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What's wrong with fluff?
I get that it doesn't spark conversation but couldn't someone who doesn't want that just not click on it?
I get that it doesn't spark conversation but couldn't someone who doesn't want that just not click on it?
On the opposite side, couldn't someone who does want that just go to a different site for it?
Tildes is (deliberately) never going to be as good for fluff as reddit/imgur/etc. already are. It's not going to have "card view" with expanded images, auto-playing GIFs, etc. There are already lots of sites good at that type of content, and I'm not trying to compete in that area.
I agree, but I also contend that fluff comes in different grades.
I'm a big fan of DIY electronics projects, and you could very easily say, for example, Simone Giertz's shitty robots are fluff. They produce very little deep discussion, they're just entertainment. They're legitimate DIY projects and you can learn about how she built them, but sometimes I really enjoy seeing a rube goldberg project of hers breaking up my news feed. Of course I could subscribe to her youtube channel, but that means if I have anything to discuss about it, I'll be having my discussion on youtube, with youtubers.
Another example might be my post about "Drone Sweaters". This is really a useless thing, an art project more than something practical or useful, and there wouldn't appear to be much you can discuss about it, but I appreciate it for its sheer absurdity, irrelevance, and uniqueness as a project. It could also spark discussions about knitting, yarn-bombing, drones, etc, but that's not even the point, imho. I think clicking the link and enjoying the content should stand on its own as a way to enjoy the site.
I for one want a link aggregation site backed by a strong community that encourages interesting discussions. The links to new and interesting content are what fosters discussion, and without bringing in new content from the rest of the web, people just talk about themselves.
Edit: And I don't think having a bit of high-grade, community-vetted fluff on the site from time to time will stop a thoughtful community from forming. After all, the first post on metafilter, a site many of us respect for its userbase, started with Matt posting a link to cat-scan.com, a site about putting cats in flatbed scanners.
Yeah, that's definitely true. We don't want to go all the way to "no fun allowed" either.
Even if it's difficult to define solidly, I think there's a pretty plain difference between posting something like a Simone Giertz video and posting a completely irrelevant reaction gif titled "MFW my robot doesn't work". I'm confident we can find a reasonable way to handle it.
I think in the case of beginning to allow "constructive fluff", so to speak, it makes more sense to approach it through a whitelist approach, rather than a blacklist approach. This allows us to block all of the stuff we don't want on Tildes by default, while still providing a way to see the stuff we do want. Neither the blacklist nor whitelist approach will be perfect from the very beginning, but at least whitelisting will make it easier to focus on including more valuable content as opposed to playing whack-a-mole with the less desirable stuff :)
Thanks for clearing that up :)
It overtakes the entire site, look at Reddit...
It overtakes the entire site, look at Reddit...
Sure, ignore the subreddits that do things like help people escape domestic violence situations, point people to the next step in legal matters, that help people quit addictions, that answer historical questions, that attempt (by request) to change people's views in a non-confrontational manner, and much more.
I don't deny that Reddit doesn't have a lot of cat pictures, memes, and otherwise. That's natural. Humans like to smile and laugh.
It doesn't mean that we also can't be serious.
I'm sorry if I appeared too extreme, it takes over a majority of the site.
While there are useful subs on reddit like you describe, they're no longer the majority. Reddit has a lot of great subs, but there's just so. much. shit. It's so easy for the fluff to take over a subreddit and drown out the useful discussion that larger subs have resorted to spin off discussion specific subs to help curb the problem. See: /r/makeupaddiction and /r/muacjdiscussion. The former is almost pure fluff, while the latter is strictly discussion only.
I'd say that's entirely on the users, since users choose to create subreddits, and users moderate subreddits.
The same users that will eventually come here.
However strong anti-fluff rules and giving longstanding members of communities more power should let us rebuff that group of users.
Rebuffing a large percentage of users - note just how popular Reddit is - can lead to giant echo chambers, with little interesting content.
