Those repeated topics (also known as recurring ones) are (mostly) automatically posted by Tildes itself, and act as a megathread for people to share what they've been doing/listening to/etc. If...
Those repeated topics (also known as recurring ones) are (mostly) automatically posted by Tildes itself, and act as a megathread for people to share what they've been doing/listening to/etc.
If you don't want to see them, might I suggest adding recurring to your filtered list of tags.
Just a heads up to anyone — not all recurring topics are discussion based. To prevent noisy topics from clogging the front page, there are also recurring mega-threads created as needed. For...
Just a heads up to anyone — not all recurring topics are discussion based. To prevent noisy topics from clogging the front page, there are also recurring mega-threads created as needed. For example, the politics and Ukraine conflict mega-threads recur weekly.
Something useful with recurring post would be for them to be connected somehow. Like, I visit the weekly megathread about Ukraine, and I want to check the old ones, it would be nice to have a...
Something useful with recurring post would be for them to be connected somehow. Like, I visit the weekly megathread about Ukraine, and I want to check the old ones, it would be nice to have a little index there with a link for all the weeks prior to the recent one. Make it collapsible so it won't bother those who don't care about that info. And make it so it updates automatically, so no one has to bother to do that manually. This idea has been very useful in the Episode discussion threads on any TV show on the site that must not be named, so I think it would be useful here too.
Some of the recurring posts have useful tags that let you do basically that -- for example, the album recommendation thread has its own tag, so you can see all past threads. Not all of the...
Some of the recurring posts have useful tags that let you do basically that -- for example, the album recommendation thread has its own tag, so you can see all past threads.
Not all of the recurring posts have useful tags, but it might be worth looking into the scheduled posting scripts to fix that. (Though I'm not sure who manages that. Potentially only Deimos?)
Another solution is to have each post link to the previous post, and edit the old post to add a link to the next in the series.
It would actually be nice if the recurring posts auto-archived to be read-only when the next post comes up. And then the list of archived recurring posts is in the sidebar on the current one....
It would actually be nice if the recurring posts auto-archived to be read-only when the next post comes up. And then the list of archived recurring posts is in the sidebar on the current one.
Granted, eventually the list might just be too long. Maybe it'll have to be a list of the last 10 and then a calendar picker to browse and select older ones (similar to how the Wayback Machine displays its old snapshots, only sized for the Tildes sidebar.
Attempting to continue a discussion from an old post would ideally just create a link to that comment in the new thread for the rare cases where that happens.
The automated recurring posts do auto-archive (well, close new top-level comments), but I don't think there's currently a way for manual recurring posts to do that? They don't fully archive, so...
The automated recurring posts do auto-archive (well, close new top-level comments), but I don't think there's currently a way for manual recurring posts to do that? They don't fully archive, so people can still continue ongoing discussions on the old post, but I think that's probably a good thing? It isn't that rare, from what I've seen, and forcing someone to link to an old post to continue the discussion would be disruptive.
Adding a list of past to the sidebar is an interesting idea, though it seems like it would take some work to design/implement; using the existing tag feature and just giving each recurring post its own tag would give basically the same results without having to implement anything new.
These have been useful because they attract discussion that otherwise wouldn't happen at all. (Up until we recently we had very few new topics; people seemed reluctant to post top level.) I think...
These have been useful because they attract discussion that otherwise wouldn't happen at all. (Up until we recently we had very few new topics; people seemed reluctant to post top level.)
I think maybe some could be removed, though, if the amount of other activity remains higher.
I don't dislike recurring topic per se, but I do lament that we cannot search them. Typical usecase: what does Tildes think about <insert a particular videogame here> ? I know I can do a regular...
I don't dislike recurring topic per se, but I do lament that we cannot search them. Typical usecase: what does Tildes think about <insert a particular videogame here> ? I know I can do a regular web search with site:tildes.net, but still.
In the early days, I was among the most prolific posters on Tildes. After a while, I got bored. It was the same small group of people, posting about the same limited group of interests, and...
In the early days, I was among the most prolific posters on Tildes. After a while, I got bored. It was the same small group of people, posting about the same limited group of interests, and talking about the same things. Tildes was supposed to grow (albeit slowly, which I approved of). It never grew.
I encourage new people to post SOMETHING and reply to comments for at least a few days to help keep this momentum going. If you WANT something to succeed you sometimes need to pitch in!
I encourage new people to post SOMETHING and reply to comments for at least a few days to help keep this momentum going. If you WANT something to succeed you sometimes need to pitch in!
I, myself, am a very chatty person, but as a new/read-only account, am also wary of disrupting the current cozy atmosphere of tildes because there's a value of "high value" posts and comments. So,...
Exemplary
I, myself, am a very chatty person, but as a new/read-only account, am also wary of disrupting the current cozy atmosphere of tildes because there's a value of "high value" posts and comments.
So, old hands, please keep encouraging new people and let us know gently if we're being noisy and disruptive.
I agree with this too. I'm super new as of yesterday. I'm not even a very old redditor. It's daunting trying to jump into conversations when I am still figuring out vibes and so forth.
I agree with this too. I'm super new as of yesterday. I'm not even a very old redditor. It's daunting trying to jump into conversations when I am still figuring out vibes and so forth.
Please don't feel intimidated! Not every comment needs to be some lengthy post — as long as you are contributing to the discussion any input is welcome, even if it is a one sentence statement....
Please don't feel intimidated! Not every comment needs to be some lengthy post — as long as you are contributing to the discussion any input is welcome, even if it is a one sentence statement. Speaking as a "old hand" as @chocobean put it, I am thrilled we have so many new users and it is exciting that there is a lot of content I can catch up on when I check in. Tildes has gone through some really slow periods in the past so this is a very nice change of pace. Please, to any new user reading this, don't hesitate to participate, just treat it as an IRL discussion (the same level of effort you'd use if you were speaking face to face).
Well hell, then I guess I better chime in here, with my two-day-old account. Hi friends! Looking forward to some wonderful text-based posts and conversations. Loving it here so far.
Well hell, then I guess I better chime in here, with my two-day-old account. Hi friends! Looking forward to some wonderful text-based posts and conversations. Loving it here so far.
Then tildes sounds like the place for you! Now you can get your word in before someone else had the chance to say it and can be the one starting the discussion.
Then tildes sounds like the place for you! Now you can get your word in before someone else had the chance to say it and can be the one starting the discussion.
I've been a user for 5 years now and don't post all that much but I come here every day. I would say that one of the only things that's frowned upon is low effort content - old reused jokes and...
I've been a user for 5 years now and don't post all that much but I come here every day.
I would say that one of the only things that's frowned upon is low effort content - old reused jokes and puns come to mind, which any reddit user will be very familiar with.
Other than that, please do comment and post etc..! We do not bite and the tone is a lot nicer and kinder than other social media!
Yeah the general vibe is just for people to post because they want to share something they thing the community will find interesting. In contrast to sharing because you think it’ll get you...
Yeah the general vibe is just for people to post because they want to share something they thing the community will find interesting.
In contrast to sharing because you think it’ll get you approval points (literal or figurative). The lack of approval points is somewhat jarring at first. You never know if anyone is actually enjoying your stuff. But the beauty is, you don’t need to care! We’ll all see it anyway!
Awww, I love some of those puns and good uses of old jokes. I realize they're not for everyone but some days it's stupid little stuff that gets a smile out of me.
Awww, I love some of those puns and good uses of old jokes. I realize they're not for everyone but some days it's stupid little stuff that gets a smile out of me.
I get it. I can walk into certain topics and already know what the top comment will be. It's fun when I'm right but annoying when I'm not only right but 27 other people also made the same comment...
I get it. I can walk into certain topics and already know what the top comment will be. It's fun when I'm right but annoying when I'm not only right but 27 other people also made the same comment and it's filling up what Reddit will show on the initial comments load for primary comments. I wouldn't mind if they all just got dumped in as children comments under the parent but that's not happening.
This. I'm a new reddit migrator but I remember when I first discovered reddit, one of the best things about it was the sheer amount of inside jokes each subreddit would have, or sometimes reddit...
This. I'm a new reddit migrator but I remember when I first discovered reddit, one of the best things about it was the sheer amount of inside jokes each subreddit would have, or sometimes reddit as a whole (like how r/anime_tiddies). It was so bizarre and different from the stuff I saw on other social media platforms I saw that I kind of miss having an inside joke being made in a subreddit without seeing it 50+ times in my feed all of the sudden. I guess I want the lighthearted goofiness reddit use to have without the desensitization we have now
It can become a bit much. I suppose I've adapted to those ways and simply enjoy the content within the comments that I enjoy. Stuff like bursting into song or movie quotes when the parent comments...
It can become a bit much. I suppose I've adapted to those ways and simply enjoy the content within the comments that I enjoy. Stuff like bursting into song or movie quotes when the parent comments allow it becomes a bit of fun silliness that I can appreciate. Some days just suck and for me, those little things can be helpful. Though I realize my case may be vastly different than others and they might not appreciate them.
I think I'm finding the lighthearted goofiness on Squabbles (I just created an account there; I think they have 20k members now). Fark is very sharp and funny but more snarky (i just lurk there -...
I think I'm finding the lighthearted goofiness on Squabbles (I just created an account there; I think they have 20k members now). Fark is very sharp and funny but more snarky (i just lurk there - I revisited the site after maybe a decade since leaving Reddit). Kbin has a bit of fun banter, too, but the topic groups I'm in tend to be pretty straightforward and a bit serious. In short, for me, a mix of sites is giving me a nice balance and ensuring that I don't put all my eggs in one basket (as I had previously done with Reddit).
Then post them! Nobody is stopping you from making good jokes. The issue is about frustrating the actual discussion, not the jokes themselves. If you're participating in a normal manner by...
Then post them! Nobody is stopping you from making good jokes. The issue is about frustrating the actual discussion, not the jokes themselves.
If you're participating in a normal manner by contributing and sometimes the contribution is a joke that's fine too.
This place isn't, and doesn't have to be, devoid of humor.
I joined yesterday and have left a few comments so far. Around half of them have received very friendly replies, and ALL of them have received upvotes. The community seems to be very welcoming!
I joined yesterday and have left a few comments so far. Around half of them have received very friendly replies, and ALL of them have received upvotes. The community seems to be very welcoming!
No downvote is an intentional design decision. Prevents a lot of agree/disagree hivemind behavior. There are labels on the post that mostly serve as moderation functions.
No downvote is an intentional design decision. Prevents a lot of agree/disagree hivemind behavior.
There are labels on the post that mostly serve as moderation functions.
I posted a primer on that right here to help out. Your label controls haven't activated yet, but in two days your accout hits seven days old, and then they will. Then you can moderate every single...
I posted a primer on that right here to help out. Your label controls haven't activated yet, but in two days your accout hits seven days old, and then they will. Then you can moderate every single comment that isn't your own.
Ngl, I’m actively having to remind myself “No one sentence replies. No echo chamber clichés replies. No getting ornery because someone has a mildly different opinion. Participate and be excellent...
Ngl, I’m actively having to remind myself “No one sentence replies. No echo chamber clichés replies. No getting ornery because someone has a mildly different opinion. Participate and be excellent to each other.”
I severely needed a detachment from not truly participating in comment chains wherein I post my opinion and let everyone else argue below after my inbox has 25 slight iterations of the same basic reply. There’s so many normalized bad habits I have from using that site over a decade, keeping myself there would only further entrench these bad habits.
So far tildes is a wonderful community, easy and simple interface. Love how it the site appears on mobile! So far, I dare say I wouldn’t even need an app.
I feel the same about stopping myself from giving shorter responses, as that seems to be my usual style of contribution to online discussions. Not that they're necessarily low-effort short...
I feel the same about stopping myself from giving shorter responses, as that seems to be my usual style of contribution to online discussions. Not that they're necessarily low-effort short responses, just that I am not one to be extremely verbose on a regular basis. My motto for professional emails and the like that I always offer as advice to friends is "CCC: Consider Communicating Concisely".
Don't force yourself to be verbose :) I'd advice instead to taking the time to articulate your thoughts in a way that is conducive to the thread and elaborate where neccessary, instead of forcing...
Don't force yourself to be verbose :) I'd advice instead to taking the time to articulate your thoughts in a way that is conducive to the thread and elaborate where neccessary, instead of forcing frills and bells where brevity would suffice.
But I am biased in the sense that I like both novel-length replies and succinct statements, as long as they have substance.
That reflects how I've come to feel about short responses. I also don't feel they're low effort; maybe closer to a notch under concise at times. Really, I want to break these bad online-habits of...
That reflects how I've come to feel about short responses. I also don't feel they're low effort; maybe closer to a notch under concise at times. Really, I want to break these bad online-habits of mine.
I'm going to have to try planting that seed with my coworkers. Tbh, communication would be a start. Currently, asking for concise communication is a little too advanced lol
I've actually been here for a while, and it's very easy for me to start typing something out and then get hit by the old "eh, nevermind..." and delete it and move on. Tildes has a high standard...
I've actually been here for a while, and it's very easy for me to start typing something out and then get hit by the old "eh, nevermind..." and delete it and move on. Tildes has a high standard for contributions - as it should, that's part of the appeal - but I tend to feel that my ramblings won't meet it. Probably just a fear I ought to get over.
When I first joined Tildes, seeing the notification that I had new comments was an anxiety spike for me. I’d look over, see the orange badge or 1 new comment text in the top right corner, and get...
When I first joined Tildes, seeing the notification that I had new comments was an anxiety spike for me. I’d look over, see the orange badge or 1 new comment text in the top right corner, and get nervous. It took months for that feeling to go away.
Even sadder, I didn’t even really notice it was happening initially because I was so used to it. It wasn’t until I’d been here for a bit that I was able to process what that feeling was in the first place.
Slowly, over time here and away from reddit, the conditioning broke for me.
I don’t feel that way anymore (which is great!), and seeing new notifications is a good feeling. It really is a sad comment on the state of reddit though that so many of us are so used to priming ourselves for attack with even the simplest of online interactions.
I hope you’re able to get out from under that feeling too.
I had this problem when I first joined a few years ago. If you've ever posted on HackerNews, the style of discussion is very similar here (albeit considerably less pretentious and antagonistic,...
I had this problem when I first joined a few years ago. If you've ever posted on HackerNews, the style of discussion is very similar here (albeit considerably less pretentious and antagonistic, imo). Whereas on reddit the low-effort crap kills and the high-effort stuff is super hit-and-miss, it's kind of the opposite here. High-quality conversation is valued the most.
And honestly, nobody's really paying attention to how old your account is, as long as you're contributing to the discussion. That info's a whole click away and I can't be bothered :) While the community here is relatively small, it's not so small that new users stick out like a sore thumb or anything.
I adore HackerNews and have used it for years, but my god do people on that website love to get into the pettiest arguments possible over the smallest things. If you see any of the WFH threads,...
I adore HackerNews and have used it for years, but my god do people on that website love to get into the pettiest arguments possible over the smallest things. If you see any of the WFH threads, they are always a good read for the internet drama. The beef between introverts and extroverts runs deep (apparently).
I so appreciate all the kindness and care you guys are showing with our culture that I almost don't wanna say this, but I must: I think you guys are worrying a bit too much. Respect the rules, be...
I so appreciate all the kindness and care you guys are showing with our culture that I almost don't wanna say this, but I must: I think you guys are worrying a bit too much. Respect the rules, be mindful of others, try to make substantial contributions, be super duper nice... but say what you want, when you want. It's fine :D
That's because if you consistently posted 3 times a day the entire frontpage would be eventually yours, and if someone didn't care much for your interests (or you...) they might be annoyed. I do...
That's because if you consistently posted 3 times a day the entire frontpage would be eventually yours, and if someone didn't care much for your interests (or you...) they might be annoyed.
Any advice I give now is in the context of having a lot more active users. So what made sense before not necessarily makes sense now. There's no need to pick a lane, just understand that...
Any advice I give now is in the context of having a lot more active users. So what made sense before not necessarily makes sense now. There's no need to pick a lane, just understand that statements are localized in time and may refer to different contexts.
Also a new user. Is there anything we need to know about the culture here so that we don’t inject our own thoughts and feelings into the group? Mastodon did a great job at helping new users...
Also a new user. Is there anything we need to know about the culture here so that we don’t inject our own thoughts and feelings into the group? Mastodon did a great job at helping new users understand the existing culture in a way that I haven’t really seen here yet.
The biggest one is simply “don’t act like an asshole” IMO. :P Everyone has bad days, and bickering sometimes is only natural too, but so long as everyone tries their best to not be an asshole, I...
Don't act like an asshole and routinely make other people's experiences—or lives—worse. Almost all of the restrictions on how you can use Tildes are just more-explicit versions of this basic guideline. In general, as long as you treat others with basic civility and try to contribute in good faith, you will be welcome on Tildes.
Everyone has bad days, and bickering sometimes is only natural too, but so long as everyone tries their best to not be an asshole, I think they’ll do fine here. :)
As much as I enjoy multi-paragraph philosophy manifestos (and I mean that sincerely), I generally take having one pushed on me as a sign that I’m dealing with an ideologue who loves hearing...
As much as I enjoy multi-paragraph philosophy manifestos (and I mean that sincerely), I generally take having one pushed on me as a sign that I’m dealing with an ideologue who loves hearing themselves talk. It’s better to just point to it when someone is curious. The essence of the manifesto should be sufficiently manifest (heh) in the design and culture such that it communicates its own themes. Maybe just a paragraph at most to establish the ground rules.
The thing about Tildes "philosophy" is that there's nothing novel about it. It's just what most reasonable people agree on, and boils down to something similar to Reddit's and other major...
The thing about Tildes "philosophy" is that there's nothing novel about it. It's just what most reasonable people agree on, and boils down to something similar to Reddit's and other major websites. The main difference is that here they're not merely suggestions. They are actually enforced.
cfabbro covered the basics pretty well. I can just add one thing. The tildes community is really good at trying to understand the most favorable interpretation of an argument. This contrasts with...
cfabbro covered the basics pretty well. I can just add one thing. The tildes community is really good at trying to understand the most favorable interpretation of an argument. This contrasts with almost the entire rest of the Internet where people seem to try and “take down” other people’s arguments. Because of this, redditors (and almost every one on the internet) try and hedge arguments, and attack/defend. It takes some time to unlearn these habits, but it will be worth it.
I was just thinking how in the few days I’ve been here I haven’t seen a single argument. I’ve barely seen a disagreement - which aren’t always bad! Of course if someone is genuinely misinformed...
I was just thinking how in the few days I’ve been here I haven’t seen a single argument. I’ve barely seen a disagreement - which aren’t always bad! Of course if someone is genuinely misinformed someone should let others reading know. But it feels like here people are a) slower to contribute, possibly particularly if they aren’t confident they’re right, and b) very much nicer in their replies. The vibe is just… nicer.
I just joined a few mins ago and am still learning to navigate the site. I just realized there’s a bunch of gorgeous themes built in! I’ll start posting soon when that option is available.
I just joined a few mins ago and am still learning to navigate the site. I just realized there’s a bunch of gorgeous themes built in! I’ll start posting soon when that option is available.
You should already be able to post. Just visit one of the group pages and click "Post a new topic". I would suggest waiting a while and getting a bit more familiar with the site and its culture...
You should already be able to post. Just visit one of the group pages and click "Post a new topic". I would suggest waiting a while and getting a bit more familiar with the site and its culture before you do though.
I would love for Tildes or Lemmy to succeed. I’ve been participating in both since joining in the last couple of days. (Which is honestly kind of jarring after being a lurker for the last 10 years...
I would love for Tildes or Lemmy to succeed. I’ve been participating in both since joining in the last couple of days. (Which is honestly kind of jarring after being a lurker for the last 10 years on Reddit)
Reddit was always so toxic when it came to posting a new comment or post. It was demoralizing to post something you worked hard and thought was cool only to be sent into downvote oblivion with 0 comments.
That being said, after essentially taking a vow of silence for a decade due to the culture on Reddit.. what am I (and other long time lurkers) supposed to post or comment?
The communities on Tildes and Lemmy seem to be much more inviting than my experience on reddit. I’m sure some other lurkers are also having mixed feelings about just immediately jumping into contributing after who knows how many years of lurking.
Anyways, didn’t mean to unload all that specifically on you. I’ve seen multiple people at this point on Tildes and Lemmy say the same thing and thought I’d pipe up.
Could be useful to have a dedicated thread to pull lurkers like me out of the shadows and get us comfortable with commenting, interacting, and brainstorming ideas for posts.
Honestly, that’s exactly how I felt…. That things I normally would have wanted to share on Reddit would immediately be downvoted, or brigaded by white supremacist incel Rick and morbu repost...
Honestly, that’s exactly how I felt…. That things I normally would have wanted to share on Reddit would immediately be downvoted, or brigaded by white supremacist incel Rick and morbu repost creepazoid bot networks.
Instead the VERY FIRST POST I MADE got actual replies from actual people.
So here’s my advice: if YOU think it has value…go for it! You may be pleasantly surprised
It sounds like a lot of us have the same experience with the..uh.. “community” on Reddit. It has really surprised me to get replies to pretty much all of my comments on here. (And all of the...
It sounds like a lot of us have the same experience with the..uh.. “community” on Reddit. It has really surprised me to get replies to pretty much all of my comments on here. (And all of the replies have been thoughtful too!!)
Personally, I’ll have to think about what what could have value here as posts. I do have a decade of Reddit conditioning to work through :P luckily it sounds like there are other ways I can contribute even if it isn’t posts. Lending my time towards the open source repo for Tildes and commenting on existing posts sounds like they can help too.
Yep I'm also new here and I'm finding so far everyone is much kinder, more understanding and reasonable than elsewhere online. The reddit "community" much like most of the Internet in recent years...
Yep I'm also new here and I'm finding so far everyone is much kinder, more understanding and reasonable than elsewhere online. The reddit "community" much like most of the Internet in recent years tend to attack first ask never. I remember posting on reddit about how most call centers don't record every call, I thought it was due to the space that would take to store even a year of calls as that was the answer I'd always had and it made sense. I mean even a modest department in a call center can take upwards of 300k calls a month so even a few megabytes per call and that becomes unsustainable to store every one for most businesses. Instead of correcting my maths due to a mistake in the code used, I got called an idiot, told I shouldn't speak and then every mistake was pointed out and berated. I felt so shitty. That was in a legal subreddit, not even an IT one and my posts historically were legal as that's what my role was at the time. Really upset me, I deleted all of my old posts and never commented again in there despite having loved using my knowledge in law (specifically motor insurance claims in the UK) to help folk navigate a complex field and process that really impacts their lives.
I'm excited for a new community here where I can contribute with areas I do know and learn about things I don't. I'm starting with comments for now but also planning to look at the repo and start submitting posts with interesting things I find online.
Well, I'd encourage being more selective here. Particularly now that things have heated up a bit, we don't need activity for activity's sake. Start the kinds of discussions you'd like to see more of.
Well, I'd encourage being more selective here. Particularly now that things have heated up a bit, we don't need activity for activity's sake. Start the kinds of discussions you'd like to see more of.
I'm trying but I've gone from very talkative in my earlier days to simply enjoying watching and reading the interactions between others, chiming in only when I feel the need.
I'm trying but I've gone from very talkative in my earlier days to simply enjoying watching and reading the interactions between others, chiming in only when I feel the need.
Subjectively, this feels like the most (and fastest) Tildes has grown since the first year, though I may have forgotten other Reddit refugee events. So, welcome!
Subjectively, this feels like the most (and fastest) Tildes has grown since the first year, though I may have forgotten other Reddit refugee events. So, welcome!
Thank you! I tend to lurk more than post, but so far I find the layout and quality of conversation here pleasing enough that Tildes has earned one of the limited bookmark spots on my Firefox Home...
Thank you! I tend to lurk more than post, but so far I find the layout and quality of conversation here pleasing enough that Tildes has earned one of the limited bookmark spots on my Firefox Home Screen. If that’s not an endorsement I don’t know what is.
The demographics here still feel very homogenous. I don't know what the most recent user survey/census has said, but I recall this site being dominated by white, male, software engineer/computer...
The demographics here still feel very homogenous.
I don't know what the most recent user survey/census has said, but I recall this site being dominated by white, male, software engineer/computer science/IT professionals. Which, there is nothing wrong with being that, but it makes all the conversations very one-note (and there is a tendency to talk outside wheelhouses with unearned expertise and authority).
My wife, who is not male or a software engineer, etc., tried to get into this website as well, but often felt like she was being talked down to or excluded. Her expertise and degrees are actually in a lot of topics people like to talk about here, like psychology and mental health. Yet, when she commented, it often didn't fit the preconceptions of those here. At best, her input was often ignored, and at worst, even outright dismissed and admonished. It made it not fun for her to comment here; even I felt frustrated on her behalf.
I hate to say it, but that's the reputation that engineering/computer science often carries—stereotypically arrogant and dismissive. I'm not accusing anyone specifically of this, but the tonality of conversations here has a tendency to ebb that way.
In terms of diversifying this community, the invite system might be part of the issue. People are quite likely to invite others who are more like themselves. At which point, those who do not fit this mould are either not invited at all, or don't feel welcome when they arrive.
I gave up on trying to frequent and participate here. Perhaps I'll try again if there is a surge of new users, but it is hard to not feel put off from my initial experiences.
The curse of all internet technologies is that they universally start with that crowd. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of possible solutions in my head to a lot of problems, but I've got nothing...
The curse of all internet technologies is that they universally start with that crowd. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of possible solutions in my head to a lot of problems, but I've got nothing for that one. It's not really the invite system so much as it is that those STEM types are always the first ones who get shown the new toy by the other STEM folks who built the thing, and they broadcast it around in those same STEM circles because those people care far more about cool new internet technology than normies do. It's a strange form of creator bias.
I certainly think this is a factor, especially when a platform launches. However, the launch for this website is getting close to five years ago now. At some point, I think there needs to be some...
Exemplary
I certainly think this is a factor, especially when a platform launches. However, the launch for this website is getting close to five years ago now. At some point, I think there needs to be some reflection on what this platform is, and how to structure it to be more inclusive.
Again, I'm going to say things that seem a bit abrasive towards the community here, but... There is a certain level of pretentiousness in respect to what a "valuable" discussion is. I think that pretentiousness categorically happens in two ways.
1) Certain topics are considered more 'high minded' and worthy of discussion.
2) A comment is more highly rewarded if it is objective and rational, instead of appealing to subjective experiences that evoke emotions.
To help illustrate these, let's drag my wife back into this and our 'not-so-little' dog too. We have a dog that has a plethora of health and behavioural issues. From books, trainers, veterinary behaviourists, specialists, and a fair amount of money too..., we have tried so very, very, hard to help him. Sadly, despite the fact that he is quite large, he finds the world to be a very frightening place. In addition to this, he has a myriad of digestive problems that often leave him feeling upset. We are at a point where there are more good days than bad for him, and the amount of work to achieve that has been nearly unsurmountable.
So my wife is still on Reddit. Her number one use of the website? Puppy subreddits. Not pictures, but the ones oriented towards discussions about dog training and experiences. Our dog can be incredibly frustrating with all his problems, but my wife (and I) love him to death. It takes an emotional toll at times. To that, more often than not, the point of her being on those subreddits isn't to glean new training info, but to look at what other people have dealt with and how they overcame their problems. It gives her emotional reassurance and hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel where we might be able to help him and get through this. It gives her a place to talk about what she is going through, and maybe even give hope to someone else who might have similar problems as we do.
Is this not inherently valuable? It's a very different discussion than what is often encouraged on Tildes though.
I suppose it just irks me that this type of discussion is mostly ignored or dismissed, almost as if the collective attitude is that we are 'above' it because puppies are just vacuous tripe better left for Facebook. Meanwhile, I'll go into the books "group" on Tildes and people are talking about some comic book as if it is high art. It's almost comical how stereotypical the community is.
If you want to break that stereotype, then you need to break the homogeneity of the community. How are you going to do that? By giving a place for 'different' people to go. And I know you don't mean to slight them by calling them "normies," but that's part the community attitude here. Normies are an 'other' to Tildes, and they need not be. They just need groups that they feel like they can post things in and feel welcomed to.
I look at the list of groups, and it is entirely composed of topics that are general interest or topics that appeal to male-tech-enthusiasts. If I recall correctly, the 2021 census for Tildes said it was approximately 85% men to 15% women, and I doubt it has changed much since then. Nor is it much of a mystery as to why. I know the 'philosophy' of Tildes is that groups will be added as there is demand for them, but all that serves to do is exclude people who have interests in topics that aren't listed.
I'll preface this by saying that no sexism is intended, but I can assure you that there are a number of women who come to this website, look at the list of groups, say "there is nothing here for me" and then leave. Maybe they try again in a couple years, but most probably won't.
To quote Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Add a "pets" group. Add a "parenting" group. Add a "relationships" group. Women are often the majority in these kinds of boards, and perhaps they would like to talk about these things here on Tildes too. You can add these topics without the website turning into a slew of cat pictures and relationship drama. It will take more work, certainly, but that's what it takes to grow.
To some extent, I wonder if part of the issue is that there is a portion of the community that fears this growth. Some of the more recent posts talk about worries from the influx of new users from Reddit. Will Tildes lose its 'feel'? Will it become less pure? The answer to those questions is that it has to. It has to change in order to grow. If it stays like this it will always be a small community. What that doesn't mean though, is that it will make Tildes less valuable. It simply means that new people are going to arrive, and their values will be different, but we can encourage them all to discuss things in a healthy and constructive way. There is a lot of value in that for everyone.
I have said many critical things here. Perhaps too critical at times. For whomever I may have upset, I apologize pre-emptively. I do not say these things with malice or intention to antagonize anyone or the community. I just think there are a few problems that need to be overcome.
I'm sure we'll soon see the 'I miss the good ole days of Tildes' posts, right on time. You're right, though - that is precisely what happens as a site grows up and it needs to happen. Every site...
I'm sure we'll soon see the 'I miss the good ole days of Tildes' posts, right on time. You're right, though - that is precisely what happens as a site grows up and it needs to happen. Every site has its own evolution. The best promise I can make for that here is that the people using this site won't have to constantly fight an uphill battle against the site itself just to try and maintain the quality of their community. That is precisely where reddit was derelict in its duty.
One can post all of this content right here and right now, it does not require specific groups to give 'permission' to the users to post a topic. I think that's a kind of poor training that reddit has instilled in everyone with the endless subredditization of internet discourse. If one can't find the equivalent group here, then there's hesitancy to post it at all.
Of course, I say that as someone who, if ~music.listentothis existed, would gleefully race ten other users to be the first to post 1500 tracks. My submissions alone would outpace all other Tildes content. The presence or absence of groups does indeed have an effect on how people post.
I'd look for a new groups discussion in the next weeks. It's been over a year since we shook up the list, so another batch of groups is overdue anyway, and it would be very cool to get more input like this from the new users to shake up the perspectives here. We will hear from Deimos once he's got his RL on chill mode and has managed his massive inbox, count on that. He is lurking and reading, and I find he has a remarkable ability to laze in on the heart of an idea while everyone else is pontificating about it.
We have some work to do here managing the 'scope' of what people see, and it has to get beyond basic subscriptions or even subscriptions + tags - filters, which is what we have now. Ideally, we'd find a way to get rid of the groups hierarchy for something better that isn't actually a hierarchy, but I've got no better idea of how to do that. I think Deimos might, though - something to do with vectors, but you'd have to ask him. We should be beyond hierarchies and into something else by now. That would be a real silver bullet.
For now, just pick the general topic group here that is the closest match, with ~misc being the same catch-all that /r/reddit.com was back in the day. There are other users here who will happily help clean up the tags and move threads around if needed. Don't be governed by a fear of posting - go ahead and post what you like. The votes will sort it all out, and they'll do it without downvotes or bots or trolls interfering with the process here, unlike every single other site on the internet. ;)
So far we've just had polls and added groups based on suggestions, but eventually, it's supposed to be dynamic group creation, with parent groups deciding how and when to create the subgroups, or fold them back in. Tag occurrence frequency can even auto-create or auto-demote groups, at least in theory.
Of course, all of this comes right back to the funding issues as well. I've seen how fast Deimos can turn out code and features when he's working. He can easily beat reddit's entire dev team, who incidentally haven't added a feature users wanted since 2015, if he's working on this full time.
Those haven't necessarily been five productive years, though. The growth in users for Tildes has been very very very slow over that period. After the initial rush 4-5 years ago, new users have...
However, the launch for this website is getting close to five years ago now.
Those haven't necessarily been five productive years, though. The growth in users for Tildes has been very very very slow over that period. After the initial rush 4-5 years ago, new users have barely trickled in. So, there hasn't been much opportunity for change here over that same period.
@Amarok is right about how new websites start. Reddit was the same: the initial crowd was mostly tech-bros. But, as Reddit grew, it diversified. Unfortunately, Tildes hasn't grown, so it hasn't had the opportunity to diversify.
If this latest influx signals the start of a new growth spurt for Tildes, then maybe this site will reach the critical mass necessary for its group of interests to start reflecting a more diverse user base.
To quote Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Add a "pets" group. Add a "parenting" group. Add a "relationships" group.
Creating new groups just for the sake of it is against the philosophy of Tildes. Groups get created in response to observed demand, rather than in advance of discussions about that subject. What we're trying to do is guide people to the groups appropriate to the content they want to share and see - and, the more discussions there are about a given topic, the more likely it is that a group or sub-group will be created for it.
For example, ~life is the group for discussing parenting and relationships, as you can see in this original request for the group that became known as ~life. The sidebar for that group even says "Topics related to our personal (and professional) lives - work, school, families, relationships, parenting, etc." There are many discussions about parenting and relationships in ~life. It's almost inevitable that the sub-groups ~life.parenting and ~life.relationships will be created in the future.
And it looks like discussions about pets are happening in ~hobbies. That seems like an uncomfortable home for those discussions, but I assume that will be changed in future group-creation events.
Why don't we do without groups though? I feel like there's a bit of redundancy between groups and tags. Then users could simply subscribe to tags of their interest to personalize their feed.
Why don't we do without groups though? I feel like there's a bit of redundancy between groups and tags. Then users could simply subscribe to tags of their interest to personalize their feed.
You're right, they are a bit overlapping, and the idea was that a tag which is being used a lot becomes a group, at least until it isn't being used so much anymore. This way, subgroups could pop...
You're right, they are a bit overlapping, and the idea was that a tag which is being used a lot becomes a group, at least until it isn't being used so much anymore. This way, subgroups could pop out of parent groups on demand, and we'd get a dynamic self-organizing hierarchy for the groups.
Subscribing to the tags themselves inside a group is something I'd love as well, since it'll let you subscribe to a subset of a community's content or disappear that subset with a click. Imagine ~music with genre tags - now you can subscribe to metal, classical, and folk while disappearing jazz and reggae, if that's your thing. Just make a ribbon out of all the tags at the top of each group's page, and make it one click to turn them on and off, with it saved for every user's own preferences, and with those preferences applying even outside of the direct ~music view.
How many subreddits did we all see that had a version of themselves for images, or for questions, or for reposts? The tags solve that problem and let people filter that stuff without having to fork it off into a new community. Meanwhile, if in ~games half the posts have the 'elden ring' tag, we know it's time to spin off a ~games.eldenring before the regular folks in ~games go mental.
See, a tag itself is just that, a tag/view of a number of submissions. A tag hasn't got a 'sidebar' or a 'community' attached to it yet, it's just helping collate the data. When a tag is upgraded to a group, that's when it gets a sidebar, community, and trust tracking mechanics to self-select the moderators.
At least that's the theory. By the time we're actually doing all of this stuff I expect things will change as new ideas come in with new people.
That's because, at the moment, Tildes is an unfinished product, without a full range of groups and without a developed group hierarchy. Eventually, groups and sub-groups will form a larger part of...
I feel like there's a bit of redundancy between groups and tags.
That's because, at the moment, Tildes is an unfinished product, without a full range of groups and without a developed group hierarchy. Eventually, groups and sub-groups will form a larger part of Tildes' structure, and tags won't have to take on the task of categorising content in the same way that a sub-group would.
This is exactly how I have felt about tildes and quite a few other 'reddit alternative' sites of the last few years (hell probably going back a decade now). All these sites have decent...
I look at the list of groups, and it is entirely composed of topics that are general interest or topics that appeal to male-tech-enthusiasts. If I recall correctly, the 2021 census for Tildes said it was approximately 85% men to 15% women, and I doubt it has changed much since then. Nor is it much of a mystery as to why. I know the 'philosophy' of Tildes is that groups will be added as there is demand for them, but all that serves to do is exclude people who have interests in topics that aren't listed.
This is exactly how I have felt about tildes and quite a few other 'reddit alternative' sites of the last few years (hell probably going back a decade now). All these sites have decent fundamentals in terms of ui and content/comment posting ability, but they almost all start off super tech-focused. It makes sense, since the type of person yearning for new online forums with in-depth discussion probably skews more towards the younger, tech-ier side, but I think the restrictions on creating groups will hinder tildes' growth if it isn't eased up sometime soon.
People want to talk about all sorts of things that don't neatly fit into one of the curated groups on this site. I understand some of the reasons for not allowing users to make groups, but I think long-term the site will not take off if users aren't allowed to create those multitudes of wacky subreddits that reddit had. Some were stupid and short-lived, others were helpful and lasted for a decade+, but those subreddits were what really made reddit shine in my opinion. They allowed every single person to have an experience that was perfectly tailored to their interests instead of a generic experience catered towards male-tech-enthusiasts like you succinctly summed up.
You're right that Tildes demographics are not very diverse in some ways. Also, we can do little about who decides to join Tildes, what topics they will like, or what they will upvote. But on the...
You're right that Tildes demographics are not very diverse in some ways. Also, we can do little about who decides to join Tildes, what topics they will like, or what they will upvote.
But on the bright side, people here do seem pretty cooperative and will mostly follow along if someone takes the lead.
So, I'd like to point out that anyone can start a pets discussion, and now that we're getting a lot of new users, it will likely succeed. Looks like there hasn't been a discussion topic like that since 2022 so we're overdue, and maybe it will become a regular thing?
Some more details in case someone new decides to do it:
Which group the topic is in doesn't really matter. If it's wrong it will be moved. I might put it in ~talk or ~hobbies or even put it in ~misc and let someone else decide.
Then it's a matter of writing an engaging title (maybe "what pets do you have?") and a welcoming introduction, and some basic ground rules if you think it's needed (probably not in this case).
