I don’t think it would work. The exemplary tag is often misused to mean “I strongly agree” and this would be worse. The closest thing I’ve seen that actually does seems to work is (was?) Twitter’s...
Exemplary
I don’t think it would work. The exemplary tag is often misused to mean “I strongly agree” and this would be worse. The closest thing I’ve seen that actually does seems to work is (was?) Twitter’s community notes system, and we don’t have the scale for that.
We sometimes have heated conversations that about what counts as misinformation and having a “trial” like that is no fun for anyone. The trouble is posting misinformation is easy (basically just shitposting), but to refute it, you need to research something that you probably don’t care to spend time on.
Also, a common problem is overconfident takes - that is, posting a strongly-held opinion about something as fact that nobody could really know for sure. So, then, if you argue against it, if you’re not careful then you end up seemingly taking the other side or “just asking questions.”
Our conversations aren’t important enough to be worth the angst of policing them.
The exemplary tag has nearly lost all meaning at this point. Lately I mostly see it applied to standard posts in heated threads, and sometimes it leads to retaliatory exemplary tags, or two...
The exemplary tag has nearly lost all meaning at this point. Lately I mostly see it applied to standard posts in heated threads, and sometimes it leads to retaliatory exemplary tags, or two sentence clapbacks getting an exemplary. It bothers me to see it, even if I'm in agreement with the "exemplary" post. If we had a visible misinformation tag, we would probably end up seeing some exemplary misinformation posts.
I get that we're trying to keep the site fun, but the onus of fun-killing should fall on the misinformer. The fun will cease if misinformation becomes a common occurrence on this platform. I would...
having a “trial” like that is no fun for anyone.
I get that we're trying to keep the site fun, but the onus of fun-killing should fall on the misinformer. The fun will cease if misinformation becomes a common occurrence on this platform.
you need to research something that you probably don’t care to spend time on.
I would let people decide for themselves if they want to take the time to do this or not. Mods have existed since the dawn of forums, and modding (sometimes) can really suck. And yet people still take the time to do it.
Also, a common problem is overconfident takes - that is, posting a strongly-held opinion about something as fact that nobody could really know for sure. So, then, if you argue against it, if you’re not careful then you end up seemingly taking the other side or “just asking questions.”
This is not really what the post is about. Your comment is a confident take that I'm refuting within the current functions of the site, while the post in question would theoretically just need a wiki page linked and a quick "here's the correction" comment applied to the tag. The tag should have nothing to do with the subjective.
Our conversations aren’t important enough to be worth the angst of policing them.
I strongly disagree. A lot of us have abandoned reddit or twitter precisely to find a place with decent conversation and community. The suggestion to add a tag like this is an attempt at protecting this site's authenticity at a time when misinformation is running wild.
I think we should distinguish between the kind of moderation that Deimos does (freezing topics, banning people, etc) and the sort of things users do. Deimos is not moderating by replying, like I’m...
I think we should distinguish between the kind of moderation that Deimos does (freezing topics, banning people, etc) and the sort of things users do. Deimos is not moderating by replying, like I’m replying to you right now. He’s not arguing. He’s not trying to convince anyone. There is no “trial.”
By contrast, it’s hard to see how users can get to any sort of consensus about what to do without discussing things we disagree about. And also, we’re unlikely to achieve consensus by discussing things either. I often give in to the temptation to reply and sometimes it’s because I don’t want to see “misinformation” (as I see it) go unopposed. But I try to remember that it doesn’t actually achieve much. Caring too much that people post things you disagree strongly about can ruin your whole day.
Although, I suppose labels and upvotes are different. If someone puts a label on something you can’t really do anything about it, so we might gripe about it a bit, but we don’t really argue.
The tag should have nothing to do with the subjective.
This seems optimistic. Many facts are not simple. They often take decades of scientific research to establish, and sometimes consensus is never achieved. We often take consensus on facts for granted when we’re “standing on the shoulders of giants” as the phrase goes.
I think I agree with this take. I don’t see how leaving it up for community discussion is going to be conducive to good vibes and seems more like it’d be a venue for having arguments that are...
By contrast, it’s hard to see how users can get to any sort of consensus about what to do without discussing things we disagree about. And also, we’re unlikely to achieve consensus by discussing things either. I often give in to the temptation to reply and sometimes it’s because I don’t want to see “misinformation” (as I see it) go unopposed. But I try to remember that it doesn’t actually achieve much. Caring too much that people post things you disagree strongly about can ruin your whole day.
I think I agree with this take. I don’t see how leaving it up for community discussion is going to be conducive to good vibes and seems more like it’d be a venue for having arguments that are orthogonal to the topic at hand (i.e. arguing about whether the tag is appropriate vs. what’s wrong with the claim).
Furthermore, crowdsourcing tools like this tends to create an incentive for offsite coordination and brigading, which is an engagement pattern we should probably discourage.
If a post gets corrected further down in a thread the general convention has been for the OP to edit their post to make a note of that.
So all the people that are misinformed will then label correct information as "misinformation"... and how does one then correct that? This seems absolutely impossible to manage Misinformation is...
So all the people that are misinformed will then label correct information as "misinformation"... and how does one then correct that?
This seems absolutely impossible to manage
Misinformation is such a pervasive problem in general that I am not sure regular users being given the power to tag things as such has any value because, who are we expecting to be the arbiter of what is correct and how does a misinformation tag help if it's just a tag and there's no information on why it was tagged as such?
The tags don't really work the same way "Community Notes" do so I don't think it can be applied the same way. They aren't crowdsourced/crowd-determined or verified by anyone in particular
I could potentially see a tag like "contested" (or something better worded) to indicate there is a question of something's accuracy and info in below comments but i see a lot of the same issues with such a tag. It will be misused rather quickly. I can see it becoming a plague on topics like nutrition and fitness. Same for politics and religion and social issues. It will very quickly become a signifier of differing opinions because people won't just use it on data either (and data is commonly misinterpreted). People can't even agree what is an opinion vs what is a fact anymore.
I agree, also because leaving a comment isn't always ideal for various reasons. In the post I linked I mentioned posts, which aren't really an issue on Tildes, but comments with misinformation I...
I agree, also because leaving a comment isn't always ideal for various reasons. In the post I linked I mentioned posts, which aren't really an issue on Tildes, but comments with misinformation I do see on a slightly more regular basis.
The biggest challenge would be that it still would need some sort of community consensus. But having that discussion elsewhere without it kicking up a post is something that might be a good idea.
There certainly are other examples to draw from on other platforms.
I don't like it, sorry. (Personal opinion). Too easy to misuse. Generally I believe it's enough to leave a comment with corrections and then move to another topic.
I don't like it, sorry. (Personal opinion).
Too easy to misuse.
Generally I believe it's enough to leave a comment with corrections and then move to another topic.
It's not totally worthless, I try to call out falsehoods and I do use the noise label that way, just not necessarily announcing I'm using the label vs "this is false information"
It's not totally worthless, I try to call out falsehoods and I do use the noise label that way, just not necessarily announcing I'm using the label vs "this is false information"
Since the original comment has been deleted I can only guess what It says. Please do not use the noise label for on topic posts that contain information you don't believe to be correct. The noise...
Since the original comment has been deleted I can only guess what It says. Please do not use the noise label for on topic posts that contain information you don't believe to be correct. The noise label is for comments that are very low effort and don't add addition content to a conversation. Just as the exemplary label isn't a super upvote button, the noise label is not a super disagree button. Using the noise label hides a comment chain for everyone. This is the opposite of what this post wants. The noise label is an easily abusable system that gives each individual user a lot of power to help police the site. If it is becomes used routinely used in the way you have described it is likely that the tool will be removed.
I will not be upset if the tool is removed. I am doing the best with the tools that are available to me. Just like some folks may disagree with the exemplary qualities of a comment, others may...
I will not be upset if the tool is removed. I am doing the best with the tools that are available to me. Just like some folks may disagree with the exemplary qualities of a comment, others may disagree about what is noise.
It is perhaps truth that my understanding of low effort is different than yours.
But honestly there is no winning and therefore I'm just doing the best I can.
I value self governance, and the tools for everyone to help maintain this site. I would be sad to see tools removed because they were abused. In the comment I replied to you implied you use the...
I value self governance, and the tools for everyone to help maintain this site. I would be sad to see tools removed because they were abused. In the comment I replied to you implied you use the noise label against false information, not just low effort content.
I do use the noise label that way, just not necessarily announcing I'm using the label vs "this is false information"
The relevant bit to this conversation is the noise tag.
The "Noise" label is for comments which make no difference to the discussion. These might include remarks such as "This^" or "Thanks." or "Good news!" or "This sucks."
The "Noise" label is not visible on comments.
If the Noise label is active on a comment, it will cause the comment to be sorted below unlabelled and Offtopic replies, acting as if it had -2 total votes. Also, the comment will be autocollapsed, so that it is hidden (all its child comments will also be hidden). Collapsed comments can be manually expanded and viewed.
I also find comments on this site that I believe are detracting from intent of the site. I believe that as long as it's in good faith discussion is important, but some comments are clearly not in good faith. I also do my best with the tool provided and use the mailce label, and give my reason. Sometimes Deimos agrees with me, sometimes not. At least using the malice label is it a two person review, versus the noise label which applies the effects immediately, unilaterally, and impacts everyone's experience on the site.
I don't think you need to be afraid that tools will be taken away. Deimos has always been proactively handling it with the people who did actually use labels in ways they are not intended. Either...
I don't think you need to be afraid that tools will be taken away. Deimos has always been proactively handling it with the people who did actually use labels in ways they are not intended. Either by removing the privilige from that individual person and in some cases through a temp ban.
I think it is good to talk about the usage of labels, but they alsp by their nature will be somewhat fluid in their meaning for different people.
I really do like Tildes as a community, and its values are important to me. I frankly get worried sometimes when there is an influx of new users that have to integrate. I sincerely hope that...
I really do like Tildes as a community, and its values are important to me. I frankly get worried sometimes when there is an influx of new users that have to integrate. I sincerely hope that Deimos can continue to run this site for a long time to come. This has become my refuge of real conversation in a world increasingly shouted down by algorithms and ai "content". I have my own fluxes of when I am able to comment, even just having a place to be minimally globally connected is nice though.
