Interest in a new Tildes /~group?, ~electronics or perhaps ~makers?
This is a community I've missed since leaving Reddit, but I didn't expect to find or create such a /~group here given Tildes is a much smaller community (I figured, statistically, there wouldn't be enough users with overlapping interests in Right to Repair / Electronics / 3D Printing / Makerspace / etc... for such a community to be present or to naturally form here.
With the recent post asking for advice on a soldering station, and the number of users that participated in that discussion, I've been rethinking those assumptions of 'not enough users / not enough interest'. Then I further reflected on the significant number of people we have here that have fluently discussed other technical areas such as Linux, Programming, servers / Homelab topics and I realize upon reflection that a fair many of our users here are pretty high on tech literacy...
So, as a prelude to requesting a new group like /~electronics or /~makers or some group name along that philosophical theme, I wanted to ask the community at large first as to how much interest there might be in this.
Do you, dear reader, have an interest in electronics repair? In a garage workshop or other space at home where you fix or build things? Makerspace topics like 3D printing? Right to Repair law? If you want to know how to replace your cell phone screen, or ask about soldering or Raspberry Pi or Arduino, are you interested in having a place here on Tildes specifically for these things? Please, if you have such interests, let's discuss here.
Pinging those who participated in the soldering discussion:
@AugustusFerdinand @PraiseTheSoup @teaearlgraycold @Banazir @chocobean @elight @Plik @lynxy @Akir @TheD00d @pallas @ShroudedScribe @em-dash @luks @Tannhauser @kmcgurty1
No. There's no point in creating even more subcommunities when there aren't enough people to be active.
~hobbies has only gotten 9 posts in the last 3 months, just use that.
I agree with this. Honestly, i forgot there was a ~hobbies. Maybe we should have more of an initiative to make it more active and post more? @Hobofarmer mentioned crochet and knitting, and I think that ~hobbies would be a good catch-all for both crafts and electronics.
Could we split the difference with ~hobbies.makers, as sort of a suggestion on how to use that space?
This would be alright. This thread has certainly inspired me to try and be more active in posting what I create, but I feel bad about just dumping things here like "BEHOLD! My stuff."
Is that not the goal?
Seconded. If it's not being used then adding more isn't going to change things. I personally don't know how to use tags/haven't used tags in the Three Cheers app and I'm likely not the only one.
Maybe it's a communications blitz about how tags works? Which ones have the most activity?
In case I'm remembering correctly: I think I may have read that mentioning a username in a comment does notify the user, but mentioning them in the topic of a post does not? I think I remember reading that...
Copying my ping for those users here. My apologies if this is redundant.
Pinging those who participated in the soldering discussion:
@AugustusFerdinand @PraiseTheSoup @teaearlgraycold @Banazir @chocobean @elight @Plik @lynxy @Akir @TheD00d @pallas @ShroudedScribe @em-dash @luks @Tannhauser @kmcgurty1
I received my ping! thank you l_one :D
I would be interested in seeing more of this kind of content. It does seem like it would have a large amount of overlap with the existing ~hobbies though.
I would argue that ~hobbies is more about a general landscape of "things we do to entertain ourselves" while ~makers would narrow that focus to "things we create to entertain ourselves". I feel the strongest overlap might be with ~creative. Frankly, I believe there to be enough nuance between ~creative and ~makers that it's worthwhile to have both.
For me, one of the distinctions between Reddit and Tildes is that subreddits seem to be used to whitelist content (I only want to read about XYZ therefore I’ll create/join the XYZ subreddit) whereas Tildes seems to be much more about blacklisting content (I don’t want to know about global news, so therefore I’ll hide the ~news tilde)
In a subreddit structure I agree that nuance between topics is the consideration, but under the tildes structure I believe new categories are only relevant to divide an overwhelming amount of content into bite size pieces.
If ~hobbies or ~creative aren’t flooding their respective domains with too many posts, then I don’t see a need to subdivide further.
Wouldn't a focus mean a subgroup rather than a separate group? I guess I'm just struggling to think of a post that would fit into makers without fitting into hobbies or creative already. I do want to see more content in this space as it does interest me, but I just don't see where the dividing line is personally. If I were to build something for fun it's a hobby but if it's because I want the end product it's making?
It also seems like it's maybe more about the specific skills used, which confuses me further. Like why would quilting and woodworking projects be together in one place, but similar projects with electronics be in a different place?
I have personally had, and helped others with, situations in the 'makerspace' area so to speak, that wouldn't exactly fit under a hobby, or under creative.
