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Are there any plans for image-based communities?
I've noticed that there are primarily text posts with some links thrown in, and I do like the "real" conversation that it brings, instead of the shitposting that ends up all over Reddit.
I was curious, though, if there were any plans to add a ~pics or something similar. I know the goal of Tildes isn't to be a true Reddit replacement of course, but I wasn't sure whether image boards were planned or were being left out to help encourage actual discussion.
Very very very unlikely, IMO. From the Contents page in Tildes Docs:
See also:
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/1oz/daily_tildes_discussion_quality_concerns
It's honestly interesting to see new users flood in from Reddit, as currently it would appear that this site is at a crossroads in terms of its own culture, given what is happening with reddit.
I created my own account here three years ago, and now I hope to use it more.
As a Reddit refugee, I sincerely hope that Tildes keeps its existing culture and doesn't just become another Reddit full of shitposts and stupid memes.
I have the same opinion. I came to Tildes because it felt like a more generic Hacker News. I left reddit because it became another 4chan/TikTok and I do not want that in my life anymore. Going back to an old-school style of text conversations is a bit deeper and slower, and less a waste of time in the end.
It entirely has to do with critical mass. It's a pattern that occurred/occurs with individual subcommunities as well.
Getting popular has pros and cons. Apparently even reddit early on was a decently good forum with a techie bent.
Yeah, it was. Tildes kind of reminds me of early Reddit, except now they have Reddit's history to mayyyybe do some things to prevent (or at least slow) some of the muck that comes along with a huge community.
Unfortunately with it being the natural state large communities regress to, I feel like it'd take novel proactive or features to truly prevent. (Slow is a different story; the invite system and good governance can hopefully prolong a decent level of quality for a while).
One of my theories is that if you can capture aspects of what made the original 'smaller' communities better - e.g. make the barrier between subcommunities less permeable such that you can go anywhere, but it takes effort to stay there - it'd be easier for those subcommunities to have separate group identities relative to each other (and critically, unrelated to the division of topics - i.e. there isn't a predominant super-community for any topic), which in turn would make it easier to find and stick to ones you like.
Yeah I think part of the issue with bigger sites is that the overall community splinters into subcommunities which develop their own overall culture and rules. This creates friction and leads to folk sticking to their "safe" space. Overall the full site should be safe, and moving around should be seamless. When I compare reddit to my time on old forums back in the day, a key difference was that on a forum I knew what was expected no matter what subforum I went to, if I go from selfhosted to askhistorians on reddit, the rules are miles apart. Personally I don't comment in that case but others will and just keep it to low effort low quality posts so as to run less risk in that their post wasn't that important to them so if its removed, its no big deal.
I think that universality of rules and expectations makes interactions easier and so long as low quality posts are discouraged, we can anticipate maintaining a good atmosphere even as the site expands.
Another key thing I think is not having too many subcommunities in general. I love selfhosted tech but at the end of the day it's a niche, subforums should be as broad as possible to organise a site, and it's down to the users to post about their interests in the bigger subforums if that's a topic they like. I don't need to be interested in all elements of tech to post there about selfhosted tech as an example. Much like I don't need to care about the latest shounen anime to post in an anime subforum about the shows I've been watching and my thoughts on that. They both belong there though and we don't need an anime/shounen/top4/animeabc type level of separation.
I used to administrate forums on the rule that your home with the list of subforums should not require scrolling more than once. If it does, I have too many.
Exactly! A lot of sites start out great but quickly become generic social media and lose their charm. Tildes has something special right now, and that’s incredibly valuable.
Hard same. The vibe is what brought me here in the first place.
Same here, the thing I enjoyed about reddit were the hobby based communities for things I enjoy. The memes, same 5 jokes, and easy outrage bait can all stay there. I want to get nerdy about keyboards, lego, star wars, etc.
I’m not worried at all. The invite system is our great equalizer when it comes to keeping the culture we have now.
Frankly I don't think we don't need to worry much about that on this site, especially with the posting limitations. ;)
A few years ago I had finally had enough of Reddit, so I went seeking alternatives. I signed up here, but it was pretty dead at the time so eventually found my way back to Reddit. Now I’m back here again planning on using this more as it seems activity is pretty decent and the culture seems right in line with what originally brought me to Reddit.
I'm mostly the same, I joined this site during one of its slow periods in 2020/2021, and haven't regretted it.
I’m new, so forgive me if what I’m asking is general knowledge. Posting pictures is allowed isn’t it? In the instance of sharing something you’ve made, or other contexts that would promote conversation, right?