I'm not going to start it because I have other interests and other topics to mind, but that doesn't mean someone else can't.
I actually largely agree with you, and I'm saying this as someone who more or less has enjoyed Tildes in my few years of being here. I would love to see this place more diverse, and I would...
I actually largely agree with you, and I'm saying this as someone who more or less has enjoyed Tildes in my few years of being here. I would love to see this place more diverse, and I would especially like new perspectives and types of conversations being held here. My view on this has actually come around a bit. I think when I initially joined I would have argued for this to be a place for "high-minded" discussion, but I think that view is actually too narrow to capture what is actually important in our interactions online. In "real life" we have meaningful, impactful discussion about a whole host of topics, not just ones that are "intellectual" in some sense. I see no reason that shouldn't be the case here. Subjectively, I actually think the community has loosened up over the last few years and there is more of an appetite for such conversations now than when it was just getting its footing.
So I agree that attracting more and more diverse users would be great. I think I disagree partially about adding groups like ~pets (for example) pre-emptively in an effort to attract people, only because I think that places way too much emphasis on the presence or non-presence of a group as being relevant to the types of discussions we are allowed to have here. People can and should totally post about pets here anyway even the absence of groups, and the same goes for whatever other topics come up. As long as they're posted in a group that is semi-relevant, and potentially tagged accordingly, I don't think that would be looked down upon. I think this is one difference between this space and Reddit, at least for now. You don't need to wait for a specialized space to post about a topic, you can just post about it! That's my view on it at least.
In any case I think yours is a really important perspective because ultimately I think communities really start to form when people are comfortable engaging with each other in more personal and perhaps informal ways. I don't think this is asking Tildes to lower its bar, but rather expand its definition of what counts as "quality" discussion.
I think adding pets, parenting, and relationship groups would be very valuable. You had mentioned that women tend to be active in these kind of boards. I don't know how active I would be in them...
I think adding pets, parenting, and relationship groups would be very valuable. You had mentioned that women tend to be active in these kind of boards. I don't know how active I would be in them (I don't have a pet, I'm burned out by parenting my tweens, and other people's dramas don't really resonated that much with me). However, and this is my gender bias as a woman, I was always so surprised in the subreddit Skincare Addiction that quite often (maybe more than half?) of the posts with photos about skincare concerns came from men. Amd that there would often be posts by men proudly showing off shelfies or skincare and grooming routines in the AsianBeauty subreddit, too. So maybe there are many men waiting for someone to start up these softer topic groups.
ETA: I read a little further down. @Algernon_Asimov pointed out that ~life covers parenting and relationships. They may have their own subgroups in the future.
Wow. This resonates with me. I worked in an IT-adjacent career for a decade, but I was never a developer and I was brought in because of my expertise in non-computing areas. I'm not a tech-bro, by...
My wife, who is not male or a software engineer, etc., tried to get into this website as well, but often felt like she was being talked down to or excluded. [...] Yet, when she commented, it often didn't fit the preconceptions of those here. At best, her input was often ignored, and at worst, even outright dismissed and admonished.
Wow. This resonates with me. I worked in an IT-adjacent career for a decade, but I was never a developer and I was brought in because of my expertise in non-computing areas. I'm not a tech-bro, by any means. I feel your wife's situation. I've had moments here like that myself. (Most recently, just a couple of months ago.)
But, I keep hoping that, as Tildes grows, it will attract people with more diverse interests, and I would eventually find a more compatible crowd.
Well I am a 65 year old woman with no advanced computer skills. I am somewhat fluent with technology as I was married years ago to a computer engineer. I learned a lot and it has served me well. I...
Well I am a 65 year old woman with no advanced computer skills.
I am somewhat fluent with technology as I was married years ago to a computer engineer. I learned a lot and it has served me well.
I just keep posting questions/comments about subjects that are relevant to me and my life. The advanced tech stuff is not something I can properly understand even when I read it LOL!
For the record, Reddit was originally like this (and IIRC /r/programming was a default subreddit and also the... second? biggest). This disappeared as it grew, so it's quite likely that Tildes...
I don't know what the most recent user survey/census has said, but I recall this site being dominated by white, male, software engineer/computer science/IT professionals. Which, there is nothing wrong with being that, but it makes all the conversations very one-note (and there is a tendency to talk outside wheelhouses with unearned expertise and authority).
For the record, Reddit was originally like this (and IIRC /r/programming was a default subreddit and also the... second? biggest). This disappeared as it grew, so it's quite likely that Tildes will change likewise.
I disagree. Strongly. Tildes needs to grow, but it needs to grow in a controlled way. Tildes currently has only about 15,000 registered users, and probably only 10% (or less) of those users are...
I think the invite-only would need to be lifted for any serious growth.
I disagree. Strongly. Tildes needs to grow, but it needs to grow in a controlled way. Tildes currently has only about 15,000 registered users, and probably only 10% (or less) of those users are active. That's about 1,500 users at most.
The current users have built up a culture here, which I like (even if I think it's too small). A massive influx of thousands of users from Reddit would drown out that culture and obliterate it.
New users need to be added gradually, with each new wave of users being smaller than the current user base, and each new wave having time to acculturate before letting in the next wave.
Otherwise, this won't be Tildes any more. It'll be Reddit 2.0. Which would be a failure.
Growth is good, but too much growth, too fast, would be bad.
Yeah. The invite process also allows the inviting member to explain how Tildes is different from reddit, link them to the docs page, etc. If it were a free sign up, I bet a lot more users would...
Yeah. The invite process also allows the inviting member to explain how Tildes is different from reddit, link them to the docs page, etc. If it were a free sign up, I bet a lot more users would ignore the documentation.
I wasn't talking about numbers from the perspective of Reddit, but from the perspective of Tildes. It would take only a few thousand new members arriving at the same time to overwhelm and...
I'm not an expert in this area at all, but I think "thousands" could be a massive understatement
I wasn't talking about numbers from the perspective of Reddit, but from the perspective of Tildes. It would take only a few thousand new members arriving at the same time to overwhelm and outnumber the existing active users on Tildes. So, obviously, if any significant number of redditors migrated here at one time, that would potentially have a detrimental effect on Tildes.
I think your proposal would counteract the broader acculturation process I think needs to happen with new users. New users need to always be in the minority, and to be exposed to older users and...
I think your proposal would counteract the broader acculturation process I think needs to happen with new users. New users need to always be in the minority, and to be exposed to older users and their way of doing things. New users need to assimilate, to keep the culture of Tildes and to enable it to change in an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, way.
Your proposal would group new users with other new users, rather than with old users. If a batch of new users come over from Reddit, they'd be grouped into a neighbourhood with other new users from Reddit - and they would continue their Reddit-ish behaviour because they're still surrounded by people who prefer and encourage that behaviour. That would prevent them from learning the different culture of Tildes.
Thanks for the feedback! That's a real risk and an excellent point. Perhaps it could be randomized into groups instead of just by signup date - that way, a mixture of old-timers and new users...
Thanks for the feedback!
That's a real risk and an excellent point. Perhaps it could be randomized into groups instead of just by signup date - that way, a mixture of old-timers and new users could be there. More is said elsewhere in discussions and I link there to avoid repeating over and over.
I'm down for evolution vs revolution (hell, I'm brand new, and I know it), but the challenge of scale will eventually be such that it is not always an option. Reinforcing that culture with structure is the key to keeping that culture intact.
Ironically, the larger Tildes becomes, the easier it will be to maintain its culture: there'll be more old users supporting the existing culture, compared to a proportionally smaller number of...
the challenge of scale will eventually be such that it is not always an option.
Ironically, the larger Tildes becomes, the easier it will be to maintain its culture: there'll be more old users supporting the existing culture, compared to a proportionally smaller number of users bringing in outside cultures.
Reinforcing that culture with structure is the key to keeping that culture intact.
That was the initial plan. There was a lot of talk in the early years about how to use software, coding, and algorithms to underpin the desired culture here. Maybe that discussion would start up again if Tildes grew consistently and significantly.
I don't find that to be the case, and I know of several counter examples. /r/CFB, about which I have spent much time praising and identifying challenges, had tens of thousands of members who "got...
the larger Tildes becomes, the easier it will be to maintain its culture
I don't find that to be the case, and I know of several counter examples. /r/CFB, about which I have spent much time praising and identifying challenges, had tens of thousands of members who "got it." It was a delightful and intimate place that slowly grew, until it outgrew those people. Compound interest is rough, and growing at 44.7%/year means that the original folks get drowned out. It's ~100x larger now than when I joined, which was around 15-20k folks. That really good group is totally diluted...The culture is still there in some sense, but the intimacy is gone.
initial plan
I hope it does continue to discuss. My suggestions should be taken in the spirit of a newcomer trying to think about new issues. I like it here and want to do my part to help it stay consistent, even as things change. Community is hard to maintain with growth, and, if growth is seen as a good and/or inevitable thing, keeping that community intact will be a challenge that I think is underestimated.
This is why I keep emphasising that Tildes must grow but slowly. New users need to always be in the minority, and each new wave of new users needs to time to acculturate before bringing in more...
Compound interest is rough, and growing at 44.7%/year means that the original folks get drowned out.
This is why I keep emphasising that Tildes must grow but slowly. New users need to always be in the minority, and each new wave of new users needs to time to acculturate before bringing in more new users.
I've seen the Eternal September effect in action over on Reddit many times. I've also moderated some subreddits that managed to stay true to their original vision of discussion over memes, depth over shallowness, even while growing. Of course, those required lots of active moderators - and the proposed moderation model for Tildes incorporated communal moderation, with trusted users having more moderation abilities, so that long-term users would have more influence over the culture than newcomers.
I've actually been thinking that the name of efforts to preserve culture could be called "eternal August" or the like. As for the rate of growth...I dunno, man, it seems like a number of folks...
I've actually been thinking that the name of efforts to preserve culture could be called "eternal August" or the like.
As for the rate of growth...I dunno, man, it seems like a number of folks I've met around here say it's great but growing too slowly for them. Lots of 2018/2019-members seem to be asking what the plan is. Shrug I think that the August-style culture can stay despite growth of >20%/year with the right structural barriers...but even 2%/year will inevitably lead to September changes without them, and no amount of slow-walking growth will prevent it.
As a proxy, I've been referring to the number of users subscribed to ~tildes.official. Every new user is automatically subscribed to all groups, and that's the group which people are least likely...
As a proxy, I've been referring to the number of users subscribed to ~tildes.official. Every new user is automatically subscribed to all groups, and that's the group which people are least likely to unsubscribe from.
However, I've recently learned that a regular contributor here (@Bauke) has created an external website to track this statistic: https://ts.bauke.xyz/
Yeah, I've never been vocal about this I don't think, but I don't want the site to change too much. I disagree that the invite only should be lifted. I don't think we should gate-keep the website,...
Yeah, I've never been vocal about this I don't think, but I don't want the site to change too much. I disagree that the invite only should be lifted. I don't think we should gate-keep the website, invites are handed out pretty openly, but I don't want Tildes to be overrun by people who haven't read the Wiki and don't understand the general purpose of platform. I'm happy that there's been a migration to Tildes with Reddit's recent changes, and I welcome all of these new folks, but opening the floodgates would make user moderation unmanageable I suspect.
Same, since the day I joined I always enjoyed my time here. Tildes was never even close to dead, it might not have been the most active but I didn't mind at all. I like the invite only model,...
Same, since the day I joined I always enjoyed my time here. Tildes was never even close to dead, it might not have been the most active but I didn't mind at all. I like the invite only model, people who want to join can join and it keeps the growth to a manageable level.
I am also happy to see all the new people though, seems to be a lot of good folk! And if having more activity means I won't read basically everything that isn't a bad thing anyways :D.
I still find myself in the habit of feeling like I can read everything, I need to remind myself that at some point (maybe now?) that will need to stop!
I still find myself in the habit of feeling like I can read everything, I need to remind myself that at some point (maybe now?) that will need to stop!
I think yesterday was the very first day in my over 5 years on here that I was not able to read every comment made on the site for that day. So I have already found myself making the switch to...
I think yesterday was the very first day in my over 5 years on here that I was not able to read every comment made on the site for that day. So I have already found myself making the switch to only viewing topics and reading comment threads that pique my interest. It was kind of a nice feeling. :)
I feel a bit sad that I can't read every single post anymore (I don't mean reading the links, just checking out the posts). It's a little bittersweet, but we all wanted Tildes to have more users...
I feel a bit sad that I can't read every single post anymore (I don't mean reading the links, just checking out the posts). It's a little bittersweet, but we all wanted Tildes to have more users so I'm not complaining.
Well, me too. It has been 5 years of a very relaxing website - I almost feel stressed trying to keep up right now! I am very optimistic and hopeful about the future of Tildes though
Well, me too. It has been 5 years of a very relaxing website - I almost feel stressed trying to keep up right now! I am very optimistic and hopeful about the future of Tildes though
I find your take sensible and interesting. I think there was some minor concern in the early days about the invite system and alts, but I don't think there are any rules against alts. The main...
I find your take sensible and interesting. I think there was some minor concern in the early days about the invite system and alts, but I don't think there are any rules against alts. The main concerns would be using the alts to engage in bad faith dialogue or vote manipulation. I think we've run into that issue once before, and it was dealt with swiftly. I'm not sure if @Deimos has a mechanism on the back end to detect such things, but the heavy emphasis on good faith dialogue (I hope) has kept this at bay.
There are some rules regarding alts, but they're all just restrictions on using them in bad faith.
There are some rules regarding alts, but they're all just restrictions on using them in bad faith.
Multiple accounts
You may register and use multiple Tildes accounts, but do not:
Use additional accounts for the purpose of deceiving others, such as by replying to your own posts from different accounts to create the illusion of support.
Use additional accounts to manipulate site mechanics beyond what you could do with a single account. For example, do not vote multiple times on the same post, or vote on your own posts.
I would like to post more, but if I lowered my threshold for things I share I would end up sharing more negatively-toned content. And that’s simply not what I want to be putting out into the...
I would like to post more, but if I lowered my threshold for things I share I would end up sharing more negatively-toned content. And that’s simply not what I want to be putting out into the world.
Though to be honest I was thinking about posting the last FD Signifier video, since I felt like not everyone quite understood some of his meaning on the last video of his I posted. The only reason why I didn’t was because I saw it several weeks after he published it and wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested who hasn’t already seen it.
That was the turn off for me when I joined back in 2020. Now it seems like that problem is solved for the time being, though I suspect it can't continue if the invite system stays in place...
That was the turn off for me when I joined back in 2020. Now it seems like that problem is solved for the time being, though I suspect it can't continue if the invite system stays in place indefinitely. Of course doing away with that would probably cause the site to need more than one admin, with all of the reddit refugees.
I'm certainly tuning in to see how this goes now :)
I would eventually like a front page sorting method that takes into account more than just threads with recent comments. Obviously not a profit-driven engagement algo but something that requires...
I would eventually like a front page sorting method that takes into account more than just threads with recent comments. Obviously not a profit-driven engagement algo but something that requires more activity in a thread before sending it to the top of the front page.
An activity rating that's weighted against the post's previous activity would be nice. I care more about a post with two comments getting one more comment than I do a post with two hundred...
An activity rating that's weighted against the post's previous activity would be nice. I care more about a post with two comments getting one more comment than I do a post with two hundred comments getting five more comments. Same with votes.
Pretty much what I had in mind. It would take into account metrics like number of new comments, timestamps of new comments, date of the original post, ratio of new comments to total comments, etc.
Pretty much what I had in mind. It would take into account metrics like number of new comments, timestamps of new comments, date of the original post, ratio of new comments to total comments, etc.
What you're describing is essentially an algorithm that is not unlike what you see in major social media. They are meant to increase addiction and engagement at all costs. Personally, I'm not sure...
What you're describing is essentially an algorithm that is not unlike what you see in major social media. They are meant to increase addiction and engagement at all costs.
Personally, I'm not sure that would be a good fit.
I think calling it an algorithm is a bit generous. activity_ratio = new_comments/total_comments and then sort descending by activity_ratio. It's completely agnostic of user behaviour and only...
I think calling it an algorithm is a bit generous.
activity_ratio = new_comments/total_comments
and then sort descending by activity_ratio. It's completely agnostic of user behaviour and only requires data that is already on-hand.
I'm with you on this. The "bumping" system of old-school forums is one of the things that enabled a site like Reddit to supplant them. I like it as an option, but most of the time what I'm...
I'm with you on this. The "bumping" system of old-school forums is one of the things that enabled a site like Reddit to supplant them. I like it as an option, but most of the time what I'm interested in seeing isn't whatever post has a new comment.
This isn't a criticism, more of a thought experiment about the future. I was requested to share the main text of this comment by /u/Parliament in a thread here. I've lightly edited it to provide a...
Exemplary
This isn't a criticism, more of a thought experiment about the future. I was requested to share the main text of this comment by /u/Parliament in a thread here. I've lightly edited it to provide a slight expansion of my thoughts, and some context about what prompted my inquiries.
I hope this community grows, and grows a lot. I joined Reddit originally because of their /r/CFB community, and had a lot of fun getting to know folks. I've spent some time thinking about how community works in online spaces. I joined when there were <15k subs to /r/CFB, and I felt like the most active ~2% all knew each other well, all the way up to about 100k folks. (Fortunately for me, that took three years.) When we passed that point, it felt like we had more folks than I could keep track of, like my fun space with friends was slowly disappearing. I had some friendships I made on /r/CFB that I took offline, and remain in touch with those folks today. I slowly trailed off my commenting and posting...My effort decreased dramatically as the population increased. Now, it's about once every ten posts or so I see someone I recognize from way back. This actually prompted my post (linked above) trying to find old friends with new names and a new website. Usually, they were good folks, people I understood, people who contributed meaningfully to the discussion. Now, it's a lot of spam and random nonsense. Things weren't always better way back. Things were smaller, way back. And that made a feeling of community. Now, with nearly two million subscribers, I feel the same disaffection that those familiar to small towns must feel when they go to big cities - it's not my place, and I know nobody, and it's kind of overwhelming trying to find a familiar face.
This prompted me to think about a way to make big communities feel smaller, and I think I may have found a way. The answer to keeping a community isn't limiting growth (that's just shooting yourself in the foot), but it's finding a smaller circle within a larger community. If you could have an algorithm for sorting comments that puts "neighbors" near each other and higher in the ranking, you'd make more relatable conversations, because the same few hundred folks will appear first in your comments, so you can build up your jokes. If you had a community of (eg) 1 million folks, you could show those within 1k subscriptions of you (+-500 subscriptions) first, then 10k, then 100k - that way the top 5, 10, and 100 users (assuming 1% participate) appear in the comments before all else. You'd meet your "neighbros" (a typo, but one that I like) and build up relationships with them first.
An alternative could be to match with new users as they join, to slowly and evenly build up the numbers of people in different neighborhoods, guaranteeing fresh ideas mix in, but keeping continuity too. Taken to an extreme, you could super-deprecate or even totally hide those "far away" for you, so it's harder to see them without searching for them - that way, all can participate, but you get your neighbors first. It should also be that the OP can see all comments roughly evenly, and that any hiding or super-deprecation would be removed, so they can get the broadest feedback on their post, but that's easy to do.
This idea is actually inspired by Michigan State University, where I attended for my undergraduate degrees. MSU has a "neighborhood" system, in which different sub-communities (East, South, Red Cedar, North, and Brody) have all the necessities nearby (convenience stores, cafeterias, health stuff, classrooms, meeting spaces, etc), but you can still access the other neighborhood facilities. You naturally will spend more time in your own neighborhood because of convenience, and get to know folks there. MSU is a big campus, both by area and population, but they make it feel smaller/more accessible by having the neighborhoods. I lived in South and then East Neighborhoods. They felt different and culturally distinct, but still accessible, even though they were at opposite corners of the campus.
I miss the old days of /r/CFB and Reddit more generally. I'd love it if Tildes could grow, but I'd like it to grow in a way that doesn't dilute the sense of community that I already immediately feel.
Great writeup! I had a similar thought a while back about creating that "small group" feel even on a site with a lot of users. But first, a story: When I first started working, I had a boss that,...
Great writeup!
I had a similar thought a while back about creating that "small group" feel even on a site with a lot of users.
But first, a story:
When I first started working, I had a boss that, during every staff meeting, always had some sort of group activity that she'd implement through randomly assigned groups. We'd come in to the meeting, sitting where we liked, and then after announcements and whatnot, she'd regroup us and we'd have to get up and sit with a new group. Sometimes the task was light and ice-breaker-y; sometimes it was something more substantial.
At first, I kind of hated the process. It seemed overbearing, and as a new person on staff, I just kind of wanted to fade into the background, but having to go to small groups of strangers made it certain that I'd be "seen" every single meeting.
Turns out, of course, that was kind of the point. By the end of my first year, I legitimately knew everyone on staff and had had individual, personal conversations with each. I had a good idea of personalities and preferences and, equally important, they had a good idea of me.
I've now worked at other places that haven't done this, and the utility and advantages of the exercises are completely clear to me. There are people on my current staff that I've still never spoken to despite being there for years. Some people I'm not even sure I can name correctly! Plus, there are things like entrenched social standings and cliques and whatnot. That's not to say that random grouping would solve that, but it would almost certainly have a sort of mediating effect by making everyone more comfortable with everyone.
Anyway, back to the idea:
When Tildes was younger and it wasn't quite clear how many people we would have (I guess with this new influx we've returned to that state!), I thought about the random grouping idea. Take however many active users are on the site, break them up into groups of say, 100, and give them each access to a group (maybe something like ~peers). Everybody's ~peers feed would then only be seen by the 99 other users in that group. Additionally, it wouldn't have to be "deeper" or more meaningful stuff, but could function as a lighter, chattier side to the site.
At the end of the month, everybody's peers shuffle, the group posts get cleared, and everybody starts the next month, fresh, with a new group.
While it wouldn't necessarily let everyone get to know everyone, especially if we have large numbers of active users, I do think it would help the site from just being a cascade of unknown strangers and let people start to develop specific ideas of who are behind all the usernames out there.
I've had a similarly positive experience with pair programming. When done right, you spend time with everyone on the team, learn about all areas of the codebase, and pick up coding tips from each...
I've had a similarly positive experience with pair programming. When done right, you spend time with everyone on the team, learn about all areas of the codebase, and pick up coding tips from each other. It was a much faster "orientation" for someone new than other jobs I've had since.
Some downsides were needing to be at work at the same time, and we would take breaks and eat lunch at the same times. (But I would not expect much sympathy from a teacher on those!)
Getting back to Tildes, I think usernames are not enough to help people remember other users (particularly now) and some kind of badge system might help.
Personally I’d really like a tagging system for users similar to what you get through Reddit Enhancement Suite. Makes it easier to remember some notes about people!
Personally I’d really like a tagging system for users similar to what you get through Reddit Enhancement Suite. Makes it easier to remember some notes about people!
Thanks for the feedback! My idea was more just a presentation of a philosophy on community and a possible answer to the challenge - I'm glad to hear you've thought about this too :) I'm going to...
Thanks for the feedback! My idea was more just a presentation of a philosophy on community and a possible answer to the challenge - I'm glad to hear you've thought about this too :) I'm going to provide some limited (off the cuff) responses to your comments, for the purposes of continuing the conversation, not to criticize.
Re: "~peers"
I get the desire to "mix it up," and think that's good for making sure folks don't get too set in their ways, but the mixing up of ~peers groups would just seem to be a way to dissolve group identities every month, rather than support them. Also, what is the incentive of visiting ~peers to build a culture that is ephemeral? In a space that is bigger than all of us, I think folks would tend towards a consistent (even if slowly growing) space more than a temporary one. One of the benefits of my proposal(s) is that you can have the site-wide experience (like a city) but have your own little neighborhood nestled within it. Keep in mind that my proposal(s) don't preclude inter-neighborhood participation, it just re-sorts/prioritizes the voices nearby to you so that you get a more consistent subset of the users.
I feel like the loss I felt as /r/CFB grew was mostly driven by simply the volume of users that joined. In a workplace, mixing it up is perfect, because you can reasonably get to know a few dozen folks intimately in that context...When you have hundreds of thousands of users (and therefore thousands of active users, even at a ~1% participation rate), it's impossible.
I hope you didn't take my idea as a rebuttal to yours! I like your idea (we're thinking along the same lines), I was more sharing how I approached the issue. My idea definitely wouldn't work for...
I hope you didn't take my idea as a rebuttal to yours! I like your idea (we're thinking along the same lines), I was more sharing how I approached the issue.
My idea definitely wouldn't work for very large user counts, but I was envisioning it more with Tildes' smaller community, where you'll still see and notice posts from users from your ~peers groups around the site afterwards and maybe understand/interact with them differently as a result of the more casual connections made. You're absolutely right though that, for very large userbases, everyone just disappears into the crowd and it's counterproductive.
The ephemeral and randomized aspects made sense to me at the time for two reasons. Ephemeral posts fit with Tildes privacy-forward ethos, and also I thought that one of the issues with post histories on sites is how they would get weaponized. How many times has someone posted something on reddit/Twitter only for someone to go profile digging to pull a gotcha quote from three years ago on them? Ephemeral posting was a way around that, and I felt it would let people have their guard down a bit more, which would lead to better connections.
The good news on that front is that I've literally never seen that behavior on Tildes. I used to think the problem was the existence of post histories themselves, but I think I've now come down on the side of the issue being a social norm that supports and validates that type of behavior.
As for the recurring, randomized aspect, my worry was that standing, unchanging groups would lead to cliques, tribalism, and in-group/out-group type dynamics, which is often great for a specific few people but can be caustic to a wider community. Right now I'm hyper-aware of the fact that this site could easily become "the old vs. the new" and that's something I absolutely do not want to happen. I want us to all be "us", all together.
Anyway, I say all of this again not as rebuttals to what you're saying (you bring up great points!) but more to show my thinking at how I arrived at the idea.
I definitely understand your want for a "neighborhood" feel. I think that's why a lot of us who have been on Tildes for a while now like it so much. With maybe a few hundred active users on the regular, a lot of us have gotten to know each other to a level that would never happen on a more crowded or popular network. I'm hoping that feel continues and the many people joining, yourself included, get to feel that feeling as well. I'd love for this place to be the new /r/CFB for you, and if it doesn't happen with our current setup, I hope we can change things to effect that.
Far from it :) I just gave the disclaimer, as I am trained in "full contact theory," where you go as hard as you can into an idea, and sometimes folks mistaken that for being critical personally...
I hope you didn't take my idea as a rebuttal to yours! I like your idea (we're thinking along the same lines), I was more sharing how I approached the issue.
Far from it :) I just gave the disclaimer, as I am trained in "full contact theory," where you go as hard as you can into an idea, and sometimes folks mistaken that for being critical personally or professionally. On the contrary, I wanted to provide sharp ideas for better fleshing out of the areas of overlap and disagreement alike! Think about it like turning up the brightness on a lamp as we make shadow puppets on the wall - it is easier to see the outlines if we have a brighter contrast.
smaller community
Fair enough! It could be a good testbed on a site of this size - perhaps make it groups of 1000, up to 100,000? So we'd start with 14 (okay, 15, since it's slightly over) groups of ~965 members (assuming 14,500 tildos). Then, every month, we'd reshuffle and join in more groups as folks add.
ephemeral
I think it's useful to have some memory - maybe a "Tildes Enhancement Suite" could help bookmark the issues - because abusers get called out. Like, I get how info can be weaponized, but at the same time, I want to make sure that we don't get long-term memory totally evaporated. There is a time for memory and a time for forgetting, and both are important as a community grows. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel (philosophically) about the forgetfulness of Tildes. I think I like the idea in concept as it limits the commercialization of my work...But it has downsides.
If anything, I'd suggest that the ephemeral nature of the site suggests keeping groups together is wise - that way, folks can note trends, raise alarm bells, etc...Abuse hides in anonymity and obscurity. Memory and openness are the ways you can prevent it from persisting. If there is one thing I know I won't miss in Reddit, it's the toxicity of main subs and racist/sexist/queerphobic hellholes that festered. It's a balance, of course, since too little mixing (or diversity to begin with) can lead to the same toxicity we seek to prevent, but moving folks around sounds a bit like the way to (accidentally) hide abusive folks.
recurring, randomized
A little out of order here... But yes, I get the inclination.
I think that by having the broadest and most random assortment of users arranged in overlapping non-tribal groups, we can probably address this. It's one thing if we have team yellow and team purple, it's another if it's a spectrum of all the colors in between, too!
good news
I'm glad to hear that. Nobody wants witch hunts, unless there are actual witches XD TBH, Tildes feels good and optimistic for now. I think it is naive to suggest there won't be growing pains if/when it grows...and I'm a part of that problem as a newbie...but there can be strategic cultural discussions right now to limit that.
Final paragraph
So far, Tildes feels a lot like what /r/CFB was in its heyday. I even argued for /r/trueCFB to remain closed, since it was the old-timers super-secret hangout/treehouse. I miss that community that was and will never be again. Even if it's terrible inside jokes like /u/trimchaser's post history (don't ask)... To be clear, I'm not trying to change Tildes, I'm trying to help identify what I see as challenges in the future that will make it change unwittingly. Tildes growing is good and necessary in the long-run, but keeping the same ethic may require changes in how community is implemented. Keeping the way it feels now as it scales is non-trivial, and I'm excited to hopefully help play a role in keeping this place a little bit special :)
FWIW my anthropology professor in college made a broadly similar point to university leadership in a discussion about how to foster greater espirit de corps among alumni (and draw more donations...
FWIW my anthropology professor in college made a broadly similar point to university leadership in a discussion about how to foster greater espirit de corps among alumni (and draw more donations from them). His argument was that the university itself was too large for people to feel a strong sense of community with it, so what actually forms peoples' sense of the university community is the micro-communities they form while there. So he said alumni networks would be stronger if people were encouraged to form student groups for whatever areas of interest they had. This is one of the arguments for why universities with very strong Greek life tend to have very dedicated alumni networks.
So all of that to say, yes I think you're onto something. Though I'm not sure how we'd get from "here" to "there" with something like this. It's really something you'd need to pilot with a smaller group within a bigger group. Reddit did those April Fools events, like when they did Team Orangered vs. Team Periwinkle thing, that would have actually been a great test case for something like this. Just assign active redditors to a "neighborhood" and see what happens within their "neighborhood" sub. I'm not sure Tildes is big enough to pull an experiment like that off though.
Thanks for the feedback! I agree, Tildes is too small right now. To be honest, this is the kind of perfect size for one neighborhood - dividing would make it feel too empty.
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree, Tildes is too small right now. To be honest, this is the kind of perfect size for one neighborhood - dividing would make it feel too empty.
There are things I don't like about Tildes, but at the same time I know there are good reasons why those things are the way they are so it's not like I'm unsatisfied with how it is being run. One...
There are things I don't like about Tildes, but at the same time I know there are good reasons why those things are the way they are so it's not like I'm unsatisfied with how it is being run.
One of those things was a lack of users, which is being solved as we speak.
I wish @deimos communicated a bit more because it feels a bit weird that the responsible for the website does not engage with the community, but at the same time it is hard for me to even imagine the amount of craziness he has to deal with it and I honestly don't think I could do any better myself. That said, his actions are always on point, sensible and utterly correct, but a little bit of dialog would go a long way to smooth things out even further in my opinion.
If that's not reason enough, I'd love to hear what's on your mind!
I suspect he's moved on. When he started Tildes, he was between jobs. He told us, back in the long ago, that if he couldn't get Tildes to turn a profit, he would have to go get an honest job....
I suspect he's moved on. When he started Tildes, he was between jobs. He told us, back in the long ago, that if he couldn't get Tildes to turn a profit, he would have to go get an honest job. Tildes didn't turn a profit, so I assume Deimos got a day job which is keeping him busy.
I think "moved on" makes it sound more drastic than it is—I'm still here every day, but I just don't really post anywhere any more (on Tildes or any other platform). Since I haven't been doing any...
I think "moved on" makes it sound more drastic than it is—I'm still here every day, but I just don't really post anywhere any more (on Tildes or any other platform). Since I haven't been doing any active development on Tildes there isn't really much of significance to communicate about either.
The reality is just that everything takes time. You're right that I have a full-time job now, and I'm also married, and own a house, and have friends and hobbies, and so on. For the time I'm spending related to Tildes recently, it's usually dealing with the various stuff in the background that needs to happen, instead of posting. For example, I've currently got over 200 unread emails from the last couple days that I'd like to get through most of today. They're mostly invite requests which don't take long, but it all adds up.
Tildes may not be the main thing in my life any more like it was for those first few years, but there's still rarely a day when I'm not doing something related to it.
Have you thought about looking for volunteers to help with some of the back end work and/or maybe even helping with some development work so the site can have new releases and new features in the...
Have you thought about looking for volunteers to help with some of the back end work and/or maybe even helping with some development work so the site can have new releases and new features in the future?
Hi, I’m one of the newbies. Are there additional admins and moderators here outside of Deimos? It’s completely understandable that he has his own life that he has to maintain but the concern as a...
Hi, I’m one of the newbies. Are there additional admins and moderators here outside of Deimos? It’s completely understandable that he has his own life that he has to maintain but the concern as a new user would be that there isn’t anybody there to take the torch if he fully moves on.
Also, as a full stack dev I’ll have to take a look at the repo to see if there is anything I can contribute or help with.
Some light housekeeping duties are done by other volunteer members of the community. This includes curating tags, maintaining a wiki and an issue tracker in the Git repo, and a few other things....
Some light housekeeping duties are done by other volunteer members of the community. This includes curating tags, maintaining a wiki and an issue tracker in the Git repo, and a few other things. But right now the moderation work is handled by Deimos. AFAIK his intention was to flesh out his ideas for a community-moderated site based largely on a reputation/trust system but he never got around to it and the site never got big enough to where it was a major issue aside from some one-off occurrences.
His view may change if it grows beyond what he feels he can manage on his own, but I expect if he ever does expand moderation/admin privileges it will be to people he trusts to follow through on his philosophy.
I'm actually new here too so I haven't contributed anything, but I poked around a bit in the repo. There was also some discussion here about how people new to the codebase can contribute and how...
I'm actually new here too so I haven't contributed anything, but I poked around a bit in the repo. There was also some discussion here about how people new to the codebase can contribute and how to pick an issue to work on.
Overall the codebase is 90% Python and a little Javascript. I haven't contributed anything yet but I think it would be quite nice to do so, since I mostly deal with Python day-to-day anyway (though I'm in the DS/ML domain rather than web things - but hey, it's a learning opportunity :P).
You could also read through the development docs, there's useful guidance on how to get set up with the codebase there.
There's only the one admin: @Deimos. There are a few other developers. As for moderators, there are quite a few people with the power to do librarian-tasks like move posts from one group to...
Are there additional admins and moderators here outside of Deimos?
As for moderators, there are quite a few people with the power to do librarian-tasks like move posts from one group to another, to add and edit posts on tags, and that sort of thing. But, only @Deimos has the ability to remove posts or comments, or take any action against users.
Sadly the repo looks kinda dead, only 1 very minor maintenance commit in the last year. There are open merge requests that have stagnated themselves for years. It doesn't appear to be a very...
Sadly the repo looks kinda dead, only 1 very minor maintenance commit in the last year. There are open merge requests that have stagnated themselves for years. It doesn't appear to be a very dynamic open-source project.
If a site is feature-complete, does it need perpetual changes? Tildes, as a end user, has not significantly changed since I joined years ago. There have been some QoL changes, but nothing...
If a site is feature-complete, does it need perpetual changes?
Tildes, as a end user, has not significantly changed since I joined years ago. There have been some QoL changes, but nothing astronomical. The core end user experience has been stable.
And that's a good thing. Tildes' hardest problems are social ones. You can't solve social problems with technical solutions until you've solved it socially.
I was a bit worried when you began pulling back, but I'm glad to know that it's just life's usual obligations and a shifting of priorities. Thanks for sharing, and sorry if you felt your arm was...
I was a bit worried when you began pulling back, but I'm glad to know that it's just life's usual obligations and a shifting of priorities. Thanks for sharing, and sorry if you felt your arm was being twisted a little into doing so.
I was speaking metaphorically, as in your interests have moved on to different foci, rather than trying to imply that you'd pass on to a different plane of existence. ;) That, I didn't expect....
I think "moved on" makes it sound more drastic than it is
I was speaking metaphorically, as in your interests have moved on to different foci, rather than trying to imply that you'd pass on to a different plane of existence. ;)
I'm still here every day
That, I didn't expect. Having seen how little you post here, I had assumed that you didn't visit Tildes very often at all. Good to know you're still taking an active interest.
If Tildes were to start growing again, how would you handle that?
I don't have specific plans, I think it would need to be decided based on what issues the growth causes (if any). There were plenty of ideas discussed years ago about ways to adjust the site's...
I don't have specific plans, I think it would need to be decided based on what issues the growth causes (if any). There were plenty of ideas discussed years ago about ways to adjust the site's structure/mechanics/etc. if it ended up being necessary, but we never really reached a point where most of them were needed. Maybe it will happen this time, or maybe we'll just drift back down to a stable-feeling state naturally, it's impossible to say at this point.
IMO, implementing the ability for people to subscribe to tags would do a lot to help things stay relatively busy instead of returning to that lower state of activity we've been at for the last few...
IMO, implementing the ability for people to subscribe to tags would do a lot to help things stay relatively busy instead of returning to that lower state of activity we've been at for the last few years. That seems to be the most common feature request/complaint from all the new users. Same with a better way to browse tags instead of having to type them manually or find them in another topic. So if you ever do manage to find the time/motivation to work on some new features, those are the ones I would recommend considering first. ;)
Ouch! That's a big jump in a very short period of time. But, many of those new users will be flashes in the pan. They'll come, look around, be active for a few days, then log out, and move on to...
Ouch! That's a big jump in a very short period of time.
But, many of those new users will be flashes in the pan. They'll come, look around, be active for a few days, then log out, and move on to greener pastures.
Even the 13,000 registered accounts before this recent spike didn't correspond with the number of people actively using Tildes.
Let's see how this pans out in terms of actual activity on the site.
However, if we take the point of view that this spike in sign-ups does correspond to an increase in users and activity, that makes it more urgent for @Deimos to consider how he's going to handle growth on Tildes again - particularly now that he doesn't have as much free time as when he set up this website.
