Tildes is the RSS of social media, what gives?
I've really been enjoying Tildes since I joined. The community are friendly, I've posted similar to how I would post in other unnamed social sites with top/OP being serious and long form, and lower replies being more jovial or jokey. With the higher responses, I also try to keep it more formal and factual, or add a valid opinion/discussion point.
One thing I have noticed recently is that there is a constant hit of people just posting blog or news articles with little or no engagement. It's almost like they just curate news and slap it all over which has me scratching my head and stroking the old grey beard. Why? Short question but expecting long answers here. It's like looking at a RSS feed.
I come to Tildes to ask advice and post items that I believe may be of interest to others. I engage in those topics for the most part as well. Rarely does someone post an article from X blog site and I exclaim out loud and tap away a response to it. If I wanted that, I'd just comment on the blog discussion board for the article, not the linked Tildes post.
Is it just me?
I post things that I find interesting and believe can generate some discussion. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. If nobody comments on a post I submit, but it receives a number of votes, it can linger around for a bit due to this site's structure. I also enjoy this website very much, and want to contribute in whatever way I'm able, which includes submitting neat articles and questions that I feel are suitable. Another reason is that this website has a slower rate of traffic, thus things posted, and I want to help keep things fresh, so to speak.
It also helps introduce people to other websites, which is a wonderful thing in this growing era of Internet-unification. Someone posted an article from Nautilus a while back, and while it didn't generate much discussion, the article about underwater deep sea vents was incredibly interesting, and introduced me to a website I hadn't discovered before.
I just want to say that I like it that way. I appreciate people like you, who post something they find interesting. Discovery is the aspect of Tildes I like maybe even more than discussions. When there are no comments under some post, that does not mean the post is not useful.
Thanks for sharing the website. It's a neat one.
This discussion has come up before. People use the site in different ways. It is not obvious which article will generate discussion. It is also not necessarily effective to post a comment with the article. It also cherry picks the content from the article and something else from the article might prove to be more important to readers if they are not steered in a particular direction. Most of all, it puts all of the responsibility on the person posting and it gatekeeps the use of the site.
https://tildes.net/~tildes/1985/posting_links_to_articles_without_contributing_to_a_conversation_about_it
It is possible to sort your feed by highest number of comments, if you don't want to be the one to kick off a discussion.
It does become frustrating when these articles with no comments become so numerous on the front page due to a few users posting a lot of them, though. I don't think it makes sense to mandate commenting on every link post, no type of enforcement like that makes sense imo, but at the moment I think the quantity of links being posted without commentary is a little too high. My front page right now has two posts with 0 comments that were posted by the same user -- a user who, based on their profile, posted 4 link topics in quick succession but only commented on one of them. Many of their link posts in the past have been great articles that generated a ton of discussion whether they commented on them or not, so I don't think this is "bad behavior" or something as a rule. But I think the speed with which someone can post a link post without commentary compared to how long a text post or thought-out comment takes means that even just one or two people posting a few link posts without comments each day makes the site feel way more dominated by such posts than it should.
Ok, I hear you. However, someone posting on a very busy day might just not post. Also, we have five different sorting priorities for the front page. And as I said before I don't believe that there is much if any relationship between one comment and sparking general discussion. I also think that the comment can lead discussion in different, more idiosyncratic and possibly worse directions than if readers who want to discuss just read the article or spin off the headline.
It's less that one comment is guaranteed to spark discussion and more that when the front page is sorted by activity and so many posts have no comments, it makes the environment feel worse - like OP said, more like an RSS feed than a discussion forum. I don't think posting without a comment is necessarily a bad thing and I don't think it should be restricted or anything. I agree with you that sometimes it's the better choice even. It's just that it's frustrating when a couple specific users post multiple posts with no comments at around the same time, dominating the front page. I'm not sure whether there would even be an effective solution to that, but it seems unfair to dismiss it as not a problem given how many people have remarked on it.
I find myself frequently flipping through front page sorts looking for different content.
There are actually timing limits built into posting lol. Post too quickly and you get a message saying wait 20 minutes or something like that.
Huh lol I didn't know there was that kind of limit! But I've also only posted like two topics ever lol.
I was about to say that think I might be that user, but I haven’t posted a stick of that many links in a while. I’m interested in dialogue about how I can do better. In particular I am bit of a cyborg because I use my YOShInOn software to pick out links and I really could post 30 a day without trying. In some cases I write a comment, in other cases I am pretty sure there will be a discussion despite that, sometimes I am happy with the response even if there are no comments, in other cases, there is a big discussion and a lot of votes but it is divisive and I wonder if I did the right thing by posting it. For that last reason I am skeptical of “comment count” as a success metric.
