Daily Tildes discussion - thoughts about the site's activity level
The activity on Tildes has been (mostly) slowly dropping for a while. To be clear up front, it's definitely not doing badly at all and I'm not worried about it—it's still very good for how early this is, the fact that the site is invite-only, and that we haven't had a real "burst" of people for almost a month now.
Just as a point of comparison, saidit.net (a reddit clone that's been trying to get attention and doesn't have restricted registration) has had 9 comments and 3 submissions posted in the last 24 hours. Tildes is far, far better off than that and is already doing better than most community sites ever get to. Here's the last month of stats:
| Date | Comments | Topics |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-06-13 | 1040 | 67 |
| 2018-06-14 | 827 | 69 |
| 2018-06-15 | 832 | 43 |
| 2018-06-16 | 467 | 30 |
| 2018-06-17 | 377 | 31 |
| 2018-06-18 | 828 | 85 |
| 2018-06-19 | 662 | 64 |
| 2018-06-20 | 883 | 82 |
| 2018-06-21 | 926 | 75 |
| 2018-06-22 | 553 | 42 |
| 2018-06-23 | 479 | 37 |
| 2018-06-24 | 280 | 32 |
| 2018-06-25 | 634 | 62 |
| 2018-06-26 | 666 | 48 |
| 2018-06-27 | 691 | 37 |
| 2018-06-28 | 433 | 45 |
| 2018-06-29 | 415 | 58 |
| 2018-06-30 | 299 | 29 |
| 2018-07-01 | 369 | 41 |
| 2018-07-02 | 239 | 36 |
| 2018-07-03 | 353 | 45 |
| 2018-07-04 | 338 | 39 |
| 2018-07-05 | 501 | 31 |
| 2018-07-06 | 485 | 39 |
| 2018-07-07 | 378 | 36 |
| 2018-07-08 | 422 | 28 |
| 2018-07-09 | 445 | 34 |
| 2018-07-10 | 424 | 43 |
| 2018-07-11 | 352 | 37 |
| 2018-07-12 | 298 | 31 |
So the numbers are still quite good overall, but there's an obvious downward trend in there. I'd like to talk about what you think is behind this—is it just a bit of a feedback loop, where the activity isn't very high, so people get bored and the activity drops more? Or are there other causes? For those of you that feel like you're drifting away a bit, are there any particular reasons, or anything that would encourage you to participate here more?
We probably also just need another influx of users before much longer—it's been nice for me to have it a little quieter so I can focus on coding things more than community-management lately, but we're obviously not at the point yet where the activity is self-sustaining. On that note, I haven't given out invite codes for a while, so I've given everyone 5 again. You can get them here (and always, if you need more for a particular reason, just send me a message and let me know): https://tildes.net/invite
Let me know what you think. There are still quite a few high-priority things that I'm trying to get done in the near future, but if there are other changes we could make to try to help keep the site active, I think they're definitely worth considering.
The novelty's wearing off. People get invited, they come in here all motivated and ready to chat... then they find out that they have to post to make things happen. Lurking doesn't work on a site this small. But posting is work. Posting means you have find something worth reading and post it. That's why there's a 90:9:1 participation rule for internet forums - because most people don't want to do the work required to post topics continually.
Seeing as there are only about 4,500 people on Tildes, that 1% is only about 45 people. 45 people are responsible for posting content to keep this site active.
And that's not allowing for the people who've drifted away because Tildes didn't turn out to be the instant magical solution to their internet problems. I've seen a few people here become disillusioned when they realise that Tildes won't be a home for free speech, or a purely algorithm-driven platform, or provide solely new content (no reposts!), or whatever their particular dream is. People come here with their own particular expectations, then find out that Tildes won't meet those expectations. So, even though there are 4,500 people registered on Tildes, that doesn't mean that all those people are participating on Tildes.
That 1% might be even less than 45 people!
And then there's the aspect that standards are higher here on Tildes. It's not like you can just post a meme. You have to find a good article or video or topic that's going to prompt the high-quality discussion which is expected here - you can't just whip off a quick meme or image post for karma. That makes posting content here slightly harder than some other venues.
I'm not a content-poster by nature. I'm a commenter. I'm a prolific commenter on Reddit. But I don't usually post content. I'm forcing myself to change my habits here, because I know that that 1% is very important to any small community (having built up a subreddit from scratch over the past year - and it still has fewer subscribers than Tildes!). So I'm making an effort to post content here every day. But it's work.
And the 1% won't necessarily post content that suits everyone's tastes. When the content here isn't interesting or relevant to someone, they'll go back to reading their previous forum(s).
Basically, it's a numbers game. I don't think you've reached critical mass yet.
Here I am, trying to transition from lurker to commenter lol.
Well done! :)
great start!
Thanks, I've definitely noticed your efforts in posting topics, and I appreciate it.
I mentioned it in another reply, but I think it's pretty essential that the site becomes publicly-visible before much longer. The 90-9-1 rule is pretty accurate in my experience, and it's an issue right now that we have to give invites to the 90% that won't post anything. If we can make it so that those people don't need to request invites, I think everything gets a lot better—people will only seek out an invite when they actually want to participate, which should mean that our invites are much more "efficient" in terms of resulting in the site's activity increasing.
Thank you. My hope is that there will eventually be enough people here posting content that I can go back to just commenting and participating in discussions. But that's not going to happen any time soon!
Yeah, I saw that comment. I agree that making the site visible is a necessary short-to-medium-term goal. As I said, I've noticed a few people here who quickly become disillusioned when they find out what Tildes is - and, more importantly, what it isn't. While it's invisible, it acts like a form of ink-blot test: people can project their own dreams and desires on to the blank canvas that is "https://tildes.net". Not only are you wasting invitations on people who won't participate, but you're wasting invitations on people who don't want to be here (but they don't know that until they get inside).
Making the site visible will not only filter out the people who want something different, it will also, as you say, act as a lure for people who do want what Tildes can provide.
On this note, I'm a bit annoyed that my two invitees haven't taken up their invitations. I don't really know lots of people, online or offline, who'll bring what this site needs, but I thought those two would be good additions here. I'm disappointed my attempt to contribute in that way didn't succeed.
For me it's tedious to have to scroll down to comment on a post. I didn't even know I had to do that at first because I expected a reply button at the top. Also the lack of an app makes you have to actively access tildes on your browser instead of just using the muscle memory of opening the app. (I know I could create a shortcut, maybe an 'add to homescreen' popup would make people more likely to do that)
To quote above:
Key word being work. Since it's such work, why not hire a few people to post content to bootstrap us past this initial growth hurdle?
The people that post now aren't necessarily adhering to quality content, they're just the people that happen to be bothered posting(whatever their reasons are), but if you hired a few people at least you can shape the content coming out into something resembling 'quality content'. The users could help determine if they wanted more or less of the same content posted.
It's the type of work that would be cheap to outsource.
I think paying people to post kind of undermines the concept of a "community". The activity isn't coming from actual community members, just people being paid to do it. It's kind of similar to having bots post a bunch of content, it just doesn't give the right feeling.
I guess there's no point to it if people don't like the idea, but I'm not sure the alternative is much better. You need the right content to attract the right people, but to get the right people you need the right content.
I think you need some sort of "stimulus package".
Please don't be misled by my use of the word "work". Please replace that with "effort" instead.
I agree with @Deimos: we do not want to pay people to post content here. We need people to post organically. We want the content to come from participating members of Tildes, not from outsiders roped in to do it. Rewarding people for posting content reminds me of karma-whores on Reddit who post just to get their karma scores up, rather than to contribute to the community. That's probably not the right sort of mentality to introduce into a forum that's aiming for high-quality content and discussion. It's also no guarantee that we'll get the "right content" that you describe: we'll get quantity over quality.
As I said, it's just a numbers game. If we assume that approximately 1% of people here will post content, we just need to increase the total number of participants to raise the number of posters. As I also said, we haven't yet reached the critical mass required for this site to be self-sustaining in terms of content, but that is definitely achievable.
People will do the job you pay them for if you clearly outline the requirements. But yeah if it doesn't feel right to people then it's not going to fly either way.
The critical mass needs to be a quality mass, if you get a critical mass of shit-posting then you're digging your own grave, numbers alone wont solve it. I'm hoping the trust system works it out, but again I think the wrong people can still tip the scales.
I think this is pretty nail-on-the-head. As the site has progressed, the type of quality being sought after has been more clearly established and I think people want to live up to that. I don't want to leave many one line comments, but that works well for me personally because I tend to be long winded in general.
The 45 estimate seems pretty spot on to me. I recognize about half of the users who post and comment, and of that half can specifically remember their names. And I think I could list out about a dozen users. (Not a particularly accurate method for estimating on my part, I realize.)
Comment count seems to me to be a simple matter of quality over quantity. I remember a few introductory threads, as well as some stuff like "what is your favorite color?" or something along those lines. The timing seems to coincide with the high comment count shown above.
You just made me realise this is where i can shine! Maybe not, but what i find on reddit is due to uncommon time zone, my post is often buried well below until western hemisphere wakes up. Then there's the not farms that would never upvote anything i post.
Over here, posts can stay up for days, and many people will visit them again and again, commenting repeatedly, engaging themselves, because they have a chance to get heard here.
