Is there a reason we should have proportional representation for gender/sexual minorities? If we were hiring for a job, this would make sense, but it doesn't when we're talking about making sure...
Is there a reason we should have proportional representation for gender/sexual minorities? If we were hiring for a job, this would make sense, but it doesn't when we're talking about making sure perspectives are represented in discussions.
Ah, I think I'm being unclear. I'm saying that over-representation of minorities is a good thing - for precisely that reason. That there's no reason to have proportional representation be the goal...
Ah, I think I'm being unclear. I'm saying that over-representation of minorities is a good thing - for precisely that reason. That there's no reason to have proportional representation be the goal or limiter, because that's just ensuring a marginalized group is marginalized here as well.
Why would it have to be discriminatory? Simply post to major LGBT and women's subreddits promoting tildes, and link back to the r/tildes invite thread. No one is being excluded.
Why would it have to be discriminatory? Simply post to major LGBT and women's subreddits promoting tildes, and link back to the r/tildes invite thread. No one is being excluded.
In that case, it's positive discrimination and not exclusionary - so what is the problem? You're also continuing to use the word "disproportionate" as if it's a problem, but I don't believe you've...
In that case, it's positive discrimination and not exclusionary - so what is the problem?
You're also continuing to use the word "disproportionate" as if it's a problem, but I don't believe you've given a reason as to why that's a problem either.
"Positive discrimination" does not mean "good discrimination", it's just discrimination that benefits its target. One's circumstances in life do increase the value of what they bring to the...
"Positive discrimination" does not mean "good discrimination", it's just discrimination that benefits its target.
One's circumstances in life do increase the value of what they bring to the discussion, when their circumstances are on topic. The perspectives of marginalized people are wholly necessary to have any sort of a productive conversation about those marginalized people or their being marginalized. Would you expect a thread on asexuality stocked with hundreds of sexual people to be nearly as valuable as one with hundreds of asexual people? Or a thread on women full of men, black people filled with people who aren't black, and so on?
Please respond to what I'm directly saying, and not a stretched interpretation of it. I called for making posts in LGBT and women's subreddits encouraging them to post in the invite threads - this isn't forcing anything, and isn't hurting anyone.
Sorry if I came across as OP, but I am not them. Regardless, I don't see how the OP is forcing anything either. Simply saying they are, and claiming there's a contradiction, isn't really an...
Sorry if I came across as OP, but I am not them.
Regardless, I don't see how the OP is forcing anything either. Simply saying they are, and claiming there's a contradiction, isn't really an argument, so I'm left with no idea what you're even talking about.
I think they meant that hiring should be neutral so that a random normalised sample of employees should have propotional representation of all social stratas. This (I'm referring to my own...
I think they meant that hiring should be neutral so that a random normalised sample of employees should have propotional representation of all social stratas. This (I'm referring to my own understanding of their comment) obviously assumes that all strata are equally equipped to undertake the responsibilty the job entails which sadly isn't true in most cases.
With the singular exception that we are predominantly male, you have just shown that non-heterosexual and non-cis people are wildly overrepresented on tildes. I would support a drive to bring more...
With the singular exception that we are predominantly male, you have just shown that non-heterosexual and non-cis people are wildly overrepresented on tildes. I would support a drive to bring more women into the platform, so long as it was done the right way - what does that look like? No idea, all the options I've seen people try are terrible. But I would not support a false balance drive.
As for western democracies - tildes is English only right now, and staying that way for at least a while. While that remains true the western democracy part makes sense.
Is there really much variance between tilde user demographics and the internet as a whole? The internet skews young and male; young people tend to be more liberal.
Is there really much variance between tilde user demographics and the internet as a whole?
The internet skews young and male; young people tend to be more liberal.
And duplicating reddit's lack of representation should not be our goal. If tildes is all about high quality content, there is no reason not to have close to 50% women. Women are just as interested...
And duplicating reddit's lack of representation should not be our goal. If tildes is all about high quality content, there is no reason not to have close to 50% women. Women are just as interested in having high level discussions.
And as a woman, I will tell you that that supposition is ridiculous. Women are people, just like men, and they communicate in all sorts of varied methods on the internet, just like men. Some like...
And as a woman, I will tell you that that supposition is ridiculous.
Women are people, just like men, and they communicate in all sorts of varied methods on the internet, just like men. Some like text-based forums, some like sharing photos, some like chatting with friends, some like drawing art or making videos, others like in-depth discussion and analysis. As with men, some women like all of these things at once. Because women are just ordinary people.
However, one big difference between men and women on the internet is that many women on the internet have been conditioned to never mention their gender in certain spaces, because if they do then they get harassed by men: unsolicited dick pics, "tits or gtfo", some dudes trying to date them, others immediately dismissing them for being female... all of this bad behavior is a huge pain in the ass to deal with and it means that the number of visible women in spaces like reddit is much smaller than the number of women actually present. One-third of reddit is female, but I bet you assume that 90%+ of the people you interact with there are male. The women are quiet about it because we don't want to be harassed.
