Daily Tildes discussion - how can we help people "acclimate" in a friendlier way?
One of the things I've noticed so far (and there were a couple obvious instances over the weekend) is that we've had a few issues with new users posting content that doesn't really fit some of the ideas behind Tildes (primarily, trying to focus on higher-quality discussions/content). This in itself isn't a bad thing or surprising, it's always going to happen. However, I think we need to try to think about some better ways to deal with it—it's great to have other community members telling people that it's not really the type of content they should be posting, but sometimes it's been done in a pretty hostile way, which isn't very good and makes the community seem unfriendly even though it's still very small.
So I'm mostly just looking for general thoughts about how we could try to improve the situation. Are there mechanics that we could implement? Should we try to get "what types of things should I post?" in front of new users more prominently? Could/should we have a "standard" way of dealing with new users posting things without realizing it might not be particularly welcome here?
Any other ideas or suggestions?
Telling people their content isn't wanted is much more likely to drive them away. If they're not violating any rules, but just not fitting into the general vibe, I think we should tread very carefully.
If it's something clearly not in the Tildes spirit like a dumb meme, you can probably get away with removal, commenting to OP that that's not how the site works, and so on. But even then it should be done in a welcoming way that encourages them to keep posting and commenting, just not the specific way they were doing it.
If it's more of a "doesn't fit the vibe" thing, say someone made a low-effort text post, I don't know if taking action will do more good than harm. I know when I go onto subreddits and my first post gets removed for a dumb reason or, worse, a reason that's not clearly stated in the rules, then I don't feel like coming back. I personally haven't come on the site for a while, and I think it's because I can't post or comment anything without someone criticizing me and being kind of a dick about it. There's no "oh, that's interesting" here; it's all "that would never work." Especially when the site needs to broaden its base beyond the typical early-adopter set, discouraging new users at their entry point seems to me a bad idea.
I do really like the idea of "what types of things should I post?", maybe in the introductory message to new users. But even then, I don't think it should come across as an exhaustive list.
Yeah, absolutely. I was planning to make it a lot more prominent somehow once the site was open-sourced, but that's... been delayed quite a bit. Really, truly, hoping to have that done in the next couple of days though.
Oh, yes, open-sourcing the site.
(Smiles)
I’m looking forward to this.
I feel like this would just drive people away; why care about a community that doesn't want you to (initially, for a brief period) participate in it?
The best solution that I have come up with is a "pinned post" for new users. The content would explain the gist of Tildes.
This post would appear on top of all
fourfeeds for x number of days, or x logins, since the user's first login.Edit 1: should appear on all feeds, including the specific group feeds.
Edit 2: UX. The pinned “new user” post should be stylistically indistinguishable from normal posts. Use this evil embedded-in-your-face tactic for the good of world building Tildes? Looking for feedback on this one... or should I make an issue on gitlab to discuss the viability of this solution further?
Edit 3: To implement this maybe you want a global set of rules in the pinned post, and if the user is looking at a group-specific feed, then the post is also started with some group specific text prior to the global post content?
I think it's important for the community to remember that we represent tildes with each post and comment, but we don't speak for all of tildes. The former being something every new member will see, the latter, not so much.
Hateful, or any other posts that outright break our rules should be removed, but "low-effort" post (which I don't think we even all agree on what that means) should get a gentle constructive and polite comment. And we should be careful about using comments like they are downvotes.
I also don't believe we should be so critical of new posts. Even a seemingly low-effort post, such as Every episode of "The Flash" ever (which I don't consider low-effort), can generate good discussion. It's up to both posters and commenters to have a discussion.
Ultimately, I think attacking new users/posts, forcing a waiting periods and basically babysitting new users will create a two tiered system will silent both new and old users.
That link could actually be a really good starting point for trying to figure out what is generally meant by low-effort/high-effort, fluff vs non-fluff, etc.
(imo it's not low-effort at all—it is a proper critique of the flash, maybe broader TV series in general, in a series of pics; the medium looks memey, but the commentary is not)
Agreed. I really this example is worth discussing further.
Edit: FYI, I created a post for it Is "Every Episode of "The Flash" Ever" too fluffy?. Thanks for the suggestion.
I already commented, but after reading more responses since then, I noticed a lot of mention of new users. I've been here since pretty much the beginning and I have read the docs, and I was called on a low-effort post yesterday. I don't think there's a consensus on what constitutes a low or high effort post. I don't think one or two people (unless you're Deimos) should be policing the community as if they are some authority.
For starters: play the ball, not the player. One of those criticisms was aimed at the user themself, by asking if we could be a little more strict with the users that are invited here. That was totally unfair. Also, we shouldn't simply attack a post by saying it's substandard. We should be making an effort to educate newcomers, rather than attacking them personally or criticising their posts. Show them the site documentation, explain how things work, and encourage them to lurk a little bit before posting. Help them, rather than attack them.