Yes, posting links to images is perfectly fine. You'll find a lot of examples of this in the creative/hobby/community discussion topics about projects (check out TIMASOMO!). They should not be the main topic though (eg, memes). There's probably a fuzzy exception where a particular image is in and of itself a good subject of discussion, however I'd expect that to be the exception rather than the rule. A controversial art piece for example, but in that case I'd still wager there's an article somewhere worth linking to.
From another comment of mine:
So as long as you're genuinely trying to start a discussion about the thing you made and shared, that's perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged. :)
Ahh, I hadn't seen that post, all I had seen was the blip in the docs somewhere about it not being a Reddit replacement. It does make a lot more sense now, knowing some of the points made there, thank you!
I'll miss memes but I'm happy that images won't be happening. A lot of subs were overtaken by low-effort pics instead of meaningful content. travelnopics was a great example of how a sub could be better without pics.
I agree with this sentiment. But I'd also like to expand a bit on another topic. I've said something similar in another post, but there's no real reason that Tildes can't run in parallel, but not intersecting, other websites, namely more "memey" or image-oriented websites. By this I mean that the growing unification of the internet is largely what got is into this situation in the first place. Tildes doesn't need to be a "one stop shop" on the internet, so to speak.
I'm looking into Lemmy for more "turn my brain off and scroll" type content, because yeah, sometimes I want to just relax and go channel surfing for a while. But I'm grateful that I'm able to have these options, unlike a more centralized experience like Reddit or TikTok, where all the shit inevitably rises to the top.
I think "there are other websites" is the right answer, but also, having Tildes branding would be unfortunate. There actually is a Tildes Discord but it's where people unhappy with Tildes would hang out and a community that mostly talks about another community can often be unhealthy. We wouldn't want Tildes to be the not-Reddit community, even though there are topics with a lot of anti-Reddit sentiment here.
Better to look for an independent "sister website" of sorts with its own identity, management and moderation. Plenty already exist so it's a matter of deciding where to go. Or starting a new one, I suppose.
So maybe the next step is talk about good image-sharing sites?
Something I haven't seen mentioned here yet is that, even if/when Tildes allows posts that are just images, those image-posts would be expected to be posted in the relevant groups for what the pictures are of. There won't be a ~pics group for the same reason there isn't a ~videos group: such a group would be just a miscellaneous group - it would have all sorts of content.
"Images" is just a format of content, rather than a category of content.
What benefit do you think there is of collecting a variety of unrelated content, removing them from their relevant groups, and collecting them in a miscellany based only on the fact that they're using pictures to present information?
Not just memes, but the endless screenshots of twitter/youtube/reddit/tumbr comments. And reposts of those screenshots with some extra meme text added. I do not miss that aspect of reddit at all.
Add to that browsing r/all and seeing the same image and meme a dozen times over because it gets posted to every possible subreddits to get more karma
Hi all
Brand new user here and first time post (hopefully not breaking any rules on my first time! 🫣😬). Am another Reddit refugee (feel like there should be another term for that.. Anyways...).
At the end of a long day or for when brain is no longer working, sometimes a low effort image or silly gif of a doggo or other animal (like baby elephants) being silly is my thing! Wondering if like others have said there potentially could be an eye bleach/nobrainsrequired or similar place for just chilled scrolling or something!?
I don't use insta or fb or anything else so really Reddit had been my go to mindless/cute entertaining scrolling sesh. Anyways that's my 2c for the moment! Happy to read/see others thoughts on it and/or if anyone else is aware of potential nobrainsrequired scrolling apps/places?
I think that already exists: Instagram.
But it won't exist on Tildes. That's not what Tildes is about.
No worries! Might just have to reluctantly get back on insta or find an alt... Am only using insta sparcely to look at potential tattoo artists haha will find an alt am sure!
I know you said you don’t use insta, but honestly Instagram is great for mindlessly scrolling happy photos as long as you’ve curated your feed well. I only have a handful of people I follow (genuine close friends) and then I just follow silly dog related accounts, comics I like, etc. It’s very low effort and easy to scroll and only see topics I enjoy.
My husband is similar but his feed is mostly photography and car related accounts.
Hmmmnn might maybe have to examine it/see if can curate mine. Currently basically only have tattoo artists I'm following for ideas/inspiration haha I do love Sarah's Scribbles etc so might have to find similar accounts to follow...
Hi, I’m also a new user. Not sure if it’s exactly what you’re looking for, but for a high-quality image based website/app, I really recommend are.na. It’s kind of like Pinterest but with a nicer look and the users are designers and artists, so you get to look at really nice images. It’s not as fun as baby animals maybe (at least my corner of the website!), but it’s kind of nice to scroll.
Awesome thanks muchly will take a look! Would rather not have to go on insta for my mindless scrolls if poss!
