Considering image posts on Tildes
Hi all, I'm a recent reddit refugee who is very happy with my transition here. I like the spirit of the community a whole lot and am a fan of the admin approach, which is designed to promote engagement and deep content and prevent a shallow (advertiser-friendly) scrolling experience.
A the philosophy page on content says:
In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important
and
In general, any changes to the site that will cause "shallower" content to gain an advantage should be considered very carefully.
I agree with this fully. My thoughts, though, are that there are definitely forms of image post that are not just memes or jokes, and do lead to deeper discussion.
For instance, if somebody has created some art and would like to post it for feedback (or just to share), this feels more like a discussion topic than a 'quick scroll' post. I feel that this kind of image post is 'pro community'. Somebody is posting something they care about and want to discuss.
On reddit, a sub I always liked was ImaginaryMonsters, where people post cool pictures of monster art and discuss them (either original art or properly credited). This is for people who want to admire and discuss artwork. Again, I don't think this necessary falls into the category of 'shallow content'.
So, what am I suggesting?
I think it would be good for the site to actively promote the posting of the right kind of image content in the right places.
My angle is, essentially:
- Some image content does promote depth of discussion.
- This type of content may be quite vital for certain wedges of the community, especially moving forwards as the site grows (and making creatives feel more welcome).
- Rules regarding self-promotion already exist in the Code of Conduct.
- Because of how the web works, it would make sense to have limited embedding of certain images in at least thumbnail format (but it needn't show the full image in the feed like other scrollable 'content' sites). .
- Creating certain groups/subgroups specifically for posting certain types of images doesn't need to be seen as a slippery slope, if the rules are clear.
- There is even the possibility of purging image posts that don't have n amount of engagement within a specific time, so as not to end up with clutter.
I should point out two things:
- I am aware that images can already be posted as links on the site, and I applaud the reasoning for the overall tentative approach. Here, I'm talking about some select subgroups of the site that are specifically for certain types of image posting.
- I don't necessarily think I'm right. I am new here and making observations - I'm thinking about things I'd like personally - I know I don't have all the information to understand the full impact of such things here, but I am interested in knowing what other people think.
So, do you have an opinion on this? Thanks for reading!
Edit:
I just wanted to point out a couple of things based on responses.
- When I mention image posts, I'm not talking about image hosting - that's a whole can of worms - the site already allows links. I'm just talking about image links (with maybe some QoL surrounding that).
- I wasn't totally clear above, I'm not suggesting image posts everywhere, or even necessarily a whole new post type. My first thoughts were about one or two specific, limited subgroups with specific purposes.
- Those concerned about moderation, I understand that angle, but I am keeping in mind this recent post by @Deimos, where they talk about expanding moderation, or even handing it off to individual communities, subreddit style:
If the activity stays at this level or keeps increasing, we will probably need to add more moderators soon.
- Those concerned about feeds being overrun by images, there were thoughts about this from Deimos in the same post:
I think we should probably take advantage of this current high activity level to try moving the groups towards being more independent spaces. This would involve switching away from the current "opt-out" approach to an "opt-in" one, and would probably need updates to a few different sections of the site to support it.
- I also think it's worth mentioning my thoughts above do not preclude having some minimum text requirement along with every image. I agree about not encouraging shallow content, and am attempting to focus on exactly where that line lies.
- Finally, I do want to make it clear I'm not coming here as a new person trying saying "nice site, change it like this!" - which I think some people may have taken this as (I had one or two single-sentence responses). I genuinely like what I've seen so far because of what it is, but am also aware things may well be changing in some other ways already (as per the post I linked). Sorry if this seems like 'another reddit user trying turn us into reddit' - this is not my intent whatsoever, I am just interested in specifically how it could be done in a Tildes way. I am glad it started a half-decent discussion though!
I have no desire to see image posts on Tildes. I would likely unfollow any categories that contain them, or if unavoidable, visit Tildes less. I think it adds unnecessary clutter, bandwidth usage, etc and we don't gain enough in return especially when a link is just as suitable.
I think a link to an image is more than adequate as people can follow the link if they want the image loaded in their browser- just overall feels more user-respectful. I always have appreciated text-focused sites and personally would love Tildes to stay that way.
Sites with image posts tend to turn into the existing plague of social media- constant scrolling and quick-fire consumption, and so far Tildes has bucked that trend and instead fostered deep discussions. I don't want anything to remotely interfere with the latter.
I used to moderate /r/photography/ way back in the day.
When I took over as the main active mod on the subreddit, it was essentially an image board of photographs.
Quickly, I instituted a rule that posting photographs were only allowed inside of self posts as links. That completely changed the subreddit from a place where people just shared their photos like in /r/itookapicture/ and turned the subreddit into a place where you could actually discuss photography.
A while after, a few of the other mods got angry and wanted images back, as the overall activity of the subreddit had dropped. We tried this for a while, but returned to the old style of not allowing image posts when it became evident that the subreddit was quickly turning back into an image board.
This happens for a number of reasons.
Image content is far faster to digest, and to form an opinion on. This lowers the threshold for deciding to vote it up.
Most algorithms on sites like Reddit and Tildes award activity, the more of it the better, and due to 1), images are VERY easy ways to get a lot of activity and therefore attention
on Reddit specifically, if you have a disproportionate amount of upvotes on one new submission vs. others (say 1000+ votes on the image, and 250+ votes on the 2nd most popular item), only the image will be shown on your subscribers front page. NO other post will. This further enhances the attention the image gets, in detriment to ALL other content.
Because of 3) this leands to /r/all (and your own personal front page, if you are subscribed to subreddits that allow image posts) being, for the majority, image posts.
Back in the day, there was a lot of complaints of /r/all filling up with images. But those of us who complained about that were drowned out in those who like the 5 second long gifs and pictures of cute cats, and all discussion has now faded into smaller subreddits.
@Deimos definitely understand these mechanics, and probably remembers when images took over Reddit.
You missed one:
Yes, that is what I tried to get in with 2). Because of the lowered threshold for forming an opinion, more people form the positive opinion and therefore vote the thing up.
With a place like Tildes with no downvote, it can potentially be an even bigger problem.
I misunderstood your 2). You mentioned algorithms. I figured you were talking about the software that pushes posts higher, the more interaction they receive.
I was focussed more on human behaviour: humans can digest image posts more quickly than text posts, which means those humans will apply more upvotes to those image posts more quickly than on text posts.
Maybe we are saying the same thing in different ways...
This is what ruined the r/manga subreddit for me. Basically it used to be links to chapters, so the subreddit as a whole served as a way to keep up to date with popular releases.
Now it's mostly all single images or 4 page manga posted as an album because people figured out posting images from sites like Twitter gets waaaay more up votes than posting links to full chapters and is waaaay more easier to pump out consistently.
Even full chapters now get posted as albums for karma boost purposes, even though some chapters have more than 20 images (album limit) and so the last image literally has to tell you to go to a link to read the rest.
This wasn't something that happened overnight either. It was over a couple years that the subreddit slowly transitioned to favoring image posts, but now it's all you see. It's really insidious how the posting culture slowly shifted without people noticing before it was too late (definitely not helped by the subreddit being unmoderated).
Image based posting completely ruins any semblance of discussion and will deteriorate any community. I do not want tildes to follow that trend at all.
Attention spans have dropped drastically I'd say because of images, gifs and quick videos. It's crazy how bad it is now.