On that note of lurking, would it be reasonable to impose a 24-hour delay on newcomers being able to post? They sign up, and they're given an enforced 24 hours to "lurk moar" - and hopefully see how the site operates - before they can make their first post. I understand that this approach would have drawbacks, in that some people will get frustrated if they can't participate immediately, but do we really want to encourage "post before you think" behaviour here? One would hope that the type of person who will provide thoughtful content is also the type of person who's willing to wait a day to post on a new website.
It's been over a month since I signed up, so I forget what happened then. Do you send new users a link to the documentation? If not, I strongly recommend that you do.
I wonder: would it be practical to include a button embedded in the documentation which a user has to click on in order to enable posting access to Tildes? They have to read the documentation to find the button, so when they click on it, we know they've at least been exposed to the policies for this site (even if they haven't necessarily read and absorbed those policies).
You could also nominate some official "helpers", so it's not all on you. Hand-pick a couple of people (I believe you have some people who've been helping you already behind the scenes as you develop the site) and appoint them as official "Tildes Ambassadors" (or some such thing). It would be these people's job to guide new tilders and show them the ropes.
EDIT: Because I'm a fan of alliteration: "Tildes Teachers". :)
There are some very hostile "content police" who seem to think the only content here should be the stuff they want to see, presented in the way they deem suitable.
It's unfriendly, annoying and off-putting. It definitely puts my hackles up and discourages me from posting.
I don't like the idea of one set of users having the "power" to label other people as "new" or their posts as "wrong for tildes" though. It would too easily lead to those people having undue influence on content and shaping the site into what the feel is "correct" at the expense of things they don't like.
I think perhaps it might be worth emphasising somewhere, maybe on a welcome message for new users that "this is not reddit/other sites. Please take this into consideration before you start posting". That's phrased a bit clumsily, but hopefully I've got my thought across.
I've definitely noticed this too. Honestly, they act like they speak for everyone, but they don't and they are generally unwelcoming and seem to have a goal of silencing users. At this rate we're going to end up with echo-chambers of imverysmart.
Eventually, this site will have moderators - and one of the things these moderators will do is police the content of the group(s) they moderate, and tell people their content is wrong for the group or for Tildes. Are you against that idea?
No, not at all. I guess I didn't convey my meaning clearly. My concern is about current conditions, not future inevitabilities.
Hopefully by the time such things are implemented and is necessary there will be a number of users suited, and willing, to moderate the place in a reasonable and constructive way.
As it stands at the moment I'm disillusioned with the content policing and the way some go about it.
There's been talks of wikis and FAQs and such. I kinda like docs.tildes.net the way it is right now. It covers a fair amount of ground without being so verbose as to be offputting. It's certainly not comprehensive, and there's a few areas it's lacking, but I don't think we can add a ton more to it without it becoming overwhelming.
It'd probably help new users if they were encouraged to read something before signing up. Maybe a quick guided tour or something like a streamlined version of the docs site. Perhaps something guided like a video game tutorial, or idk like RES's "Tips and Tricks" box. For the record I hate such things, and I'd love a skip button with a link to a comprehensive wiki/faq site, but for some it can be really helpful.
Maybe we can come up with a distilled version of the guidelines, in plain language, with links to a more complete verision in docs.tildes.net?
Something like:
I like the idea of a distilled version of guidelines. In my opinion the biggest thing, I believe, is the meaningful discussion aspect. I understood this as text posts and news posts almost exclusively. I made a post to gauge other users thoughts on photo posts. This introduced me to ~creative.
I have not been met in a hostile way and hope it doesn't happen. The criticism I have been given is constructive. Everyone is open to trying new things on this platform and they have given me ideas and thoughts on how to make an image post fit this criteria. Biggest piece of advice was to add a photo in a text post that creates some way that can foster discussion. That was my take away.
I think you hit on one of the biggest aspects that needs clarification right now, having seen your post here and the one you made the other day asking for guidance on this topic. At the moment, given the low user numbers, there has not been much division between subsets of interests. A quick glance through the different groups suggests that most users are staying subscribed to all groups right now. Which, given the presently low activity overall, makes sense. But we do have to fundamentally treat different groups with different rules for engagement. ~food is always going to have a very different type of engagement than, say, ~science. And frankly most of the sidebars are not super helpful to defining this at the moment (sideline to point out the text of ~tech: "Posts requiring deep technical knowledge should go in more-specific groups". That isn't helpful when there really aren't more specific groups yet).