I was around Voat when it started up, before it became a haven of intolerance. They too wanted to be selective. Today, it's a giant echo chamber.
Being or not being selective is not a dichotomy-- the outcome of being selective with users is also dependent on what's being selected for. In this case, users that can't discuss civilly, or don't produce meaningful discussion, are being selected against. If that leads to an echo chamber of ideas against fluff and flame-y content, I'm fine with that.
The front page of Tildes is pretty good indicator of the future content, unless those in control plan massive changes.
The following could be considered fluff:
There's a lot more examples if I scroll down.
I'd call these fluff because they're generally not serious topics, and they've already been discussed elsewhere on the internet ad naseum.
Is this the echo chamber that we want?
From my perspective, pretty much all "what's your favorite [something]?" topics (basically 4/6 of your examples) are fairly low-quality content. They're not awful or the sort of thing that I don't think should be allowed at all, but certainly not what I'd consider exemplary content either.
Really though, I think all we need is some sort of standard tag for that style of topic (maybe
askorsurveyor something similar), and the ability for people to filter it out easily. They're still enjoyable, and give people a place to discuss their favorite movies and such more casually, without it having to be linked to a piece of news or anything.I agree. By all means, discuss these things (and similar), but do it in a way that this type of content is easily filtered out.
That's the logical conclusion if the desired discourse is supposed to be serious/non-fluff/non-low effort.
Meaningful to some, yes, but nothing new. Google shows that these have been hashed out over and over and over and over. What makes them unique here? Nothing, to me. They're filler.
Then you'll be able to filter them out with the tagging system. I don't see a problem, honestly.
I don't think any of those are fluff. Topics don't have to be strictly serious to not be fluff; I consider the threshold to be whether or not there's any meaningful discussion to be had around them-- there's rarely anything substantive in the comments section of an r/funny or r/aww post, for example. That's what I consider fluff, and anecdotally, that's the general sentiment around here, as well.
I'll give you another example. There's meaningful discussion here I suppose, but most of the content is nothing new, because just as Reddit has covered this, so have many, many other forums. We didn't add anything unique.
Just more noise. Fluff.
https://tildes.net/~tech/166/favorite_linux_distro
Topics like this are.. disturbingly common.
I'm happy to be here to interact with people on serious topics, but what's the point of hashing out stuff that's already been thoroughly discussed and debated for years already?
How do you distinguish between what's "new" and what isn't? To someone who doesn't use Linux, a Linux distro discussion could be entirely novel. I do get your point, though, and once search functionality is added, I'd like to see a general attitude (if not a rule?) against blatant reposts, especially if replies to a reposted thread aren't context-dependent on current events. I just think that keeping the scope of originality restricted to the site itself would be preferable, logistically.
Google, for example.
And hundreds of those discussions can be found on Google.
Why should ours be special, and not be considered to be fluff?
You can find basically anything on Google. Rules around reposts would become more or less arbitrarily enforced at that point-- it'd grant far too much power to moderators. Ours shouldn't be considered special, but there're practical considerations to take into account when talking about unoriginal content.
Ok, so our reposts aren't special, they're just as good or just as bad as previous discussion elsewhere.
Now, why should our reposts not be considered to be fluff?
Pretty much every social media site declines in quality as they drown in reposts. I don't want that to happen here.
What do you mean? Did I say they shouldn't be? The incidence of reposts declines as the site exhausts unoriginal topics.
Not in those exact words, but yes.
"Ours shouldn't be considered special, but there're practical considerations to take into account when talking about unoriginal content."
Practical considerations? As in not removing something, even though it's fluff that's been discussed to death?
Yes, practical considerations like, say, not giving moderators the overwhelming ability to arbitrarily enforce a rule.
That's pretty much the definition of moderator's job: To enforce rules.
Yes, and it's the job of the community to ensure they're only given the tools and guidelines to enforce them responsibly. Your conception of "if it can be found on Google, it's a repost" lends itself to irresponsible moderation.