I'm going to start posting stuff here now, thank you very much for reminding me.
Absolutely. Tildes is great, but quiet enough at the moment I keep up to date on everything and find myself with no threads left to lurk on. I suppose I could solve this by actually posting things...
Stopping low quality content isn't anti fun. I hate internet memes and recycled jokes in general but even on reddit there is some quality humour to be had. /r/askreddit gets some hilarious content when there are original questions. /r/pics and similar subs occasionally get some genuinely funny pics. Even /r/woahdude gets consistently fun content.
I just don't want to wade through the huge amount of utter shit on reddit, including many of the comments that are just one liners from years ago recycled for the billionth time.
I personally feel this is a significant reason for the decline. It hinders our ability to build a welcoming community.
The problem with this is that, if you're aiming for a high-quality forum and you start it off with low-quality content... you'll never get where you're going. Once low-quality contents gets a foothold, we'll never get rid of it. And, as Reddit as shown us, low-quality content will dominate and out-compete high-quality content. High-quality forums have to be curated; they don't just happen by themselves (I have personal experience with this).
I don't disagree that we need standards, but we don't need to be jerks about it, which as whole, we have been. And honestly, maybe worst than that, inconsistent.
fun ≠ low quality. For examples original memes of fluff content can be quite high-quality.
There is no way that slapping a few words onto an image counts as "high-quality".
I disagree. I believe you're conflating "low-effort" with "low-quality" - image macros don't take much time or energy to create, thus they're clearly low-effort. Although low standards of effort cause low-quality content to dominate, I believe that's only because low effort standards cause more content, and that means more low-quality content than high-quality content.
Here, I'm defining effort as how much it costs the content creator, and quality as how much it is appreciated by the community. At least personally, I'm more likely to question whether or not I should hit the button and actually post something if I believe the community has high effort standards, thus, as a whole, content is reduced in response to high effort standards. However, I don't actually know if my content will be well-received or not as I'm posting it, since, disregarding malicious intent, I wouldn't post something if the community wouldn't receive it well.
No, that's popularity, not quality.
And which community are you talking about? On Reddit, for instance, the community in /r/Memes would appreciate a meme much more than the community in /r/Science. You have to judge the audience and the context. And, here on Tildes, the audience and the context means that memes won't be appreciated.
I think that's their point. The attitude around low-effort content on this site likely pushes many people away. This may simply be a necessary evil, but I don't think it's an incorrect observation.
Do you think it would be possible to have "low-quality" content quarantined within the site? For example, a ~funny or ~fluff. If people are more engaged with the site in general when that kind of content is present, perhaps they will contribute more in the "high-quality" tildes as well?
Personally, I usually come here after browsing Reddit for a bit and I expect to see higher-quality discussions here. it's a little discouraging when many of the topics have 0-3 comments, though. Perhaps allowing some "lower-effort" content will help keep the userbase engaged, since it's evident that many people want that here.
The "containment board" concept doesn't really work in general. It affects the overall culture of the site by attracting people that want that type of content, and normalizing/encouraging behavior that then spreads outside that area as well.
What about a testing board where one can post and see what happens without permanent repercussions - a ~sandbox, if you will.
E.g. New user posts on a topic they are unsure of into ~sandbox and people can interact there as normal - comment, vote, etc. The ony difference being that the votes don't count in practice and that all ~sandbox topics and posts get automatically purged in after week. (Perhaps a mod could decide to move a discussion into a proper subtilde, if the community deems the topic quality enough.)
That way you would have a volunteer-based learning platform, where one could test out one's own ideas and the community norms, without affecting (too much) the general community and vice versa. In a way it could also serve as a mirror for the community.
A potential downside would be that ~sandbox could be (ab)used as a safe haven for all things counter Tildes' intentions. So it should be made clear that laws and the ToS/CoC still apply there as well.
What would be the incentive to browse ~sandbox? As currently proposed, it sounds like it would be kind of incoherent and I wouldn't necessarily expect to find things I'm interested in there.
Exactly.
You would subscribe only to help people learn what kind of posts are considered good or not.
I was thinking of suggesting to have (all) mods subscribe to ~sandbox, but then I guess we would really be asking for shitposts in the form of “mods R gay” as well as perhaps discourage others to join.
Maybe – and this is a very bold idea – have people automatically circulate ~sandbox on a regular and random manner. Kind of like being on jury duty (in jurisdiction where that exists), if you will, only without the obligation.
I have a hunch this would degenerate into ~shitpost, unfortunately. I can see where you're coming from with this idea though.
Perhaps. But if shitposts only stay there for a limited amount of time and votes don’t count to reputation, does it matter?
Maybe ~sandbox would have to be made viewable only to those who are subscribed to it and not publicly. That might deter some at least.
I agree a balance needs to be struck. I do enjoy entertaining materials, but on Reddit it's just too much. I still primarily use Reddit but find myself consistently coming back here after I'm bored to death sifting through endless 500ms moments of fun 40 pages in. I really enjoy the longer form of the comments and the expectation that everyone has actually read and thought about the topic. Regardless of what balance we find, I hope that's a part of the culture that can stay strong.
Same. I only have so much to say about so many things.
I partially blame the short default activity sort making this place seem more empty than it is if you don't know to change it (it's as slow as many traditional forums, but doesn't have the advantage of long-term discussions), but also I think we're mostly in a place where the only thing bringing people here is promise of what it will be.
There's naturally gonna be a decline after every wave until there's something here to draw users based on what the site has rather than what it might have someday, maybe.
I really enjoy participating here, but that's mostly because I think watching communities grow from nothing and trying to nudge it in a positive direction is a cool thing and I agree with the founding principles (well, more than I do the principles that govern a place like Reddit, at least). This is all obvious stuff, but that's because I don't think it's some fundamental problem. Or at least, not one that we can know until the site is more fully-featured and can draw users from what it can offer them. It seems perfectly reasonable to me if you keep the same approach, getting the word out in some places that might be interested, but mostly just chugging along naturally.
Yeah, I felt like the default time period was too long at 7 days, but that was when the site was more active and we were having a few of the same (mostly controversial) threads sitting up at the site for a whole week because people would just keep replying. It's at 3 days now, but maybe that's a little short now that the activity's dropped. I think I'd probably like to increase it again, but it should probably wait until we have a "hide this specific thread" type of function so that people can get rid of individual ones that they get sick of seeing.
I think this is a really important point as well. After the open-sourcing and a couple other things are done, I think my top priority needs to be making the site publicly-visible, but still invite-only to register and participate. It's an issue right now that the only way for people to even see what it has is by getting an invite, and it means that we have to "waste" a lot of invites on people that just want to look, and then maybe never come back. I think it'll be a huge improvement if people only need to request an invite when they know they want to participate, instead of just to see what's here.
About the activity sort time, what if you made the default a dynamic setting? Something that could scale and keep things in the feed based on how much activity there is. That way new users won't feel like the site is empty, but it will also allow new discussions to replace older ones.
It might also help to have different default scopes on different pages. For example, the front page would probably be fine with 24hrs once the site is active enough, but individual groups might be better off with a 3-day or even a week long scope. Clicking a tag on the other hand, should always default to "all time".
Even having it be a personal setting might help a bit. I notice that the setting doesn't retain when browsing between different ~s and posts. It always resets back to 3 days. Even without some sort of dynamic adjustments, it would be useful being able to switch back and forth depending on topic conditions for a given day.
You should be able to set a sort as the default. On your home page, when you change the sort, a button should appear that says 'Set as default'.
I'm an idiot. Thank you.
Just a suggestion for the sort, not sure if you've considered this. Right now, with 24 hour sort, posts older than 24 hours disappear from the face of the site, and it makes some communities look pretty barren to an outsider. Obviously it gets better with longer sorts, but this introduces other issues, such as older discussions overtaking new topics.
My suggestion would be to keep showing older posts than the activity-sort duration, but stop them from bumping. This way I could still, for example, interact with a day old thread, but replies to it won't overtake newer content.
Being able to hide posts would help a lot. Limiting what people see to recent posts isn't a great way stop people from seeing posts they are sick of. Not all new posts are worth keeping in the feed and some old posts are worth seeing. Hiding posts gives people more control over what they want to see.
Hopefully, each new wave will include a few more people who will add to the activity here, who'll put in the hard yards to turn that "maybe someday" into a "happening today".
My own anecdotal evidence here. I joined in early June, and for almost a month I'd spend equal time here as I would on Reddit and Hackernews. I post some topics, but mostly just reply.
It's slowed down pretty noticeably as of late, though. I still log on pretty often, but there aren't as many topics as there used to be, and especially as someone mostly avoiding political talks and mostly interested in tech/misc discussions, it's been difficult to find posts worth commenting on.
A new influx of users is probably a good idea. The community here's done pretty well at integrating new users into the whole meaningful, civil discussion thing. Some new faces can't hurt.
Your comment mirrors my experience pretty well.
After joining, I posted and commented more on ~ than I have in a long time, and I think the site has a lot of promise. However, the weight of activity on the site currently seems like it leans towards discussion around politics, ~ itself (which is understandable at this early stage), or news/social issues. There's certainly been some good technical/CS oriented posts, but they feel few and far between and have less discussion around them (especially in comparison to the activity on the other topics I mentioned).