I agree that label definitions will by their nature be self interpreted. I just hope that people do not start using the tools of this site to weaponize content. The intent of the person doing the clicking matters. Are they acting to better the site and uphold the values of the community, or are they trying to manipulate the system to further their own goals?
That's a fair concern. But that's also why I think it is important to have a conversation about these things. If anything this discussion is.surfacing that labels to a degree are already...
That's a fair concern. But that's also why I think it is important to have a conversation about these things. If anything this discussion is.surfacing that labels to a degree are already weaponized, specifically exemplary is brought up a lot.
With other labels it is less visible what the impact is. I also do know that Deimos likely has limited time and energy available these days, simply judging by activity on the platform.
So I do think it is good to have a discussion about how labels might be made more robust (by crowd sourcing broader consensus for example) and possibly extended them once we'd have that (for example for misinformation).
When this website was created the intention was to experiment with this sort of things a lot more. You can dive into the beginning of that a lot more. I don't think development will pick up soon (which is what the deleted comment was about in part) but I do think it is good to try and brainstorm about it anyway.
Possibly even on how we as a community view certain labels as they are now. Because otherwise we truly are just coasting along which will.eventually just mean a slow death of this website.
I agree, any change we make about how we as a community operate should be a discussion. I dislike when people take it upon themselves to intentionally misuse tools at an individual level. I agree...
I agree, any change we make about how we as a community operate should be a discussion. I dislike when people take it upon themselves to intentionally misuse tools at an individual level. I agree that there are often (what I would consider) very very low effort posts getting exemplary. I don't feel like that impacts a conversation as much the noise label specifically. I feel that the noise label is the most weaponizable because it removes a comment and its whole tree from casual viewing. As such I think this tag should be treated with the most care when being deployed. I really strongly feel that using the noise label as "I very strongly don't agree and think you are wrong label" will kill discussions.
I think adding a "contested" label, similar to the "exemplary" label would be my preferred solution; even though I do believe it will also be used against intent as a "dislike" button. At least in the case of a visible label the comment itself isn't hidden from view.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state I used it for this. This is for clarification purposes only as I'm up above and don't want to be mistaken for this. And this is why I prefer to assume good...
I really strongly feel that using the noise label as "I very strongly don't agree and think you are wrong label" will kill discussions.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state I used it for this. This is for clarification purposes only as I'm up above and don't want to be mistaken for this.
And this is why I prefer to assume good faith. I'd be happy to lose the "noise" label entirely as scrolling past a low effort post is absolutely nil for me. But again I'm doing the best I can with the tools I have, as I think we all are.
But you're absolutely free to dislike it, of course.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state "DefinitelyNotAFae" used it for this either. Good faith is important. This is my fear of how this label will be used if left wide open.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state "DefinitelyNotAFae" used it for this either. Good faith is important.
This is my fear of how this label will be used if left wide open.
I have indeed read the docs. I've even used the Malice label before. I generally assume everyone's use of labels is in good faith and I think that's the best policy for everyone.
I have indeed read the docs. I've even used the Malice label before.
I generally assume everyone's use of labels is in good faith and I think that's the best policy for everyone.
I also generally assume good faith till proven otherwise. I have sadly seen people abuse the noise label. My only hope is that the tools can be removed for the people who are shown to abuse them...
I also generally assume good faith till proven otherwise. I have sadly seen people abuse the noise label. My only hope is that the tools can be removed for the people who are shown to abuse them rather than removed from the site at large.
Well abuse now assumes bad faith. Which would make any changes to the labels useless and implies they just should be removed entirely, frankly. I could point to any number of tags I think are...
Well abuse now assumes bad faith.
Which would make any changes to the labels useless and implies they just should be removed entirely, frankly. I could point to any number of tags I think are abuse, both up and down ranking. Even exemplary comments get sent down to noise.
So in the end I try to assume that anyone, even people using it in a way that isn't exactly as I personally would do it, are doing so in good faith.
I don't want a misinformation label, not because we don't need it, we do, but because I believe it is far more likely to be used against vulnerable groups than to correct misinformation about those groups. Instead I write lengthy, sourced comments and watch the factual inaccuracies continue to gather votes above my comment.
Abuse by another name. You also no not believe that a misinformation label can be used charitably. We can call it misuse it the terminology is the sticking point. Having someone misuse an...
Abuse by another name. You also no not believe that a misinformation label can be used charitably. We can call it misuse it the terminology is the sticking point. Having someone misuse an exemplary label and then having someone misuse a noise label does not cancel them out. When someone says, "I am not using these for their intended purpose", and seems to be encouraging other to do the same I think it warrants comment. You are right in that intent of the person is the only thing we can judge them on.
I never claimed it was! Feel free to label as you think appropriate. None of us are immune to making "noisy" comments and I specifically said their existence doesn't bother me.
I never claimed it was! Feel free to label as you think appropriate.
None of us are immune to making "noisy" comments and I specifically said their existence doesn't bother me.
Hi, the deleted comment was from me, sorry. The gist is pretty much what y'all have mentioned. In hindsight, the way it's written felt too much like dogpiling on OP's suggestion, even though I...
Hi, the deleted comment was from me, sorry. The gist is pretty much what y'all have mentioned. In hindsight, the way it's written felt too much like dogpiling on OP's suggestion, even though I meant it to be supportive. Since others have made the same point in more approachable ways I figured having it removed shouldn't be much of a loss.
I absolutely respect your desire to remove yourself from a conversation whenever you want. The only reason I referenced the deleted comment was to highlight that my comments might be missing some...
I absolutely respect your desire to remove yourself from a conversation whenever you want. The only reason I referenced the deleted comment was to highlight that my comments might be missing some context clues.
I would 100% support this, but how would that work? If someone incorrectly labels something as "misinformation", how would we combat that? Re: our (short) exchange regarding the misuse of the...
I would 100% support this, but how would that work? If someone incorrectly labels something as "misinformation", how would we combat that?
Re: our (short) exchange regarding the misuse of the "exemplary" label.
I don’t think this is a problem. Unlike in Reddit, tildes automatically highlights new replies, so a post on a weeks dead thread will pop up in activities and show any reader who clicks on it...
The comment containing inaccurate claims may be on the top of a 100-comment comment chain with, say, 30 votes, whereas a correction with a source may remain at the very bottom of the thread with 0-2 votes.
I don’t think this is a problem. Unlike in Reddit, tildes automatically highlights new replies, so a post on a weeks dead thread will pop up in activities and show any reader who clicks on it exactly what’s new. Additionally, there are generally few enough comments that it’s not a stretch to read all of them. That’s unlike Reddit where threads can have 1000s if 10,000s of replies.
Additionally, there’s only two ways this could work: either the admins need to make the call on whether it’s misinformation or not, or it needs to be crowd sourced.
For option A), that’s a tremendous burden given there’s all of one admin. And they’re definitely not omnipotent.
For option B), this has all the same trappings of the reply option. Let’s say a thread is dead and you post a reply and no one really cares at this point. Why would the misinformation tag not to be the same? No one will care enough to crowdsource enough misinformation votes to make one stick. And if people do care enough to do some kind of misinformation tag vote, why wouldn’t they also just vote on a reply?
I imagine that entirely depends on how the misinformation mechanism works. We have people who are very diligent with applying tags to topics. I don't see why a misinformation mechanism can't have...
For option B), this has all the same trappings of the reply option. Let’s say a thread is dead and you post a reply and no one really cares at this point.
I imagine that entirely depends on how the misinformation mechanism works. We have people who are very diligent with applying tags to topics. I don't see why a misinformation mechanism can't have people keep an eye out as well.
In that since it actually could be a pretty neat extension to the sort of community moderation Tildes already has through labels. Meaning that it wouldn't be down to a static mod team but the entire community.
I think it is important to try and look at the broader picture here. And not work from preconceived narrow cases to argue why it wouldn't work.
I mean I don't even think the current set of tags is used particularly well. Probably only noise gets actual value. Exemplary is already mostly used as "super-vote". There's many times that a low...
I mean I don't even think the current set of tags is used particularly well. Probably only noise gets actual value. Exemplary is already mostly used as "super-vote". There's many times that a low effort post that someone somewhere really approves of in a directional fashion gets it.
This just seems like adding more in that inflammatory sense. The nice thing about noise is that it's somewhat easily to make an objective gut call about - someone just responding LOL is noise no matter what. What is misinformation is, on the other hand, is a billion dollar question. No easy answers there. Even to make an answer you have be knowledgable in the area.
In the end, this is a text discussion website. Solving issues by discussing in text form should be prioritized if at all possible. I have not seen times where have a misinformation tag would make things better. If anything, theyd just make it worse.
That's fair and could be entirely the case. I view exemplary as a bit of a 50/50 thing, in some cases where I got it I agree people used it as a super upvote. In other cases it genuinely was novel...
I mean I don't even think the current set of tags is used particularly well.
That's fair and could be entirely the case. I view exemplary as a bit of a 50/50 thing, in some cases where I got it I agree people used it as a super upvote. In other cases it genuinely was novel message in the label and clearly because someone thought it was a good comment that really added something to the discussion. Which you can argue is also a super upvote but also aligns with the description in the tildes documentation
I guess what I am saying is that it is not not a super-vote in a sense.
This just seems like adding more in that inflammatory sense.
That entirely depends on the implementation though. The exemplary label is there straight away shouting for attention. I agree that it might be too powerful. All the more reason imho to consider other ways to improve on labels in a different ways.
There is no reason (other than the slow development of this website) that it couldn't be a mechanism separate from the thread. One where a quorum needs be reached before it has any effect on the comment that has been flagged. Reducing the inflammatory impact it might otherwise have if it was something happening right on the thread.
To be clear, I am not pretending to have the right answers or right implementation. But I do think it is worth considering, again, from a broad perspective how something might look like.
I have not seen times where have a misinformation tag would make things better. If anything, theyd just make it worse.
