Meta-discussion about the "Regional news thread" and possible future attempts
About this one: https://tildes.net/~news/19bm/regional_news_thread
First of all I want to thank everyone who participated and gave it a shot despite the weird setup, and apologize for ghosting the meta-discussion about it. Y'all have many suggestions which convinced me that my original idea was flawed.
For one, I agree with Algernon_Asimov that splitting into a separate 'US-local news' and 'non-US global news' would have made more sense. If there's a next round, I think I'd focus on US states first, then non-US countries in another thread. But before that I want to get some feedback to make sure.
Do you think general news threads like that are necessary?
Algernon_Asimov said that news should just be posted directly to the frontpage to be more visible.
spit-evil-olive-tips made a point about the distinction between local news of general interests vs. local news of local interests, and the latter could benefit from having dedicated threads.
For me, I believe megathreads are fine as long as they're optional. In my experience, people do sometimes prefer to post in comments instead of as full topics. As long as people are free to choose either way (which is different than on Reddit where if there's a megathread then posts outside it got removed), overall we should end up with more activity not less.
Does the comment-to-comment format make sense?
In my head I imagine that to be a natural way to generate location-based grouping, but I could see the convoluted setup might be confusing and unenforceable. One the one hand, if each location only has 1 post then the extra step is unnecessary. On the other hand, if there are multiple locations, each with multiple posts then trying to find your regions of interest would be a pain.
Is the scope of the thread too broad?
This was a point made by skybrian here, which was in the context of the original thread being both US and non-US. But even if we divided them into separate US and non-US, are they still too broad?
Having one thread for each location is probably the most natural way, I fear that currently that would ended up being too niche. This was touched on by merry-cherry here as well. I could imagine that would work for a US state (which ever has the most people here) but since no one tried it yet, it's hard to know which states are most likely to succeed. And we probably shouldn't just make one each for all them (which would fill the entire frontpage with nothing but state names).
Should these threads be news-focused?
While that was my original goal, maybe megathreads could be more useful if they fills the needs of the people posting in it rather than just the one starting it. Usually that requires guesswork by the poster but since I'm already asking, might as well.
For the US-local thread, if the goal is to serve as testing grounds to see whether there's enough activity to make the case for local groups, maybe news is not necessarily the most popular when it comes to local content? If anyone support this direction, please share some examples of what types of content you'd like the most when visiting local groups. If you do, please also rank them in order of importance. That way the scope of the thread could be made to focus on the most needed activity as starter.
For the non-US global thread, do you still want dedicated global news? If so how should we set it apart from just regular posting? boxer_dogs_dance mentioned r/anime_titties being quite high quality for global news, any lessons we can adopt from them?
Digging around and I found this post asking about how to do cultural exchange on Tildes, maybe shifting the focus from global news to this might be more fruitful? (people are probably more willing to share nice things about their country than drama). Each subthread can be something like this Turkey Information Thread, or something else maybe.
Should they be recurring?
News probably make sense as recurring, others depend. Since this is still in trial whatever arrangement we agree on, I'll probably just make one and see from there.
Anything else you want to let me know (like maybe don't do this anymore haha), shoot away. Also it's not like I'm an official thread maker or anything, if any of y'all have your own take, go for it! The more people trying out stuff the better.
Is there really so much news being posted that it’s a problem? It seems like adding effort to go into the mega threads repeatedly to see if there is anything interesting in them than just… looking at the feed once in a while.
~news has two posts and a total of one comment in the last 24 hours. Even hyper-local news stories could fit as posts at this point.
Edit: I guess being the change you want to see in the world is legit.
A lot of topics are moderated away from ~news into their relevant groups.
For various reason, posting in the comment is just easier than posting in top level directly. They lead to many smaller submissions that the poster wouldn't have posted otherwise. The fact that the feeds doesn't have much is why I'm adding effort to this.
