New groups added, more work still happening on rearranging, moving topics, etc.
Alrighty, after the discussion last week, I've finally added the new groups, and everyone will have been mostly auto-subscribed to all of them. I'm still working on some of the details like adding descriptions, and there will be some awkward pieces and interface aspects since we're still in the transition phase before I get those larger changes to subscriptions/etc. in (which I really hope will be soon), but it should mostly be fine.
If you want to change your subscriptions quickly, use this page: https://tildes.net/groups (linked from a button at the bottom of the home page's sidebar)
First, here are the new groups:
New top-level groups (everyone auto-subscribed)
New sub-groups (auto-subscribed only if you were subscribed to the parent group)
- ~games.game_design
- ~games.tabletop
- ~hobbies.automotive
- ~science.formal
- ~science.social
- ~science.natural
Some of this will be a little experimental and I'm not totally sure how it's going to work out (splitting ~science into the branches of science especially), but we'll see what happens. The names and such aren't necessarily 100% final either.
Since we now have some real sub-groups that people other than me can post in, I made a small behavior change to how sub-groups work until those larger changes are ready. Previously, subscribing to a group would automatically include all posts from its sub-groups in your home page as well. That is, if you subscribed to ~tildes, you would also see all posts from ~tildes.official, regardless of whether you subscribed to it or not.
Now, your home page will only include posts from groups (and sub-groups) that you are specifically subscribed to. So if you want to see topics from ~games but not ~games.tabletop, you should subscribe to ~games and unsubscribe from ~games.tabletop. However, if you visit ~games directly, posts from ~games.tabletop will still be included in the list there, regardless of whether you're subscribed or not. I know this isn't ideal, but it's not permanent and should be fine for now.
I'm going to get back to working on updating these groups and moving some of the older topics around now, but let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.
And as usual, I've topped everyone's invites up to 10. You can get your invite links here: https://tildes.net/invite
I take it someone will be on hand to move the topics to the correct group when I inevitably post to these new science subgroups? Is there still a way to submit directly to ~science so I can eschew these new groups?
I frankly don't have enough expertise to know where to place topics into ~science.*. The new subgroups of
formal
,natural
, andsocial
seem far too removed from everyday vernacular of what people consider science, to the point that I can only make basic assumptions about where topics go. It's also at odds (IMO) with your definition @Deimos that subgroups are about interests, not about taxonomy. This is clearly a taxonomical definition.Sure, earth studies in
natural
, sociology studies insocial
, everything else informal
, I guess? Where does physics go? Formal? Natural? What is "formal science" to a layman? I don't know, and I think having to be educated in this demonstrates why these subgroups are not a great idea—it's such a niche definition not many people are aware of, or fully understand the boundaries of.That's the problem I see with these new groups, they're going to make submitting scientific topics unapproachable, and given the very strong opinions on these groups some have expressed here, whatever I think will probably not be the exact same opinion as someone else.
So apologies if I submit to the wrong group, I'm sure someone with more opinions than me will be around to correct my mistake though.
Yep, that's definitely the trickiest one that's likely to be the most confusing and I think is still questionable. We're also doing it quite a bit earlier than it's really necessary—there aren't that many science topics being posted, it doesn't really need to be split into 3 pieces.
However, I think it's going to be a really good test case for aspects of the group hierarchy. The separation between the branches is generally quite clean and well-defined, and a lot of other groups won't be able to split as nicely. There will still definitely be some confusion from it, but we can try to help it with the descriptions, and overall people are usually quite good at noticing the patterns. For example, if they notice that physics topics are always in ~science.natural, they'll pick up on that being where they should submit too. And like you said, even if they don't, there are a fair number of users that can move the topic anyway (and we can always give that permission to more people).
It probably also wouldn't be that difficult to add some automation to it, and have posts in ~science get automatically moved to the right sub-group based on their tags. I think it'll work well as a test case, we can see how it goes. It's easy to eliminate the sub-groups if it looks like it's going poorly.
I feel much better about this knowing I can still submit directly to ~science, which allows me to otherwise ignore this new taxonomy when I'm not sure about where to submit, thanks.
There are a few people with the ability to move topics - me, for one, but there are others. And, given that I'm the one who pushed for a separate group/sub-group for the social sciences, it's in my interest to make this new structure work... which means I'll be moving stuff around as necessary.
Physics is a natural science. Natural sciences are the sciences which study nature: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, and so on.
Formal sciences are sciences which study formal systems ("think-y" stuff). They include mathematics and logic and statistics - and even computer science.
EDIT: And the social sciences are sciences which study human society: sociology, anthropology, economics, even psychology.
I have to wonder where this categorization leaves interdisciplinary sciences. For example, where would the abstract computational power of molecular interactions go?
~finance - the description could suggest topics such as Business, Economics, Personal Finance, Investing, Trading, Careers, Alt-coins etc...