Then how are reposts to be determined? Social media sites do not thrive on constant reposts. They thrive on unique content, in all cases that I know of.
Now, sites like Reddit/Imgur/etc, reposts rotate every so often, but they also have significant quantities of new original content.
I have work in the morning, and so must put this on hold and get some sleep. Goodnight.
Honestly? I don't know. Perhaps users tagging a post as a repost, or as "noise," would be enough. Perhaps a set of guidelines need to be created that describe the qualities of repostable and non-repostable content (responses being dependent on current events, etc). But using Google as the criteria would essentially leave the decision up to moderator discretion; in other words, moderators would be allowed to remove posts at will under the guise of "reposts." It'd overshadow all other guidelines and etiquette placed on moderators.
Isn't that pretty much the job of a moderator? To use their discretion to keep a community focused and on topic, clearing out noise in general (which are what I would consider reposts as, aka fluff), disruptive elements, etc? I.e., to keep the "signal to noise"ratio high?
Yes, and it's also their job to abide by rules, so the community is aware of how and why they are being moderated. Having the aforementioned rule would essentially negate all others-- it'd give them a massive loophole to arbitrarily remove any post they don't like, for any hidden reason other than the given. Rules that are not defined clearly for both sides lead to decreased transparency and an increased disconnect between the two groups.
That may or may not be true, but since I have no empirical way to verify it, I can't accept it as fact.
I can show you almost identical topics from Google in different places, with substantially similar comments and views. To me, that means that nothing meaningful was added when they were discussed here.
As one that jumps out, there was a post here asking about people's sound equipment. In that discussion were people bashing Bose equipment. That's not a unique sentiment at all, and it added nothing to the discussion.
This is only one example among many.
Perhaps not, but most humans enjoy cute fluffy animals, and also enjoy smiling and laughing at them. There's a good reason that kind of content is so successful.
If something existing on the internet is the threshold for being "new," then there's nothing new to be had. Again, I think restricting the scope of originality to tildes.net would be the most streamlined possible solution, and it'd gradually drive up originality on the site as people post, rather than enforcing practically arbitrary rules around reposts.
And there's a good reason large sites exist to host that content-- the purpose of Tildes isn't to compete with them. They don't promote anything worth discussing, regardless of what your criteria for meaningful discussion is.
Even if the search to see if it were previously discussed and hashed out were only restricted to this site, the repost rate would rapidly increase as users join and post content. With reposts, quality declines, and eventually you have... Reddit 2.0.
Erm... how? The rate of "unoriginal" content would inevitably decrease as new posts are checked against older ones. Also, as a counterpoint to a strict no-reposts rule, look at Stackoverflow. The quality of the site has actually gone down over time, because every other post gets removed or locked for unoriginality by a moderator that seems to have read the entirety of the site. It's actually quite hard to discuss anything on there anymore.
Until it reaches a point of equilibrium, just as Stack Overflow did. At that point, reposts would again increase. Who likes rehashing the same stuff over and over?
It could be argued that removing reposts keeps the quality of the site higher. If I look for an answer, I don't want to have to look in tens or a hundred different duplicated questions on the site.
I'd be fine with this. There's a middle ground to be had with reposts, and taking the nuclear (StackOverflow) option is counter-intuitive to discussion. The other option is banning users from posting the majority of the time, unless it's for news or strictly current event-related topics. It'd kill the site.
Sure, if you think having Tildes turn into a glorified wiki would be healthy for discussion.
What you call reposts, I also call fluff, which I define as pointless content.
If Tildes goal is serious discourse, then it should find new original content that is not /r/aww levels of fluff or a repost.
Not a wiki exactly, but it's funny you should mention that, as Wikipedia has robust discussions around their entries.
That's entirely subjective. Personally, certain categories reposted topics elucidate new and interesting responses each time they're posted. And besides, this is remediable on an individual level through the tag system. If you don't like it, you can simply hide it.