Written by Paul Graham way back in 2009: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
The entire article is still worth reading. But basically it has been a well known principle for a long time now and systematically ignored by reddit over the years.
For those not in the know he is the founder of HackerNews and also funded the creation of reddit.
So, it's official? I know a lot of Reddit moderators (myself included) who had to work this out for ourselves, from in-the-field observations.
I don't know about official, but is a well known principle. I even put it in the wiki of /r/theoryofreddit almost a decade ago :) Can't check that right now though due to obvious reasons.
Ahh that used to be a fun subreddit when it was still active and full of discussion, a decade ago lol.
I’m pretty certain at this point that the principal is intentionally ignored on Reddit and that they want more easily digestible content. They seem to be moving the platform more towards a tiktok like direction
Ignored...? Or leant into? Looking at the redesign of 2016-18, that overtly favoured image posts ahead of all other types of posts. At the time, I thought they knew exactly what they were doing. They were favouring image posts, to make Reddit more like other social media.
And now they’re getting rid of third party apps. Next they will definitely close old Reddit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they remove the old concept of subreddits and go to something more like general categories to get rid of the power of communities.
As I've said elsewhere, that will be the final straw for me. I won't be able to use Reddit without old.reddit.com :(
Critically, tools like Toolbox that surface extremely important moderation tools will die miserably without old reddit. Realistically, I do not know if the spiral after the end of old reddit will be recoverable in a reasonable way or if it represents a tumblr-like crash into rebirth or a permanent shift into just western tiktok where subreddits are content tags and not meaningful communities.
That's actually not true, we put considerable effort into making toolbox work with redesign at the time. Exactly because we didn't want mods that did move over to miss toolbox functionality. Also because initially the redesign was approached in a relatively good way, they even provided hooks for extensions to be able to integrate.
The problems started when someone at reddit deemed the redesign "complete enough" and the focus started shifting to new shiny features and indeed leaning more and more into fluff content.
Redesign on desktop was also in a fairly poor state as far as moderation goes for a few years. Not as poor as the apps but still very poor. They only started focusing on it again after two years or after many complaints from mods and because they noticed the majority of modding was/is still done on old reddit.
That's basically how much they seem to care about moderation. They recognise it needs to be done, but don't care to invest in it unless mods are blocking a path forward.
Same now with the API debacle and the mobile apps.
Hey, thank you for the clarification! I definitely didn't know there was a period where it was working relatively well. It continues to be very very unfortunate that obvious core functionality like what you provide (thank you) is just simply missing from any roadmap for the people actually working on the platform. That they also regressed in this all is not surprising.
That isn't happening anytime soon, I can guarantee it. There's legacy functionality only available in old reddit that they need.
Some have suggested that they will keep it active, but disable it outside of the internal Reddit network. How that would be accomplished, I have no idea.
it wouldn't be difficult unfortunately :/
I've been re-reading that post several times recently, as a long-time member of HN (2011) and being in the midst of some ongoing analysis of historical front-page activity (I crawled the archive and am doing some analytics based on posts, titles, sites submitted, submitting profiles, and vote / comment activity). That still leaves a lot unsaid (votes and comments are a weak proxy for whatever it is you think quality is), but does turn up some interesting aspects.
It's also worth noting that the HN front page is highly mediated --- it's not just votes and comments that determine placement, but automated and manual moderator actions, user flags, and a long list of banned sites (pg posted a list of 2,000+ in one of the discussions of that article on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=498910).
But that essay and the discussions around it detail many of the rationales into HN's design, which have served it admirably for sixteen years and counting, without a dramatic decline in quality or reputation. (Which is to say, it was never as good as you remember, and there's always been some cringe present.) That's absolutely remarkable in the online space.
I'll note that Tildes' own slow-take-off approach (going on seven years old if I recall) seems similar. It hasn't exploded, but it's not flamed out either, and the quality is ... consistent. In a mostly good way.
I 100% agree with all this reasoning -- I was a mod of r/conlangs and it was a persistent issue for our moderation team as well despite our hobby being ostensibly text-based because of those reasons. The only thing I wish we could change about Tildes was the ability to auto-expand image links -- I believe RES had this functionality and it would make things far smoother for posts containing images without compromising on the reasons for not having image posts, imo.
Tildes user of 3 years here (this fact is relevant.) I know this is an unpopular sentiment, but this is part of what I miss most about Reddit. When I've had a stressful week, I like looking at cat GIFs, memes, reading relationship drama in r/BestOfRedditorUpdates, and indulging in the low-effort content that gives the dopamine hits. I love the lack of seriousness on the platform. It's silly, and there's no reason to take yourself seriously there. I love threads full of puns, low-effort humor, and Reddit "inside" jokes. I love the need to append [Serious] to your post to change the default tone of the comments.
We need a Reddit alternative, but Tildes isn't it. Tildes shouldn't be it. Maybe high-quality discussions of niche topics that currently happen in small subreddits should happen here, but I really enjoy Tildes being a community where I interact with their niche interests, and they interact with mine. The discourse here is like the sort you have at a bar with friends discussing the subjects you and they are knowledgeable of and care about.
Honestly I’ve so far enjoyed the fluff content on Squabbles. Its meme game is stronger than Lemmy and even what I got out of Reddit.
There's always Imgur: https://imgur.com
For me, Imgur was exactly what I needed for years, right up until the point it became nothing but US politics all day long during the 2020 election.
I don't have a problem with US politics per se, but as a non US citizen it definitely motivated me to look elsewhere for that sweet domamine fuelled escape from reality.
There are other channels / tags, e.g., Naturephotography.
Though yes, Most Viral has been ... rather political of late. I burn out on that myself pretty quickly.
this is why i’m still staying on reddit, i just can’t really engage with Fully In-Depth Highly Intelligent and Effortful Posting 24/7, although i do love tildes and do enjoy my time here, and sometimes reddit can be a right annoyance with overjoking and stuff
Thanks for the response. One of my suggestions to another comment was that image posts could also require a minimum character explanation (which is similar to your intermediate self post approach). I'm only really going a tiny step further and suggesting that there would be a group saying 'this is the place to do that on Tildes', and the potential of a thumbnail before the link is clicked (not a scrolling feed of full pictures or anything).
I'm also not saying I think you're wrong - you have some experience here. I just feel it is a really nice thing if it can be done right (and not damage the community). If it can't, it can't - but I think Tildes might actually be able to get it right considering the communtiy size, philosophy-first approach and invite-only status.
The problem is that it is a very binary thing. Either there is an image, or there isn't. If there is an image that can be easily viewed, the problems that I highlighted ocurr.
The only way to make this potentially work could be to allow inline images only inside text posts with substantian word count, with the image only viewable from the direct link of the post. This way all posts are essentialy text posts, and not image posts. But even there, there's a large danger that posts with images become more popular than others just because of the images.
What if they were limited to specific groups that had specific intent? If there were a subgroup that encouraged them they wouldn't be competing with other content (and I know default subscriptions/opt-in/opt-out stuff is being considered by Deimos). In the case you mentioned, with image links in text posts, can't people already do that anyway?
Image links, yes, but not inline images (images viewable as images in the text)
If it were limited to certain specific groups, then those groups would always have the #1 to #3 spot on the front page regardless of the quality of those images. That is sadly just how it works. Text and image content does not mix well.
In my opinion images and text content does not live together, they live side by side.
Image content should be hosted on image content sites - image boards. And text and links should be on it's own.