One of the areas I most question this on at the moment is ~music. That is one of the more active groups as far as posting goes, but discussion stays relatively narrow. And probably always will, with a few outlying exceptions. So does ~music make sense to have its own subset of rules as far as engagement? Or should low engagement groups like that be sidelined for the time being while the larger goals of the site are pursued? Or do they fundamentally never need to have a high level place in Tildes?
As the site grows, many of these questions will become moot. A post that is deemed not in line for a group, or the site as a whole, will simply remain with low engagement and votes, and drop off quickly. While we are presently trying to cultivate each of these groups, and are not having that much to engage with overall just yet, such questions are far more amplified.
I hope I'm not too late to the thread for this to be seen. Others have mirrored similar sentiments already, but I wanted to add some additional points.
I've been very reluctant to post. I rarely post on Reddit because of saturation and facelessness. The draw to this site, for me personally, is a sort of small community feel. I've mentioned a few other times how much it reminds me of MOOs/MUDs from back in the day. I think people inherently tend to put more effort into their posts when names are reconizable, and likewise their awareness that their name is recognizable.
I've noticed that in every instance of small online communities I've participated in over the years that everything changes after a certain threshold. Self moderation loses efficacy as more people join. I don't think it's just matter of noobs not caring about content. I think it's more to do with the fact that after a certain threshold, noobs don't come in with that same sense of small community because it's no longer small. They no longer feel like they'll be recognized from making the sort of posts that are normally being made, so there is more incentive to define themselves by acting out in highly visible ways. This tends to lead to a lot of frustrated discussion going back and forth (don't be a dick vs stop being babies that need to be coddled) that leads to hightened attempts to police content quality and attitude but never fully resolves the root problem in my opinion. That feeling of small community that makes the place feel special to its contributors only lasts for so long.
I wonder if it's feasible to allow for some sort of boot camp for noobs, especially when population goes beyond the threshold. Not boot camp in the sense of intensive training, but in the sense of starting out in a small insular group before being poured in with the rest of the masses. Something that would allow new folks to experience that same sort of small community feeling in a pocket before being exposed to an imposingly large existing userbase. I honestly have no idea how such a concept would flesh out in practice because it's something that occurred to me in the course of writing this. But it seems intriguing enough of a concept to share.
So, all that said... I honestly feel like I don't know where I belong here. I'm a creative type, and so ~creative seems like it should be right up my alley. But there is an overwhelming sense that I shouldn't post my own work. I've seen plenty of other people do it, and I've experimented a little with trying to post my work in different ways (some relatively low effort, ie looking for feedback which garnished some very helpful stuff, and some high effort which garnished good discussion and sharing, and other high effort that fell completely dead). But it all feels like "getting away with it" because that sense that there's a large portion of the community that looks down on posting one's own creations as being self promotion and therefore bad.
Honestly, that feels like crap and I don't think I'm alone in that. I've noticed a number of other very creative people on here, and I've seen them make a couple test posts in a similar style, with encouraging results, only to largely give up on trying to share their stuff. It's disheartening to find such an exciting community of intelligent discussion, only to find out that your particular sort of contribution will most likely be challenged at some point as being "low effort".
Do you think much of this comes from the fact that people are currently automatically subscribed to all groups?
My general feeling is that because almost all users are subscribed to all the groups, people feel like the whole site is "one space", and the groups are closer to "stronger tags" than they are to separate spaces. So because of that, they're trying to apply the same sort of standards/expectations to all of the groups instead of treating them as individual communities that might support different types of interactions.
I almost kind of wonder if the front page shouldn't have any user-generated content on it at all, and that functionality should be moved to its own ~all or something like that.
As much as I hate the culture they generally foster, imageboards do a really good job of making each sub-board seem like an independent community. And a big part of that seems to be how there's very little content on the main page of 4chan or vichan or whatever (and when there are links to "hot threads" or whatever, they've clearly filtered them). If you want to get to actual posts, you have to go to /whatever, and find a community with its own rules and content and so on.
part of that is that you've got no identity outside of a certain thread though (and not even that, most of the time)
It might be, I suppose, but I wouldn't put it down to that necessarily. I'm actually wondering if it's something to do with how "creative types" are seen by others.
As an example, there are countless threads about programming. I'm not a programmer, I probably never will be, most of the topics are beyond my ability to parse, yet I'm not bothered by them. There are many low effort posts too. "What's your favorite language for X?" is functionally very similar to "Check out my poem, any feedback welcome." Both provide very little context and yield a variety of opinions that often don't lead to extensive discussion, but are inherently valuable to the poster.
