Daily Tildes discussion - suggestions for expansions/additions to Docs (and how you can help)
Today I want to talk about expanding the information available on the Tildes Docs site. There's some info there, but there should be a lot more. Eventually, I'd like that site to include information about the site's goals, mechanics and so on, as well as things closer to standard "documentation", such as how the post formatting works, details on the tagging systems, etc.
One specific thing that I know I'd like to add before long is kind of a "FAQ for mechanics" that can have answers for the common questions that keep coming up, like "why is the comment box at the bottom instead of the top?".
To help with this, I've now open-sourced the files for both the Tildes Docs site and the Blog here now, so you can contribute to them directly if you'd like to: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes-static-sites/
@flaque has already written a page to help with Markdown formatting that I'll add soon (but I wanted to see if he'd like to do it as a proper merge request so he gets credit as a contributor). Anyone else is welcome to contribute to the Docs as well, and I'd appreciate the help. However, if you're not sure if it's something that I'd want to add it might be best to ask first before you start writing.
Outside of that, I'm open for suggestions about what you think would be good to include, or things that are already there that need work. Thanks!
From @cfabbro on who to invite.
Plus whatever other red and green flags we can come up with.
That's missing a pretty key part of my comment IMO, namely:
The last thing we want is some ideological purity test here, nor do we want this place to become an echo chamber as a result so that last part is rather important context. However I would definitely be open to some suggestions on what people consider red/green flags and why. After which I can use those to write up a more definitive guide on how best to vet potential new users and perhaps even tie that in to how best to judge users’ actions (good vs bad faith) on ~ itself as well.
Also remember that while we are being slightly cautious about who we invite during this alpha phase, that will not always be the case. As soon as we have fully developed the systems that we think will help the communities here deal with the typical scaling issues most sites face, such as new user influx causing cultural shift, low effort posts/comments overwhelming high quality ones, brigading, etc. we will likely change or even remove the invite vetting process entirely.
Heck, we're still not entirely decided on whether we will ever leave invite only either... perhaps we may even use the open sign ups giving 'temporary account' idea that @safari came up with.
I had your quoted part but it wasn't distinguished from the green flag section; my bad. While you do bring up good points, those deal with the future. I still think it would be a worthwhile addition for right now.
Sounds good, added a merge request! Let me know if you (or anyone else) finds something wrong with it.
added a bunch of comments for minor typos/nitpicks :)
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Thanks again for your efforts @flaque I will make sure @deimos sees that.
You hit the big one I was thinking of (markdown formatting), and my other suggestion is maybe to add some of the big "we're gonna do this soon" stuff to the Mechanics (future) thing, even if for a short time.
Stuff Like: Saving posts (if this is pushed for), jumping to unread posts, comment anchors, etc.
Perhaps a small FAQ blurb about why you cannot post both a link and a text box together? If it stays like that, of course.
Hey I made a topic about saving posts here, but that's beside my point.
I think that the github issues page could be linked on the future mechanics page on which all of the littler future mechanics like comment anchors would be stored. Thoughts on this?
Yeah it's possible when we create a ~tildes.features, ~tildes.suggestions or something similar we could link the gitlab issues #features, #suggestions, #research page more prominently to encourage people to check it out.
That is also why I am trying to convince @deimos to use the Trello roadmap feature so people can follow along with the development process in a fun and highly marketable way.
That would be a pretty cool solution, I think. Just something concrete on a docs page so they don't pop up in ~tildes and it shows that the tildes team is aware of the desire.
And yeah, I mean to link that post in my original one, but I couldn't find it in my cursory search. I'll go back and link it now.
Can I be annoying and suggest changing the docs site colourscheme to match the main site default?
Yeah that is coming. It's already in the gitlab feature queue.