Daily Tildes discussion - Just... try to relax a bit
Today I want to talk about a pattern that seems to keep happening—someone makes a post that's on the low effort end of the scale, and people freak out in response. Multiple users attack the poster in the thread itself, at least one separate meta post gets made about it, people send me messages concerned about the direction of the site, etc.
This really isn't necessary. Every instance of a post being a bit outside the lines isn't a harbinger of the site's impending doom. I know that a lot of you are passionate about having a higher-quality community site, but it doesn't mean that everything even slightly outside that goal needs to be viciously suppressed. It's okay to just ignore some posts here and there (or nicely point out that they don't really fit the site's goals), we don't need to try and chase off anyone that dares to post a joke or a cat gif.
So... just try to relax a bit, it'll be okay. Tildes is still very new, and there's a lot to figure out. The site's got a lot of growth and evolution in its future, and it doesn't need to be run with an iron fist from the very beginning. I promise that there's a solid vision for the site and I'm going to make sure it goes in that direction, but every minor deviation from that goal doesn't need to be destroyed. One of the most important parts of these early stages is to build up a good base culture, and we really don't need the community to feel extremely unwelcoming with people scared to post anything because it might be judged "too low effort".
Good post.
One thing I would challenge other users is if you see a low-effort post or comment, go make a high quality comment somewhere else and bump that topic to the top. You will increase the amount of high quality content and reinforce the culture of the site.
Responding to the low effort comment does two things:
Be proactive and be the poster you want other users to model after.
That's a nice sentiment, but its much harder to post high-quality than low-quality (it's in the name). Eventually the fluff will outpace the good if the only filter on the fluff is that there is less of it, surely?
That's why it's a challenge! Challenges are meant to be hard.
And sure, the fluff could outpace the good but you have to participate and establish what's normal and set the example by voting and commenting based on the shared goals/vision. The reason this discussion post was made is because users seem to be viewing low-effort content with the same low-effort reactive mindset by piling in on comments and chastizing users en masse. By being proactive, we make this a better site and for the time being until moderation occurs, ignore low effort comments.
It's a nice sentiment because it's among the many right sentiments that's needed to building a healthy, productive online community. At least, that's my opinion, I know others may disagree.
I think it'll depend on how the community grows. Currently Tildes is invite-only, but I don't imagine it'll be that way forever. And if the site gets a reputation for being an actually community-focused online community, I think a lot of people will come.
As the site grows, people will want tools in place to try to maintain what's being cultivated now. And the best time to put those tools in place is now, while things are small. Trying to come up with a device to put the horse back in the barn isn't as effective as having a good lock in the first place. At least that's my thought on it.
Thank you for this. The knee jerk gate keeping is a huge turn off, more so than the low effort content imo
Friendly nonsense is preferable to anal gatekeeping. I think some people are acting like they are trying out to be a mod.
Gallowboob for Moderator, 2018.
It doesn't even need to be nonsense, but a general friendly "hey here's x info you should read" nudge is preferable to being bludgeoned over the head with comments about how your very presence means the doom of a website.
Thanks for this. Yesterday's reception was pretty confusing.
I was really disappointed by the reaction to @GallowBoob posting an intro thread. Not just the outright vitriolic posts, but the pearl clutching, we need filtering because oh my goodness it's GALLOWBOOB comments as well.
Ok Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling because someone you don't like posted an intro thread, much like many other users have done. Intro posts by their very nature are going to be more low effort, casual content than a discussion post. If it's that much of a concern, filtering them is a viable option.
It concerns me, because there are other people I'd love to invite here, but if this is the kind of reception they're going to receive for not toeing some arbitrary line decided on by a few circlejerkers, then well... yeah. I don't know what to think right now.
I don't see the point of intro threads at all. "Look at me, everyone! I'm here!" So? Thousands of people managed to sign up to this site, lurk, and participate, without making a big announcement about it. Why do some people feel the need to announce their arrival (gallowboob isn't the only person who's done this)? I just don't get this behaviour.