Edit: cc @plinth since I wanted to make a similar reply to your comment too
We've learned that in practice, many people are more likely to post a comment when prompted by a good question than to start a top-level topic. This made the generic, automatic recurring topics pretty important when there were fewer people on Tildes.
Now that there are more people, I think it's somewhat less important, but there's still something to be said for encouraging participation by taking the initiative. If you're interested in reading more about X, a good way to do it is to post a discussion topic that's about X.
There are better and worse ways to start a discussion. I think we're still learning.
As an American, interested in global news, my first thought is thanks for trying. I will be following this thread with interest.
A question for those with a personal stake in this, would regional megathreads work? SouthEast Asia for example? Central and South America? Or is one world news excluding the US megathread a better approach? But I am just an interested bystander, wishing the best for your project.
I don't like a regional megathread as news about my country would get just as lost in a western europe megathread as it would in a "world" megathread.
I don't like the shuttering of non-US news into a single topic as it implicitly defines ~news as being for US news only, which is exactly what happened to r/news and r/politics on reddit.
I think Tildes is not at a stage where it could support a ~ireland or whatever, so I just don't look for local news on Tildes. It's missing content relative to what I got on Reddit, but honestly I'd rather deal with that than the risk of it being siloed off if Tildes ever gets big.
I'm largely of the same mindset.
I'm an American, but I live in the Midwest in a "second tier" city, and in a "flyover state" at that. So any hope of seeing news and discussion about my city and state here is pretty unlikely. Well, unless it's political; then my state gets in the news from time to time for all the wrong reasons. But yeah. I've opted to just remain on reddit largely for my local subreddit. I can't imagine Tildes will ever be able to be that same level of local resource.
I'm on Lemmy as well, via Beehaw, and I'm having the same issue, even though the Lemmy federation is far larger than Tildes, afaik.
But that's OK. Tildes doesn't have to be reddit. Nor does Lemmy. I don't need one site that has everything. I can go to different places for specific information and discussion. For me, I was never going to completely leave reddit (I'm still a mod...however little I do these days). It was more important to me to reduce my reddit consumption. And that's been massively achieved.
Edit: I say it's unlikely to see local news here, yet I just saw this. And a reference here. We're being noticed!
There's no siloing if no one enforce it and that's my point. If you check, there's currently already an official recurring 'US politics'. Plenty of US politics are still on the frontpage so I don't think that messaging theory is as true as people believe. At worst the presence of a global news megathread just mean one more global news thread, anyone wants to post outside are perfectly welcome to. At best it'd counter balance with the US recurring threads.
Thanks for the reminder that what worked well on reddit, r/anime_titties, might not be the best solution here. Tildes is headquartered in Canada and is intentionally international even though we have many US users.
That was one of my thought too, the problem is people from different countries, even if in the same region, still have as little to talk to each other as they do with say people from America. ASEAN was kinda already tried early back in June but no luck. The thread may be about different countries but the common grounds on which activities revolve around must be something other than proximity. What that could be no idea yet
I'm still not sure why you decided to try this experiment. What was supposed to be the benefit to Tildes users of collecting non-US news items and/or US local state news items into a single thread within ~news, rather than letting these news items run free in ~news?
As you pointed out, I made suggestions about maybe how this idea could possibly be administered better, but I'm not sure how the idea itself is supposed to make Tildes better.
Could you perhaps explain your goal: what is the purpose of these mega-threads? This would also help us to help you achieve your goal better.
Well it's like this. At first I just want to see more global news. On second thought what merry-cherry said made sense, it'd hardly work since there's just not that many international people to begin with. But spit-evil-olive-tips point about local news make me think maybe there's merit in that area instead, but I'm not from US so I'm asking if they want it and how. I guess now I see that not many want it either. Oh well
I mean experiments aren't done because you know the outcome already, so if it turns out news threads like that aren't the right thing right now, your experiment worked. Maybe when there are more people on Tildes you try again?