In particular I am interested in getting more activity on sports because that is something that nobody wants to talk about on HN or Mastodon (it seems).
Sometimes you just want to share an interesting article. Other social media tend to seek engagement which usually leads to controversial topics that can draw in lots of comments. But not everything has to be like that.
A few days ago I posted a blogpost written by an engineer who worked for Apple on the Safari browser. I just thought it was an interesting read, but there wasn’t really that much to add or discuss about it. I hope that kind of posts can be okay too here on Tildes, though I can see it can also be too much if everything here becomes links without any discussion at all.
I understand the rationale behind posting an interesting article. I spend a lot of time reading blogs, news articles, printed media (yeah, sad, eh?), video content and some interesting dissertations.
Should I post this I would also feel the need to plop a quick one or two liner in as to why I think you would want to view the content, rather than just RSS feed you all with random articles.
Tildes is for all and everyone will use it in different ways, I understand that. Maybe a filter for zero comments is something I need in my life.
Every thread has zero comments until someone comments though. If you filter it out then you’re cutting off your own opportunity to comment aren’t you?
@cfabbro
please take note of feature request above although sorting by number of comments would be another way to achieve a similar result
Added to Gitlab:
https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/816
p.s. I actually really like that idea, @g33kphr33k, since a lot of really interesting topics drop off the front page of Activity and Comments Sort way too quickly because they get no comments, and this would help mitigate that.
I often enjoy articles posted without discussion. Sometimes I comment on them, sometimes I do not.
Since there is no karma or other incentive for sharing content people find interesting, I don’t really see the harm. If it’s the topic you don't find interesting, try filtering it out?
It's why I love the option to ignore posts. Do I have no interest in the article posted regardless of how many comments it's getting? Ignore and move on never to be seen again. Possibly my favourite feature of Tildes.
I think you answer your own question:
if you submit a blog post or news article on reddit, there's going to be a lot of comments, because reddit is a much larger site, but also because Tildes has a higher bar for comment quality, especially for top-level comments. there's naturally going to be a higher proportion of topics with few or no comments.
I've posted topics that generated a ton of comments, topics that generated few or zero comments but got a decent number of votes (indicating people at least read it and liked it, even if they couldn't think of anything Tildes-quality to comment about it), and topics that fell off the front page with no comments and few upvotes. I generally can't predict which will be which before I submit a topic. I just submit things that I think are interesting and hope other people do too.
To be honest if everything I posted got a bunch of comments I’m not sure I’d post as much. I don’t actually like getting replies when I didn’t ask a question. I don’t dislike it, but every time I get that notification part of me is like “ugh who is going to yell at me now?”
I am right there with you. It is so hard to untrain that flinch response.
Tildes is not designed to maximize engagement.
https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes#no-advertising-user-supported
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/content#let-users-make-their-own-decisions-about-what-they-want-to-see
I do sort of get what you mean, because just sharing links seems a bit... bare? For example, just posting music playlists with no commentary doesn't appeal to me. When someone shares a song, I like to read a mini-review about why that song appeals to them.
But officially, you don't have to do this. The instructions are generic:
(Emphasis added.)
There's nothing that says you have to do anything other than post a title and link. The rest is optional.
I usually quote the best parts of the article (in my opinion) which I think gets across why I think the article is interesting. However, I will skip that if I'm in a hurry.
I think it's charitable to assume people post links because they genuinely thought they were interesting, even if I'm a bit puzzled. One way to generate discussion might be to ask what's interesting about this link.
I sometimes think about writing my own discussion board software and how it might work. Maybe there would be a "drafts" section where one person can just drop a link, and if it catches someone's eye, they can add more info (such as tags and a pull quote) and promote it to the front page if they like it. This would be sort of like a wiki.
I prefer it this way. I've spent too much time commenting on articles/posts on other sites.
Tildes doesn't make me want to comment on everything, nor make a thread about something. It just is. It's really nice.
It's not just you, I've also noticed that. Of course, there's nothing wrong with sharing links on Tildes, but usually the OP should also leave their own comment to kickstart discussion, give their own opinion, etc, instead of just dropping the link and running.
I have no idea why people do that either.
In the majority of the cases, there's absolutely no need or expectation for OP to add a conversation starter, and tags are sufficient to provide context. I'm really not sure why new users think that is a reasonable expectation or implicit rule. Maybe it's over correction. There is such a thing as too much effort.