Example: some of what I do with electronics repair is my job - I buy from industrial auctions, repair, and then sell on eBay and Craigslist. While that would go under the category of using 'maker' skills, I don't think I'd label it as either a hobby or a creative work - at least for that example - it would be more in line with a profession that uses maker skills.
Now, I fully recognize that is just one example, and there absolutely will be other examples that fit perfectly into either the 'hobby' space, or the 'creative' space (or both at the same time) - but to me it feels like the Venn diagram of 'maker' activities and interests isn't limited to the philosophical space of a hobby when you take professional use-cases into account, and when looking at repair (as in, my cell phone screen broke and I can't afford / don't want to pay for a new phone so I'd like to repair it) - that also doesn't feel like 'hobby' or 'creative' to me, so much as... hmm... wanting to be able to maintain instead of replace? Wanting to not be wasteful (in the literal produce-waste sense) when one can instead fix? Wanting to save money? (or all of the above)
I apologize for the stream of consciousness there - I'm just tying to put what I'm feeling on this topic into words.
I do understand what you mean. I do think that your same examples could be used for other niches that probably shouldn't all get top level groups though. Someone could be performing those same actions of buy, fix, resell with non-electronics. Or even just taking commissions. Those can both exit feeling like hobbies or creativity even if they're being done with sewing, woodwork, homebrewing, and more.
I am personally quite interested in the making space and want to learn more. I'm a bit skeptical that another group would really drive the conversation though.
I kind of hate to suggest this, as it feels like a bit of a cop out, but have we considered recurring posts? Kind of like the one in ~comp, but with a focus on tangible things? There's a psychological thing, at least for me, that goes beyond the groups. For whatever reason I can't see myself making a topic that brags about a personal project or tries to leverage this community as a help resource, but that barrier is not present for putting a comment instead.
While I don't encounter mental blocks for the same reasons, I do experience them so I think I understand. For me it is more often when I need to do something but that something is uninteresting to me.
I suspect that I'm not alone in that feeling. A quick glance at ~comp over the last week-ish around half the activity is in the recurring topic. I know for me personally I just sometimes don't feel like something I want to say "deserves" to be a topic. That it is either too self-promotiony (ex. wanting to show off a thing I made) or too small to feel like it would generate the amount of discussion I'd like to get out of a topic.
As a random concrete example, some months back I started homebrewing. After a few reasonably successful batches of alcoholic beverages I decided I wanted to try something a little different: a ginger beer. I did find some recipes guides online and so had stuff to follow, but things weren't exactly going wonderfully. I did consider asking around here if anyone else had tried it, but "I'm trying to make ginger beer and my results are not quite what I've expected. Any other homebrewers have advice?" just didn't feel like enough to be a standalone topic in my mind. Like I should be bringing more to the discussion if I want it to show up at the top of most people's feeds.
Please post the cool stuff you make. Doesn't matter how big or small. If you're proud of it, post it! I want to see it! Lots of other people on Tildes want to see it too!
It is enough.
I'm quite into the idea of a recurring post in ~creative (I prefer that over ~hobbies because plenty of my creative output is in a professional context).
"What's something you've made this week?" is just the kind of topic which might remind me to post. Also the smaller things - for example, this week I made a couple of small, simple, but pleasing tools - which don't deserve their own post but would sit happily in a recurring post. More engagement, more posts - and then perhaps more categorisation down the line.
I definitely don't think there's scope for a ~makers or even ~creative.makers yet (also I hate the term 'maker' but that's just me). I tend to think we should get the posts first, the group/subgroup comes once there's need for it.
There already is a reoccurring post in ~creative. However, I feel like having a broader scope might be useful to include other types of making. I modified my Ikea nightstands over the past two months to have a wooden drawer instead of just a void that we placed plastic bins in. However, I do not feel like it was creative enough to warrant putting it in the reoccuring ~creative thread
Fair enough, and to that I would add that there is lots of stuff I create which I wouldn't consider a project, which is the wording of the recurring post. I make lots of things but It's not often far too small scale to be a project. I never feel like I have much to share on that post because either my "projects" are too tiny to be worthy of the name, or they've been ongoing very slowly for many months (sometimes years).
Also, I want to see your modded nightstands!
I just posted about the nightstands in a different topic
Hmm, ok, so we have some favoring a sub-tilde (is that the correct term?) under ~creative, and some favoring ~makers be its own thing.
I find myself in favor of ~makers being it's own area, but I'm not zealous in my preference.
This probably depends greatly on what, specifically, you make. Even within the narrower category of electronics, I wouldn't classify most of my electronics stuff as "creative" in the way people normally use that word, but I know several people who absolutely do creative/artsy electronics.
