13 votes

How does/will subscription work with sub~s? How do you think it should work?

Posted by not
Tags: votes, subtildes

Currently, I am e.g. subscribed to ~tildes.official and ~tildes. That gives me a number of questions:

  • if you subscribe to a tilde, do automatically you see content from sub-tildes?
  • if you subscribe to a tilde and a sub-tilde, does it have any effect? Intuitively, I'd expect the subtildes content to be shown more, even if it's not as highly voted.
  • What about a reverse-subscription/blacklist?

Just some thoughts, I'm curious what the status quo is and what you people think might make sense.

17 comments

  1. Deimos
    Link
    The way it works for now is that if you subscribe to a group, you see all the content from sub-groups as well. We only have the single sub-group currently, so this isn't very important yet. In the...

    The way it works for now is that if you subscribe to a group, you see all the content from sub-groups as well. We only have the single sub-group currently, so this isn't very important yet.

    In the future, there will be a lot of flexibility. This might be overly technical, but the groups are stored in postgresql using the ltree datatype. There are a few examples on that page of how flexible the queries against these can be, but to pull the main (and kinda overcomplicated) one out, it supports even doing things to this level:

    Top.*{0,2}.sport*@.!football|tennis.Russ*|Spain
1.  2.     3.      4.               5.

    This query will match any label path that:

    1. begins with the label "Top"
    2. and next has zero to two labels before
    3. a label beginning with the case-insensitive prefix "sport"
    4. then a label not matching "football" nor "tennis"
    5. and then ends with a label beginning with "Russ" or exactly matching "Spain".
    8 votes
  3. [3]
    vakieh
    Link
    I'd like to see more thought put into the ideas that drove multi-reddits and similar combinations. Right now it's pretty easy to see all the tildes content, since there isn't much yet. But later...

    I'd like to see more thought put into the ideas that drove multi-reddits and similar combinations. Right now it's pretty easy to see all the tildes content, since there isn't much yet. But later I'd like to see the ability to create tabbed 'views' on your homepage, and you can categorise your subscriptions as appropriate.

    So I might categorise (via tagging, rather than foldering) things as news, games, myHobby, serious, jokes, etc. And then you can get a Spotify-esque 'here's a tilde you might like to add to your news tab' and so on.

    There's just so much Reddit content I miss in the noise, and I often have Reddit 'moods' where I'll skip over different sorts of content that I'd like the feed to support.

    1 vote
    1. [2]
      not
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I think that the ~es should really solve this hierarchy problem, not a per-user sorting. A view that shows you e.g. ~sports, but only the ~sports.* subtildes you have subscribed to, might be a...

      I think that the ~es should really solve this hierarchy problem, not a per-user sorting. A view that shows you e.g. ~sports, but only the ~sports.* subtildes you have subscribed to, might be a useful thing to have.

      2 votes
      1. vakieh
        Link Parent
        But that ignores the cross-tilde grouping that makes more sense for me. There's a hierarchy, sure, but in any hierarchy there are at least 2 dimensions you can break things down on. You can have...

        But that ignores the cross-tilde grouping that makes more sense for me. There's a hierarchy, sure, but in any hierarchy there are at least 2 dimensions you can break things down on. You can have 'theme', and 'sub'-'theme', or you can have 'sub', and 'theme'-'sub'. Take geography and sports, for example. The Australian Cricket subtilde might be ~geo.australia.cricket, or it might be ~sport.cricket.australia. Chances are pretty good both of those will end up existing. Do you have then actually link to the same tilde? (Which causes all sorts of issues with trust bubbling up and moderation, etc). What if I want to make a themed tab where I see all Australian sports? I would need to capture ~geo.australia.sports and ~sports.*.australia (wildcard tagging would be the bomb if @Deimos is listening).

        That isn't reasonable to expect the site to manage - it would be a user centric thing.

        2 votes
  4. [2]
    JuanPotato
    Link
    I like the idea of subbing to a ~tilde automatically subbing you for everything within it. It only makes sense. If you like ~sports, you want to see stuff about football and soccer, not just...

    I like the idea of subbing to a ~tilde automatically subbing you for everything within it. It only makes sense. If you like ~sports, you want to see stuff about football and soccer, not just topics that concern no specific sport. You should be able to block certain subs.

    1 vote
    1. ZaphodBeebblebrox
      Link Parent
      You see the top posts as from the subgroups as they bubble up already. So subbing to ~sports will give you the good content from those sub~s. The reason the sub~s were created in the first place...

      You see the top posts as from the subgroups as they bubble up already. So subbing to ~sports will give you the good content from those sub~s. The reason the sub~s were created in the first place was because there was too much content about that particular topic in the more generic ~.