I have noticed in the past that, when I provide a quote, people will just read and answer to the quote, often ignoring the article and completely misunderstanding what it's all about. So I don't do it anymore.
And if I add a comment, they will argue about my comment rather than the article.
But at least there's a discussion happening. I'm not arguing for the op posting an essay but a small comment on why they found the article interesting or something would be nice.
If you wanna post a conversation starter, that is fine. However, the notion that this should be an expectation is, in my opinion, terrible, excessive, and overzealous.
New users are treating Tildes with way too much reverence. This is not an academic study group. You can post content as is.
Also, I'm afraid I have to disagree with the notion that a post without comments is a failure. Engagement is not the only goal. You shared something, and others read it. It's fine. The idea that every post must have a discussion is essentially the metrics-based approach that you see in social media, and I like that Tildes is not like that.
That's great, but I'm not sure I ever argued for making it an expectation or rule, just that it would be nice. Posts without engagement aren't failures but they're kinda just there.
Tildes might not be a study group but it is averse to low-effort posts and comments. I think that's the crux of the link dump, it's low-effort.
What’s the problem with that exactly? Can’t stuff just be there? If there was a conversation to have about an article anyone can start the conversation, I don’t see why it should only be on the OP. Part of the editorial approach here is to treat the content as a collaborative project to make the most of it.
No problem. I personally just don't see or understand the point. 🤷♂️
I did think you argued that people should add a small comment on why they found the article interesting. Because that is what you wrote :P
That is essentially you showing an expectation for conversation starters.
Would be nice.
It's not really that there should always be a comment. The problem is all the articles from obscure blogs that get posted with titles that add context and my question is usually "why should I trust this to be an interesting article and not something that's going to hook me up to a botnet?"
I'm not sure if botnets are a big problem on Tildes. That would be more of a problem for @deimos and the mods to keep an eye on, rather than something you would have to be wary of.
That said, I had to Google "botnet" so I'm not the ideal person to be answering that.
Edit: I know that coming from Reddit your impulse is to be suspicious and try to correct these things by yourself, but understand that you only do that on Reddit because you know no one at the top really cares about the community. Longtime Tildes users simply trust that @deimos will do the right thing cause that's what he always does. Our role is to simply enjoy the site ;)
No, that's not why I would do that on reddit. Honestly, I never really did that in reddit. Either I knew it was obvious spam and I reported it or it was a popular post and the masses had already vetted it. I don't trust deimos on this--because I wouldn't trust anyone with that. All that Tildes sees is a URL. There's no way of knowing what is on the other side of that URL without following it.
If some random person walked up to you and said "eat this." You would at the very least ask what it is before putting it in your mouth. I'm not concerned about @boxer_dogs_dance posting a link to malware or a phishing site, for example, but I would be at least wary if I saw a link to media.ccc.de posted by @rmcs with the title "We Lost the War" (real example, all names have been changed to protect posters' identities).
To be clear, I don't expect posts to be malware, but that's just one option. Malware, a 75 minute video with alt right propaganda starting at 38 minutes in, etc. Some posts (very few) just don't give you any idea what you will get when you click the link.
Look, Tildes is simply not a website where these suspicions make any sense. At all. Your concerns are all theoretical. But you do you 🤷🏿♂️
It's also worth noting that Deimos was reddit's "anti-evil" (anti-spam / anti-abuse) admin for quite a number of years... And, besides creating Automoderator, another reason he got hired by reddit was because he had previously helped identify several major spam/astroturfing networks that had been operating on the site (e.g. GamePro, G4TV and VGChartz GamrFeed).
So I don't think we have to worry too much about spam/bot networks taking root here on Tildes with Deimos at the helm... Especially since invite only makes bans a lot more effective, and internal invite tracking makes identifying and uprooting networks of malicious actors a lot easier too. cc: @updawg
p.s. I was also quite active on /r/reportthespammers back in the day too, BTW. ;)
I almost never participate in any pure link threads because the internet on mobile is an ad infested hellhole and the hoops you have to jump through to read articles are insane.
So I don't even open threads that are just a link with no comments. It might also just be my imagination, but it also feels like more and more such threads happen, as opposed to text ones, which is contributing to me using tildes less and less.
I'm sorry you feel that way because in reality this level of skepticism is simply not needed on Tildes, as you'll probably notice through the continuous use of the website. I find it is best to judge the website on actual experience rather than extraneous fears.