I could filter out ~comp if I wanted, but I read through many of the programming posts, despite not having an interest to learn programming, because I'm interested in the people that talk about it and the way they talk about it. So to me, a subscribed-to-everything starting point is perfectly fine. If something becomes noticeably irritating, it's nice to have the option to stop seeing it.
I recognize that I might be in a minority in that regard though. At the current size of the site, I personally feel like a SubAll approach is good because it isn't overwhelming yet. But maybe when the site becomes a bit larger, having new users select areas of interest upon registration will enable more of a small community feel upon entry. In the meantime, I think folks could try to be a bit more understanding of posts that they might not be particularly interested in are not inherently without value just because they don't immediately relate to the topic.
To use another example, a snippet of code that someone posts means nothing to me. I don't know what value it has to others, but I feel comfortable in assuming that it has the potential to be interesting to someone else. But if someone were to post just a photograph (let's assume it's a nice one, not some random grainy potato or some kind of meme), I would not be at all surprised to see someone in that thread criticizing the post as being low effort and poorly put together. But to other photographers, that photo might be absolutely amazing, or show off some technique that's very intensive or difficult. In fact, there was thread in ~creative from earlier today with a poem where something very similar happened.
Sorry for the lengthy response, this stuff has kinda been bumming me out lately.
Not who you're replying to, but I definitely find this to be part of the problem, especially with what's been happening over at ~talk lately. I think right now there's a significant barrier to have any kind of group culture or expectations separate from the site as a whole. That's not all that surprising given the small userbase, but it leads to weird clashes.
I'm not sure that having less / no automatic subs fixes the problem either, though. I think if you really want to use this website you might be pushed into subbing to most everything anyway and ending up at the same endpoint. We're not active enough that this site can be an engaging place to be if you only sub to ~music and ~books. Changing that might be a start, though.
I've noticed a bit of that too. It seems like people are excited about finding such a cool community and want to just talk to others and get to know them (kind of in a r/CasualConversations sort of way), but a lot of those threads get a horrible reputation for being fluff. I think it's somewhat due to the fact that those threads create a lot of short, quick responses, which results in that thread maintaining high visibility at the top of Activity sorting. This seems like the sort of thing that doesn't need to be policed, because establishing community is far from a negative thing, but rather is something that could be resolved easily through proper filtering practices. Instead, many people default to trying to impose their own personal vision of site ideals.
Honest question, what happened?
I made it sound like a bigger deal than it is, but I was referring to posts like these and the responses they've gotten.
Imo ~talk is having a bit of an identity crisis.
Have you heard of Tuckman's stages of group development? I reckon we're at the storming phrase right about now.
I think tildes in general is having an identity crisis. We've reached a diverse enough population that ideals are clashing and people are trying to figure out what to do with this site. I think this is a good thing. It will help cement a common idea of what tildes is.
In general, I think some people are too invested in this website. I understand where they're coming from - tildes has potential to be the best alternative to reddit, and they don't want to see it led astray in the early stages. However, take a step back and realize that this is a web forum, and already a great one. I think @Deimos is doing a great job. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Seriously. I've been impressed as hell by this site, and I've had more fantastic online interactions on here than I've had in years' worth of online interactions. I'm seconding this sentiment not as a brown-nosing attempt, but because you brought my attention (probably unintentionally) to the fact that I was focusing on the negative aspects I've been dwelling on lately and not the myriad of positive aspects that went unspoken. I've gained a lot of valuable and inspiring insight in the short amount of time I've been here.
How about a 48-hour waiting period before new users can post? Might get them to look around a little bit ("lurk moar") and get a feel for the community.
I don't like forced waiting periods because I think it feels pretty bad from a new user's perspective. "Welcome to the site, we don't trust you to actually post anything though!" That can be a bit confusing or discouraging, and might result in people just leaving and not coming back since they weren't able to participate anyway.
I think it also hurts good users that do take time to look around and think about what to post just because of a few users that don't. I'd rather assume that people will behave properly and try to inform the ones that don't than hobble everyone by default. It's a bit related to one of my overall philosophies for the site as well: "Trust people, but punish abusers".
I think the situation might also naturally get better once Tildes is publicly visible but still invite-only to register. That way people will most likely have spent some time reading the site before they register, instead of now where people can't see anything until they have an account.
What about letting them post, but requiring someone who's "vetted" in that community to "approve" the post and let others see it? Sort of like a mod action to remove, requiring input from people who have proven they are interested/involved in the community.
Perhaps this could be the first test flight of the empowered users.
If they could browse the site normally but see 'pending' comments highlighted they could approve the comment if it feels appropriate, or they could reply to it explaining why it might not be the best way to phrase something. it might be a better experience than a 24/48hr waiting period.