The end result could be that a comment is hidden or even removed. Which, in a lot of cases would actually improve things. As I have seen cases of misinformation where people kept responding to it which also in turn brought attention to it.
Even if the label does not remove anything, it is worth considering that if it is flagged with misinformation less people might be inclined to reply as they don't feel the need. Which in turn might actually allow discussion to be more on-topic elsewhere.
We could start putting a “misinformation” tag on topics any time with no software changes, but I doubt anyone with the ability to tag other people’s topics wants to do that? It seems too vague and...
We could start putting a “misinformation” tag on topics any time with no software changes, but I doubt anyone with the ability to tag other people’s topics wants to do that? It seems too vague and subjective to apply consistently. Instead we have tags like “politics.”
The closest I’ll go is using an “opinion” tag for any kind of persuasive essay. That’s what I do on my own website.
I think the difference is, can the tag also apply to “good” topics or is it always negative like “misinformation” would be? An opinion piece or an article about politics can be good and these tags could be self-applied.
I do mention tags in the comment you just replied to. But only to highlight that there are people dedicated to those, not as a mechanism we should adapt for misinformation. I can see how.you read...
It seems too vague and subjective to apply consistently.
I do mention tags in the comment you just replied to. But only to highlight that there are people dedicated to those, not as a mechanism we should adapt for misinformation.
I can see how.you read that from that comment in isolation. But if you look at the entire chain, for example my next comment in this exact chain it should be clear enough.
Or, if you as a community do want to do something about it, think about ways this discussion can be had without disrupting the topic in question. For which there are various mechanisms in the wild...
Or, if you as a community do want to do something about it, think about ways this discussion can be had without disrupting the topic in question.
For which there are various mechanisms in the wild already. Both on community platforms but also on othet platforms, Wikipedia's talk page comes to mind.
As I have said elsewhere, considering various possible mechanisms doesn't hurt. When you never stop to be critical of yourself (both as a person and as a community) you'll never grow and eventually risk stagnanting or even damaging yourself.
If this is a subject that doesn't interest you or don't see the merit in that is fine I guess. That would also be a good moment to follow your own advice.
But if it does interest you I think that partaking also means considering all options.
As an example, you yourself mention abuse of the exemplary label. As @TaylorSwiftsPickles mentions here this would be a chance to improve that through crowdsourcing.
I can't help but feel that suggesting to people to just shrug and move on, while probably coming from a good place, is a bit tone deaf to the reality of online communities and certainly how some misinformation actually is hurting people by being out there.
You not seeing an issue or you being able to shrug things of yourself and move on doesn't mean that is an overall truth. Something that's too often and too easily forgotten or ignored.
Yes, the talk page on Wikipedia is a good example. But we're not maintaining a wiki. Are we maintaining a link collection? Arguably so with the tagging system. An issue with doing that here is...
Yes, the talk page on Wikipedia is a good example. But we're not maintaining a wiki. Are we maintaining a link collection? Arguably so with the tagging system.
An issue with doing that here is that the Tildes software is effectively frozen. So, unlike in Tildes' early days, discussing ways to improve the software seems pointless? We can only do things that don't require any software changes, like introducing a new topic tag.
But I am rather interested in what might be done to improve things, which is partial motivation for building my own personal link-sharing website. There are no community features now, but perhaps I'll get to that eventually. In the meantime, it serves as a staging area and archive for the links I post to Tildes, along with other links I choose not to share here.
It's tempting to think that if I built my own community software, I could do it properly, learning from Tildes and trying new experiments. But I'm wary of it because I don't want Deimos's job, and I'm not sure I'd be able to build a community anyway. It might just be tumbleweeds? Only a few people follow me in Bluesky, etc.
Another idea I toy with is releasing the software and helping people set up their own community websites. I think the old blogging ecosystem was pretty good in some ways. But I'm not sure anyone would go for that either? And there is plenty of other blogging software for people to use.
So, I just build for myself. At least I know I'll use it.
Regarding shrugging and moving on, this is not possible for social media in general, but it seems very feasible for Tildes? At the extreme, people can just leave and probably nobody will follow.
What's really not possible is to participate by posting topics or comments without getting replies in disagreement. Really heated discussion will get shut down, but in general, you are going to get replies.
Which is why on my own website, I'm still thinking about whether or how to implement replies at all. I'd like to get feedback, but only certain kinds.
Sure, that is why I also mentioned other community websites. In fact, OP has talked explicitly about the "Community Notes system" found elsewhere as a possible template. I am merely mentioning...
Exemplary
Yes, the talk page on Wikipedia is a good example. But we're not maintaining a wiki.
Sure, that is why I also mentioned other community websites. In fact, OP has talked explicitly about the "Community Notes system" found elsewhere as a possible template. I am merely mentioning wikipedia as an example that it certainly is possible to have a space aside from the main content to discuss potential issues within the content. Which, to me, seem relevant if we are worried about disrupting discussions. Don't you agree?
An issue with doing that here is that the Tildes software is effectively frozen. So, unlike in Tildes' early days, discussing ways to improve the software seems pointless?
Then why bother participating and voicing your disagreement at all? Maybe because it is worthwhile to discuss, at the very least to make people aware that others perceive an issue. Maybe to come to a different solution within the current technical boundaries.
In fact, good point. It probably is a genuinely good idea to see if we can think of something that works within those limitations. For example we could, as a community, land on a format where we have a meta misinformation discussion thread. When someone thinks something is misinformation they simply leave a comment in that thread explaining why and link under the misinformation for a further discussion.
Not perfect, not by a long shot. But what I am trying to showcase is that it is very easy to just shoot down suggestions based on technical merits or limitations. But that is largely missing the point in the first place.
Regarding shrugging and moving on, this is not possible for social media in general, but it seems very feasible for Tildes? At the extreme, people can just leave and probably nobody will follow.
With all due respect. What you are saying here comes from an extremely privileged position and really is a bit tone deaf. One that effectively says to a lot of minorities of various kinds that in the long term can take a hike. Because a lot of misinformation often will be about subjects like that. Even more so because Tildes lacks native tooling to filter out people who are consistently spreading misinformation.
In fact your entire argument for people making their own community effectively comes down to you saying that people should basically just abandon the one community they currently feel at home. I know you are just idly musing from your perspective. And I do think it is a good thing that you want people to have the opportunity to host communities of their own. But I also do think it is, again, important to be aware of the implications of what you are saying actually is.
I will quite readily admit to being out of touch and perhaps I'm missing some implications, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Maybe part of the issue is blurring the consequences of...
I will quite readily admit to being out of touch and perhaps I'm missing some implications, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Maybe part of the issue is blurring the consequences of misinformation on social media in general (which can be very serious) versus what happens on Tildes?
If you mean Tildes in particular: many of us like Tildes, but is it essential infrastructure for anyone? It seems like anyone, regardless of privilege, could quit Tildes, or just decide to take a break from it for a while, and people often do?
Or if you mean, spreading misinformation on Tildes could have harmful effects beyond Tildes, sure it doesn't help, but I don't think we're very influential compared to other, much larger social media websites. Or even compared to individual bloggers or influencers.
Or perhaps you mean that people on Tildes who actually read articles or comments here will be misled by misinformation? I think a lot of what we discuss isn't "news you can use" that if it's wrong could be dangerous from a personal, practical standpoint. But if it is, then someone should reply explaining why, and perhaps it will be retracted.
Or maybe something else I completely missed. What implications do you mean?
Honestly, none of those four points. There is a big difference between leaving because a site got annoying/dull and leaving because you stopped feeling welcome in it. Both, to the outside, will...
Exemplary
Honestly, none of those four points.
There is a big difference between leaving because a site got annoying/dull and leaving because you stopped feeling welcome in it. Both, to the outside, will look like "quitting Tildes" but one of them does come with a cost to someone.
That cost is also much higher for someone without obvious alternatives, given how much of the rest of the internet can be unwelcoming too.
In general saying "just leave" already ignores that for many people this place is a community, not just a place where they share links and idly muse about stuff. For some people this is even one of the very few communities where they feel welcome. I really hope I don't need to explain why in that context it feels a bit tone deaf to just suggest that people pack up and leave?
This in itself should already be important enough in my opinion. But it also costs the community over time. Certain types of misinformation tend to target specific groups, LGBTQ+ people often, but other minorities too. If you drive those people away you are left with something more homogeneous and less welcoming to the next person. This also means losing the voices best placed to push back on that misinformation in the first place. The community that remains won't see a problem, because they never had to experience one.
I don't know about you, but I like being part of a welcoming diverse community and certainly want to keep it that way and not slowly filter out unique individual voices. Which is why I keep hammering on about at least giving it some consideration and see what we can do with the means available to us.
I fully realize there are risks involved of abuse and that with the tools available it might be a clunky solution. But, perfect doesn't exist and if we really all care about Tildes as a community I think it is only fair to at least give things a proper consideration when issues are raised by people.
Not just the from a mechanical perspective, but also the underlying issues and impact. Take a step back and don't read it as a request for a feature you fear might be abused. But actually take a look at why people are asking for this. Not just this thread but also the thread I already linked in my previous comment. You can draw your own conclusions. But what I think I am seeing, behind the clear feature request for a ability to filter out people and this request for a misinformation mechanism is that a sizable group of people is tired of having to push back on a constant basis. What I am seeing is a group of people who still feel welcome to a degree but are (quite literally in @TaylorSwiftsPickles case) also ready to leave because it is too much but are basically trying to explore if there are any options left to allow them to continue participate on the website.
Yes, saying that people can quit any time does sound like a suggestion that people should quit over this, and that does seem kinda rude. It definitely isn't my intention to say anyone in...
Yes, saying that people can quit any time does sound like a suggestion that people should quit over this, and that does seem kinda rude. It definitely isn't my intention to say anyone in particular or any group of users should quit. And we should try to fix things for @TaylorSwiftsPickles. Though they did say they were "micro-annoyed," so I hope it isn't too serious :)
I still want to push back on treating Tildes as overly important. I'm out of touch, but I'd be shocked if Tildes were in the top ten list of important forums for any community. Surely there must be lots of other LGBT or black or Jewish or whatever community websites out there?