Ah, I see. So, my suggestion wasn't intended to be for inline images, just that there were groups that encouraged the posting of OC image links (possibly with thumbs).
I also don't think there's much wrong with this approach.
Naw. I would unsubscribe instantly. There is nothing wrong with requiring a text post with links. The only reason for direct image posts is lazy consumption.
This doesn't only apply to images. I have modded a sub foreverrr that was the constant target of low quality digital nomad travel douches just trying to fund their backpacker vacation via ad money. The number of links we would get to a shitty blogger/wordpress site was insane. To make it worse, the majority of the time the poster wouldn't even interact in the comments, they were literally just spamming shitty blog links to every mildly related country/travel sub they could find.
We ended up adding three rules:
Personal travel blog posts must be submitted as self posts containing the link.
If you barely participate in the comments we remove it.
If you spam us with links to every single god damn exotic food or place you post on your blog, enjoy your ban (we'd have people submit multiple posts within a week about the most bland travel stuff ever, and then not even respond to comments).
Image only posts tend to lead to the same sort of behaviour.
I’ll say up front I am anti-images for the reasons you cite. But if one were to do it I wonder how useful various strategies might be to mitigate the downsides.
The feedback looping issues could be addressed by naturally applying a heavy negative weighting to votes on images so the burden of climbing requires more votes to compete with a text post.
You could also just create more friction for seeing and interacting with image posts. Collapse them by default and require a click to load them. Not just to view, but to actually load it like in a i frame or something. This basically is the same as linking it offsite, just keeps you from having to go to another tab. If it’s constrained to specific subs (like creative) you can even change the UI around voting to introduce even more friction.
This actually touches on a means of allowing images without it being negative that I thought of when I read the title, that is just allow embedding them as part of the Tildes markdown in text posts rather than allowing any sort of only-image post outright.
The pictures in that example could even just follow the method RES sets, where any link to an image allows you to click an icon next to the link to load it. This would mean that it'd be (IMO at least, feel free to correct/comment if you feel differently) adding to the existing culture of Tildes rather than changing it, because it'd still place the emphasis on the text in a post but allow images to help show a certain point or better illustrate information that's hard to represent via text alone.
There was a general pattern where a little bit of difficulty involved in creating the content kept the quality high, then someone would develop a tool that makes it easier, and suddenly the content type gets run into the ground by lazy iterations.
Happened with Ragecomics, advice animals, image macro meme generators, and on and on. As the bar of effort goes down the signal to noise ratio worsens dramatically.
This is exactly my sentiments.
@imnotgoats - my humble suggestion would be a weekly "show and tell" thread or even just one big mega thread spanning multiple weeks.
it's one thread folks can easily ignore
each top level comment is one picture with a brief commentary
browsing the thread would be like a curated gallery visit: picture + text ; picture + text
if it becomes wildly popular it's the perfect controlled experiment petri dish so we can discuss pros and cons and where to go from here, without any site wide design changes and fights about having to roll back
you can start this right away today
My contribution would be this old school macro:
"No luck posting them picture threads, then?"
"it's just the one thread, actually"
The other big problem is the technical and monetary one. If Tildes starts hosting images, it massively increases costs and complexity.
How about an option. In the beginning reddit did not host their own images and imgur came along . Reddit would just show the image on reddit that was hosted on imgur. Tildes could let people opt in to seeing an image next to the post
It was wild to me to see a post a few days into the current exodus that was "What don't you like about Tildes?" The person was an older user, but it was not the time for that conversation.
I don't mean to gatekeep as a veteran user but I feel it is definitely inappropriate to show up to a new community and start talking about things you don't like, at least en masse. There's been quite a bit of that lately, despite Tildes's design being well documented.
Criticism is great, and there's been one or two threads focused on what users want, but there's a lot of "Why don't we have <thing not planned as a feature by design> on Tildes?"
I guess it's also not common to be able to tell a new user on a social platform to RTFM.
Absolutely. My post in the questions about Tildes thread was basically the inverse, asking if an already somewhat planned change could instead not change - that is, for the site to be invite-only permanently - and it was for pretty much exactly what you outlined; that a mass exodus to a site that requires no effort to sign up for will inevitably change the culture (and almost inevitably for the worse).
I thought this was an RES feature and never a native Reddit one? But I agree, I think this would be a suitable compromise that allows Tildes to remain text-centric while also reducing the friction in viewing the pictures that do serve the discussion without opening a new tab.
Yep, definitely a RES feature.
It'll even open up a preview of Wikipedia pages and the like.
I'd taken advantage of this on /r/dredmorbius (presently closed), though of course that relies on readers to have RES installed and enabled. Which points out a challenge of client-dependent behaviours and features.
I like this because it keeps thumbnails off of the main feed. I think allowing images to be embedded in a post would be fine, but they shouldn't be visible at the top level.
I think this is needed, even if we keep things how they are now. I hate opening images in a new tab and loading an image hosting site that may load a ton of other "related" images. It also causes a context switch and I have to remember where I was in the post when I go back. Keeping it inline and collapsed by default keeps me in the context of the thread and I can choose to skip the image if I wish, but I'm not potentially bombarded with a bunch of other images on another site. I would also like to point out I love the RES feature of being able to drag the image to resize it once expanded.
I think it's an interesting idea, but at the moment I don't think it's something that should be implemented.
So far this is a small community with a limited number of groups, adding image support could quickly flood the site with low effort memes. Containing images in links is a good middle ground as it allows you to include images in your post but makes people more likely to write posts (like yours!) that actually promote discussions.
Could this change in the future? Maybe. It's not something I personally feel that I need but long-term when there is a larger community I'm not sure if it'll have a real negative impact, as long as the low-effort posts and memes are contained in their dedicated groups.
That certainly makes sense to me. I will point out that I'm not suggesting the creation of 100 extremely niche communities right off the bat.
I guess I was thinking it would start with something like creative.gallery or similar, that specifically had a 'no memes' rule and perhaps only allowed original content.
Perhaps every image post requires a certain word count of explanation, e.g. "I made this after a time in my life where xyz happened, and I decided to play with ABC imagery.". I think that would definintely dissuade people who wanted to post a shallow meme and couldn't really come up with anything more than 'lol'.
I think maybe the crux of where my head is at is that the low quality/meme issue is one of substance rather than format. I think this possibly bears out against website-linking posts also. If the content doesn't promote actual conversation, it goes against the philosophy, so I think I'm looking at some finer tuning on that point (How is quality defined outside of post format? Are there ways to allow the fun of creative sharing without destroying the delicate balance that already exists? etc.).
Thank you for your response!
As a creative I would love to post images, but I certainly understand the reasons Tildes is taking a measured approach.
For instance, with OC, how would that be policed to assure the OP was the originator of the content, or that it wasn't generated by AI?
I am of the opinion that while it may not be the right time to implement a limited roll out, once the dust settles from the Great Reddit Migration, the admins here could consider whether it fits into the vision for Tildes.
While this is true, another aspect to consider is the how image posts will be interacted with alongside text posts and articles. For an extreme example, consider if a full academic paper posted for some phenomenon and a photograph someone took of it are separate topics hit the front page. Both quality content and worth of discussion in isolation. The image is many orders of magnitude quicker and easier to consume, let alone formulate an appropriate response. When those two are the options, even above average users are going to be extremely tempted to just interact with the image and whatever comparatively surface level details it provides instead of the paper.