I don't care about gallowboob at all. Even though he's a legend and cultural touchstone on Reddit, I've never crossed paths with him. I couldn't care less that he's here. And that's kind of the point: I really don't care that he - or anyone else in particular - is here. This shouldn't be about individual users announcing themselves. This should be about everyone posting and discussing content.
I'm honestly okay with many of the intro threads, as a lot of the ones I've seen feel like more of a continuation of the "introduce yourself" threads from the earliest days of the site than anything else. As long as they stay within the realm of "hi, I'm new, I like these things, where should I talk about them and who wants to talk about them?", I think they can be at least somewhat constructive.
You're implying that we have to provide personalised tutorials to everyone who signs up. "Here, read the doc, the blog, this announcement." (I think @Bauke has something like this as a copy-pasta!) But there's already an automated message that gets sent to each new user.
In what way? What does an introduction from a new user add to the experience of Tildes for the rest of us? "Oh, look. User #4,798 has signed up. Hooray."
Some of us like seeing that other humans are on the website and occasionally interacting with them just for the sake of being friendly and feeling welcome with each other. This is a staple of traditional forums and clearly a decent number of us miss that and resent Reddit's insistence on being a cold place where individual users don't matter. Frankly, with how often we jump and shit all over a post with an argument about if it's high effort or not, I'm in favor of most anything which adds some warmth. You can strive for having high quality content and be nice to people for the sake of it.
I get that no one is going to convince you to value that kind of thing yourself, and that's fine. We all have somewhat different ideas of what kind of place we want this to be. I just don't get what about the idea is hard to understand, it has the same purpose as any introduction anywhere.
How often do you walk into a party/meeting/club where there are already dozens of people chatting amongst themselves, and shout "Hi everyone! I'm Whom! I'm glad to be here!"?
Ignoring that the situations aren't alike and that this is an established normal behavior in internet communities...people who aren't anxious nerds like me do that all the time. I don't know where you're from, so it could just be a cultural difference, but if an event were open and people were walking in to talk to us, I would hope they'd make some kind of introduction.
I might introduce myself one-on-one to an event's host, and then look for a small group to join in with. But I certainly wouldn't announce myself to all and sundry as I walk in.
These posts feel like people wanting to be the centre of attention. "Look at me! I'm here! Pay attention to me!"
Maybe so but they’re fun for some people. Let them have their fun Asimov.
Please don't mistake my intentions. In no way am I saying to ban introduction threads. I just don't understand why people post them.
And, in the context of introducing ourselves: I'm "Algernon". I don't understand why everyone on Tildes insists on addressing me as "Asimov".
But... aren't you both?
It's a username constructed like a real name, with a first name and a surname. "Algernon" is therefore my "first name". In my culture, addressing someone by just their surname is rude. "Mr Asimov" would be polite; just "Asimov" would be rude. Or, it's how you refer to a third person who was mentioned in an article. Like... "In this article about Isaac Asimov, it says that Asimov wrote over 500 books." But you don't address someone as just "Asimov" to their face. Here in Australia, that's rude.
It's funny. I never had this problem on Reddit. Everyone there addressed me as "Algernon". But, here on Tildes, everyone calls me "Asimov". It's quite strange.
I guess what I think we should provide is less a personalized tutorial, since, as you say, each new user gets a message pointing them at the docs, but more along the lines of a human introduction. For a user who is a bit nervous about joining this new community that expects a pretty high level of discourse/content, having someone say "welcome, we're glad you're here" could be really helpful and encouraging to them, and they may not feel comfortable mentioning that they are new if they try commenting in a random thread.
I think that the first bit of human interaction that I mentioned before could, for some users, be what pushes them from lurking into being more active on the site. It may not be helpful for all users, but if it helps to create just a few more users who actively post good content, I would feel that the intro threads are worthwhile.
I feel like invoking the tragedy of the commons here: imagine if everyone posted an introduction thread when they signed up to Tildes. Having hundreds and hundreds of those threads flood this site day after day would ruin it. Most of us would simply unsubscribe from ~talk and ~tildes and everywhere else that newbies feel the need to announce their arrival.