I'd probably go for ~hobbies if it ever occurred to me to post things.
edǐt: wait I forgot ~creative.timasomo was where it is. Maybe I'm reading the word more narrowly than others do?
I suggest ~creative.makers or ~design.makers. I prefer the former; ~creative seems a better match for a superset of makers.
Ninja Edit: I don’t think makers is enough of its own “category” to justify a new tilde ~makers.
Oh. I wasn't thinking about the possibility of a sub-category, but I don't have any particular objection.
I would appreciate a makers space. I enjoy knitting and crochet as a hobby but I don't know if any other groups really encompass that here? It would be nice to have a general ~makers group to post to.
This is an amusing coincidence for me. My girlfriend does the same as a hobby - she has a giant semi-color-coded wall-o-yarn. I just asked her if I could share and she said go ahead.
While it wouldn't go under the more narrow ~Electronics, things like this are why I was wondering about a broader ~Makers - it wouldn't be as narrow, but we would have more users interested in participating.
I will admit, I had not thought of knitting / crochet - but it would absolutely fit with a potential ~Makers.
THIS IS SO COOL!!!
Thank you for sharing, and from one crafter to another, it's amazing. Makes my shelf of shame look positively drab, ha!
I'll let her know you squee'd over it, I'm sure it will put a smile on her face.
Edit: she did indeed get a kick out of it. She said to let you know she found the idea on the internet from this 'Knits for Life' site.
I would agree that shifting towards a broader makers instead of electronics would be beneficial. Electronics would be too narrow of a scope, and has some overlap with ~comp and ~tech. But part of my opinion on that is that I am more of a generalist than a specialist (curse you ADHD and not sticking with the same hobby), so sometimes what I create is electronics, but other times it is a woodworking project or knitting. Opening the scope allows for people of different disciplines to contribute, which increases overall engagement instead of having it become a topic that rarely gets contributions
ooooooh *applause
is that a sword on the top? Protection for the yarn creatures yet to emerge? And protection for denizens of the fish tank to the left? :D
I think it may be for 'emergency dragon-slaying'. She has a pet Bearded Dragon - it is the laziest being I have ever seen. That's what is in the tank to the left.
I would love something for electronics and/or the makerspace for 3d printing. Things I like to do in my spare time.
Sweet! There are more of us. Hail and well met fellow electronics nerd.
I am in agreement- though I do worry about how much engagement it would get. Even so, this is one of the larger pushes I've seen on this site to introduce a category to the tags, and there's no real overhead to doing so.
And probably even more who have a theoretical interest but have never done it/have no time anymore for it!
Regardless of where it sits, I'm looking forward seeing more discussion about electronics, 3d printing, maybe even woodworking.
Someone suggested a recurring what are you making thread in ~hobbies or ~creative to get over people's reluctance to make top level posts
Yay, there are more of us!
Even if we don't end up creating a new /~group, it makes me really happy to see that there are more people than I knew about here with these interests.
Indeed. It's really inspired me to try and share some works!
I'd consider myself maker/tinkerer/electronics enthusiast and thia group would suit me well. But I don't actually need it, as others said, there is ~hobbies already and that seems just fine.
Spin-off question - would post with my creation with the only intent of showing it to other people be welcome? It could contain some more detailed explanation in what is going on, how it was made, but not really as "discussion first". I suppose discussion will likely start anyway with things like "Wouldn't this do better?" or "Is it possible to use this instead of that?" and so on. But the OP would still be just "Look what I made".
I think this goes a bit against the unspoken rules here. Also there is weekly thread for this kind of things, but sometimes the thing is bigger and it would be shame to bury it in wuch thread (or maybe it wouldn't, who can say?). So I'm asking if it would bepossible to make such posts. What do you think?
I agree that on larger projects it might be good to change the culture/rules maybe in ~hobbies only to allow for standalone showcase posts. Especially for personal projects where the poster did it because they wanted to, and they are not trying to scale up and create a business or a larger online presence. I don't always click on the reoccurring ~creative posts because sometimes the projects posted there are not something I am interested in, but I am probably missing some projects I am interested in because I rarely click on those posts. With a standalone showcase post for a larger project, it is more likely that I engage with that post. I do feel like it would need to be a certain size to be a showcase post, something like knitted socks do not feel like they warrant their own post (knitters do not get mad at me, I do know how hard socks are to knit as I have done several pairs) whereas if you designed your own pattern for a knitted sweater, to me that feels like it would warrant a standalone showcase post.
+1. Niche topic and one I'm into.