companies, and I'm not sure what could cause a true migration—mods practically shut down the site for several days recently yet the only long-term result was it growing 1.5x in active users over the past year and becoming profitable for the first time in its history. Alternatives have gotten bigger, but they're still minuscule compared to the "big guys"—see also Twitter's stubborn refusal to die, even with smaller groups moving to places like Bluesky. And when people do move it's often to Discord, which—while pretty good as a chat app—is even worse for archival, searchability, and customizable experience than central forums are.
More specifically thinking of sites like Reddit or Tildes, part of what makes that threaded forum design great is they're a middle ground of sorts between the older more open formats. They have flexibility for long posts reminiscent of blogs, capacity for fast interaction reminiscent of instant chats, threadability reminiscent of email, and discoverability/categorization reminiscent of traditional forums. They aren't the best at any of what they do, but they're good enough at all of them in a way that makes them perfect for the sorts of discussions that (at their brightest) they draw people toward hosting on them. It's hard to truly replace that with any other style of platform, and unfortunately none of the alternatives like Lemmy or Kbin have caught much traction.
Private platforms also tend to have a more polished experience than open clones, which practically speaking is going to keep casual users on them despite the long-term issues and accessibility problems. Even as someone who I'd like to think is more open to such things, I find myself frustrated by all sorts of little conveniences I'm used to being missing like keyboard shortcuts for formatting when I just want to say something short and quick. They simply don't have access to the same development resources that a big company does unless they're something huuuge like Linux or Git, and as much as the inevitable enshittification is a major problem, many will stick to a place with too many useless features over a place with too few normalized ones. (That said the network size effect is probably the bigger blocker, this just adds extra friction to getting the ball rolling.)
I just have no idea what solution is viable, it feels like they all lead back to the same place eventually.
There is a strange courage in venturing and wading through these inhospitable areas to have good conversation. I applaud that in you, as this is something I have little faith in doing myself.
Maybe it's a difference in mentality or maybe I'm not hungry enough to dance through a minefield for a drumstick. /pondering–no snark
These points were particularly well-stated. Maybe you're right…
Your comment has given me a lot of to think about. Thank you. This is something I think I'd miss if we went solely to personal websites.
Ha, yeah, it sure can be an experience 😅 I don't tend to hang around the big places directly these days, I don't have the energy anymore. More often if I find something meaningful it's from searching a topic directly and then skimming until I see either a long comment or a comment with a long reply chain.
Blogs do have a lot of benefits, don't get me wrong. Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" is great for humorous-yet-fascinating tech stories, for example—they are the platform for truly long-form content that needs lots of formatting or that you want to present without arguing a bunch, basically the museum equivalent of social networks. But they're not very good for interactivity, and most attempts to add comment systems prove... unpopular (though it can work sometimes, depends on the software and the audience). Crossposting to a bigger platform works well for starting a discussion, but responding to a tech support post or something with "here's a link to my blog about this" is often going to trigger people's "is this a scam" senses, or just going to make it plain awkward to go back and forth between places as the chain continues.
Different softwares, different purposes.
Sidebar: what do /rh and /g indicate?
These are tone tags. I use the standard Wikipedia List and where I can't find one, I'll write out the entire tone. So '/rh' (or '/rt') is 'rhetorical question' and '/g' is 'genuine'
i agree with you. when its somethin i want to keep, i also send it to myself or maybe save a screenshot. no way woukd i refuse to help others or share with them in the moment simply hecause its impermanent. that seems a bit much and a good way to make the internet a bit worse. im not here to make things worse when i dont need to.
to me this is like someone saying, dont every discuss (in person) anything interesting, useful, etc. save it all in a vault for your book.” im gonna interact with others where they are.
That username :). Wonder what B'Alzamon would think.
Ba'alzylophone, you mean?
He'll plays a little diddy over your dreams all night long, Rand All' Chords!
Anything that I write of length and/or importance, even comments for Reddit or Tildes, goes to my Emacs Org/Roam first, which is tracked on a private repository on GitHub as well as synced to OneDrive. So I'm pretty confident I'm not gonna lose anything. I also have many other notes and all of my writing on Org. Some of that material may eventually be consolidated in posts for my blog, which I'll archive via Wayback Machine just in case. I think that's an okay system. I can have the same thing in more than one place it's not a big deal.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this
I also recently discovered a neat package/extension combo that let's me write Tildes comments (or basically anything else on the web) inside Emacs:
https://i.horizon.pics/mtbZgMovnW.png
The Emacs package itself is atomic-chrome and the browser extension is chrome-emacs. Despite the name, the package and extension work with both Chrome and Firefox.
In that screenshot above you can see my
use-packagedeclarations for atomic-chrome and its dependencies, emacs-websocket and simple-httpd. Do note I'm using Elpaca instead of the built-in Emacs package manager. That's what all the weird:ensurelines are for.I might take some inspiration from your system. I don't need my information to outlast me (I suppose that would require strong confidence that my ideas or connections between existing ideas hold some kind of long-term value to humanity), but ideally I'd be able to look back as an old man and be able to laugh (or take solace) in my earlier ideas.
Hello Tildes, in pursuit of my passion for PIM (Personal Information Management), I've stumbled across the personal blog of one Karl Voit. He talks at length on subjects such as "Don't Do Complex Folder Hierarchies" and "The Advantages of Text-Based
Information Versus Videos, Audio
or Images."
I understand from posts like this one that there is an interest (or need) amongst Tildes users for strong resources such as these.
As for the primary link, I'd like to know if users here generally feel the same, as I know there has been a strong voice/sentiment of opening up self-hosted personal blogs as a way to escape the dead internet, and retain ourselves in an age of censorship. Thoughts?
Thanks for sharing the main link and these other ones. I may not fully agree with his conclusion but his points are valid.
I'm in favor of personal blogs, especially for people that are prolific, thorough commenters. Voit mentions one method, posting to your own site and syndicating elsewhere (sometimes abbreviated POSSE), but there's also the option to post elsewhere then to your own site (PESOS).
That way you can share in the web forum but retain a copy you control. The main downside here is that Reddit or whomever can still sell your data, but the AI crawlers are probably stealing it anyway.
Regarding the Tildes post you linked to, I generally find PKM to be serious overkill in my life. I didn't keep up with Johnny Decimal either though I see the usefulness.
Let me ask you a question. I don't have any frame-of-reference for how other people structure their thoughts or categorize their life. Sometimes, I wonder if everyone is just letting life lead them by the seat of their pants.
Do you organize your life/thoughts/notes? Do you have a strong need to? If you do, what level of organization do you see yourself at? And has it helped or hindered you in life?
I decided to write this out as a blog post: https://scojjac.com/anti-pkm/
It's a cheeky URL. But basically, I take a just enough approach. I keep a lot of PDF references with related notes in a single folder in Apple Notes, virtually no tags or interlinking. Johnny Decimal is set up in OneDrive but I'm not strict about it. I prefer to delete things I don't need anymore. Personal and study notes are handwritten, reviewed to get the main points to sink in, and then become disposable. It helps because I don't feel bogged down by an overly complex system but can still find everything I need.