So I'm not really buying the notion that there are few alternatives. But we can still care about Tildes. Maybe Tildes is in the top five for some of us personally? After all we keep hanging out here. That's a different kind of meaningfulness, though.
Also, it seems like we are talking around our problems. "Minority" is vague (which minority?) and so is "misinformation" (what kind of posts do you hate seeing?)
I do understand the impulse to vague-post, since people often don't take feedback well, and giving specific examples often threatens to derail the conversation. But the problem is, vague complaints are vague. Anyone could be imagining they're part of the problem and that might be due to their own insecurities. (The other topic you linked to has some people wondering if they're the problem.)
I'm thinking about how Hacker News downvotes work. A downvote is specific in one way (it's a particular post) and super vague in a different way, so people ask "why the downvote?" On the other hand, what's to be done? You just grumble and move on. It takes a lot less time than replies.
A label is slightly more specific, but still leaves open a lot of questions. The exemplary tag at least lets people say a few words more about what they liked.
If we could change Tildes, a "misinformation" label that doesn't actually appear on the post would be a way to collect feedback without affecting the conversation. It could go to a report somewhere... seen by who, the admin? And what do they do about it?
Since we can't change Tildes itself, an anonymous survey about what sort of posts people consider to be misinformation might be another way to do it.
Tildes is in the top 1 for me. Admittedly I'm not a community, just a person. But it does give me grief when: I see the wonderful system abused in a way that leads to less diversity, when the site...
I'd be shocked if Tildes were in the top ten list of important forums for any community
Tildes is in the top 1 for me. Admittedly I'm not a community, just a person. But it does give me grief when:
I see the wonderful system abused in a way that leads to less diversity, when the site founder's goal has clearly been to foster diversity and they have put a lot of thought into it,
people spread a mindset along the lines of "Tildes is not important", "Our conversations here are not valuable" etc.
Tildes is the most valuable online forum I know of, to me. Can we try to not self-sabotage into oblivion?
Yeah, same. Honestly if there are other similar places that're more supportive + inclusive than this I'd be game to jump ship, but my circle doesn't appear to encompass any of 'em. Totally willing...
Yeah, same. Honestly if there are other similar places that're more supportive + inclusive than this I'd be game to jump ship, but my circle doesn't appear to encompass any of 'em. Totally willing to entertain suggestions if people have them, but I'd rather stick around here.
(there are some Discord servers, but they don't serve the same purpose as long-ish form discussion boards)
To be clear, I am talking about individuals who fall under a minority and are part of this community. I am sure there dedicated communities out there for these groups as well. But by them being...
I still want to push back on treating Tildes as overly important. I'm out of touch, but I'd be shocked if Tildes were in the top ten list of important forums for any community. Surely there must be lots of other LGBT or black or Jewish or whatever community websites out there?
To be clear, I am talking about individuals who fall under a minority and are part of this community. I am sure there dedicated communities out there for these groups as well. But by them being dedicated is also what makes them segregated, where Tildes is actually relatively diverse. Something I made a case for in my previous comment.
I highly doubt there are that many more communities like Tildes out there about general subjects who are as inclusive and not under a constant barrage of eternal September trying to destroy that. Which is part due to the invite system but also various other factors
So I'm not really buying the notion that there are few alternatives. But we can still care about Tildes. Maybe Tildes in the top five for some of us personally?
Speaking as someone from an overly represented group (white cis male) even struggle to come up with communities that fit the same niche Tildes does. I do visit other websites like lobste.rs but those are highly targeted towards technology and feel overall less like a community to me.
This is one of the few places in recent years where I have made online meaningful connections with people. Had genuine conversations with people.
So yeah, it easily makes the top five already for me. So I have no issue imagining that for other people it ranks even higher.
Also, it seems like we are talking around our problems. "Minority" is vague (which minority?) and so is "misinformation" (what kind of posts do you hate seeing?)
I already named a specific minority group and yes
I do understand the impulse to vague-post, since people often don't take feedback well, and giving specific examples often threatens to derail the conversation. But the problem is, vague complaints are vague.
I don't have specific examples as I personally don't fall under that group. But, as I hope I have made clear in my previous post, I have seen enough responses to know that there seems to be somewhat of an issue brewing. But I also see why people would have an issue pointing out specific issues as that might escalate in something nobody wants.
If we could change Tildes, a "misinformation" label that doesn't actually appear on the post would be a way to collect feedback without affecting the conversation. It could go to a report somewhere... seen by who, the admin? And what do they do about it?
I do appreciate you trying, I honestly do. But on this specific bit we have been going in circles as various methods already have been brought up. Since you now suggest something that would require a technical change, the report could go to a community queue of sorts. I already mentioned the wikipedia talk page as an example. One way to approach it would be to have the item sit in a queue and anyone from the community can respond with a "agree/disagree" reply but does need to also provide a bit of reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing. Potentially replies in the misinformation queue could be (semi)anonymous so people.
Something along those lines anyway. Again I don't have a ready made answer. I also don't expect one to come from you specifically :) You were the one responding to me so to you specifically I made the case as to why I think it is important to give this consideration. But, since this is a public forum that message extends to anyone who just dismissed it straight away out of technical merits.
Since we can't change Tildes itself, an anonymous survey about what sort of posts people consider to be misinformation might be another way to do it.
Honestly not a bad idea. We could at the very least collect that information let people respond and then publish the results to further talk about. That would make the issue less vague to understand.
I'll give it some thought and might set up a survey of sorts.
How I interpret the above user's point is let's say there's misinformation about a minority group. The ones who spread it meant well, but it's nevertheless a commonly said opinion, which...
How I interpret the above user's point is let's say there's misinformation about a minority group. The ones who spread it meant well, but it's nevertheless a commonly said opinion, which negatively affect the minority reader both in emotional trigger and the exhaustion of having to try to correct it too often.
The fact a site (such as Tildes) is niche may be all the more reason to be protective since it could be the rare oasis that they may not be able to find again, which is different for "average" people who can fit in the common spaces fine and so can move on more easily.
Edit: Oops they've already explained their points, nvm me
I think I would prefer not to have this label. Not that I'm interested in reading a bunch of misinformation. My experiences on Tildes revolve around discussions and opinions where most of the...
I think I would prefer not to have this label. Not that I'm interested in reading a bunch of misinformation. My experiences on Tildes revolve around discussions and opinions where most of the "facts" generally are in the post or articles themselves. Most comments below those posts are not users engaged in an exchange of facts, but an exchange of ideas and opinions.
My concern is who is responsible for placing the theoretical tag and who needs to curate, check, and moderate comments or posts with the tag.
Maybe this could be good, but in the end it may be better to engage in discussion to resolve the perceived misinformation. People are people, we are allowed, and unfortunately very very likely to be wrong and misinformation, but as long as we can grow and change we can move forward.
I think "I'd like a source" is a better solution than "minsinformation", if adding something is appropriate at all. If I'm invested in something someone else is saying, or think it's worth...
I think "I'd like a source" is a better solution than "minsinformation", if adding something is appropriate at all.
If I'm invested in something someone else is saying, or think it's worth engaging with their comment, I personally like to look things up.
I don't think it's reasonable to demand others do my work for me in that setting; most of the time it's extremely easy finding stuff with a single AI-powered search.
Most claims people make are already established in the field and not controversial except for us laypeople.
If making very specific claims where there's only one source for a factoid or whatever, that's probably not a major use case for a "citation"-label. Or?
Perhaps, one could suggest a citation along with the label? Same way that the "Exemplary" sends an anonymous message to the user, that way posters can avoid most of the work necessary to shore up...
Perhaps, one could suggest a citation along with the label? Same way that the "Exemplary" sends an anonymous message to the user, that way posters can avoid most of the work necessary to shore up their positions.
It could absolutely still be abused (e.g. slamming people with "citation needed" when you disagree with them as a downvote, effectively), but in principle so can the Noise/Malice tags. And I don't know if that's being done too often?
Huh, TIL that it can be overridden! Looks like it's 1/5 of the vote count? Also good lord I'm realizing I spent forty minutes on a reply in another thread XD augh time to sign off for the day.
I would like to see sources too and try to provide evidence myself. But asking often annoys people since you’re giving them homework, particularly if you do it in a low-effort way like “citation...
I would like to see sources too and try to provide evidence myself. But asking often annoys people since you’re giving them homework, particularly if you do it in a low-effort way like “citation needed.” So instead I might go with something like “where did you learn that?”
I think it really depends on what people want. If the idea is that consensus opinion always wins then it's a good feature to implement because the consensus believes its "misinformation". Note as...
I think it really depends on what people want. If the idea is that consensus opinion always wins then it's a good feature to implement because the consensus believes its "misinformation". Note as many people pointed out consensus isn't always correct and when one is in the heat of an argument its pretty easy to slap that label on.
It is my opinion that negative labels like that are too charged and basically suggests to people that hey this entire comment is worthless to read. I don't think that encourages discussion and respectful debate which is why I like Tildes
I'm not super comfortable with the idea, for reasons others have explained, but I do see value in at least exploring possible implementations of similar concepts. My only suggestion at the moment...
I'm not super comfortable with the idea, for reasons others have explained, but I do see value in at least exploring possible implementations of similar concepts.
My only suggestion at the moment is that, if something like this is in fact appropriate, maybe it could function like this:
Label the comment "disputed"
This prompts you to write a sourced correction
Your correction is posted as a normal reply
A small "Disputed" (or perhaps "See suggested corrections...") icon appears on the target comment
Clicking/tapping the icon displays links to all suggested corrections below
This seems like a gentler interruption of the thread presentation, since it still requires new viewers to go down to your correction (and then potentially vote for it to more organically increase its visibility), rather than hijacking the sort order to force them to see it. It also seems like less work to develop than a whole separate viewer for "community notes", since it utilizes the existing comment threading structure.
It also might be good to limit the number of times a formal correction can be posted? Perhaps even to just a single time. That could keep the refutation organized, as well as contained to prevent it feeling like a dogpile if it really catches on. Though I suppose you can still effect a dogpile by simply replying as normal without utilizing the feature.