I'm not against the idea of regular group introduction threads to quarantine this behaviour, but I don't think that every new arrival should make their own personal "I'm here!" post.
Maybe this is our first use case for a sub category: ~talk.introductions. It could be included in the intro message sent to users.
There are problems with sub-groups. Specifically, we can't unsubscribe from them yet. Every post in ~talk.introductions would be included in ~talk, and anyone who's subscribed to ~talk will see them all. We'd all have to unsubscribe from ~talk to stop seeing posts from ~talk.introductions, which isn't any different to how things would work now.
That's a good idea for the future, but it's not practical now. The only practical alternative right now would be to create a top-level group ~introductions... but I'm not sure that's the right direction to go. And Deimos seems reluctant to create too many groups at this early stage when there's not enough activity to sustain them.
Fair. The other obvious solution is filtering out the introductions tag, which it seems would be helpful for those who really dislike them.
Thanks for reminding me. I meant to do this the other day, but forgot.
That's essentially how it's solved on most forums, with a dedicated subforum for introductions. Plenty of people would unsubscribe, but what's wrong with that? There's always going to be a few people who hang out in the intro threads and say hi because they just want to be friendly. Not everything has to appeal to everyone.
That's fine, but there is currently no sub-forum for introductions here to unsubscribe from.
That's true, I think most users would agree that tucking it somewhere specific would be a good idea. Curious, assuming you have "intro" and "introductions" filtered out, how many get through? I haven't really been paying attention to how they get tagged.
I only just added a filter for this. I kept forgetting!
Therein lies a big problem with tag-filtering: we're relying on people to tag their posts properly. Given that introduction posts are, by definition, going to be made by newcomers, they're the most likely threads to be tagged badly or not tagged at all.
In the future, this could probably be solved by allowing other users to tag posts. To prevent abuse such a mechanic would likely require a certain level of "trust" within the group.
What you describe is part of the plan. However, tomorrow isn't today.
I'll agree with you on that. I guess the simplest possible way to put my position here is that I'm fine with intro threads for the reasons mentioned above as long as they don't take over the site. If they ever get to more than a few per couple of days, I'll be more than happy to work with others to discourage them and find alternatives.
I know when I joined, I was encouraged to make an intro thread. So I don't see why gallowboob can't
It is true that introductory posts are rather frivolous, but you cannot deny that Gallowboob's introduction has sparked an interesting discussion regarding content quality and gatekeeping on this website. I found the debate within the comments interesting, hence I upvoted his post for better visibility.
Simply put, these are all matters that have to be considered and addressed (as we are doing in this thread) if we wish to move forward as a community.
That kind of implies that we can make any shitpost we want... as long as it sparks interesting discussion regarding content quality and gatekeeping on this website. I'm not sure that's a useful approach.
Yeah, I think it's especially funny because I'm pretty sure that I gave GallowBoob an invite myself a couple of months ago when I first announced the site. He obviously didn't use it if I did (and it was probably lost to Slack's limited history), but I definitely remember having a conversation with him about Tildes, and I'm sure I probably gave him an invite as part of it.
The type of stuff he posts to reddit isn't really going to be welcome here, but I'm confident that people can behave differently in different contexts, so I wasn't going to go out of my way to exclude him. The response that introduction thread got was ridiculous.
I wanted to check it out and it fell through as i was travelling during that time if i recall. @phedre was kind enough to ping me again and give me a key which prompted me to join and check it out! Was very keen on checking out the community mainly. Got mixed reviews on this but i understand it's a struggle having a fresh community align, or any community for that matter.
I was here for the discussion to be honest, not for aggregation. Since this is not the nature of your forum, where as it's exactly the nature of reddit.
Appreciate you addressing this tbh man.
Chicken Little here. No, I don't think the sky is falling or the site is going to be ruined tomorrow. The reason I made the comment I did about wanting User Filtering is that the specific user being discussed here is well known as someone that posts and constantly reposts low effort, low quality content. When a user uses a famous/notorious username, they get all the baggage that comes along with that both good and bad. Now, if this user contributes to conversations like many other users on this site, great!