Now include photographs and images of easier to relate to subjects among the other posts on the page. It’s not hard to guess where the focus will drift, and as activity is exciting for both the submitter and other users, over time it shifts what people are going to post and interacted with.
I understand your angle. I am talking, though, about specific groups for posting creative content, not just pulling a switch and allowing images site-wide.
Whatever groups this proposition of yours is implemented. The problem is still there. It will shoot to the top of Tildes and displace other posts.
Now imagine, there are thousands posting from that group, and they're up voting each other. Because photos traditionally gets up voted quicker. The Tildes front page will be spammed with image posts. And now it has become reddit.
So, no to image posts whatsoever, lemmy does that better. And reddit already exists.
Let Tildes be Tildes.
I think it's a question of whether the text frames the image or the image frames the text. In most social media, the image is primary. If a person resonates with the image, they might read the text. This approach encourages thoughtless, rapid consumption.
I believe it makes sense to hide the image behind a link, making the text primary. In this case, a person will click the link only if the text resonates with them.
I'm totally against the idea of image-only posts.
If I wanted to see a feed full of photos and other images, then I would be on Instagram or Facebook right now. I also didn't subscribe to any image-based subreddits on Reddit, because that's not what I want to see.
I'm here for what Tildes is, and what it has promised to be - and it has promised to remain a text-first content aggregator.
The only circumstance under which I would be even slightly favourable toward Tildes hosting image posts would be if all images had to be embedded in a text topic, with a minimum word count (50 words?), so that people would be required to explain something about why they've posted the image here for discussion. And the display on the front page would be only the title of the topic, without any image (not even a thumbnail). People would have to click on the topic to open it up separately, and then be able to see the image.
Thank you for the response.
Absolutely, that's a massive concern - but one which I think would be covered if and when Deimos makes changes involving default subscriptions and independent sub-communities, as they suggest in the recent post.
I've actually suggested this myself earlier in the thread. I'm definitely behind an approach like this. Even linking off the site like a normal link post (rather than showing the full image inline). Also, restricted to certain groups - not just anywhere.
My main point is the nuance of this situation. Rather than images being the problem, there's a chance it's other sites' implementation of images that would pose more of a threat to this community. Tildes could potentially do it in a Tildes way - which I thought was at least worth talking about.
I have a question for you. I've been holding off, but it's an important question, and it needs asking.
Why are you on Tildes if you want something other than what Tildes is offering? I feel like you're expecting Tildes to be something it isn't and was never intended to be. Your post here would be like me joining Instagram and asking them to implement text-only posts. That's just not the purpose of that website, and I shouldn't expect it to be.
Why come here and expect the website to change to suit you, rather than find a website that already offers what you want?
I notice you've edited your post to add remarks like these:
However, despite those disclaimers, it is extremely difficult not to see this as an attempt to get Tildes to be more like Reddit.
I think it's important to remind you that Tildes was never intended to be a replacement for Reddit. Tildes is a different beast to Reddit, just as Instagram and Facebook and Twitter are different to Reddit.
So, why do you want to change Tildes in such a central way?
I don't want to 'change Tildes', I mostly want to understand the culture, what people think, and thought it would be reasonable to raise a conversation about something I've been thinking about with the community.
I attempted to start a discussion about it because I came here and really liked what I saw, but realised there wasn't much in the way of creative sharing that was easy to access:
I don't think having a group specifically for people to post their creative work is necessarily a central change to Tildes.
I am on Tildes because I really liked the philosophy behind it so I requested an invite. I found that most people were very nice. I don't know another site that currently ticks the boxes Tildes does for me. I've obviously mistaken the appropriateness of certain types of discussion (but I also assumed that a site based on an open source project designed for community interaction would welcome conversations about functionality and user preference).
I did indeed, because I initially tried to be clear about the spirit of my post, but I felt some people perhaps misread some of it, or certainly took it in a way that it wasn't intended, so I felt it right to clarify.
I feel like this is a little combative and misrepresents my post - I haven't expressed any such expectation, just an exploration of some thoughts and an invitation for opinions.
I'm sorry if you consider this a faux pas and this kind of post is not welcome here. I thought I was pretty clear in my original post that I just wanted to talk with people about some thoughts - I thought that's one of the things this group was for.
What I would say is I expected more conversation about the nature of quality & depth in posts, suggestions for how this might intersect with images and more open discussion of the site philosophy. While some people did respond in those terms, there were also a lot of "images == bad reddit instagram" comments (some of which felt like they had only read the post title).
Either way, I will think twice before posting next time.
The discussion is not unwelcome. The pushback you're getting is for the changes you're proposing, not for the act of discussing those changes.
That's not how you framed it. You laid out your suggestions ("What am I suggesting?") for how to change Tildes to allow image posts. By proposing concrete changes, you gave people a target to focus on ("we don't want those changes"). There's nothing in your post that asks what people think about image posts, or whether there's any way that image posts could be enacted that would promote discussion of those images, or anything general like that. You gave people your suggestions for change and then asked "Do you have an opinion on this?" So... everyone gave you their opinion on "this" - "this" being your suggested changes.
I know. That's why I held off asking the question, because I couldn't find a diplomatic way to present it (which is something I've been called out for before). But, it needed to be asked, so I decided to dive in anyway.
That's the way to become Instagram or /r/Pics on Reddit.
Like I said, the only circumstance under which I would be even slightly favourable toward Tildes hosting image posts would be if all people were required to include a text blurb, explaining the background of the image and/or why they're posting it here. Merely posting a link to an off-site image, with no other content, would not be acceptable to me. Any image-posting feature would have to built in such a way as to require people to include some text, not just a bald off-site link.
I prefer the text only nature. One can always link images if there's something you need to show.
This is where I stand on it. In all honesty if I start seeing images or videos on the main pages I’ll probably stop using Tildes. I wish folks would realize that this isn’t Reddit nor is it an alternative.
A few points, in my opinion:
1 - The overhead of hosting and most importantly moderating images amongst the various legalities of the world is vast and ever growing. Do we allow images of Muhammed? Nudes? Non Sexual Nudes? Medical imagery? Gore? Pictures of the King Of Thailand? All of those would be illegal somewhere.... so: Where does it end?...do we become 4chan and say "do your worst?"
And from a hosting side, without ads it would grow unsustainable, and would destroy the ethos of this nascent community. Text is reaaaaly easy to scale sustainably and donations could cover those growing pains.
2 - Low effort posts would rule the day. Everyone likes clicking on a picture, getting their dopamine hit and moving on. I fear you'd start to see more and more "spray and pray" posters dumping images like "just built mah first pc 11!!!" with ZERO CONTEXT and nobody talking.
3 - There are already photo communities, like IG or hey, Reddit, to handle this content. Tildes is unique that is fosters discussions almost by necessity rather than "optionally" under a TikTok style video. It's all text: what else can you do?
To further your idea: Would we want to host videos here too? How long? What resolution? How are they filtered? Who moderates them? If so: Why not just let YouTube handle that heavy lifting and link to the post. Discussion would happen naturally about the video then, no need to host it internally and deal with all the issues that come with that. Best of both worlds (which is how it is now)
Thank you for responding - I appreciate your angle. I think there might be some assumptions in terms of what I'm suggesting.