And maybe only top-level comments could be disputed? Idk, just spitballing at this point.
To some extent, though, this still feels to me like an unnecessary formalization of dissent when "just post a corrective reply" is an available course of action. I guess my experience of this issue's severity differs from yours.
I think there is potential in this, although I have not seen a need. But that might be more of the difference in threads I hang out in compared to you, and also having a different level of...
I think there is potential in this, although I have not seen a need. But that might be more of the difference in threads I hang out in compared to you, and also having a different level of sensitivity on various topics.
One way that I could see this implemented well is as others have said in not having it be flagged as "misinformation" but instead "disputed." I think from there it should also require leaving a comment of explanation with sources, and that comment gets connected to the original comment (unsure on the exact UI of that).
I think there should also be some kind of metrics tracked for how people are using it, which is in align with Tildes philosophy. Tildes keeps track of invite trees, in case a user only invites problematic users. Tildes also does a cool down on exemplary labels. Therefore, I think it would be worthwhile to have some metric on how reliable a specific user is applying this new label. This could be done through tracking who is frequently getting labelled, who is frequently labelling, a vote system to try and figure out which side is more correct in a dispute, or some other system. Regardless of the system, it can be abused so the tracking should be solid but rarely used like how the invite tree is rarely looked at.
I don’t think we really need it — but what we do need is a ‘we have been going back and forth but I have nothing further to contribute to this discussion but I am also terrible at not being the...
I don’t think we really need it — but what we do need is a ‘we have been going back and forth but I have nothing further to contribute to this discussion but I am also terrible at not being the last one to speak’ button.
I feel that it wouldnt work out well, and would likely just become a pseudo downvote and be weaponized around any contentious topic. On the other hand I wouldnt really mind implementing it anyway....
I feel that it wouldnt work out well, and would likely just become a pseudo downvote and be weaponized around any contentious topic.
On the other hand I wouldnt really mind implementing it anyway. If I see a bunch of people trying to play referee on a conversation and slapping condemning labels on all the comments, thats a good red flag that its a discussion I should probably just skip.
Since what constitutes 'Truth' is whatever humanity makes of it; the universe has no right or wrong, this policing indirectly contributes to polarization whether intentional or not. Slapping a...
Since what constitutes 'Truth' is whatever humanity makes of it; the universe has no right or wrong, this policing indirectly contributes to polarization whether intentional or not.
Slapping a 'Misinformation'-label onto something could be seen as a sign to skip whatever that person has to say.
I’m open to something like this. I’d change the name to something like “contested” (“misinformation” IMO is likely to prime folks for defensiveness, plus some topics are less oa question of...
I’m open to something like this. I’d change the name to something like “contested” (“misinformation” IMO is likely to prime folks for defensiveness, plus some topics are less oa question of correct/incorrect and more one of worldview). I’d probably arrange it such that it only becomes visible on the comment after two uses, requires a short blurb about the issue (which would be visible), and would integrate with the “new posts highlighted” setting. I think this would be somewhat like community notes, but obviously adjusted to the smaller scale of Tildes.
I do wonder if there's some more neutral-sounding term we could use. Given the current state of the world, the word "misinformation" feels a bit too charged. I know it's different from...
I do wonder if there's some more neutral-sounding term we could use. Given the current state of the world, the word "misinformation" feels a bit too charged. I know it's different from disinformation, but there's a serious problem with both linked to current events (especially in the US) so seeing either term gets my hackles up.
But I can see the value in such a label for information that's factually wrong or mistaken. Though as others have noted, Tildes' development is effectively on pause right now so it's a bit of a moot point.
This is why I wondered about a more neutral term. Misinformation is not a euphemism for lying, it's the spread of incorrect information without the intent to lie or deceive others. Sometimes it's...
This is why I wondered about a more neutral term. Misinformation is not a euphemism for lying, it's the spread of incorrect information without the intent to lie or deceive others. Sometimes it's people quoting an incorrect interpretation of some law or announcement, and sometimes it's reciting rumors and hearsay as facts, but there are also many cases where it involves reciting "common knowledge" that's actually untrue or facts which have since been debunked.
For instance, a lot of people still believe there's a waiting period of 24-48 hours before you can report someone missing to the police. Or the still-common claim that Albert Einstein failed a math class. Or that Mister Rogers fought in a war. Or various survival tips like peeing on a jellyfish sting, or sucking venom out of a snake bite. Or heck, a bunch of the myths tackled by MythBusters.
There are many pieces of inaccurate information being spread with absolutely no malice or intent to deceive people involved, but just people not doing proper fact checking or being unaware of new research or developments. I do see the potential value in letting people flag those, as inaccurate information can lead to crazy outcomes like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wikipedia article opens the Events section with a header titled "Misinformed Public Announcements" and details how a press conference about new travel regulations, held by a man who hadn't participated or been fully updated on the regulations, ultimately led to the fall.
And now that I think about it, the verb "misinformed" feels a lot less charged and malicious than its noun counterpart. Being misinformed just means you were told wrong information, like being given the wrong starting time for a meeting. It's different from being told and repeating lies, as happens with disinformation. (Is "disinformed" even a verb??)
I was writing a response but ended up posting a new topic instead. If you have time and want to pitch in, I'd like to know your thoughts. (Also, I mentioned you in the post but seeing as you've...
I was writing a response but ended up posting a new topic instead. If you have time and want to pitch in, I'd like to know your thoughts.
(Also, I mentioned you in the post but seeing as you've deleted some comments, I'm having second thoughts. Would you prefer that I remove the tags?)
I don’t think it would work. The exemplary tag is often misused to mean “I strongly agree” and this would be worse. The closest thing I’ve seen that actually does seems to work is (was?) Twitter’s community notes system, and we don’t have the scale for that.
We sometimes have heated conversations that about what counts as misinformation and having a “trial” like that is no fun for anyone. The trouble is posting misinformation is easy (basically just shitposting), but to refute it, you need to research something that you probably don’t care to spend time on.
Also, a common problem is overconfident takes - that is, posting a strongly-held opinion about something as fact that nobody could really know for sure. So, then, if you argue against it, if you’re not careful then you end up seemingly taking the other side or “just asking questions.”
Our conversations aren’t important enough to be worth the angst of policing them.
The exemplary tag has nearly lost all meaning at this point. Lately I mostly see it applied to standard posts in heated threads, and sometimes it leads to retaliatory exemplary tags, or two sentence clapbacks getting an exemplary. It bothers me to see it, even if I'm in agreement with the "exemplary" post. If we had a visible misinformation tag, we would probably end up seeing some exemplary misinformation posts.
The irony of the comment you are replying and agreeing to having an exemplary tag is killing me.
I get that we're trying to keep the site fun, but the onus of fun-killing should fall on the misinformer. The fun will cease if misinformation becomes a common occurrence on this platform.
I would let people decide for themselves if they want to take the time to do this or not. Mods have existed since the dawn of forums, and modding (sometimes) can really suck. And yet people still take the time to do it.
This is not really what the post is about. Your comment is a confident take that I'm refuting within the current functions of the site, while the post in question would theoretically just need a wiki page linked and a quick "here's the correction" comment applied to the tag. The tag should have nothing to do with the subjective.
I strongly disagree. A lot of us have abandoned reddit or twitter precisely to find a place with decent conversation and community. The suggestion to add a tag like this is an attempt at protecting this site's authenticity at a time when misinformation is running wild.
I think we should distinguish between the kind of moderation that Deimos does (freezing topics, banning people, etc) and the sort of things users do. Deimos is not moderating by replying, like I’m replying to you right now. He’s not arguing. He’s not trying to convince anyone. There is no “trial.”
By contrast, it’s hard to see how users can get to any sort of consensus about what to do without discussing things we disagree about. And also, we’re unlikely to achieve consensus by discussing things either. I often give in to the temptation to reply and sometimes it’s because I don’t want to see “misinformation” (as I see it) go unopposed. But I try to remember that it doesn’t actually achieve much. Caring too much that people post things you disagree strongly about can ruin your whole day.
Although, I suppose labels and upvotes are different. If someone puts a label on something you can’t really do anything about it, so we might gripe about it a bit, but we don’t really argue.
This seems optimistic. Many facts are not simple. They often take decades of scientific research to establish, and sometimes consensus is never achieved. We often take consensus on facts for granted when we’re “standing on the shoulders of giants” as the phrase goes.
I think I agree with this take. I don’t see how leaving it up for community discussion is going to be conducive to good vibes and seems more like it’d be a venue for having arguments that are orthogonal to the topic at hand (i.e. arguing about whether the tag is appropriate vs. what’s wrong with the claim).
Furthermore, crowdsourcing tools like this tends to create an incentive for offsite coordination and brigading, which is an engagement pattern we should probably discourage.
If a post gets corrected further down in a thread the general convention has been for the OP to edit their post to make a note of that.
So all the people that are misinformed will then label correct information as "misinformation"... and how does one then correct that?
This seems absolutely impossible to manage
Misinformation is such a pervasive problem in general that I am not sure regular users being given the power to tag things as such has any value because, who are we expecting to be the arbiter of what is correct and how does a misinformation tag help if it's just a tag and there's no information on why it was tagged as such?
The tags don't really work the same way "Community Notes" do so I don't think it can be applied the same way. They aren't crowdsourced/crowd-determined or verified by anyone in particular
I could potentially see a tag like "contested" (or something better worded) to indicate there is a question of something's accuracy and info in below comments but i see a lot of the same issues with such a tag. It will be misused rather quickly. I can see it becoming a plague on topics like nutrition and fitness. Same for politics and religion and social issues. It will very quickly become a signifier of differing opinions because people won't just use it on data either (and data is commonly misinterpreted). People can't even agree what is an opinion vs what is a fact anymore.
I agree, also because leaving a comment isn't always ideal for various reasons. In the post I linked I mentioned posts, which aren't really an issue on Tildes, but comments with misinformation I do see on a slightly more regular basis.
The biggest challenge would be that it still would need some sort of community consensus. But having that discussion elsewhere without it kicking up a post is something that might be a good idea.