I mean... my actual experience is that I am more and more running into links with no comments that I am unwilling to click on because they will be almost unreadable if not directly hostile (not saying this against the OPs, it's just that the internet in general, especially news and blogs are absolutely horrible with no adblocks).
Would you mind providing some examples of those posts so I better understand what you're talking about?
You can send me in private if you don't wish to embarrass the posters.
(I'm not a mod, just a user like yourself, but I am curious to understand).
Just look at the main page with no sorting on, I guess? It's worse if you go in specific groups that are more fit for articles, like ~misc or ~humanities.
That's not to say the articles are bad, it's just that so much of the internet is a massive pain on mobile. But I've been burned too many times by interesting articles that are just too much of a pain to read because ads that magically "appear" on the page as you scroll, or a banner that slowly unfolds from the bottom until it takes up half the screen, or stupid video ads that make the entire article jump several paragraphs... I just gave up. I'll sometimes bookmark and follow up when I'm at the PC, but not always.
I know it's bad for the authors of the articles (and very possibly illegal?) to just copy the article text... but I'd prefer that, heh. Hoping we'll eventually get a RES-style extension for tildes that allows for expandables for images and videos, at least
I am not a tech expert but I'm pretty sure you could get an ad blocker for your browser on mobile. I bet if you asked ~tech directly that users would be more than happy to share their favorite ad blockers.
I know it's possible, and it might be much easier now than it was when I last checked (when it needed a specific browser and a rooted phone and whatnot)... it's just extra hoops to go through
I have an adblocker on my mobile, installed by my husband so I didn't bother to find out which one.
I tried submitting with a question about the article, but often it's just me speaking to the void, or someone makes a new comment taking things in an entirely different direction.
Maybe that's what it's missing - if you post a link to an article then you should also have to write about why you're posting it, else it's just a dump and run. This would definitely give context of why that article would be worth reading, and if someone has spouted about "It's awesome because Joe did X and I believe Y would definitely have scored more brownie points" then you have a conversation going already.
Tildes is not karma based, but it almost feels as if some people post for that upvote count. Visually, it's nice to see, but I'd rather see a topic I start with "X replies or interactions."
this has been discussed previously (and in other, previous threads, but that was the most recent one)
as I said in that thread, I think this conversation is really a proxy for "I think this link is low-quality content".
if we did require "submission statements" (to borrow the /r/TrueReddit term for this), how would it work exactly?
should the site mechanics of Tildes change, to actually require someone fill out a "submission statement" comment box in addition to pasting the link URL and title? or is it just informally enforced?
if the perceived problem is a "dump and run" of link topics, what's to stop people from dumping & running even with a submission statement included? eg, is "I think this was an interesting article" a valid submission statement? (the likely end state of this is trying to enforce a word or character minimum on a submission statement...and then parsing submission statements to exclude quotes from the article in the count, because that's the obvious way to pad it...)
who polices "low-quality" submission statements? should there be a label akin to Malice, except for "this submission statement isn't good enough" that flags the topic for moderation? if it's a high-quality topic but with a low-quality submission statement, does it get treated differently than a low-quality topic with a low-quality submission statement? (as I said, I think the commenting or not doesn't matter, the real question here is about content quality)
Is this just the natural behavior of a newer social media / link aggregator site? I don't mind it. I think the Reddit subreddit style of having community specific moderators fostered a bit more engagement with the content. On Tildes are very rarely look at anything besides the front page. On reddit I rarely looked at the front page.
People who live in a physical small town socialize with their neighbors and coworkers who may not share their hobbies and still have a social life. So do regulars at a particular pub, or people who support the mission of a particular nonprofit.
I do find if I click into a group, I often find articles that I missed from the front page, so I am learning to do that. I really appreciate this nonprofit website. I think it has a unique mission and real potential as well as an established track record. I want to help it grow and help people enjoy it.
Being able to filter specific tags and groups is a great functionality for user experience, one of many built into the site. I really appreciate the design of Tildes, the more I use it the more I like it.
I only post topics that are questions meant to prompt discussion, but I've also only created posts a few times. Thinking of a unique, interesting conversation starter only happens once in a while, at least for me.
It's interesting that you mention that. Do you think it's fair to expect that on a regular basis? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the length of your post, but I feel like in general, quick/short questions are not as likely to get as many detailed, high effort responses. My discussion posts tend to involve me writing a time-consuming "article" of my own in the body, because it seems to help jumpstart the discussion or help clarify what type of discussion I'm hoping to have. I think if we only had posts like that, there wouldn't be enough content here. It takes time and effort to post unique, handcrafted content, and with only so many users to contribute, I think it's good that we have a variety of types of content.