I'm a decently active Wikipedia editor, and talk pages are not robust or accessible. Again, this would kill the site, probably through a combination of fragmentation and alienation. Lots of them (talk pages) tend to be uninteresting to read through, being both highly pedantic and highly technical. I don't think Tildes is aiming for that degree of ivory tower-esque exclusivity here. There's meaningful discussion, and then there's exclusive discussion. The latter is what StackOverflow and Wikipedia are aiming for-- the former is what Tildes is aiming for. By its somewhat democratic nature, Tildes cannot have overwhelmingly exclusive discussion. I think you're confusing an information-oriented site with one aimed at entertainment-- entertainment in the form of meaningful discussion, but entertainment nonetheless.
Can a discussion be "meaningful" if substantially similar points of view have already been posted elsewhere in similar discussions?
I say no. Once it's been said, the uniqueness that it brings to the discussion is gone.
Now, onto entertainment. If a meaningful discussion is something that you define as entertainment, as I quoted - Then what's to say that an animal lover - which describes a lot of people - could not equally say that a discussion that started because of a cute animal photo (more than just "Awww!", maybe an anecdote, or a discussion about the animal) isn't just as valid as entertainment?
Finally, I have work in the morning, so I'll need to table this until I'm available later. Goodnight.
No, but I think it's the opportunity for new viewpoints to be expressed that makes resposts (some of them, anyway) worthwhile. Many discussions tend to also be augmented by current events, even if they're not strictly pertinent to a current event, which encourages new viewpoints to be expressed.
No, you quoted me saying that meaningful discussion is a category in entertainment, not that entertainment is a category in meaningful discussion. A cute animal photo could be entertaining, and meaningful discussion could be entertaining-- this does not mean that a cute animal photo would be equivalent to meaningful discussion.
Good night, good talk!
I can agree with that.
I never suggested that just such a photo would be sufficient. I would consider any post that led with that to only be a meaningful discussion if the comments were more than "Awww!" or "So cute!", or variations thereof. If the comments were stories about the animal, especially if those stories led to increased understanding. For example, some people don't know that certain human foods are toxic to dogs, and I suspect that bringing that up in discussions about photos of cute dogs has saved the life of many dogs.
Right, but you want to encourage posts that have some discussion-provoking content within them, inherently. You don't want to allow posts that could provoke discussion as a coincidental byproduct, you want to encourage posts that will provoke discussion. I'd say the average r/aww thread with a photo of a dog is telling.
Let's just wait until we get the search option before we turn the site into a wiki...
Yes
So, you want Tildes to rehash old fluff content that's been discussed to death in other places on the internet already? None of that was serious in the least.
That applies to pretty everything I listed.
That sounds... boring.
I used to be an active participant in the religious debate subreddits until I got to the point where I was just saying the same things over and over again. However, the people I was saying those things to were continually changing - there were always new people joining the conversation. It's a variation on this idea that there's always someone learning something every day.
If you're going to block every single topic that has been discussed to death, then this is going to become purely a news site. If you want news, sign up to your preferred local news provider.
Sounds like a topic that would be ripe for people to Google and read about, especially since it's a common topic that been well hashed out before.
What would make our discussions about it any better, quality wise, than any of the hundreds of discussion search results already accessible via Google?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Even this discussion that we're having right now, about how all discussions are just re-hashing previous discussions, has been had before - and possibly better. Why don't we just stop?
If we follow your suggestion that this website should not host discussions which have been had before, that really does leave us with a news site. The only thing we can guarantee hasn't been discussed before is today's news.
Given the way you've phrased your comment, may I presume that you are admitting that reposts/rehashes of past discussions, no matter where they were held, or the similarity of their content, are a necessary evil?
That's what gets me. The stated goal of Tildes as I understand it is to essentially raise the level of the discourse, as compared to Reddit, where you might get a picture of a cute cat, comments like "Awww!" and nothing of real significance.