Let me quickly point out that I am absolutely not talking about image hosting. It would still be a link to an external place, but possibly a new type of post with a thumbnail. The key is there would be one or more groups for saying 'post your drawing here' etc. It's the encouragement and fostering of that culture that would be a good thing in my opinion - but it would have to be handled with thought and care to get it right.
Why not have a required explanation character count for each pic in something like ~creative.gallery?
Why aren't people making low-effort text based posts like this now? If we're talking about bad actors and rulebreaking, why is this a post format conversation?
Thanks!
I think image posts uniquely lend themselves to low-effort content, bad actors, and rulebreaking. It's not that there can't be low-quality text and link posts, it's just that not all post formats are equal- some I personally think invite and reinforce worse behavior than others.
I'm not even saying there isn't a way it could be done to preserve quality- just that it's a dangerous road to go down, and I'd prefer Tildes err on the side of preserving the quality we already have.
I mean, that's completely reasonable, and why I was interested in getting people's takes. I read an interesting post (which I may try and find and credit later), likening Tildes to a pub or some such establishment, rather than a government (like lots of wide-net social communities seem to be aiming for). The differentiation being that one is governed by house rules rather than some notion of individual rights. I don't think the road has to be dangerous, as long as there is thought and care put in to each step, with the ability to roll things back. Caution is important, I just don't think images have to create a quality drop - it's more about how they fit into the existing culture and sitet experience.
I do completely accept your reservations though, and appreciate your responding.
I vote no. I’m an old school usenet user, and I like that text posts usually require more thought (in writing and reading). I’d rather have the thousand words than the picture. If it’s really important, a link is good enough. I also think images encourage quick scrolling rather than engagement.
I've definitely said it befoe, more gently and less direct. And you can view them in my history.
But I'll be frank today. This is not reddit. And i do not want it to become a cesspool of memes and shitposts.
There's lemmy for image posts. Let them be king of that genre.
I saw what the front page of lemmy looked like after the flood of redditfugees. It is already a swamp of low-effort garbage. I'm very glad tildes doesn't allow for those kinds of posts.
I think an important distinction is the difference between posting just an image and posting an image with content behind it to start the discussion.
You see a lot of low-effort reposts of a single image on Reddit with no engagement or context about the thing they've posted.
I agree. I think the beauty of this site is it's a clean slate in that regard. It can learn from what other sites did and didn't do, to find a happy medium. I think the point is as things get gently busier around here, why not allow different community-minded personality types to feel at home, by giving them a place to share and discuss their creativity.
What this does not mean is that is has to be done indescriminantly or allow low effort meme content - I don't think it has to be either 'no image-based groups' or 'meme wonderland' - I think there are many stops in between. I absolutly get your concerns, though.
As a new refugee myself, I think all of us new users need to step back and 'absorb the culture' for a few months before suggesting any changes on Tildes. The users who have been here for years are probably a bit nervous about us new kids on the block trying to make changes, and rightly so. After all we're quite used to hours and hours of dopamine hits and upvotes and quips and memes and vapid arguments on that other site. That ain't happenin' here and that means we need some time to rewire our brains. It's a detox if you will.
Personally I LOVE the fact that this is a text only site. I absolutely abhorred the meme culture and clickbaity pics of that site - that's exactly what caused its downfall. And I dont care what one might say about posting 'art' or their photos, it was very clear that the influx of pics and videos slid that site toward the lowest common denominator - no wants to mention that a very significant amount of it's image traffic was just for porn.
I hope Tildes remains exactly what it is - a place for careful thought and long form writing - enough so that if users come here looking for anything else they get bored and move on.
I think this is completely reasonable. The reason I posted it was because I wanted to understand people's views more, especially on the back of Deimos asking the userbase for opinions on how the site should change regarding independent communities and default subscriptions.
I hope it came across in my post, but this was intended to be a conversation about what people think, rather than "I want this thing, can we have this thing?".
Thanks for the repsonse!
If experience is anything to go by, 'absorbing the culture' might mean not coming at all ; there was very little activity here before the reddit migration, and that was coming down from a relatively heathy community when the site started. Images might have their issues but I think they would help with that.
I have also only been here for a little while, but want to echo the sentiment that image posts may lead to "low effort" posting like we saw happen to Reddit. What I really like about Tildes is the in depth discussion; image posts too quickly lead to doom scrolling.
I would hate for this place to turn into a glorified instagram like Reddit was becoming.
I enjoy the text based nature of this place.
I'm a recent Reddit refugee as well, and I just feel like I need to point out a few things.
I'm a guy that loves discussion and getting into the why of things, but it feels like you are really stepping in it with this post.
Imagine I invited you into my home, and the first thing you decide to do is have a "discussion" on why my home isn't decorated the way you like it, and what I think about changing it.
It's MY home, and I don't feel I need to engage in a "discussion" about anything of the sort.
And in fact, I would probably ask you firmly, but politely to leave.
Now, Tildes isn't my home yet, I'm new in town. But I feel the same as a few other new members who are pulling you to the side saying "hey bro, it's not your place yet, and it's probably best if you just sit down and listen for a while".
Frustratingly your responses have the energy of "yeah, that's a great idea! I should do that. But since we are on the subject, let's discuss why the people here don't want the thing, because here is why they should want the thing"
For the record, I agree with Algernon_Asimov; If you want pictures, try a different site, as this one was developed from the ground up to not be what you are asking for.
I would never walk into an Italian joint and ask, "so, have you ever considered serving teriyaki? What‽ I just want to have a discussion..."
I don't want images other than links already allowed, and I don't feel there needs to be any compromises, but my opinion on what Tildes should do isn't really worth much at this point because I'm new in town.
Anyway, I'm not intending to be rude, simply direct.
I realize this site is meant to promote discussion, but on this issue I invite none further.
Nailed it. And not just because you name-checked me and agreed with me. You nailed the post, the OP's responses, and I even love this analogy:
I think the strength of Tildes should be quality discussion and that doesn't happen with image posts. It is understandable some Redditors are looking for a full alternative to Reddit but that's not Tildes.
I vote no.
New user (from reddit) here just adding my opinion. While there is a part of me that misses reddit images and web hosting, I do have to agree that showing images in your feed will almost certainly lead to lower quality content and doom scrolling. I have already had more in-depth reading here and much less doom scrolling, which I attribute directly to the text-focused nature of the site.
As I can not think of a good way, nor have I seen a suggestion that seems to compromise well between the two, I do not think images should be implemented in feeds without being behind a link and also including text. This site appears to have taken a long term strategy of prioritizing deeper discussions thus far, and I believe it should continue to do so.
Image-focused communities can have a home elsewhere, such as reddit, and we can link to them from here to still enjoy the best of both worlds until we think of a way to handle images properly.
Yeah, I don't like the idea of full images in feeds either. My suggestion was more based around having a place to share creative content, potentially with thumbs, but essentially still link posts (with added text).
Yeah, but those things can still easily be shared effectively with the way the site is now. I used to be in a small half life 2 competitive community back in the day, and most of my social media gathering was on an old-school forum with links just like this, and it totally worked. To me, this approach feels like a gut reaction to try and adapt Tildes to the void left by reddit, rather than consider what has made Tildes successful and give yourself time to get used to absorbing content via the Tildes philosophy.
I also understand that this particular response can be looked at as either an "old man stuck in his ways" perspective, or as a more nuanced careful approach - and I am definitely not trying to be close minded. Part of it is also that I haven't spent enough time with Tildes yet. I haven't "internalized" it yet. But my gut feeling is still that the moment you reduce the barrier to images and videos here, it is going to affect everyone because slowly but surely they're going to start defaulting to the lower effort browsing more often. I think we need to give time for the reddit exodus to calm down and tackle this problem at a more stable time. But I value the discussion on this now regardless.