Come on. There are very few other users with the same level of fame/notoriety to warrant a similar response. Imagine if Trump made an account here. He'd get the same or worse reaction. (Yes, this is intentionally an extremely overblown comparison).
Finally, if this user contributes quality content and quality discussion, then I'm happy to have them here. That name has an extensive reddit history that is the complete opposite of what is wanted on tildes, so I'll need to be convinced.
Thanks for this comment phedre. And again thank you @Deimos for the post. Just makes me want to come back tbh.
This has been said before, but the problem is that there are no moderators. The lack of designated authority figures has resulted in a situation where everyone feels comfortable being an ad hoc authority figure.
tbh the people feeling the need to moderate the site should start with themselves.
I'm sure it's a factor, but I don't think it's quite that significant. The people that reacted so strongly didn't decide to post comments like that solely because there's no moderator.
Yes and no.
Sure, the content of those comments didn't happen because there's no moderator, but the existence of those comments is a result of there being no other way for people to deal with unwanted content. They can't just click on a "flag" or "report" button and leave it to someone else to deal with. The only way at the moment for people to deal with unwanted content or undesirable behaviour is for them to post a comment telling the poster to stop.
Sure, there's the option of sending you a private message, but does that really happen much? I can't imagine many people would be comfortable sending you messages about every little thing. I've seen some people try to user-tag you, but that doesn't work yet, either.
So, we end up with everyone having to "moderate" Tildes themselves - which can lead to a "stacks on" approach where a few people all post comments if they see something they don't like. Of course, the tone of those comments is optional, but the existence of them isn't. It's the only practical way to "moderate" Tildes at the moment.
Yeah, I think that's more "lack of a mechanic to express disapproval" than "lack of a moderator" though.
And really, there is a moderator—it's me. If the moderator(s) choose not to remove a thread (as I did, I don't think it needed removing), the mod's existence doesn't change the situation. It's things like this that make me think that reddit may have done the right thing by making the "report" button also hide the thread from the reporter. I know a lot of people hate that it works that way, but having the thread disappear for the person that reported it probably saves people from a lot of frustration in cases like this, since it makes it harder for them to determine whether any action was taken or not—the thread basically ceases existing for them regardless.
Exactly. You are the sole moderator for a subreddit of nearly 5,000 people, and there's no practical way for those people to report content to you. And you're not available 24/7. So, in your absence, people feel like they need to "moderate" that content themselves.
If they could hit a "report" button, and rest assured that you have been informed and will deal with it in a timely manner, they won't feel as much need to jump in themselves and take action.
I think learning to ignore things and not react at all rather than "let my negative opinion be known" is the newer habit that needs learning here for those coming from reddit or facebook or other structures that have a dislike option. It can feel vindicating to downvote or engage in "citizen moderating" to try and help the site so taking no action as a way to enforce an atmosphere probably seems counter intuitive.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the mechanics involved ...
I sort of suspect a report button or tag wouldn't be enough. Otherwise, people should just be voting up the first comment critiquing the post.
But I think having moderation would help people keep themselves in check a bit better too.
It won't eliminate those comments, but it will definitely reduce them. Some of the people who currently write "moderation"-type comments would use a "report" button instead.
Agreed. It would definitely help reduce a lot of that noise.
Moderators would most likely just have to remove baseless attacks directed to @gallowboob, the same as they do on reddit.
I haven't seen the intro post, was it low effort and warrants critic?
It has as much effort as any other intro post. Definitely not high-effort, but there's been no precedent for intro posts to be. It definitely didn't deserve the hate it got, in my opinion.
Edit: here's the post if you're interested in seeing for yourself: Reddit's u/GallowBoob here
Bye! :P
You must already know that this is the direction Tildes is headed in. We've all been lured here on the promise of high-quality discussions and an intolerance of intolerance. There's no way those goals can realistically be achieved in today's internet environment with a hands-off approach to moderation (to think this could happen is naivete of the highest type). There will be moderators here, and they will be activist interventionist moderators. That's strongly implied by everything planned for this site.