Besides, plenty of article posts do get engagement, there are a number on the front page right now with dozens of comments each.
I wouldn't, personally. I like the specific community we have here, and the moderation style. Plus, I don't think of blog comment areas as being a particularly lively or enjoyable place to have discussions. Do you receive notifications about replies in a situation like that, so an ongoing discussion can actually happen? (I admit I've never commented directly on a blog, so I don't know how it normally works.)
I don't like discussing articles with random people (who are often assholes,) I like discussing with the people here. I'm here for the people and the particular culture we have here, whether that involves articles, or personal posts.
Ultimately, the only answer for "issues" like this is to be the change you'd like to see, as always. I see you do make those kinds of posts, so I guess I would just encourage you to continue. That's my favorite kind of content too. I haven't noticed a lack of it here, but that's just my perception.
I think something that's rubbing people the wrong way isn't necessarily that OP isn't engaging. It certainly adds to it, but I think for others including myself, it's reminisces of power users on Reddit, and how most of the content on major subs and the Front page as a whole was dominated by a handful of users who did nothing but post to Reddit all day for one reason or another.
I can't even really vocalize why it annoys me in particular. The content would get upvoted, and I would enjoy it, and same with the articles here. I appreciate the information being brought to my attention and reading about it, but that a lot of it gets posted by a handful of users makes it feel like an algorithmic ploy by some extra entity to make me feel a certain way about what's happening in the world. But it's not like Tildes has some rampant account-selling-for-advertising issue.
I think we talk about OPs who don't comment on the subject, when the reason being it's actually just a few people doing it a lot, because we're not sure how to rationally explain why it's irritating.
That's just how I feel about it anyways.
So I thought about this when I joined. On the one hand becoming too visible on a small site can be like doing a cannonball into a swimming pool in terms of annoyance. On the other hand, especially when I arrived it felt like the site needed more movement and more content . Just a personal judgement based on conditions at the time.
I honestly believe that if we had more members and more posts, the amount I use the site wouldn't be noticeable. I'm not here 24 7, I just pop in at intervals.
Is this asking about the lack of comments in reply to some posts? I feel it's just an inevitable part of social media. Maybe it wasn't posted at the right time to get the most active comments (Tildes encourages long for discussion so is more resilient. But I am still carefully when replying to comments/posts >2 days old), sometimes the topic is interesting but I don't have anything significant to say about it myself. (example. Not much to say but "good, fuck musk". Not really something Tildes encourages to respond with, however).
Some news does spark interesting discussion, so I don't mind being am aggregate to a minor degree. That's honestly what I search for most whenever I see some big update in an industry;
These make some new worth posting wholesale and leaving the community to discuss. But not every piece of news will do that.
Does feel like at times its an news aggregator with so many articles posted. Certainly a lot more since the whole Reddit situation blowing up and people moving away . imagine many have noticed. Prefer dialogue myself but some of the articles are interesting to me but personally other discussions interest me more.
I honestly have no issue with random articles being posted here and there. Some interest me and some do not. As a fair few have said, it's nice to be prompted to read different articles that are about something you had not known of before.
My main issue with these posts is that there are a fair few of them that require an account to keep track of free articles read and such. It's disappointing to find an article that sounds interesting to be prompted to throw yet another account to keep track of in the mix. I will forget the password and I will essentially have to go through what amounts to same amount of time to reset the password as would be to set up the account. If there were any requirement put on these posts, it's whether or not you'll need an account to read it mentioned in the title somewhere. I just simply don't use any article sites enough to warrant making one.
Granted I'm getting the hang of which ones use cookies and which ones use an account, but I tend to avoid actually reading the article and just gather the key points from the discussion, but that's just me.
If you mention that you are frustrated by a paywall, frequently someone will provide an archive link, which we are not allowed to do in the original post.
I am personally very frustrated by how many interesting articles require accounts. I pay for a couple of subscriptions but I can't assume that readers do. Also I can't afford as many subscriptions as I would like.
AFAIK, including an archive link as a comment when making a link topic is fine. I try to do it anytime I post a paywalled link.
the only thing that I know for sure is not allowed is "the article is paywalled, so I'm going to copy-paste the entire article text into a comment". that potentially opens Tildes up to copyright infringement claims.
this is one of the things Tildes' tagging system is great at - the paywall tag indicates it's behind a paywall of some kind (paywall.soft is typically used for "you can read X articles for free before creating an account" type things)
if you want to exclude those articles from appearing on your homepage by default, you can add them to your filtered tags.