Right, but Deimos is directly looking at being a bit more like reddit in other ways.
Absolutely not opposed to this - I think it makes sense. I think there being a lot of reddit refugees here means this post, and the responses are really useful for people to get more of a feeling of this site. The spirit of my post was absolutely "what are people's views", rather than "I want Tildes to change for me".
Are you talking about half-life2.net or the ricochet site?
I was referring in particular to the HL2DM university forum but I remember half-life2.net also. Also, I think I remember a European player named Maxi, is that you?
You can have image links in a text post. You can share your creative content already. Aside from thumbnails, which aren't happening, what are you missing?
Where people are talking about creative subjects in ~creative, it feels like it could be somewhat annoying and self-focused to just pop up with "I made this thing, here's why I made it and here's how!". If I were browsing ~creative and more people were doing that, browsing creative would get more annoying for both types of users. At that point, there's a possibility the two intents would be separated anyway. So why not wait until then, when more people are posting that stuff? Because I believe there is a chilling effect that makes people feel unwelcome in doing that (which I don't even think is a bad thing).
If there were a place specifically for people to post that (like ~creative.gallery), it would be more welcoming an inviting to people who want to share such things and those who subscribe know what they are getting.
These are interesting comments, because to me, an oldy and goldy (jk), the idea behind having high quality posts never meant "Don't post pictures". It meant posting OC, an image, album, etc., with in depth information about it. All but like two of my topics submitted are OC images. The difference between here and reddit is that here, there is the expectation of starting the conversation. Giving the context, explaining what it is, why you did it, encouraging questions, etc. are all really important when posting OC images.
Even when I do post images, a lot of the time I'm also introducing something, like artist drawing challenges, artist communities, and the like. The other key is to be relatively sparse, don't post images super frequently, or have the images be part of a text post.
Yep, I'm behind this approach. I mentioned in other comments, and my main post edit that I'm super in favour of having minimum text required with your post.
The main thing is really having a subgroup so people can say "I am posting my artwork in the right place, and people are expecting there to be artwork here". At the moment, there is a chilling effect in that regard, because there's no place where you don't feel like you're getting in the way of other conversations. It's worth noting that I also am thinking about Deimos' 'independent group' post, which will possibly answer the 'but I don't want to see it in my feed' issue.
I do feel like a few people have got the wrong idea about my post, and I've really tried to clarify. What I'm not suggesting is hosting images or allowing them all over the site - as we both mentioned, you can already post links. I do think it would be good to have areas that specifically encourage high quality posts with images for discussion.
I think maybe having, like you suggested, a ~creative.gallery might be something to look at in the future if it ever actually becomes an issue. I think having people in ~creative saying hey here's this thing I made and how, is fine since the topic is not inundated with topics of that nature.
A very strong NO for reasons well-detailed in others' earlier responses:
Believe me, there are times when the ability to post an image would in fact be worth a thousand words. But there are far more times that this capability would kill millions of words worth of discussion.
The Internet does not presently want for image-centric sites. It does want for thoughtful text-based discussion, and Tildes is among the few options that serves that need well.
I'm going to repost my comment about this from another post a few days ago, because I also think it could be something the Tildes community can do better without devolving into low-effort reddit posts:
I think this is an interesting take.
This is definitely a key point. "Don't start a forum because people may troll or break the rules - it happens elsewhere." could be another concern that people might raise about text posts - but it's not about the post format alone.
This is Tildes - I think with its existing philosophy-first, depth-first approach, it is uniquely placed to do attempt this in a way that exactly doesn't devolve into 4chan.
On the partitioning point, I would be interested to see the outcome of Deimos' post about independent communities and default groups. That might already offer a solution when it's all figured out.
On a side point, I also answered elsewhere in this thread that a minimum-character text explanation of your image could also dissuade low-quality posters.
Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot to get over most peoples' knee-jerk reaction against images, here, after the poor experiences most have had with them on reddit.
In part, it's because a lot of recent reddit refugees have asked about it, and the long-time Tildes users want to ensure that the Tildes culture doesn't get washed away in that. So I don't think anyone will really be open to the idea untill long after the exodus dies down and the question hasn't been asked for quite a while.
With text content, Tildes has built expectations for what is good, but we aren't perfect. Length has become a popular proxy for quality. Images are harder.
I expect images are more difficult to vote consistently on and are easier to engage with.
Is it possible to have quality discussions around images? Surely. But Tildes' success with text is not a guarantee. We didn't get here without a lot of effort, and it remains an effort.
Somewhat separately from quality control, in areas where images are well suited, having images directly on the site could harm text only topics. It would be nice to keep a place where we can have great text based content, without expecting images.
If anyone reading this wants to see more image content, before reaching for on-site images, how about engaging with images as Tildes has done it so far?
For the record, I don't disagree with anything you've stated. Yes, it could result in problems. Absolutely, there would be challenges and design elements that would need to be carefully weighed and considered. And I definitely don't feel like this is the time to introduce something so significant.
But whenever this topic has come up, it's quickly shut down by listing all the reasons why it might be a problem with no real discussion around how it could be done in a way that would mitigate those problems (which seems very un-Tildes-like).
I'm all for experimenting and I won't be surprised if something eventually gets trialed. But speaking to my last point, I think a lot of existing Tildes users are weary of all these new users discussing the same major changes without even trying what Tildes already supports.
I agree. I really think it's an interesting idea that's worth exploring—down the road—but the idea/question should be put on moratorium for about a year so everyone has time to settle in, first.
Yeah I can definitely sense a few sighs coming through in some people's comments. I didn't want to be that person coming in all wet behind the ears and making noise - sometimes it's hard to recognise if you're part of an annoying trend, so I hope I haven't put too many noses out of joint.
This sounds like a job for a plug-in rather than a change to tildes.
Should be fairly simple to have one that just shows images in line.
This way people who want easier to view images can and it wouldn't change the baseline of the site.
Basically what you want is Tildes Enhancement Suite.
So I'm going at this from a technical angle. I've been around the net long enough to see various image hosts come and go that started with good intentions. I've been at enough companies that ran online sites and stores that had to run aggressive caching layers to not blow out bandwidth costs.
To see images, someone would have to host them. Will this be an Imgur style start with someone essentially starting it out of their own pocket? Even with formats like JPG or tools like pngcrush, hosting images are orders of magnitude more in storage and bandwidth. It's easy to zip up the entirety of the Tildes codebase and what's essentially a "folder of text files" which are the discussions right now, not so much with a repository of hundreds of thousands of images that cannot be compressed or mirrored feasibly once it gets say "default subreddit" levels of big. Especially if there's a goal to persist that image for years or decades as a semi-permament artifact of the Internet.
If the host can't sustain the images for a long time then they will have to be purged out and the central item of discussion that the thread about is gone and you have no frame of reference about it. You could argue this is the same with the linked URLs right now and you'd be right. News articles at least I can find other sources for the same story, same with academic journals and reports. Commercial oriented sites have somewhat of an incentive to keep those pages up to encourage traffic.