I'm bemused by how often people here talk about low-effort contributions when the promise is for high-quality content and discussions. One doesn't need to assess how much work someone put into a post to know whether the post is of high quality.
I expect some other people are looking for a sense of firmness in moderation that seems absent at Reddit.
We all come here with our various expectations. We're all projecting our various hopes on to this as-yet-blank canvas that is https://tildes.net. That doesn't mean all our expectations will be met or all our hopes will be realised.
It's entirely up to Deimos. He'll let us know over time what he wants for this site and how he wants to achieve it. The people who like what he's doing will stay. The people who don't like what he's doing will leave (but probably not before some of them complain quite loudly that their totally unfounded expectations weren't met).
Which, to me at least, is better than empowered mods. The Usenet model worked fine.
Pre-xactly!
I've honestly lost interest in this site precisely because of this aggressive approach by a lot of users. This is looking like a very unfriendly place to post, at least on par with reddit.
I fell prey to a holier-than-thou gatekeeping thread a while back where I was accused of spamming and karmawhoring (on a site that doesn't track vote totals) for posting a few news articles. The level of hostility and self righteousness definitely took me surprise and almost made me walk way.
However, I decided I wasn't going to let a vocal minority put me off, or steer the place towards their ideals at the exclusion of what anyone else wants, finds worthwhile or is interested in.
Don't give up on the place when it's so new. These are just teething problems, and as the site grows the gatekeeping self appointed arbiters of taste will become less and less noticeable.
Basically, don't let the fuckers grind you down or chase you away.
Seconding this. I've definitely had some pretty negative comments on my posts too. I do support this site and will continue to do so.
It's frustrating when some of the criticism and sniping comes from people who don't contribute any content themselves. My feelings are that if they think the content isn't good enough then they should get off their arses and post the stuff they believe is high quality content. If all someone does is complain without attempting to practice what they preach then I'm going to dismiss their concerns.
Definitely! And I wouldn't mind if their comments were constructive, but they never are. I strongly believe a good discussion comes from both original topic and comments.
You're killing it, Catt! I've said it before, but your posts are right up my alley.
Aw thanks :)
I just wanted to chime in and say “ditto” to what @Petril said above me. I don’t always agree with the arguments presented in what you post but they are always interesting, get me thinking and spark excellent conversations. So keep posting please, as there are many of us who thoroughly enjoy what you post and appreciate the effort you put in, especially with engaging people in the comments as well.
Thanks! This is really encouraging.
Glad to hear, since I genuinely do enjoy what you have been posting and would hate to see you stop contributing more of the same because of any criticism.
P.s. I include myself in that statement because I know I have been critical in the comments of some of your posts, but I hope it doesn’t come across as personal, because that is definitely not my intention. In all the cases where I have made a comment in your posts it’s merely because I am passionate about the subjects you bring up and sometimes disagree with some of the arguments presented in them, and not because I think you were wrong in any way for posting them.
It definitely doesn't feel personal. Your passion shows, and you challenge me to think deeper about my stance, which I do appreciate.
while the reaction to GB's post was a bit extreme, I was having some flashbacks to 'popcorn tastes good' with the way he responded to some of the posts. Maybe if he cooled it a bit with the all-caps le random responses or posted in the right group there wouldn't be as much of a backlash. meh, even people who didn't know him at all complained he came off as a bit immature
Of course, but (like you said), it's a balance. Even serious in-depth subreddits on reddit often have things like "free talk threads" or allow people to have casual conversations in threads occasionally. It's possible to allow a little bit of less-serious content without the whole thing coming tumbling down.
We absolutely have to be careful about it because it sets an example, and too much of it will only attract more, but we also don't have to treat it like letting any single post through will set some kind of irreversible precedent.
I loved the /r/AskHistorians 'jocular' Holiday threads, the current all-time top post that resulted is still one of my favorites.
In rolling out an MS Teams implementation for an end user support structure recently, I had to be sure there was a Watercooler section because otherwise engagement with the "only for work" aspect of the tool was too low otherwise. I needed people to be in there outside of their own specific work flow so that they'd be available when others needed them, not just their own needs, and communication between departments and coworkers was more about human interactions, not just ticket resolutions.