I was curious about this as well, but fully agree with the consensus. Reddit and instagram certainly offer some benefits to having image posts, but I really like the sense of community that tildes is developing. Imo a ~memes might be a fun addition but could easily devolve into the same jokes being posted and push the site away from more in depth conversation.
That would almost certainly happen. Friendly reminder that satirical communities will always naturally devolve into sincerity. I've seen it happen a handful of times and have yet to see a community successfully resist Poe's law or the "critical mass ~ decline in quality" problem.
Oh interesting... I didn't realize this was such a well known phenomenon. I think that especially since Tildes spans such a wide range of interests, this decline in quality might be even worse. For example, I follow some watch forums where there are joke threads, but since the entire forum is mostly watch geeks the tone of the overall forum still remains thoughtful, and the content remains high quality.
Tildes doesn't really have this one guiding philosophy of sorts, which would undoubtedly make it harder to keep the same seriousness with an influx of such 'comedic' posts.
Not to mention that there are already communities online dedicated to humor. Probably better to avoid turning Tildes into one of those when it already has its own unique identity.
Yeah, I'm taking a bit of creative liberty in applying Poe's law to describe it, but honestly it's the closest term I can find to describe a pattern of devolution I've seen time and time again.
Online communities embrace some form of low-common-denominator humor as harmless and containable; it becomes 'funny' to reference outside of its contained context; the majority slowly enjoys being 'in on the joke'... And before you know it, mindless babble is endlessly repeated as if it were the invention of humor, driving away thoughtful comments and diminishing the reach of depthy posts (now competing with memetic in-jokes).
It's one of several aspects of the whole "critical mass ~ decline in quality" problem. I almost wish there were a law stating such subcommunities should only be allowed when you'd be fine if they stopped being 'ironic' or contained; while it seems harsh, it'd be similar to the (non)paradox of tolerance. Proactively closing the door to a slippery slope, for a well-delineated pre-stated reason.
I'm sure I just sound like a buzzkill or an old man yelling at clouds but I've seen it happen a lot. 😅
A while back, there used to be a website called Gurlic that could almost be described as the dual of Tildes - it was all image posts and links, no or minimal discussion. Some time ago the website stopped resolving and its creator (@ahq, actually) seems to have gone mostly offline (I hope they're doing alright). Unfortunately, the source was never released - but the source code wasn't the important part anyway. What made it a special place were the users posting interesting content - I particularly liked the @art and @architecture communities.
Anyways, that's a lead-in to say that I think you can have an image-based community that's not slated towards "low-effort" content. It wouldn't be a good fit for Tildes of course due to the reasons @cfabbro outlined.
Hey there. It's good to see you on Tildes, I'm checking in after well over a year or more. I took an extended break from everything for personal reasons - unfortunately Gurlic had to be shut down. It may yet come back in another form soon. ;)
Glad to see Tildes thriving though! Regarding images, I quite enjoy the text-only nature.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and the more that I thought about it, the more I realized I would actually kind of like to see what Tilde's high quality discussion community could do with this. If "a picture is worth a thousand words," then images could really spur some great discussions in ways that text, alone, can't always do.
A lot of people have raised concerns about it inevitably becoming low-effort posts (memes, screenshots, etc.), and it's certainly a valid concern, but if the existing Tildes culture is collectively against low-effort posts/jokes/comments, I am not sure that this would be a given, here. It might have been more problematic when Tildes was first coming together and the ethos was still in its infancy, but I think the collective Tildes identity has taken root pretty firmly, making it much less of a risk.
Without karma, there would be little reason to post low-effort images, and I think the Tildes activity-focused mechanism will really promote the discussion-provoking image posts over any standard joke/fluff content.
It would definitely need to be somewhat partitioned from the main feed to prevent it from dominating the current feeds—possibly through a
img.tildes.netsubdomain type of segregation?—and perhaps to accommodate a different layout format that incorporates a thumbnail image.At the very least, I think it would be a really interesting experiment to see how this community's amazing discussion-focused culture could iterate on this concept to encourage discussion rather than the superficial.
Speaking for myself.
(1) I can't stand image memes on reddit or animated GIFs on slack.
(2) If you have images then you have to deal with the problem of ero images. That is, you either have to keep them out entirely (a relatively easy moderation problem) or you have the police the line of ero content that is really unacceptable such as CSAM, alleged CSAM, revenge porn, etc. (a very hard moderation problem.)
(3) Once you have millions of images they take up a lot of storage and bandwidth and it seems the ratio of cost to value is much worse for images than video. Perhaps it is colored by my own experience losing a chunk of change on photo hosting web sites but I'd say since YouTube came around it's been difficult to run image hosting web sites, there are some real success stories like Pinterest, Instagram and Danbooru but I know many that went down.