Daily Tildes discussion (and changelog) - "new topic" page and process updated
I'm going to cheat a bit today and combine the daily discussion with a changelog post, since I'd like to get input on the changes and talk about what else should be done. I've just updated the "new topic" page in a few ways that we've discussed over the last while:
- There's a note at the top asking people to post informative or interesting content with discussion value, and not to make posts mainly for entertainment.
- You can now fill in both the Link and Text fields, and if you do so, the text will be posted as the first comment on your post. This allows people to make a sort of "submission statement" if they'd like, or give their opinion about the content. I've seen some conflicting opinions about this lately, so I tried to make it clear that adding text is optional. Personally, I don't think mandatory submission statements add much value, since in my experience most of them just end up being "I thought this was an interesting article", or a quote or two taken directly out of the article.
- I added a "Formatting help" link above the Text field that links to the page on the docs site that @flaque was nice enough to write up. This link has also been added above the markdown fields for comments as well.
As I mentioned yesterday, I'm also working on a "tagging guidelines" document which I'm hoping to get into decent shape today, and I'll add a link to that above the Tags field once it's available.
Let me know what you think of the changes, and if you have any other suggestions for things we should do with the submit process. We'll definitely need some group-specific submission info before too long as well, so I may end up adding a sidebar to the submit page that can contain more info (though that doesn't work very well on mobile since it's hidden by default).
My only thing about this is that it does seem a bit awkward to say "Please avoid posting topics that are primarily for entertainment" when we have groups where posting entertainment is part of the idea. Unless along with this you're saying not to post links to music to ~music, but I imagine that's not the case.
I like that putting text in with a link submission makes it a separate comment! I think it bypasses the problem of giving the first person to post more of a platform than they necessarily deserve nicely!
I think that would be even more slippery, if that were the idea (I don't think it is). I'm guessing @Deimos isn't trying to pass some kind of judgement upon what kind of music gets posted or trying to ensure that only cool kid music makes it on there.
My guess is that this was supposed to mean something roughly equivalent to (but slightly more broad than) "don't just post memes," but it sounds weird depending on what group you're in.
Perhaps it would be better to emphasize the positive.Something like "Discussion is the goal. Please post content that contributes to this."
This was a feature I was looking for earlier, good to see it's added. In my unsolicited opinion, I would let each individual group decide what their policy is regarding this
Edit:
This is missing when you edit comments haha
Whoops, thanks. I'll add it to the editing forms as well.
I already made my thoughts about this known. I still think it would be better to include the poster's text in the post itself, rather than separate it out as a comment. But, it is what it is. :)
If you ever need help writing up documentation, I'd be happy to help. I can write docs like a pro - literally. In my previous work as a Business Analyst, I wrote a lot of user documentation.
The docs are alredy open source since quite some time. Just head over the repo, make the changes and open a pull request: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes-static-sites
Thank you for the suggestion.
Unfortunately, I'm not a programmer and I don't know how to use github.
You can actually use the "Web IDE" option and make all your changes in the browser. The documentation parts are all written in markdown, and there's a markdown previewer built into the IDE, a commit button to easily let you submit your changes back to ~'s gitlab
Me too, but honestly this is still far and away a better solution than Reddit. This way you are guaranteed to be the first comment and everyone will see it. And of course, that usually happens that way on Reddit, too. But now it's a lot simpler to do it. I don't have to add the comment after the post.
Maybe that introductory note should eventually become group-dependent (actually, it is similar to subreddit submission guidelines) while still encouraging high-quality content.
You should add a descriptions of link labels, which can help clean up the readability of the post while writing or implement super-scripted links, and the strike-through tags.
description linked text
some claim[2], 3
strikethroughtext in-between all [ ] should be unique, as the parser gets confused otherwise.
If no special characters need to be inside the brackets, a single [link] instead of [text][link] is enough.
A colon follows the brackets, then a blank, then the link, then optionally a blank and text in quotes.