I'm hoping that ~ can become something like "HN for more topics", but reading it right now feels more like "/r/ChangeMyView with less emphasis on view-changing", which is still good but not really what I'm looking for.
More users, either by opening the site entirely or for a period of time, would probably be good thing.
I would hope that we can get the comment tags back before that though, being able to sort/filter out just the "insightful"/"funny"/"informative" comments will be essential to handling posts with lots of activity.
I'd also like to add on to this that even in the CS/Tech/Gaming ~'s, it feels like there are just as many politically motivated topics as there are non-politcal ones, which again decreases my desire to participate
Obviously speaking only for myself here. I'm part of the problem I guess. I have a few topics that I'd like to start discussions on, but recently my online time has been such that I can't really babysit a discussion after having kicked it off. (The topics I'm considering are FOSS games and digitalized education, if anyone's curious)
So anyway, that's what stops me from starting discussions. What'd help is notifications on mobile about... notifications. Even if it's just a shitty telegram bot or something, anything to tell me to check my account. As for why I don't participate that much, I guess it really is that there's not that much content to keep me interested. Most of today's activity consists, for example, of news from continents I'm not in, pop culture. The stuff I do find interesting is scattered across quite a few communities. Right now, that is ~science, ~tech, ~comp, ~music (unusual, but I'll take Bad Religion) and ~news(similarly unusual, something about germany).
This makes it harder for me to find what I need. Most of ~news is noise to me, as is most ~music, and frankly some of ~tech. But even then I'll often gloss over the article and then not feel confident enough to comment.
Edit: Oh, and I've used one of them codes already. Not sure they'll be an awfully active community member, but you bet they'll be civil.
The top post on Voat's /v/news in the last 24 hours is a video titled "BASED ITALY: Nigger Refugee breaks car glass, BEATEN TO DEATH BY RESIDENTS". Comparing anything on ~news to that is ridiculous.
I think @Feureau's point is that, just as voat is a right-wing echo chamber, Tildes is becoming a left-wing echo chamber. Thinking back to the early political threads and demographic surveys here, that might not be too far from the truth. A bit more diversity of opinion wouldn't hurt.
Devil's advocate: What if it turns out that people who are into the goals of Tildes often have a particular political bent? Do you change the goals/rules of the community to attract equal amounts of left/right people?
My personal opinion is hell no. We shouldn't become like CNN on global warming with some false equivalency b.s. to make it be politically correct. No one is getting banned for any particular political speech here. I honestly see no echo chamber issue. There is a lack of diversity due to the tiny community on many topics, political and otherwise, but echo chamber? I cannot agree with that assessment.
I suspect this is not the case, because my own motivation for requesting an invitation to tildes was specifically due to the sales pitch about civil conversations - which is desperately needed between the two halves of my country which have not really been engaging at all except when venting emotions. I don't fall into the political demographic majority on the site. My suspicion is that the reason for this huge bias (that is, statistical bias, not biased opinion) is due to the places which were selected to seed early invitations and advertisement.
I totally agree with that. I really hope that my devils advocate argument is not true as well, because that would be tragic for society. If Tildes can provide a place for US left/right (I hate those labels) civil discussion then that itself would make the entire enterprise worthwhile to me.
edit: missing word
What you said, only I botched the delivery here: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/3c7/daily_tildes_discussion_thoughts_about_the_sites_activity_level#comment-10bl
See this idea confuses me because I have seen threads where there was very much a diversity of opinion on how policies should be enacted, the more contentious one probably being the thread about diversity on Tildes. From that all I can gather is that Tildes had a very socially liberal slant, just like Reddit before, and in the context of US politics that puts almost everybody in the Democratic weelhouse, but in truth people aren't at all in full agreement on issues such as diversity, affirmative action, welfare, or economic regulation. It just so happens that socially liberal ideas such as emancipation of women and minorities tend to mix well, on a surface level, with libertarian ideals of personal freedom,
I think it really speaks to the strange, party-loyalty-heavy kinds of politics the US pursues that anything or anyone not socially conservative is considered "left-wing", same as with opposition to Donald Trump.
There are right-wing people here on Tildes who have learned to keep their opinions to themselves because, every time they offer an opinion which doesn't match the left-wing orthodoxy, they get jumped on.
Sure, there might be diversity of opinion here - but it's a limited diversity if, as you say, Tildes has a very socially liberal slant. Where are the social conservatives here? I can name only a handful at most (only two come to mind immediately).
Not to mention socially conservative people—by nature, more or less—tend to have ideas that are incompatible with civil discussion.
"Your lifestyle, actions and loved ones are invalid and don't have a right to exist," isn't exactly a great position to start a discussion from.
Wow. I honestly don't even know how to respond to this, beyond briefly mentioning my strong disagreement (for the record).
B-b-but... isn't telling people that their inner nature is not conducive to civil discussion... not a very great position to start a discussion from?
Ideas =/= inner nature; ideas can be incompatible with civil discussion. Ideas can be by nature incompatible with civil discussion. It's a hard bit of gymnastics - or serious misinterpretation - to try and get "your inner nature is bad" from "ideas can be incompatible with civil discussion by nature."
If you think, for example, $GROUP shouldn't have $HUMANRIGHT based on an immutable characteristic, that's not something that you will /ever/ get a civil discussion from with someone who disagrees with you. Try walking up to the nearest LGB person you know and saying "I think you have no human right to be with who you're with, and think that you shouldn't be able to adopt children."
When your beliefs are based on taking rights from others - a hallmark of many social conservative ideas - expecting the side having their rights threatened by you to be civil isn't something reasonable.
So... in other words... what you're really saying is "I can't have a civil discussion with those people". You're saying that you will be uncivil in discussion with socially conservative people, not that they will be uncivil.
No—I'm saying that they, and their ideas, start conversations off uncivilly from the bat.
"You do not deserve to exist," begins a conversation from a point of incivility. With anyone.
That's not what you wrote:
This says to me that it's not reasonable to expect non-conservative people to be civil. I assume that includes you. You're saying it's not reasonable to expect you to be civil.
Sure, the conservatives have opinions you don't like, but you're saying that we can't expect civil discussion from you about those opinions.
I think you might be going about this from a point of bad faith. My original wording was:
Not to mention socially conservative people—by nature, more or less—tend to have ideas that are incompatible with civil discussion.This doesn't state or imply that conservatives are uncivil, or anything beyond their opinions not being compatible with civil discussion.
HOWEVER, since you want to go like this, starting off a conversation from an implied "You do not deserve to exist," "You should not get the rights we have," "We should be able to harm you," and "You should be punished for [HARMLESS ACTION]," as are the majority of social conservative standpoints is uncivil; and not on the receiving end.
Certain types of people, generally those who miss nuance and anything but whatever their - generally extremely literal - interpretation of any given bit of discussion is, of course will not realise this.
My problem with this statement is that I have discussed those ideas with (some) socially conservative people without either side becoming uncivil - and I am one of those people who do not deserve to exist or get the rights they have or should be able to be harmed or should be punished for my actions. That's me. I'm one of those minorities, yet I've still managed to have civil discussions about those ideas with the people who hold them.
I therefore believe it's not the ideas themselves which are incompatible with civil discussion. Civil discussion is all about how people respond to those ideas.
And your response is to immediately say those ideas can not be discussed civilly. You also think it's unreasonable to expect people to discuss those ideas civilly.
But I have discussed them civilly, so I don't agree.
My problem with this statement is that I have discussed those ideas with (some) socially conservative people without either side becoming uncivil - and I am one of those people who do not deserve to exist or get the rights they have or should be able to be harmed or should be punished for my actions.The keyword on your end is some, and the keyword on my end is tend. Both of these imply a non-definitiveness.
But you didn't only use "tend". You also were more definitive than that:
You even emphasised the "/ever/" part of that statement.
"not ... ever" - or "never". You're saying we can never get a civil discussion from these ideas. You said it's unreasonable to expect this. But I've done it.
Maybe I should just leave this discussion now. We're not getting anywhere.
Maybe you should; feel free!
Edit: That sounded a bit hostile; so sorry about that; but...it's more or less what I think here.
The overton window on a lot of social issues is shifting, more people might be socially conservative then we or they themselves care to admit. Social conservatism doesn't have to be things like being against gay rights or abortion, it could very well support these but not to the extent social liberls might.
That ist ridiculous. Maybe by US standards we're left of center. The rest of the world would like to have a word though. Considering US democrats roughly line up with german conservatives, I'm not surprised the more extreme tendencies of the US political spectrum shy away from rational discourse.
I also think that democrats positions are more based on reason, so I would expect overrepresentation here. Feature, Not Bug maybe?
That said, it is difficult for me to estimate Just how left of center we are here. And how hard of a time well-argued conservative positions have.
I'm sure the Republicans say the same about their positions, too. Noone likes to think that their own political positions are unreasonable or illogical.
Sure they do. But are they right? I don't wanna turn this into a political debate, but I do think that as far as objective reason is concerned....
At the same time... I too would like to see some reasonable people from the right.
They're about as right as you are.