And when someone joins and is clearly under the wing of tildes, they'll quickly gain enough trusted comments approved. If not though, the majority of the "not acclimated" fluff will be muted for everyone except the people who'll point out what might be amiss and whatnot in a smoother tone
It seems like it's a sort of blend between moderators and people who sort by new on reddit. I think it would be good as a whole rite of passage kind of deal. Though once the comments are approved, should they be marked as a new user or no?
One subreddit referred to people like this as "Knights of the new". I think the main moderators gave some people minor moderator permissions so they could act on items in the new queue (but nothing major on the subreddit).
I don't think we need to single out those people with a tag drawing attention to their "new user" status. Everyone should be able to be assessed on their current behaviour and content, not whether they've been on the site for a day or a month.
I have to agree on the tag thing, it was an idea but not a terribly good one.
Knights of the new was exactly what I was thinking of, but I couldn't remember it. I think building a culture of helping the community through review like that will be important as ~ grows.
Instead of not allowing them to post, how about displaying an interstitial for new users with a few key points? When "new" users went to post a comment, they could be presented with a page that said something along the lines of: "Tildes values high-quality discussions. Click OK to post this comment or Cancel to return."
This doesn't stop new users from contributing, but does provide a last-second opportunity to present some key info about the community before people dive in to posting. I think my preference would be for using a combination of post count and account age -- at the simplest, something like accounts under 72 hours old get the interstitial, but each post made counts for 24 hours.
I also think the waiting period is suboptimal, not only because it discourages participation, but also because its easy to circumvent by just waiting it out, and defeats the purpose of encouraging the new user to join discussions and get a feel for the community.
I know that when I first joined tildes, I took a fair amount of time looking around to see what people usually post, then made a few comments to test the waters. It was about a week before I made my first post. I think lurking and commenting is essential to getting to know the community, so I propose a mechanic to encourage that. What if users can post only after they have made at least 5 comments and gained at least 5 points from those comments? This way we can ensure that new peeps will engage with other people and their comments are well received within the community. This will also be less impactful to the site, as a disruptive comment is way less prominent than a post. If the newcomer accidentally steps over any lines, they can be told so discreetly, with less embarrassment involved, and without attracting the attention of the whole site.
I think its important that different groups have different standards of "low effort". Other have talked about having a pinned post for new users. I like this Idea, but I think each group should have its own post, emphasizing the topic of the group. Maybe not all groups need this, but ~talk could use this and maybe a few other. After all, ~games should require what game any clips are from and ~talk should be descriptive and not time-critical. Also, maybe ~talk could prompt new users if a text post is especially short?
I am new and feel welcome. You express in your welcoming statement what type of content is expected. I have seen content that I don't think really meets the criteria but have not commented about it, since I am new and because some of it might just be my own bias about particular topics. Currently, I just ignore them and don't vote.
Perhaps a brief bullet point outline in each category might be in order which serves as general guidelines for content. Some of those guidelines will be universal in every category but some will likely require more customization. Even with that there are going to be instances of inappropriate, low effort or marginal content. If I understand how the trust/reputation system works, then that will be reflected.
This is a relatively small community that is finding its 'culture' and will go though growing pains as it develops. Reddit normalized overly harsh, uncivil behavior towards others that could be completely unwarranted which came from both moderators and the rank and file. That is unwelcoming, it is a lazy and thoughtless. If its a one off, a bad day (which we all have), that is one thing; it is quite another when hostility, harsh and destructive criticism is the rule rather than the exception. This, imo, creates a negative culture which discourages rather than encourages participation.
The moderation system of forums, old and new, are problematic. Perhaps a flag or report feature would help in the interim that has a menu for the reason for the report. Perhaps rather than moderators with powers that can be used to shape the culture, content, or have power over individuals etc. trusted people can become a consul. The egregious can then be separated from other types of problems that don't require hard interventions and consul's can manage and hopefully resolve other problems. Just a thought that requires some chewing over.
Edited: a word
I have a very simple solution. Up at the top by our names, have a couple different greetings. Happy Wednesday, acr. Good to see you again, acr! Coming here and seeing the whole Glad to see you again, acr. would make me grin. Or have a mean mode where you get g rated insults or something. Not you again, acr. For a user's first few days just have a link by the username to a stickied post or the wiki outlining how things are here, and what the community expects.
But to answer your question how you meant it. I think by just being positive and supportive. I spend a lot of time in ~music and make sure to let people know I appreciate their posts when I really like something. Just being positive and friendly over all. Being understanding when someone is new and doesn't quite get the tone. Giving the benefit of the doubt a little more.
Maybe have ~talk.introductions? And have a sticky outlining the vibe?
That would have to be very visible, and probably change every time a user refreshes a page. If it's the same all the time, it very quickly becomes part of the background. Users don't notice things that just sit there constantly.
