Just another first impressions/suggestions post
TL;DR: First impressions and suggestions: infinite scrolling; comment box position; collapse comment button too small; comment previews; vote button position; search function; expandable images/videos; remembering collapsed comments; spoiler tags; saving comments/posts; ninja edit; and keyboard hotkeys. Really enjoying my time here! Tildes has been growing on me.
Been browsing the website for a couple of days now and wanted to give my first impressions. To begin with I wanna say I'm enjoying Tildes a lot. At first I thought it was a cool idea, but thought I wouldn't really get into it too much since I'm quite fond of mindlessly browsing Reddit for simple funny content. This being more discussion oriented didn't really fit my usage. Turns out I was wrong lol Of course I had to force myself to use the website initially, but I quickly started browsing Tildes naturally and participating in threads and discussions. While I still browse Reddit, I've been coming over to Tildes whenever I can pay a little bit more attention to what I'm reading. Anyways, without further ado, here are my observations as far as features go:
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First thing I noticed was the lack of infinite scrolling (having to click "next" to go to the next page).
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As I found my way to the introductions post, I came across the comment box position problem, which has been discussed at length.
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Browsing through the comments, I found that the button to collapse comments is too small. I think extending it vertically so that you can click anywhere on the left side of the comment to hide it would be ideal. Many subreddits have done that and it works great. Here's an example from /r/Overwatch (you can click anywhere on the yellow area to hide the first comment).
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I also think a comment preview would be really useful and I've seen some other posts about it too.
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Here's a potentially controversial one: a more obvious vote button. As I browsed more, I got to read more about the intentions behind Tildes and where its efforts are, so I can see how this would go against the general mindset of not turning this into a high score game. That said, this is a first impressions post and so it deserves mentioning.
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Obligatory search function mention. I know everyone is aware of this, I'm just going through my list.
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Another controversial one: expandable images/videos. I've read the discussions about it and I'm aware of the Reddit-ifying potential. With that said, I wanna play the devil's advocate here and say that images/videos are not necessarily low quality shitposts (case in point, the image I linked above to illustrate a suggestion). They are bound to be used and linked anywhere on the internet and I think this is a reasonable feature to have. In my mind, it's not the use of silly images that make a community low-effort, but the other way around. With the mindset we have here, I'd argue that images and videos would probably be used "appropriately".
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Eventually, when I went back to threads I had already visited, I noticed the comments were all expanded again. Remembering hidden comments is something I consider really important, even more on a discussion focused board where you often go back to old threads to keep the conversation going.
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I might have missed this one, but spoiler tags are definitely needed. I tried poking around to see if Markdown had built in spoiler tags, but I didn't find anything. If this already exists and I just overlooked it, I'm sorry.
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Another important feature for me is saving posts and comments for future reference.
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Pretty minor, but having a "ninja edit" feature would be nice. A grace period after submitting a post/comment where you can edit it without it being tagged as edited. This is useful for correcting typos or when you immediately change your mind about the wording of your post.
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Another minor one would be keyboard hotkeys. I use RES hotkeys all the time to browse Reddit. Voting (which might not be particularly desirable here), hiding comments, expanding images (not very relevant unless this gets implemented), saving posts/comments (damn, none of these are relevant with the website as is) are all great to have mapped to the keyboard.
This ended up being a longer post than I expected. To finish things off, I'd like to say I'm really glad someone is willing to put time and effort into this. I like the ideals behind Tildes, the privacy concerns and the non-profit choice. If this takes half as much of my free time as Reddit used to, I'll definitely drop a donation!
I understand this is a first impressions post, so apologies ahead of time if I come off too harshly as that is not my intent, but I still want to address all the issues you brought up, even the ones you're already aware have been discussed previously.
Infinite scrolling doesn't really work with activity sort and likely won't with other sorts that get added eventually either. It can also get pretty resource intensive for browsers which is something that should be avoided if possible. Will it be a feature at some point? Possibly, but it will probably require a lot more thinking and debating about before @deimos makes any decisions regarding it, since one of the core principles of ~ is thoughtful decisions regarding site mechanics and features.
Just because reddit or RES has something doesn't mean it should be on ~. Just because something is convenient doesn't mean it's worthwhile, especially if it can have a significant negative effect on the culture of the site... which is why expandos for images/video is unlikely to ever happen.
Comment box position isn't likely to change as default for that exact reason either, however there was discussion about potentially allowing it to be moved to the top for very specific cases, like the Intro topic.
Small UI issues (unless they are egregious) are unlikely to be adjusted any time soon as @deimos has other things to focus on but once the site is opensource they are likely to be amongst the first things to be addressed. I will probably be focusing a lot on getting the mobile responsive design up to snuff, in particular.