But if we allow blatant reposts/fluff/noise, then what real significance are we adding to it? If we can't add anything that hasn't already been said.. then why bring it up again?
You're twisting my words to make your point - which is a fair debating technique, even if flawed. I did not say, nor imply that rehashes are a necessary evil. They just are. It is impossible to prevent discussions being rehashed. And, to be honest, I don't really understand why you want to stop this. That approach means that, if Socrates ever said something, noone else in the rest of history can ever say the same thing - they should merely quote Socrates and leave well enough alone.
You're taking a very black-and-white-no-shades-of-grey approach to this topic.
Tildes is not trying to be the smartest, bestest, cleverest, originalest, internet forum ever. It's not Mensa. It's not a debating club. It's not a philosophy group. The goal is merely to prevent the worst content. Raising the level of discourse is a relative thing. Improving things from a C grade to a B grade is still an improvement, even if it doesn't attain perfection (according to your standards).
Fuck all. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. I suggest you delete your account now. Anything you ever want to say or think has probably been said or thought before - and possibly better. You should restrict your internet activity to using Google and reading Wikipedia, while we plebs indulge our need to talk about things that other people have already talked about.
There's a saying that goes something along the lines of "There's nothing new under the sun", but I'd rather discuss topics that have been discussed in the past, than see fluff that has been seen in the past (see reddit).
Except that these topics have already been discussed in the past, on Reddit and in many other places.
New stuff is created every day. For example, there is now a national discourse, started today or yesterday, caused by Trump saying that he could pardon himself. That's just one new things that invites serious discussion.
Sure, it came up during Nixon's term, but not only was that before my time, but we also didn't have such accessible platforms to discuss the issues on at that time. Newspapers of the time could not cover all opinions and discussions.
Whether Trump can pardon himself has come up in the past as well.
Are you suggesting those that do not want to see fluff can only be interested in discussing the news?
Can't there be a balance where those that don't want to see fluff can be interested in discussing topics that have been discussed by others in the past?
No, but tell me - If these things have essentially been discussed in many places on the internet over and over throughout the years, and are accessible via Google - What are we adding by rehashing these discussions yet again, with the same points of view already having been expressed by others? If we can't add anything substantial, then it's just more noise to join the almost identical Google results.
Good question, Google my answer.
I did, but all I got back was noise.
You can quote using > at the beginning of the quote.
Thanks.
Grief support too. There's some really good supportive subs on reddit.
I suspect the person you were replying to was exaggerating and likely referring to /r/all and /r/popular specifically. There are undoubtedly hundreds of useful subreddits like the ones you mentioned, but how often do they crack the top 100 posts on the site? I have a maximally filtered /r/all, yet I still only see /r/askhistorians on my personalized front page because it never gains enough traction for /r/all or /r/popular. CMV is somewhat of an exception though - I occasionally see it nearing the top of the site, but it's still an overwhelming minority among all the easily consumable content.
The way I see it, ~ needs to right that imbalance by not disadvantaging long-form content the way reddit does. It's not a problem right now with Activity and Newest sorts, but we'll have to reevaluate the default sorting once the site's growth makes them unfeasible.
Fluff dominates reddit's front page and is sometimes used for karma building for shills or people who want to sell accounts. My opinion is the fluff on r/all obscures users from relevant subs, which isn't conducive to creating quality content. Additionally, there are far too many subs, a terrible search function and no subreddit index that I know of / is readily accessible, so users aren't set up to contribute quality material.
I think that we're quickly running into the issue of "fluff" meaning something different to everyone. With over 2700 people on Tildes, I guess it isn't surprising that this is coming up a lot right now. I think it's becoming apparent that the people who are here are interested in different kinds of content, but I'm still not seeing what I would consider to be the obvious noise that dominates the top-voted posts on Reddit.