I'm trying to understand the link between "I want to see more global news" and "I will make a mega-thread for global news". How do you think a mega-thread will produce more non-USA news on Tildes and make that non-USA news more visible?
I, for one, will continue posting whatever Australian news I feel like, whenever I feel like it, regardless of whether there's a mega-thread for non-USA news or not. A mega-thread won't make me post more Australian news (and, as I said, I won't be posting my Aussie news in a mega-thread). My posting will still be driven by my own personal reaction to seeing a news item and thinking it might be suitable for Tildes. And mycketforvirrad is going to continue to inform us about all things Scandinavian, just as they've been doing for years, long before a mega-thread existed!
So, how will a mega-thread bring more non-USA news to Tildes and make that non-USA news more visible? That's the connection I'm trying to understand. When I understand that connection, I might be able to suggest better ways to achieve what you want.
I'm glad you ask. Originally I was planning to do a thing where I'd hack a low-key semi-private space just for continuing the discussion with the people in that thread first before making a public post, since some of the points can be inflammatory and not everything needs to be said on a megaphone all the time. I gave up half way though cause writing is a pain (I don't know how you guys can do it all the time). Now I'm kinda already exhausted to think properly, fuck it. Here's the unfinished draft. My answers to some of people's questions are probably in there somewhere.
This is a continuation of the meta-discussion under the "Regional news thread". Sorry for the pings, I'll respond to your comments on that thread here and we can continue the discussion if you still feel like it. If not, there won't be any more pings (except one that is) so your inbox can rest safely. I'd also love feedbacks from people who participated in that thread too, despite its many flaws.
A lot of this has to do with what a megathread is and our expectations from it so I'd like to hear some of your takes to know where you're coming from. For my part, a megathread is "a generic platform where contents that are typically posted as full topic posts can now be posted as comment posts".
Certainly everything I say is just my personal opinion and from my own observations, but I mention this anyway so you know I'm not deluding myself otherwise. Your counter perspectives and experiences are appreciated.
To Algernon_Asimov comment about womens group, back then I was convinced by your argument but now I'm less sure.
Does the existence of a megathread for a topic means that that topic is more or less important?
So while I can see how signage decisions like which megathreads (or groups) are created maybe matter as a first impression, they'd still paled when stronger signals are available, such as actual levels of regular activity.
To expand on my earlier reply in this comment,
Do megathreads contain or release?
I'm mostly familiar with megathreads on Reddit, with them being used as a containment mechanism. But usually, they're created by moderators with mod tools to enforce them. Here, where megathreads can be created spontaneously by anyone, without enforcement mechanism, we need to think about them differently.
When a user wants to post a topic, they can decide to either post it in the relevant groups (as per usual), or in the relevant megathreads (if they happen to see it or remember it).
Without megathreads, the people of group 1 and 2 can still participate just fine, but we'd miss out on group 3. So in its natural state, a megathread should lead to more posts, not less.
But what about all this containment business? The creation of a megathread is not what's doing the containing, it's what's done around it:
Overall, in neutral cases, a megathread open an additional channel where the burden of participation is shifted from topic posting to commenting. If the 90:9:1 rule is to go by, this means accessing a larger pool of potential contributors. In heated cases, angry people will do whatever they want to try and kill the topics they don't like, the presence of a megathread is just a convenient excuse. Megathreads release and not contain.
So that's on whether topics get posted. On whether the posted topics get traction, I partially agree with the containment argument (but only partially).
Megathreads limit popular entries but reward small entries.
By not enforcing whether all posts should be top-level-only or in-megathread-only and leave the choice open, we'd be getting the best of both worlds. A would-be poster who want to maximize activity can judge for themselves whether their topic is popular enough to stay on the frontpage, or if they'd prefer to take advantage of an already active thread.
The communal process would naturally self filter all the most popular topics out on the frontpage and all the small topics into the megathread.