Comment preview is already in gitlab issues. So it's coming eventually. As is search... in fact that one's already in progress. As is remembering comment collapse. As are spoiler tags. As is a save function. Check out the gitlab board or issues page for more.
Ninja edit already exists for comments. IIRC it's set to 1 minute. Trusted users (and OP) being able to edit titles will be a feature of the site eventually as well. Some basic action auditing (so abusers can be punished) just needs to be in place first.
Keyboard hotkeys is something I use on reddit with RES too and I'm sure it's definitely a possibility here. But it's pretty low priority, IMO. This is an alpha and there are much more important features that need to be added first.
I struggle to understand the opposition to expanding images and videos inline, or why there is an assumption that it's just copying reddit. There is a significant body of quality content that is purely image of video based, content that I think many people would appreciate in a link aggregator focused on more in-depth discussion and inline expansion of that kind of media is a much better user experience than being redirected away.
If the culture of the site is negatively affected by the ability to expand links inline instead of browsing away from the page, it would seem like there is a bigger issue there that is not being addressed. If the concern is about the quality of the content, I don't see how making it more inconvenient for users in any way resolves that.
The concern is with how gif and image posts rise so quickly on reddit. They are very quickly consumed, which allows them to gain votes quicker then text posts. If someone has to navigate to a different site to see the posts, it slows down the consumption time, which stops the post from gaining as much momentum. ~ wants this because ~ wants higher quality content, not 5 billion cat gifs and memes.
I'll certainly be interested to see how that plays out. I'm not entirely convinced that it actually resolves the cited problem, but my opinion doesn't really matter.
The idea that it would be flooded with memes and GIFs simply because they could be viewed inline seems far more like a problem of content curation than something that is solved by making the site more inconvenient to use, especially as from what I gather ~ isn't intended for that kind of content at all and so moderating it out of existence shouldn't really be an issue. There are many subreddits that don't have that problem, despite allowing image posts. To me it seems more like an issue that should be dealt with through the ranking algorithm, tagging and some level of curation.
I'm not particularly bothered by the choice, I just found it to be an odd one that seems reasonable on the surface but doesn't actually address the potential issue that it highlights.
You have a good point. It might be implemented eventually, but even it will be, it is a while down the road. Perhaps by then we will have a good enough culture that this is not a worry.
That's reasonable.
While we're in a suggestions thread, is there any plan currently to indicate when there are new comments on a post that has already been read? It's probably the feature that was most immediately apparent that it was missing to me, as ~ is so discussion focused.
You can turn it on in settings.
Huh. I had looked at the settings page when I first signed up, but apparently four whole settings was an overwhelming amount and I got distracted setting up account recovery. Thanks.
The reason I left tumblr is because infinite scrolling often meant I couldn't resume where I left off without scrolling past everything I'd already seen.
I know that, due to the size of tildes, that's not so much a problem right now, but I foresee a time where I find a new group and want to browse their top posts in order and save my spot for when I resume.
Having only been here mere minutes, the thing I'm finding most irritating is getting to the bottom of a page and having no useful links at all for finding more content.
What do you mean? Maybe I can help you. Do you mean on the "frontpage"?
No, I mean when reading the comments on a topic. Or replying now to this. Below this box are "Cancel" and "Post comment" options. Below that "Tildes is a non-profit site that respects its users and prioritizes quality content. It has no advertising, no investors, and is supported by your donations.", and then a few links: Docs, Blog, Contact, Privacy policy, Terms of use.
Where is something to take me back to the topics in a group? To the next unread post or post with unread comments? To the list of groups I'm subscribed to? Anything to get me to new things to read?
The answer seems to be: all the back up at the top of the page.
Well, usually that's how it goes. What people do is to open threads in a new tab so you can just close the tab and then you're back to where you were in the main page.
Did you come from Reddit? If so, what is different for you compared to there?
Personally, I would like a "back to top" link, if only because I'm 100% a mobile user and it'll save me precious swipes.
Back to the top of the comments page? Why not just hit "back" to go back to the main page?
gonna be perfectly honest, I feel a little dumb for not thinking of that myself.
Hah happens to the best of us. Happy to be of help!
No, I did not come from reddit. I got an invite from someone who uses that site, but I have never joined reddit.
I'd like to point out the "Suggested Posts" feature of Discourse (forum software used by many sites) that populates with links to topics a user a previously posted in, new topics, and unread topics in the same category in that order of precedence. (Not necessarily the order I'd select.)
I'd also like to point out the way I use Usenet, via
trn, which has a simple hierarchy of selection. First one selects a group, then one sees current or old threads in that group, then one selects some or all threads, and then one reads those with the option to go to next post default, but a diagram of the tree is also presented (albeit at the top) with the option to navigate to any post in the tree, for breadth or depth-first reading of responses. And after reading all the "selected" threads, you can return to the thread selector or the group selector.