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Under what group would, for example, cars or motorcycles go?
For many they are considered ~hobbies so ~hobbies.cars and ~hobbies.motorcycles would be a logical place. I don't know if ~transport would be a suitable main category for this since then trucks, tractors, trains and boats could also go there without bloating hobbies' sub-groups too much.
I'd like to hear your input on this, cheers.
It depends.
Are you discussing the manufacture and engineering of these vehicles? Go to ~tech and use an
engineeringtag.Are you discussing the racing of these vehicles? Go to ~sports and use a
motorsportstag.Are you discussing going for road-trips with the family? Go to ~life and use a
vacationtag.Are you discussing joining a car club and going for drives with the club? Go to ~hobbies and use an
automotivetag.We don't have a group for cars and motorbikes. We have groups for what people do with cars and motorobikes.
I was going to post here yesterday about my car making a buzzing sound at speed after an oil change and tire rotation. I didn't because I couldn't find a suitable category, I was leaning towards ~tech and ultimately didn't post because none of the groups seemed a fit.
(A Google search revealed that the noise is normal after a tire rotation and generally goes away after 50 miles or so.)
I'd probably put that it ~talk with an
ask.helptag. Ultimately it doesn't really matter that much. People are overthinking here. There's a dozen or so people with the ability to edit tags and move posts between groups. If you've clearly posted in the wrong spot, someone will probably come along and fix it for you. Otherwise, most people are subscribed to all groups anyway, and don't usually browse individual groups at this point. Even if they did, it's just a fry in your onion rings. No big deal.Yes: ~talk and ~misc are also useful dumping grounds for topics that people can't figure out where to post.
I'm definitely using this phrase in my future! Thanks!
~tech isn't just about digital technology or electronic technology; it's also about mechanical technology. If it's about tools or machines, it's probably suited to ~tech.
What about hand tools for home improvement / electrical projects, etc. Would that be most suited to tech? I had been curious where to post such things. Thanks for mentioning this.
Would someone just post about tools, though, with no other context?
"Here's an article that describes the history of the electric drill" would belong in ~tech, but "here's a video of me building a shelf with my electric drill" would belong in ~hobbies or ~life.
Ah ok. I was gonna post more something like, what are some hand tools you can't live without :) Seems like this might be for ~life, whereas an article about a cool hand tool will go in ~tech.
Or maybe just ~talk... it's for general chit-chat, and that would be general chit-chat.
ah perfect yeah, that seems better suited. I know you guys keep saying not to worry too much about posting in the wrong group but I'm having a difficult time internalizing that!
Honestly... it's a lot easier for us old-timers to figure what group a topic should be in after you've all posted it, and we can see what you're trying to achieve. A vague description about "hand tools for home improvement / electrical projects, etc" doesn't really help. But when you actually post your topic, with all its links and/or discussion points, that nails it down for us - and we can move it accordingly.
So, it's easier to post first, and let people sort it out later, than to ask us to guess beforehand.
Thank you, that makes sense. I think I'm just going to force myself to be "adventurous" with tildes and not worry so much!
Good!
Remember - unlike some comparable link aggregators, there's no punishment for getting it wrong here. On Reddit, if you get the wrong subreddit for your post, a moderator has no option but to remove it as an inappropriate post. It's annoying for the moderator, and frustrating for you. Here, if you get the group wrong, someone will just helpfully move it to the right group: no harm, no foul.
That's an interesting thing about Tildes. On reddit people are a lot harsher I think, quick to call you a dumbass or the like, or make you feel like you've committed a crime for an honest mistake haha (though I understand something like a wrong post could cause more complications there, due to the way things are set up). Either way, I get the impression that won't happen here, but I think it's still taking me some time to wrap my mind around that.
Sounds like we need a vehicles group ;)
I think that you, and many other exfiltrated Reddit users, are getting caught by the "what subreddit is right" problem that Reddit certainly had. Whenever one made a post on Reddit, you never knew if it was the right subreddit, and more often than is reasonable your post would be removed, and with some frequency you would get a terse, if not outright rude, message from the moderators about sharing in the wrong spot. As a result, former Redditors are conditioned to seek the right place and worry about the right subreddit.
Groups on Tildes are not subreddits.
They don't have different rules or different teams. You won't get in trouble for putting something in one group when it might arguable being on a different group. At the moment, groups don't have a particular personality or difference of community to them. Groups are a taxonomy for sorting information. That is it.
If you want to make a post and don't know what group to share it with, you can put it in ~misc. It is very likely that someone will sort it into a different group, and that's okay. "Moderator" actions are almost always done with a smile and a wave here, and the tools of the site allow things to move between groups very easily.
So my advice is to just make a great effort to share something and if it could go in multiple groups, just pick one of them, and it could not matter less which one you pick.
I don't understand your use of the word "pay" here. This is obviously some meaning I'm not familiar with. What does "pay" mean in this context?
Not a sigh and a sneer? Shit. I've been doing it all wrong!
Pay is a typo thanks to autocurrupt. It should have read "sharing". Thanks for pointing it out, I have fixed it!