Yep, that's why I'm not too worried right now either. Plus, all the new users actually seem to be really well behaved compared to some of the previous waves. And a LOT of them have mentioned...
many of those new users will be flashes in the pan
Yep, that's why I'm not too worried right now either. Plus, all the new users actually seem to be really well behaved compared to some of the previous waves. And a LOT of them have mentioned loving what they read in the docs (which you wrote a lot of ;), which is a really good sign too.
We'll see. My last foray onto Tildes, a couple of months ago, left a bad taste in my mouth. I only popped in this time because of all the fuss about Reddit's API.
We'll see. My last foray onto Tildes, a couple of months ago, left a bad taste in my mouth. I only popped in this time because of all the fuss about Reddit's API.
Just chiming in to say, nice to see you around! I was wondering a bit ago where you (and some other "old guard") users had gone to. Not that you left, looking at your comment history. I guess what...
Just chiming in to say, nice to see you around! I was wondering a bit ago where you (and some other "old guard") users had gone to. Not that you left, looking at your comment history. I guess what I'm saying is, nice to see a familiar name amongst all the new ones!
I just had a spare 15 minutes, and started browsing some old introduction threads from 2018 & 2019 (because one of them has been bumped into newness). Then I got curious and began clicking on...
I just had a spare 15 minutes, and started browsing some old introduction threads from 2018 & 2019 (because one of them has been bumped into newness). Then I got curious and began clicking on usernames to see their recent posting history.
Wow, there's been a high level of attrition! All those people, all so excited to find Tildes... and most of them dropped off within months, if not weeks. A few lasted a year or two. Less than 1 in 20 users I clicked on is still active, four or five years later.
I did not get your results when I repeated the experiment. A decent number of users I clicked on have been active in the past 2 or 3 months, with some even being active in the last few days. It...
I did not get your results when I repeated the experiment. A decent number of users I clicked on have been active in the past 2 or 3 months, with some even being active in the last few days. It took scrolling decently far down the page to hit a patch of users who had dropped off. Certainly there is attrition on Tildes, but I wonder how much higher it is than sites of comparable nature. I think it might just be more noticeable because, while the percentage might be similar, we have less users in absolute terms.
Ah I'm sorry I misunderstood — I was looking at the post that you had linked in your comment. The "what brought you here" one. I thought that is what you were referencing.
Ah I'm sorry I misunderstood — I was looking at the post that you had linked in your comment. The "what brought you here" one. I thought that is what you were referencing.
Yup. Sadly I’m one of those initial wave flash in the pans but I have hopes that maybe this newest wave will breath some life into the place. I’m trying to do my part though so I’m back with the...
Yup. Sadly I’m one of those initial wave flash in the pans but I have hopes that maybe this newest wave will breath some life into the place.
I’m trying to do my part though so I’m back with the intent to post more regularly now that I have some space in my life to do so.
I thought that might be the case! :) The "what brought you here" thread was just the thread which got bumped, that piqued my interest in those old threads where people talked about themselves and...
I thought that might be the case! :)
The "what brought you here" thread was just the thread which got bumped, that piqued my interest in those old threads where people talked about themselves and their reasons for being here. I then started browsing some old actual introduction threads from 2018 & 2019, and saw an extremely high attrition rate.
Huh... Maybe it's time we applied the brakes for at least few days? 10% of total users are new, and if we take the active slice of users, probably at least 80% of the "active" userbase are new.
Huh... Maybe it's time we applied the brakes for at least few days? 10% of total users are new, and if we take the active slice of users, probably at least 80% of the "active" userbase are new.
Edit: Invite Request Round has been locked for now. New one likely to be posted on the weekend. If @Deimos wants me to I can always lock the invite thread and put another sticky up telling people...
Edit: Invite Request Round has been locked for now. New one likely to be posted on the weekend.
If @Deimos wants me to I can always lock the invite thread and put another sticky up telling people to wait a few days/weeks until the new users get settled in. But I also think those new account numbers are a bit deceiving, since not everyone is actually going to be active here (90:9:1 rule), or even stick around.
Plus, we've had bigger waves in the past, and so far the new users don't seem to be causing many problems. I've only seen a handful of removed comments, and only know of 1 ban so far. In fact, the majority of the new users this wave actually seem to be pretty cognizant of needing to acclimatize before they start regularly contributing.
So, I think if anything might need changing, it's possibly just giving the older users some more comment label weight, just to help keep things organized, reduce the noise, and report issues more effectively.
Alright, will trust your judgment. Thanks for your hard work on the invites also, we have some fantastic new members thanks to your vetting. Just part of me senses that a lot of the long-time...
Alright, will trust your judgment. Thanks for your hard work on the invites also, we have some fantastic new members thanks to your vetting. Just part of me senses that a lot of the long-time Tildos are nearing exhaustion answering the rapid-fire questions and such, and could use a bit of a breather.
Haha. Yeah, possibly. I'm a bit of a weirdo and this has actually done the opposite for me, and rather than tire me out it's invigorated me more than anything. So my judgement may not be the best...
a lot of the long-time Tildos are nearing exhaustion answering the rapid-fire questions and such
Haha. Yeah, possibly. I'm a bit of a weirdo and this has actually done the opposite for me, and rather than tire me out it's invigorated me more than anything. So my judgement may not be the best here. I will listen to all you cooler heads, if more people suggest slowing down.
p.s. I like Tildos too. It's silly, and I think we need a bit more of that here sometimes. ;)
I personally find it kind of invigorating too. There have been plenty of times over the past few years where I've thought to myself, man, I wish Tildes had more activity. Now we have it, and we...
I personally find it kind of invigorating too. There have been plenty of times over the past few years where I've thought to myself, man, I wish Tildes had more activity. Now we have it, and we just need to work on keeping it! I'll be handing out invites until I'm told to stop ;)
As much as I loved our cozy, quiet little Tildes, I’m super jazzed that so many people are joining. I want them to have a community to love like we already do!
As much as I loved our cozy, quiet little Tildes, I’m super jazzed that so many people are joining.
I want them to have a community to love like we already do!
After a conversation with Deimos, the latest Invite Request Round topic has been locked now to give the old users a break from onboarding, and give all the new users time to acclimatize before...
After a conversation with Deimos, the latest Invite Request Round topic has been locked now to give the old users a break from onboarding, and give all the new users time to acclimatize before inviting more.
Yeah, I'm working on that now. E.g. I just noticed we missed a huge batch of requests from over a day ago. I think they were in between where someone else did a batch higher up, and I last left...
Yeah, I'm working on that now. E.g. I just noticed we missed a huge batch of requests from over a day ago. I think they were in between where someone else did a batch higher up, and I last left off. I am sending invites to those ones now. But after that I am going to continue working from oldest remaining to newest. So if you or @gpl want to join in, maybe start from the newest and work to oldest so we meet in the middle?
Is there a succession plan in place? Backups for things like domain registration, security updates, and hosting fees? I know there’s the org but I don’t know how that comes into play with Deimos...
Is there a succession plan in place? Backups for things like domain registration, security updates, and hosting fees?
I know there’s the org but I don’t know how that comes into play with Deimos being what amounts to a BDFL.
Having the comment entry at the bottom of the post is great, until the thread grows too large. I think it should pop up somewhere after you scroll down past the first dozen comments or so, because...
Having the comment entry at the bottom of the post is great, until the thread grows too large. I think it should pop up somewhere after you scroll down past the first dozen comments or so, because at that point if I want to leave a comment I have to deal with the tedium of scrolling quite a ways.
I think this is honestly the biggest adjustment new users make in switching to Tildes. It can be a bit annoying at times, but it is intentional and meant to encourage reading and replying to other...
I think this is honestly the biggest adjustment new users make in switching to Tildes. It can be a bit annoying at times, but it is intentional and meant to encourage reading and replying to other comments before leaving a top level comment of your own.
I think of reading a long thread like opening a section of the newspaper. I’ll sit down and read through it once (and potentially leave my own thoughts along the way). If I still want to leave a top level when Ive reached the problem I do, and then I manage most replies to that from my inbox. If the thread grows a lot after this point I’ll do another read through at that point. So in all I only have to deal with scrolling all the way to the bottom once really. That being said it can still be annoying on mobile 🫣
At first, I couldn't figure out how to make comments (since I never bothered to scroll all the way down). Was confused for a bit how other people were making comments, I thought I lacked that...
At first, I couldn't figure out how to make comments (since I never bothered to scroll all the way down). Was confused for a bit how other people were making comments, I thought I lacked that functionality, then finally discovered it all the way at the bottom, at that point too tired to comment, got frustrated that it was placed in such an inconvenient location, briefly thought about giving feedback about it, then realized scrolling all the way down, past the comments and replies, was part of the point. It's set up inconveniently for my own good, you can say.
But I would like some middle ground that's ideal for especially larger threads that invite more commenting (like ask threads). I can also see it as an issue for posts where I need to reference the content of the post to comment thoughtfully (eg. Long text posts, advice). Perhaps floating reply/comment boxes then once you get to typing...hmm
I'll probably continue primarily using Reddit until some sort of user created group system is implemented (if ever). Ex: On Reddit much of my time is spent in trading subreddits with full time...
I'll probably continue primarily using Reddit until some sort of user created group system is implemented (if ever).
Ex: On Reddit much of my time is spent in trading subreddits with full time traders talking. This just doesn't work as a subcategory/tag in an econ/business oriented group. The issue I have with Tildes is the lack of niche communities for specific areas of interest.
Yeah, that's fair. Tildes adds new subgroups as there's enough activity in a given group that it starts to take over, and thus gets a subgroup so that people who aren't interested in that niche...
Yeah, that's fair. Tildes adds new subgroups as there's enough activity in a given group that it starts to take over, and thus gets a subgroup so that people who aren't interested in that niche can have an experience separate from that specific discussion. You'd have to just be here posting and talking about trading in with everyone else to show that there's interest sufficient to form a separate sub-group like ~finance.investing or ~finance.trading.
Note that we do have ~games.game_design and ~games.tabletop, because there were enough people passionate about those topics that sub-groups needed to form. Likewise ~health.coronavirus, though that one was as much to allow people to quarantine all the discussion over there to keep it off the radar of people who didn't want the stress of seeing all the latest news.
But since you already have a place that meets your needs, you won't be here to show the interest, and so it won't develop.
I definitely wish we could create our own tildes communities. I admin /r/DirtySionMains which is a niche within the game League of Legends for people that play a specific champion. I'd gladly...
I definitely wish we could create our own tildes communities. I admin /r/DirtySionMains which is a niche within the game League of Legends for people that play a specific champion. I'd gladly invite people over to tildes to talk about Sion stuff here. Would probably not belong on the front page though.
Tildes probably won't ever reach such a critical mass that the existing niches on Reddit can thrive here. With that in mind, Tildes isn't meant to be Reddit. In your case something like running an...
Tildes probably won't ever reach such a critical mass that the existing niches on Reddit can thrive here.
With that in mind, Tildes isn't meant to be Reddit. In your case something like running an instance for your community is perhaps a better, if less convenient, way to do things.
I understand the appeal of having all interest groups in one home. But Tildes is very small in the grand scheme of things.
Edit: That reads a little different from how I intended. My thought process was something like:
I also often wish I could transplant all of the communities I am in to Tildes and not have to suffer their current locales. But it wouldn't really work I don't think. It would be neat if Apos managed to move his community to a custom Tildes instance, which is sort of what the codebase is there for, and which, to my knowledge, no one has leveraged.
So if it read as chastising, that was a failure on my part.
I don't think you need critical mass adoption to allow people to create their own communities. For the Sion community, I started it alone, invited a bunch of people, after a while there were 200...
I don't think you need critical mass adoption to allow people to create their own communities. For the Sion community, I started it alone, invited a bunch of people, after a while there were 200 people, then I networked with other main communities, etc. It grew slowly over the years. Now per months there's something like ~30k page views, ~130 new threads, ~1.5k comments.
Being small doesn't prevent allowing people to try stuff and I think it would help the site grow organically. Also it's fine for a niche to exist as a subset of a bigger community without running a standalone site instance.
I'm assuming you mean some kind of financial trading? The way I'd go about it would be to start a megathread about trading in ~finance, seed it with a few interesting links, and if there seems to...
I'm assuming you mean some kind of financial trading? The way I'd go about it would be to start a megathread about trading in ~finance, seed it with a few interesting links, and if there seems to be enough interest, it could become a recurring topic.
And if it goes well, you end up as the de-facto host, but with no special powers. So it's more work and maybe not really worth doing, unless it's a special interest and you're not happy with discussions elsewhere.
But it's unlikely that a really narrow interest would find enough users. I don't post about accordions here, I go to r/accordion or the accordionists forum. (We might have enough users now for a musicians topic.)
Unless Tildes gets big (uncomfortably big) I highly doubt that such niches will be able to thrive here. There simply isn't enough users to warrant such specific interests, I don't think
Unless Tildes gets big (uncomfortably big) I highly doubt that such niches will be able to thrive here. There simply isn't enough users to warrant such specific interests, I don't think
Nothing much that I actively dislike. Just a few things I'd like to see change a bit. Being able to subscribe to just sub-categories/tags would be nice. Maybe with different home page views that...
Nothing much that I actively dislike. Just a few things I'd like to see change a bit.
Being able to subscribe to just sub-categories/tags would be nice. Maybe with different home page views that we can customize with certain groups?
I'd like to see a running count of upvotes I've received. I know there's an aversion to reddit's karma system, but it'd be nice to see more info about a user's contributions on their user page besides comments and posts.
I'd like to see the option for stickied posts in groups. So if I go to ~games, it'd be nice to see the "what are you playing?" recurring post at the very top all the time so I don't have to hunt for the megathreads
Would like to get push notifications when I have a new reply to one of my comments instead of having to refresh the page.
I'd like to be able to submit a post from the front page and choose a group during the post process.
You mean like a total? Yeah I don't see how could we see a total without that becoming exactly the same thing as karma, TBH. Push notifications goes in the opposite direction of having a less...
I'd like to see a running count of upvotes I've received. I know there's an aversion to reddit's karma system, but it'd be nice to see more info about a user's contributions on their user page besides comments and posts
You mean like a total? Yeah I don't see how could we see a total without that becoming exactly the same thing as karma, TBH.
Push notifications goes in the opposite direction of having a less addictive website, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't go well with Tildes philosophy of having a simple page that loads fast and works well in every device with minimal JavaScript.
I'm glad you brought this up. While testing my app so far, I'm finding Tildes is too addictive with all the extra discussions the past few days. Every time I refresh the main feed, there are new...
Push notifications goes in the opposite direction of having a less addictive website
I'm glad you brought this up. While testing my app so far, I'm finding Tildes is too addictive with all the extra discussions the past few days. Every time I refresh the main feed, there are new comments to be read. Push notifications, if not given the proper thought, would make this even worse.
Some things that could help would be hiding or dimming (like gray instead of red) the "(3 new)" comments indicator if the percentage is low. I like @tinselsnips' suggestion about highlighting new activity if it's like 1 new comment out of 5—20% new—while de-emphasizing new comments like 6 out of 200—only 3% new.
Push notifications are tricky because I think the vast majority of the time people don't expect an immediate reply, so notifications could be delayed to slow checks, like a few times per day. But I guess I could imagine times where this would be unintuitive, where someone was expecting notifications to be instant, about some urgent question or even emergency. Or not even an emergency, occasionally it feels nice having a back-and-forth deep subthread when both parties happen to be online at the same time. I'm not quite sure yet what the balance would be there.
That idea reminds me Pony Messenger. It's a messenger app that only delivers everything in daily batches, so people don't feel stressed out, or pressured to respond instantly.
Push notifications are tricky because I think the vast majority of the time people don't expect an immediate reply, so notifications could be delayed to slow checks, like a few times per day.
That idea reminds me Pony Messenger. It's a messenger app that only delivers everything in daily batches, so people don't feel stressed out, or pressured to respond instantly.
Yeah customizable thresholds for notifications would be nice. I used to have my email client set to only check once every 20 minutes and ding if I had new email. I wish I could do this with all my...
Yeah customizable thresholds for notifications would be nice. I used to have my email client set to only check once every 20 minutes and ding if I had new email. I wish I could do this with all my applications. Just ping me for direct messages but condense everything else into a daily, hourly, or a couple of times a day digest.
Yeah Pony is definitely not a great implementation of the idea, esp since they send everything at a set time every day to absolutely everyone, with no way for individuals to change it AFAIK. I...
Yeah Pony is definitely not a great implementation of the idea, esp since they send everything at a set time every day to absolutely everyone, with no way for individuals to change it AFAIK. I would definitely much prefer more customizability and granularity in the settings if something similar was implemented here (or in the upcoming mobile app). But I assume talklittle was likely to go that route anyways, so didn’t bother mentioning it. :P
This is a case where I think customization can be detrimental to the main goals. It is not only important for you to be able to set how frequently you get your messages, but also for everyone else...
This is a case where I think customization can be detrimental to the main goals. It is not only important for you to be able to set how frequently you get your messages, but also for everyone else to accept and easily understand that dynamic. If I could set how frequently I get updates, other people would pressure me to conform to their own expectations. "It's not my fault you set your messages to arrive once a day at noon. I sent you something urgent at 13:00 and I expected an answer. Why don't you get your messages once every 6 hours like everyone else?".
Yeah, even a new Activity sort that only updates once a day, or only every X hours may be interesting too. Just to slow things down a tiny bit, and make keeping up with things feel less stressful.
Yeah, even a new Activity sort that only updates once a day, or only every X hours may be interesting too. Just to slow things down a tiny bit, and make keeping up with things feel less stressful.
An email or pm Daily dispatch sort of hoe Email marketing or CMS software does would be super cool for just threads started / comments replied to. Apart from DMs mayybe needing instant push (do...
An email or pm Daily dispatch sort of hoe Email marketing or CMS software does would be super cool for just threads started / comments replied to.
Apart from DMs mayybe needing instant push (do they?) that’s all I would ever want. Just a gentle reminder daily / weekly that there’s new stuff in the thread. I feel a daily check in is healthy and enough to prevent the overload of the current counter
As someone that quite enjoyed the usual pace of Tildes, the last few days have been exciting and frenetic but also a bit anxiety inducing. I've been meaning to talk about my idea of implementing a...
I'm glad you brought this up. While testing my app so far, I'm finding Tildes is too addictive with all the extra discussions the past few days
As someone that quite enjoyed the usual pace of Tildes, the last few days have been exciting and frenetic but also a bit anxiety inducing.
I've been meaning to talk about my idea of implementing a "slow mode" option so the front page feels more like it used to, but I'm not sure if that even makes sense, and it's quite possible that the level of activity will eventually settle to a slower rhythm once the novelty wears out.
I would like this. I don't need an instant notification, but I'd like some way to get an extra nudge if there's a new reply or message sitting unread for several hours.
so notifications could be delayed to slow checks, like a few times per day
I would like this. I don't need an instant notification, but I'd like some way to get an extra nudge if there's a new reply or message sitting unread for several hours.
Another option is to allow the user to set how frequently they would want their push notifications. Make it an opt in system on the app as well. Maybe some people don’t want them at all, maybe...
Another option is to allow the user to set how frequently they would want their push notifications. Make it an opt in system on the app as well. Maybe some people don’t want them at all, maybe some people want them a few times a day, maybe some people want the instantly. I can see people using all of those options.
I think people's expectations of mobile vs desktop for Tildes are (or should be) different. When I mentioned wanting push notifications, I wasn't even thinking about mobile, personally. I'm...
I think people's expectations of mobile vs desktop for Tildes are (or should be) different. When I mentioned wanting push notifications, I wasn't even thinking about mobile, personally. I'm accessing the site solely via the desktop in my web browser. And there are definitely different considerations to be made when it comes to a mobile app and making sure how you implement things fits the vibe of the site.
I don't think I want push notifications on a mobile app. Or if you did implement push notifications for the app, have it give you a summary of new notifications once or twice a day? A gentle reminder to check in once a day but not notifying you every time you have new notifications. It could just be something simple like "You have new comments" without any details and be scheduled to check for those comments once a day or every 12 hours. This fits with the vibe of the community without an all or nothing approach being taken.
I liked going back though my reddit comments once in a while and taking a second look at stuff that got really popular. But I never looked up someone else's karma or anything
I liked going back though my reddit comments once in a while and taking a second look at stuff that got really popular. But I never looked up someone else's karma or anything
These are good points. But I still think they're worth considering. Probably. But I don't think having a post score is inherently a bad thing. Reddit's culture and allowance/tolerance for memes...
These are good points. But I still think they're worth considering.
You mean like a total? Yeah I don't see how could we see a total without that becoming exactly the same thing as karma, TBH.
Probably. But I don't think having a post score is inherently a bad thing. Reddit's culture and allowance/tolerance for memes and shitposts is what made the karma system bad. It worked pretty well when reddit was a much smaller site and I think it'd be okay here too. Don't break it up by post/comment like reddit does. Just a running number. Don't put emphasis on it either. Just a small number on the user page out of the way by their join date.
Push notifications goes in the opposite direction of having a less addictive website, and I'm pretty they'd not jell with Tildes philosophy of having a simple page that loads fast with minimal JavaScript.
Maybe instead of a system or browser notification, there could be some way to update the site page to have the notification show up in real time? So it'd be less invasive than a real push notification but still let me see I have one waiting without having to refresh the page? Still more complex than it is now, but I think it's a worthwhile QoL improvement.
First off, "not inherently a bad thing" is a terrible reason to add a new feature, especially when Tildes is designed to be simple and streamlined. Secondly, I think that having a score that...
First off, "not inherently a bad thing" is a terrible reason to add a new feature, especially when Tildes is designed to be simple and streamlined.
Secondly, I think that having a score that follows people around is inherently a bad thing, for a couple reasons.
No one is right about everything. A per-comment score has a utility, in that it gages the degree of support that readers have for that post or statement (whatever their reasons.) A per-person score adds an assumption of rightness to the person when their current post may or may not merit it. Just because they were well liked when they were talking about biology and genetic testing shouldn't provide any automatic authority if they chime in with their uninformed opinion on the engineering of monster trucks.
It changes people's behavior. People like numbers to go up. They do it in Cookie Clicker, they do it on Reddit. Tildes and the people of Tildes do not benefit from anyone posting with the goal of the number going up, and anything that makes that more likely is providing a perverse incentive structure.
But I could be wrong. What so you see as the benefit to having an over all "user score", as it fits within Tildes' philosophy?
I agree. For some time(s?) the vote counts were even hidden as an experiment, and I think some people are using user scripts to still keep that behaviour. Seeing the number go up feels good, but...
I agree. For some time(s?) the vote counts were even hidden as an experiment, and I think some people are using user scripts to still keep that behaviour. Seeing the number go up feels good, but it also can feel bad for dumb reasons -- I definitely had times where I wondered why I have less votes than other comments, which is just dumb and pointless.
Yeah. The last thing I'd want is for a post counter to gamify the site too much. And I know that's a risk with any system like this. But I also think it'd be nice to have a quick and easy way to...
Yeah. The last thing I'd want is for a post counter to gamify the site too much. And I know that's a risk with any system like this. But I also think it'd be nice to have a quick and easy way to see on someone's profile if they're a good contributor to the site. A vote total was just the first thing that came to mind because it's likely the easiest to implement.
I think ideally though we should be making those judgements based on how we are interacting with that person in the moment, in the discussion. It should be evident from whatever discussion you are...
Exemplary
I think ideally though we should be making those judgements based on how we are interacting with that person in the moment, in the discussion. It should be evident from whatever discussion you are reading whether or not someone is positively contributing to the site without a need to look at their history. In fact, I feel that could even encourage dismissing someone's contributions (or excusing poor ones) based on past history.
Tildes is ultimately made up of people, and relationships between people are built on trust. In real life, we don't often have easy access to a list of someone's previous actions (for better or worse) to gauge whether or not they are worth trusting. Instead, trust is built up through repeated positive, personal interactions with those people. I think much more so than other sites Tildes encourages you to treat other users as you would the people behind the screen, as opposed to just some digital avatar. You learn to which other users you view as positively contributing to your little corner of the site by repeatedly interacting with them on topics of common interest, much as you do in the real world. And you learn which users you don't gel with the same way.
In any case, I'd encourage you to not worry too much (not that you you are, I just mean the general you) about what type of contributor someone is and instead engage with them directly on the basis of your interactions as opposed to their past interactions with others. Others in this thread have indicated that they like karma as an indicator of someone's contributions to a site, but I'd argue that is not actually the best or even a good metric. Plenty of people contribute in ways not amenable to a point total (e.g. by inviting others, tagging posts, standardizing title formatting, dropping links to previous posts, etc).
I definitely understand this. Personally, I like the idea. It lets me see who is a regular contributor at a glance. I don't put a ton of stock into my reddit karma and I understand there are...
I definitely understand this. Personally, I like the idea. It lets me see who is a regular contributor at a glance. I don't put a ton of stock into my reddit karma and I understand there are negative consequences of reddit's implementation of it. I just don't think the entire concept of having a score like that is a bad thing. I think it can actually help people see who regular contributors are.
That said, if the community is so against it, that's fine. Maybe something like a total post count like you regularly see on forums might be good instead.
Moderation but also I think that knowing someone is active or has been contributing positively for a while helps new users understand that the person giving them feedback or information about...
Moderation but also I think that knowing someone is active or has been contributing positively for a while helps new users understand that the person giving them feedback or information about Tildes is actually a useful or good source.
But you can do that by going to a user's history and reading through their posts and seeing votes for each one. Votes as a number provides no real context where as a site only votes can be...
But you can do that by going to a user's history and reading through their posts and seeing votes for each one. Votes as a number provides no real context where as a site only votes can be submitted as a feedback. Thats the tradeoff of not having a downvote system and furthers the site's ethos of bringing the bar higher in discussions.
I would like to see the number of times a user has written Exemplary comments. I feel like that would be much harder to game and be a much better indicator of the, well, Exemplary users.
I would like to see the number of times a user has written Exemplary comments.
I feel like that would be much harder to game and be a much better indicator of the, well, Exemplary users.
Something like that could be useful but I'd say not done through a number like this -- maybe some way to say that an user if "exemplary" if their comments never get flagged as malice and stuff...
Something like that could be useful but I'd say not done through a number like this -- maybe some way to say that an user if "exemplary" if their comments never get flagged as malice and stuff like that. But also if someone saw that they don't have that it'd still feel bad, and might discourage them from using the site, so I am not sure if even that is a good idea.
Every metric that becomes a target ceases to be a good metric. (Goodhart's law apparently searching for it now)
I'm not saying a vote number tally is a solution to this problem. I just think it does add a bit of value without forcing people to read through a user's comment history. Anyway, it's not a...
I'm not saying a vote number tally is a solution to this problem. I just think it does add a bit of value without forcing people to read through a user's comment history.
Anyway, it's not a dealbreaker or anything for me. I just think user pages can/should do more to provide context about a user. Maybe keep track of how many times they've had a comment labeled exemplary instead? Or a total tally of all their posts like old school forums do?
This topic would have come up sooner or later so it's definitely worth discussing in length given the different intention behind votes and the site's philosophy! I think what u/Tygrak stated sums...
This topic would have come up sooner or later so it's definitely worth discussing in length given the different intention behind votes and the site's philosophy!
People have been floating around the idea of a "reputation system" for a while. But it wouldn't be based on a 'post score,' but some other sort of complicated network effect thing.
People have been floating around the idea of a "reputation system" for a while. But it wouldn't be based on a 'post score,' but some other sort of complicated network effect thing.
I'd be down for that. I don't want Tildes to copy reddit or anything like that. And I understand the potential concerns a karma-like system could introduce. I just think it'd be good if you could...
I'd be down for that. I don't want Tildes to copy reddit or anything like that. And I understand the potential concerns a karma-like system could introduce. I just think it'd be good if you could look at someone's profile and see more than their bio, join date, and recent comments. It'd be nice to have an indicator that someone is a good contributor. Especially for new users.
It seems like the original request was where you would be able to see your running upvote count. That implies that nobody else would see that number. When you have nobody else to compare your...
You mean like a total? Yeah I don't see how could we see a total without that becoming exactly the same thing as karma, TBH.
It seems like the original request was where you would be able to see your running upvote count. That implies that nobody else would see that number. When you have nobody else to compare your number with, it would somewhat dampen the problems of a sitewide karma system.
I'm not saying the idea is good per say. My description of the upvote count would change it to being more of a "personal achievement" type system and I'm not sure if that would be beneficial or detrimental...
I don't see it adding value beyond moderation purposes and even then, not a great tool for it. Perhaps an alternative would be comments/posts submitted and comments/posts removed?
I don't see it adding value beyond moderation purposes and even then, not a great tool for it. Perhaps an alternative would be comments/posts submitted and comments/posts removed?
Honest question: Why? Why do users need to know how many comments/posts they or others have made (or had removed). What benefit does that provide? I could see the removed numbers being useful for...
Honest question: Why? Why do users need to know how many comments/posts they or others have made (or had removed). What benefit does that provide? I could see the removed numbers being useful for admin purposes, when deciding if and who to ban, but Deimos can probably already look that up if he really needs to.
My suggestion was only in the case of moderation, as I cant think of a good reason on seeing number of votes which doesnt really give context to moderation either.
My suggestion was only in the case of moderation, as I cant think of a good reason on seeing number of votes which doesnt really give context to moderation either.
Ah, yeah, fair. It does make sense for moderation. But currently there is only one real moderator on Tildes, and that also happens to be its only admin, Deimos. Some of us have elevated...
Ah, yeah, fair. It does make sense for moderation. But currently there is only one real moderator on Tildes, and that also happens to be its only admin, Deimos. Some of us have elevated privileges, and can edit links, titles, tags, and move topics, in order to help keep topics properly organized... and everyone (after 7 days) has access to comment labels, which do roughly the same for comments. But at present only Deimos can remove comments, topics, and ban people.
Already on Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/359 Other have already mentioned why that isn't a feature here, and probably never will be. Already on Gitlab:...
With regards to your point about “get to know you” topics, those are actually reoccurring topics that have been in place for a while. Tildes has gone through some slower periods where it has made...
With regards to your point about “get to know you” topics, those are actually reoccurring topics that have been in place for a while. Tildes has gone through some slower periods where it has made sense to check only a few times a week, and having those threads have acted as a way to agglomerate activity into one area to facilitate interaction. Maybe once it grows bigger and gets a bit more active again (i.e. if these levels are maintained) they will not be so dominant on the front page.
As for things I don’t like: For a while I would have said low activity, but with recent influxes I’m hoping that is less of a problem.
This is probably just because I'm one of the reddit refugees, but I'd like a like a little more configuration for different and more specific groups. For example, painting would presumably be...
This is probably just because I'm one of the reddit refugees, but I'd like a like a little more configuration for different and more specific groups. For example, painting would presumably be under .hobbies, but that includes every kind of hobby, even those for which I don't have a particular interest. But there's still a lot for me to learn, and I know this is a smaller community that won't have a separate "sub-tildes" for every specific field of interest.
To add to this, I'd like to see being able to subscribe to tags kinda like a reverse filter that is currently implemented. In OP's case, subscribing to ~hobbies.painting
To add to this, I'd like to see being able to subscribe to tags kinda like a reverse filter that is currently implemented. In OP's case, subscribing to ~hobbies.painting
yeah I think being able to subscribe to tags would solve a lot of the annoyance with the inability to create new groups/subgroups ourselves. It would also make the "if you want a new subgroup,...
yeah I think being able to subscribe to tags would solve a lot of the annoyance with the inability to create new groups/subgroups ourselves. It would also make the "if you want a new subgroup, just use the relevant tag in the existing groups and if it sees enough activity it may become a subgroup" feel like a better path, since people interested in the tag could subscribe even if they're unsubbed from the overarching group.
That sounds kind of like how Usenet worked back in the day. Doing sub categories seemed to work well for them. It has to be done within reason and you have to limit how many sub levels you allow...
That sounds kind of like how Usenet worked back in the day. Doing sub categories seemed to work well for them. It has to be done within reason and you have to limit how many sub levels you allow under the top level category so it doesn’t get away from you. +1 from me
Tildes was supposed to grow and, as it grew, Deimos (and, eventually, other top-level moderators) would add more groups and sub-groups as they were needed. Without that growth, those new groups...
Tildes was supposed to grow and, as it grew, Deimos (and, eventually, other top-level moderators) would add more groups and sub-groups as they were needed. Without that growth, those new groups and sub-groups were never needed.
We’ve gotten new groups at a few times in Tildes history, and I think the built in hierarchical structure of groups was set up with the intention of introducing more subgroups as growth demands....
We’ve gotten new groups at a few times in Tildes history, and I think the built in hierarchical structure of groups was set up with the intention of introducing more subgroups as growth demands. Who knows, maybe with the recent influx it will even make sense to get some now.
I am also in the same boat and was pointed to the “tags” system in order to get the same kind of functionality. I imagine there is going to be a little bit of a learning curve for the new users
I am also in the same boat and was pointed to the “tags” system in order to get the same kind of functionality. I imagine there is going to be a little bit of a learning curve for the new users
Completely failing the spirit of this thread here but I actually enjoy tildes very much (new user, just registrated). I absolutely adore the UI, it's very simple yet very clear and with a great...
Completely failing the spirit of this thread here but I actually enjoy tildes very much (new user, just registrated). I absolutely adore the UI, it's very simple yet very clear and with a great attention to detail. I like spending time here, browsing comment sections, and reading through posts.
Two things I might be criticizing, though: The Activity algorithm might need an overhaul with the latest influx of users, and therefore comments. Some posts will have highly active comment sections, some posts will never reach that kind of activity (/r/PhotoshopBattles for example on the R page. Great, high quality content, but it would immediately sink into oblivion based on comment activity.
Another thing (which I might not have yet understood) regards those tildes/subs (how do you call them here?). Is there a way to create new tildes for the general user, and how are those tildes moderated? This is something I worry hindering a healthy growth. Every group eventually reaches a critical mass where it starts destroying itself if not moderated appropriately.
Other users mentioned the same above, so I added it to Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/770 If you have any specific suggestions on how to improve it, please let me know and I can...
The Activity algorithm might need an overhaul with the latest influx of users
If you have any specific suggestions on how to improve it, please let me know and I can add your suggestions there too.
Is there a way to create new tildes for the general user, and how are those tildes moderated?
Those are actually more complicated questions than I think you realize. :P Right now, users cannot create groups, only Deimos can. However in the past he has taken suggestions from the community for which groups to add. And under certain circumstances, ad-hoc groups have been created when a certain subject has overwhelmed the site. E.g. ~health.coronavirus (which was only recently folded back into ~health) was created near the start of the pandemic. And some temporary groups have also been created to help organize community events (like Tildes Make Something Month, and Advent of Code). In the future, more groups may get added, and eventually more user freedom may be added for creating groups (but likely never to the degree reddit has), but that's all still up for debate.
As for how everything is moderated. Only Deimos can remove comments, and remove or lock topics. However some users here (like myself) also have slightly elevated privileges, and can edit topic titles, topic tags, and can move topics to different groups. And all users have access to comment labels after 7 days, which are essentially a crowd-sourced moderation for the comments section.
I'm very new here, but I guess I'd add a "~locations" group if I could. Was thinking that it could be used in the place of country-specific or city-specific subreddits? But I guess this would be...
I'm very new here, but I guess I'd add a "~locations" group if I could. Was thinking that it could be used in the place of country-specific or city-specific subreddits? But I guess this would be "costly" (in terms of moderation time) because of the multilingualism it implies.
currently you can tag stuff relating to particular locations (which can then be used across different groups, which I like), but I wish I could subscribe to tags for my location so I could see...
currently you can tag stuff relating to particular locations (which can then be used across different groups, which I like), but I wish I could subscribe to tags for my location so I could see specific news about it.
I don't think the multilingualism is necessarily an issue; on reddit, at least wrt Germany, there's tons of English-only subs and counterpart German subs. Might be more of an issue with areas of the world with fewer English-speakers, but I think there's still utility there.
There is a UI enhancement script that handles this, I will try and find the link for you. Edit: https://tildes.net/~tildes/wiki/customizing_tildes#scripts See: Tildenhancer
There is a UI enhancement script that handles this, I will try and find the link for you.
If you go to settings there is a checkbox for "Collapse old replies" that basically does this. If there is anything new in the thread it collapses everything you've already seen and only shows the...
It would be nice to have a toggle to hide posts in the feed that have been displayed for me once already. That way I'd very very quickly see which ones were actually new to me.
If you go to settings there is a checkbox for "Collapse old replies" that basically does this. If there is anything new in the thread it collapses everything you've already seen and only shows the new ones with the context behind them. If there is nothing new in that thread then it shows you all the replies.
I really would like a ~health.mental. I think the current ~health.coronavirus could now be converted to a tag as ~comp.advent_of_code typically is, and ~health.mental could be created in the same...
Although it's unfortunately not indicated anywhere in the UI, ~health.coronovirus should probably be considered an archived group. As I discovered the other day, if you create a new topic there,...
Although it's unfortunately not indicated anywhere in the UI, ~health.coronovirus should probably be considered an archived group. As I discovered the other day, if you create a new topic there, someone will move it to ~health.
A new group seems okay to me. In the meantime, I see there's a health.mental tag and a monthly recurring topic. Maybe it could be made more frequent now?
I'm mostly solidly "fine" with tildes as a whole, though I disagree with a few dogmatically defended decisions-- around things with very low stakes, like organizational ones-- that seem to be in...
I'm mostly solidly "fine" with tildes as a whole, though I disagree with a few dogmatically defended decisions-- around things with very low stakes, like organizational ones-- that seem to be in place just because of inertia & change being scary, especially when foisted on an enclave much faster than it desired it. I'm not a huge fan of the "well then there's the door, we are guests surviving on the leadership's good graces" attitude that pervades almost all suggestions for changes, whether I agree with them, think they follow the spirit of the site if not the letter, or not at all; it's not incorrect, but it's reductive and stifles genuine discussion. Change is important to social ecosystems.
I'd also like to see the more diverse folk of tildes feel they can contribute more; I've seen a lot of people with interesting & educational things to add to a convo be shut down by social bullies that simply found the most authoritative & "objective" sounding way to be astonishingly wrong about topics with little room for rhetoric. I won't list any in particular to avoid dredging up drama or being an asshole as the parties in question are not necessarily breaking rules, and they are not in any of the few conversations I've personally taken part in, so they are safe from people snooping to look for names. :P I don't engage with it.
Most of this is growing pains, tildes will hopefully move past both once the shock of its own growing popularity wears off.