There is no such thing as "objective reason" when it comes to politics. It all comes down to personal preference and opinion. If we dig deep enough, your "objective reason" will have a subjective component. It always does.
I know that there's axioms involved that derive from our notions of morality; that there's different assumptions about unsolved issues in economics etc involved, but that's not what I mean. It doesn't all come down to personal preference and opinion is exactly what I'm trying to say. There's usually a subjective component, but that doesn't have to dominate the debate.
Say, for the sake of argument, that trickle-down is patently nonsense. Of course, it would be peddled by the elite who actually do profit from it. But a poor man being in favor of trickle-down would have a objectively unreasonable position. Which is not to say they can't justify their position, just that their justification is wrong. Or if your position relies on denying simple, relatively easily observable facts like climate change, I can't see how that position could hold up in a debate.
So:
I don't think that's a fair assessment, considering your argument (as I understand it) relies on applying it to all groups, even, say, flat earthers.
You're kind of making my point for me...
I said that all political positions involve a degree of subjectivity; there is no such thing as a purely reasonable political position. So, to argue against that... you produce unreasonable political positions? That's like me saying that no bananas are red, and you arguing with me by showing me some bananas that aren't red.
If you're up for it, I'll set you a challenge. This is purely optional but, if you commit to it, you have to commit to it fully.
The challenge is this: share your most reasonable and logical political policy here, then let me ask you questions about it. Pick the political policy of yours which is absolutely based on rational thought, reason, and logic. The one that's least based in opinion, and most based in fact. But, once you've shared it, you have to answer my questions about it as honestly as you can (they'll be polite questions, but probing ones). Let's see if it's as rational as you think it is.
As I said, that's a totally optional challenge. However, I will bet cold hard cash that, no matter what supposedly reasonable political policy you share, I can find the subjective personal preference that underlies it if you let me probe your thought process in good faith.
You misunderstand my argument. I'm discussing politics, not science. I'm talking about the sort of policies that politicians propose to put into practice when they're in government to make the country a better place - and that electors vote for (or against). The sort of thing that Democrats or Republicans (or any other political party) propose as a platform, like: reforming healthcare, increasing/decreasing taxes, allowing/banning abortion, and so on.
No. I'm not arguing with you on this one. (There are red bananas though.) Most political positions imply subjective moral positions, but that's not all! Let's look at political positions from a different angle: They're a combination of
Say A is an environmentalist(1). But A is also a flat earther who believes in climate change(2). (weird combination, I know) Now... no matter how A arrived at his factual "knowledge", and even if A were to use sound logical reasoning(3) from here on out: As long as we can agree that the earth is actually round, A will have a decent chance of deriving completely bonkers policy proposals. As in "build a wall around antarctica to keep the water on the earth once antarctica melts" levels of bonkers. Objectively ridiculous. (If you don't agree that that is objectively bonkers, we have to talk about our definitions of objectivity.) From your argument, that person is just as right as I am when I propose to build flood protections around New York(because I fear we will have too much water rather than too little).
What I'm saying is: Morals and opinions alone don't make policy. Thus you can arrive at political positions that are not in line with your morals and opinions. Therefore, bonkers positions exist. And I do believe that the US right has quite a few of those. Or at least, their electorate has; while the elite knows that these positions will benefit themselves rather than the electorate. Put more concretely: I believe the conservative elites know full well that anthropogenous climate change is a thing, and it's gonna be bad. But they're the elites; they have a backup plan. The poor ones are those who will suffer, but they're being told that climate change doesn't exist. Their policy positions on climate change are objectively wrong, not because there's anything wrong with the positions in and of themselves or with the values that led the poor conservatives there. What's wrong is the reasoning or the factual statements underlying the process from values to policy - which could for example rely on denying the existance of climate change altogether.
And regarding your challenge: I don't think it'll help as I think you misunderstood my point (I hope I clarified). I fully believe you can find subjectivity in every position, and that's ok.
But if you insist, my political position would be that we shouldn't bother building a wall around antarctica to keep the water on earth.
While your hypothetical flat-earth environmentalist is ignoring the facts about the shape of the Earth, your left-wing are ignoring facts about human nature (people are lazy and won't work without motivation), human rights (foetuses are people too, and don't deserved to be murdered), and simple economics (money doesn't grow on trees - all that government spending comes out of your pockets). We all have our blind spots.
My personal perspective on these issues:
But we're getting into the nitty gritty of politics and are so far off topic here. I think you implicitly agreed that one can apply a notion of factual correctness to political policies. If you wanna continue this discussion, we can take it to PM. Unless people think it's actually worthwhile?
None of those things I said are necessarily my claims. I'm keeping my personal politics out of this discussion because it's not relevant. I'm merely pointing out that, just as you think right-wing people use less reason in their politics, they also think you use less reason as well. And, you're both right.
No. This was never about specific political beliefs, and I don't want a political argument. I only brought up those examples to disprove your claim "that democrats positions are more based on reason". Both sides use a combination of facts and reason, and preferences and opinions, to arrive at their political claims. Your political claims aren't special or privileged. You only think that because they're yours.
Ok, granted. Still, what one considers worthy of human rights is a moral position, thus fails to compare to climate change denial or the like. My focus was on "normative claim", not "yours".
Explain how both positions could be right at the same time..? Either they're equal, or one is less than the other.
Still unconvinced. I admit I'm not a centrist by a long shot, but I fail to see the denial of objective reality on the left.
Well, I think in doing so you strawmanned left positions.
I kind of agree with you on this one. But in trying to rationally assess that, i.e. trying to see how I deny reality myself, all I seem to find is that "my side" is the rational one(as /r/iamverysmart as that sounds). On the issues that matter to me anyways. Rationally I know that 60 million people can't be that deluded. That is, I agree that my claims aren't special; and I don't think they are. But I fail to find evidence that reconciles that with my observation that right-wing beliefs are remarkably wrong sometimes.
I think I'll leave things here. This discussion is about to start going in circles.
Sorry for intruding.
I would (from the left) usually say that the difference between ideologies is in values, not facts, but after decades of saying various institutions didn’t treat their views with respect, conservatives have largely abandoned them. It’s this second action that reinforces your narrative, but in ignoring the cause of the trend we fail to address anything meaningfully. Instead we partake in exactly the alienating behavior that turned the right off to our institutions in the first place.
Agreed on the notifications issue, was just thinking about that myself earlier. When the content overall is low, I'm less likely to check in regularly. And when I'm not checking in, I have no way of knowing whether any discussions I've been engaged in have been furthered. Part of me says that I should encourage myself (and others) to lean towards longer lived discussions, and rely less on the immediacy of a response to continue the conversation. But it does feel like conversations drop off pretty quickly and are difficult to resurrect. Not sure whether that is do the format, or societal attention spans (to go really broad here), or my own issues, frankly.
Huh. Talking about longer discussions, maybe we could have a way to draw users back to a good discussion. Say, for example, we had a discussion that went well for a while and then dwindled. Instead of starting from scratch, I'm contemplating ways to re-use that mental effort and achieved consensus.
Maybe restarting the topic with a link back to the old discussion, and a tl;dr: of the main results and open discussions. (This does not just by chance look like a scientific paper, though the quality standards would be lower obviously)
Or we could just have a [interval]ly threads where we just link back to worthy discussions in bulk. Users would have to catch up on their own accord, but it would keep the discussion in one place.
Lemme know what you think.
Some interesting possibilities. I know that the "Activity" feed option is intended to address some of this, so that ongoing conversations can continue to be brought up to the top. Though I don't know how many people are using that one, or its overall effects thus far. I personally find myself camping on "Newest" a lot of the time, which I should probably break myself from.
I would want us to make sure to avoid having the "go read the FAQ" type of responses that are prevalent in a lot of communities on reddit. Encouraging new entrants in to a conversation at later stages is a big part of how to keep them going, and I am willing to sacrifice a certain amount of restating yourself in order to encourage new activity.
Re-engaging a discussion could also be a good way to help keep down reposts, as I'm sure none of us want to see the same five questions with the same top answers every day like askreddit, but a good question that presents a lot of discussion is worth hanging on to for a longer period of time. Some of these ideas may make more sense once the individual communities here start to establish their own identities.
I'm actually somewhat ambivalent about the "read the FAQ" part. I don't mind restating a minor point, but I usually prefer to link to a previous comment of mine when appropriate and available. I'd really like to see discussions develop some sort of consensus. My fever dream after arguing too much on reddit would be a site that abstracts and merges discussions, so that for a given point , there's a canonical argument skeleton that you can look at to figure out where things are. Kind of structured like a formal proof, but of course less rigorous. Add to that displaying sub-arguments only when desired, and you get a medium for discourse that actually kind of enables community-done, community-reviewed science.
Yes, I do get invested in online discussions, sometimes too much.
But I definitely do see that there's merit in being inviting and beginner-friendly. In my fever dream, the system above is both, obviously.
You should check out Kialo: https://www.kialo.com/tour/
I don't really know what I think of it overall, but it's a really interesting concept anyway, and seems pretty similar to the sort of thing you're describing.
The "activity" sort is the default, so I assume a majority of people are using it.
Yeah, I realized after posting about it being the default. So that particular issue is all on my own usage patterns.