I've noticed this as well. It makes sense - we all have expectations from this site, and it would be really odd for all of us to expect the same things.
I honestly don't see anything wrong with fluff being contained in one subtilde.
The only potential problem I see with having e.g. ~fluff vs other main groups/tildes is that it could grow as large as
alt.vs the Big 8 topics on Usenet.I originally know the term from this post: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
I don't know if there's something that predates it, though.
I don't really understand this either. This seems like a false dichotomy. You can have both, even with Reddit, it doesn't have to be either-or.
Certain subreddits cater heavily to "fluff" and others are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Many subreddits cater to a specific topic and don't concern themselves with the type of content, which naturally results in a majority of "fluff" and a minority of everything else which tends to have peaks and valleys while fluff stays consistent. I don't see this as a problem, but rather, just an observation. With certain topics, there's just not that much highly engaging discussion to be had most of the time.
If you desire more engaging content and less fluff, then you have the tools to do so. Subscribe to subreddits you like, and unsubscribe from those you don't. Don't browse only the home page, but drill into specific subreddits first, and then swap to the home page afterwards to quickly scan more widely appealing posts.
Going for the Hat Trick on this today.
As long as we avoid memes, overused memes, competing memes, meta memes, circlejerking memes and deep fried memes we should be good.
The problem is that it drowns out and makes it harder to find anything else.
Fluff is driven by ad content. When you drill down the content of a post into an image macro or a one-line joke, you can drive up a relatively massive ratio of ad:content:time, maybe 1 ad view per minute. Whereas a discussion where you're there reading for a few minutes, thinking, commenting, replying to another chain, etc. you're going to get maybe 1 ad per 15 minutes or even less. Now, Tildes doesn't have any ads at all. It doesn't need to drive fluff - as such, it is viable to ban fluff here where it wouldn't be on those other sites.
The real problem I have with having fluff on Tildes at all comes from site demographics and the scarcity principle. Tildes has limited (i.e. scarce) development time available to it, whether it's 1 hour or 100,000 is irrelevant. In addition, certain design choices will be better for one side or another. If 100% of content on Tildes is non-fluff, and 0% is fluff, then 100% of the users will be here for non-fluff, and so 100% of the choices and dev time will be spent making the site better for non-fluff. If it is 50:50 or something, design choices might be made that make the site better overall, but less good for non-fluff. Dev time will be taken from non-fluff to support the fluff. And there will be users clamoring for changes to support the fluff content.
This is why the 'don't click on it' argument is bullshit. Ban the fluff. All the fluff. Send it to Reddit where it can continue to divert resources and decision-making into turning that site more towards the shitty direction it has been heading.
Could someone define fluff for me or give me an example? I am having a hard time figuring out what it means.
Basically, "quick entertainment" content that doesn't really have any significant informational or discussion value. Cute animal photos, funny gifs, memes, jokes, etc. Things you can just skim through quickly.
I think a decent definition would be this post that appeared today, which seems to have provoked some backlash/discussion - https://tildes.net/~talk/1mc/help_trapped_in_one_day_time_loop
Some might call it fluff, but others might not.
Yeah this is a tough one, and I see both sides of it. I do think that once image posts became easy, it really did change reddit quite a lot. But some pretty awesome communities have sprouted out due to "shitposting"... trollxchromosomes is a place that has a unique and interesting community, built around shitposts.
I totally get what is trying to be done here, and I appreciate it. I do worry sometimes that attempting to be too "highbrow" can end up alienating a lot of folks, and can end up being a site that takes itself a bit too seriously to keep people's interest.
Sorry I stopped following the first topic about this when it become quite big and everyone was just repeating the same thing (at least it appeared to me) but... didn't we agreed that the most reasonable solution would have been to put "fluff" in the suggested tags when you create a new topic and assign less weight to topic with the fluff tag so that they wouldn't overtake more interesting discussion?
Of course this relies on being able to educate/punish those who don't properly use the tag for those content.