I moved all of the ~tech posts tagged
space
orrocketry
to ~space (except one that is more about the future of war tech, of which space is one part)Oh, thanks! I've been gradually making my around moving topics as well (for example I moved everything in ~games tagged with
board games
ortabletop
into ~games.tabletop).It's probably a lot easier for me since I can do them in bulk though, so if there's any other larger sets you think should be moved around, definitely let me know.
I'm excited for ~space and was itching to get it going. It didn't take me too long. If I think of any other big tags I'll let you know.
There are a number of topics tagged
design
across a variety of groups: https://tildes.net/?tag=designWoo, ~space! Hoping there'll be an uptick in space news being posted.
Cool! I'm curious if we will generate enough traffic to support fleshing out of subgroups. I'm sure time will tell. I think the handling of subscriptions to subgroups but not main groups and vice-versa is good.
I am excited to the tabletop games subgroup.
I'm going to add my voice to the chorus thanking you for adding ~space - but for the opposite reason to everyone else. While everyone else wants to subscribe to this new group, I can now unsubscribe and stop seeing all those posts about boys and their toys (I'm not really interested in knowing how we're building bigger, better, faster rockets). In fact, I've already unsubscribed from that one group.
And thanks for the ~science sub-groups, including ~science.social.
EDIT: I did mean ~space!
I think you mean ~space.
Oops! Thanks.
It's exciting to see some new groups. I'm not 100% on board with the natural/formal sciences distinction for similar reasons as ~emdash - I don't think it's a distinction super familiar to many people, and one that feels heavily taxonomical in nature. Nonetheless I am happy to go about shifting topics around if I were to have the ability. I feel like I have a relatively good grasp on what would go where.
Your proposed behaviour for subscribing and unsubscribing to groups & sub-groups makes sense (only partly because it's what I suggested previously!).
Is it possible to list a group's sub-groups in the sidebar? This would be important for discoverability, especially when people are not automatically subscribed to sub-groups when subscribing to groups. For example, if someone subscribes to ~games, they won't see any posts from ~games.games_design or ~games.tabletop (which is as it should be). However, they won't necessarily know these sub-groups exist for them to subscribe to if they're interested.
Yes, that should definitely be possible pretty easily. I'll add an issue to remember to look at that later, since I'm pretty deep into trying to move old topics around for now (especially in ~science, where almost everything needs to be moved).
I'm sorry for the necro, I'm new and still reading around. Is there another group request thread anywhere? The only one I see is from July, and I've got a few suggestions for hobby sub-groups. Thanks!
I'm not really planning to add any more groups in the near future, but which ones were you thinking of?
~hobbies is generally one of the most inactive groups, and the new ~hobbies.automotive has hardly had any activity so far. You can always submit and use tags for categorizing the posts, there doesn't need to be a sub-group.
specifically, ~hobbies.aquariums, ~hobbies.camping, ~hobbies.watches, and ~hobbies.guns (although I can see those last two being a bit too niche for now)
I can just post my aquarium stuff in ~hobbies general for now I suppose. Fishkeeping is a hobby that benefits greatly from discussion about water parameters and kinda "softer" methodology (rather than "do this and it'll work" like for computers). Just thought I'd put in my two cents as a new member, I'm very interested to see where this goes!
Thank you for introducing ~space, much appreciated! Just spent the last 5 minutes moving a few dozen of my own submissions over :)
Is there perhaps a way to flag previously posted content that you think would be better served in one of the newly formed groups?
I can just give you access to move topics (and have now). Feel free to move ones if you think they obviously belong in one of the new groups. Don't worry too much about it though, the groups will keep changing over the site's lifetime and we don't necessarily need to go back and relocate a ton of the old topics every time that happens.
~space - For some reason, I always read this and wonder "space for what? Chill space?" not "space exploration."
Would ~cosmos be better? I'm a fan. Plus the added homage to Carl Sagan...
Discussion has been had, but generally ~space is a more inclusive topic for things like spaceflight politics, commercial spaceflight, rocket engine development, etc.
"cosmos" evokes a sense of astronomy & cosmology, topics which would arguably fall into one of the weird new ~science subgroups that I don't entirely understand 😂.
I'm afraid we are a day late and a dollar short on proposing new names.
How about a cool description like "The final frontier"
But is it the final? Maybe the "next" frontier... Or "current"?
It's from the original Star Trek:
Oh I that I know. I just figured the Star Trek writers weren't aware of the multiverse theory and such :P
Yes, they were. The original series includes an episode about a mirror universe where everyone is evil: 'Mirror, Mirror' (which spawned a few sequels in later series). Then there's 'The Magicks of Mega-Tu' in the animated series which took place in an alternate universe where magic is real. And, of course, the ultimate parallel universe episode: 'Parallels' in TNG, where thousands of universes intersect with each other.
But this isn't about finding a literal and scientifically accurate nomenclature. It's about making a reference to a well-known phrase: "Space. The Final Frontier."