I really like
[1]: https:// "optional hover text"because when I post a link, I typically just post the entire thing so people know where it will take them. I don't like blind links. I know I can copy the address and paste it to know, but I just believe it should be there visible at first glance in a way. So the option you mention is super helpful because it keeps things clean and shows you where it will take you.If you hover over a link, every browser will show you the address it is referring to at the bottom of the window. The hover text (i.e. title text) is usually used for additional context.
You also can add title text when linking the usual way:
[text](https:// "optional")Yeah, I more so assume people are on mobile so I just post the whole thing. That way people know where they will be taken right away without having to look around.
More on formatting help and formatting:
Tables, which generally increase content quality, are not supported: Markdown table syntax is not supported by CommonMark, and direct table HTML is not processed though
tbodytags are inserted. In other words,<table><tr><td>test</td></tr></table>produces"
Images CommonMark syntax does (not) work as follows:
produces '<img alt="Tildes Icon" src="https://tildes.net/favicon-32x32.png">' as plain text.Is table support planned? (I assume image support is NOT planned, and the fact that images are not supported can be mentioned in the Formatting Help page.)
I believe tables are planned, as well as proper strikethrough (like
~~this~~), but I don't have a source for that.It's a bit manky that images get rendered as raw HTML. I agree that image support is not something I want to see on Tildes right now, but I wonder if there's a better way to handle them - modifying the parser to disable image support would presumably lead to results like this:
!Tildes Icon
which is probably better, IMO.
Yeah, I'll add table support today (at least via writing HTML), and update the markdown docs. Thanks.
I think in the spirit of the quality content aspect, it might be good if you had to scroll past or click through the rules. That would solve mobile not seeing them, as well as people claiming that the rules were non-obvious. They had to click "I read the rules" at the bottom or at least scroll past them, they have no excuse.
Something like that could get inconvenient, but if you are posting new topics frequently enough that it's a huge deal, you probably aren't putting enough thought into your posts.
In addition to tagging guidelines, have you considered auto-completion for tags? I think it would help a lot, especially if you sort by popularity.
Yes, definitely something I want to do. That'll take some significant work though, so it's not something I'll probably get to before a few other things are done first.
Whoops, thanks. The removing process still isn't fully done properly, so there are a few gaps like that. I'll get it out of your notifications for you.
How specific should we be on tagging? If I am posting to news do I need to tag it architectural news or give it an atchitecture and news tag? Or is tagging it architecture enough since it falling under news tells you it is news?
I think you should never give it the same tag as the group, that's definitely implied and unnecessary (everything in ~music doesn't need a "music" tag and so on). I would say that just "architecture" would be the right tag in that case.
Thanks.
I like the idea of tagging guidelines. Tags are something I really struggle with.
Now that both the Link and Text fields can be filled in, can the resulting comment be made “sticky”? The default comment sort order is
most votes(can this be changed as of now?), and the original “submission statement” can thus sink.The submitter's comment being able to sink is part of the point (and why it was done as a comment instead of just including the text in the post itself). People should be able to vote on the link and the commentary separately, and the submitter shouldn't have a more powerful "soapbox" than other users just because they submitted the link.
I’m not sure how I feel about this change...
The submission text seems like it should always be at the top. For example, the poster may want to give background information on a link. I think that it should be up to the poster to decide if they want to add their opinion, and if they do, they should comment themselves.
Then again, that’s just my opinion ¯\(ツ)/¯
If the OP is giving good background information it’s very likely their comment will be upvoted and remain at the top anyways... if, however, they are soapboxing, editorializing or expressing an opinion on the linked article, that should be judged on its own merits IMO, which this system allows for. Whereas by giving the OP a permanent top-level position in the comments it means that if they say something stupid/inappropriate/ridiculous then users have to decide whether what the OP submitted is worth tacitly supporting OP and/or helping their stickied comment get visibility.