Not only that, a megathread would better serve small topics if it contain nothing but small topics! The Activity sort only cares about when the newest comment is posted. Bundling many low activity topics into one thread boost visibility for all of them. It's an additive effect. And if no too-popular topics occupied the space within the thread, the small topics are on a more leveled playing field and have better chance competing for within-thread visibility.
To skybrian comment about the thread being too generic, I partially agree.
Megathread scope: more general or specific?
...
boxer_dogs_dance,
spit-evil-olive-tips,
merry-cherry,
daychilde, chocobean, lina, FarraigePlaisteach
RecentlyThawed,
COMMENT 2:
Break this part into a separate comment in case it get heated the admin can nip this without affecting the main discussion.
Algernon_Asimov, I want to call out the fact that you posted your meta-discussion point as a top-level comment despite I've already dedicated "Misc" for anything other than news sharing. You are not only one of the longest user here but also among the ones who are most demanding that others have to follow rules and standards, which made it really hard for me to convince myself that you didn't follow instruction by mistake. It put me into not a good headspace which was why I couldn't participate in the discussion then and had to deliberately take a break from it.
That said, you commenting that way still made a good point. Honest mistakes or otherwise, there being people derailing the main topic are unavoidable. If this were to become a thing, we need to have some sort of SOP on how to resolve off-topic in the least disruptive manner.
...
Edit: Huh. This is going to be very silly to say now but I've just realized everything would have been so much easier if I just made the original thread a simple ask post instead, since that was... exactly what I wanted.
I'll come back to the main points in your comment later, when I've been able to give them more thought. However, I can address this quickly.
I honestly had no idea that the "Misc" comment was for non-news. It just said "Misc". There was no context, no explanation, no information about what "Misc" meant. I honestly assumed it was some sort of miscellaneous category of news that didn't fit in with the main countries represented in the other comments.
If you'd called it "meta discussion" or something else to more explicitly indicate that it was not a news category, I would absolutely have posted my meta-comment there. You're right that I like to enforce consistency via rules and standards, and I am not so hypocritical that I would not do what I ask other people to do.
I'm sorry I misunderstood.
Thank you for the explanation, and I'm sorry for doubting your intent.
Sometimes I feel like tags get overlooked in favor subgroups. Like with your PS5 example, i don’t think it would be necessary to create a ~games.ps5.tech_support subgroup, or even ~games.ps5, when you could instead post to ~games and use “ps5” and “tech support” tags.
Similarly, I think we should be posting news to ~news and using regional tags.
I feel like we should be posting to a more relevant group and tagging it news if it's something in the news.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, but I think it would require a shift in how tildes groups are managed. Right now only Deimos can create new groups, so if a more relevant group doesn’t exist we need to fall back on what does. So yes, gaming news should go to ~gaming and tech news to ~tech, etc. But we have groups like ~news because not everything will fit perfectly into the groups we have available to choose from. Luckily, users do have control over tags, and can move items into more relevant groups if necessary. So if someone wants to post a story that is relevant to San Francisco, and wants other people from San Francisco to find it , they might post it to news and tag it “usa” and “san francisco” so people who filter for those tags will find it. My point wasn’t that we need to be more more strict about where we post things, that will work itself out in the wash, it’s more that I think since the big migration there are still a lot of people who want Tildes to work like Reddit. They are still stuck in the subreddit style of thinking about how to organize and find posts, and in the process they overlook one of Tildes biggest strengths in the tagging feature.
edit: typos
There are many ways to split things up. For the US, someone could create “New England news” or “Southern US news” topics. They’re vaguely defined compared to US state names, but still probably viable.
One thing to keep in mind is that the more generic and evergreen a topic title is, the less informative it is, both for people who might want to read the topic and people who might want to skip it. On the front page, if I see that the “regional news” topic has new posts in it, I can’t really tell if I want to read it or not, and I have to look inside if I want to see what’s there. Contrast with a very specific headline from a newspaper article.