Moving on, let's say the hosting problem is solved. With images they would come with conerns about ownership. You'd be hard pressed to find someone posting books verbatim on Tildes, but images are worth a thousand words. So you'd have a mechanism and the people to process copyright requests and takedowns if things shouldn't be there (and there will be things that shouldn't be there).
That's one item and then there's also the myriad of things around hotlinking and containing abuse of the image host itself external for the purpose of being used for Tildes discussions.
Thank you for your response. I agree with the majority of this but do want to point out I'm talking specifically about groups where linked images are encouraged, rather than any images being seen as negative to community engagement. My thought is really that it's not the format, but how the site and the community handle it.
Have you tried posting image links to creative with context to spawn an interesting conversation? You might find that people already are comfortable with it exactly as it is so long as you are doing it in a thoughtful way.
I think that arguing for a group where images are encouraged is a way of masking the removal of spawning the interesting discussion. If it's interesting to discuss it can be shared on tildes. If it's just to post an image, then this is the wrong site for it, regardless of the sub group
I am also here for just a week or so, I do think that if Tildes wants broader adaptation it needs image posts. Which might just be their reason not to?
I do miss some image posts myself, I loved posting about my animals or food myself and image posts are just much better suited for that so you're not looking at a sea of just text when opening an animal related forum/sub. But at the same time I also like how Tildes is now. So maybe some non-default groups that have image posting permission would be a compromise yes.
It's good to have a discussion about this now Tildes is growing, thank for your well written post.
In all seriousness... why not sign up for Instagram if that's what you want? (I'm sure there are also other image-based websites/forums out there, which I'm not aware of.)
I don't like the vibe of Instagram, I'm way too old for that. But I do enjoy sharing animal stories. Do you really believe there is no option possible between text only and going full on Instagram?
No, of course not. Reddit is proof of that.
I'm just saying that, if you're looking for a website/app to provide you with a feed of images and where you can post images, they already exist.
Tildes exists for a different purpose.
Not every site/app needs to be everything to everyone. Each site/app can specialise - or, at least, have a primary focus.
That is true but Tildes already isn't specialized? It's a shame this site isn't open to discussion about trying new things without making exaggerations like turning it into Instatock 2.0 or the psychology behind image loading times and what not I have heard. It honestly feels a bit repressive. Different people will always want different things, it's fine to meet in the middle in my opinion.
I can't say it any better than @trebory6 said it elsewhere in this thread, so I'll leave it up to them:
https://tildes.net/~tildes/16fe/considering_image_posts_on_tildes#comment-8hs2
My experience with this is that an image is always an image. It is sadly a very binary thing.
You can't make an image less like an image and more like text, without making it not-an-image.
So then it's maybe more about the culture surrounding that image since full text based fora also has had lots of trolls in the past.
I don't think its culture, it's more about human psychology, biology, and physics.
An image can be viewed in around a second or two, and you will know after that time whether you like it or not.
400 words takes around a minute or two. That's around 60 times longer.
Assuming everyone needs to read the whole text before they vote, this means that or any given amount of votes, it takes 60x the amount of time to get the same amount of votes on a text post of 400 words as on an image.
You can't get around this, except for maybe doing something silly like making all images take around 1-2 minutes to load once you've clicked on a button, and only serving one image per IP at a time so that you can't load all images on a page in one go (like RES)
Respectfully but I don't agree. You assume everyone reads the whole comment/article but we all know that's not happening on the internet at large. It will happen more in a group that values quality over quantity in their postings but that really is a site's culture and claiming that doesn't apply to images just because an image loads fast is reaching.
As someone who has browsed Reddit to varying degrees since 2005, so I saw the full evolution of the site. It went from purely link aggregator, to links with comments...and slowly but surely, the larger influx of users turned it effectively into a collection of message boards. Somewhere in between there is where the culture of Tildes more or less currently lies. It was around 2008 or so when image links started taking off, and comment threads became significantly less relevant. There was a lot of seepage from 4chan and Digg culture around this time. It was honestly depressing to see, as someone who would browse those other sites. Once the culture starts to shift, it's pretty much impossible to go back.
This happened with the broader internet as well once it became more mainstream. Sad indeed.
Re posting about animals, try here,https://tildes.net/~talk/15xl/pets_2
As the site grows maybe we get a dedicated pets or animals group. Please post links to pictures of pets with some text talking about them.
Re the overall question, this is a nonprofit and I want it to stay that way. Anything that increases cost or need for moderation should be closely scrutinized.
The nonprofit argument is a valid point I hadn't thought about, if it ends up costing way more in computing power it's probably not worth it at this point, however I feel that hosting an image on imgur and including a link should not make much difference.
Thank you for the response.
The non-default group thing is definitely a key point, and I feel this issue may actually intersect with Deimos' post about the potential of independence (in some way) regarding groups and subcommunities.
I think it's really important to keep the current vibe, that's why newbies like you and I like it in the first place! I just think there is nuance, and there could be some exciting developments that wouldn't put people's noses out of joint or ruin what is great about this place.
Yes that's the point I made, maybe that wasn't clear enough. The site may not want to because of the meme culture that might follow. Beyond that I do miss some image based posts and you might have a different opinion, that is fine.
I wouldn't mind, but only if it is a user setting and turned off by default. And there would need to be some spoiler tag to blur/hide potential spoilers for those who wish to enable the option
Personally I enjoy the text-only nature of it, and I can link to an image just fine.
I think this would suit me. But I also sort of think this is something that could essentially be solved on the “client side” for those that prefer to see images. As a beta tester of the backtick iOS app.. I think it could potentially be coded with a setting that automatically loads/shows a clickable thumbnail for any direct image links .. let the app crawl the link and bring back the image to those that want to see it, but wouldn’t require changing the way Tildes works for those who prefer the way it is now. Could be done as a similar experience to how the Apollo app handled images in Reddit feeds/threads.
Sure, I think this would have to interact with changes about default groups (which I know are currently being considered). What I was thinking was something like a single subgroup for posting your art (to begin with). I'm not suggesting image posts allowed in all groups or anything that would be overwhelming to one's feed.
I think image post will be needed for this place to expand, even just embedded image so they display. I miss some meme subreddits.
Frankly, I hope we never allow memes and other low-effort content here. It doesn't match the philosophy/atmosphere of Tildes. Tildes is not just a drop-in replacement for Reddit. I miss things from Reddit myself, but that doesn't mean I think they should all be on Tildes
I get the disagreement but with the increased users that memes bring it increases the discussion as well. I think tildes should have sub groups with their own mod team so they can have text only, or allow memes. It will be more popular and allow more discussion.
I don't think popularity is something we should be pursuing, so we just fundamentally disagree on how we view what Tildes is
I think there is an important distinction to be made between general popularity (i.e. having users for the purpose of having users) and specific popularity among people who would be positive contributors to the discussions held here.
For the previous, I fully agree that it is not something Tildes should pursue. For the latter, there are advantages and difficulties to communities of all sizes.
This point is very much debatable.
I don't think Tildes need to cater to everyone. There are the other Reddit alternatives that work well for sharing images.
Current events would disprove that. Tildes has just grown by about 40% in less than 3 weeks... without image posts.
Also... to paraphrase something I used to say about an in-depth discussion subreddit I used to moderate, whenever people complained about us removing their shallow "popular" content...
We don't want to be the next multi-national fast-food chain. We don't want to sell a billion mass-produced burgers to millions of people from a thousand different outlets. We want to be that little restaurant down the side-street that your friends tell you about, which might only seat a hundred people, but which serves the best boutique burgers you ever tasted.