I have another one: I love all you STEM people (really!) but it would be nice to have more users from other fields. So dear Reddit, I'm not complaining and keep the flow going, but we need some...
I have another one: I love all you STEM people (really!) but it would be nice to have more users from other fields. So dear Reddit, I'm not complaining and keep the flow going, but we need some arts and humanities too!
Or, to be more general, we need more people that don't really care all that much about computers :P
That just boils down to the fact that the kind of people who would seek out a smaller website and bother going through a whitelisting process are also the kind of people who are more into...
That just boils down to the fact that the kind of people who would seek out a smaller website and bother going through a whitelisting process are also the kind of people who are more into computers and technology. I don't think there's anything inherently STEM-y about the website itself.
So, arts and humanities people, make sure to invite your peers and show them around! That's the most effective way for the community to become more diverse, which I think everyone here would be very happy about :)
I’ve been struggling with how to solve this conundrum since I joined the site. The ~Design group was a step in the right direction to encourage more humanities and arts type discussions but it...
I’ve been struggling with how to solve this conundrum since I joined the site.
The ~Design group was a step in the right direction to encourage more humanities and arts type discussions but it didn’t get very far.
I’ve gone through phases where I try to post more content related to my non stem interests but historically they’ve gotten little engagement. Very much a chicken and egg situation!
I’ve gone through phases where I try to post more content related to my non stem interests but historically they’ve gotten little engagement. Very much a chicken and egg situation!
I'm not saying we don't do this already, but it would help to refrain from quickly dismissing humanities content out of a STEM standpoint. Being more open to understand how that area of knowledge...
I'm not saying we don't do this already, but it would help to refrain from quickly dismissing humanities content out of a STEM standpoint. Being more open to understand how that area of knowledge works and the value it can bring before saying its bad cause its non-bayesian or that the NP is hard or whatever. And try to use "unrelated" instead of "orthogonal" when you're not talking about geometry :P
(Yes I don't know what those things mean, I'm from arts and humanities! Lol)
Ey op. I teach Literature. I get what you mean, I think the techie dominance is inevitable given the (relatively) new and unique nature of Tildes. Even the Reddit refugees of whom I am one, will...
Ey op. I teach Literature.
I get what you mean, I think the techie dominance is inevitable given the (relatively) new and unique nature of Tildes. Even the Reddit refugees of whom I am one, will likely tend toward the STEM types, of whom I am not. But I guess Reddit was like that at the beginning too.
Hello! I'm in the same boat as you. It's one of the reasons I got bored and disillusioned with Tildes, and reduced my activity here. I suggested the ~humanities group back in the day. For a while,...
but it would be nice to have more users from other fields.
Hello! I'm in the same boat as you. It's one of the reasons I got bored and disillusioned with Tildes, and reduced my activity here.
I suggested the ~humanities group back in the day. For a while, I kept a paternal eye on that group, bringing new content, managing tags, and so on.
But I moved on.
Maybe that's where you need to hang out for a while.
Also, there's ~creative if you're a creative type.
There could be many things that some individuals here may not be liking about tildes but what I feel is that it's much better than most competitors out there, both in terms of quality of content...
There could be many things that some individuals here may not be liking about tildes but what I feel is that it's much better than most competitors out there, both in terms of quality of content which is posted here and in terms of minimalism of the UX. Whatever the site admins are doing with tildes, they're doing it right 👍
I don't like how 'post a comment' is at the bottom of a thread - for example, opening this week's 'What have you been reading?' recurring topic in ~books for the first time, I needed to scroll for...
I don't like how 'post a comment' is at the bottom of a thread - for example, opening this week's 'What have you been reading?' recurring topic in ~books for the first time, I needed to scroll for some time to be able to respond. Perhaps this UI approach is intended to encourage reading the discussions within a thread more comprehensively before responding, and generally speaking that is a good ethos, but not when there are a dozen-plus top-level comments of real substance which (ssh! I know!) I didn't plan on reading before posting a top-level comment myself.
I suppose I ought to have collapsed all the comments, but then that brings me back to whether the UI approach is supposed to encourage reading the discussions...
Something that might be handy to help with that is turning on the setting that minimizes comments you've already read. It means that even in noisy threads you can easily see the new comments, and...
Something that might be handy to help with that is turning on the setting that minimizes comments you've already read. It means that even in noisy threads you can easily see the new comments, and 200 comments take up a lot less space when they're shrunk to a single line.
This is the exact reason if I recall correctly. I agree though when it gets into the hundreds of comments it can be a bit of a pain. That said, I enjoy reading others comments, though it can be...
Perhaps this UI approach is intended to encourage reading the discussions within a thread more comprehensively before responding
This is the exact reason if I recall correctly. I agree though when it gets into the hundreds of comments it can be a bit of a pain. That said, I enjoy reading others comments, though it can be arduous. :)
I'm one of the original proponents of "Tag Anarchy," where nested groups are bunk, and we just have tags organizing everything, similar to Tumblr. We could have trending tags, or recommended ones...
I'm one of the original proponents of "Tag Anarchy," where nested groups are bunk, and we just have tags organizing everything, similar to Tumblr. We could have trending tags, or recommended ones that we give privilege to, but a lot of our groups are different forms of media, and sorting out Spider-Man to take a recent example, the latest issue of Amazing would go in ~books, Spider-Verse would go into ~movies, but so would MCU announcements for Spider-Man 4, and whatever news on the may or may not be MCU adjacent television show would be in ~tv. So we could make a ~spiderman group for everything spiderman related, but that seems a little restrictive of a group that has a wide span but a low depth. IMO, it should all be tags.
I want to stick to predictable ways to view content, along with using additional information (such as metadata and tags) to give users flexible methods of deciding for themselves what they want to see (and not see).
Hierarchical tags are inflexible because position in a hierarchy matters.
I would very much appreciate being able to block a user without having to label their posts in any way, whether that label is private or public, seen or unseen, tracked or not tracked, acted upon...
I would very much appreciate being able to block a user without having to label their posts in any way, whether that label is private or public, seen or unseen, tracked or not tracked, acted upon or not acted upon.
I've read the docs, and some further comments trying to explain and clarify them, but exactly how a label triggers various actions, and what use of these labels is considered egregious when they are not even publicly seen, I would never know unless I happened to step over some previously unforeseen threshold.
I've already seen one guy get chewed a new asshole just for answering a question, and apparently no one has noticed it. It even has some votes. It's one comment in a thread with dozens of other comments, easy to pass by, but the tone was a rude shock after reading so many far more gracious comments.
I am a new user, so I obviously do not have access to labels . . . but if I did, I would not use them easily, and not in this instance, especially without understanding what exactly each one does and specifically what it is intended to accomplish. I don't see that anywhere.
Plus, I have not gotten to be as old as I am by calling out every misdeed I see, much less put a label on it to be stored and catalogued somewhere, much less escalated to the very top of the entire administrative system for review and action. This isn't that. It's just low-level, garden variety petty nastiness from someone who probably doesn't even recognize that they just jammed a sock in someone else's mouth simply for truthfully answering a question, because that behavior was encouraged on Reddit.
So I would far rather have the ability to individually mute, either temporarily or permanently, someone who engages in that kind of low-level nastiness, because they tend to do so regularly. I have no beef with the thread, or the subject, or anything else about the conversation, so why would I set any of that on ignore when that's exactly the content I came to see?
I've read Tildes philosophy on this, but I have my own:
"It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world."
This will be a tough one to figure out how to deal with if the site population keeps growing I think. In general, we'd like to slowly train people out of that kind of low-grade nastiness. Often it...
So I would far rather have the ability to individually mute, either temporarily or permanently, someone who engages in that kind of low-level nastiness, because they tend to do so regularly. I have no beef with the thread, or the subject, or anything else about the conversation, so why would I set any of that on ignore when that's exactly the content I came to see?
This will be a tough one to figure out how to deal with if the site population keeps growing I think. In general, we'd like to slowly train people out of that kind of low-grade nastiness. Often it really is just a matter of tone. But doing so requires a high-touch moderation approach and a community that's willing to politely encourage people to check themselves (which is itself a skill that takes a while to develop). Overall that makes the site nicer since the sort of nastiness you mention has a tendency to bleed out and affect other users as well.
I think one of the reasons this sort of block function isn't implemented is because it ends up being kind of hard to follow a conversation that a blocked person is involved in, even parts of it where that person might be tangentially involved but not directly interacting with you.
And then there's the concern with reposts. If you're posting an article and a person you blocked posts the same do you just not see it?
I'm sorry you felt that way about what I said, and left the site as a result... but how is me expressing my disappointment and (IMO valid) concerns about Cleese and his daughter's behavior over...
I'm sorry you felt that way about what I said, and left the site as a result... but how is me expressing my disappointment and (IMO valid) concerns about Cleese and his daughter's behavior over the last few years, assuming "bad faith"?
I also never said the new Fawlty Towers reboot can't be good. I only expressed my sincere hope that Cleese and his daughter wouldn't let their personal politics taint the material too much, but also my doubts about them being capable of that.
I grew up watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, and practically worshiping Cleese and the rest, including Terry Gilliam. So please forgive me for being a tiny bit mad at the direction Cleese has gone in recent years, with his "anti-woke" crusade, and wanting to express that here. I didn't intend to drive anyone off the site by doing that. :(
Yeah, I understand. I really do. I have even complained about a similar problem regarding people complaining about Marvel stuff in Marvel promotional topics stifling discussions on them by people...
Yeah, I understand. I really do. I have even complained about a similar problem regarding people complaining about Marvel stuff in Marvel promotional topics stifling discussions on them by people who still enjoy them (like myself). So I apologize for being a bit of a hypocrite and essentially doing the same to you on the Fawlty Towers topic. And I promise I will try to keep that in mind, and hold back on my negativity, next time there is a topic like that where I have a personal issue with it or the people involved. Sorry about that.
Yeah, I hear ya. I think a lot of the problem were teething pains though. People (even myself) were a lot less willing to give people the benefit of the doubt here in the old days, since we were...
Yeah, I hear ya. I think a lot of the problem were teething pains though. People (even myself) were a lot less willing to give people the benefit of the doubt here in the old days, since we were all still a little high-strung from having been on reddit all those years... and to be fair there were a lot of bad-faith users that joined Tildes in the first wave. The majority of those super hostile users have been banned after they finally crossed the line now though.
And I also think a lot of the problems with discussions being stifled due to a handful of negative comments is likely to be alleviated by simply having more comments, more topics, and more room for people to breathe. At least that's my hope, anyways.
I also hope you stick around this time too, BTW. I remember you (and your blue hair ;) from way back, and was sad when I noticed you had left. So I'm sorry if I contributed in some way to that.
Thank you for your response, NaraVara (and @arp242!). I kind of expected that what you both described would be the case, but with the influx of new users . . . maybe not indefinitely, after all....
Thank you for your response, NaraVara (and @arp242!). I kind of expected that what you both described would be the case, but with the influx of new users . . . maybe not indefinitely, after all.
To answer your questions, NaraVara:
I think one of the reasons this sort of block function isn't implemented is because it ends up being kind of hard to follow a conversation that a blocked person is involved in, even parts of it where that person might be tangentially involved but not directly interacting with you.
And then there's the concern with reposts. If you're posting an article and a person you blocked posts the same do you just not see it?
I'm sure you're already well aware of this from engaging in online discourse elsewhere, but there's a range of muting/blocking that goes all the way from Reddit's old-style of seeing absolutely nothing from a blocked user, to the RES "soft block" where a user's post is collapsed except for the name, and you are given a choice as to whether to read it or not. The comments section on the Washington Post actually strikes a great middle ground: a blocked user is 100% hard blocked, which does truncate discussions they're a part of, but if they happen to respond to you elsewhere, you see their collapsed reply in your profile and are given a choice as to whether or not you want to see it.
In all my time in Reddit, across all accounts, the number of top-level posts I've submitted is probably under 30, all original or very niche content, and I ALWAYS do a search before posting just to be sure, so I've never had that problem. But to address your question directly, it depends on how that particular site handles blocked users in search (think YouTube, where a channel is blocked except in search, and sites like it). For soft blocks, it's no problem at all because you're shown everything, and blocked users' submissions show up, just collapsed (or not). But even for hard blocks, if you're using searches external to the site, like the site: function on DuckDuckGo or a direct-to-Reddit Pushshift interface like Camas, your search is unaffected, because those external searches are calling the API directly. Or were, lol.
In general, we'd like to slowly train people out of that kind of low-grade nastiness. Often it really is just a matter of tone. But doing so requires a high-touch moderation approach and a community that's willing to politely encourage people to check themselves (which is itself a skill that takes a while to develop). Overall that makes the site nicer since the sort of nastiness you mention has a tendency to bleed out and affect other users as well.
I am well able to do this, and actually posted something before I realized I've only been here five minutes and it wasn't my battle, and swiftly deleted it. The person who did this was also a new arrival, heh. Coming from Reddit, a lot of that is handled by the downvote function, which of course is not something Tildes wants. And I'm not a mod anymore, so while your kind suggestion often works, even the gentlest indication of rebuke can be met with explosive self-defense, and I'd just rather avoid that if at all possible. So now I'm just watching that post to see what happens. Will it be modded by the community in some way? Will that user be gently corrected by others? I guess we'll all see, because that instance won't be the last.
But I realized last night that my entire post might be moot: I don't think I have the skill to do a soft block, but there's a possibility I can do a hard block with uBlock Origin and a custom string that includes that username. I actually did that in Reddit one time, when they were screwing around with the block function and I needed to just get a specific someone out of my cereal bowl in the morning. If I do this, and it breaks my Tildes experience, the worst that happens is I look like a fool, and I can live with that. Got lots of practice, lol.
Again, thank you and @arp242 for taking the time to listen and answer so thoughtfully. This is such a new experience. I could get used to this. :D
Yeah I've definitely seen this. But I also just kind of see it as someone's willingness to engage constructively in discussions, and if they can't that's the cue for administrative action....
even the gentlest indication of rebuke can be met with explosive self-defense
Yeah I've definitely seen this. But I also just kind of see it as someone's willingness to engage constructively in discussions, and if they can't that's the cue for administrative action.
Everyone is getting used to the pace of the website accelerating so I'm guessing it just hasn't been noticed unless someone puts a "Malice" or "Noise" label on it.
Already on Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/462 If you see something like that in the future, please report it to Deimos via the Malice label so it can be dealt with. Your account...
I would very much appreciate being able to block a user
I've already seen one guy get chewed a new asshole just for answering a question, and apparently no one has noticed it.
If you see something like that in the future, please report it to Deimos via the Malice label so it can be dealt with. Your account is over 7 days old so you should have access to it now. And it's unfortunate, but with all the new users and increased posting volume, it's not surprising that some things got missed over the last week+. All our old users (who already could report things) were likely overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything... I know I was (and still am). But now that a lot more users have access to comment labels, hopefully that won't happen as frequently now.
As a new user, my first impression is that I wish there were more topics/groups (not sure of the official term). I understand that there is at tagging system to go more granular, which is great,...
As a new user, my first impression is that I wish there were more topics/groups (not sure of the official term). I understand that there is at tagging system to go more granular, which is great, but I don't know if it still solves the need for more groups.
Additionally, groups like "life" are so broad as to be meaningless to me, and in my head seems somewhat redundant with "misc" and "talk", although I haven't spent enough time in those spaces to know if that's actually the case.
Finally, it strikes me as odd that if there is a philosophy of using tags within broad groups as a way of filtering content, why are there both "science" and "space" groups? Shouldn't "space" or "astronomy" be a tag within science?
Take some time, browse all these "new user" threads, a lot of people have explained the current status of groups on tildes in depth the past few days. Basically, they're closer to a category than...
Take some time, browse all these "new user" threads, a lot of people have explained the current status of groups on tildes in depth the past few days. Basically, they're closer to a category than a subforum, even though superficially they appear to be the latter. It's a little awkward.
~life is about human interest pieces. Not specific interest infodumps, which would fit in ~misc, not philosophy or history or political theory or aesthetic works, which would be in ~humanities, and not topics meant exclusively for community engagement, ~talk.
~space is a bit of an artifact. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall, in the early days of tildes, when everything was being shifted around, space topics were taking up a ton of the oxygen in ~science. The original vision for groups was for them to be promotable from tags in some sense, so 'space' the tag becoming 'space' the group was seen as natural. As time went on, development and community growth stalled, any automated systems around such a feature failed to pop up, and so now we have a handful of specific groups that really would fit better as tags with the current culture.
You can actually go back and look at the proposals the last time new groups were added. Space was fairly heavily requested but subsequently not very well used (imo). I would love to see some new...
You can actually go back and look at the proposals the last time new groups were added. Space was fairly heavily requested but subsequently not very well used (imo). I would love to see some new discussion about groups now that we have new users actually, i think it could be time to change things up a bit and introduce some further structure here. Or to revamp the tag system and make them browseable and followable.
Yeah, I remember the excitement for it. My dissatisfaction lies in the stagnation, not in ~space's existence. It's been a consistently high-quality group since its establishment. I was very...
Yeah, I remember the excitement for it. My dissatisfaction lies in the stagnation, not in ~space's existence. It's been a consistently high-quality group since its establishment.
I was very on-board with the early design drafts for this site, and have a hard time believing that bickering over "which groups?" will lead to long-term health of the community, especially with the recent influx. Tags are almost feature-complete, browseability and some form of tag-following would be great, but the latter seems like it could have some real nightmare implications if done lazily, e.g. to just make a more chaotic alternative to user-made groups.
I guess that proposal would feel like an entirely different site and project. In principle, I could see that underpinning a healthy community online, but it isn't what Tildes has ever been. Some...
I guess that proposal would feel like an entirely different site and project. In principle, I could see that underpinning a healthy community online, but it isn't what Tildes has ever been. Some of the early planning posts (2018-19) did involve consideration of that idea, though sadly I have no idea which to point you toward for more background.
I remember those discussions; looks like I had registered a little after you, heh. I think I may have floated the idea out back then too I still haven’t seen the utility in having a set of blessed...
I remember those discussions; looks like I had registered a little after you, heh. I think I may have floated the idea out back then too
I still haven’t seen the utility in having a set of blessed groups that only act as categorization and broad subscription filtering, little more than a special required tag already. All they’ve seemed to do is lead to bikeshedding, friction when deciding where a new topic should go, and misleads new people into thinking there are are separate Reddit-esque communities, which brings assumptions about what topic/identity communities are/are not encouraged.
We could preserve the little utility groups do have while also shifting fully to tags. Adding functionality to subscribe/unsubscribe to tags directly, plus display few lists of list like top/trending/suggested tags should take care of most of it.
Oh, hah, sorry. I was totally in intro mode. I'm on board with groups the way they were initially planned, as something promoted automatically from tags, and in which topics "bubble up" from...
Oh, hah, sorry. I was totally in intro mode.
I'm on board with groups the way they were initially planned, as something promoted automatically from tags, and in which topics "bubble up" from subgroups. Without all of that, I agree, they're basically just vortices of bikeshedding as they stand today. However, there's very little I can imagine working worse than some sort of baroque tagging system that gets used as a replacement for subreddits, and at the moment, I'm having a hard time imagining that not happening. I'm very much on tildes for the dream, rather than the reality, and that initial spec is much more interesting to me than a tag-centric model, as it'd sidestep a lot of the issues with groups/subreddits without falling into a complete sprawl of user-created tags.
One way to think about it is that some web pages feel like places and others don't. A subreddit is a place. A Tildes topic is a place. A Tildes tag, like a hashtag on Twitter or Mastodon, is not a...
One way to think about it is that some web pages feel like places and others don't. A subreddit is a place. A Tildes topic is a place. A Tildes tag, like a hashtag on Twitter or Mastodon, is not a place, it's a search result with a bunch of independently-written items listed together.
You can tell because people will post to a hashtag without reading it first. (Some hashtags might feel a little more like places when people read them and reply.)
We seem to want Tildes groups to be places, but they currently feel more like search results. Getting rid of groups would be a way of accepting that and giving up on having any places between Tildes as a whole and individual topics. It's a valid design choice; Hacker News and lobste.rs work that way.
The opposite way to go would be to figure out what more we need to do to make each group feel like its own place.
If we didn't have topics on the front page and made people visit each group to see what's there then they would feel more like places. Many bulletin boards work that way. I don't think we want to go that way, though.
On some level, I think I'm generally opposed to the concept of going to even a personal "front page". It doesn't seem healthy for the mind to just have a nearly context-free flood of atomic facts....
On some level, I think I'm generally opposed to the concept of going to even a personal "front page". It doesn't seem healthy for the mind to just have a nearly context-free flood of atomic facts. So I guess I'm more open to that last proposition than most. A lot of the initial plans for this site almost resembled usenet in structure and methods of interaction, and I know that Deimos has walked a lot of that back, but it was a significant amount of my interest in the first place. Regardless, I don't believe that "one site to house them all" is a workable model at this point, so perhaps my opinions shouldn't carry much weight if that's what the majority of people want here. I'd just caution that what we want and need are very different. The local culture of tildes was already in a bad state before this immigration, but I don't expect much of the good parts to survive the way things are looking.
I do sometimes get a little fatigued at reading feeds of arbitrarily ordered unrelated content, although maybe that just means it's time to take a break? Maybe a bulletin-board style front page...
I do sometimes get a little fatigued at reading feeds of arbitrarily ordered unrelated content, although maybe that just means it's time to take a break?
Maybe a bulletin-board style front page with no topic listing on it would be a good option to have? Hard to say how well it would work without trying it.
I'm more proposing that it's not good for us in the long term, that we're supposed to have some degree of physical compartmentality separating serious subject matter vs active recreation vs idle...
I'm more proposing that it's not good for us in the long term, that we're supposed to have some degree of physical compartmentality separating serious subject matter vs active recreation vs idle amusements, and compressing them all together may be part of the unhealthy addictive patterns many experience with social media. Just a random thought, really. Not relevant to tildes as it stands so much as a pessimistic aside.
This original request for the group that became known as ~life might help explain the purpose of that group. Here's some background about how we ended up with two separate groups for these: An...
Additionally, groups like "life" are so broad as to be meaningless to me, and in my head seems somewhat redundant with "misc" and "talk", although I haven't spent enough time in those spaces to know if that's actually the case.
it strikes me as odd that if there is a philosophy of using tags within broad groups as a way of filtering content, why are there both "science" and "space" groups? Shouldn't "space" or "astronomy" be a tag within science?
Here's some background about how we ended up with two separate groups for these:
Basically, the difference is that exploring space was seen as different to studying space. Building a rocket to get to orbit is not the same topic as discovering new exoplanets via a space telescope. So, ~space is more oriented to getting to space, being in space, and exploring space, while the sciences of astronomy, cosmology, and such, are relegated to ~science.
Just navigating the topics - after you select a topic, say ~news. To then look at other topics I have to go back to homepage open up the sidebar (on mobile) then select another topic. Not a big...
Just navigating the topics - after you select a topic, say ~news. To then look at other topics I have to go back to homepage open up the sidebar (on mobile) then select another topic. Not a big thing, but introduces friction with usage. However I would like to say that the site is very well thought out in how its implemented.
That should improve when the Tildes app comes out! Some of the ui friction/hurdles will be able to be smoothed out in the app. That being said, Tildes is a very snappy and well formatted site for...
That should improve when the Tildes app comes out! Some of the ui friction/hurdles will be able to be smoothed out in the app. That being said, Tildes is a very snappy and well formatted site for mobile. I might have some nitpicks here and there about the ui but it doesn’t feel bloated like every other website I try to go to in the mobile browser.
You can click the Tildes logo to go back to your front page, or the group name beside it at the top to go to that group page instead. If you want to go to another group, then you do have to open...
Just navigating the topics - after you select a topic, say ~news. To then look at other topics I have to go back to homepage open up the sidebar (on mobile) then select another topic.
You can click the Tildes logo to go back to your front page, or the group name beside it at the top to go to that group page instead. If you want to go to another group, then you do have to open the sidebar, but TBH I am not sure how that can be improved with the limited space available in the interface on mobile. If you have a suggestion for specifically how it could be improved, I could add it to Gitlab as a feature request.
Personally, and this is kind of nitpicky so feel free to dismiss this - its not so much the extra click, but having to load a page by navigating to the home page again in order to navigate to the...
Personally, and this is kind of nitpicky so feel free to dismiss this - its not so much the extra click, but having to load a page by navigating to the home page again in order to navigate to the topics list. Perhaps an extra button to the left of the side bar? Similar to a dropdown but brings up a different sidebar just for a topics list.
I'm not OP, but I'd also prefer an app because it feels better to me to have everything compartmentalized into their own clean little "Areas", and apps do that wonderfully. Not only do I like them...
I'm not OP, but I'd also prefer an app because it feels better to me to have everything compartmentalized into their own clean little "Areas", and apps do that wonderfully. Not only do I like them better for that reason, it's also nice being able to track how I spend my day-to-day with app usage tracking that phones provide.
I am too new to say there's anything I 'don't like' about the platform - so far I think it's really interesting and there is a lot to like. However, having come from reddit, I would say that it...
I am too new to say there's anything I 'don't like' about the platform - so far I think it's really interesting and there is a lot to like. However, having come from reddit, I would say that it seems hard to find places for content posts by artists.
Now, I may be misunderstanding some fundamentals (I have read through a chunk of the docs to try and get more of an idea of the vibes here), but the platform doesn't seem to have much in terms of original artist work (or places for it to appear).
An example of a reddit sub in this vein would be ImaginaryMonsters, which has a healthy flow of art posts that fit the topic. Is there a way to scratch a similar itch here (in premise)?
I know this isn't reddit, so not trying to shoehorn another perspective in, just trying to understand the similarities and differences.
~creative is the group that kind of content can usually be found in. Combined with the user created tag or original content tags (IMO we really do need to pick one and stick with it,...
the platform doesn't seem to have much in terms of original artist work (or places for it to appear)
~creative is the group that kind of content can usually be found in. Combined with the user created tag or original content tags (IMO we really do need to pick one and stick with it, @mycketforvirrad), and viola. There is occasionally user created creative stuff posted to ~hobbies when applicable too though.
It always felt a little weird referring to written works as user created for some reason, otherwise I agree, I would have preferred to settle on a single tag.
It always felt a little weird referring to written works as user created for some reason, otherwise I agree, I would have preferred to settle on a single tag.
Thanks, that's useful. I can see a filter for removing certain ones from the feed, but is there any way to quickly select a tag to filter to (besides finding a post already tagged with it and...
Thanks, that's useful. I can see a filter for removing certain ones from the feed, but is there any way to quickly select a tag to filter to (besides finding a post already tagged with it and clicking the tag there, or modifying the URL)?
Not currently. But having some sort of auto-complete, or other more convenient way of browsing tags is a good idea. I will try to remember to add it to the Gitlab when I am done with sending the...
Not currently. But having some sort of auto-complete, or other more convenient way of browsing tags is a good idea. I will try to remember to add it to the Gitlab when I am done with sending the invites. :)
I totally agree. I think right now the main issue is that we just don’t have a lot of users who are sharing things they’ve made! There are recurring threads in ~creative and elsewhere where people...
I totally agree. I think right now the main issue is that we just don’t have a lot of users who are sharing things they’ve made! There are recurring threads in ~creative and elsewhere where people occasionally post, but you can definitely post outside of these threads to share things you’ve made with others. Right now Tildes is much smaller than reddit so there is less granularity in terms of groups, so I wouldn’t expect a ~monsters.imaginary soon, but that doesn’t mean people here wouldn’t be interested! One of the benefits of having broader categories for the time being is people get to discover new interests that way.
Makes sense. I think it likely is just the size and therefore lack of posts. If I were going to consider posting some of my own (mediocre) art, the lack of precedent might make me think I was...
Makes sense. I think it likely is just the size and therefore lack of posts. If I were going to consider posting some of my own (mediocre) art, the lack of precedent might make me think I was doing something wrong.
I definitely think explicitly catering to the arts (and therefore providing access to a lot of original content) is key for certain demographics of potential users (but I am aware growth isn't currently the only goal).
I think having explicit ~creative.gallery or ~creative.imadethis groups would definitely make it more inviting for such users, and provide an explicit 'I know what I'm getting' confidence for users who would be looking to subscribe to OC, rather than just creative discussions.
Again, though, I'm not trying to be the new guy saying 'this is how this long established site should work', just my initial feelings being a creative techie here.
I totally hear you. Ideally we would have those groups, and maybe if we continue to grow it will make sense on the sooner side. I'd very much like to get more creative folks in here!
I totally hear you. Ideally we would have those groups, and maybe if we continue to grow it will make sense on the sooner side. I'd very much like to get more creative folks in here!
The comment box is at the bottom of the comments I had to scroll a lot to find it The vote button for Posts is on the right, but for Comments its on the left, this is less intuitive on mobile. The...
The comment box is at the bottom of the comments I had to scroll a lot to find it
The vote button for Posts is on the right, but for Comments its on the left, this is less intuitive on mobile.
The button to collapse comments is too small for mobile, tapping the gray header could minimise the comment instead, or the minimise button could also be moved to the right side
That I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of a thread to leave a comment. Edit: I’ve read the docs and now understand and agree with the decision to have it at the bottom, underneath the...
That I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of a thread to leave a comment.
Edit: I’ve read the docs and now understand and agree with the decision to have it at the bottom, underneath the comments.
Inability to create custom communities. Unfortunately, the growth of this place will always be artificially limited because of that. It doesn't need to be a free for all, but there really should...
Inability to create custom communities. Unfortunately, the growth of this place will always be artificially limited because of that. It doesn't need to be a free for all, but there really should be some system for getting new communities up and running
Reddit didn't have user-created subreddits at first, either. They weren't introduced there until 2008, when Reddit already had some 2,000,000 users. (For comparison, Tildes has about 15,000...
Reddit didn't have user-created subreddits at first, either. They weren't introduced there until 2008, when Reddit already had some 2,000,000 users. (For comparison, Tildes has about 15,000 registered users.)
Depending on how it was implemented, my concern would be that introducing user-created groups too early might divide an already very small population into numbers that are too low to generate meaningful activity and sense of community. For now, I think a handful of groups based on the most popular topics helps ensure that the number of participants doesn't dip excessively low.
In the long run, though, I agree with you. I would love to see more people and more specialized groups.
I'd be fine with that, if in the future it was allowed, but there should be some plan for it in place, since people are already expecting the ability since reddit has shown how valuable it can be....
I'd be fine with that, if in the future it was allowed, but there should be some plan for it in place, since people are already expecting the ability since reddit has shown how valuable it can be. Has the admin discussed this in public recently? You are right though that with only 15,000 registered users it wouldn't make sense to do right now. Hopefully its an option for the future.
The short version of the initial plan (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET): Groups would never be directly creatable by users. Instead, groups and subgroups would be automatic based on tag usage. If there’s...
The short version of the initial plan (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET):
Groups would never be directly creatable by users. Instead, groups and subgroups would be automatic based on tag usage. If there’s enough posts being made tagged “COVID-19” in the Health group, it would convert the tag to a “Health.COVID-19” subgroup. If activity in there drops beyond a threshold, that subgroup would get converted back to a tag again. There were other interesting mechanics that I remember discussed, like top posts in a subgroup would bubble up to show in the main group too.
I read last week that Deimos is actually considering this, given the increased size of tildes from the reddit exodus. From what I can tell, this functionality was locked to keep engagement high;...
I read last week that Deimos is actually considering this, given the increased size of tildes from the reddit exodus. From what I can tell, this functionality was locked to keep engagement high; the concern is that a subtilde might not get much posts, which might frustrate users or make tildes look dead.
Sure to an extent, but there has been limited growth since the inception of Tildes. There is an opportunity here to move beyond that and create a more active and lively community.
Sure to an extent, but there has been limited growth since the inception of Tildes. There is an opportunity here to move beyond that and create a more active and lively community.
Yeah, what there is now seems to be based around having a few thousand users who all want to chat to each other about all kinds of stuff. Without sub communities the growth potential is very...
Yeah, what there is now seems to be based around having a few thousand users who all want to chat to each other about all kinds of stuff. Without sub communities the growth potential is very limited. I am already spending way more time using a competitor site that does have user made communities.
I've only been here for a few hours so take this with a grain of salt. But I'm slightly bothered that the location of the votes number is in a different place for your comments then other people...
I've only been here for a few hours so take this with a grain of salt. But I'm slightly bothered that the location of the votes number is in a different place for your comments then other people comments. Just feels a bit weird to have to have to look in a different place while scrolling through comments.
on your own comments, it shows up below your username, and inside of the comment box, so it kinda looks like you started off your comment with how many votes your comment has. On other peoples...
on your own comments, it shows up below your username, and inside of the comment box, so it kinda looks like you started off your comment with how many votes your comment has. On other peoples comments, they show up next to vote, at the bottom footer of the comment.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the moderation transparency issue. That is, any action @Deimos takes. The rest - topic log, hiding noise posts, etc, is fine. But there's a bunch of people on the...
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the moderation transparency issue. That is, any action @Deimos takes. The rest - topic log, hiding noise posts, etc, is fine. But there's a bunch of people on the outside (i.e. "the discord" afaict, as well as on reddit) who complain about unjustified bans and such.
Now, I'm not here to scrutinize Deimos' work. He's doing a swell job for all I can tell. And I'm aware that making admin actions visible might well have people do that. Oh, and it'll inevitably lead to rules lawyering, which is never nice, as it has a tendency of pushing the overton window.
But I think there's value in (1) decent people knowing where the line is and (2) defusing potential drama.
So I'm just not really sure how to square that circle. Maybe the best solution is - once Trusted Users(TM) is finally here - to give these people access to detailed logs. That way, it's not only in Deimos' court to litigate these situations. Or maybe once Trusted Users is here, we can hide the decision makers behind a voting system. That way, rules lawyering wouldn't be possible anymore. If 4 of 5 trusted users think you should be banned because of a post that can still be viewed within the context of that ban action, there isn't much to argue about, democracy has spoken. If anyone has a tag or so that contains previous discussions on the topic, let me know, I'd love to catch back up.
I find myself falling into a habit I had on Reddit, where I would open my profile and look at how much engagement my comments/posts are having. From what I gather, that seems antithetical to what...
I find myself falling into a habit I had on Reddit, where I would open my profile and look at how much engagement my comments/posts are having.
From what I gather, that seems antithetical to what Tildes is going for and I'd love if there was a way to make it harder to see votes on my own comments and posts.
Still very new, so still getting used to things. I think the comment box at the bottom actually makes sense (I never understood people that would make low effort comments super late on Reddit...
Still very new, so still getting used to things. I think the comment box at the bottom actually makes sense (I never understood people that would make low effort comments super late on Reddit which nobody ever notices). However, the site feels very plain, aesthetically. I would love image content, thumbnails for link posts, and maybe just some splash of color. Also a bit skeptical about the lack of a downvote button, something that's def abused on Reddit, but feels like it still had value. Aside from that, just more content and engagement
The value that the downvote button has on reddit is to remove stuff that isn't really benefiting a discussion. Well, I suppose that was the original intention - now it's mostly an "I disagree"...
The value that the downvote button has on reddit is to remove stuff that isn't really benefiting a discussion. Well, I suppose that was the original intention - now it's mostly an "I disagree" button.
Anyhow, on Tildes you can press "label" under the comment text and mark it if it's sufficiently bad - or really good
I would like a feature to hide posts - now that there is a lot more activity than there used to be, my front page feels very cluttered with topics that I don't care about (like tech and...
I would like a feature to hide posts - now that there is a lot more activity than there used to be, my front page feels very cluttered with topics that I don't care about (like tech and programming stuff, for example).
You can hide individual posts via the Actions menu below the post scores. Or filter out topics using the tags in the sidebar. Or unsubscribe from whole groups.
You can hide individual posts via the Actions menu below the post scores. Or filter out topics using the tags in the sidebar. Or unsubscribe from whole groups.
One minor annoyance I just found (in my desktop browser) is that clicking "Log out" on my user profile page logs me out without a confirmation prompt. I meant to hit "Settings," but my cursor...
One minor annoyance I just found (in my desktop browser) is that clicking "Log out" on my user profile page logs me out without a confirmation prompt. I meant to hit "Settings," but my cursor slipped (laptop trackpad, small browser text size) and I accidentally clicked "Log Out" instead. Maybe moving the location of these two options slightly could mitigate this, or implementing an "Are you sure?" dialog.
this may be very superficial and inconsequential, but the comment field being at the bottom of the page does annoy me slightly and the default scale is entirely too large, i use 66% scale and its...
this may be very superficial and inconsequential, but the comment field being at the bottom of the page does annoy me slightly
and the default scale is entirely too large, i use 66% scale and its still more than large enough
other than that, im finding myself really liking this place. good work, fellas
It's intentional, and meant to encourage people to read the comments and participate in already active discussions before making a new top-level comment of their own.
the comment field being at the bottom of the page does annoy me slightly
It's intentional, and meant to encourage people to read the comments and participate in already active discussions before making a new top-level comment of their own.
I think there is a lack of more subs, maybe a new system to decide what sub is next. I think the invite system is good and make a ranking of people who can give more invites, like if your invited...
I think there is a lack of more subs, maybe a new system to decide what sub is next.
I think the invite system is good and make a ranking of people who can give more invites, like if your invited people have good karma you get better ranking points.
There have been discussions on adding new groups in the past. The consensus was we didn’t want to pull an Imzy and atomize the discussion across the site (e.g., by having three different vegan...
There have been discussions on adding new groups in the past. The consensus was we didn’t want to pull an Imzy and atomize the discussion across the site (e.g., by having three different vegan boards). Depending on how the next few weeks/months play out, we may have this discussion again and open discussions for new groups.
I find it hard to find things. For example, earlier I saw the Tears of the Kingdom thread and wanted to keep up with it. The only thing I saw was “bookmark” so I did that. But now how do I find...
I find it hard to find things. For example, earlier I saw the Tears of the Kingdom thread and wanted to keep up with it. The only thing I saw was “bookmark” so I did that. But now how do I find that? I don’t see anywhere that says bookmarks, but I’m sure I’m looking in the wrong place. Thanks!
The bookmarks page is a real issue, as a veteran of tildes that's not on you at all. It's actually in your profile. Click on your username on the top right, it'll be on the sidebar to the right on...
The bookmarks page is a real issue, as a veteran of tildes that's not on you at all. It's actually in your profile. Click on your username on the top right, it'll be on the sidebar to the right on desktop, and it might be collapsed behind a "Sidebar" link on mobile or small windows.