It's a bit of a mind-shift to come to a smaller community and still participate. On Reddit, there's a near never-ending stream of incoming content for people to respond to. It's a shake-up to go from being nearly solely a consumer to actually finding articles and such that warrant discussion and posting them onto a site. For a lot of people, I think Reddit has lulled them into just getting articles from Reddit, instead of looking at various sites and actually going out and finding content.
Yeah, that's definitely true. I've been trying to post at least a few things a day myself, and I generally find them by following a bunch of RSS feeds. That seems to be something that not many people do any more though, a lot of people just view whatever's popular on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/HN/etc. without really going through what's available from the actual sources.
That makes me sad (especially since I'm included in that group). I think people are starting to forget how big of a blow losing Google Reader really was to the internet.
I tried to get back into using an RSS reader recently, and it seems like all the options are paid, awful freemium trash, designed as like their own weird ecosystem (tbh I didn't understand what they were going for), or self-hosted. There really isn't anyone in the position to make it a norm again, I guess that ship has sailed.
I mentioned it in another reply already, but (as another previous heavy Google Reader user) I think Inoreader is a pretty good replacement. The "starter plan" is quite cheap ($15/year) to remove all the ads, and it has pretty much all the features that I want out of an RSS reader. There are some more expensive plans that offer some other capabilities, but I don't really need any of it.
I've been using Feedly without any particular fuss, and there's no cost or freemium bits that I've ever seen.
I feel your pain - I spent ages trying to find a stand-alone RSS app for Android, but almost all of them need an account on some other service. I eventually found one on F-Droid called Feeder, which is probably the least bad one I've tried.
I self-host a Nextcloud instance on a small ARM server and they have a pretty cool News reader app. Very clean, very happy with it.
Yup, definitely. I've been going through posts I see on Reddit and compiling a list of websites that actually post OC so I can check their sites instead of relying on Reddit to do it for me. It's slow going, but it'll allow me to both actually read articles on the site they're originally posted on and also post the links here for discussion.
How would I set that up anyways? I've got a few sites that I manually check every so often, but RSS feeds (depending on what they could do) could actually give me some material to post sometimes.
I use Inoreader: https://www.inoreader.com/
They've got a free, ad-supported plan you can start with, and the paid plans are pretty reasonably-priced. I've been happy with it, and I'm not even using most of the features it offers.
I enjoy new takes on existing memes, but tildes [unfortunately?] isn't the place for that. There's a lot of interesting stuff to read and think about, but usually I get to a discussion and all the good points I've thought of have been said.
Speaking of my own experience so far. I have posted quite a few topics that were not popular, which though a bit discouraging, I don't really mind. However, I have been a lot more hesitatant in both posting new topics and comments since I had 3 of 5 posts (over a weekend) critiqued for being low-effort, sensationalized and low quality. Which again, though disappointing, I don't mind except that feedback was generally rude and more unfortunately - loud.
Things have been better since, but I find I've been abandoning a lot of my topics without posting. Some of which, I actually did spend a fair amount of effort writing.
I feel like a majority of the content we see here is just news based aggregation, I've been trying to encourage more growth in actual discussion on ~talk and the such.
In addition to what others have said, I do feel like some members like to turn away new users with this almighty egotistical approach on what they deem is 'high-quality'. I think we need to encourage high-quality growth, but also not be very opposed to having legitimate people join, makes us look like we're straight out of /r/iamverysmart and some weird gatekeeping non-sense.
You know, its hard because I come here and want to participate and it be Reddit without the BS but the activity is way too low for me to make it worth it or for it to stick in my mind as something that is worth checking in on. If the only thing going for the site is that its a place to post links and read/make comments, I have 2-3 more active solutions bookmarked.
I think what is needed is a feature that entices lurkers to start posting and being interactive. When I think about what will make Tildes my main site to go to first and fore-most, I think about Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point". Its well worth a read but I will post the Wikipedia for other's to read more in-depth while addressing some of the themes of the book and how it relates to Tildes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point#The_three_rules
The Law of the Few
So there are three different types of people that will need to do 80% of the work to building Tildes as a place to go:
Having these types of active users of Tildes would help push it towards more activity and engaging people outside of Tildes to bring them in.
Connectors are going to be useful as others have mentioned, they would bring in a continuous flow of users who are eager to come to the site and will be posting heavily during their first week or two. This constant wave maintains user engagement and helps the power users who don't lurk stay engaged with the community. By building up a large amount of power users, you guarantee content for the users who fade back into being a lurker. Those users participation levels go down but the engagement with the site is maintained.
Mavens are going to be the users who are in-touch with the userbase here and off-site that desire Tildes for its unique differentiators. These types of users are going to be comfortable moving back and forth between sites like Reddit, but being a user here on Tildes. They are going to know the pros and cons of Tildes and be able to communicate those qualities when the question arises. From the article:
Now these types of users are all critical to bringing in new users and keeping content high, good quality, and helping establish a pool of good, continuous content.
The Stickiness Factor
Here the question is, what makes Tildes stick in a user's mind? What makes them pick up their phone and say, "I want to come to Tildes and see whats new." The unique design of the site is interesting in the way it handles ~ versus say a subreddit. However, I think these features are predicated on the need for a large userbase to show a proof of concept in real life.
The Power of Context
I think this concept is pretty explanatory. You are going to get more activity and use of the site when the conditions and circumstances arise that people look to finding a new site. Lets look at how the site is set up and designed, its pretty much Reddit-like on the face. So it seems to me that you are going to be moving to capturing a segment of the Reddit audience, which is only going to occur during times that Reddit is doing something that is pushing users over the edge to look for alternatives. Maybe think about other audiences you want to draw in and the conditions and circumstances of their environment and how thats going to draw them to Tildes through the use of those three types of people outlined above.
If people are wanting knowledge about programming and computers, what would help draw people to the site? Maybe a collaborate ~ where users can collaboratively design a ~ together in real time.
If people are wanting to discuss books, what would draw people to discuss a book here?
If people are wanting to talk about movies/tv shows, what can be unique and rewarding from Tildes that would help bring in these people?
For each main Tildes, think about it in-depth and ask these questions. Other sites have a large community dedcated to using the features of the site to facilitate discussion in some way that fits their needs. Some unique Tildes features here could be used across multiple ~. What if Tildes had a comment section and an interactive chat for each article. Low-effort comments would go in the chat and high-effort content that adds to the article would go in the form of a comment. I would suggest talking with well-regarded Moderators of other sites to see what features they would like that would help their needs specifically. Consolidate these features to make Tildes more inviting to them.
One other suggestion, I know why you designed the site to have the comment box at the bottom, but maybe test putting it back at the top when you can predict there will be an influx of users. I almost didn't write this comment because once a certain number of comments gets established, I didn't want to scroll to the bottom and read each one to make sure my comment wasn't talked about earlier. The good stuff will always be at the top and the low-tier at the bottom. I don't think it does a lick of good the way its set up right now if you need an influx of comments and discussion.
I hope this comment provided some insight @Deimos
Thanks for writing up such an in-depth and detailed response. I don't have much specific to say in reply, but there are a lot of interesting thoughts and insights in there, and some great suggestions that I'll definitely keep in mind. So thanks, I really appreciate the effort that went into it.
No problem, its something that is on my mind every few days when I visit the site at work but ultimately don't end up contributing. Its not that I am dissatisfied with the content here, its just hard to me to make Tildes part of my mindshare when so much already does.
It leads me to thinking about another site that rose out of a mass user exodus, ResetEra, in which the circumstances and the environment were the perfect storm for a new gaming-focused forum could be made and maintain a userbase over a period of time. From a case-study perspective, its fascinating.
My reason for commenting less in recent weeks has been the simple fact that it is summer here in the northern hemisphere. I'm working on home projects, camping, travelling, and visiting friends while they also have time free. I expect I'll visit ~ more often in fall when the rain and cold will keep me indoors more.
I know it's remarkably uninteresting reason for the slow down, but it could be a factor...
This together with starting a new job has been part of why I've been less active. I'm just trying to be outside hanging out with folks and having in-depth discussions in meatspace than cyberspace.
I always want to comment but I re-read my comments and feel so unintelligent and bland. Everyone's so classy and well spoken and here I am, not.
don't worry. it's the content the sentences conveys not the beauty of your words that's important. state your thoughts simply and clearly. english is my second language so I'm also not that eloquent and I can't do puns.
I understand that feeling, I definitely experience it here sometimes. I will say though, I tend to just pour out what I want to say, what I'm trying to say, and people won't attack me for it. The users here have been extremely kind and they are happy to help you articulate your thoughts and pick apart every side of the discussion as long as you're not being intentionally divisive.
I think the exception might be better stated as, "as long as you aren't perceived as being intentionally divisive."
Believe in yourself
I'd say this is true. A few days go I spent close to an hour on the site because there happened to be a lot of content I engaged with. The next few days there wasn't and I only spent around 10 minutes on Tildes each day. Today I've spent close to half an hour.
I don’t have any great structural recommendations at this point, but I’ll give it more thought.
I actually noticed the decline in new posts, so I just started posting more. Problem solved, right? :)
Be the change you want to see eh?
I have noticed you posting more. Good topics!