Had reddit been more careful from the outset about making itself a more welcoming community for women, then women wouldn't feel the need to hide in order to use it. Tildes has the opportunity to avoid the mistakes that reddit made by deliberately being more inclusive when building its initial community. We need to be better.
Look, there are clearly women who like using reddit and tildes. I never said there weren't. However, I don't think that reddit as a whole (regardless of individual subreddits) is particularly...
Look, there are clearly women who like using reddit and tildes. I never said there weren't. However, I don't think that reddit as a whole (regardless of individual subreddits) is particularly anti-women, or structured against women. I do not think there is any culture of harassment on reddit as a whole. I simply think that the style of interaction (impersonal, argumentative, and often callous) just isn't appealing to many women. I personally enjoy the discussions I read and have on reddit. I think the basic mechanics of the site (voting, decreased focus on identity (e.g. no prominent profiles or "friends feed), and hierarchal commenting) promote this style of interaction. I do not think any efforts to be more "welcoming" would have changed this, because this style of interaction is deeply ingrained in the format of the site. Again, this is not to say that all women dislike the style of interaction on reddit, just that many of them may not. There are plenty of other places on the internet to have other style of interaction, if one so chooses.
Forgive me, but I have to ask: are you a woman? Because this: seems incredibly naive. Either you are a particularly lucky woman, or you aren't speaking from experience. Feel free not to answer...
Forgive me, but I have to ask: are you a woman? Because this:
I don't think that reddit as a whole (regardless of individual subreddits) is particularly anti-women ... I do not think there is any culture of harassment on reddit as a whole.
seems incredibly naive. Either you are a particularly lucky woman, or you aren't speaking from experience.
Feel free not to answer that question if you don't want to, but either way please consider that your experiencesarenotuniversal.
Sure they're not universal, but on the majority of subs I visit there is no strong gender bias one way or the other. Many of the posts you linked express frustration with some of the more...
Sure they're not universal, but on the majority of subs I visit there is no strong gender bias one way or the other. Many of the posts you linked express frustration with some of the more inherently gender-oriented subreddits (such as /r/relationships), or after already having posted pictures of themselves. This sort of behaviour (harassment via pm's or semi-private communication) is relatively common on any open forum on the internet, and it only takes a few bad actors to perpetuate it. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone, male or female, to post personal pictures on a semi-anonymous forum like reddit or tildes, but that's of course up to the individual. While I can't deny that there are many individual cases of harassment which have occurred in some portion of the site, I still don't think there is a general culture of harassment. Many of the subs I read are well moderated, and discourage such behaviour when it occurs. I encourage you to venture beyond the defaults in forming your opinion. (As an aside, /r/twoxchromasomes has not traditionally been... neutral on this subject)
Here's a Pew Research Study that takes a look at it in the US. It looks like we have reached, or are reaching, gender parity, but it does skew younger with the 18-29 cohort coming in the lead,...
Here's a Pew Research Study that takes a look at it in the US. It looks like we have reached, or are reaching, gender parity, but it does skew younger with the 18-29 cohort coming in the lead, followed thereafter by 30+.
That being said, it does seem to rely heavily on those who have received some college education, if not a 4 year degree and studies have shown that college education rates correspond with liberalism.
I believe what tildes actually needs is more conservatives. We only have two people who are defending a conservative viewpoint, which risks us turning into a leftist echo chamber. I believe we...
I believe what tildes actually needs is more conservatives. We only have two people who are defending a conservative viewpoint, which risks us turning into a leftist echo chamber. I believe we currently have more anarcho-capitalists than conservatives at the moment, which is not at all representational.
No, instead it'll turn into a spectator sport. We don't need people to "defend" any viewpoint like a soccer goal or "represent" like a mascot does, nor is disagreement just for the sake of...
We only have two people who are defending a conservative viewpoint, which risks us turning into a leftist echo chamber.
No, instead it'll turn into a spectator sport. We don't need people to "defend" any viewpoint like a soccer goal or "represent" like a mascot does, nor is disagreement just for the sake of disagreement usually very productive*. We want people who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they contribute what they believe in. Sometimes it'll be agreement, sometimes it'll be disagreement, but whatever it is, it should be honest and actually contribute something. And recruiting people just for their political views isn't very fair imo.
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* Thinking critically is good, but just to disagree for the sake of disagreement rarely leads to anything insightful, for two reasons: when you're disagreeing, that means you're holding an alternative viewpoint, not just examining your own. This means, to contribute anything useful, you have to actually understand that viewpoint and how it applies to all of the same questions / challenges as your own, which is rare in something as emotionally charged and complex as politics. Secondly, that disagreement has to actually lead to something. I can argue with you all day over whether the earth is round for example, but nobody is going to come away learning anything from that discussion we didn't already know.