There certainly are other examples to draw from on other platforms.
I don't like it, sorry. (Personal opinion).
Too easy to misuse.
Generally I believe it's enough to leave a comment with corrections and then move to another topic.
It's not totally worthless, I try to call out falsehoods and I do use the noise label that way, just not necessarily announcing I'm using the label vs "this is false information"
Since the original comment has been deleted I can only guess what It says. Please do not use the noise label for on topic posts that contain information you don't believe to be correct. The noise label is for comments that are very low effort and don't add addition content to a conversation. Just as the exemplary label isn't a super upvote button, the noise label is not a super disagree button. Using the noise label hides a comment chain for everyone. This is the opposite of what this post wants. The noise label is an easily abusable system that gives each individual user a lot of power to help police the site. If it is becomes used routinely used in the way you have described it is likely that the tool will be removed.
I will not be upset if the tool is removed. I am doing the best with the tools that are available to me. Just like some folks may disagree with the exemplary qualities of a comment, others may disagree about what is noise.
It is perhaps truth that my understanding of low effort is different than yours.
But honestly there is no winning and therefore I'm just doing the best I can.
I value self governance, and the tools for everyone to help maintain this site. I would be sad to see tools removed because they were abused. In the comment I replied to you implied you use the noise label against false information, not just low effort content.
On the "commenting on Tildes section" they given examples of how they intended the tags to be used and even how they impact a comment. https://docs.tildes.net/instructions/commenting-on-tildes
The relevant bit to this conversation is the noise tag.
I also find comments on this site that I believe are detracting from intent of the site. I believe that as long as it's in good faith discussion is important, but some comments are clearly not in good faith. I also do my best with the tool provided and use the mailce label, and give my reason. Sometimes Deimos agrees with me, sometimes not. At least using the malice label is it a two person review, versus the noise label which applies the effects immediately, unilaterally, and impacts everyone's experience on the site.
I don't think you need to be afraid that tools will be taken away. Deimos has always been proactively handling it with the people who did actually use labels in ways they are not intended. Either by removing the privilige from that individual person and in some cases through a temp ban.
I think it is good to talk about the usage of labels, but they alsp by their nature will be somewhat fluid in their meaning for different people.
I really do like Tildes as a community, and its values are important to me. I frankly get worried sometimes when there is an influx of new users that have to integrate. I sincerely hope that Deimos can continue to run this site for a long time to come. This has become my refuge of real conversation in a world increasingly shouted down by algorithms and ai "content". I have my own fluxes of when I am able to comment, even just having a place to be minimally globally connected is nice though.
I agree that label definitions will by their nature be self interpreted. I just hope that people do not start using the tools of this site to weaponize content. The intent of the person doing the clicking matters. Are they acting to better the site and uphold the values of the community, or are they trying to manipulate the system to further their own goals?
That's a fair concern. But that's also why I think it is important to have a conversation about these things. If anything this discussion is.surfacing that labels to a degree are already weaponized, specifically exemplary is brought up a lot.
With other labels it is less visible what the impact is. I also do know that Deimos likely has limited time and energy available these days, simply judging by activity on the platform.
So I do think it is good to have a discussion about how labels might be made more robust (by crowd sourcing broader consensus for example) and possibly extended them once we'd have that (for example for misinformation).
When this website was created the intention was to experiment with this sort of things a lot more. You can dive into the beginning of that a lot more. I don't think development will pick up soon (which is what the deleted comment was about in part) but I do think it is good to try and brainstorm about it anyway.
Possibly even on how we as a community view certain labels as they are now. Because otherwise we truly are just coasting along which will.eventually just mean a slow death of this website.
I agree, any change we make about how we as a community operate should be a discussion. I dislike when people take it upon themselves to intentionally misuse tools at an individual level. I agree that there are often (what I would consider) very very low effort posts getting exemplary. I don't feel like that impacts a conversation as much the noise label specifically. I feel that the noise label is the most weaponizable because it removes a comment and its whole tree from casual viewing. As such I think this tag should be treated with the most care when being deployed. I really strongly feel that using the noise label as "I very strongly don't agree and think you are wrong label" will kill discussions.
I think adding a "contested" label, similar to the "exemplary" label would be my preferred solution; even though I do believe it will also be used against intent as a "dislike" button. At least in the case of a visible label the comment itself isn't hidden from view.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state I used it for this. This is for clarification purposes only as I'm up above and don't want to be mistaken for this.
And this is why I prefer to assume good faith. I'd be happy to lose the "noise" label entirely as scrolling past a low effort post is absolutely nil for me. But again I'm doing the best I can with the tools I have, as I think we all are.
But you're absolutely free to dislike it, of course.
To be clear, I did not imply nor state "DefinitelyNotAFae" used it for this either. Good faith is important.
This is my fear of how this label will be used if left wide open.
I have indeed read the docs. I've even used the Malice label before.
I generally assume everyone's use of labels is in good faith and I think that's the best policy for everyone.
I also generally assume good faith till proven otherwise. I have sadly seen people abuse the noise label. My only hope is that the tools can be removed for the people who are shown to abuse them rather than removed from the site at large.
Well abuse now assumes bad faith.
Which would make any changes to the labels useless and implies they just should be removed entirely, frankly. I could point to any number of tags I think are abuse, both up and down ranking. Even exemplary comments get sent down to noise.
So in the end I try to assume that anyone, even people using it in a way that isn't exactly as I personally would do it, are doing so in good faith.
I don't want a misinformation label, not because we don't need it, we do, but because I believe it is far more likely to be used against vulnerable groups than to correct misinformation about those groups. Instead I write lengthy, sourced comments and watch the factual inaccuracies continue to gather votes above my comment.
Abuse by another name. You also no not believe that a misinformation label can be used charitably. We can call it misuse it the terminology is the sticking point. Having someone misuse an exemplary label and then having someone misuse a noise label does not cancel them out. When someone says, "I am not using these for their intended purpose", and seems to be encouraging other to do the same I think it warrants comment. You are right in that intent of the person is the only thing we can judge them on.
You have provided comment.
Now, how is this comment any different from a standard Noise comment?
I never claimed it was! Feel free to label as you think appropriate.
None of us are immune to making "noisy" comments and I specifically said their existence doesn't bother me.
Hi, the deleted comment was from me, sorry. The gist is pretty much what y'all have mentioned. In hindsight, the way it's written felt too much like dogpiling on OP's suggestion, even though I meant it to be supportive. Since others have made the same point in more approachable ways I figured having it removed shouldn't be much of a loss.
I absolutely respect your desire to remove yourself from a conversation whenever you want. The only reason I referenced the deleted comment was to highlight that my comments might be missing some context clues.
Haha yeah, at least we could then say we tried :)
I would 100% support this, but how would that work? If someone incorrectly labels something as "misinformation", how would we combat that?
Re: our (short) exchange regarding the misuse of the "exemplary" label.
I don’t think this is a problem. Unlike in Reddit, tildes automatically highlights new replies, so a post on a weeks dead thread will pop up in activities and show any reader who clicks on it exactly what’s new. Additionally, there are generally few enough comments that it’s not a stretch to read all of them. That’s unlike Reddit where threads can have 1000s if 10,000s of replies.
Additionally, there’s only two ways this could work: either the admins need to make the call on whether it’s misinformation or not, or it needs to be crowd sourced.
For option A), that’s a tremendous burden given there’s all of one admin. And they’re definitely not omnipotent.
For option B), this has all the same trappings of the reply option. Let’s say a thread is dead and you post a reply and no one really cares at this point. Why would the misinformation tag not to be the same? No one will care enough to crowdsource enough misinformation votes to make one stick. And if people do care enough to do some kind of misinformation tag vote, why wouldn’t they also just vote on a reply?
I imagine that entirely depends on how the misinformation mechanism works. We have people who are very diligent with applying tags to topics. I don't see why a misinformation mechanism can't have people keep an eye out as well.
In that since it actually could be a pretty neat extension to the sort of community moderation Tildes already has through labels. Meaning that it wouldn't be down to a static mod team but the entire community.
I think it is important to try and look at the broader picture here. And not work from preconceived narrow cases to argue why it wouldn't work.
I mean I don't even think the current set of tags is used particularly well. Probably only noise gets actual value. Exemplary is already mostly used as "super-vote". There's many times that a low effort post that someone somewhere really approves of in a directional fashion gets it.
This just seems like adding more in that inflammatory sense. The nice thing about noise is that it's somewhat easily to make an objective gut call about - someone just responding LOL is noise no matter what. What is misinformation is, on the other hand, is a billion dollar question. No easy answers there. Even to make an answer you have be knowledgable in the area.
In the end, this is a text discussion website. Solving issues by discussing in text form should be prioritized if at all possible. I have not seen times where have a misinformation tag would make things better. If anything, theyd just make it worse.
That's fair and could be entirely the case. I view exemplary as a bit of a 50/50 thing, in some cases where I got it I agree people used it as a super upvote. In other cases it genuinely was novel message in the label and clearly because someone thought it was a good comment that really added something to the discussion. Which you can argue is also a super upvote but also aligns with the description in the tildes documentation
I guess what I am saying is that it is not not a super-vote in a sense.
That entirely depends on the implementation though. The exemplary label is there straight away shouting for attention. I agree that it might be too powerful. All the more reason imho to consider other ways to improve on labels in a different ways.
There is no reason (other than the slow development of this website) that it couldn't be a mechanism separate from the thread. One where a quorum needs be reached before it has any effect on the comment that has been flagged. Reducing the inflammatory impact it might otherwise have if it was something happening right on the thread.
To be clear, I am not pretending to have the right answers or right implementation. But I do think it is worth considering, again, from a broad perspective how something might look like.
The end result could be that a comment is hidden or even removed. Which, in a lot of cases would actually improve things. As I have seen cases of misinformation where people kept responding to it which also in turn brought attention to it.
Even if the label does not remove anything, it is worth considering that if it is flagged with misinformation less people might be inclined to reply as they don't feel the need. Which in turn might actually allow discussion to be more on-topic elsewhere.