It feels like tildes is allergic to a lot of things, and it isn't clear what sorts of things won't provoke a bad reaction.
I have to agree, which has also curtailed a lot of my own participation here, even though I am politically agnostic. I log in and see posts/commentary that I do not agree with, but to disagree will generate plenty of negative commentary in return. From past experience I know that attempting to defend a position will only result in a downward spiral, so it is almost better to acquiesce. Unless you have nothing better to do than argue on the internet.
I think the Tildes userbase has handled arguments/heated discussion rather well. There are some back and forth threads that have gone too far, inciting deimos to intervene, but in my experience here people tend to accept that there are areas where they will fundamentally disagree with others, and they leave it at that. I think discussing through to these distilled fundamental thoughts/ideas is valuable for everyone.
"allergic"? to what?
Comics about the Flash television show, for instance.
edit: also any political content which does not fit a left or far-left political bias borders almost on incitement to riot - which is completely understandable, but it is frustrating.
I can understand the political bias and I honestly feel bad for conservatives with a brain that get lumped in with the alt-right, but what's people's issue with the flash tv show? lol
Here's the context: https://tildes.net/~tildes/33h/is_every_episode_of_the_flash_ever_too_fluffy
the tl;dr is a user made a post to ~tv of a comic they created about the tv show about the superhero Flash, using still images from the show's episodes with speech bubbles drawn on top of them. I liked it, my sister who is a fan of the show liked it. Some users thought it was too "fluff"-y or low-effort or something. Some people weren't sure. The whole debate is mildly discouraging to people who might want to share content because it isn't clear what is okay and what will rouse a mob (or even just a lone vocal critic who may even like the content, but shun posting it to tildes).
Ooo yeah I hope the "high-quality" mantra for tildes doesn't end up turning groups of users into gatekeepers. I personally thought it was well done.
There are so many gatekeepers on this site already. A lot of the time they just complain about content and their comments get pushed to the top of the page.
Well, it's difficult. The problem for me is that the site competes with HN (for tech content) and Reddit (for general content) and these two can deliver a lot more (even though I've grown quite tired with Reddit lately, hence me joining here). I do think that numbers have to be increased, but with care, obviously.
A couple of thoughts. I've been tentative in posting content as I'm still trying to figure out what is and isn't desirable here. I have a variety of interests so when I post, I have my favored topics but then I attempt to post in a category that I either haven't posted in before or has been idle for awhile. I've stopped posting or commenting on Reddit (I wax and wane there as a matter of course) but there are major topics I'm reluctant to post here as I know everyone here has likely seen it. The thing is, I'd like to discuss it here rather than on Reddit. I do also find content that isn't on Reddit that I find interesting.
We are living in interesting times as that Chinese curse seems to be in full force. That there is agreement and discussions that seem more homogeneous doesn't worry me as the very nature of more thoughtful discussions means a generally better informed group that read beyond headlines and click bait.
I think one problem might be a high ratio of techies (I love ya all) to non techies which is natural and necessary in Alpha. Once the forum opens up a little to include those who are merely users like me, I think the dynamic will change somewhat.
Another issue might be that the age group here is likely more mature than the age group on Reddit meaning we all have other things that demand our time. Reddit, in addition, has become increasingly quite juvenile and seems to be catering to a much, much younger audience with that the youthful bring.
How to encourage posting and comments is difficult because some of us have hang-ups, some of which was produced by time at Reddit and some internal to ourselves.
Edited for clarity
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I used Reddit mainly as a source of news and new interesting discoveries. Even looking through this thread, it's quite obvious that much of the user base doesn't want to see Tildes become "just another news aggregator" whereas I see a chance to turn ~news into a place to garner the weeks news and have good discussions about it. I've definitely subconsciously cooled down on my posting habits because I often don't feel anyone wants to see what I want to post. I feel like my goals for joining this site (mainly a replacement for what I used Reddit for, see above, but with reasonable moderation and accountability) don't quite align with what the site-runners want, or with what the majority of the users want.
Some observations and thoughts after reading through this thread several times.
People reluctant to post comments or topics likely have had bad experiences elsewhere and/or feel 'unqualified' as there are others with very high degrees of knowledge. I don't think any of us should be intimidated by that, in fact, those who high degrees of knowledge in one area will have a low degree in others..its yin/yang and shouldn't be a perceived limitation. I'm not an expert in anything; but I welcome inquiries in topics that I have more knowledge about than the average bear. It it interesting to stretch and read about topics I am lacking in.
Not participating in discussions that you are interested in is also wrong headed, imo. Often people who have deep knowledge/understanding sometimes miss a point as they are so deep into that forest, they fail to see the trees, in a trite way of explaining. I find asking questions (my philosophy is there are no stupid questions) often stimulates more discussion. That one might feel their contribution is lacking in comparison to others, in style or in phrasing or what have you, this is not only self-defeating but defeating the very core of a more engaging discussion forum. Perhaps overly judgmental, petty and harsh environments elsewhere have contributed to this problem.
That some topics get low votes or no votes doesn't mean it hasn't contributed (perhaps a view count might help?).
The feedback of contributions is likely contributing to the activity level. Since most here are from Reddit there maybe old habits that are contributing to this. I know on Reddit I am selective about upvotes, perhaps overly so and trying not to let that hang-over here.
Finally, lurking is a standard when entering new forums. In this case it shouldn't be as this isn't yet an established forum with a deep history/culture. Perhaps that should be emphasized?
One of the tricky things about posting links to encourage deep discussion is that a linked site may already incorporate all of the likely commentary, or be otherwise complete as a presentation of fact. The link garners votes, but no discussion activity.
Further, debate isn't necessarily constructive discussion, but can rather become about who wins - I don't believe a contest for the most votes necessarily encourages curious, open exploration of a problem space. I'm actually pleased that Tildes doesn't award karma, because this helps discourage the chest-pounding arguments-from-authority or -seniority that can arise (Slashdot was a pretty significant example of this kind of toxicity).
Nonetheless, there are plenty of well-trodden topics or technical discussions here that I've avoided engaging with so far...
You make some interesting points. I am glad there isn't karma as well but I think some people might be conditioned to it as at least a form validation that the content is the type they like to see (with or without comments).
So you think that perhaps more unstructured original content is preferable to ones that come from topical links in the form of an essay or more abbreviated 'ask'?
Perhaps because they are well-trodden? If that is it, what is it you would find engaging?
Frankly, it's about laziness and the desire to contribute something novel. The sheer amount of research and composition necessary to provide a well-considered response in a very thoroughly-argued topic or narrow technical specialty leads me to veer off if I don't have a lot of time on my hands; I'm more likely to respond if I have personal experience or knowledge ready to hand.
I'm sure that leads many people who may actually have something worthwhile to say, to stay away from intimidation or boredom.
I note that this isn't the case in reality for you and others.
I admire you and others who think of engaging inquiries that generate thought and discussion that isn't based on a link topic.
As to topics that are thoroughly argued or in a narrow focus, yes that does require some research particularly if it is one which is faceted and complex. Personally if it is a topic for which I have little knowledge or experience I'll follow it, with interest and occasionally chime in for questions or clarifications. The point being is I learn something which for me, is a good part of what makes forums like this desirable and interesting.
If I am interpreting you correctly, your preferences aren't for discussions arising out of links, that links rather than stimulate discussion, make subsequent discussions superfluous and/or boring?
I don't understand this statement at least not in the context of this forum.
edited formatting
When I mentioned laziness, I was only referring to myself and not imputing that motivation (or lack thereof) to others.
I don't really have a prejudice against linked material per se. There's some great material that's already been brought to my attention (the double-door bathroom solution!), and some of it is deep enough that the prospect of adding anything to it intimidates me.
But lightweight re-posts of mainstream news items or social media threads don't really inspire me to write in depth about why they're shallow or biased, particularly when there are others already doing so - that's where the boredom comes in.
Hope that clarifies matters...
Can you talk about the plans/strategies to grow the userbase?
I'm not sure that there are any solid plans. One of the really difficult things about social/community-type sites is that planning that kind of thing is so unreliable. There have been lots of sites that had plans for how they'd acquire users that just... didn't work out, and then there's really nothing they can do about it.
I think general awareness is the most important, especially since we're not really under any pressure to hit certain growth targets or anything. It really doesn't matter much if the site grows slowly over a long time, it's mostly just keeping it at a level where users don't get bored, and I think we're already not too far off from that point.
I expect that eventually we'll probably have some entire communities from places like reddit that consider "relocating" here. Tildes is still missing too many features at this point to make it feasible, but reddit's going to continue shifting their priorities towards quick/low-effort content and that's going to become more and more frustrating for the users/communities that don't align with that.
This is just part of the picture. For at least some redditors, it is possible to limit their participation to the subs they are interested in and to abstract from the ever-growing ocean of fluff, and there are communities that withstand that ocean's pressure, even though it is definitely better to have quality as the site's goal.
My biggest concern about Reddit is the session-replay tracking in their so-called redesign (I hope I do not have to explain the implications, I will just add that Reddit Gold removes ads but not tracking). As a cynical realist, I expect that one day this tracking will be forced upon the entire Reddit, either by discontinuing the standard design (most probably) or by the tracking being added to the standard design. That moment will be a big chance for ~ to gain redditors interested in civil and quality discussion.