Tildes doesn't need to have 1,000,000 users looking for a dopamine hit. We can be quite happy with 100,000 users looking for some quality discussion.
I get that for most groups, don't need it on cyber-security, or tales from tech support, or talk or others. If image posts are not allowed when private groups become a thing(maybe) then i guess i'll have to deal with the native reddit app.
Well, good news: private groups will never be a thing, so you never have to deal with the native Reddit app.
I mean the dev talked about it
If you are talking about the discussion in the post "Thoughts on making tildes groups more independent" then it wasn't about making groups private (i.e. accessible only by invite or approval) but opt-in (i.e. content from them not shown unless a user actively chooses it).
Edit: typo
A compromise that I would strongly appreciate would be this feature (which I believe may be a RES feature on Reddit?) to allow viewers to optionally see individual linked images within the body of a text post/comment: example here
I have been active in several threads here where people share images (for example, of projects they are working on), and having to open those links in separate tabs causes me to stop reading and go look at the picture. I find that this, paradoxically, causes me to focus more on the images than the text that explains the images because I can only look at one or the other. This phenomenon seems counter to this site's ethos.
Apart from that, I am really happy with the text-focused nature of this site and don't really want to see image-only (or even image-first) posts. It would just be really nice to see imagery worked into the flow of the text to avoid reading interruptions.
It can always be implemented as a third party user script, like RES.
I think this is something that could be moderated on a group level in conjunction with the expansion of groups. Some groups/discussion topics would benefit from allowing images and others wouldn't. For example, I am a beekeeper. If I see something unusual in my hive, I'd like to be able to post an image to a beekeeping group to help me determine what's going on. I can try to describe the colors and textures of the weird thing I'm seeing, but I'm less likely to get a good diagnosis vs just posting a picture.
Obviously groups shouldn't allow pictures that are just things like "omg look at my cat" but I think images could be allowed sparingly for appropriate discussions.
You could always use imgur or any image hosting site. Describe your topic then provide an image link.
Noone's stopping you from posting pictures of your beehive right now. And, in the example you talk about, you would obviously post a picture as part of a larger post, with text explaining your problem and the circumstances. You can do that right now. Upload the beehive photo to the image hosting site of your choice, and then include a link to that image in your text post.
I think some people have glossed over some of my post (or I might not have been as clear as I intended) - I absolutely agree about this. Nuance is the key. My thoughts really were about doing things in a very limited and controlled way that do not damage the current community approach.
I was even thinking, based on @Deimos post about independent communities, that they could keep the whole of Tildes as it is at group level (default subscribed), then have the sub-groups be the user moderated ones, and only allow images at that level (and it could still have certain extra restrictions). That way, people subscribed to the main (current) groups still get the same, text-based experience they know and love, and those who want to actively subscribe to subgroups see only the content they've asked for.
That may not be the spirit of the site currently, but 'subreddit-style' groups are being considered, so this could surely fit relatively comfortably with that.
A compromise might be a way to load all linked images in a thread or group. This could start as a user script -- just iterate over links and inline any that point to images -- and could eventually be subsumed into Tildes as a feature.
So if you have a thread that's like "link to your photo/artwork/cat" you could open it up and click the "load all dem images" button to show everything at once.
I wouldn't want to see images by default, even thumbnails really.
No thank you.
I do see your angle, but I think the key is that it would not be an indescriminate 'post any image wherever you want!', I'm talking about having specific subgroups that are 'post your original artwork here', etc.
There is already moderation for if someone wanted to post something offensive, low quality or nonsensical for the other post types (and this may well expand, based on recent posts) - so, why not for images too? If there were a group for posting your artwork, that also required a text explanation, why couldn't that be moderated like the other areas?
Post-level moderation is 100% manual, and currently dependent on only one person: Deimos. He is the only person who can moderate topics, such as by removing them. That model doesn't scale up very well.
At comment-level, we users can use comment labels to push comments down the thread if we think they're inappropriate. That currently can't be done for topics.
What you're thinking about would require Deimos would need to build topic "labels", like the current comment labels, for us users to apply to topics. Either that, or he would need to build some moderation tools and recruit some non-Deimos moderators. That will take time.
I was actually thinking about this after reading Deimos' own suggestions about increasing the moderation team and potentially allowing some kind of independent moderating in groups.
That's not what that post was about.
The context for that post is that, currently, every new user on Tildes is automatically subscribed to every group and sub-group on Tildes. (Think back to what happened when you signed up, two weeks ago.) This means that the userbase for each group is practically the same: the people in ~tech are the same people as in ~creative, and the people in ~science are the same people as in ~humanities. Just look at the group-level user counts in this dataset. When people sign up for Tildes, they get all the groups, and they stay in all the groups. (The only group people seem to unsubscribe from is ~lgbt, but, even so, about 80% of all Tilders are still subscribed to that group.) The groups are homogenous in their membership, and therefore in content and scope.
That means that the groups are currently just functioning like tags. All topics on Tildes are basically being presented to all users on Tildes, and the group name just indicates what each topic is about.
What Deimos is proposing is to separate the groups from each other, by forcing people to actively choose which groups to subscribe to. That will make the userbase for each group different. In other words, all groups would become more independent of each other. A post in ~tech would be seen by different people than a post in ~creative (obviously with some overlap, but not nearly 100% overlap, as is happening now).
That's what he means by making the groups independent: creating a situation where each group has its own independent members.
This would have extra benefit of testing what happens when users have to deliberately subscribe to groups, rather than getting them all by default. If people have to subscribe to the groups they want, will certain groups have enough critical mass to keep operating? Will groups develop their own separate cultures and ways of doing things? Will this benefit Tildes?
As for adding more moderators, that's just a concern he's raising, rather than a direct suggestion.
First, he'll have to build a user interface for moderation tools. I expect he's got his own private little user interface to moderate with, but he's also doing at least some of his moderation by fiddling about directly in the database - which only works because the only moderator is also the owner of the site. To add more moderators, he'll have to build a fully functional user interface for those moderators to use. It'll probably be as simple as adding "remove comment" and "remove topic" on every page. (I expect he'll keep the power to ban people to himself for the moment.)
But he's not going to build more moderator functions than he needs right now - for a few reasons. For one: he has a full-time day job and doesn't have the time to spend building unnecessary features. For another: because of that day job, and because of the sudden increase of activity on Tildes, he needs his new moderators to get on duty as quickly as he can manage.
So, whatever he builds for moderating will be as simple as possible - meaning that, because he moderates across the whole of Tildes, and all user tools currently work across the whole of Tildes... the moderation user interface he builds will also work across the whole of Tildes. Having moderation apply only at group level would require him to build a whole extra set of functions in the database and the user interface, to be able to differentiate one group from another, and to give different permissions to different moderators. For the quick fix he needs, that's a waste of time. Tildes needs new moderators now, not in two months. Also, it's unnecessary, as I'll explain below.
Then he'll hand-pick his moderators, and he'll give those hand-picked moderators access to his brand-new moderation UI, which has the minimum necessary for people to moderate on Tildes - which will not include permissions at group level. The people he'll pick are people he trusts enough to have access to moderate the whole of Tildes.
So:
"Independent" groups just means groups with less overlap in their membership.
Moderators will get Tildes-wide access, because that's the quickest and easiest way to get them on board.
You're not going to get group-level moderation for a ~pics group in this next wave of changes.