That is correct, there are no downvotes on Tildes. However, you'll eventually gain the ability to apply labels, which are used for sorting and moderation. With the exception of the "Exemplary"...
That is correct, there are no downvotes on Tildes.
However, you'll eventually gain the ability to apply labels, which are used for sorting and moderation. With the exception of the "Exemplary" label, they are not displayed alongside the comment.
And since it’s just web-based, no notifications it seems. No issue, as I assume this is intended. For me it will be nice when the Three Cheers for Tildes app happens for the notifications. Thanks...
And since it’s just web-based, no notifications it seems. No issue, as I assume this is intended. For me it will be nice when the Three Cheers for Tildes app happens for the notifications.
Thanks again
Yup exactly. The lack of downvotes is supposed to help avoid “dog-piling” behavior in which a comment is downvoted to oblivion because it goes against the prevailing consensus in the thread. The...
Yup exactly. The lack of downvotes is supposed to help avoid “dog-piling” behavior in which a comment is downvoted to oblivion because it goes against the prevailing consensus in the thread. The idea is to help promote discussion.
After your account is a couple of days old, you will get access to “labels” which serve as another way to leave feedback on a comment. You can read more about their purpose here.
I think my only "don't love" thing so far is groups. At first, I was surprised and a bit bothered to see that you can't just create them. But after reading posts about why that is, I understand...
I think my only "don't love" thing so far is groups. At first, I was surprised and a bit bothered to see that you can't just create them. But after reading posts about why that is, I understand it. I still don't love it, though. But that's not going to keep me away - I'm interested to see if/how organic group creation will work.
Other than that, I really can't think of anything I don't like. Most of my Reddit usage was discussion-based anyway, so I feel at home here.
The platform is perfect for my tastes. I couldn’t I’d imagine something this ideal. The Anglosphere is overrepresented here so it feels a bit small at the moment, but hopefully that will change in...
The platform is perfect for my tastes. I couldn’t I’d imagine something this ideal.
The Anglosphere is overrepresented here so it feels a bit small at the moment, but hopefully that will change in time as more people sign up and the place diversifies.
I'd like a ~religion or ~spirituality page. I'd also really like an ~occult page but I realize that's probably too niche. Image posts could be nice but I understand why we don't have them here.
I'd like a ~religion or ~spirituality page. I'd also really like an ~occult page but I realize that's probably too niche.
Image posts could be nice but I understand why we don't have them here.
I agree that one of those would be nice, maybe if things get bigger around here. I think you could post about those things in ~life, ~humanities, or ~misc depending on the exact topic for the time...
I agree that one of those would be nice, maybe if things get bigger around here. I think you could post about those things in ~life, ~humanities, or ~misc depending on the exact topic for the time being.
I would like that too. I don't think it's too niche because with both religion and politics, it's very easy to piss in someone's conversational soup without even knowing you're doing so, and I'm...
I'd also really like an ~occult page but I realize that's probably too niche.
I would like that too. I don't think it's too niche because with both religion and politics, it's very easy to piss in someone's conversational soup without even knowing you're doing so, and I'm not here to provoke others any more than I am here to be proselytized. Such a tag would make such discussions much safer and less provocative for all.
Seems like with religion and spirituality, this is a "better safe than sorry" situation. Those subs are some of the ones I will miss on Reddit, to be sure. But after reading the docs, I figured I'd just live without it: it doesn't seem to fit into the existing structure, unfortunately. Plus I've been here for all of a hot five minutes, so what do I know?
But speaking solely for myself, and to be very blunt, I have no desire to discuss spirituality without some assurance that those who would be actively offended by my beliefs and practices have the option of avoiding my comments altogether. And I probably won't browse anything of a spiritual or religious nature that is already here for the exact same reason: there are things I too just don't want to see.
TL;DR: If ever a niche is truly required and cannot be safely relegated to general conversation, spirituality is at the very top of that list. I am really glad you brought this up. Thank you, ThatMartinFellow.
I don't like how when I use the "Link" button it doesn't bring me to the actual comment, it brings be to the entire thread. Coming from old.reddit (like I'm sure a lot of people here are) like how...
I don't like how when I use the "Link" button it doesn't bring me to the actual comment, it brings be to the entire thread.
Coming from old.reddit (like I'm sure a lot of people here are) like how old.reddit functions with "context", "permalink", and "partent" a little better.
When I click the Link button next to your comment, the URL changes to be a direct link to your comment, and it's highlighted with a uniquely colored bar on the left. If I paste that URL into a new...
When I click the Link button next to your comment, the URL changes to be a direct link to your comment, and it's highlighted with a uniquely colored bar on the left. If I paste that URL into a new tab, it'll jump down to it and show it highlighted the same way. Do you have a scriptblocker or other website modification going on?
Currently Tildes uses HTML anchors to link to comments. It's a bit wonky though. If new comments have been made in the topic since the person last visited, and they click an anchored comment link...
Currently Tildes uses HTML anchors to link to comments. It's a bit wonky though. If new comments have been made in the topic since the person last visited, and they click an anchored comment link it will fail to go to that comment location since it's collapsed due to the "Collapse old comments" feature. Same goes for if the comment was labeled with Noise and so is auto-collapsed too.
At one point a replacement permalink system (like how it works on reddit) was "in progress" but it unfortunately never got finished. I should probably remove the "in progress" on it.
I would put the comment box at the top of the comments rather than at the bottom. Is that an option somewhere? I didn't see it. But that's my biggest thing.
I would put the comment box at the top of the comments rather than at the bottom. Is that an option somewhere? I didn't see it. But that's my biggest thing.
Sure, I can see that. At the same time, that design probably makes more sense when the threads are relatively small. As this community grows and threads become on average larger and larger, it's...
Sure, I can see that. At the same time, that design probably makes more sense when the threads are relatively small. As this community grows and threads become on average larger and larger, it's going to be more and more cumbersome to do so. I spend most of my time here reading others' discussions regardless, but that's not really influenced by the placement of the reply text box. But when I do want to reply, scrolling to the very bottom of what might be a pretty large page just feels odd.
Maybe I'll get used to it and it won't bother me after spending more time here. Or maybe someone will make an Android app that will lay things out differently and it'll be a moot point regardless.
Honestly becoming more cumbersome to scroll to the new-top-level-comment on large threads is where comment box at the bottom shines. The larger a thread gets, the more likely a discussion already...
Honestly becoming more cumbersome to scroll to the new-top-level-comment on large threads is where comment box at the bottom shines. The larger a thread gets, the more likely a discussion already exists that can be expanded upon instead of a new top-level comment. At the same time, the larger a thread gets, the more tempting it is to drive-by comment instead of fully reading and engaging with the extensive existing discussion.
It's that second point you made about drive by commenting that I think I see becoming more common if tildes continues to grow with the API exodus from reddit. Honestly the more I think about it, I...
It's that second point you made about drive by commenting that I think I see becoming more common if tildes continues to grow with the API exodus from reddit.
Honestly the more I think about it, I think I actually really prefer how things work on mobile apps for reddit, or even in the inbox system here - where there is no comment box at all until you specifically select the reply button. But again that's because most of what I do is read rather than comment.
Researching the community and seeing that post was actually the reason I went to the reddit thread to ask for an invite here in the first place! I think RIF Golden Platinum was the first app I...
Researching the community and seeing that post was actually the reason I went to the reddit thread to ask for an invite here in the first place! I think RIF Golden Platinum was the first app I actually bought from the Android Market, back before it was rebranded to Google Play Store. I'm excited to see what talklittle does.
Honestly, I have a Galaxy Fold 4, and the website is super usable on mobile. I know that's a part of the design philosophy as well, but it's really nice, especially on my Fold's inner screen.
It works, more or less. Not every comment is going to inspire someone to answer. The real marker, in my mind, is the number of people saying the exact same thing instead of upvoting the statement...
It works, more or less. Not every comment is going to inspire someone to answer. The real marker, in my mind, is the number of people saying the exact same thing instead of upvoting the statement they already agree with. If people are saying the exact same thing without any difference of nuance, have they read the thread? Are they contributing to a conversation? If they see their sentiment expressed, but with some differences, it would be best if they responded to that comment with their own nuanced take on the situation. If someone is the fifth person in a thread to say that they want the comment box at the top so that they can respond even faster to the question without absorbing the current state of the discussion, perhaps that's an indicator that even the current system isn't doing enough to encourage people to slow down and become part of the conversation.
Sometimes comments are conducive to replies and sometimes they're not, and it usually has to do with the topic being posted. For a lot of ask.survey or ask.recommendation questions, unless a user...
Sometimes comments are conducive to replies and sometimes they're not, and it usually has to do with the topic being posted. For a lot of ask.survey or ask.recommendation questions, unless a user is going to suggest the same thing, it makes sense to leave their own comment than reply to another. I think overall it works, which isn't to say it guarantees replies in every thread.
It took me a really long time to find Reddit palatable, because I find a fully expanded tree of comments to be really overwhelming. RES's ability to automatically collapse child comments made...
It took me a really long time to find Reddit palatable, because I find a fully expanded tree of comments to be really overwhelming.
RES's ability to automatically collapse child comments made Reddit way more enjoyable to use.
Tildes does support collapsing the replies of top level comments, but there doesn't appear to be a way to have that be the default behavior.
The text contrast is too low. It's great there are optional low-contrast themes for people who like squinting or have expensive displays, but please, please use black-on-white body text with the...
The text contrast is too low.
It's great there are optional low-contrast themes for people who like squinting or have expensive displays, but please, please use black-on-white body text with the default theme. I think maximizing legibility is important for a text-first kind of website.
Letting one random user spin off their own group just because they feel like it... will not happen on Tildes. Groups on Tildes will probably be created reactively, rather than proactively, and by...
Letting one random user spin off their own group just because they feel like it... will not happen on Tildes. Groups on Tildes will probably be created reactively, rather than proactively, and by collective consensus rather than individual decision.
Also, scrolling past other people's comments to make your own comment, encourages you to see those other comments, so that you don't end up saying the same thing that a dozen other people have already said.
I don't think Tildes should change this philosophy and open up the floodgates, for very good reasons outlined in the rest of this comment thread, but it still feels a little bit like there's a...
Groups on Tildes will probably be created reactively, rather than proactively, and by collective consensus rather than individual decision.
I don't think Tildes should change this philosophy and open up the floodgates, for very good reasons outlined in the rest of this comment thread, but it still feels a little bit like there's a problem with it, which is like just how niche can I post in ~games for example?
There may not be enough Tildes users as a whole to post the kind of topics one might've seen in like sub-communities of a specific game.
For example, I am not the OP of the following thread (I'm already familiar with the cDPS he's asking about), but I would not feel comfortable submitting even a discussion topic about this subject to ~games right now.
In spite of the fact that I believe there would be nothing inherently against the rules about it and if nobody cares, it simply falls down the group page until it vanishes into obscurity, I would not be comfortable making threads that niche because depending on how often (probably pretty often tbh) I might want to try to open very niche topics, it could end up basically being spam by way of constantly posting stuff that nobody else cares about.
Despite all that I'm never much of a thread-starter myself, anyway, but while I'm really liking Tildes for what it is (and I'm definitely bought-in on the idea that it's not a Reddit replacement), it has a problem that I'm quite certain every single other place that people went to after leaving Reddit will also have, which is that it's population is low enough that for however niche and into the nitty-gritty of a subject I might want to get, I might be lucky to find even 1 other user who cares about the subject enough that I might as well just DM them.
All this is to say, I feel like the topics that could lead to creation of an eventual ~games.ffxiv in following with the example, or even more niche subjects like ~games.emulation or ~games.speedrun all might be too niche to even post at all right now, meaning maybe these subjects never actually get a chance to bubble up to the surface within ~games and warrant creation of sub-groups for a very very long time. (Again I'm certainly not arguing that someone needs to make them right now anyway.)
Not saying I'm prepared to look elsewhere, and not saying I'm not interested in having broader conversations in the existing threads around here, but my Reddit usage was largely avoiding subreddits like r/games in favor of specific subreddits for specific games, genres, systems, or modes of play, and part of my learning curve on Tildes here has involved a certain amount of discomfort with how to interact with a group as broad in nature as ~games, which inherently makes me feel like my topics must be broad enough to interest most ~games participants or drown, which is okay, but makes it feel futile.
Also this is very much about perception and how things feel to me, so I'm sure a much less complicated answer to all this might be forthcoming, probably "just post" or "how often is there something new to discuss about emulation or speedrunning or ffxiv anyway?" or something, which is valid but doesn't make me feel any less uneasy about niche submissions to a broad topic group. I'm probably just being an overthinker, anyway.
tl;dr I feel like only having broad topic groups disincentivizes posting niche content that could lead to future subgroups until the site's population is big enough to have enough users that care about that niche, yet posting about that niche content is the only way to find out where the topic stands in the community in the first place.
As niche as you want! :) The problem is, as you rightly identify, the low population of Tildes, rather than the lack of more specific groups. Even if we created a niche group for...
which is like just how niche can I post in ~games for example?
As niche as you want! :)
The problem is, as you rightly identify, the low population of Tildes, rather than the lack of more specific groups. Even if we created a niche group for ~games.video.finalfantasy.xiv... that group would only attract a few members. Because in a nominal population of only about 20,000 registered users, and an actual population of far less active users, you're not going to find a lot of people interested in the same niche topics as you - but creating the niche groups won't suddenly make those people appear.
Even on Reddit, those niche subreddits didn't appear immediately after people were allowed to create their own subreddits. Again: the population had to grow, and the need for those subreddits had to be seen by someone. The downside of allowing people to create their own subreddits/groups is that, sometimes, the creator themself was the only person who needed the subreddit; I've seen people create subreddits that, even after a year or two, still have a population of only 1 or 2 subscribers. Some subreddits become graveyards. And noone wants to post in a graveyard!
If you want to find out whether people here are interested in Final Fantasy XIV, then make a post and see what happens.
Otherwise, based on the 90:9:1 rule of internet participation, you'll have to rely on what that 1% is interested in posting. Out of 20,000 nominal users, and a lower number of active users, the number of people who will post topics for you to comment on is far less than 200 people. If one of those less-than-200 people isn't interested in the game(s) you like, you won't see a post about it. So, either you start posting yourself, or you wait for the population of Tildes to grow to the point where someone in that 1% of the population is also interested in the game(s) you like.
Which is a very long way of saying "just post"! :)
Then it's not much of a democracy and more of an autocracy, except using public-relations speak to make this seem ideal and democratic. I like multiple people posting the same opinion because it...
Letting one random user spin off their own group just because they feel like it...
Then it's not much of a democracy and more of an autocracy, except using public-relations speak to make this seem ideal and democratic.
Also, scrolling past other people's comments to make your own comment, encourages you to see those other comments, so that you don't end up saying the same thing that a dozen other people have already said.
I like multiple people posting the same opinion because it shows popular support for a feature/idea rather than just a lone voice crying in the wilderness. People are inclined to skip over long threads, preferring to read the parent, assuming the comments under the parent are a shitshow argument rather than a line of people saying "me too" which is similarly boring.
I was just talking about Imzy in another comment, and I think it's relevant here: So what you call "democracy" when it comes to group creation, I think of as actually more like anarchy, and that's...
I was just talking about Imzy in another comment, and I think it's relevant here:
They did make something new. It was called Imzy (Dan McComas is the RedditGifts founder, and a former SVP at Reddit), but it unfortunately failed. :(
Part of the reason it failed is because they allowed user created groups right from the start, so they ended up with thousands of largely empty, inactive groups since they didn't yet have the userbase to populate them. The whole site ended up looking like a ghost town as a result, and that's why we don't have user created groups here yet either (and maybe never will).
So what you call "democracy" when it comes to group creation, I think of as actually more like anarchy, and that's not always the best thing to allow for the long-term health of a community.
I like multiple people posting the same opinion because it shows popular support for a feature/idea rather than just a lone voice crying in the wilderness
That's what votes are for, and replies to people who have already commented with something you agree with. When essentially the same top-level comment keeps being made over and over again by people who couldn't be bothered to read the other comments first before making their own, all it does is make it harder to find differing opinions and divergent discussions in the comments section.
It has never been Tildes' goal to be "democratic" (and tbh I've never seen a social media site that was). It's always been pretty clear, especially if you read the docs and philosophy, that it is...
Then it's not much of a democracy and more of an autocracy, except using public-relations speak to make this seem ideal and democratic.
It has never been Tildes' goal to be "democratic" (and tbh I've never seen a social media site that was). It's always been pretty clear, especially if you read the docs and philosophy, that it is run according to the wishes of one person (Deimos). Of course he takes into consideration what users want (and he seems to do so pretty well imo), but in the end it's his website. If you don't trust Deimos's judgement, then Tildes probably isn't for you.
And tbh, I like it that way. It's a lot easier for one guy to delete Nazi bullshit than it would be to convince a completely democratic social media website to do so. I trust Deimos to moderate the site well and if I lose that trust, I'll find a different website.
Been here only for a day or two and so far top complaints are definitely 1) no app, 2) comment box at the bottom is awful. And general lack of design is kind of a turnoff. I don’t mind it being...
Been here only for a day or two and so far top complaints are definitely 1) no app, 2) comment box at the bottom is awful. And general lack of design is kind of a turnoff. I don’t mind it being basic, but not Web 1.0 level.
A submitter's username is not visible for link submissions viewed in the feed: https://i.imgur.com/b0axt9j.png It's replaced with a favicon and a site title.
This is intentional. Submitting a link should be thought of like giving it to the community, not owning it, unlike Reddit where karma meant who submitted it was important. Showing the site info in...
This is intentional. Submitting a link should be thought of like giving it to the community, not owning it, unlike Reddit where karma meant who submitted it was important. Showing the site info in the feed instead is more relevant and de-emphasizes the specific user who posted it. Text posts (and I think certain music posts) show the submitter in the feed since it’s actually their content.
Ah, I guess I misunderstood. I thought I read somewhere that the "giving to the community" was for all posts, not just links. I'd still kinda argue that a username can give some important context...
Submitting a link should be thought of like giving it to the community, not owning it, unlike Reddit where karma meant who submitted it was important.
Ah, I guess I misunderstood. I thought I read somewhere that the "giving to the community" was for all posts, not just links.
I'd still kinda argue that a username can give some important context for why a link is being posted, but I would imagine that this has be litigated before.
You can still see who submitted an external link in the topic itself: E.g. https://tild.es/18fb "Posted 24 minutes ago by cfabbro" And even for external link topics in ~music and ~creative it...
You can still see who submitted an external link in the topic itself:
E.g. https://tild.es/18fb "Posted 24 minutes ago by cfabbro"
And even for external link topics in ~music and ~creative it always shows the user who posted something instead of the domain, since they're "taste" based groups where knowing who submitted something is often more valuable to know than the site they're linking to, which are usually just YouTube/Bandcamp/Spotify/Imgur/etc.
Ironically I was just thinking about how necro-posts bump an old topic. Maybe top level comments could bump but non-top level comments or comments beyond some threshold wouldn't bump? Sometimes I...
Ironically I was just thinking about how necro-posts bump an old topic. Maybe top level comments could bump but non-top level comments or comments beyond some threshold wouldn't bump? Sometimes I want to contribute to a discussion or reply to someone but it really doesn't warrant bumping an entire topic.
They don't. I think that comments more than 5 levels deep don't bump topics. Also, replies to comments that are labelled as 'Noise' (and maybe 'Joke' and 'Offtopic') don't bump topics. Why not?...
but non-top level comments or comments beyond some threshold wouldn't bump?
They don't. I think that comments more than 5 levels deep don't bump topics. Also, replies to comments that are labelled as 'Noise' (and maybe 'Joke' and 'Offtopic') don't bump topics.
Sometimes I want to contribute to a discussion or reply to someone but it really doesn't warrant bumping an entire topic.
Why not? Are your comments less valid than everyone else's, just because you made them more than 24 hours after a topic was started?
Discovering a topic later than other people, and commenting on it a week or a month later, shouldn't be seen as less worthwhile as commenting on it early. Why penalise people for not seeing something when it was first posted?
I have seen discussions of possibly adding a whisper function. I'm not sure I personally can adequately judge who might be interested in a new comment to an old post. Sometimes I discover entire...
I have seen discussions of possibly adding a whisper function. I'm not sure I personally can adequately judge who might be interested in a new comment to an old post. Sometimes I discover entire threads that way that I had been unaware of.
I saw an incredibly amusing example of this when someone recently bumped a weeks or months old thread simply to make a silly joke saying "...on toast?" I imagine they had no idea it would bump the...
I saw an incredibly amusing example of this when someone recently bumped a weeks or months old thread simply to make a silly joke saying "...on toast?" I imagine they had no idea it would bump the thread and draw everyone's attention towards it. I wasn't even mad, it was hilarious, at least that time.
Anyway, this feature is actually one of my favorite things about tildes. Reddit threads would die so quickly due to the way posts worked and the unspoken rule of not commenting on "old" threads, and I feel that it prevented the continuation of countless discussions over the years. It also resulted in the creation of an absurd number of duplicate posts.
On Tildes I think this feature just needs a few tweaks in order to work perfectly. What you described would be going too far, in my opinion, because I like seeing interesting discussions continue beyond the top level comments. Like all of the older topics say, it's okay to bump a topic as long as it continues the discussion. I'd say we should all just try to follow that guideline, and not be afraid to bump topics in general.
Those repeated topics (also known as recurring ones) are (mostly) automatically posted by Tildes itself, and act as a megathread for people to share what they've been doing/listening to/etc.
If you don't want to see them, might I suggest adding
recurringto your filtered list of tags.I actually really like the recurring posts on the first page, as it allows each user to be heard and encourages friendly, low-risk conversation.
Just a heads up to anyone — not all recurring topics are discussion based. To prevent noisy topics from clogging the front page, there are also recurring mega-threads created as needed. For example, the politics and Ukraine conflict mega-threads recur weekly.
Yeah. I actually like that they exist to prevent people from posting a million posts about the same topic over and over.
Something useful with recurring post would be for them to be connected somehow. Like, I visit the weekly megathread about Ukraine, and I want to check the old ones, it would be nice to have a little index there with a link for all the weeks prior to the recent one. Make it collapsible so it won't bother those who don't care about that info. And make it so it updates automatically, so no one has to bother to do that manually. This idea has been very useful in the Episode discussion threads on any TV show on the site that must not be named, so I think it would be useful here too.
Some of the recurring posts have useful tags that let you do basically that -- for example, the album recommendation thread has its own tag, so you can see all past threads.
Not all of the recurring posts have useful tags, but it might be worth looking into the scheduled posting scripts to fix that. (Though I'm not sure who manages that. Potentially only Deimos?)
Another solution is to have each post link to the previous post, and edit the old post to add a link to the next in the series.
It would actually be nice if the recurring posts auto-archived to be read-only when the next post comes up. And then the list of archived recurring posts is in the sidebar on the current one.
Granted, eventually the list might just be too long. Maybe it'll have to be a list of the last 10 and then a calendar picker to browse and select older ones (similar to how the Wayback Machine displays its old snapshots, only sized for the Tildes sidebar.
Attempting to continue a discussion from an old post would ideally just create a link to that comment in the new thread for the rare cases where that happens.
The automated recurring posts do auto-archive (well, close new top-level comments), but I don't think there's currently a way for manual recurring posts to do that? They don't fully archive, so people can still continue ongoing discussions on the old post, but I think that's probably a good thing? It isn't that rare, from what I've seen, and forcing someone to link to an old post to continue the discussion would be disruptive.
Adding a list of past to the sidebar is an interesting idea, though it seems like it would take some work to design/implement; using the existing tag feature and just giving each recurring post its own tag would give basically the same results without having to implement anything new.
These have been useful because they attract discussion that otherwise wouldn't happen at all. (Up until we recently we had very few new topics; people seemed reluctant to post top level.)
I think maybe some could be removed, though, if the amount of other activity remains higher.
I don't dislike recurring topic per se, but I do lament that we cannot search them. Typical usecase: what does Tildes think about <insert a particular videogame here> ? I know I can do a regular web search with
site:tildes.net, but still.In the early days, I was among the most prolific posters on Tildes. After a while, I got bored. It was the same small group of people, posting about the same limited group of interests, and talking about the same things. Tildes was supposed to grow (albeit slowly, which I approved of). It never grew.
It seems to be growing now due to the upcoming Reddit changes. Case in point, I registered earlier today...
I encourage new people to post SOMETHING and reply to comments for at least a few days to help keep this momentum going. If you WANT something to succeed you sometimes need to pitch in!
I, myself, am a very chatty person, but as a new/read-only account, am also wary of disrupting the current cozy atmosphere of tildes because there's a value of "high value" posts and comments.
So, old hands, please keep encouraging new people and let us know gently if we're being noisy and disruptive.
I agree with this too. I'm super new as of yesterday. I'm not even a very old redditor. It's daunting trying to jump into conversations when I am still figuring out vibes and so forth.
Please don't feel intimidated! Not every comment needs to be some lengthy post — as long as you are contributing to the discussion any input is welcome, even if it is a one sentence statement. Speaking as a "old hand" as @chocobean put it, I am thrilled we have so many new users and it is exciting that there is a lot of content I can catch up on when I check in. Tildes has gone through some really slow periods in the past so this is a very nice change of pace. Please, to any new user reading this, don't hesitate to participate, just treat it as an IRL discussion (the same level of effort you'd use if you were speaking face to face).
Thanks for the encouragement, (new) friends! I'll do my best to bore all of you just like I would when speaking face to face. :P
Well hell, then I guess I better chime in here, with my two-day-old account. Hi friends! Looking forward to some wonderful text-based posts and conversations. Loving it here so far.
Hi, new friend! Welcome!
On Reddit, I tend to be more of a lurker because at some point, someone already said the thing I want to say! 😅
Then tildes sounds like the place for you! Now you can get your word in before someone else had the chance to say it and can be the one starting the discussion.
Totally!
Also on a side note, I really wanted to have your username 😂😂
I've been a user for 5 years now and don't post all that much but I come here every day.
I would say that one of the only things that's frowned upon is low effort content - old reused jokes and puns come to mind, which any reddit user will be very familiar with.
Other than that, please do comment and post etc..! We do not bite and the tone is a lot nicer and kinder than other social media!
Yeah the general vibe is just for people to post because they want to share something they thing the community will find interesting.
In contrast to sharing because you think it’ll get you approval points (literal or figurative). The lack of approval points is somewhat jarring at first. You never know if anyone is actually enjoying your stuff. But the beauty is, you don’t need to care! We’ll all see it anyway!
Awww, I love some of those puns and good uses of old jokes. I realize they're not for everyone but some days it's stupid little stuff that gets a smile out of me.
I get it. I can walk into certain topics and already know what the top comment will be. It's fun when I'm right but annoying when I'm not only right but 27 other people also made the same comment and it's filling up what Reddit will show on the initial comments load for primary comments. I wouldn't mind if they all just got dumped in as children comments under the parent but that's not happening.
Sometimes it works, and the best way is to weave something in with a higher-effort comment. Rather than straight copypasta.
This. I'm a new reddit migrator but I remember when I first discovered reddit, one of the best things about it was the sheer amount of inside jokes each subreddit would have, or sometimes reddit as a whole (like how r/anime_tiddies). It was so bizarre and different from the stuff I saw on other social media platforms I saw that I kind of miss having an inside joke being made in a subreddit without seeing it 50+ times in my feed all of the sudden. I guess I want the lighthearted goofiness reddit use to have without the desensitization we have now
It can become a bit much. I suppose I've adapted to those ways and simply enjoy the content within the comments that I enjoy. Stuff like bursting into song or movie quotes when the parent comments allow it becomes a bit of fun silliness that I can appreciate. Some days just suck and for me, those little things can be helpful. Though I realize my case may be vastly different than others and they might not appreciate them.
I think I'm finding the lighthearted goofiness on Squabbles (I just created an account there; I think they have 20k members now). Fark is very sharp and funny but more snarky (i just lurk there - I revisited the site after maybe a decade since leaving Reddit). Kbin has a bit of fun banter, too, but the topic groups I'm in tend to be pretty straightforward and a bit serious. In short, for me, a mix of sites is giving me a nice balance and ensuring that I don't put all my eggs in one basket (as I had previously done with Reddit).
Then post them! Nobody is stopping you from making good jokes. The issue is about frustrating the actual discussion, not the jokes themselves.
If you're participating in a normal manner by contributing and sometimes the contribution is a joke that's fine too.
This place isn't, and doesn't have to be, devoid of humor.
I joined yesterday and have left a few comments so far. Around half of them have received very friendly replies, and ALL of them have received upvotes. The community seems to be very welcoming!
Yeah! Same here. Someone even asked about my favourite unicorn. Quite happy to look around and stay if it carries on this way.
I don’t think there’s a downvote feature yet, is there?
No downvote is an intentional design decision. Prevents a lot of agree/disagree hivemind behavior.
There are labels on the post that mostly serve as moderation functions.
I posted a primer on that right here to help out. Your label controls haven't activated yet, but in two days your accout hits seven days old, and then they will. Then you can moderate every single comment that isn't your own.
Exemplary you can only assign once every 8 hours. Makes you really want to use it when it counts.
No, I'm just using Reddit terminology.
Ngl, I’m actively having to remind myself “No one sentence replies. No echo chamber clichés replies. No getting ornery because someone has a mildly different opinion. Participate and be excellent to each other.”
I severely needed a detachment from not truly participating in comment chains wherein I post my opinion and let everyone else argue below after my inbox has 25 slight iterations of the same basic reply. There’s so many normalized bad habits I have from using that site over a decade, keeping myself there would only further entrench these bad habits.
So far tildes is a wonderful community, easy and simple interface. Love how it the site appears on mobile! So far, I dare say I wouldn’t even need an app.
I feel the same about stopping myself from giving shorter responses, as that seems to be my usual style of contribution to online discussions. Not that they're necessarily low-effort short responses, just that I am not one to be extremely verbose on a regular basis. My motto for professional emails and the like that I always offer as advice to friends is "CCC: Consider Communicating Concisely".
Don't force yourself to be verbose :) I'd advice instead to taking the time to articulate your thoughts in a way that is conducive to the thread and elaborate where neccessary, instead of forcing frills and bells where brevity would suffice.
But I am biased in the sense that I like both novel-length replies and succinct statements, as long as they have substance.
That reflects how I've come to feel about short responses. I also don't feel they're low effort; maybe closer to a notch under concise at times. Really, I want to break these bad online-habits of mine.
I'm going to have to try planting that seed with my coworkers. Tbh, communication would be a start. Currently, asking for concise communication is a little too advanced lol
Verbosity doesn't equal contribution. Contributing is any type of comment that adds to the discussion which can sometimes even be single word answers.
You shouldn't feel intimated. We're a merry bunch!
I've actually been here for a while, and it's very easy for me to start typing something out and then get hit by the old "eh, nevermind..." and delete it and move on. Tildes has a high standard for contributions - as it should, that's part of the appeal - but I tend to feel that my ramblings won't meet it. Probably just a fear I ought to get over.
When I first joined Tildes, seeing the notification that I had new comments was an anxiety spike for me. I’d look over, see the orange badge or
1 new commenttext in the top right corner, and get nervous. It took months for that feeling to go away.Even sadder, I didn’t even really notice it was happening initially because I was so used to it. It wasn’t until I’d been here for a bit that I was able to process what that feeling was in the first place.
Slowly, over time here and away from reddit, the conditioning broke for me.
I don’t feel that way anymore (which is great!), and seeing new notifications is a good feeling. It really is a sad comment on the state of reddit though that so many of us are so used to priming ourselves for attack with even the simplest of online interactions.
I hope you’re able to get out from under that feeling too.
Ramble on, sing your song! ;) You should never be afraid to comment on Tildes.
I had this problem when I first joined a few years ago. If you've ever posted on HackerNews, the style of discussion is very similar here (albeit considerably less pretentious and antagonistic, imo). Whereas on reddit the low-effort crap kills and the high-effort stuff is super hit-and-miss, it's kind of the opposite here. High-quality conversation is valued the most.
And honestly, nobody's really paying attention to how old your account is, as long as you're contributing to the discussion. That info's a whole click away and I can't be bothered :) While the community here is relatively small, it's not so small that new users stick out like a sore thumb or anything.
I adore HackerNews and have used it for years, but my god do people on that website love to get into the pettiest arguments possible over the smallest things. If you see any of the WFH threads, they are always a good read for the internet drama. The beef between introverts and extroverts runs deep (apparently).
I so appreciate all the kindness and care you guys are showing with our culture that I almost don't wanna say this, but I must: I think you guys are worrying a bit too much. Respect the rules, be mindful of others, try to make substantial contributions, be super duper nice... but say what you want, when you want. It's fine :D
That's because if you consistently posted 3 times a day the entire frontpage would be eventually yours, and if someone didn't care much for your interests (or you...) they might be annoyed.
I do agree that it's best now.
Any advice I give now is in the context of having a lot more active users. So what made sense before not necessarily makes sense now. There's no need to pick a lane, just understand that statements are localized in time and may refer to different contexts.
Also a new user. Is there anything we need to know about the culture here so that we don’t inject our own thoughts and feelings into the group? Mastodon did a great job at helping new users understand the existing culture in a way that I haven’t really seen here yet.
The biggest one is simply “don’t act like an asshole” IMO. :P
Everyone has bad days, and bickering sometimes is only natural too, but so long as everyone tries their best to not be an asshole, I think they’ll do fine here. :)
In the footer of every page is the very vague "Docs" link. Within it is various things you might find useful, primarily the philosophy page.
I actually read the philosophy page. It helped a lot, and should be part of onboarding, in my opinion.
As much as I enjoy multi-paragraph philosophy manifestos (and I mean that sincerely), I generally take having one pushed on me as a sign that I’m dealing with an ideologue who loves hearing themselves talk. It’s better to just point to it when someone is curious. The essence of the manifesto should be sufficiently manifest (heh) in the design and culture such that it communicates its own themes. Maybe just a paragraph at most to establish the ground rules.
The thing about Tildes "philosophy" is that there's nothing novel about it. It's just what most reasonable people agree on, and boils down to something similar to Reddit's and other major websites. The main difference is that here they're not merely suggestions. They are actually enforced.
cfabbro covered the basics pretty well. I can just add one thing. The tildes community is really good at trying to understand the most favorable interpretation of an argument. This contrasts with almost the entire rest of the Internet where people seem to try and “take down” other people’s arguments. Because of this, redditors (and almost every one on the internet) try and hedge arguments, and attack/defend. It takes some time to unlearn these habits, but it will be worth it.
I was just thinking how in the few days I’ve been here I haven’t seen a single argument. I’ve barely seen a disagreement - which aren’t always bad! Of course if someone is genuinely misinformed someone should let others reading know. But it feels like here people are a) slower to contribute, possibly particularly if they aren’t confident they’re right, and b) very much nicer in their replies. The vibe is just… nicer.
Really enjoying being here so far!
Yes. And one must put a strong emphasis on the word "try" :)
I just joined a few mins ago and am still learning to navigate the site. I just realized there’s a bunch of gorgeous themes built in! I’ll start posting soon when that option is available.
You should already be able to post. Just visit one of the group pages and click "Post a new topic". I would suggest waiting a while and getting a bit more familiar with the site and its culture before you do though.
Ah okay. I didn’t realize I had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the thread to post a comment either. Learning!
No worries. And welcome to Tildes! :)
Thanks! Happy to be here before the flood really starts!
I would love for Tildes or Lemmy to succeed. I’ve been participating in both since joining in the last couple of days. (Which is honestly kind of jarring after being a lurker for the last 10 years on Reddit)
Reddit was always so toxic when it came to posting a new comment or post. It was demoralizing to post something you worked hard and thought was cool only to be sent into downvote oblivion with 0 comments.
That being said, after essentially taking a vow of silence for a decade due to the culture on Reddit.. what am I (and other long time lurkers) supposed to post or comment?
The communities on Tildes and Lemmy seem to be much more inviting than my experience on reddit. I’m sure some other lurkers are also having mixed feelings about just immediately jumping into contributing after who knows how many years of lurking.
Anyways, didn’t mean to unload all that specifically on you. I’ve seen multiple people at this point on Tildes and Lemmy say the same thing and thought I’d pipe up.
Could be useful to have a dedicated thread to pull lurkers like me out of the shadows and get us comfortable with commenting, interacting, and brainstorming ideas for posts.
Honestly, that’s exactly how I felt…. That things I normally would have wanted to share on Reddit would immediately be downvoted, or brigaded by white supremacist incel Rick and morbu repost creepazoid bot networks.
Instead the VERY FIRST POST I MADE got actual replies from actual people.
So here’s my advice: if YOU think it has value…go for it! You may be pleasantly surprised
It sounds like a lot of us have the same experience with the..uh.. “community” on Reddit. It has really surprised me to get replies to pretty much all of my comments on here. (And all of the replies have been thoughtful too!!)
Personally, I’ll have to think about what what could have value here as posts. I do have a decade of Reddit conditioning to work through :P luckily it sounds like there are other ways I can contribute even if it isn’t posts. Lending my time towards the open source repo for Tildes and commenting on existing posts sounds like they can help too.
Yep I'm also new here and I'm finding so far everyone is much kinder, more understanding and reasonable than elsewhere online. The reddit "community" much like most of the Internet in recent years tend to attack first ask never. I remember posting on reddit about how most call centers don't record every call, I thought it was due to the space that would take to store even a year of calls as that was the answer I'd always had and it made sense. I mean even a modest department in a call center can take upwards of 300k calls a month so even a few megabytes per call and that becomes unsustainable to store every one for most businesses. Instead of correcting my maths due to a mistake in the code used, I got called an idiot, told I shouldn't speak and then every mistake was pointed out and berated. I felt so shitty. That was in a legal subreddit, not even an IT one and my posts historically were legal as that's what my role was at the time. Really upset me, I deleted all of my old posts and never commented again in there despite having loved using my knowledge in law (specifically motor insurance claims in the UK) to help folk navigate a complex field and process that really impacts their lives.
I'm excited for a new community here where I can contribute with areas I do know and learn about things I don't. I'm starting with comments for now but also planning to look at the repo and start submitting posts with interesting things I find online.
Well, I'd encourage being more selective here. Particularly now that things have heated up a bit, we don't need activity for activity's sake. Start the kinds of discussions you'd like to see more of.
I'm trying but I've gone from very talkative in my earlier days to simply enjoying watching and reading the interactions between others, chiming in only when I feel the need.