Old reddit also has a crap ton of tracking
The problem is that reddit does these things slowly. If spez kicked tracking into overdrive, partnered with Facebook, closed source the site, and forced the alpha redesign on everyone, killing old.reddit.com, all on the same day, then of course a lot of people would flood Voat or create another alternative. But if it’s done over a period of years? A subreddit removed here, some analytics there, wait a bit. People would be mad, but not mad enough to jump ship. When the outrage from one move has died out, roll out the next “feature.”
It's possible, but it's getting more and more difficult because reddit is specifically making design/algorithm/etc. changes that favor low-quality content, and the higher-quality subreddits have to constantly fight an uphill battle against it, usually with heavy moderation. If the mods stop for even a few hours, the quality can drop incredibly fast because that's what reddit's design and mechanics are biased towards and encourage.
For example, they switched the front page to the "best" algorithm, which tries to do things like hide all posts that you've seen before. That's awful for any sort of discussion-based subreddit, where people want to go back to the same posts repeatedly as the discussion progresses. It only makes sense for fluff-content subreddits where you always want new posts to skim through every time you reload.
On the tracking end, as @starchturrents mentioned, even the old site has a ton of tracking. If you look at their job postings, like this one for a Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning, they include phrases like:
That's not post data they're talking about, reddit certainly doesn't have or generate that much data related to its actual functionality. It's primarily tracking data, people really don't realize how much is being collected.
Tell me about it! Mind you, we've been fighting this battle at Daystrom for years - although it has become more difficult recently.
A moderator of a high-profile discussion subreddit gathered some recruits from the mod teams of various discussion subreddits, for us all to come up with a shared statement to submit to the Reddit admins about what discussion subreddits needed. I was enthusiastic for a couple of days until I found out what he really wanted was for everyone to line up behind his own personal demands, to give his demands the strength of numbers. It wasn't so much "we want..." as "I want... and I found these other people who agree with me". But, even if he approached it wrongly, there were still a lot of discussion-subreddit mods in that group who agreed that their subreddits would be disadvantaged by the redesign.
So, I tend to go away during the work week and come back when I have the opportunity to attempt posting quality content, e.g. not just links from major news sources.
I drifted over here thanks to an invite from someone whom I respect for detailed, very high-quality postings on G+, when I needed a break from never-ending political rage without an opportunity to explore solutions.
I'm still exploring site navigation, and it's a bit more difficult to depart from the habit of following interesting people, as there (1) aren't that many people here yet and (2) aren't options for following particular users.
I'd like to believe that's improving my, and everyone else's experience, in the sense that there isn't an automated method for enclosure in a filter bubble.
At the same time, it may very well be a discouragement to engagement for those who are expecting shiny badges, big red buttons, vote trends, and highly prolific posters who always have worthwhile content.
I think working to encourage long term projects is an important thing for keeping activity up on the site. I don't always manage to check in every day, but I do make it a point to check on on Tuesdays, when the weekly programming challenge and on Thursdays when the weekly listening club make their appearances. I think these types of posts foster a sense of community that encourages people to contribute, and a regular schedule that keeps them tied to the site.
I agree. I've been incubating an idea for a debate series that I'd like to host on Tildes - it seems like it would be a perfect place for such a thing. Meristele has a weekly series for photography/art that looks promising too, and rodya has proposed a reading group on ~books.
I think something that I like about tildes is the kind of forum-like nature of it that is very different to reddit. I like being able to come back and see it develop over the course of a few days rather than a few hours as it is on reddit. If I see a discussion on reddit rarely does it go on longer than a few hours before it is dead. I like being able to come back here and revisit threads and seeing what is new.
A few reasons, in my opinion, of why the activity is dropping:
If I liked Hacker News, I'd have gone to Hacker News. It's more or less unemotional, prone to hostility more than anything else.
It just seems like that was advertised as a major selling point then fell off the radar, which isn't an especially good sign this early-on. We've been "next few days"'d the past few weeks which is disappointing. Understandable enough though.
If I like <GENRE> music, but people on Tildes only like <OTHERGENRE> music, that's kinda a bummer. Same with a lot of other topics. To call back on my last point, the personality of this site is basically political Hacker News but with right-wing people making three dozen meta posts about how they're being repressed by left-wingers on this site while still posting their views loudly and proudly. It's like 80% of what I see on this site. I've invited friends who've 180'd after ten minutes because of how common it is.
The HTML parser both made my <TAGS> lowercase and closed them off for me. Well that's annoying.
Haha yeah, that's a strange bug I haven't looked into yet, it's one of the first ones on the issue tracker: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues/7
I agree with the points you made though. The open-sourcing is my fault (and I probably should have focused more on it), and I hope the others will improve as we get more people in. It's difficult with a small community to have much topic diversity because there will be such a tiny audience for very niche things.
Explain to me like I'm a total idiot: what's the point of this site being open-sourced? Everyone, including you, keeps making such a big deal out of it. What does it mean, and why does it matter so much?
Open-sourced means anyone can see the code that makes the site's server run. It also allows anyone to modify it in their own testing environment, and then submit their changes as suggestions for tildes itself.
Some of the benefits of open sourced software are trust (if you can see the code, you can see what it's doing with your data), bug fixing (with potentially thousands of eyes checking the code, bugs are more likely to be found and fixed) and idea testing (with the same potential thousands of developers tinkering with the code, all ideas get an opportunity to be tried out, while a closed team would have limited human power to try new things)
Oh. I thought it might mean that other people would end up working on the code to help Deimos get things done.
Those other benefits might be worthwhile, but they don't seem to justify the urgency that people are applying to Deimos about getting the code open-sourced as soon as possible.
Thanks.
Oh, it'd certainly allow people to work on the code to help Deimos too.
There are a number of benefits to it. Kiloku listed some good ones, but another major one is that it will also give other people the ability to run their own clone of the site if they want to. I've mentioned it before, but if other people want to set up "Tildes, but for porn" or "Tildes, but with cute animal pictures and memes" they'll be able to do that, even though I don't want to have those on Tildes itself. It also adds confidence that the overall idea of the site is more enduring, since even if I decided to shut it down or take it in a bad direction, someone else could take the code and resurrect it with the same functionality (though probably without the users/posts/etc.).
In all honesty though, people (including me) probably do make a bit too big of a deal out of it a lot of the time. It'll be great in a lot of ways and I do believe it's important—that's why I made it one of the core tenets of the site—but it's not a panacea. It will add a lot of work for me as well. Hundreds of developers aren't just suddenly going to start adding major features for the site; I'm going to need to spend a lot of time and effort discussing changes with people, explaining how certain things work, reviewing code changes that people propose, pointing out issues with those changes, re-reviewing those changes after updates, and so on. Eventually other people will be able to help with these tasks too, but it'll take a lot of time and effort to get to that point, and it's hard to say how many other people will actually want to put that level of devotion into a project that isn't really "theirs".
I think overall, it's comparable in a lot of ways to adding new moderators to a subreddit. If you ask for volunteers, you'll get hundreds of people telling you they'll help moderate, but when you actually add them, a huge portion of them will actively moderate for less than a week, and then only ever do anything occasionally. The idea of helping with the work is a lot more appealing than the reality of it, once they realize it's actual work and involves tedious tasks, arguing with users (and other mods), and all the other un-fun aspects of being a mod. Open-source projects are like that too—a lot of people express excitement about contributing, but there probably won't really be that many that actually put in the level of effort necessary for making a significant update to the site.
As a more positive side of it, even if there aren't many outside contributions, I really like having the development activity public. That way people can follow along with exactly what I'm doing, even if they can't necessarily understand the code itself. For example, maybe someone will post about some weird behavior in their notifications, and someone else can look at the recent changes on GitLab and say, "oh, yeah, it looks like Deimos changed something with that page this morning. I'm not sure exactly what he did, but it seems like it could be related." That's a neat ability, instead of having the site be opaque with nobody ever really sure when anything's changed unless I specifically make a post about it.
But some developers will start adding features... yes? You will have people helping you write code for the website (even if you have to review it and add it yourself). Having it open-sourced will allow you to share the workload. Yes?
Yes, it will allow for it.
Firstly I think that looking at the data ye have access to you could make better insights. For example, how many users have used all their invites? How many invited users have invited someone else? I'm reluctant to invite people because I don't want them to see the content I post and I noticed a while ago (no more apparently?) that the inviter was visible on the account page.
The second thing is that I'd feel a lot more comfortable posting if there was an anonymous/throwaway way to post. That's just my preference, I'd like for every time I post to be fresh of previous statements I've made and perceptions users have of me.
Finally (and this is a touchy topic) but I'd like to be able to see some number going up when I get votes on my posts or comments. Doesn't have to be public at all but I really appreciate feeling like someone read what I said and liked it.
There is a vote counter on every post you make, to show you that people are appreciating it.
There is yeah, but something aggregated.
So, it's not just about each post being appreciated individually.
You want the equivalent of Reddit's karma, to show that you've accumulated a lot of points across multiple posts.
I initially said it was a touchy topic as it's been discussed before.