A generic, evergreen topic title is also calmer and less like a meme or clickbait headline, so it’s not all bad.
Also, it might be better not to aim for complete coverage. You could start a topic about a specific place you personally care about and post multiple comments about things happening there. That will be more interesting both for you and anyone reading, compared to dutifully creating topics for all 50 US states because you think they should exist, which would result in thin and spotty coverage.
I don't think a megathread being generic is that bad really, we already have a bunch of that, in the form of all the various 'what are you doing/playing/reading... lately' recurring threads, and they're fairly active. If done right (though I'm not there yet I'm sure) the fact that not many people want to look into it could be the selling point, given how often people said they don't want to post something because they don't want to bother everyone.
I think you should pick whatever one you're more interested in (and more interested in reading about) and post more about that.
It sounds like what you might want to be emulating is https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalTalk/
Edit: I went to look again and their news does seem to have big stuff too, so maybe not exactly emulate them. But when they first started they had a lot of small local news things (even non-english articles with the op translating it in the comments) and discussion threads for people to chat about small things in their country.
I like what you're trying to do, but I also get what others are saying about how the website isn't active enough to warrant a megathread and you can just post international news on the site straight.
But, I will say that I often am reluctant to post any of my local news on the site because it's so specific to my area, I don't think anyone else would be interested in reading it. I would feel bad for flooding the site with something nobody ultimately cares about. And I mean incredibly local news where unless you're intimately familiar with what's going on, you're going to be a bit confused.
What I'm thinking then is that the way you present your thread should be different and more specific. This is not just news from your area, this is news from your area that is so local, you think nobody else would care. It could be something incredibly small like "Man steals something small from local shop". Which means nothing internationally, but the local shop could be meaningful to people living there or something.
So this leaves news that are bigger but also local for the main site. Like "Protest happening in whatever country" People are generally interested in politics and protest. I wouldn't feel bad for posting that straight to the main site.
And also since there's no specific local groups for people to post local news to, your thread could act as a space for everyone to chat with each other from the same local area. Like the news could be so small, it could be ridiculous gossip about local well known people drinking from the wrong coloured cup or something.
So basically the megathread could be for very small news that you would like to share with other people that you think doesn't warrant bothering other people who aren't from the area. It could also function as a discussion thread for events happening in your area. That's also news.
People could also ask questions directed to people living in another specific location. Just a very small international hub for small discussions. This also applies to US states too. I'm quite sure they have really niche state specific news that other people won't really understand or care that much about.
This way, other people who are interested in small news in other places can also go to the thread and snoop around. It also helps that the people snooping around will be looking at the news knowing they're missing context and are open to the idea of thinking differently.
I can imagine posting some political news from my area and have people comment judgemental things without understanding context if I were to put it in the main site.
Thank you for the detailed suggestions! Yeah the title could use some workshop for sure, define the scope more. Also thank you for bringing attention to r/GlobalTalk. I didn't know about that before, will need to do some snooping around too haha.
No worries! But I have to say now that I've taken a look at it again, it's not.. what I remember of it. The content seems worse somehow.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalTalk/comments/13rutvk/meta_sub_is_dead/
Yea okay. The content has gotten worse. I'm not imagining it. I was around when it first started and it was interesting then. It's dead now. Too bad you can't sort by old.
I've browsing by 'top of all time', while not exactly old. Yeah I think that sub is pretty much what I was going for, even down to questions like whether the focus should be non-english news, or if us state local news are included, are also what I'm trying to find an answer for. I'll need to look into that sub more, thank you.
Oh great! I went to look. Yeah the content is better. But what the top posts are missing were the more frequent small inconsequential news and small chats about what's going on in their countries. Cultural exchange basically.
I guess those don't get upvoted as much as big news.
Glad I could help! Hope you figure it out.
I don't think so.