They just need to see it once.. (Which is why I suggested just leaving it up for a couple of days.) Also, you just took a snippet of what I wrote. It was all written to be one thought. I offered more than one option. it doesn't have to be a link. It was just an example. The takeaway was the concept / principle. I also think you're severely underestimating people. But again, they just need to see whatever it is once. By your logic, people aren't going to be using pieces of the website because they are static in design, which I don't feel is accurate.
I've previously worked as a Business Analyst, understanding user needs and observing how they interact with computer systems. I didn't just make things up off the top of my head: I have observed that users don't notice static things on the page after they've visited it a couple of times. They focus on:
The bits they're interested in reading.
The bits they need to use.
A link in the corner of the screen that they don't want to read and don't need to use won't really register.
Even if we do as you suggest and change it up with playful messages (yuk, but you wanted me to engage with all of your idea...), it still won't really register. It'll be "that bit of the screen where messages appear, but they're not important messages so I'll just focus on the bits I want to look at instead".
People are very good at ignoring stuff that isn't relevant to their interests. If you don't put something directly in front of them, and force them to interact with it... they probably won't.
This is true, and can be a really big issue. I implemented "sticky posts" on reddit and this type of concern was one of the main reasons that I put up so much resistance against allowing multiple stickies (though I eventually relented a bit and allowed two). People get "sticky blindness" where they're so used to seeing the sticky posts at the top of the subreddit that eventually they don't even notice them any more, even when they change. You end up with the exact opposite of the intended effect—instead of the sticky posts being the most prominent ones, people don't even see them.
I notice this effect personally in a few subreddits, /r/politics is a big example. When there's some really significant news, they'll create a stickied megathread for it, and I've found multiple times that I missed seeing the post because I've started just ignoring the stickies. Stickying important stories effectively makes it harder for me to notice them, which is completely backwards.
Yep. I put a sticky at the top of /r/Help for years, explaining "This is not an IT Help Desk!" - but that didn't stop people asking general tech-related questions very regularly. And I've seen it happen all over Reddit: people just don't read stickies/announcements. This confirmed what I already knew: people get a form of tunnel vision when they're reading a web page. They only see what they want to see.
I think that people should be able to report low-effort/fluff content as such, and users who have had their posts flagged by mods should get accumulative (invisible) negative points, so mods will get focus on posters who could use some intervention about the content they're posting.
What is so inherently wrong with harsh criticism? If the idea is that we are supposed to be promoting a different kind of web forum, where we, as a community, want to see a higher level of involvement and effort on comments and posts, then gently coddling every new user who comes in and doesn't read the sites documentation will become a common occurrence. We should not be rewarding behavior that directly contradicts the "idea" of the site, and instead pushing the site towards this idea that we share.
What are some examples of these harsh criticisms? Sternly telling the user they are wrong is fine to someone who has thick skin, and appalling to someone who is less receptive to criticism. Why do we try to achieve an idea for this website, but then force ourselves to moderate the website extremely delicately when someone "breaks the rules," of what we want for it?
It is a small user base and already a lot of time and large posts are taken up debating specifics of how the website should run. This will only get worse if we have to hold the hand of every single new user.
The issue is none of the users agree on anything. We need to have moderators who we trust in to take care of things like this. I trust Deimos. I defer to them, it is their website after all. I came here with the intention of fitting into a community under their standards. I have made several posts and the only ones to gain any traction are the ones that felt the most low effort.
I think the days of casual and open forums are a thing of the past. If you want the site to have a certain feel to it, you have to enforce it.
In being critical of a post, it's important to remember the "don't be a dick" maxim.
If the criticism is rude or unconstructive most people are inclined to either ignore it, write it off as someone having a bad day or being an arsehole, or just up and leave the site.
Measured, friendly advice is far more effective.
Starting with it's dickish, to it's unwelcoming and drives away people that can contribute to the community. And generally, harsh here has been low-effort, not constructive.
Higher level of involvement comes from posts and comments.
People have been told their content doesn't belong without explanations and that they should not have been invited.
I think the problem is less about not wanting to be harsh because we shouldn't lock things down or have standards or whatever, but because the way you go about doing that also reflects on the website, its culture, and how pleasant it is to spend time on here.
Like some boards on 4chan are pretty heavy on the whole "lurk moar" thing, expecting new users to learn the norms inside and out before they contribute. While having new users who participate in a way that the older ones like is certainly a good goal, trying to maintain that through being harsh on new users introduces its own toxicity where half the posts end up with someone replying and bullying the OP of whatever post they deem not fitting. It can get to a point where it clogs the site up more than the problem that they were originally targeting to solve.