Edit: I just realized it did it lower down as well and fixed it there too. I usually try not to comment from my phone, and this is why.
That's a hell of an auto-correct!
Agreed, sometimes my autocorrupt just fills in what seems like unrelated words. I think it makes sense from a "shape of the word while swiping" point of view, maybe? H-A-R has the same sort of shape as P-A-Y, I guess? I try to read over things I've read on mobile to make sure they make sense, but I think I just fired that one off.
Ah. You're one of those. Yeah, that sort of makes sense.
My ham hands make thumb typing difficult, but they're not much better for setting I fish (sic for humor: "swiping I guess").
I think you're right that ~hobbies is best for now, although depending on the context some posts might go better in ~tech or ~sports. A transport main group might be too specialized, if made it also may end up leaning more in the direction of public transport discussion
Which seems fine in my opinion. ~transport.public wouldn't feel out of place. It does what it says on the tin.
What sort of discussions about cars would you like to have, that aren't hobby-related? There might be a better-suited group for the discussions you want.
So, you want to talk about the mechanical aspects of cars. That's ~tech. (Did you read the comment I linked for you?)
Yes, it's unfortunate that, in the past 20 years or so, the word "technology" in popular culture has become synonymous with computers, electronics, and digital technology - so that people don't remember that mechanical devices like cars and rockets and steam engines are also technology.
In the strictest definition of the word, any tool that humans create can be considered technology - so, those old stone axes made 1,000,000 years ago are some of the earliest examples of human technology. But, I doubt we'll use that definition here on Tildes! :)
They do have their own places on Tildes. Those places are just different to what you're used to! :)
Also... remember... Tildes is still in alpha-testing. It’s an unfinished product. Set your expectations accordingly. Some of the groups and sub-groups you want could be created in the future. Reddit didn't start out with 100,000 subreddits! It had to work up to that. Tildes will similarly expand its range and number of groups and sub-groups, gradually over time.
I'm not connecting ~tech with the computers in modern cars. I'm connecting ~tech with the internal combustion motors and the associated mechanisms in cars, that have existed for over 120 years.
Nowadays, cars have computer technology in them as well, but even the internal combustion engine is technology.
So might a discussion about a daily driver fit the life category or talk? I'm new and I have definitely used misc when I am not sure where to put something..
Either. Both. Whatever. Pick one, and see what happens.
People don't need to over-think where to post. Just pick a likely spot and go for it.
At this point, most Tildren are subscribed to most groups, so they'll see your topic no matter where it is.
If there's a better group for your topic, one of the people who can move topics will eventually come along and move it to that better group for you.
Or... if you must know where to post... what, exactly, is "a discussion about a daily driver"? What are you discussing? Is it something related to "our personal (and professional) lives - work, school, families, relationships, parenting, etc", as per the sidebar in ~life? Or do you just want an "open-ended discussion with fellow Tildes users", as per the sidebar in ~talk?
The last daily driver submission went into ~hobbies, for what that's worth.
Is that what "daily driver" means - just what car someone owns? I was picturing something quite different...
Yeah, also sometimes referred to as a "grocery getter," a daily driver is just a vehicle that is used for common tasks.
It's a way to identify that the vehicle being mentioned is not a Sunday driver, show car, track car, garage queen, project in progress, or collectible.
The more I think about it, cars are probably among the more popular topics so far as things that should be considered for their own group.
Indeed, when looking to what old style forums are still well-used online today despite the consolidation of conversations that has wiped out most of these, car and motorcycle forums stand out.
Maybe vehicles.cars, vehicles.motorcycles, vehicles.boats, vehicles.misc or something similar would be appropriate.
Contemporary use of the term tech has largely diverged pretty far from car culture, with a few notable exceptions.
I would ask why that matters... but maybe to revheads, those categories do matter.
Like I said in my original comment in this thread, Tildes doesn't have a group for cars and motorbikes, it has groups for what people do with cars and motorobikes.
However, if you want those ~vehicles sub-groups, I would picture them as nested under ~tech: ~tech.vehicles.cars, ~tech.vehicles.motorcycles, and so on. Because the internal combustion engine is still technology.
To revheads, they do matter, that's what I'm explaining. It actually speaks to your note about what people do with the car.
A conversation about what is a good choice under X price to commute 10 hours per week in my climate and location is different from another conversation about a car with tires that cost close to the same value X, that only comes out for special occasions.
Anyway, I think I can agree that vehicles makes sense to nest under tech. I do understand that having over many top level groups would be cumbersome, but seeing people get shut down every time they ask is also not ideal.
I don't own a car, only motorcycles. It is not a hobby, but how I get around everyday. So for me it would fall into ~life, I guess?
A motorcycle isn't a car but it could be considered one, in the same measure a hot dog could be considered a sandwich even though it is not according to many biblical, talmudic, and islamic scholars.
Right now it could go either in ~design or ~hobbies with a
motorcylestag. Subgroups can definitely be created if there is enough content for that. There are many ways to go about that and you make good suggestions. A subgroup under ~design could be an option as well.