Essentially... you can only watch Schindler's List so many times before you really need to throw Big Trouble in Little China on for a breather.
The way things are setup now, the community itself gets to determine the community it will be so the pendulum will probably swing way to one side or the other for awhile before it settles in and luckily, we get to help determine where it settles.
Nice username.
When this site takes off mine will be worth millions I tell you :D
I'm glad this was formally addressed. The gatekeeping non-sense, let alone the aggressiveness towards anything people consider 'low-effort', in my opinion, is worse than the 'low-effort' posts.
I think that an important thing to remember right now is that this site is small. There's not that many users right now, so even if people like @Gallowboob come on, we should treat them as if they aren't guilty - because they aren't. It's important that we maintain a friendly attitude to each other, because our small community will go nowhere if we're scaring peoe off. So be nice to people, talk, and have fun. Share what you like, and comment on cool stuff. But don't be hypercritical of others, and give people a chance.
You really are the best benevolent overlord.
Vitriol really turns me off, and I had put the site down after the last kerfuffle.
Thanks for saying this.
Appreciate this post Dem. I like your platform but yesterday's reception was a bit too much to deal with. I was not expecting this type of "pride" approach that seems to always be detrimental to communities when the point is open discussion. I'll keep an eye on the platform and try and tap into some interesting discussions.
I’m a rather firm critic of yours on reddit but even I was appalled by your reception here. What you post to reddit is mostly lowest common denominator garbage IMO, but that content is a product of that environment and it’s not something that defines you as a person. You deserves to be treated with civility and kindness like everyone else, regardless of what you post on reddit... or even on Tildes. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as the saying goes, which when it comes to criticizing someone is doubly true as being an asshole about it just gets people’s hackles up rather than encouraging them to actually take in what you say.
Anyways, I just wanted to say sorry for how you were treated and welcome to the site.
Yeah, I decided to push the post back until tomorrow. I got started a little later than I was intending to this morning, and then I had a bunch of messages/threads/etc. to try to sort through. It's not super urgent or anything, I'd just like to get it out fairly soon.
Perfect... that gives me time to get the site docs finished tonight and then we can time the open-source blog post, docs update and the new official invite thread to coincide with each other if you want (so long as you don't see any major changes that need to be made with the docs after I submit the merge request).
Hey, thank you for addressing this. I think every single one of your posts on issues so far has been clear and reasonable, and I really feel like you're guiding the site towards the site I want tildes to be.
As for the subject of chilling out, I'll just quote what I said in the GallowBoob thread:
Looks like it's happening again with the GallowBoob post. People have some idea of what this site ~is~ (should be) and they fiercely try to implement that.
I don’t know if it’s been proposed before, but maybe we should have an “alt” tilde or subtitle (or “unserious” or whatever). The reason I think it would be good is because when I have serious discussions with my friends, we always occasionally make jokes and the like and I think people here have a desire too.
At the same time we need to balance the communal goals, so if we have an alt dumping group, it would allow for there to be a place for this type of behaviour. But it could then easily be blocked by users and filtered down such that it doesn’t receive much visibility and compromises ~’s goals. Nevertheless, it would exist allowing people to occasionally browse there.
Yeah, it's a possibility. The problem is that it's basically the "containment board" idea, which doesn't work. The jokes/culture/etc. from that board don't stay completely there—people make references to things from there in other threads, it attracts new users to the site that don't realize the whole site isn't the same, and so on. It's like how almost every thread on reddit ends up full of prequel memes and Thanos jokes and such. All those jokes have their own space, but they don't stay contained inside only that area.
It might be a reasonable possibility in the future when the site has a more established culture overall, but at least early on I think it's best not to cater to it.
Didn’t think about that, but yeah “containment” is what I was thinking.
Agreed. I think the best way forward is to stick to user tags regardless, so that while 'unserious' comments are allowed to remain in the discussion, there exists a system to filter them out and provide greater visibility for higher-effort content.
Some low level content can be a good thing for the site. Memes and single-question threads are easily consumable, and they can be a good way for newcomers to dip their toes into the community.