I agree that moderator (or eventually trusted user) intervention is far preferable to users popping in and shitting on everything that they don't want to fit the site culture. A deleted thread may hurt the OP's feelings a little, but probably less so than being piled on by the community...plus outsiders don't have to have the negativity which stems from that shoved in their faces. Like, not only does it add to our insistence on constantly having meta conversations, but it's also an unpleasant kind of meta conversation that seems like it just makes this place feel worse to be in.
I agree with what your said about but holding hands. After all I'm most probably the biggest jerk as of my late comments sparked lots of reply from defender of mediocre content that made into the site recently.
However, about this:
My personal idea is that we need to enforce a rigid ruling now. And with that I mean especially right now, and not so much when the community will be old enough.
The reasoning is pretty simple.
If you allow stupid posts (in content or form) to be accepted right now, that set the precedent.
If you don't, when it will happen in the future (because the stupid post will always happen) the community will simply ignore it and the post will naturally die with no comments and an handful of votes at best.
Right now, there are plenty of user that vote and comment on topic that should not be tolerated and they even feel validated because you replied harshly and thus you must be an asshole.
Well maybe. Or maybe I don't need tildes to become another Reddit with less users that pretend to be better.
This is a big issue that Tildes is going to have to solve to be what it wants to be. On the one hand if we have no standards then it will inevitably become overrun with the low effort shitposting that plagues reddit. On the other hand if we are too uptight and unwelcoming it will drive people away. Can we police content in a constructive way? A way that makes people want do better and be quality contributors instead of driving them away?
As a general observation, the announcement blog post says ...
Personally, I would have put as #1 ...
... and that while the other two points are very valid, Job Number One is always going to be dealing with the assholes, regardless of the business model. I use the term assholes loosely, to cover not just the trolls and neanderthals, but those who are too lazy to figure out the rules and conventions, or too obstinate to follow them.
So yes, obviously tilde needs a robust set of moderation tools. But I'm also leary about overly empowering small, potentially cliquey, groups of moderators. Look where that got reddit.
My suggestion would be empowering each tilde community. Have a defined set of guidelines (boilerplated from a master set) for each group. Each guideline carries a specific penalty value. Each community / group sets the cumulative penalty value at which a post gets hidden form public view. Have a "report" button on every post, where any community member can select which guideline they feel the post violates. Posters can see a summary of violations, with links to the associated guideline. The job of "moderators" then becomes simply policing abuse of the reporting process, and clearing reports that (in their opinion) are not warranted.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who's joined within the past 24 hours (h/t @dredmorbius), I'd be inclined to propose a community of 'shadow' mentors for new users, rather than post delays, dogpile criticism, or pooled moderation.
I've been involved with various online communities from the beginning of networked time, and there are three principal obstacles to open participation:
Mentors can help address all three issues - getting newbies over the hump of the learning curves for both tech and cultural norms; ensuring that a small clique doesn't exclude diverse members (it's going to be rough when languages other than English arrive, for instance); and early action on patterns of troll/bot behavior.
It would be a useful community-building exercise if every participant had to mentor at least one new user after they've been a Tildes participant for a specified period. This helps manage growth and maintains cultural continuity without overburdening admins.
Hmm is this a problem with new users posting to the wrong group, or is there simply no group for them to post the content they want? I understand not wanting to fragment the community, but if there's enough of the latter, maybe it's time to create a few more groups?
Occasionally we've been getting brand new users who immediately post a low effort post without so much as reading any of the other posts that are here or getting a feel for the community.
I'm not sure people who enjoy /r/garlicbreadmemes or /r/rarepuppers will ever find a place for their content here. I think in general we're leaning towards not having that sort of content at all.
Now, how do we tell that to new users in a way that's friendly and polite and isn't dickish? How can we encourage them to know what the community is about and what sort of content we enjoy before they dive in head first and start posting prequelmemes?
Ah thanks for the explanation, yea I really didn't come from Reddit to see more garlic bread memes. If there's a blanket ban on all memes, maybe ban direct links to images and sites like Imgur as posts? The waiting period idea might work but it doesn't seem like the most elegant solution imo. Or maybe just recruit more mods (also I really hope Deimos isn't the only mod lol, I think there's enough on his plate)
Yes, he is. The site really isn't set up to support multiple moderators yet. Deimos seems to do his moderation with his developer-level access to the code of the website. As far as I know, there's no interface for non-developers to be able to do things like edit tags, move posts, or remove comments. Until that interface exists, he can't really have any other moderators (it's not realistic to give moderators full access to the underlying code for the website).
There are a couple of things I still do "manually", but there are proper tools on the site for almost everything now. I need to do some work on the permissions system around it, but it shouldn't be too much longer before I can start granting other people some abilities like being able to re-tag others' posts.