Subjectively, this feels like the most (and fastest) Tildes has grown since the first year, though I may have forgotten other Reddit refugee events. So, welcome!
Thank you! I tend to lurk more than post, but so far I find the layout and quality of conversation here pleasing enough that Tildes has earned one of the limited bookmark spots on my Firefox Home Screen. If that’s not an endorsement I don’t know what is.
The demographics here still feel very homogenous.
I don't know what the most recent user survey/census has said, but I recall this site being dominated by white, male, software engineer/computer science/IT professionals. Which, there is nothing wrong with being that, but it makes all the conversations very one-note (and there is a tendency to talk outside wheelhouses with unearned expertise and authority).
My wife, who is not male or a software engineer, etc., tried to get into this website as well, but often felt like she was being talked down to or excluded. Her expertise and degrees are actually in a lot of topics people like to talk about here, like psychology and mental health. Yet, when she commented, it often didn't fit the preconceptions of those here. At best, her input was often ignored, and at worst, even outright dismissed and admonished. It made it not fun for her to comment here; even I felt frustrated on her behalf.
I hate to say it, but that's the reputation that engineering/computer science often carries—stereotypically arrogant and dismissive. I'm not accusing anyone specifically of this, but the tonality of conversations here has a tendency to ebb that way.
In terms of diversifying this community, the invite system might be part of the issue. People are quite likely to invite others who are more like themselves. At which point, those who do not fit this mould are either not invited at all, or don't feel welcome when they arrive.
I gave up on trying to frequent and participate here. Perhaps I'll try again if there is a surge of new users, but it is hard to not feel put off from my initial experiences.
The curse of all internet technologies is that they universally start with that crowd. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of possible solutions in my head to a lot of problems, but I've got nothing for that one. It's not really the invite system so much as it is that those STEM types are always the first ones who get shown the new toy by the other STEM folks who built the thing, and they broadcast it around in those same STEM circles because those people care far more about cool new internet technology than normies do. It's a strange form of creator bias.
I certainly think this is a factor, especially when a platform launches. However, the launch for this website is getting close to five years ago now. At some point, I think there needs to be some reflection on what this platform is, and how to structure it to be more inclusive.
Again, I'm going to say things that seem a bit abrasive towards the community here, but... There is a certain level of pretentiousness in respect to what a "valuable" discussion is. I think that pretentiousness categorically happens in two ways.
1) Certain topics are considered more 'high minded' and worthy of discussion.
2) A comment is more highly rewarded if it is objective and rational, instead of appealing to subjective experiences that evoke emotions.
To help illustrate these, let's drag my wife back into this and our 'not-so-little' dog too. We have a dog that has a plethora of health and behavioural issues. From books, trainers, veterinary behaviourists, specialists, and a fair amount of money too..., we have tried so very, very, hard to help him. Sadly, despite the fact that he is quite large, he finds the world to be a very frightening place. In addition to this, he has a myriad of digestive problems that often leave him feeling upset. We are at a point where there are more good days than bad for him, and the amount of work to achieve that has been nearly unsurmountable.
So my wife is still on Reddit. Her number one use of the website? Puppy subreddits. Not pictures, but the ones oriented towards discussions about dog training and experiences. Our dog can be incredibly frustrating with all his problems, but my wife (and I) love him to death. It takes an emotional toll at times. To that, more often than not, the point of her being on those subreddits isn't to glean new training info, but to look at what other people have dealt with and how they overcame their problems. It gives her emotional reassurance and hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel where we might be able to help him and get through this. It gives her a place to talk about what she is going through, and maybe even give hope to someone else who might have similar problems as we do.
Is this not inherently valuable? It's a very different discussion than what is often encouraged on Tildes though.
I suppose it just irks me that this type of discussion is mostly ignored or dismissed, almost as if the collective attitude is that we are 'above' it because puppies are just vacuous tripe better left for Facebook. Meanwhile, I'll go into the books "group" on Tildes and people are talking about some comic book as if it is high art. It's almost comical how stereotypical the community is.
If you want to break that stereotype, then you need to break the homogeneity of the community. How are you going to do that? By giving a place for 'different' people to go. And I know you don't mean to slight them by calling them "normies," but that's part the community attitude here. Normies are an 'other' to Tildes, and they need not be. They just need groups that they feel like they can post things in and feel welcomed to.
I look at the list of groups, and it is entirely composed of topics that are general interest or topics that appeal to male-tech-enthusiasts. If I recall correctly, the 2021 census for Tildes said it was approximately 85% men to 15% women, and I doubt it has changed much since then. Nor is it much of a mystery as to why. I know the 'philosophy' of Tildes is that groups will be added as there is demand for them, but all that serves to do is exclude people who have interests in topics that aren't listed.
I'll preface this by saying that no sexism is intended, but I can assure you that there are a number of women who come to this website, look at the list of groups, say "there is nothing here for me" and then leave. Maybe they try again in a couple years, but most probably won't.
To quote Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Add a "pets" group. Add a "parenting" group. Add a "relationships" group. Women are often the majority in these kinds of boards, and perhaps they would like to talk about these things here on Tildes too. You can add these topics without the website turning into a slew of cat pictures and relationship drama. It will take more work, certainly, but that's what it takes to grow.
To some extent, I wonder if part of the issue is that there is a portion of the community that fears this growth. Some of the more recent posts talk about worries from the influx of new users from Reddit. Will Tildes lose its 'feel'? Will it become less pure? The answer to those questions is that it has to. It has to change in order to grow. If it stays like this it will always be a small community. What that doesn't mean though, is that it will make Tildes less valuable. It simply means that new people are going to arrive, and their values will be different, but we can encourage them all to discuss things in a healthy and constructive way. There is a lot of value in that for everyone.
I have said many critical things here. Perhaps too critical at times. For whomever I may have upset, I apologize pre-emptively. I do not say these things with malice or intention to antagonize anyone or the community. I just think there are a few problems that need to be overcome.
I'm sure we'll soon see the 'I miss the good ole days of Tildes' posts, right on time. You're right, though - that is precisely what happens as a site grows up and it needs to happen. Every site has its own evolution. The best promise I can make for that here is that the people using this site won't have to constantly fight an uphill battle against the site itself just to try and maintain the quality of their community. That is precisely where reddit was derelict in its duty.
One can post all of this content right here and right now, it does not require specific groups to give 'permission' to the users to post a topic. I think that's a kind of poor training that reddit has instilled in everyone with the endless subredditization of internet discourse. If one can't find the equivalent group here, then there's hesitancy to post it at all.
Of course, I say that as someone who, if ~music.listentothis existed, would gleefully race ten other users to be the first to post 1500 tracks. My submissions alone would outpace all other Tildes content. The presence or absence of groups does indeed have an effect on how people post.
I'd look for a new groups discussion in the next weeks. It's been over a year since we shook up the list, so another batch of groups is overdue anyway, and it would be very cool to get more input like this from the new users to shake up the perspectives here. We will hear from Deimos once he's got his RL on chill mode and has managed his massive inbox, count on that. He is lurking and reading, and I find he has a remarkable ability to laze in on the heart of an idea while everyone else is pontificating about it.
We have some work to do here managing the 'scope' of what people see, and it has to get beyond basic subscriptions or even subscriptions + tags - filters, which is what we have now. Ideally, we'd find a way to get rid of the groups hierarchy for something better that isn't actually a hierarchy, but I've got no better idea of how to do that. I think Deimos might, though - something to do with vectors, but you'd have to ask him. We should be beyond hierarchies and into something else by now. That would be a real silver bullet.
For now, just pick the general topic group here that is the closest match, with ~misc being the same catch-all that /r/reddit.com was back in the day. There are other users here who will happily help clean up the tags and move threads around if needed. Don't be governed by a fear of posting - go ahead and post what you like. The votes will sort it all out, and they'll do it without downvotes or bots or trolls interfering with the process here, unlike every single other site on the internet. ;)
Also remember that ~talk exists and that's our version of /r/casualconversation.
So far we've just had polls and added groups based on suggestions, but eventually, it's supposed to be dynamic group creation, with parent groups deciding how and when to create the subgroups, or fold them back in. Tag occurrence frequency can even auto-create or auto-demote groups, at least in theory.
Of course, all of this comes right back to the funding issues as well. I've seen how fast Deimos can turn out code and features when he's working. He can easily beat reddit's entire dev team, who incidentally haven't added a feature users wanted since 2015, if he's working on this full time.
Those haven't necessarily been five productive years, though. The growth in users for Tildes has been very very very slow over that period. After the initial rush 4-5 years ago, new users have barely trickled in. So, there hasn't been much opportunity for change here over that same period.
@Amarok is right about how new websites start. Reddit was the same: the initial crowd was mostly tech-bros. But, as Reddit grew, it diversified. Unfortunately, Tildes hasn't grown, so it hasn't had the opportunity to diversify.
If this latest influx signals the start of a new growth spurt for Tildes, then maybe this site will reach the critical mass necessary for its group of interests to start reflecting a more diverse user base.
Creating new groups just for the sake of it is against the philosophy of Tildes. Groups get created in response to observed demand, rather than in advance of discussions about that subject. What we're trying to do is guide people to the groups appropriate to the content they want to share and see - and, the more discussions there are about a given topic, the more likely it is that a group or sub-group will be created for it.
For example, ~life is the group for discussing parenting and relationships, as you can see in this original request for the group that became known as ~life. The sidebar for that group even says "Topics related to our personal (and professional) lives - work, school, families, relationships, parenting, etc." There are many discussions about parenting and relationships in ~life. It's almost inevitable that the sub-groups ~life.parenting and ~life.relationships will be created in the future.
And it looks like discussions about pets are happening in ~hobbies. That seems like an uncomfortable home for those discussions, but I assume that will be changed in future group-creation events.
Why don't we do without groups though? I feel like there's a bit of redundancy between groups and tags. Then users could simply subscribe to tags of their interest to personalize their feed.
You're right, they are a bit overlapping, and the idea was that a tag which is being used a lot becomes a group, at least until it isn't being used so much anymore. This way, subgroups could pop out of parent groups on demand, and we'd get a dynamic self-organizing hierarchy for the groups.
Subscribing to the tags themselves inside a group is something I'd love as well, since it'll let you subscribe to a subset of a community's content or disappear that subset with a click. Imagine ~music with genre tags - now you can subscribe to metal, classical, and folk while disappearing jazz and reggae, if that's your thing. Just make a ribbon out of all the tags at the top of each group's page, and make it one click to turn them on and off, with it saved for every user's own preferences, and with those preferences applying even outside of the direct ~music view.
How many subreddits did we all see that had a version of themselves for images, or for questions, or for reposts? The tags solve that problem and let people filter that stuff without having to fork it off into a new community. Meanwhile, if in ~games half the posts have the 'elden ring' tag, we know it's time to spin off a ~games.eldenring before the regular folks in ~games go mental.
See, a tag itself is just that, a tag/view of a number of submissions. A tag hasn't got a 'sidebar' or a 'community' attached to it yet, it's just helping collate the data. When a tag is upgraded to a group, that's when it gets a sidebar, community, and trust tracking mechanics to self-select the moderators.
At least that's the theory. By the time we're actually doing all of this stuff I expect things will change as new ideas come in with new people.
That's because, at the moment, Tildes is an unfinished product, without a full range of groups and without a developed group hierarchy. Eventually, groups and sub-groups will form a larger part of Tildes' structure, and tags won't have to take on the task of categorising content in the same way that a sub-group would.
This is exactly how I have felt about tildes and quite a few other 'reddit alternative' sites of the last few years (hell probably going back a decade now). All these sites have decent fundamentals in terms of ui and content/comment posting ability, but they almost all start off super tech-focused. It makes sense, since the type of person yearning for new online forums with in-depth discussion probably skews more towards the younger, tech-ier side, but I think the restrictions on creating groups will hinder tildes' growth if it isn't eased up sometime soon.
People want to talk about all sorts of things that don't neatly fit into one of the curated groups on this site. I understand some of the reasons for not allowing users to make groups, but I think long-term the site will not take off if users aren't allowed to create those multitudes of wacky subreddits that reddit had. Some were stupid and short-lived, others were helpful and lasted for a decade+, but those subreddits were what really made reddit shine in my opinion. They allowed every single person to have an experience that was perfectly tailored to their interests instead of a generic experience catered towards male-tech-enthusiasts like you succinctly summed up.
You're right that Tildes demographics are not very diverse in some ways. Also, we can do little about who decides to join Tildes, what topics they will like, or what they will upvote.
But on the bright side, people here do seem pretty cooperative and will mostly follow along if someone takes the lead.
So, I'd like to point out that anyone can start a pets discussion, and now that we're getting a lot of new users, it will likely succeed. Looks like there hasn't been a discussion topic like that since 2022 so we're overdue, and maybe it will become a regular thing?
Some more details in case someone new decides to do it:
Which group the topic is in doesn't really matter. If it's wrong it will be moved. I might put it in ~talk or ~hobbies or even put it in ~misc and let someone else decide.
Then it's a matter of writing an engaging title (maybe "what pets do you have?") and a welcoming introduction, and some basic ground rules if you think it's needed (probably not in this case).
I'm not going to start it because I have other interests and other topics to mind, but that doesn't mean someone else can't.
I actually largely agree with you, and I'm saying this as someone who more or less has enjoyed Tildes in my few years of being here. I would love to see this place more diverse, and I would especially like new perspectives and types of conversations being held here. My view on this has actually come around a bit. I think when I initially joined I would have argued for this to be a place for "high-minded" discussion, but I think that view is actually too narrow to capture what is actually important in our interactions online. In "real life" we have meaningful, impactful discussion about a whole host of topics, not just ones that are "intellectual" in some sense. I see no reason that shouldn't be the case here. Subjectively, I actually think the community has loosened up over the last few years and there is more of an appetite for such conversations now than when it was just getting its footing.
So I agree that attracting more and more diverse users would be great. I think I disagree partially about adding groups like ~pets (for example) pre-emptively in an effort to attract people, only because I think that places way too much emphasis on the presence or non-presence of a group as being relevant to the types of discussions we are allowed to have here. People can and should totally post about pets here anyway even the absence of groups, and the same goes for whatever other topics come up. As long as they're posted in a group that is semi-relevant, and potentially tagged accordingly, I don't think that would be looked down upon. I think this is one difference between this space and Reddit, at least for now. You don't need to wait for a specialized space to post about a topic, you can just post about it! That's my view on it at least.
In any case I think yours is a really important perspective because ultimately I think communities really start to form when people are comfortable engaging with each other in more personal and perhaps informal ways. I don't think this is asking Tildes to lower its bar, but rather expand its definition of what counts as "quality" discussion.
I think adding pets, parenting, and relationship groups would be very valuable. You had mentioned that women tend to be active in these kind of boards. I don't know how active I would be in them (I don't have a pet, I'm burned out by parenting my tweens, and other people's dramas don't really resonated that much with me). However, and this is my gender bias as a woman, I was always so surprised in the subreddit Skincare Addiction that quite often (maybe more than half?) of the posts with photos about skincare concerns came from men. Amd that there would often be posts by men proudly showing off shelfies or skincare and grooming routines in the AsianBeauty subreddit, too. So maybe there are many men waiting for someone to start up these softer topic groups.
ETA: I read a little further down. @Algernon_Asimov pointed out that ~life covers parenting and relationships. They may have their own subgroups in the future.
Wow. This resonates with me. I worked in an IT-adjacent career for a decade, but I was never a developer and I was brought in because of my expertise in non-computing areas. I'm not a tech-bro, by any means. I feel your wife's situation. I've had moments here like that myself. (Most recently, just a couple of months ago.)
But, I keep hoping that, as Tildes grows, it will attract people with more diverse interests, and I would eventually find a more compatible crowd.
Well I am a 65 year old woman with no advanced computer skills.
I am somewhat fluent with technology as I was married years ago to a computer engineer. I learned a lot and it has served me well.
I just keep posting questions/comments about subjects that are relevant to me and my life. The advanced tech stuff is not something I can properly understand even when I read it LOL!
For the record, Reddit was originally like this (and IIRC /r/programming was a default subreddit and also the... second? biggest). This disappeared as it grew, so it's quite likely that Tildes will change likewise.
I disagree. Strongly. Tildes needs to grow, but it needs to grow in a controlled way. Tildes currently has only about 15,000 registered users, and probably only 10% (or less) of those users are active. That's about 1,500 users at most.
The current users have built up a culture here, which I like (even if I think it's too small). A massive influx of thousands of users from Reddit would drown out that culture and obliterate it.
New users need to be added gradually, with each new wave of users being smaller than the current user base, and each new wave having time to acculturate before letting in the next wave.
Otherwise, this won't be Tildes any more. It'll be Reddit 2.0. Which would be a failure.
Growth is good, but too much growth, too fast, would be bad.
Yeah. The invite process also allows the inviting member to explain how Tildes is different from reddit, link them to the docs page, etc. If it were a free sign up, I bet a lot more users would ignore the documentation.
I wasn't talking about numbers from the perspective of Reddit, but from the perspective of Tildes. It would take only a few thousand new members arriving at the same time to overwhelm and outnumber the existing active users on Tildes. So, obviously, if any significant number of redditors migrated here at one time, that would potentially have a detrimental effect on Tildes.
I'm curious what you, as an old hand, think about my proposal here.
I think your proposal would counteract the broader acculturation process I think needs to happen with new users. New users need to always be in the minority, and to be exposed to older users and their way of doing things. New users need to assimilate, to keep the culture of Tildes and to enable it to change in an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, way.
Your proposal would group new users with other new users, rather than with old users. If a batch of new users come over from Reddit, they'd be grouped into a neighbourhood with other new users from Reddit - and they would continue their Reddit-ish behaviour because they're still surrounded by people who prefer and encourage that behaviour. That would prevent them from learning the different culture of Tildes.
Thanks for the feedback!
That's a real risk and an excellent point. Perhaps it could be randomized into groups instead of just by signup date - that way, a mixture of old-timers and new users could be there. More is said elsewhere in discussions and I link there to avoid repeating over and over.
I'm down for evolution vs revolution (hell, I'm brand new, and I know it), but the challenge of scale will eventually be such that it is not always an option. Reinforcing that culture with structure is the key to keeping that culture intact.
Ironically, the larger Tildes becomes, the easier it will be to maintain its culture: there'll be more old users supporting the existing culture, compared to a proportionally smaller number of users bringing in outside cultures.
That was the initial plan. There was a lot of talk in the early years about how to use software, coding, and algorithms to underpin the desired culture here. Maybe that discussion would start up again if Tildes grew consistently and significantly.
I don't find that to be the case, and I know of several counter examples. /r/CFB, about which I have spent much time praising and identifying challenges, had tens of thousands of members who "got it." It was a delightful and intimate place that slowly grew, until it outgrew those people. Compound interest is rough, and growing at 44.7%/year means that the original folks get drowned out. It's ~100x larger now than when I joined, which was around 15-20k folks. That really good group is totally diluted...The culture is still there in some sense, but the intimacy is gone.
I hope it does continue to discuss. My suggestions should be taken in the spirit of a newcomer trying to think about new issues. I like it here and want to do my part to help it stay consistent, even as things change. Community is hard to maintain with growth, and, if growth is seen as a good and/or inevitable thing, keeping that community intact will be a challenge that I think is underestimated.
This is why I keep emphasising that Tildes must grow but slowly. New users need to always be in the minority, and each new wave of new users needs to time to acculturate before bringing in more new users.
I've seen the Eternal September effect in action over on Reddit many times. I've also moderated some subreddits that managed to stay true to their original vision of discussion over memes, depth over shallowness, even while growing. Of course, those required lots of active moderators - and the proposed moderation model for Tildes incorporated communal moderation, with trusted users having more moderation abilities, so that long-term users would have more influence over the culture than newcomers.
I've actually been thinking that the name of efforts to preserve culture could be called "eternal August" or the like.
As for the rate of growth...I dunno, man, it seems like a number of folks I've met around here say it's great but growing too slowly for them. Lots of 2018/2019-members seem to be asking what the plan is. Shrug I think that the August-style culture can stay despite growth of >20%/year with the right structural barriers...but even 2%/year will inevitably lead to September changes without them, and no amount of slow-walking growth will prevent it.
I'm interested to know where you got the number from. Is there any way to easily see Tildes statistics and such?
As a proxy, I've been referring to the number of users subscribed to ~tildes.official. Every new user is automatically subscribed to all groups, and that's the group which people are least likely to unsubscribe from.
However, I've recently learned that a regular contributor here (@Bauke) has created an external website to track this statistic: https://ts.bauke.xyz/
wow, this is really cool thanks!
Yeah, I've never been vocal about this I don't think, but I don't want the site to change too much. I disagree that the invite only should be lifted. I don't think we should gate-keep the website, invites are handed out pretty openly, but I don't want Tildes to be overrun by people who haven't read the Wiki and don't understand the general purpose of platform. I'm happy that there's been a migration to Tildes with Reddit's recent changes, and I welcome all of these new folks, but opening the floodgates would make user moderation unmanageable I suspect.
Same, since the day I joined I always enjoyed my time here. Tildes was never even close to dead, it might not have been the most active but I didn't mind at all. I like the invite only model, people who want to join can join and it keeps the growth to a manageable level.
I am also happy to see all the new people though, seems to be a lot of good folk! And if having more activity means I won't read basically everything that isn't a bad thing anyways :D.
Haha, yeah I think the days of being able to read everything are over!
I still find myself in the habit of feeling like I can read everything, I need to remind myself that at some point (maybe now?) that will need to stop!
I think yesterday was the very first day in my over 5 years on here that I was not able to read every comment made on the site for that day. So I have already found myself making the switch to only viewing topics and reading comment threads that pique my interest. It was kind of a nice feeling. :)
I can't even find the time to read just your activity! I can't imagine reading everything every day!
;)
I feel a bit sad that I can't read every single post anymore (I don't mean reading the links, just checking out the posts). It's a little bittersweet, but we all wanted Tildes to have more users so I'm not complaining.
Totally agree. And this is gonna sound like a meme but it feels kind of euphoric
Well, me too. It has been 5 years of a very relaxing website - I almost feel stressed trying to keep up right now! I am very optimistic and hopeful about the future of Tildes though
I, for one, would also like to avoid everyone having 10 alt accounts -- anonymous is okay, but continuity with one anon per person would be nice
I find your take sensible and interesting. I think there was some minor concern in the early days about the invite system and alts, but I don't think there are any rules against alts. The main concerns would be using the alts to engage in bad faith dialogue or vote manipulation. I think we've run into that issue once before, and it was dealt with swiftly. I'm not sure if @Deimos has a mechanism on the back end to detect such things, but the heavy emphasis on good faith dialogue (I hope) has kept this at bay.
There are some rules regarding alts, but they're all just restrictions on using them in bad faith.
I would like to post more, but if I lowered my threshold for things I share I would end up sharing more negatively-toned content. And that’s simply not what I want to be putting out into the world.
Though to be honest I was thinking about posting the last FD Signifier video, since I felt like not everyone quite understood some of his meaning on the last video of his I posted. The only reason why I didn’t was because I saw it several weeks after he published it and wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested who hasn’t already seen it.
I joined today so it’s definitely growing. Much like the rest of the newbies I migrated from Reddit due to the API charges.
That was the turn off for me when I joined back in 2020. Now it seems like that problem is solved for the time being, though I suspect it can't continue if the invite system stays in place indefinitely. Of course doing away with that would probably cause the site to need more than one admin, with all of the reddit refugees.
I'm certainly tuning in to see how this goes now :)
I would eventually like a front page sorting method that takes into account more than just threads with recent comments. Obviously not a profit-driven engagement algo but something that requires more activity in a thread before sending it to the top of the front page.
An activity rating that's weighted against the post's previous activity would be nice. I care more about a post with two comments getting one more comment than I do a post with two hundred comments getting five more comments. Same with votes.
Pretty much what I had in mind. It would take into account metrics like number of new comments, timestamps of new comments, date of the original post, ratio of new comments to total comments, etc.
What you're describing is essentially an algorithm that is not unlike what you see in major social media. They are meant to increase addiction and engagement at all costs.
Personally, I'm not sure that would be a good fit.
I think calling it an algorithm is a bit generous.
and then sort descending by activity_ratio. It's completely agnostic of user behaviour and only requires data that is already on-hand.
Idk I kind of like it. Takes me back to the old school days of forums.
Maybe we could have both as options? Though I'm not sure what the default should be...
A ‘quiet’ button to keep a thread out of your feed once you’re done with it while not having to filter out a tag would be nice.
That exists. It’s “Ignore” in the topic page, or “Ignore this post” in the topic Actions drop-down menu on the front/group pages.
Well, you learn something new everyday. :)
There's even more to learn!
https://docs.tildes.net/
Added to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/770
cc: @tinselsnips
Nice!
I'm with you on this. The "bumping" system of old-school forums is one of the things that enabled a site like Reddit to supplant them. I like it as an option, but most of the time what I'm interested in seeing isn't whatever post has a new comment.
This isn't a criticism, more of a thought experiment about the future. I was requested to share the main text of this comment by /u/Parliament in a thread here. I've lightly edited it to provide a slight expansion of my thoughts, and some context about what prompted my inquiries.
I hope this community grows, and grows a lot. I joined Reddit originally because of their /r/CFB community, and had a lot of fun getting to know folks. I've spent some time thinking about how community works in online spaces. I joined when there were <15k subs to /r/CFB, and I felt like the most active ~2% all knew each other well, all the way up to about 100k folks. (Fortunately for me, that took three years.) When we passed that point, it felt like we had more folks than I could keep track of, like my fun space with friends was slowly disappearing. I had some friendships I made on /r/CFB that I took offline, and remain in touch with those folks today. I slowly trailed off my commenting and posting...My effort decreased dramatically as the population increased. Now, it's about once every ten posts or so I see someone I recognize from way back. This actually prompted my post (linked above) trying to find old friends with new names and a new website. Usually, they were good folks, people I understood, people who contributed meaningfully to the discussion. Now, it's a lot of spam and random nonsense. Things weren't always better way back. Things were smaller, way back. And that made a feeling of community. Now, with nearly two million subscribers, I feel the same disaffection that those familiar to small towns must feel when they go to big cities - it's not my place, and I know nobody, and it's kind of overwhelming trying to find a familiar face.
This prompted me to think about a way to make big communities feel smaller, and I think I may have found a way. The answer to keeping a community isn't limiting growth (that's just shooting yourself in the foot), but it's finding a smaller circle within a larger community. If you could have an algorithm for sorting comments that puts "neighbors" near each other and higher in the ranking, you'd make more relatable conversations, because the same few hundred folks will appear first in your comments, so you can build up your jokes. If you had a community of (eg) 1 million folks, you could show those within 1k subscriptions of you (+-500 subscriptions) first, then 10k, then 100k - that way the top 5, 10, and 100 users (assuming 1% participate) appear in the comments before all else. You'd meet your "neighbros" (a typo, but one that I like) and build up relationships with them first.
An alternative could be to match with new users as they join, to slowly and evenly build up the numbers of people in different neighborhoods, guaranteeing fresh ideas mix in, but keeping continuity too. Taken to an extreme, you could super-deprecate or even totally hide those "far away" for you, so it's harder to see them without searching for them - that way, all can participate, but you get your neighbors first. It should also be that the OP can see all comments roughly evenly, and that any hiding or super-deprecation would be removed, so they can get the broadest feedback on their post, but that's easy to do.
This idea is actually inspired by Michigan State University, where I attended for my undergraduate degrees. MSU has a "neighborhood" system, in which different sub-communities (East, South, Red Cedar, North, and Brody) have all the necessities nearby (convenience stores, cafeterias, health stuff, classrooms, meeting spaces, etc), but you can still access the other neighborhood facilities. You naturally will spend more time in your own neighborhood because of convenience, and get to know folks there. MSU is a big campus, both by area and population, but they make it feel smaller/more accessible by having the neighborhoods. I lived in South and then East Neighborhoods. They felt different and culturally distinct, but still accessible, even though they were at opposite corners of the campus.
I miss the old days of /r/CFB and Reddit more generally. I'd love it if Tildes could grow, but I'd like it to grow in a way that doesn't dilute the sense of community that I already immediately feel.
Great writeup!
I had a similar thought a while back about creating that "small group" feel even on a site with a lot of users.
But first, a story:
When I first started working, I had a boss that, during every staff meeting, always had some sort of group activity that she'd implement through randomly assigned groups. We'd come in to the meeting, sitting where we liked, and then after announcements and whatnot, she'd regroup us and we'd have to get up and sit with a new group. Sometimes the task was light and ice-breaker-y; sometimes it was something more substantial.
At first, I kind of hated the process. It seemed overbearing, and as a new person on staff, I just kind of wanted to fade into the background, but having to go to small groups of strangers made it certain that I'd be "seen" every single meeting.
Turns out, of course, that was kind of the point. By the end of my first year, I legitimately knew everyone on staff and had had individual, personal conversations with each. I had a good idea of personalities and preferences and, equally important, they had a good idea of me.
I've now worked at other places that haven't done this, and the utility and advantages of the exercises are completely clear to me. There are people on my current staff that I've still never spoken to despite being there for years. Some people I'm not even sure I can name correctly! Plus, there are things like entrenched social standings and cliques and whatnot. That's not to say that random grouping would solve that, but it would almost certainly have a sort of mediating effect by making everyone more comfortable with everyone.
Anyway, back to the idea:
When Tildes was younger and it wasn't quite clear how many people we would have (I guess with this new influx we've returned to that state!), I thought about the random grouping idea. Take however many active users are on the site, break them up into groups of say, 100, and give them each access to a group (maybe something like ~peers). Everybody's ~peers feed would then only be seen by the 99 other users in that group. Additionally, it wouldn't have to be "deeper" or more meaningful stuff, but could function as a lighter, chattier side to the site.
At the end of the month, everybody's peers shuffle, the group posts get cleared, and everybody starts the next month, fresh, with a new group.
While it wouldn't necessarily let everyone get to know everyone, especially if we have large numbers of active users, I do think it would help the site from just being a cascade of unknown strangers and let people start to develop specific ideas of who are behind all the usernames out there.
I've had a similarly positive experience with pair programming. When done right, you spend time with everyone on the team, learn about all areas of the codebase, and pick up coding tips from each other. It was a much faster "orientation" for someone new than other jobs I've had since.
Some downsides were needing to be at work at the same time, and we would take breaks and eat lunch at the same times. (But I would not expect much sympathy from a teacher on those!)
Getting back to Tildes, I think usernames are not enough to help people remember other users (particularly now) and some kind of badge system might help.
Personally I’d really like a tagging system for users similar to what you get through Reddit Enhancement Suite. Makes it easier to remember some notes about people!
Thanks for the feedback! My idea was more just a presentation of a philosophy on community and a possible answer to the challenge - I'm glad to hear you've thought about this too :) I'm going to provide some limited (off the cuff) responses to your comments, for the purposes of continuing the conversation, not to criticize.
Re: "~peers"
I get the desire to "mix it up," and think that's good for making sure folks don't get too set in their ways, but the mixing up of ~peers groups would just seem to be a way to dissolve group identities every month, rather than support them. Also, what is the incentive of visiting ~peers to build a culture that is ephemeral? In a space that is bigger than all of us, I think folks would tend towards a consistent (even if slowly growing) space more than a temporary one. One of the benefits of my proposal(s) is that you can have the site-wide experience (like a city) but have your own little neighborhood nestled within it. Keep in mind that my proposal(s) don't preclude inter-neighborhood participation, it just re-sorts/prioritizes the voices nearby to you so that you get a more consistent subset of the users.
I feel like the loss I felt as /r/CFB grew was mostly driven by simply the volume of users that joined. In a workplace, mixing it up is perfect, because you can reasonably get to know a few dozen folks intimately in that context...When you have hundreds of thousands of users (and therefore thousands of active users, even at a ~1% participation rate), it's impossible.
I hope you didn't take my idea as a rebuttal to yours! I like your idea (we're thinking along the same lines), I was more sharing how I approached the issue.
My idea definitely wouldn't work for very large user counts, but I was envisioning it more with Tildes' smaller community, where you'll still see and notice posts from users from your ~peers groups around the site afterwards and maybe understand/interact with them differently as a result of the more casual connections made. You're absolutely right though that, for very large userbases, everyone just disappears into the crowd and it's counterproductive.
The ephemeral and randomized aspects made sense to me at the time for two reasons. Ephemeral posts fit with Tildes privacy-forward ethos, and also I thought that one of the issues with post histories on sites is how they would get weaponized. How many times has someone posted something on reddit/Twitter only for someone to go profile digging to pull a gotcha quote from three years ago on them? Ephemeral posting was a way around that, and I felt it would let people have their guard down a bit more, which would lead to better connections.
The good news on that front is that I've literally never seen that behavior on Tildes. I used to think the problem was the existence of post histories themselves, but I think I've now come down on the side of the issue being a social norm that supports and validates that type of behavior.
As for the recurring, randomized aspect, my worry was that standing, unchanging groups would lead to cliques, tribalism, and in-group/out-group type dynamics, which is often great for a specific few people but can be caustic to a wider community. Right now I'm hyper-aware of the fact that this site could easily become "the old vs. the new" and that's something I absolutely do not want to happen. I want us to all be "us", all together.
Anyway, I say all of this again not as rebuttals to what you're saying (you bring up great points!) but more to show my thinking at how I arrived at the idea.
I definitely understand your want for a "neighborhood" feel. I think that's why a lot of us who have been on Tildes for a while now like it so much. With maybe a few hundred active users on the regular, a lot of us have gotten to know each other to a level that would never happen on a more crowded or popular network. I'm hoping that feel continues and the many people joining, yourself included, get to feel that feeling as well. I'd love for this place to be the new /r/CFB for you, and if it doesn't happen with our current setup, I hope we can change things to effect that.
Far from it :) I just gave the disclaimer, as I am trained in "full contact theory," where you go as hard as you can into an idea, and sometimes folks mistaken that for being critical personally or professionally. On the contrary, I wanted to provide sharp ideas for better fleshing out of the areas of overlap and disagreement alike! Think about it like turning up the brightness on a lamp as we make shadow puppets on the wall - it is easier to see the outlines if we have a brighter contrast.
Fair enough! It could be a good testbed on a site of this size - perhaps make it groups of 1000, up to 100,000? So we'd start with 14 (okay, 15, since it's slightly over) groups of ~965 members (assuming 14,500 tildos). Then, every month, we'd reshuffle and join in more groups as folks add.
I think it's useful to have some memory - maybe a "Tildes Enhancement Suite" could help bookmark the issues - because abusers get called out. Like, I get how info can be weaponized, but at the same time, I want to make sure that we don't get long-term memory totally evaporated. There is a time for memory and a time for forgetting, and both are important as a community grows. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel (philosophically) about the forgetfulness of Tildes. I think I like the idea in concept as it limits the commercialization of my work...But it has downsides.
If anything, I'd suggest that the ephemeral nature of the site suggests keeping groups together is wise - that way, folks can note trends, raise alarm bells, etc...Abuse hides in anonymity and obscurity. Memory and openness are the ways you can prevent it from persisting. If there is one thing I know I won't miss in Reddit, it's the toxicity of main subs and racist/sexist/queerphobic hellholes that festered. It's a balance, of course, since too little mixing (or diversity to begin with) can lead to the same toxicity we seek to prevent, but moving folks around sounds a bit like the way to (accidentally) hide abusive folks.
A little out of order here... But yes, I get the inclination.
I think that by having the broadest and most random assortment of users arranged in overlapping non-tribal groups, we can probably address this. It's one thing if we have team yellow and team purple, it's another if it's a spectrum of all the colors in between, too!
I'm glad to hear that. Nobody wants witch hunts, unless there are actual witches XD TBH, Tildes feels good and optimistic for now. I think it is naive to suggest there won't be growing pains if/when it grows...and I'm a part of that problem as a newbie...but there can be strategic cultural discussions right now to limit that.
So far, Tildes feels a lot like what /r/CFB was in its heyday. I even argued for /r/trueCFB to remain closed, since it was the old-timers super-secret hangout/treehouse. I miss that community that was and will never be again. Even if it's terrible inside jokes like /u/trimchaser's post history (don't ask)... To be clear, I'm not trying to change Tildes, I'm trying to help identify what I see as challenges in the future that will make it change unwittingly. Tildes growing is good and necessary in the long-run, but keeping the same ethic may require changes in how community is implemented. Keeping the way it feels now as it scales is non-trivial, and I'm excited to hopefully help play a role in keeping this place a little bit special :)
FWIW my anthropology professor in college made a broadly similar point to university leadership in a discussion about how to foster greater espirit de corps among alumni (and draw more donations from them). His argument was that the university itself was too large for people to feel a strong sense of community with it, so what actually forms peoples' sense of the university community is the micro-communities they form while there. So he said alumni networks would be stronger if people were encouraged to form student groups for whatever areas of interest they had. This is one of the arguments for why universities with very strong Greek life tend to have very dedicated alumni networks.
So all of that to say, yes I think you're onto something. Though I'm not sure how we'd get from "here" to "there" with something like this. It's really something you'd need to pilot with a smaller group within a bigger group. Reddit did those April Fools events, like when they did Team Orangered vs. Team Periwinkle thing, that would have actually been a great test case for something like this. Just assign active redditors to a "neighborhood" and see what happens within their "neighborhood" sub. I'm not sure Tildes is big enough to pull an experiment like that off though.
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree, Tildes is too small right now. To be honest, this is the kind of perfect size for one neighborhood - dividing would make it feel too empty.
There are things I don't like about Tildes, but at the same time I know there are good reasons why those things are the way they are so it's not like I'm unsatisfied with how it is being run.
One of those things was a lack of users, which is being solved as we speak.
I wish @deimos communicated a bit more because it feels a bit weird that the responsible for the website does not engage with the community, but at the same time it is hard for me to even imagine the amount of craziness he has to deal with it and I honestly don't think I could do any better myself. That said, his actions are always on point, sensible and utterly correct, but a little bit of dialog would go a long way to smooth things out even further in my opinion.
If that's not reason enough, I'd love to hear what's on your mind!
I suspect he's moved on. When he started Tildes, he was between jobs. He told us, back in the long ago, that if he couldn't get Tildes to turn a profit, he would have to go get an honest job. Tildes didn't turn a profit, so I assume Deimos got a day job which is keeping him busy.
I think "moved on" makes it sound more drastic than it is—I'm still here every day, but I just don't really post anywhere any more (on Tildes or any other platform). Since I haven't been doing any active development on Tildes there isn't really much of significance to communicate about either.