Something similar to Reddit's karma, though I think it's quite an important distinction that it's not publicly visible. The community isn't going to allow spoof content so karma whoring isn't an issue and it's a fact that people like to see numbers that increase when they do an action and it's reinforcing of that action. It's a basic reward mechanism for posting content, I really don't see the issue with it if you could explain your point of view because I feel you're strongly against the idea?
I'm not strongly against the idea. I just don't see the need for a karma-equivalent here. I've seen the types of behaviour that karma-counting has encouraged on Reddit, and I'm not sure that's what we need here.
I mean, I do get a small satisfaction from seeing my karma count on Reddit, but I get much more satisfaction from seeing the upvotes on a particular comment that I spent time and effort crafting. (Conversely, I get annoyed if one of my carefully crafted informative comments languishes unnoticed.) I can see each item being appreciated, and that's a reward for me.
I suppose I just don't understand the desire to see a karma count. What would you get out of a karma count that you don't get out of seeing your individual posts and comments being voted on?
There's no need for it per sae, but if there was I personally think I would post/comment more. That is the question under discussion!
I don't participate on Reddit whatsoever. I've made maybe 4 comments on the site in 7 or 8 years so I'm not up on the issues it might cause if it was here. I just know that I like seeing a cumulative "reward" for effort I make and if only good quality content leads to any "reward" then there's no issues I can see.
I think I get a similar feeling to what you do with individual posts/comments except on a broader level. It's not my niche opinion that gets 8 votes that would make me feel good about posting, it's the fact that what I post is in a lot of ways a distillation of myself and seeing this aggregate number validates me someway.
"karma" could also tie in to the reputation system
I believe that's already the intention.
However, karma doesn't need to be visible on your profile - to you or to others - for it to be counted towards your reputation.
I don't disagree but I think being able to see it yourself works as a positive reinforcement method that could overall be helpful in keeping people going. No need for it to be public for all to see indeed. That's how it turns into a competition.
I think there is nothing wrong if one posts a comment others disagree with provided that the comment meets the site's civility and quality standards—there is a difference between a discussion group and an echo chamber.
However, if one posts a low-quality comment or, even worse, an uncivil one, then mods are going to interfere (at this point it is just @Deimos, in the future groups will have their own mods).
how about if there is reddit like karma but only tildes see it and is bracketed. what's visible to us is a title. like if your karma is in the high positive karma of 100k your title would be the equivalent of that and you have a tag like "highly valued and reputable person" and if your karma is in the thousands of negative your title would be the equivalent, like "I'm likely a troll beware of what i spew."
This is basically what Slashdot used to do: your karma would be displayed on your profile page in one of six buckets: "Terrible", "Bad", "Neutral", "Positive", "Good", and "Excellent". I just looked and they don't seem to display it anymore, though.
Slashdot karma also affected your starting comment scores (comments started at +1 by default, but someone with bad (not necessarily "Bad") karma would start at 0 or possibly even -1, and someone with good (not necessarily "Good") karma would start at +2), so it's not necessarily directly applicable here.
It would be interesting to see someone other than Slashdot try a Slashdot-style comment moderation system, but Slashdot's was relatively complex, especially compared to Reddit's up-/downvotes or Tildes' up-/no votes, and I'm not sure how, or if, it could be applied to top-level posts.
I'm mostly active on smaller, niche communities on Reddit to begin with, and tildes doesn't have the membership to support that or create a space to foster that discussion when I am unable to create these areas. It is difficult to discuss niche topics in a general 'gaming' board, so I think relying on post activity to create these once a certain threshold is it isn't the right way to go about it. I'd rather make a space with a few users and post content related to that space/board and slowly acquire new users.
I think, for me at least, it's a combination of the novelty wearing off and that the past month or so has been really busy.
Some more fresh users would keep things moving, but I think it's important to make sure that we get some of the core functionality (i.e., groups; trust levels, etc) working before we get too many people and making changes becomes unmanageable. I'm guessing those changes will come quicker as the site is open sourced.
I think tildes has been doing great, and thank you so much for making it happen! I've found myself checking it every single day.
To be totally honest, I'm not that active on this site to begin with. And a lot of the conversation is really mature and well thought out, but I conder myself more of an epic memester so
I really like what was already said but wow you weren't kidding when you said saidit.net is a reddit clone. Looks like they straight up ripped the CSS and everything. I don't even want to sign up for that. Tildes is interesting because it's different, being independent, and trying to do its own thing, albeit in the same "genre" of website if you will
Oh, saidit is based on the last version of the reddit open-source code. They've made some changes (like replacing downvotes with "funny" upvotes), but its base is reddit.
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/342/daily_tildes_discussion_proposals_for_trial_groups_round_1
There you go.
I'm talking just about myself. As you know, a few of us are moderators on Reddit too, and moderating communities takes a lot of time (and energy). I still love r/brasil and the small community we built there. The World Cup increased traffic there and it has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of time.
I started using tildes more in place of reddit, which cured my reddit addiction, and now I've started reading books instead of aimlessly browsing the internet :)
Certain mod teams at Reddit are extremely handcuffed by some of the "beta" Reddit design changes. Maybe talking to them individually and seeing if there is a way this site can meet their needs would be a good way to solicit groups of participants. I know most mod teams seem to be discussing exit strategies in the background, with some needing more urgent answers than others.
I've talked to a few of them. I'd say there's a kind of vague interest from some people about switching platforms, but Tildes is still lacking too many features they need for it to really be possible, and the current invite-only status makes a real migration pretty impossible. The idea that Tildes will probably have a different model with less "defined" moderators is worrisome to some people as well, I think some groups won't be interested in moving to a new place if they can't continue to be in charge of the community.
I'm sure @Deimos has the activity breakdown in link agg. vs. original postings. I wonder if more original posts will get people more at home with expressing themselves.
As a community, how do we encourage openness?
I think it's a feedback loop and the fact that the Noveltys kind of wearing off. There are a lot of great topics but then you see Zero comments. I try and comment on ones I see stay at zero for a day or two when I know it's a good topic, but I'm just one person.
While anger is a cheap path to engagement, it's far from the best path. Journalism has decried hard work and ethics to instead pick the low-hanging fruit of enraged clicks, but you'll find more participation and loyalty from users who participate out of joy, not poison. Fan sites for beloved games/movies/events are much bigger draws than places that harbor negativity.
i think we need an android app., even if it's basic. where it's easy to access tildes. just one tap and you're in. having to type the site on our phone browser is hard when we're in a public place and have really short time to fiddle to get to the site.
Chrome and Firefox both have an add to homescreen functionality, which, unlike on iOS, turns tildes into a Progressive Web App.
What is the difference between a "progressive web app" and just having a shortcut that opens the page in a web browser? I use the Lightning browser and the add to home option just makes a shortcut, which works fine.
The webpage basically gets to be a separate app. Instead of appearing as another tab, it shows up in the app switcher.
My contribution level on all social platforms has been waning for some time. My usual pattern: post less while continuing to comment, eventually comment less, and then visit only infrequently. I’ve gone so far as to leave some services all together. I got excited again when Tildes fired up, but quickly slacked off. I like participating on here in my real identity, but find I’m not versed adequately in most topics to contribute, and generally find contributions from poorly versed users, especially myself, to be lame.
It’s been mentioned elsewhere, but it’d be nice on ask.tildes threads like this one to not have to scroll quite so far to create a top-level response. It feels dismissive and therefore scummy to scroll past folks’ contributions so as not to lose one’s train of thought.
This sounds dumb, but I was really interested in an open source social network, so I have kind of dropped off when it wasn't open sourced.
Nah, that's totally reasonable. It's a core aspect of the site that I've been delaying for too long. It's absolutely happening in the next couple of days though, I'm just finishing up a blog post and a couple of other minor documentation updates.
What’s the blog post gonna be about?
open sourcing, presumably
Oh, mostly just about the open-sourcing itself, some info about the technology being used, how people can contribute to it if they're interested, that kind of thing.
I just had a baby while starting grad school and working full time, so that's why I'm lurking :)
How do I post links?
If you're asking how to create a new thread, you have to click through into a group like ~talk or ~news or whatever (there's no "post" button on the front page).
From the group page you'll find the "Post a new topic" button in the right sidebar. You can use ~test to mess around if you want.
thank you
What do you find offputting about the current site on mobile? I always use an app for Reddit on mobile, but I find myself primarily accessing tildes with my iPhone’s browser. It’s been a surprisingly smooth experience for me, feeling roughly equivalent to the “full” desktop.
No notifications, none of the gestures that come with an app, such as swipe to refresh, no offline caching, new tabs are opened ad infinitum. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mobile site, but I can see how someone used to reddit clients wouldn’t be very happy accessing tildes via browser.
I don't know what browser/OS you're using, but Tildes is now properly set up with a PWA manifest, so if you remove and re-create the Tildes shortcut then it should act a bit more like a native app (assuming your browser supports that), so it won't open multiple tabs.
Doesn’t work on Safari on the latest developer beta. Just opens a new tab.
IIRC, there was a post explaining this, but I can’t seem to find it.
Is this the post you're thinking of?
https://tildes.net/~tildes/2ea/what_happened_to_my_tildes_bookmark_on_my_android_phone
Yes it was, thank you.