      2 votes
  5. [3]
    elf
    Link
    This is somewhat off topic, but is there a plan to have a root ~all group, so that the group graph is a tree rather than a forest? So then stuff like ~books would also be ~all.books (and ~tildes...

    This is somewhat off topic, but is there a plan to have a root ~all group, so that the group graph is a tree rather than a forest? So then stuff like ~books would also be ~all.books (and ~tildes would also be ~all.tildes). New users could start off just subscribed to ~all, and would be able to find all the other communities from there.
    @deimos, I guess (also, is he able to see his mentions?).

    1 vote
    1. Deimos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      No, I just read almost everything. I commented on a similar topic earlier, but when we get larger I don't really like the concept of "all" in general (or subscribing people to everything, which is...

      @deimos, I guess (also, is he able to see his mentions?).

      No, I just read almost everything.

      I commented on a similar topic earlier, but when we get larger I don't really like the concept of "all" in general (or subscribing people to everything, which is effectively similar). I think it's harmful to communities to always put them in front of people that haven't specifically expressed interest in the topic.

      That's why so many subreddits exclude themselves from /r/all on reddit, the visitors that come from there tend to do a lot of damage to quality and culture because they don't really have any understanding of the community they're coming into.

      8 votes
    2. not
      Link Parent
      I think having two urls is just bound to cause confusion. However, if the "symbolic link" (sub~ that don't actually contain any posts, but point to another ~) idea goes through, it might be...

      I think having two urls is just bound to cause confusion. However, if the "symbolic link" (sub~ that don't actually contain any posts, but point to another ~) idea goes through, it might be possible to create a ~all tilde that behaves like this.

      However, I'm not sure it will be useful. Ideally, the list of top-level tildes would be low, making this not as necessary as on sites like reddit.

      1 vote
  6. [7]
    debate_irl
    Link
    I have no idea what the status quo is for this. I don't love the blacklist idea though. What if the only sport I like is college football, for example, and I don't want to see any other sports...

    I have no idea what the status quo is for this. I don't love the blacklist idea though. What if the only sport I like is college football, for example, and I don't want to see any other sports content? I can't blacklist sports as a whole, so I'd have to individually block each sub-tildes individually, except football, then each sub-tildes for that except for college football. What if I only want news about my team? I'd have to blacklist each other team's sub-tildes. It's a lot of work for just one sub-tildes. I think as a rule, there's a lot fewer content users are interested in than content that exists. I still think there should be a way to block sub-tildes, though.

    1. [4]
      ZaphodBeebblebrox
      Link Parent
      I think for that you could subscribe to ~sports.football. Its already similar for announcements, where if your subscribed to ~tildes.offical but not ~tildes you the only ~tildes content you see is...

      I think for that you could subscribe to ~sports.football. Its already similar for announcements, where if your subscribed to ~tildes.offical but not ~tildes you the only ~tildes content you see is from ~tildes.offical.

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Ooh. "~sports.football" is going to be a very controversial label given how many different codes around the world call themselves "football"! We're going to have to differentiate:...

        you could subscribe to ~sports.football.

        Ooh. "~sports.football" is going to be a very controversial label given how many different codes around the world call themselves "football"!

        We're going to have to differentiate:

        Or we could just skip "football" entirely, in favour of more specific labels:

        3 votes
        1. ZaphodBeebblebrox
          Link Parent
          That would probably be better. Unnecessary controversy over the names of groups would be such a dumb way to hurt ~.

          That would probably be better. Unnecessary controversy over the names of groups would be such a dumb way to hurt ~.

          3 votes
      2. debate_irl
        Link Parent
        Oh, I think I misunderstood OP then. I had thought they were recommending the blacklist as the only method of personal content aggregation. Sorry, my mistake!

        Oh, I think I misunderstood OP then. I had thought they were recommending the blacklist as the only method of personal content aggregation. Sorry, my mistake!

    2. [2]
      not
      Link Parent
      I don't see this problem. If you only like college football, subscribe to ~sports.football.college. The blocking was more meant for the reverse case, e.g. that you like say sports, but really...

      I don't see this problem. If you only like college football, subscribe to ~sports.football.college.

      The blocking was more meant for the reverse case, e.g. that you like say sports, but really really hated American football. In that case, you could subscribe to ~sports and blacklist ~sports.football.

      2 votes
      1. debate_irl
        Link Parent
        Oh, I think I misunderstood OP then. I had thought they were recommending the blacklist as the only method of personal content aggregation. Sorry, my mistake!

        Oh, I think I misunderstood OP then. I had thought they were recommending the blacklist as the only method of personal content aggregation. Sorry, my mistake!

        1 vote