The reality is just that everything takes time. You're right that I have a full-time job now, and I'm also married, and own a house, and have friends and hobbies, and so on. For the time I'm spending related to Tildes recently, it's usually dealing with the various stuff in the background that needs to happen, instead of posting. For example, I've currently got over 200 unread emails from the last couple days that I'd like to get through most of today. They're mostly invite requests which don't take long, but it all adds up.
Tildes may not be the main thing in my life any more like it was for those first few years, but there's still rarely a day when I'm not doing something related to it.
Have you thought about looking for volunteers to help with some of the back end work and/or maybe even helping with some development work so the site can have new releases and new features in the future?
The website is open-source and you are welcome to contribute!
Hi, I’m one of the newbies. Are there additional admins and moderators here outside of Deimos? It’s completely understandable that he has his own life that he has to maintain but the concern as a new user would be that there isn’t anybody there to take the torch if he fully moves on.
Also, as a full stack dev I’ll have to take a look at the repo to see if there is anything I can contribute or help with.
Some light housekeeping duties are done by other volunteer members of the community. This includes curating tags, maintaining a wiki and an issue tracker in the Git repo, and a few other things. But right now the moderation work is handled by Deimos. AFAIK his intention was to flesh out his ideas for a community-moderated site based largely on a reputation/trust system but he never got around to it and the site never got big enough to where it was a major issue aside from some one-off occurrences.
His view may change if it grows beyond what he feels he can manage on his own, but I expect if he ever does expand moderation/admin privileges it will be to people he trusts to follow through on his philosophy.
I'm actually new here too so I haven't contributed anything, but I poked around a bit in the repo. There was also some discussion here about how people new to the codebase can contribute and how to pick an issue to work on.
Overall the codebase is 90% Python and a little Javascript. I haven't contributed anything yet but I think it would be quite nice to do so, since I mostly deal with Python day-to-day anyway (though I'm in the DS/ML domain rather than web things - but hey, it's a learning opportunity :P).
You could also read through the development docs, there's useful guidance on how to get set up with the codebase there.
Edit: There's also the contributing page!
There's only the one admin: @Deimos.
There are a few other developers.
As for moderators, there are quite a few people with the power to do librarian-tasks like move posts from one group to another, to add and edit posts on tags, and that sort of thing. But, only @Deimos has the ability to remove posts or comments, or take any action against users.
Sadly the repo looks kinda dead, only 1 very minor maintenance commit in the last year. There are open merge requests that have stagnated themselves for years. It doesn't appear to be a very dynamic open-source project.
If a site is feature-complete, does it need perpetual changes?
Tildes, as a end user, has not significantly changed since I joined years ago. There have been some QoL changes, but nothing astronomical. The core end user experience has been stable.
And that's a good thing. Tildes' hardest problems are social ones. You can't solve social problems with technical solutions until you've solved it socially.
I was a bit worried when you began pulling back, but I'm glad to know that it's just life's usual obligations and a shifting of priorities. Thanks for sharing, and sorry if you felt your arm was being twisted a little into doing so.
I was speaking metaphorically, as in your interests have moved on to different foci, rather than trying to imply that you'd pass on to a different plane of existence. ;)
That, I didn't expect. Having seen how little you post here, I had assumed that you didn't visit Tildes very often at all. Good to know you're still taking an active interest.
If Tildes were to start growing again, how would you handle that?
I don't have specific plans, I think it would need to be decided based on what issues the growth causes (if any). There were plenty of ideas discussed years ago about ways to adjust the site's structure/mechanics/etc. if it ended up being necessary, but we never really reached a point where most of them were needed. Maybe it will happen this time, or maybe we'll just drift back down to a stable-feeling state naturally, it's impossible to say at this point.
IMO, implementing the ability for people to subscribe to tags would do a lot to help things stay relatively busy instead of returning to that lower state of activity we've been at for the last few years. That seems to be the most common feature request/complaint from all the new users. Same with a better way to browse tags instead of having to type them manually or find them in another topic. So if you ever do manage to find the time/motivation to work on some new features, those are the ones I would recommend considering first. ;)
If it started growing again? :P
Ouch! That's a big jump in a very short period of time.
But, many of those new users will be flashes in the pan. They'll come, look around, be active for a few days, then log out, and move on to greener pastures.
Even the 13,000 registered accounts before this recent spike didn't correspond with the number of people actively using Tildes.
Let's see how this pans out in terms of actual activity on the site.
However, if we take the point of view that this spike in sign-ups does correspond to an increase in users and activity, that makes it more urgent for @Deimos to consider how he's going to handle growth on Tildes again - particularly now that he doesn't have as much free time as when he set up this website.
Yep, that's why I'm not too worried right now either. Plus, all the new users actually seem to be really well behaved compared to some of the previous waves. And a LOT of them have mentioned loving what they read in the docs (which you wrote a lot of ;), which is a really good sign too.
I remember! A labour of love, before I fell out of love.
Well here's hoping this latest wave will last, the new users maintain their good behavior, and can help rekindle that love a bit. :)
We'll see. My last foray onto Tildes, a couple of months ago, left a bad taste in my mouth. I only popped in this time because of all the fuss about Reddit's API.
Just chiming in to say, nice to see you around! I was wondering a bit ago where you (and some other "old guard") users had gone to. Not that you left, looking at your comment history. I guess what I'm saying is, nice to see a familiar name amongst all the new ones!
Thanks.
I just had a spare 15 minutes, and started browsing some old introduction threads from 2018 & 2019 (because one of them has been bumped into newness). Then I got curious and began clicking on usernames to see their recent posting history.
Wow, there's been a high level of attrition! All those people, all so excited to find Tildes... and most of them dropped off within months, if not weeks. A few lasted a year or two. Less than 1 in 20 users I clicked on is still active, four or five years later.
I did not get your results when I repeated the experiment. A decent number of users I clicked on have been active in the past 2 or 3 months, with some even being active in the last few days. It took scrolling decently far down the page to hit a patch of users who had dropped off. Certainly there is attrition on Tildes, but I wonder how much higher it is than sites of comparable nature. I think it might just be more noticeable because, while the percentage might be similar, we have less users in absolute terms.
Were you looking at the "introductions" threads from 2018/19?
Ah I'm sorry I misunderstood — I was looking at the post that you had linked in your comment. The "what brought you here" one. I thought that is what you were referencing.
Yup. Sadly I’m one of those initial wave flash in the pans but I have hopes that maybe this newest wave will breath some life into the place.
I’m trying to do my part though so I’m back with the intent to post more regularly now that I have some space in my life to do so.
I thought that might be the case! :)
The "what brought you here" thread was just the thread which got bumped, that piqued my interest in those old threads where people talked about themselves and their reasons for being here. I then started browsing some old actual introduction threads from 2018 & 2019, and saw an extremely high attrition rate.
Huh... Maybe it's time we applied the brakes for at least few days? 10% of total users are new, and if we take the active slice of users, probably at least 80% of the "active" userbase are new.
Edit: Invite Request Round has been locked for now. New one likely to be posted on the weekend.
If @Deimos wants me to I can always lock the invite thread and put another sticky up telling people to wait a few days/weeks until the new users get settled in. But I also think those new account numbers are a bit deceiving, since not everyone is actually going to be active here (90:9:1 rule), or even stick around.
Plus, we've had bigger waves in the past, and so far the new users don't seem to be causing many problems. I've only seen a handful of removed comments, and only know of 1 ban so far. In fact, the majority of the new users this wave actually seem to be pretty cognizant of needing to acclimatize before they start regularly contributing.
So, I think if anything might need changing, it's possibly just giving the older users some more comment label weight, just to help keep things organized, reduce the noise, and report issues more effectively.
Alright, will trust your judgment. Thanks for your hard work on the invites also, we have some fantastic new members thanks to your vetting. Just part of me senses that a lot of the long-time Tildos are nearing exhaustion answering the rapid-fire questions and such, and could use a bit of a breather.
Haha. Yeah, possibly. I'm a bit of a weirdo and this has actually done the opposite for me, and rather than tire me out it's invigorated me more than anything. So my judgement may not be the best here. I will listen to all you cooler heads, if more people suggest slowing down.
p.s. I like Tildos too. It's silly, and I think we need a bit more of that here sometimes. ;)
I personally find it kind of invigorating too. There have been plenty of times over the past few years where I've thought to myself, man, I wish Tildes had more activity. Now we have it, and we just need to work on keeping it! I'll be handing out invites until I'm told to stop ;)
As much as I loved our cozy, quiet little Tildes, I’m super jazzed that so many people are joining.
I want them to have a community to love like we already do!
I just think I'm going crazy cause I used to check almost every new comment I'm trying to keep up and now I think I'm gonna need hospitalization :P
After a conversation with Deimos, the latest Invite Request Round topic has been locked now to give the old users a break from onboarding, and give all the new users time to acclimatize before inviting more.
cc: @Parliament, @gpl
So we'll just knock out all the comments that made it in?
Yeah, I'm working on that now. E.g. I just noticed we missed a huge batch of requests from over a day ago. I think they were in between where someone else did a batch higher up, and I last left off. I am sending invites to those ones now. But after that I am going to continue working from oldest remaining to newest. So if you or @gpl want to join in, maybe start from the newest and work to oldest so we meet in the middle?
Is there a succession plan in place? Backups for things like domain registration, security updates, and hosting fees?
I know there’s the org but I don’t know how that comes into play with Deimos being what amounts to a BDFL.
Having the comment entry at the bottom of the post is great, until the thread grows too large. I think it should pop up somewhere after you scroll down past the first dozen comments or so, because at that point if I want to leave a comment I have to deal with the tedium of scrolling quite a ways.
I think this is honestly the biggest adjustment new users make in switching to Tildes. It can be a bit annoying at times, but it is intentional and meant to encourage reading and replying to other comments before leaving a top level comment of your own.
I think of reading a long thread like opening a section of the newspaper. I’ll sit down and read through it once (and potentially leave my own thoughts along the way). If I still want to leave a top level when Ive reached the problem I do, and then I manage most replies to that from my inbox. If the thread grows a lot after this point I’ll do another read through at that point. So in all I only have to deal with scrolling all the way to the bottom once really. That being said it can still be annoying on mobile 🫣
At first, I couldn't figure out how to make comments (since I never bothered to scroll all the way down). Was confused for a bit how other people were making comments, I thought I lacked that functionality, then finally discovered it all the way at the bottom, at that point too tired to comment, got frustrated that it was placed in such an inconvenient location, briefly thought about giving feedback about it, then realized scrolling all the way down, past the comments and replies, was part of the point. It's set up inconveniently for my own good, you can say.
But I would like some middle ground that's ideal for especially larger threads that invite more commenting (like ask threads). I can also see it as an issue for posts where I need to reference the content of the post to comment thoughtfully (eg. Long text posts, advice). Perhaps floating reply/comment boxes then once you get to typing...hmm
As an aside, if you're on desktop you can always press ctrl+end to scroll to the bottom of any webpage.
Just End should do it. Ctrl+End is specifically if you're in a text box, it will move to the end of your content rather than the end of the line.
Wanted to call out this specific bit of brilliance. And I don't disagree.
I'll probably continue primarily using Reddit until some sort of user created group system is implemented (if ever).
Ex: On Reddit much of my time is spent in trading subreddits with full time traders talking. This just doesn't work as a subcategory/tag in an econ/business oriented group. The issue I have with Tildes is the lack of niche communities for specific areas of interest.
Yeah, that's fair. Tildes adds new subgroups as there's enough activity in a given group that it starts to take over, and thus gets a subgroup so that people who aren't interested in that niche can have an experience separate from that specific discussion. You'd have to just be here posting and talking about trading in with everyone else to show that there's interest sufficient to form a separate sub-group like ~finance.investing or ~finance.trading.
Note that we do have ~games.game_design and ~games.tabletop, because there were enough people passionate about those topics that sub-groups needed to form. Likewise ~health.coronavirus, though that one was as much to allow people to quarantine all the discussion over there to keep it off the radar of people who didn't want the stress of seeing all the latest news.
But since you already have a place that meets your needs, you won't be here to show the interest, and so it won't develop.
I definitely wish we could create our own tildes communities. I admin /r/DirtySionMains which is a niche within the game League of Legends for people that play a specific champion. I'd gladly invite people over to tildes to talk about Sion stuff here. Would probably not belong on the front page though.
Tildes probably won't ever reach such a critical mass that the existing niches on Reddit can thrive here.
With that in mind, Tildes isn't meant to be Reddit. In your case something like running an instance for your community is perhaps a better, if less convenient, way to do things.
I understand the appeal of having all interest groups in one home. But Tildes is very small in the grand scheme of things.
Edit: That reads a little different from how I intended. My thought process was something like:
So if it read as chastising, that was a failure on my part.
I don't think you need critical mass adoption to allow people to create their own communities. For the Sion community, I started it alone, invited a bunch of people, after a while there were 200 people, then I networked with other main communities, etc. It grew slowly over the years. Now per months there's something like ~30k page views, ~130 new threads, ~1.5k comments.
Being small doesn't prevent allowing people to try stuff and I think it would help the site grow organically. Also it's fine for a niche to exist as a subset of a bigger community without running a standalone site instance.
I'm assuming you mean some kind of financial trading? The way I'd go about it would be to start a megathread about trading in ~finance, seed it with a few interesting links, and if there seems to be enough interest, it could become a recurring topic.
And if it goes well, you end up as the de-facto host, but with no special powers. So it's more work and maybe not really worth doing, unless it's a special interest and you're not happy with discussions elsewhere.
But it's unlikely that a really narrow interest would find enough users. I don't post about accordions here, I go to r/accordion or the accordionists forum. (We might have enough users now for a musicians topic.)
Unless Tildes gets big (uncomfortably big) I highly doubt that such niches will be able to thrive here. There simply isn't enough users to warrant such specific interests, I don't think
Nothing much that I actively dislike. Just a few things I'd like to see change a bit.
You mean like a total? Yeah I don't see how could we see a total without that becoming exactly the same thing as karma, TBH.
Push notifications goes in the opposite direction of having a less addictive website, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't go well with Tildes philosophy of having a simple page that loads fast and works well in every device with minimal JavaScript.
I'm glad you brought this up. While testing my app so far, I'm finding Tildes is too addictive with all the extra discussions the past few days. Every time I refresh the main feed, there are new comments to be read. Push notifications, if not given the proper thought, would make this even worse.
Some things that could help would be hiding or dimming (like gray instead of red) the "(3 new)" comments indicator if the percentage is low. I like @tinselsnips' suggestion about highlighting new activity if it's like 1 new comment out of 5—20% new—while de-emphasizing new comments like 6 out of 200—only 3% new.
Push notifications are tricky because I think the vast majority of the time people don't expect an immediate reply, so notifications could be delayed to slow checks, like a few times per day. But I guess I could imagine times where this would be unintuitive, where someone was expecting notifications to be instant, about some urgent question or even emergency. Or not even an emergency, occasionally it feels nice having a back-and-forth deep subthread when both parties happen to be online at the same time. I'm not quite sure yet what the balance would be there.
That idea reminds me Pony Messenger. It's a messenger app that only delivers everything in daily batches, so people don't feel stressed out, or pressured to respond instantly.
Yeah customizable thresholds for notifications would be nice. I used to have my email client set to only check once every 20 minutes and ding if I had new email. I wish I could do this with all my applications. Just ping me for direct messages but condense everything else into a daily, hourly, or a couple of times a day digest.
Yeah Pony is definitely not a great implementation of the idea, esp since they send everything at a set time every day to absolutely everyone, with no way for individuals to change it AFAIK. I would definitely much prefer more customizability and granularity in the settings if something similar was implemented here (or in the upcoming mobile app). But I assume talklittle was likely to go that route anyways, so didn’t bother mentioning it. :P
This is a case where I think customization can be detrimental to the main goals. It is not only important for you to be able to set how frequently you get your messages, but also for everyone else to accept and easily understand that dynamic. If I could set how frequently I get updates, other people would pressure me to conform to their own expectations. "It's not my fault you set your messages to arrive once a day at noon. I sent you something urgent at 13:00 and I expected an answer. Why don't you get your messages once every 6 hours like everyone else?".
Yeah, even a new Activity sort that only updates once a day, or only every X hours may be interesting too. Just to slow things down a tiny bit, and make keeping up with things feel less stressful.
An email or pm Daily dispatch sort of hoe Email marketing or CMS software does would be super cool for just threads started / comments replied to.
Apart from DMs mayybe needing instant push (do they?) that’s all I would ever want. Just a gentle reminder daily / weekly that there’s new stuff in the thread. I feel a daily check in is healthy and enough to prevent the overload of the current counter
As someone that quite enjoyed the usual pace of Tildes, the last few days have been exciting and frenetic but also a bit anxiety inducing.
I've been meaning to talk about my idea of implementing a "slow mode" option so the front page feels more like it used to, but I'm not sure if that even makes sense, and it's quite possible that the level of activity will eventually settle to a slower rhythm once the novelty wears out.
I'm waiting for this as well.
Perphaps there can be a setting to turn on active notifications for a post or comment? But this would be off by default.
I would like this. I don't need an instant notification, but I'd like some way to get an extra nudge if there's a new reply or message sitting unread for several hours.
Another option is to allow the user to set how frequently they would want their push notifications. Make it an opt in system on the app as well. Maybe some people don’t want them at all, maybe some people want them a few times a day, maybe some people want the instantly. I can see people using all of those options.
I think people's expectations of mobile vs desktop for Tildes are (or should be) different. When I mentioned wanting push notifications, I wasn't even thinking about mobile, personally. I'm accessing the site solely via the desktop in my web browser. And there are definitely different considerations to be made when it comes to a mobile app and making sure how you implement things fits the vibe of the site.
I don't think I want push notifications on a mobile app. Or if you did implement push notifications for the app, have it give you a summary of new notifications once or twice a day? A gentle reminder to check in once a day but not notifying you every time you have new notifications. It could just be something simple like "You have new comments" without any details and be scheduled to check for those comments once a day or every 12 hours. This fits with the vibe of the community without an all or nothing approach being taken.
Are you planning on doing a beta of the app at any point? If you are, is there a place where we can sign up?
I liked going back though my reddit comments once in a while and taking a second look at stuff that got really popular. But I never looked up someone else's karma or anything
These are good points. But I still think they're worth considering.
Probably. But I don't think having a post score is inherently a bad thing. Reddit's culture and allowance/tolerance for memes and shitposts is what made the karma system bad. It worked pretty well when reddit was a much smaller site and I think it'd be okay here too. Don't break it up by post/comment like reddit does. Just a running number. Don't put emphasis on it either. Just a small number on the user page out of the way by their join date.
Maybe instead of a system or browser notification, there could be some way to update the site page to have the notification show up in real time? So it'd be less invasive than a real push notification but still let me see I have one waiting without having to refresh the page? Still more complex than it is now, but I think it's a worthwhile QoL improvement.
First off, "not inherently a bad thing" is a terrible reason to add a new feature, especially when Tildes is designed to be simple and streamlined.
Secondly, I think that having a score that follows people around is inherently a bad thing, for a couple reasons.
No one is right about everything. A per-comment score has a utility, in that it gages the degree of support that readers have for that post or statement (whatever their reasons.) A per-person score adds an assumption of rightness to the person when their current post may or may not merit it. Just because they were well liked when they were talking about biology and genetic testing shouldn't provide any automatic authority if they chime in with their uninformed opinion on the engineering of monster trucks.
It changes people's behavior. People like numbers to go up. They do it in Cookie Clicker, they do it on Reddit. Tildes and the people of Tildes do not benefit from anyone posting with the goal of the number going up, and anything that makes that more likely is providing a perverse incentive structure.
But I could be wrong. What so you see as the benefit to having an over all "user score", as it fits within Tildes' philosophy?
I agree. For some time(s?) the vote counts were even hidden as an experiment, and I think some people are using user scripts to still keep that behaviour. Seeing the number go up feels good, but it also can feel bad for dumb reasons -- I definitely had times where I wondered why I have less votes than other comments, which is just dumb and pointless.
Yeah. The last thing I'd want is for a post counter to gamify the site too much. And I know that's a risk with any system like this. But I also think it'd be nice to have a quick and easy way to see on someone's profile if they're a good contributor to the site. A vote total was just the first thing that came to mind because it's likely the easiest to implement.
I think ideally though we should be making those judgements based on how we are interacting with that person in the moment, in the discussion. It should be evident from whatever discussion you are reading whether or not someone is positively contributing to the site without a need to look at their history. In fact, I feel that could even encourage dismissing someone's contributions (or excusing poor ones) based on past history.
Tildes is ultimately made up of people, and relationships between people are built on trust. In real life, we don't often have easy access to a list of someone's previous actions (for better or worse) to gauge whether or not they are worth trusting. Instead, trust is built up through repeated positive, personal interactions with those people. I think much more so than other sites Tildes encourages you to treat other users as you would the people behind the screen, as opposed to just some digital avatar. You learn to which other users you view as positively contributing to your little corner of the site by repeatedly interacting with them on topics of common interest, much as you do in the real world. And you learn which users you don't gel with the same way.
In any case, I'd encourage you to not worry too much (not that you you are, I just mean the general you) about what type of contributor someone is and instead engage with them directly on the basis of your interactions as opposed to their past interactions with others. Others in this thread have indicated that they like karma as an indicator of someone's contributions to a site, but I'd argue that is not actually the best or even a good metric. Plenty of people contribute in ways not amenable to a point total (e.g. by inviting others, tagging posts, standardizing title formatting, dropping links to previous posts, etc).
I definitely understand this. Personally, I like the idea. It lets me see who is a regular contributor at a glance. I don't put a ton of stock into my reddit karma and I understand there are negative consequences of reddit's implementation of it. I just don't think the entire concept of having a score like that is a bad thing. I think it can actually help people see who regular contributors are.
That said, if the community is so against it, that's fine. Maybe something like a total post count like you regularly see on forums might be good instead.
I second this, but would like to hear why do we need additional context on a user's contribution? Moderation for example?
Moderation but also I think that knowing someone is active or has been contributing positively for a while helps new users understand that the person giving them feedback or information about Tildes is actually a useful or good source.
But you can do that by going to a user's history and reading through their posts and seeing votes for each one. Votes as a number provides no real context where as a site only votes can be submitted as a feedback. Thats the tradeoff of not having a downvote system and furthers the site's ethos of bringing the bar higher in discussions.
I would like to see the number of times a user has written Exemplary comments.
I feel like that would be much harder to game and be a much better indicator of the, well, Exemplary users.
Something like that could be useful but I'd say not done through a number like this -- maybe some way to say that an user if "exemplary" if their comments never get flagged as malice and stuff like that. But also if someone saw that they don't have that it'd still feel bad, and might discourage them from using the site, so I am not sure if even that is a good idea.
Every metric that becomes a target ceases to be a good metric. (Goodhart's law apparently searching for it now)
I'm not saying a vote number tally is a solution to this problem. I just think it does add a bit of value without forcing people to read through a user's comment history.
Anyway, it's not a dealbreaker or anything for me. I just think user pages can/should do more to provide context about a user. Maybe keep track of how many times they've had a comment labeled exemplary instead? Or a total tally of all their posts like old school forums do?
This topic would have come up sooner or later so it's definitely worth discussing in length given the different intention behind votes and the site's philosophy!
I think what u/Tygrak stated sums up my thoughts: Every metric that becomes a target ceases to be a good metric.
People have been floating around the idea of a "reputation system" for a while. But it wouldn't be based on a 'post score,' but some other sort of complicated network effect thing.
I'd be down for that. I don't want Tildes to copy reddit or anything like that. And I understand the potential concerns a karma-like system could introduce. I just think it'd be good if you could look at someone's profile and see more than their bio, join date, and recent comments. It'd be nice to have an indicator that someone is a good contributor. Especially for new users.
It seems like the original request was where you would be able to see your running upvote count. That implies that nobody else would see that number. When you have nobody else to compare your number with, it would somewhat dampen the problems of a sitewide karma system.
I'm not saying the idea is good per say. My description of the upvote count would change it to being more of a "personal achievement" type system and I'm not sure if that would be beneficial or detrimental...
I truly believe that this would be harmful even if it was not divulged to other users.
I don't see it adding value beyond moderation purposes and even then, not a great tool for it. Perhaps an alternative would be comments/posts submitted and comments/posts removed?
Honest question: Why? Why do users need to know how many comments/posts they or others have made (or had removed). What benefit does that provide? I could see the removed numbers being useful for admin purposes, when deciding if and who to ban, but Deimos can probably already look that up if he really needs to.
My suggestion was only in the case of moderation, as I cant think of a good reason on seeing number of votes which doesnt really give context to moderation either.
Ah, yeah, fair. It does make sense for moderation. But currently there is only one real moderator on Tildes, and that also happens to be its only admin, Deimos. Some of us have elevated privileges, and can edit links, titles, tags, and move topics, in order to help keep topics properly organized... and everyone (after 7 days) has access to comment labels, which do roughly the same for comments. But at present only Deimos can remove comments, topics, and ban people.
I personally don't understand what would be the usefulness of that.
Moderation purposes
Regarding your 3rd point, the automated recurring topic series can be found in the sidebar of each group.
Ah thanks. I missed that.
Already on Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/359
Other have already mentioned why that isn't a feature here, and probably never will be.
Already on Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/19
Added to Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/769
Added to Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/768
With regards to your point about “get to know you” topics, those are actually reoccurring topics that have been in place for a while. Tildes has gone through some slower periods where it has made sense to check only a few times a week, and having those threads have acted as a way to agglomerate activity into one area to facilitate interaction. Maybe once it grows bigger and gets a bit more active again (i.e. if these levels are maintained) they will not be so dominant on the front page.
As for things I don’t like: For a while I would have said low activity, but with recent influxes I’m hoping that is less of a problem.
This is just me, the lack of push notifications. It’s likely better for me. However I still like knowing when my comment gets replied to.
Someone else suggested the same above, so I added it to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/769
This is probably just because I'm one of the reddit refugees, but I'd like a like a little more configuration for different and more specific groups. For example, painting would presumably be under .hobbies, but that includes every kind of hobby, even those for which I don't have a particular interest. But there's still a lot for me to learn, and I know this is a smaller community that won't have a separate "sub-tildes" for every specific field of interest.
To add to this, I'd like to see being able to subscribe to tags kinda like a reverse filter that is currently implemented. In OP's case, subscribing to ~hobbies.painting
This is the big one for me. I'd like to be able to subscribe to Motorsports without having to subscribe to the entirety of Sports, for example.
this, I don't want to see most sports stuff but I wish I could subscribe to just f1 news
yeah I think being able to subscribe to tags would solve a lot of the annoyance with the inability to create new groups/subgroups ourselves. It would also make the "if you want a new subgroup, just use the relevant tag in the existing groups and if it sees enough activity it may become a subgroup" feel like a better path, since people interested in the tag could subscribe even if they're unsubbed from the overarching group.
That sounds kind of like how Usenet worked back in the day. Doing sub categories seemed to work well for them. It has to be done within reason and you have to limit how many sub levels you allow under the top level category so it doesn’t get away from you. +1 from me
Wow, I really like this idea! The powers that be could prune the new subcategories every so often if there's any redundancy. :-)
Tildes was supposed to grow and, as it grew, Deimos (and, eventually, other top-level moderators) would add more groups and sub-groups as they were needed. Without that growth, those new groups and sub-groups were never needed.
We’ve gotten new groups at a few times in Tildes history, and I think the built in hierarchical structure of groups was set up with the intention of introducing more subgroups as growth demands. Who knows, maybe with the recent influx it will even make sense to get some now.
I am also in the same boat and was pointed to the “tags” system in order to get the same kind of functionality. I imagine there is going to be a little bit of a learning curve for the new users
Completely failing the spirit of this thread here but I actually enjoy tildes very much (new user, just registrated). I absolutely adore the UI, it's very simple yet very clear and with a great attention to detail. I like spending time here, browsing comment sections, and reading through posts.
Two things I might be criticizing, though: The Activity algorithm might need an overhaul with the latest influx of users, and therefore comments. Some posts will have highly active comment sections, some posts will never reach that kind of activity (/r/PhotoshopBattles for example on the R page. Great, high quality content, but it would immediately sink into oblivion based on comment activity.
Another thing (which I might not have yet understood) regards those tildes/subs (how do you call them here?). Is there a way to create new tildes for the general user, and how are those tildes moderated? This is something I worry hindering a healthy growth. Every group eventually reaches a critical mass where it starts destroying itself if not moderated appropriately.
Other users mentioned the same above, so I added it to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/770
If you have any specific suggestions on how to improve it, please let me know and I can add your suggestions there too.
Those are actually more complicated questions than I think you realize. :P Right now, users cannot create groups, only Deimos can. However in the past he has taken suggestions from the community for which groups to add. And under certain circumstances, ad-hoc groups have been created when a certain subject has overwhelmed the site. E.g. ~health.coronavirus (which was only recently folded back into ~health) was created near the start of the pandemic. And some temporary groups have also been created to help organize community events (like Tildes Make Something Month, and Advent of Code). In the future, more groups may get added, and eventually more user freedom may be added for creating groups (but likely never to the degree reddit has), but that's all still up for debate.
As for how everything is moderated. Only Deimos can remove comments, and remove or lock topics. However some users here (like myself) also have slightly elevated privileges, and can edit topic titles, topic tags, and can move topics to different groups. And all users have access to comment labels after 7 days, which are essentially a crowd-sourced moderation for the comments section.
I'm very new here, but I guess I'd add a "~locations" group if I could. Was thinking that it could be used in the place of country-specific or city-specific subreddits? But I guess this would be "costly" (in terms of moderation time) because of the multilingualism it implies.
currently you can tag stuff relating to particular locations (which can then be used across different groups, which I like), but I wish I could subscribe to tags for my location so I could see specific news about it.
I don't think the multilingualism is necessarily an issue; on reddit, at least wrt Germany, there's tons of English-only subs and counterpart German subs. Might be more of an issue with areas of the world with fewer English-speakers, but I think there's still utility there.
Indeed, that's something I'd like as well! The "~locations" idea was my proposed solution for that, but yours might be better.
We've discussed this before: here, and here.
Just adding this question I asked as well
Probably only that it doesn't make use of
prefers-color-schemeCSS media query so user has to manually flip the switch to enable dark theme.You could make a merge request for this. The site is open-source for a reason. Who knows, it might get accepted
There is a UI enhancement script that handles this, I will try and find the link for you.
Edit: https://tildes.net/~tildes/wiki/customizing_tildes#scripts
See: Tildenhancer
Already on Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/307
Be the change, that you want to see?
100%. Would love a feature that's "Ignore for a day" or "Ignore for a week."
If you go to settings there is a checkbox for "Collapse old replies" that basically does this. If there is anything new in the thread it collapses everything you've already seen and only shows the new ones with the context behind them. If there is nothing new in that thread then it shows you all the replies.
Added to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/771
cc: @talklittle
I really would like a ~health.mental. I think the current ~health.coronavirus could now be converted to a tag as ~comp.advent_of_code typically is, and ~health.mental could be created in the same vein as ~games.tabletop.
Although it's unfortunately not indicated anywhere in the UI, ~health.coronovirus should probably be considered an archived group. As I discovered the other day, if you create a new topic there, someone will move it to ~health.
A new group seems okay to me. In the meantime, I see there's a health.mental tag and a monthly recurring topic. Maybe it could be made more frequent now?
I'm mostly solidly "fine" with tildes as a whole, though I disagree with a few dogmatically defended decisions-- around things with very low stakes, like organizational ones-- that seem to be in place just because of inertia & change being scary, especially when foisted on an enclave much faster than it desired it. I'm not a huge fan of the "well then there's the door, we are guests surviving on the leadership's good graces" attitude that pervades almost all suggestions for changes, whether I agree with them, think they follow the spirit of the site if not the letter, or not at all; it's not incorrect, but it's reductive and stifles genuine discussion. Change is important to social ecosystems.
I'd also like to see the more diverse folk of tildes feel they can contribute more; I've seen a lot of people with interesting & educational things to add to a convo be shut down by social bullies that simply found the most authoritative & "objective" sounding way to be astonishingly wrong about topics with little room for rhetoric. I won't list any in particular to avoid dredging up drama or being an asshole as the parties in question are not necessarily breaking rules, and they are not in any of the few conversations I've personally taken part in, so they are safe from people snooping to look for names. :P I don't engage with it.
Most of this is growing pains, tildes will hopefully move past both once the shock of its own growing popularity wears off.
I have another one: I love all you STEM people (really!) but it would be nice to have more users from other fields. So dear Reddit, I'm not complaining and keep the flow going, but we need some arts and humanities too!
Or, to be more general, we need more people that don't really care all that much about computers :P
(and yes I love computers :P)
That just boils down to the fact that the kind of people who would seek out a smaller website and bother going through a whitelisting process are also the kind of people who are more into computers and technology. I don't think there's anything inherently STEM-y about the website itself.
So, arts and humanities people, make sure to invite your peers and show them around! That's the most effective way for the community to become more diverse, which I think everyone here would be very happy about :)
I’ve been struggling with how to solve this conundrum since I joined the site.
The ~Design group was a step in the right direction to encourage more humanities and arts type discussions but it didn’t get very far.
I’ve gone through phases where I try to post more content related to my non stem interests but historically they’ve gotten little engagement. Very much a chicken and egg situation!
I'm not saying we don't do this already, but it would help to refrain from quickly dismissing humanities content out of a STEM standpoint. Being more open to understand how that area of knowledge works and the value it can bring before saying its bad cause its non-bayesian or that the NP is hard or whatever. And try to use "unrelated" instead of "orthogonal" when you're not talking about geometry :P
(Yes I don't know what those things mean, I'm from arts and humanities! Lol)
Ey op. I teach Literature.
I get what you mean, I think the techie dominance is inevitable given the (relatively) new and unique nature of Tildes. Even the Reddit refugees of whom I am one, will likely tend toward the STEM types, of whom I am not. But I guess Reddit was like that at the beginning too.
Hello! I'm in the same boat as you. It's one of the reasons I got bored and disillusioned with Tildes, and reduced my activity here.
I suggested the ~humanities group back in the day. For a while, I kept a paternal eye on that group, bringing new content, managing tags, and so on.
But I moved on.
Maybe that's where you need to hang out for a while.
Also, there's ~creative if you're a creative type.
There could be many things that some individuals here may not be liking about tildes but what I feel is that it's much better than most competitors out there, both in terms of quality of content which is posted here and in terms of minimalism of the UX. Whatever the site admins are doing with tildes, they're doing it right 👍
*admin
I don't like how 'post a comment' is at the bottom of a thread - for example, opening this week's 'What have you been reading?' recurring topic in ~books for the first time, I needed to scroll for some time to be able to respond. Perhaps this UI approach is intended to encourage reading the discussions within a thread more comprehensively before responding, and generally speaking that is a good ethos, but not when there are a dozen-plus top-level comments of real substance which (ssh! I know!) I didn't plan on reading before posting a top-level comment myself.
I suppose I ought to have collapsed all the comments, but then that brings me back to whether the UI approach is supposed to encourage reading the discussions...
Yes. Exactly.
Yeah, I get the purpose of the comment box placement; it's only in extremis that it really bugs me out.
Something that might be handy to help with that is turning on the setting that minimizes comments you've already read. It means that even in noisy threads you can easily see the new comments, and 200 comments take up a lot less space when they're shrunk to a single line.
This is the exact reason if I recall correctly. I agree though when it gets into the hundreds of comments it can be a bit of a pain. That said, I enjoy reading others comments, though it can be arduous. :)
Probably only a temporary issue - the website is understandably anomalously busy.
Apparently it works. I read all of these comments, which is a rarity on The Site That Shall Not Be Named.
I'm one of the original proponents of "Tag Anarchy," where nested groups are bunk, and we just have tags organizing everything, similar to Tumblr. We could have trending tags, or recommended ones that we give privilege to, but a lot of our groups are different forms of media, and sorting out Spider-Man to take a recent example, the latest issue of Amazing would go in ~books, Spider-Verse would go into ~movies, but so would MCU announcements for Spider-Man 4, and whatever news on the may or may not be MCU adjacent television show would be in ~tv. So we could make a ~spiderman group for everything spiderman related, but that seems a little restrictive of a group that has a wide span but a low depth. IMO, it should all be tags.
Great example and I agree completely.
Quoting the philosophy docs:
Hierarchical tags are inflexible because position in a hierarchy matters.
Just needs more content I think. So far the UI is decent and the site is fast.
I would very much appreciate being able to block a user without having to label their posts in any way, whether that label is private or public, seen or unseen, tracked or not tracked, acted upon or not acted upon.
I've read the docs, and some further comments trying to explain and clarify them, but exactly how a label triggers various actions, and what use of these labels is considered egregious when they are not even publicly seen, I would never know unless I happened to step over some previously unforeseen threshold.
I've already seen one guy get chewed a new asshole just for answering a question, and apparently no one has noticed it. It even has some votes. It's one comment in a thread with dozens of other comments, easy to pass by, but the tone was a rude shock after reading so many far more gracious comments.
I am a new user, so I obviously do not have access to labels . . . but if I did, I would not use them easily, and not in this instance, especially without understanding what exactly each one does and specifically what it is intended to accomplish. I don't see that anywhere.
Plus, I have not gotten to be as old as I am by calling out every misdeed I see, much less put a label on it to be stored and catalogued somewhere, much less escalated to the very top of the entire administrative system for review and action. This isn't that. It's just low-level, garden variety petty nastiness from someone who probably doesn't even recognize that they just jammed a sock in someone else's mouth simply for truthfully answering a question, because that behavior was encouraged on Reddit.
So I would far rather have the ability to individually mute, either temporarily or permanently, someone who engages in that kind of low-level nastiness, because they tend to do so regularly. I have no beef with the thread, or the subject, or anything else about the conversation, so why would I set any of that on ignore when that's exactly the content I came to see?
I've read Tildes philosophy on this, but I have my own:
"It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world."
Gimme some slippers. :D
This will be a tough one to figure out how to deal with if the site population keeps growing I think. In general, we'd like to slowly train people out of that kind of low-grade nastiness. Often it really is just a matter of tone. But doing so requires a high-touch moderation approach and a community that's willing to politely encourage people to check themselves (which is itself a skill that takes a while to develop). Overall that makes the site nicer since the sort of nastiness you mention has a tendency to bleed out and affect other users as well.