Without it, new community members may be intimidated when all they see are paragraphs upon paragraphs of discussion on an article that is three times as long. It creates a second barrier to growth, rather than intentional restrictions like the site being invite only. While wanton growth is not good, it also isn't good to stagnate.
New community members should be made to feel like they can participate without having to devote hours at a time to the site.
I think this is the whole point.
I've made a couple of snarky comments in past to topics that clearly came from new people that didn't even read the basic ideas behind tildes and it was showing in the first ever topic they created and i definitely does not regret doing that nor I changed my mind.
BUT
Mostly I kept repeating and getting "mad" at people that were here before and kept giving attention to this kind of topics, even if negative attention. If a topic is not in line with a "good topics of discussion" or is "low effort" in your opinion, just leave it fucking be. Do not vote, do not comment. It will fall down and nobody will ever notice or remember it in the following 24h.
It's that simple.
This does not teach anyone to change their behaviour or improve their posting. Imagine if more and more people starting making low-quality posts and comments. How are you going to ignore it when it's 25% or 50% or 75% of the content on this website?
If it's ignored, it's not gonna grow because the most promoted content will be of better quality.
Teach by example
You kind of missed the point of my question. If lots of people starting post low-quality content, and that low-quality content makes up half of your front page... how do you ignore it. How do you ignore the crap when it's every second post you see?
Also, each individual user is going to think: "Hmm. My last post didn't get many votes or comments. It must have been bad timing. Maybe this next post will catch the wave." They have no idea why their posts aren't getting attention, so they'll keep trying.
And, then, when Tildes goes public... anyone can sign up and everyone gets to vote and comment on posts. You might decide to ignore a low-quality post, but can you guarantee that every single one of the thousands of other people seeing the same post will all ignore it as well? Some of them will vote on it and comment on it, and that gives the poster some positive feedback which encourages them to post more of the same.
You do have good points there and it's not like I didn't think of it but the only possible paths I can see are:
Please also bear in mind that I'm talking about "right now" that is a time in which the community should have some kind of stronger rigidity in both the registration and rule's application because "right now" is when the community is building the environment it want to see once there will (hopefully) be enough users to not being feasable anymore to just educate everyone or catch any rule infringement.
In these months what I've notice is that the low effort content happens every time there is a new wave of users, because it's physiological that when a group arrive, there is the couple of people that didn't read the rules and has been invited just because "friend of" or just was interested in the new thing for those 5 minutes to ask an invite but then didn't bother to actually see what it was about.
Every time their topics reach the top only because people begin, again, to either educate or bash those couple of users. Problem is that whatever the case, both type of existing users comes join the party in educating or bashing and often it ends up even in arguing betweent the two types.
I personally tried both the approaches. Educating first, then after seeing the same pattern again and again, losing my temper and bashing a user.
Now here we go in what is personal feeling and instead i'd like to check but without a search it's not really possible.
How many of those "uneducated" users actually have kept partecipating? I use my addon to tag people and remember if I had clash or interesting discussion (note, interesting doesn't mean agreeing on everything) and I rarely see those uneducated pop up again apart their first topic. No matter that they had been trated nicely or being bashed.
That's why I've just decided to ignore certain topics that I find simply low effort due to the user not really being interested in what tildes focus has been declared to be.
Unrelated, but has there been any thought on having a hard user limit? Something high, but not so high as to run into reddit problem. I'm not really for or against, but was just thinking about how to maintain a community atmosphere. Though I imagine that would come with its own set of issues.
Requiring invites for registration is a pretty hard user limit, just not tied to a specific number. I think that makes the most sense, since it gives us the ability to restrict growth when we want to, but without it being related to arbitrary numbers or needing to kick inactive users out to "make space", or anything like that.
Maybe. That's too small of a touch target though, so it would have to cover close to half of the Sidebar button. Might work better to just have the notification count be after the button, instead of having it overlap it a bit like it currently is.
Yes please, it looks weird on my iPhone 6s up and to the right. I think my main problem is that it doesn’t have enough margin against the top of the page.