Good to know! I wasn't sure how far along this process you were.
I think that being able to delegate some of the house-keeping chores (like tagging and moving posts) to some proto-mods will free you up for more valuable work.
Honestly, I think this whole thing can be fixed with mods being able to re-tag posts.
A post will be re-tagged to include "meme", and everybody who doesn't want to see memes can have it filtered out. Or there could be a "low-effort" tag, and BAM! - the post is gone for those who have filtered that tag out.
The newbie doesn't know why, but their posts aren't getting a ton of votes, so they turn to other ways. Or maybe they are, but those who don't want to see them don't have to easily.
Filtering definitely helps, but it isn't really a "fix" overall. The types of content that are accepted will end up defining the site/communities, regardless of whether users can choose to filter them out. It can save individual users from annoyance, but you can't rely on that to shape the entire site.
For example, I don't subscribe to any meme/gif/etc. subreddits on reddit, because that's not the type of content that I want. But that doesn't change the fact that reddit is becoming a site mostly for memes/gifs now, because that's the most popular type of content overall (and their algorithms/mechanics are biased towards it).
That's the point, though. I totally understand this is your site right now, but it won't be if it grows, right? Making it easy for users to tailor the site to the experience they want will facilitate that growth.
I'm just an accountant, though, not a social media expert, so don't take my thoughts as coming from any kind of authority, hah!
I've been on the side of those harshly criticising new users for how they post on Tildes. Honestly, without any moderation tools I see no alternative right now. Ideally we could just delete the posts with a message that it's a poor fit for the site.
You don't see polite education as an alternative to harsh criticism?
I don't see my posts as harsh, personally. But I don't see who else Deimos could be referencing.
I personally thought your first comment in the Flash post was unfriendly, but to be fair, you and OP had good discussion about it afterwards.
But I'm actually commenting to say, you're not the only one. Deimos could be referring to you, but he's almost definitely referring to others.
My comment wasn't about your comments, as such. You said you don't see any alternative to harshly criticising new users. I was pointing out that there is an alternative: instead of harshly criticising new users, we could politely educate them.
I agree that your response to a thread was not harsh. However, if you're wondering who else Deimos might be referring to... take a look here. You weren't the only person criticising posts over the weekend.
Maybe don't harshly criticize new users.
How about constructive criticism.
If someone thinks that the post does not fit in the spirit of ~, they could make a comment tagged with sth like "post_critic", in which they explain why that post doesn't fit in and what could be improved in the future or what kind of content is more fitting.
Other users can support that statement by vote.
Maybe if a certain treshold is reached the post gets removed or at least the poster gets asked to remove the post.
P.S. now that I finished that thought, it looks a lot like the "tag"/"flag" feature, only with explanation to the poster
A curated list of today's top postings.
A BotD, BotW, BotM (day, week, month) filter would be good.
Also a random-order presentaion, for bypassing sorts.
Idiot question: what’s the B stand for?
Best
As in "you are the..."
Yes, thanks.
A draft / submit / revise / approve / bonepile publishing model might work. It neeeds some thought (and editors). And you will get low-quality submissions.
Worse: you'll eventually get very popular low-quality submissions. And manipulation, spam, propaganda, trolling.
Blanche Dubois has a poorly scaling moderation policy.
HN's practice, including very active moderation, frequently with hints and nudges, works surprisingly well.
This is kind of like a design question, right? In essence, what is a community's desires for content? Each community has to dictate from the start with what content it wants, and then rewarding users for content that aligns with its values.
E.g. Posting Video Game news in ~Music doesn't make much sense. But maybe posting news regarding a Video Game's soundtrack does allow a user to explore.
I think, most importantly, people like not only categorization but a place. Not being a round peg trying to get into a round hole, ya know?
Maybe add some advice to the welcome message sent to each new user (“Welcome to the Tildes alpha”).
There are lots of things, visual design wise, that you could do to make helpful guides easier to see and find for new users that just sign up. You could put, in neon flashing colors, overlaying the screen, links to the documentation saying "PLEASE READ THESE" but the more emphasis you put on them, the more useful they need to be to justify that (and I don't see it ever reaching a point where a new user simply must read documentation before being able to comment a well-reasoned or insightful comment; most users will try to contribute by default but might not know what contributing means to this community. Hell, do we?).
So you've got to have a balance design-side.
Then you've got to have a community who isn't roaring angry sermons at users who don't meet the expectations, but it's probably more important from a trust perspective--that thing that we all hope is going to work out here, this time, this try--to make a system that both the community and new users can trust will reward good content over fast content. Those mechanism lacking, it's probably best to say "let's be nice to newbies, k?"