I think one of the reasons this sort of block function isn't implemented is because it ends up being kind of hard to follow a conversation that a blocked person is involved in, even parts of it where that person might be tangentially involved but not directly interacting with you.
And then there's the concern with reposts. If you're posting an article and a person you blocked posts the same do you just not see it?
I'm sorry you felt that way about what I said, and left the site as a result... but how is me expressing my disappointment and (IMO valid) concerns about Cleese and his daughter's behavior over the last few years, assuming "bad faith"?
I also never said the new Fawlty Towers reboot can't be good. I only expressed my sincere hope that Cleese and his daughter wouldn't let their personal politics taint the material too much, but also my doubts about them being capable of that.
I grew up watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, and practically worshiping Cleese and the rest, including Terry Gilliam. So please forgive me for being a tiny bit mad at the direction Cleese has gone in recent years, with his "anti-woke" crusade, and wanting to express that here. I didn't intend to drive anyone off the site by doing that. :(
Yeah, I understand. I really do. I have even complained about a similar problem regarding people complaining about Marvel stuff in Marvel promotional topics stifling discussions on them by people who still enjoy them (like myself). So I apologize for being a bit of a hypocrite and essentially doing the same to you on the Fawlty Towers topic. And I promise I will try to keep that in mind, and hold back on my negativity, next time there is a topic like that where I have a personal issue with it or the people involved. Sorry about that.
Yeah, I hear ya. I think a lot of the problem were teething pains though. People (even myself) were a lot less willing to give people the benefit of the doubt here in the old days, since we were all still a little high-strung from having been on reddit all those years... and to be fair there were a lot of bad-faith users that joined Tildes in the first wave. The majority of those super hostile users have been banned after they finally crossed the line now though.
And I also think a lot of the problems with discussions being stifled due to a handful of negative comments is likely to be alleviated by simply having more comments, more topics, and more room for people to breathe. At least that's my hope, anyways.
I also hope you stick around this time too, BTW. I remember you (and your blue hair ;) from way back, and was sad when I noticed you had left. So I'm sorry if I contributed in some way to that.
Thank you for your response, NaraVara (and @arp242!). I kind of expected that what you both described would be the case, but with the influx of new users . . . maybe not indefinitely, after all.
To answer your questions, NaraVara:
I'm sure you're already well aware of this from engaging in online discourse elsewhere, but there's a range of muting/blocking that goes all the way from Reddit's old-style of seeing absolutely nothing from a blocked user, to the RES "soft block" where a user's post is collapsed except for the name, and you are given a choice as to whether to read it or not. The comments section on the Washington Post actually strikes a great middle ground: a blocked user is 100% hard blocked, which does truncate discussions they're a part of, but if they happen to respond to you elsewhere, you see their collapsed reply in your profile and are given a choice as to whether or not you want to see it.
In all my time in Reddit, across all accounts, the number of top-level posts I've submitted is probably under 30, all original or very niche content, and I ALWAYS do a search before posting just to be sure, so I've never had that problem. But to address your question directly, it depends on how that particular site handles blocked users in search (think YouTube, where a channel is blocked except in search, and sites like it). For soft blocks, it's no problem at all because you're shown everything, and blocked users' submissions show up, just collapsed (or not). But even for hard blocks, if you're using searches external to the site, like the site: function on DuckDuckGo or a direct-to-Reddit Pushshift interface like Camas, your search is unaffected, because those external searches are calling the API directly. Or were, lol.
I am well able to do this, and actually posted something before I realized I've only been here five minutes and it wasn't my battle, and swiftly deleted it. The person who did this was also a new arrival, heh. Coming from Reddit, a lot of that is handled by the downvote function, which of course is not something Tildes wants. And I'm not a mod anymore, so while your kind suggestion often works, even the gentlest indication of rebuke can be met with explosive self-defense, and I'd just rather avoid that if at all possible. So now I'm just watching that post to see what happens. Will it be modded by the community in some way? Will that user be gently corrected by others? I guess we'll all see, because that instance won't be the last.
But I realized last night that my entire post might be moot: I don't think I have the skill to do a soft block, but there's a possibility I can do a hard block with uBlock Origin and a custom string that includes that username. I actually did that in Reddit one time, when they were screwing around with the block function and I needed to just get a specific someone out of my cereal bowl in the morning. If I do this, and it breaks my Tildes experience, the worst that happens is I look like a fool, and I can live with that. Got lots of practice, lol.
Again, thank you and @arp242 for taking the time to listen and answer so thoughtfully. This is such a new experience. I could get used to this. :D
Yeah I've definitely seen this. But I also just kind of see it as someone's willingness to engage constructively in discussions, and if they can't that's the cue for administrative action.
Everyone is getting used to the pace of the website accelerating so I'm guessing it just hasn't been noticed unless someone puts a "Malice" or "Noise" label on it.
Already on Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/462
If you see something like that in the future, please report it to Deimos via the Malice label so it can be dealt with. Your account is over 7 days old so you should have access to it now. And it's unfortunate, but with all the new users and increased posting volume, it's not surprising that some things got missed over the last week+. All our old users (who already could report things) were likely overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything... I know I was (and still am). But now that a lot more users have access to comment labels, hopefully that won't happen as frequently now.
As a new user, my first impression is that I wish there were more topics/groups (not sure of the official term). I understand that there is at tagging system to go more granular, which is great, but I don't know if it still solves the need for more groups.
Additionally, groups like "life" are so broad as to be meaningless to me, and in my head seems somewhat redundant with "misc" and "talk", although I haven't spent enough time in those spaces to know if that's actually the case.
Finally, it strikes me as odd that if there is a philosophy of using tags within broad groups as a way of filtering content, why are there both "science" and "space" groups? Shouldn't "space" or "astronomy" be a tag within science?
Take some time, browse all these "new user" threads, a lot of people have explained the current status of groups on tildes in depth the past few days. Basically, they're closer to a category than a subforum, even though superficially they appear to be the latter. It's a little awkward.
~life is about human interest pieces. Not specific interest infodumps, which would fit in ~misc, not philosophy or history or political theory or aesthetic works, which would be in ~humanities, and not topics meant exclusively for community engagement, ~talk.
~space is a bit of an artifact. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall, in the early days of tildes, when everything was being shifted around, space topics were taking up a ton of the oxygen in ~science. The original vision for groups was for them to be promotable from tags in some sense, so 'space' the tag becoming 'space' the group was seen as natural. As time went on, development and community growth stalled, any automated systems around such a feature failed to pop up, and so now we have a handful of specific groups that really would fit better as tags with the current culture.
You can actually go back and look at the proposals the last time new groups were added. Space was fairly heavily requested but subsequently not very well used (imo). I would love to see some new discussion about groups now that we have new users actually, i think it could be time to change things up a bit and introduce some further structure here. Or to revamp the tag system and make them browseable and followable.
Yeah, I remember the excitement for it. My dissatisfaction lies in the stagnation, not in ~space's existence. It's been a consistently high-quality group since its establishment.
I was very on-board with the early design drafts for this site, and have a hard time believing that bickering over "which groups?" will lead to long-term health of the community, especially with the recent influx. Tags are almost feature-complete, browseability and some form of tag-following would be great, but the latter seems like it could have some real nightmare implications if done lazily, e.g. to just make a more chaotic alternative to user-made groups.
I think it would be interesting to do away with groups completely and rely solely on tags
I guess that proposal would feel like an entirely different site and project. In principle, I could see that underpinning a healthy community online, but it isn't what Tildes has ever been. Some of the early planning posts (2018-19) did involve consideration of that idea, though sadly I have no idea which to point you toward for more background.
I remember those discussions; looks like I had registered a little after you, heh. I think I may have floated the idea out back then too
I still haven’t seen the utility in having a set of blessed groups that only act as categorization and broad subscription filtering, little more than a special required tag already. All they’ve seemed to do is lead to bikeshedding, friction when deciding where a new topic should go, and misleads new people into thinking there are are separate Reddit-esque communities, which brings assumptions about what topic/identity communities are/are not encouraged.
We could preserve the little utility groups do have while also shifting fully to tags. Adding functionality to subscribe/unsubscribe to tags directly, plus display few lists of list like top/trending/suggested tags should take care of most of it.
Oh, hah, sorry. I was totally in intro mode.
I'm on board with groups the way they were initially planned, as something promoted automatically from tags, and in which topics "bubble up" from subgroups. Without all of that, I agree, they're basically just vortices of bikeshedding as they stand today. However, there's very little I can imagine working worse than some sort of baroque tagging system that gets used as a replacement for subreddits, and at the moment, I'm having a hard time imagining that not happening. I'm very much on tildes for the dream, rather than the reality, and that initial spec is much more interesting to me than a tag-centric model, as it'd sidestep a lot of the issues with groups/subreddits without falling into a complete sprawl of user-created tags.
One way to think about it is that some web pages feel like places and others don't. A subreddit is a place. A Tildes topic is a place. A Tildes tag, like a hashtag on Twitter or Mastodon, is not a place, it's a search result with a bunch of independently-written items listed together.
You can tell because people will post to a hashtag without reading it first. (Some hashtags might feel a little more like places when people read them and reply.)
We seem to want Tildes groups to be places, but they currently feel more like search results. Getting rid of groups would be a way of accepting that and giving up on having any places between Tildes as a whole and individual topics. It's a valid design choice; Hacker News and lobste.rs work that way.
The opposite way to go would be to figure out what more we need to do to make each group feel like its own place.
If we didn't have topics on the front page and made people visit each group to see what's there then they would feel more like places. Many bulletin boards work that way. I don't think we want to go that way, though.
On some level, I think I'm generally opposed to the concept of going to even a personal "front page". It doesn't seem healthy for the mind to just have a nearly context-free flood of atomic facts. So I guess I'm more open to that last proposition than most. A lot of the initial plans for this site almost resembled usenet in structure and methods of interaction, and I know that Deimos has walked a lot of that back, but it was a significant amount of my interest in the first place. Regardless, I don't believe that "one site to house them all" is a workable model at this point, so perhaps my opinions shouldn't carry much weight if that's what the majority of people want here. I'd just caution that what we want and need are very different. The local culture of tildes was already in a bad state before this immigration, but I don't expect much of the good parts to survive the way things are looking.
I do sometimes get a little fatigued at reading feeds of arbitrarily ordered unrelated content, although maybe that just means it's time to take a break?
Maybe a bulletin-board style front page with no topic listing on it would be a good option to have? Hard to say how well it would work without trying it.
I'm more proposing that it's not good for us in the long term, that we're supposed to have some degree of physical compartmentality separating serious subject matter vs active recreation vs idle amusements, and compressing them all together may be part of the unhealthy addictive patterns many experience with social media. Just a random thought, really. Not relevant to tildes as it stands so much as a pessimistic aside.
This original request for the group that became known as ~life might help explain the purpose of that group.
Here's some background about how we ended up with two separate groups for these:
An initial suggestion for a ~space group.
A later suggestion for a ~space group, after which this group was created.
Basically, the difference is that exploring space was seen as different to studying space. Building a rocket to get to orbit is not the same topic as discovering new exoplanets via a space telescope. So, ~space is more oriented to getting to space, being in space, and exploring space, while the sciences of astronomy, cosmology, and such, are relegated to ~science.
Just navigating the topics - after you select a topic, say ~news. To then look at other topics I have to go back to homepage open up the sidebar (on mobile) then select another topic. Not a big thing, but introduces friction with usage. However I would like to say that the site is very well thought out in how its implemented.
That should improve when the Tildes app comes out! Some of the ui friction/hurdles will be able to be smoothed out in the app. That being said, Tildes is a very snappy and well formatted site for mobile. I might have some nitpicks here and there about the ui but it doesn’t feel bloated like every other website I try to go to in the mobile browser.
Its just a minor annoyance, but akin to having your shoe chafe when you walk - its in the background, but noticable every step you take.
You can click the Tildes logo to go back to your front page, or the group name beside it at the top to go to that group page instead. If you want to go to another group, then you do have to open the sidebar, but TBH I am not sure how that can be improved with the limited space available in the interface on mobile. If you have a suggestion for specifically how it could be improved, I could add it to Gitlab as a feature request.
Personally, and this is kind of nitpicky so feel free to dismiss this - its not so much the extra click, but having to load a page by navigating to the home page again in order to navigate to the topics list. Perhaps an extra button to the left of the side bar? Similar to a dropdown but brings up a different sidebar just for a topics list.
Hmm. Yeah, I suppose that could work. Added to Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/776
Lack of a mobile application.
The guy who made RIF is Fun is making a Tildes app!
Any specific reason you'd prefer an app rather than using the website?
I'm not OP, but I'd also prefer an app because it feels better to me to have everything compartmentalized into their own clean little "Areas", and apps do that wonderfully. Not only do I like them better for that reason, it's also nice being able to track how I spend my day-to-day with app usage tracking that phones provide.
Push notifications, better experience, better UI/UX, can more easily launch from Home Screen.
I am too new to say there's anything I 'don't like' about the platform - so far I think it's really interesting and there is a lot to like. However, having come from reddit, I would say that it seems hard to find places for content posts by artists.
Now, I may be misunderstanding some fundamentals (I have read through a chunk of the docs to try and get more of an idea of the vibes here), but the platform doesn't seem to have much in terms of original artist work (or places for it to appear).
An example of a reddit sub in this vein would be ImaginaryMonsters, which has a healthy flow of art posts that fit the topic. Is there a way to scratch a similar itch here (in premise)?
I know this isn't reddit, so not trying to shoehorn another perspective in, just trying to understand the similarities and differences.
~creative is the group that kind of content can usually be found in. Combined with the user created tag or original content tags (IMO we really do need to pick one and stick with it, @mycketforvirrad), and viola. There is occasionally user created creative stuff posted to ~hobbies when applicable too though.
I use
original contentfor written works anduser createdfor physical things made by hand.Ahhh, okay. I didn't recognize the distinction. I will try to stick to that convention from now on too.
It always felt a little weird referring to written works as user created for some reason, otherwise I agree, I would have preferred to settle on a single tag.
Thanks, that's useful. I can see a filter for removing certain ones from the feed, but is there any way to quickly select a tag to filter to (besides finding a post already tagged with it and clicking the tag there, or modifying the URL)?
Not currently. But having some sort of auto-complete, or other more convenient way of browsing tags is a good idea. I will try to remember to add it to the Gitlab when I am done with sending the invites. :)
I totally agree. I think right now the main issue is that we just don’t have a lot of users who are sharing things they’ve made! There are recurring threads in ~creative and elsewhere where people occasionally post, but you can definitely post outside of these threads to share things you’ve made with others. Right now Tildes is much smaller than reddit so there is less granularity in terms of groups, so I wouldn’t expect a ~monsters.imaginary soon, but that doesn’t mean people here wouldn’t be interested! One of the benefits of having broader categories for the time being is people get to discover new interests that way.
Makes sense. I think it likely is just the size and therefore lack of posts. If I were going to consider posting some of my own (mediocre) art, the lack of precedent might make me think I was doing something wrong.
I definitely think explicitly catering to the arts (and therefore providing access to a lot of original content) is key for certain demographics of potential users (but I am aware growth isn't currently the only goal).
I think having explicit ~creative.gallery or ~creative.imadethis groups would definitely make it more inviting for such users, and provide an explicit 'I know what I'm getting' confidence for users who would be looking to subscribe to OC, rather than just creative discussions.
Again, though, I'm not trying to be the new guy saying 'this is how this long established site should work', just my initial feelings being a creative techie here.
I totally hear you. Ideally we would have those groups, and maybe if we continue to grow it will make sense on the sooner side. I'd very much like to get more creative folks in here!
The comment box is at the bottom of the comments I had to scroll a lot to find it
The vote button for Posts is on the right, but for Comments its on the left, this is less intuitive on mobile.
The button to collapse comments is too small for mobile, tapping the gray header could minimise the comment instead, or the minimise button could also be moved to the right side
That I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of a thread to leave a comment.
Edit: I’ve read the docs and now understand and agree with the decision to have it at the bottom, underneath the comments.
I had the same reaction, and to be fair I agree with it now that I'm used to it.
Inability to create custom communities. Unfortunately, the growth of this place will always be artificially limited because of that. It doesn't need to be a free for all, but there really should be some system for getting new communities up and running
Reddit didn't have user-created subreddits at first, either. They weren't introduced there until 2008, when Reddit already had some 2,000,000 users. (For comparison, Tildes has about 15,000 registered users.)
Depending on how it was implemented, my concern would be that introducing user-created groups too early might divide an already very small population into numbers that are too low to generate meaningful activity and sense of community. For now, I think a handful of groups based on the most popular topics helps ensure that the number of participants doesn't dip excessively low.
In the long run, though, I agree with you. I would love to see more people and more specialized groups.
I'd be fine with that, if in the future it was allowed, but there should be some plan for it in place, since people are already expecting the ability since reddit has shown how valuable it can be. Has the admin discussed this in public recently? You are right though that with only 15,000 registered users it wouldn't make sense to do right now. Hopefully its an option for the future.
The short version of the initial plan (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET):
Groups would never be directly creatable by users. Instead, groups and subgroups would be automatic based on tag usage. If there’s enough posts being made tagged “COVID-19” in the Health group, it would convert the tag to a “Health.COVID-19” subgroup. If activity in there drops beyond a threshold, that subgroup would get converted back to a tag again. There were other interesting mechanics that I remember discussed, like top posts in a subgroup would bubble up to show in the main group too.
I read last week that Deimos is actually considering this, given the increased size of tildes from the reddit exodus. From what I can tell, this functionality was locked to keep engagement high; the concern is that a subtilde might not get much posts, which might frustrate users or make tildes look dead.
While I think having a system for new communities is a good idea, it's worth remembering that limited growth is a feature, not a bug.
Sure to an extent, but there has been limited growth since the inception of Tildes. There is an opportunity here to move beyond that and create a more active and lively community.
Yeah, what there is now seems to be based around having a few thousand users who all want to chat to each other about all kinds of stuff. Without sub communities the growth potential is very limited. I am already spending way more time using a competitor site that does have user made communities.
I'm curious to know what alternative you are using. So far the ones I've tried don't seem that great. Tildes is the most usable alternative imo.
squabbles.io
I've only been here for a few hours so take this with a grain of salt. But I'm slightly bothered that the location of the votes number is in a different place for your comments then other people comments. Just feels a bit weird to have to have to look in a different place while scrolling through comments.
Where does it show up?
on your own comments, it shows up below your username, and inside of the comment box, so it kinda looks like you started off your comment with how many votes your comment has. On other peoples comments, they show up next to vote, at the bottom footer of the comment.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the moderation transparency issue. That is, any action @Deimos takes. The rest - topic log, hiding noise posts, etc, is fine. But there's a bunch of people on the outside (i.e. "the discord" afaict, as well as on reddit) who complain about unjustified bans and such.
Now, I'm not here to scrutinize Deimos' work. He's doing a swell job for all I can tell. And I'm aware that making admin actions visible might well have people do that. Oh, and it'll inevitably lead to rules lawyering, which is never nice, as it has a tendency of pushing the overton window.
But I think there's value in (1) decent people knowing where the line is and (2) defusing potential drama.
So I'm just not really sure how to square that circle. Maybe the best solution is - once Trusted Users(TM) is finally here - to give these people access to detailed logs. That way, it's not only in Deimos' court to litigate these situations. Or maybe once Trusted Users is here, we can hide the decision makers behind a voting system. That way, rules lawyering wouldn't be possible anymore. If 4 of 5 trusted users think you should be banned because of a post that can still be viewed within the context of that ban action, there isn't much to argue about, democracy has spoken. If anyone has a tag or so that contains previous discussions on the topic, let me know, I'd love to catch back up.
I find myself falling into a habit I had on Reddit, where I would open my profile and look at how much engagement my comments/posts are having.
From what I gather, that seems antithetical to what Tildes is going for and I'd love if there was a way to make it harder to see votes on my own comments and posts.
This feature request would probably interest you:
Add a setting for users to disable the visibility of votes / hide vote counts
Dude you're incredibly helpful, I appreciate how much you contribute to this community.
😊
Originally, it was that I had to scroll to the bottom to reply, but I guess it helps prevent a lot of repeated comments.
Still very new, so still getting used to things. I think the comment box at the bottom actually makes sense (I never understood people that would make low effort comments super late on Reddit which nobody ever notices). However, the site feels very plain, aesthetically. I would love image content, thumbnails for link posts, and maybe just some splash of color. Also a bit skeptical about the lack of a downvote button, something that's def abused on Reddit, but feels like it still had value. Aside from that, just more content and engagement
The value that the downvote button has on reddit is to remove stuff that isn't really benefiting a discussion. Well, I suppose that was the original intention - now it's mostly an "I disagree" button.
Anyhow, on Tildes you can press "label" under the comment text and mark it if it's sufficiently bad - or really good
I would like a feature to hide posts - now that there is a lot more activity than there used to be, my front page feels very cluttered with topics that I don't care about (like tech and programming stuff, for example).
You can hide individual posts via the Actions menu below the post scores. Or filter out topics using the tags in the sidebar. Or unsubscribe from whole groups.
How have I never seen that? Thank you omg 😅
No worries. Always happy to help.
One minor annoyance I just found (in my desktop browser) is that clicking "Log out" on my user profile page logs me out without a confirmation prompt. I meant to hit "Settings," but my cursor slipped (laptop trackpad, small browser text size) and I accidentally clicked "Log Out" instead. Maybe moving the location of these two options slightly could mitigate this, or implementing an "Are you sure?" dialog.
Added to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/810
this may be very superficial and inconsequential, but the comment field being at the bottom of the page does annoy me slightly
and the default scale is entirely too large, i use 66% scale and its still more than large enough
other than that, im finding myself really liking this place. good work, fellas
It's intentional, and meant to encourage people to read the comments and participate in already active discussions before making a new top-level comment of their own.
I think there is a lack of more subs, maybe a new system to decide what sub is next.
I think the invite system is good and make a ranking of people who can give more invites, like if your invited people have good karma you get better ranking points.
There have been discussions on adding new groups in the past. The consensus was we didn’t want to pull an Imzy and atomize the discussion across the site (e.g., by having three different vegan boards). Depending on how the next few weeks/months play out, we may have this discussion again and open discussions for new groups.
I find it hard to find things. For example, earlier I saw the Tears of the Kingdom thread and wanted to keep up with it. The only thing I saw was “bookmark” so I did that. But now how do I find that? I don’t see anywhere that says bookmarks, but I’m sure I’m looking in the wrong place. Thanks!
The bookmarks page is a real issue, as a veteran of tildes that's not on you at all. It's actually in your profile. Click on your username on the top right, it'll be on the sidebar to the right on desktop, and it might be collapsed behind a "Sidebar" link on mobile or small windows.
Thanks for letting me know! Now I see it.
If you go to your user page (upper right) and look at the side bar, you’ll find an entry for your bookmarks.
There it is! Thanks for your help
One more question: voting. I see we can “vote” on things we like/agree with. It doesn’t appear that there are downvotes, is that correct? Thanks again
That is correct, there are no downvotes on Tildes.
However, you'll eventually gain the ability to apply labels, which are used for sorting and moderation. With the exception of the "Exemplary" label, they are not displayed alongside the comment.
And since it’s just web-based, no notifications it seems. No issue, as I assume this is intended. For me it will be nice when the Three Cheers for Tildes app happens for the notifications.
Thanks again
Yup exactly. The lack of downvotes is supposed to help avoid “dog-piling” behavior in which a comment is downvoted to oblivion because it goes against the prevailing consensus in the thread. The idea is to help promote discussion.
After your account is a couple of days old, you will get access to “labels” which serve as another way to leave feedback on a comment. You can read more about their purpose here.
I think my only "don't love" thing so far is groups. At first, I was surprised and a bit bothered to see that you can't just create them. But after reading posts about why that is, I understand it. I still don't love it, though. But that's not going to keep me away - I'm interested to see if/how organic group creation will work.
Other than that, I really can't think of anything I don't like. Most of my Reddit usage was discussion-based anyway, so I feel at home here.
The platform is perfect for my tastes. I couldn’t I’d imagine something this ideal.
The Anglosphere is overrepresented here so it feels a bit small at the moment, but hopefully that will change in time as more people sign up and the place diversifies.
I'd like a ~religion or ~spirituality page. I'd also really like an ~occult page but I realize that's probably too niche.
Image posts could be nice but I understand why we don't have them here.
I agree that one of those would be nice, maybe if things get bigger around here. I think you could post about those things in ~life, ~humanities, or ~misc depending on the exact topic for the time being.
I would like that too. I don't think it's too niche because with both religion and politics, it's very easy to piss in someone's conversational soup without even knowing you're doing so, and I'm not here to provoke others any more than I am here to be proselytized. Such a tag would make such discussions much safer and less provocative for all.
Seems like with religion and spirituality, this is a "better safe than sorry" situation. Those subs are some of the ones I will miss on Reddit, to be sure. But after reading the docs, I figured I'd just live without it: it doesn't seem to fit into the existing structure, unfortunately. Plus I've been here for all of a hot five minutes, so what do I know?
But speaking solely for myself, and to be very blunt, I have no desire to discuss spirituality without some assurance that those who would be actively offended by my beliefs and practices have the option of avoiding my comments altogether. And I probably won't browse anything of a spiritual or religious nature that is already here for the exact same reason: there are things I too just don't want to see.
TL;DR: If ever a niche is truly required and cannot be safely relegated to general conversation, spirituality is at the very top of that list. I am really glad you brought this up. Thank you, ThatMartinFellow.
I don't like how when I use the "Link" button it doesn't bring me to the actual comment, it brings be to the entire thread.
Coming from old.reddit (like I'm sure a lot of people here are) like how old.reddit functions with "context", "permalink", and "partent" a little better.
When I click the Link button next to your comment, the URL changes to be a direct link to your comment, and it's highlighted with a uniquely colored bar on the left. If I paste that URL into a new tab, it'll jump down to it and show it highlighted the same way. Do you have a scriptblocker or other website modification going on?
Currently Tildes uses HTML anchors to link to comments. It's a bit wonky though. If new comments have been made in the topic since the person last visited, and they click an anchored comment link it will fail to go to that comment location since it's collapsed due to the "Collapse old comments" feature. Same goes for if the comment was labeled with Noise and so is auto-collapsed too.
At one point a replacement permalink system (like how it works on reddit) was "in progress" but it unfortunately never got finished. I should probably remove the "in progress" on it.
I would put the comment box at the top of the comments rather than at the bottom. Is that an option somewhere? I didn't see it. But that's my biggest thing.
It's an intentional part of the design, intended to encourage people to read the existing thread before commenting.
Sure, I can see that. At the same time, that design probably makes more sense when the threads are relatively small. As this community grows and threads become on average larger and larger, it's going to be more and more cumbersome to do so. I spend most of my time here reading others' discussions regardless, but that's not really influenced by the placement of the reply text box. But when I do want to reply, scrolling to the very bottom of what might be a pretty large page just feels odd.
Maybe I'll get used to it and it won't bother me after spending more time here. Or maybe someone will make an Android app that will lay things out differently and it'll be a moot point regardless.
Honestly becoming more cumbersome to scroll to the new-top-level-comment on large threads is where comment box at the bottom shines. The larger a thread gets, the more likely a discussion already exists that can be expanded upon instead of a new top-level comment. At the same time, the larger a thread gets, the more tempting it is to drive-by comment instead of fully reading and engaging with the extensive existing discussion.
It's that second point you made about drive by commenting that I think I see becoming more common if tildes continues to grow with the API exodus from reddit.
Honestly the more I think about it, I think I actually really prefer how things work on mobile apps for reddit, or even in the inbox system here - where there is no comment box at all until you specifically select the reply button. But again that's because most of what I do is read rather than comment.
Actually, the developer of Reddit Is Fun is working on an app for Tildes: Three Cheers for Tildes
Researching the community and seeing that post was actually the reason I went to the reddit thread to ask for an invite here in the first place! I think RIF Golden Platinum was the first app I actually bought from the Android Market, back before it was rebranded to Google Play Store. I'm excited to see what talklittle does.
Honestly, I have a Galaxy Fold 4, and the website is super usable on mobile. I know that's a part of the design philosophy as well, but it's really nice, especially on my Fold's inner screen.
If I may, does it really work ? I've seen whole threads of 20-so top-level comments with no answers.
It works, more or less. Not every comment is going to inspire someone to answer. The real marker, in my mind, is the number of people saying the exact same thing instead of upvoting the statement they already agree with. If people are saying the exact same thing without any difference of nuance, have they read the thread? Are they contributing to a conversation? If they see their sentiment expressed, but with some differences, it would be best if they responded to that comment with their own nuanced take on the situation. If someone is the fifth person in a thread to say that they want the comment box at the top so that they can respond even faster to the question without absorbing the current state of the discussion, perhaps that's an indicator that even the current system isn't doing enough to encourage people to slow down and become part of the conversation.
Sometimes comments are conducive to replies and sometimes they're not, and it usually has to do with the topic being posted. For a lot of ask.survey or ask.recommendation questions, unless a user is going to suggest the same thing, it makes sense to leave their own comment than reply to another. I think overall it works, which isn't to say it guarantees replies in every thread.
It took me a really long time to find Reddit palatable, because I find a fully expanded tree of comments to be really overwhelming.
RES's ability to automatically collapse child comments made Reddit way more enjoyable to use.
Tildes does support collapsing the replies of top level comments, but there doesn't appear to be a way to have that be the default behavior.
Added to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/786
The text contrast is too low.
It's great there are optional low-contrast themes for people who like squinting or have expensive displays, but please, please use black-on-white body text with the default theme. I think maximizing legibility is important for a text-first kind of website.
Not being able to create my own... group? Subtilde?
Also having to scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN to post a comment.
Letting one random user spin off their own group just because they feel like it... will not happen on Tildes. Groups on Tildes will probably be created reactively, rather than proactively, and by collective consensus rather than individual decision.
Also, scrolling past other people's comments to make your own comment, encourages you to see those other comments, so that you don't end up saying the same thing that a dozen other people have already said.
I don't think Tildes should change this philosophy and open up the floodgates, for very good reasons outlined in the rest of this comment thread, but it still feels a little bit like there's a problem with it, which is like just how niche can I post in ~games for example?
There may not be enough Tildes users as a whole to post the kind of topics one might've seen in like sub-communities of a specific game.
For example, I am not the OP of the following thread (I'm already familiar with the cDPS he's asking about), but I would not feel comfortable submitting even a discussion topic about this subject to ~games right now.
In spite of the fact that I believe there would be nothing inherently against the rules about it and if nobody cares, it simply falls down the group page until it vanishes into obscurity, I would not be comfortable making threads that niche because depending on how often (probably pretty often tbh) I might want to try to open very niche topics, it could end up basically being spam by way of constantly posting stuff that nobody else cares about.
Despite all that I'm never much of a thread-starter myself, anyway, but while I'm really liking Tildes for what it is (and I'm definitely bought-in on the idea that it's not a Reddit replacement), it has a problem that I'm quite certain every single other place that people went to after leaving Reddit will also have, which is that it's population is low enough that for however niche and into the nitty-gritty of a subject I might want to get, I might be lucky to find even 1 other user who cares about the subject enough that I might as well just DM them.
All this is to say, I feel like the topics that could lead to creation of an eventual ~games.ffxiv in following with the example, or even more niche subjects like ~games.emulation or ~games.speedrun all might be too niche to even post at all right now, meaning maybe these subjects never actually get a chance to bubble up to the surface within ~games and warrant creation of sub-groups for a very very long time. (Again I'm certainly not arguing that someone needs to make them right now anyway.)
Not saying I'm prepared to look elsewhere, and not saying I'm not interested in having broader conversations in the existing threads around here, but my Reddit usage was largely avoiding subreddits like r/games in favor of specific subreddits for specific games, genres, systems, or modes of play, and part of my learning curve on Tildes here has involved a certain amount of discomfort with how to interact with a group as broad in nature as ~games, which inherently makes me feel like my topics must be broad enough to interest most ~games participants or drown, which is okay, but makes it feel futile.
Also this is very much about perception and how things feel to me, so I'm sure a much less complicated answer to all this might be forthcoming, probably "just post" or "how often is there something new to discuss about emulation or speedrunning or ffxiv anyway?" or something, which is valid but doesn't make me feel any less uneasy about niche submissions to a broad topic group. I'm probably just being an overthinker, anyway.
tl;dr I feel like only having broad topic groups disincentivizes posting niche content that could lead to future subgroups until the site's population is big enough to have enough users that care about that niche, yet posting about that niche content is the only way to find out where the topic stands in the community in the first place.
As niche as you want! :)
The problem is, as you rightly identify, the low population of Tildes, rather than the lack of more specific groups. Even if we created a niche group for ~games.video.finalfantasy.xiv... that group would only attract a few members. Because in a nominal population of only about 20,000 registered users, and an actual population of far less active users, you're not going to find a lot of people interested in the same niche topics as you - but creating the niche groups won't suddenly make those people appear.
Even on Reddit, those niche subreddits didn't appear immediately after people were allowed to create their own subreddits. Again: the population had to grow, and the need for those subreddits had to be seen by someone. The downside of allowing people to create their own subreddits/groups is that, sometimes, the creator themself was the only person who needed the subreddit; I've seen people create subreddits that, even after a year or two, still have a population of only 1 or 2 subscribers. Some subreddits become graveyards. And noone wants to post in a graveyard!
If you want to find out whether people here are interested in Final Fantasy XIV, then make a post and see what happens.
Otherwise, based on the 90:9:1 rule of internet participation, you'll have to rely on what that 1% is interested in posting. Out of 20,000 nominal users, and a lower number of active users, the number of people who will post topics for you to comment on is far less than 200 people. If one of those less-than-200 people isn't interested in the game(s) you like, you won't see a post about it. So, either you start posting yourself, or you wait for the population of Tildes to grow to the point where someone in that 1% of the population is also interested in the game(s) you like.
Which is a very long way of saying "just post"! :)
Then it's not much of a democracy and more of an autocracy, except using public-relations speak to make this seem ideal and democratic.
I like multiple people posting the same opinion because it shows popular support for a feature/idea rather than just a lone voice crying in the wilderness. People are inclined to skip over long threads, preferring to read the parent, assuming the comments under the parent are a shitshow argument rather than a line of people saying "me too" which is similarly boring.
I was just talking about Imzy in another comment, and I think it's relevant here:
So what you call "democracy" when it comes to group creation, I think of as actually more like anarchy, and that's not always the best thing to allow for the long-term health of a community.
That's what votes are for, and replies to people who have already commented with something you agree with. When essentially the same top-level comment keeps being made over and over again by people who couldn't be bothered to read the other comments first before making their own, all it does is make it harder to find differing opinions and divergent discussions in the comments section.
It has never been Tildes' goal to be "democratic" (and tbh I've never seen a social media site that was). It's always been pretty clear, especially if you read the docs and philosophy, that it is run according to the wishes of one person (Deimos). Of course he takes into consideration what users want (and he seems to do so pretty well imo), but in the end it's his website. If you don't trust Deimos's judgement, then Tildes probably isn't for you.
And tbh, I like it that way. It's a lot easier for one guy to delete Nazi bullshit than it would be to convince a completely democratic social media website to do so. I trust Deimos to moderate the site well and if I lose that trust, I'll find a different website.
Been here only for a day or two and so far top complaints are definitely 1) no app, 2) comment box at the bottom is awful. And general lack of design is kind of a turnoff. I don’t mind it being basic, but not Web 1.0 level.
Give us an option to move the "next" and the "comments" button/link to the right side on the mobile site.
Added your suggested as a comment to the related Gitlab issue:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/807
My only complaint is I'd like to see an android app, the mobile site is fine but not optimized compared to a dedicated app.
A submitter's username is not visible for link submissions viewed in the feed: https://i.imgur.com/b0axt9j.png
It's replaced with a favicon and a site title.
This is intentional. Submitting a link should be thought of like giving it to the community, not owning it, unlike Reddit where karma meant who submitted it was important. Showing the site info in the feed instead is more relevant and de-emphasizes the specific user who posted it. Text posts (and I think certain music posts) show the submitter in the feed since it’s actually their content.
Ah, I guess I misunderstood. I thought I read somewhere that the "giving to the community" was for all posts, not just links.
I'd still kinda argue that a username can give some important context for why a link is being posted, but I would imagine that this has be litigated before.
Thank you for the reply!
You can still see who submitted an external link in the topic itself:
E.g. https://tild.es/18fb "Posted 24 minutes ago by cfabbro"
And even for external link topics in ~music and ~creative it always shows the user who posted something instead of the domain, since they're "taste" based groups where knowing who submitted something is often more valuable to know than the site they're linking to, which are usually just YouTube/Bandcamp/Spotify/Imgur/etc.
Ironically I was just thinking about how necro-posts bump an old topic. Maybe top level comments could bump but non-top level comments or comments beyond some threshold wouldn't bump? Sometimes I want to contribute to a discussion or reply to someone but it really doesn't warrant bumping an entire topic.
They don't. I think that comments more than 5 levels deep don't bump topics. Also, replies to comments that are labelled as 'Noise' (and maybe 'Joke' and 'Offtopic') don't bump topics.
Why not? Are your comments less valid than everyone else's, just because you made them more than 24 hours after a topic was started?
Discovering a topic later than other people, and commenting on it a week or a month later, shouldn't be seen as less worthwhile as commenting on it early. Why penalise people for not seeing something when it was first posted?
I have seen discussions of possibly adding a whisper function. I'm not sure I personally can adequately judge who might be interested in a new comment to an old post. Sometimes I discover entire threads that way that I had been unaware of.
I saw an incredibly amusing example of this when someone recently bumped a weeks or months old thread simply to make a silly joke saying "...on toast?" I imagine they had no idea it would bump the thread and draw everyone's attention towards it. I wasn't even mad, it was hilarious, at least that time.
Anyway, this feature is actually one of my favorite things about tildes. Reddit threads would die so quickly due to the way posts worked and the unspoken rule of not commenting on "old" threads, and I feel that it prevented the continuation of countless discussions over the years. It also resulted in the creation of an absurd number of duplicate posts.
On Tildes I think this feature just needs a few tweaks in order to work perfectly. What you described would be going too far, in my opinion, because I like seeing interesting discussions continue beyond the top level comments. Like all of the older topics say, it's okay to bump a topic as long as it continues the discussion. I'd say we should all just try to follow that guideline, and not be afraid to bump topics in general.
The fact that the comment is at the very bottom