We could start putting a “misinformation” tag on topics any time with no software changes, but I doubt anyone with the ability to tag other people’s topics wants to do that? It seems too vague and subjective to apply consistently. Instead we have tags like “politics.”
The closest I’ll go is using an “opinion” tag for any kind of persuasive essay. That’s what I do on my own website.
I think the difference is, can the tag also apply to “good” topics or is it always negative like “misinformation” would be? An opinion piece or an article about politics can be good and these tags could be self-applied.
I do mention tags in the comment you just replied to. But only to highlight that there are people dedicated to those, not as a mechanism we should adapt for misinformation.
I can see how.you read that from that comment in isolation. But if you look at the entire chain, for example my next comment in this exact chain it should be clear enough.
I think it’s a good point that replies often just feed the fire. That’s an argument for doing something else.
Or, if you as a community do want to do something about it, think about ways this discussion can be had without disrupting the topic in question.
For which there are various mechanisms in the wild already. Both on community platforms but also on othet platforms, Wikipedia's talk page comes to mind.
As I have said elsewhere, considering various possible mechanisms doesn't hurt. When you never stop to be critical of yourself (both as a person and as a community) you'll never grow and eventually risk stagnanting or even damaging yourself.
If this is a subject that doesn't interest you or don't see the merit in that is fine I guess. That would also be a good moment to follow your own advice.
But if it does interest you I think that partaking also means considering all options.
As an example, you yourself mention abuse of the exemplary label. As @TaylorSwiftsPickles mentions here this would be a chance to improve that through crowdsourcing.
I can't help but feel that suggesting to people to just shrug and move on, while probably coming from a good place, is a bit tone deaf to the reality of online communities and certainly how some misinformation actually is hurting people by being out there.
You not seeing an issue or you being able to shrug things of yourself and move on doesn't mean that is an overall truth. Something that's too often and too easily forgotten or ignored.
Yes, the talk page on Wikipedia is a good example. But we're not maintaining a wiki. Are we maintaining a link collection? Arguably so with the tagging system.
An issue with doing that here is that the Tildes software is effectively frozen. So, unlike in Tildes' early days, discussing ways to improve the software seems pointless? We can only do things that don't require any software changes, like introducing a new topic tag.
But I am rather interested in what might be done to improve things, which is partial motivation for building my own personal link-sharing website. There are no community features now, but perhaps I'll get to that eventually. In the meantime, it serves as a staging area and archive for the links I post to Tildes, along with other links I choose not to share here.
It's tempting to think that if I built my own community software, I could do it properly, learning from Tildes and trying new experiments. But I'm wary of it because I don't want Deimos's job, and I'm not sure I'd be able to build a community anyway. It might just be tumbleweeds? Only a few people follow me in Bluesky, etc.
Another idea I toy with is releasing the software and helping people set up their own community websites. I think the old blogging ecosystem was pretty good in some ways. But I'm not sure anyone would go for that either? And there is plenty of other blogging software for people to use.
So, I just build for myself. At least I know I'll use it.
Regarding shrugging and moving on, this is not possible for social media in general, but it seems very feasible for Tildes? At the extreme, people can just leave and probably nobody will follow.
What's really not possible is to participate by posting topics or comments without getting replies in disagreement. Really heated discussion will get shut down, but in general, you are going to get replies.
Which is why on my own website, I'm still thinking about whether or how to implement replies at all. I'd like to get feedback, but only certain kinds.
Sure, that is why I also mentioned other community websites. In fact, OP has talked explicitly about the "Community Notes system" found elsewhere as a possible template. I am merely mentioning wikipedia as an example that it certainly is possible to have a space aside from the main content to discuss potential issues within the content. Which, to me, seem relevant if we are worried about disrupting discussions. Don't you agree?
Then why bother participating and voicing your disagreement at all? Maybe because it is worthwhile to discuss, at the very least to make people aware that others perceive an issue. Maybe to come to a different solution within the current technical boundaries.
In fact, good point. It probably is a genuinely good idea to see if we can think of something that works within those limitations. For example we could, as a community, land on a format where we have a meta misinformation discussion thread. When someone thinks something is misinformation they simply leave a comment in that thread explaining why and link under the misinformation for a further discussion.
Not perfect, not by a long shot. But what I am trying to showcase is that it is very easy to just shoot down suggestions based on technical merits or limitations. But that is largely missing the point in the first place.
With all due respect. What you are saying here comes from an extremely privileged position and really is a bit tone deaf. One that effectively says to a lot of minorities of various kinds that in the long term can take a hike. Because a lot of misinformation often will be about subjects like that. Even more so because Tildes lacks native tooling to filter out people who are consistently spreading misinformation.
In fact your entire argument for people making their own community effectively comes down to you saying that people should basically just abandon the one community they currently feel at home. I know you are just idly musing from your perspective. And I do think it is a good thing that you want people to have the opportunity to host communities of their own. But I also do think it is, again, important to be aware of the implications of what you are saying actually is.
I will quite readily admit to being out of touch and perhaps I'm missing some implications, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Maybe part of the issue is blurring the consequences of misinformation on social media in general (which can be very serious) versus what happens on Tildes?
If you mean Tildes in particular: many of us like Tildes, but is it essential infrastructure for anyone? It seems like anyone, regardless of privilege, could quit Tildes, or just decide to take a break from it for a while, and people often do?
Or if you mean, spreading misinformation on Tildes could have harmful effects beyond Tildes, sure it doesn't help, but I don't think we're very influential compared to other, much larger social media websites. Or even compared to individual bloggers or influencers.
Or perhaps you mean that people on Tildes who actually read articles or comments here will be misled by misinformation? I think a lot of what we discuss isn't "news you can use" that if it's wrong could be dangerous from a personal, practical standpoint. But if it is, then someone should reply explaining why, and perhaps it will be retracted.
Or maybe something else I completely missed. What implications do you mean?
Honestly, none of those four points.
There is a big difference between leaving because a site got annoying/dull and leaving because you stopped feeling welcome in it. Both, to the outside, will look like "quitting Tildes" but one of them does come with a cost to someone.
That cost is also much higher for someone without obvious alternatives, given how much of the rest of the internet can be unwelcoming too.
In general saying "just leave" already ignores that for many people this place is a community, not just a place where they share links and idly muse about stuff. For some people this is even one of the very few communities where they feel welcome. I really hope I don't need to explain why in that context it feels a bit tone deaf to just suggest that people pack up and leave?
This in itself should already be important enough in my opinion. But it also costs the community over time. Certain types of misinformation tend to target specific groups, LGBTQ+ people often, but other minorities too. If you drive those people away you are left with something more homogeneous and less welcoming to the next person. This also means losing the voices best placed to push back on that misinformation in the first place. The community that remains won't see a problem, because they never had to experience one.
I don't know about you, but I like being part of a welcoming diverse community and certainly want to keep it that way and not slowly filter out unique individual voices. Which is why I keep hammering on about at least giving it some consideration and see what we can do with the means available to us.
I fully realize there are risks involved of abuse and that with the tools available it might be a clunky solution. But, perfect doesn't exist and if we really all care about Tildes as a community I think it is only fair to at least give things a proper consideration when issues are raised by people.
Not just the from a mechanical perspective, but also the underlying issues and impact. Take a step back and don't read it as a request for a feature you fear might be abused. But actually take a look at why people are asking for this. Not just this thread but also the thread I already linked in my previous comment. You can draw your own conclusions. But what I think I am seeing, behind the clear feature request for a ability to filter out people and this request for a misinformation mechanism is that a sizable group of people is tired of having to push back on a constant basis. What I am seeing is a group of people who still feel welcome to a degree but are (quite literally in @TaylorSwiftsPickles case) also ready to leave because it is too much but are basically trying to explore if there are any options left to allow them to continue participate on the website.
Yes, saying that people can quit any time does sound like a suggestion that people should quit over this, and that does seem kinda rude. It definitely isn't my intention to say anyone in particular or any group of users should quit. And we should try to fix things for @TaylorSwiftsPickles. Though they did say they were "micro-annoyed," so I hope it isn't too serious :)
I still want to push back on treating Tildes as overly important. I'm out of touch, but I'd be shocked if Tildes were in the top ten list of important forums for any community. Surely there must be lots of other LGBT or black or Jewish or whatever community websites out there?
So I'm not really buying the notion that there are few alternatives. But we can still care about Tildes. Maybe Tildes is in the top five for some of us personally? After all we keep hanging out here. That's a different kind of meaningfulness, though.
Also, it seems like we are talking around our problems. "Minority" is vague (which minority?) and so is "misinformation" (what kind of posts do you hate seeing?)
I do understand the impulse to vague-post, since people often don't take feedback well, and giving specific examples often threatens to derail the conversation. But the problem is, vague complaints are vague. Anyone could be imagining they're part of the problem and that might be due to their own insecurities. (The other topic you linked to has some people wondering if they're the problem.)
I'm thinking about how Hacker News downvotes work. A downvote is specific in one way (it's a particular post) and super vague in a different way, so people ask "why the downvote?" On the other hand, what's to be done? You just grumble and move on. It takes a lot less time than replies.
A label is slightly more specific, but still leaves open a lot of questions. The exemplary tag at least lets people say a few words more about what they liked.
If we could change Tildes, a "misinformation" label that doesn't actually appear on the post would be a way to collect feedback without affecting the conversation. It could go to a report somewhere... seen by who, the admin? And what do they do about it?
Since we can't change Tildes itself, an anonymous survey about what sort of posts people consider to be misinformation might be another way to do it.
Tildes is in the top 1 for me. Admittedly I'm not a community, just a person. But it does give me grief when:
Tildes is the most valuable online forum I know of, to me. Can we try to not self-sabotage into oblivion?
Yeah, same. Honestly if there are other similar places that're more supportive + inclusive than this I'd be game to jump ship, but my circle doesn't appear to encompass any of 'em. Totally willing to entertain suggestions if people have them, but I'd rather stick around here.
(there are some Discord servers, but they don't serve the same purpose as long-ish form discussion boards)
To be clear, I am talking about individuals who fall under a minority and are part of this community. I am sure there dedicated communities out there for these groups as well. But by them being dedicated is also what makes them segregated, where Tildes is actually relatively diverse. Something I made a case for in my previous comment.
I highly doubt there are that many more communities like Tildes out there about general subjects who are as inclusive and not under a constant barrage of eternal September trying to destroy that. Which is part due to the invite system but also various other factors
Speaking as someone from an overly represented group (white cis male) even struggle to come up with communities that fit the same niche Tildes does. I do visit other websites like lobste.rs but those are highly targeted towards technology and feel overall less like a community to me.
This is one of the few places in recent years where I have made online meaningful connections with people. Had genuine conversations with people.
So yeah, it easily makes the top five already for me. So I have no issue imagining that for other people it ranks even higher.
I already named a specific minority group and yes
I don't have specific examples as I personally don't fall under that group. But, as I hope I have made clear in my previous post, I have seen enough responses to know that there seems to be somewhat of an issue brewing. But I also see why people would have an issue pointing out specific issues as that might escalate in something nobody wants.
I do appreciate you trying, I honestly do. But on this specific bit we have been going in circles as various methods already have been brought up. Since you now suggest something that would require a technical change, the report could go to a community queue of sorts. I already mentioned the wikipedia talk page as an example. One way to approach it would be to have the item sit in a queue and anyone from the community can respond with a "agree/disagree" reply but does need to also provide a bit of reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing. Potentially replies in the misinformation queue could be (semi)anonymous so people.
Something along those lines anyway. Again I don't have a ready made answer. I also don't expect one to come from you specifically :) You were the one responding to me so to you specifically I made the case as to why I think it is important to give this consideration. But, since this is a public forum that message extends to anyone who just dismissed it straight away out of technical merits.
Honestly not a bad idea. We could at the very least collect that information let people respond and then publish the results to further talk about. That would make the issue less vague to understand.
I'll give it some thought and might set up a survey of sorts.
How I interpret the above user's point is let's say there's misinformation about a minority group. The ones who spread it meant well, but it's nevertheless a commonly said opinion, which negatively affect the minority reader both in emotional trigger and the exhaustion of having to try to correct it too often.
The fact a site (such as Tildes) is niche may be all the more reason to be protective since it could be the rare oasis that they may not be able to find again, which is different for "average" people who can fit in the common spaces fine and so can move on more easily.
Edit: Oops they've already explained their points, nvm me
No thank you :) If anything it is a more succinct way of writing down what took me multiple paragraphs.
Do you have an example? I have not really seen any circumstances where replies did not suffice.
You will be missed, and I hope you come back at some point should the math on decision ever work out in that direction.
I think I would prefer not to have this label. Not that I'm interested in reading a bunch of misinformation. My experiences on Tildes revolve around discussions and opinions where most of the "facts" generally are in the post or articles themselves. Most comments below those posts are not users engaged in an exchange of facts, but an exchange of ideas and opinions.
My concern is who is responsible for placing the theoretical tag and who needs to curate, check, and moderate comments or posts with the tag.
Maybe this could be good, but in the end it may be better to engage in discussion to resolve the perceived misinformation. People are people, we are allowed, and unfortunately very very likely to be wrong and misinformation, but as long as we can grow and change we can move forward.
I'm in favour of it, at least. Would also be OK with a "Citation Needed" label, or something, with largely similar behaviour.
"citation needed" or "source needed" would be my answer to that, people should post sources of their claims anyway, it's just good habit
I think "I'd like a source" is a better solution than "minsinformation", if adding something is appropriate at all.
If I'm invested in something someone else is saying, or think it's worth engaging with their comment, I personally like to look things up.
I don't think it's reasonable to demand others do my work for me in that setting; most of the time it's extremely easy finding stuff with a single AI-powered search.
Most claims people make are already established in the field and not controversial except for us laypeople.
If making very specific claims where there's only one source for a factoid or whatever, that's probably not a major use case for a "citation"-label. Or?
Perhaps, one could suggest a citation along with the label? Same way that the "Exemplary" sends an anonymous message to the user, that way posters can avoid most of the work necessary to shore up their positions.
It could absolutely still be abused (e.g. slamming people with "citation needed" when you disagree with them as a downvote, effectively), but in principle so can the Noise/Malice tags. And I don't know if that's being done too often?
Huh, TIL that it can be overridden! Looks like it's 1/5 of the vote count?
Also good lord I'm realizing I spent forty minutes on a reply in another thread XD augh time to sign off for the day.
I would like to see sources too and try to provide evidence myself. But asking often annoys people since you’re giving them homework, particularly if you do it in a low-effort way like “citation needed.” So instead I might go with something like “where did you learn that?”
I think it really depends on what people want. If the idea is that consensus opinion always wins then it's a good feature to implement because the consensus believes its "misinformation". Note as many people pointed out consensus isn't always correct and when one is in the heat of an argument its pretty easy to slap that label on.
It is my opinion that negative labels like that are too charged and basically suggests to people that hey this entire comment is worthless to read. I don't think that encourages discussion and respectful debate which is why I like Tildes
I'm not super comfortable with the idea, for reasons others have explained, but I do see value in at least exploring possible implementations of similar concepts.
My only suggestion at the moment is that, if something like this is in fact appropriate, maybe it could function like this:
This seems like a gentler interruption of the thread presentation, since it still requires new viewers to go down to your correction (and then potentially vote for it to more organically increase its visibility), rather than hijacking the sort order to force them to see it. It also seems like less work to develop than a whole separate viewer for "community notes", since it utilizes the existing comment threading structure.
It also might be good to limit the number of times a formal correction can be posted? Perhaps even to just a single time. That could keep the refutation organized, as well as contained to prevent it feeling like a dogpile if it really catches on. Though I suppose you can still effect a dogpile by simply replying as normal without utilizing the feature.
And maybe only top-level comments could be disputed? Idk, just spitballing at this point.
To some extent, though, this still feels to me like an unnecessary formalization of dissent when "just post a corrective reply" is an available course of action. I guess my experience of this issue's severity differs from yours.
I think there is potential in this, although I have not seen a need. But that might be more of the difference in threads I hang out in compared to you, and also having a different level of sensitivity on various topics.
One way that I could see this implemented well is as others have said in not having it be flagged as "misinformation" but instead "disputed." I think from there it should also require leaving a comment of explanation with sources, and that comment gets connected to the original comment (unsure on the exact UI of that).
I think there should also be some kind of metrics tracked for how people are using it, which is in align with Tildes philosophy. Tildes keeps track of invite trees, in case a user only invites problematic users. Tildes also does a cool down on exemplary labels. Therefore, I think it would be worthwhile to have some metric on how reliable a specific user is applying this new label. This could be done through tracking who is frequently getting labelled, who is frequently labelling, a vote system to try and figure out which side is more correct in a dispute, or some other system. Regardless of the system, it can be abused so the tracking should be solid but rarely used like how the invite tree is rarely looked at.
I don’t think we really need it — but what we do need is a ‘we have been going back and forth but I have nothing further to contribute to this discussion but I am also terrible at not being the last one to speak’ button.
I feel that it wouldnt work out well, and would likely just become a pseudo downvote and be weaponized around any contentious topic.
On the other hand I wouldnt really mind implementing it anyway. If I see a bunch of people trying to play referee on a conversation and slapping condemning labels on all the comments, thats a good red flag that its a discussion I should probably just skip.
Since what constitutes 'Truth' is whatever humanity makes of it; the universe has no right or wrong, this policing indirectly contributes to polarization whether intentional or not.
Slapping a 'Misinformation'-label onto something could be seen as a sign to skip whatever that person has to say.
I’m open to something like this. I’d change the name to something like “contested” (“misinformation” IMO is likely to prime folks for defensiveness, plus some topics are less oa question of correct/incorrect and more one of worldview). I’d probably arrange it such that it only becomes visible on the comment after two uses, requires a short blurb about the issue (which would be visible), and would integrate with the “new posts highlighted” setting. I think this would be somewhat like community notes, but obviously adjusted to the smaller scale of Tildes.
I do wonder if there's some more neutral-sounding term we could use. Given the current state of the world, the word "misinformation" feels a bit too charged. I know it's different from disinformation, but there's a serious problem with both linked to current events (especially in the US) so seeing either term gets my hackles up.
But I can see the value in such a label for information that's factually wrong or mistaken. Though as others have noted, Tildes' development is effectively on pause right now so it's a bit of a moot point.
Misinformation is already a euphemism for a lie, I don't think it needs further layers of obfuscation.
This is why I wondered about a more neutral term. Misinformation is not a euphemism for lying, it's the spread of incorrect information without the intent to lie or deceive others. Sometimes it's people quoting an incorrect interpretation of some law or announcement, and sometimes it's reciting rumors and hearsay as facts, but there are also many cases where it involves reciting "common knowledge" that's actually untrue or facts which have since been debunked.
For instance, a lot of people still believe there's a waiting period of 24-48 hours before you can report someone missing to the police. Or the still-common claim that Albert Einstein failed a math class. Or that Mister Rogers fought in a war. Or various survival tips like peeing on a jellyfish sting, or sucking venom out of a snake bite. Or heck, a bunch of the myths tackled by MythBusters.
There are many pieces of inaccurate information being spread with absolutely no malice or intent to deceive people involved, but just people not doing proper fact checking or being unaware of new research or developments. I do see the potential value in letting people flag those, as inaccurate information can lead to crazy outcomes like the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wikipedia article opens the Events section with a header titled "Misinformed Public Announcements" and details how a press conference about new travel regulations, held by a man who hadn't participated or been fully updated on the regulations, ultimately led to the fall.
And now that I think about it, the verb "misinformed" feels a lot less charged and malicious than its noun counterpart. Being misinformed just means you were told wrong information, like being given the wrong starting time for a meeting. It's different from being told and repeating lies, as happens with disinformation. (Is "disinformed" even a verb??)
I was writing a response but ended up posting a new topic instead. If you have time and want to pitch in, I'd like to know your thoughts.
(Also, I mentioned you in the post but seeing as you've deleted some comments, I'm having second thoughts. Would you prefer that I remove the tags?)