I am sorry if that came across wrong. I agree that we should not invite people based solely upon their political beliefs. I believe we are in agreement in the belief that we want people from a...
I am sorry if that came across wrong. I agree that we should not invite people based solely upon their political beliefs. I believe we are in agreement in the belief that we want people from a wide variety of backgrounds. I also agree that people should only contribute in what they believe in, and not become the mascot for their ideology. That’s why I think tildes could use more conservatives. If there are few conservatives, they end up feeling forced to take a more conservative side in every topic, simply because no one else is taking it, while if there are more, they can simply contribute what they believe in.
I'm not sure a "leftist echo chamber" is even possible—the further left you go, the more people argue with each other over ideological details. Honestly, I'd prefer fewer ideological arguments and...
I'm not sure a "leftist echo chamber" is even possible—the further left you go, the more people argue with each other over ideological details.
Honestly, I'd prefer fewer ideological arguments and more discussion of shared interests and experiences. Emphasizing "ideological diversity" tends to draw in people who love arguing about ideology. I don't think it's a good strategy.
I would call myself a right leaning libertarian if it wouldn’t make people think I am an anarcho-capitalist. I wasn’t counting myself amount the conservatives, and we are rather left of center as...
I would call myself a right leaning libertarian if it wouldn’t make people think I am an anarcho-capitalist. I wasn’t counting myself amount the conservatives, and we are rather left of center as a whole if I look like one.
I agree in general, but this one might be a little tougher to accomplish due to the fact that Reddit/social media users tend to be more liberal in general so we're picking from a biased sample.
I agree in general, but this one might be a little tougher to accomplish due to the fact that Reddit/social media users tend to be more liberal in general so we're picking from a biased sample.
I think the most important one from this list is women in my opinion. Males have always been overrepresented on Reddit. I wonder if women had a larger role in shaping a new community, that...
I think the most important one from this list is women in my opinion. Males have always been overrepresented on Reddit. I wonder if women had a larger role in shaping a new community, that community would be more interesting to/welcoming of women. I agree with other users that it would be nice for more political variety to prevent echo chambers from forming.
I agree, but how? One of tildes' feature is relative anonymity, you have no data attached to your profile, advertised on reddit and hackernews which probably have equally bad representation. Maybe...
I agree, but how? One of tildes' feature is relative anonymity, you have no data attached to your profile, advertised on reddit and hackernews which probably have equally bad representation. Maybe advertising it more in communities with a higher female ratio than reddit? Where is that, even? Pinterest? Or should we make ads specifically asking women to give this a try in its early stages, when the community can still be shaped a little? It sounds awkward but I'm kinda serious since that's about the only answer I can think of.
/r/twoXchromosomes might be a good place to start. I am not super familiar with female dominated subreddits, but I'm sure someone has that information. I agree that this is a tough problem.
/r/twoXchromosomes might be a good place to start. I am not super familiar with female dominated subreddits, but I'm sure someone has that information. I agree that this is a tough problem.
I wouldn't mind focusing on advertising Tildes on subreddits with higher female ratios and allowing an influx while something can still be done about the initial male-female-ratio (once it's 100k...
I wouldn't mind focusing on advertising Tildes on subreddits with higher female ratios and allowing an influx while something can still be done about the initial male-female-ratio (once it's 100k users while staying 90% male, I don't see the demographics ever changing).
The other side of this would be making the site generally more attractive to female users. But that's a subtle and somewhat awkward challenge. What "do women like"? On the one hand, the politically correct thing to say is that they like all the same things as men and shouldn't be treated differently. On the other, there's even some feminist views that women do have different interests than men (more social, interpersonal topics, etc) and that not being considered is discriminatory. Once there'd be a more balanced male-female-ratio, that shouldn't be a problem and women could simply shape the community by posting content they're interested in and voting it up but we currently have a 90% male ratio so that's not going to just happen.
I must say, the extreme male-dominated culture of reddit is probably what bothers me the most about general reddit content. Yea, I share many of the nerdy interests and that male ratio is the same everywhere, but that's not a reason to not try to change it. All that testosterone occasionally tends to... stink a little.
That gave me chuckle. Again, I'm still unsure what a 'safe' place for women is in an online context, or an unsafe place for that matter. Perhaps the negative effect on reddits female userbase...
That gave me chuckle.
Again, I'm still unsure what a 'safe' place for women is in an online context, or an unsafe place for that matter.
Perhaps the negative effect on reddits female userbase explains why /r/twoxchromosomes turned out the way it did if most of the sensible women left.
My idea is that by having women, the community becomes more available to women. If we have more women here early on, more articles/conversations/media that are relevant and interesting to women...
My idea is that by having women, the community becomes more available to women. If we have more women here early on, more articles/conversations/media that are relevant and interesting to women will be shared. Then, as subgroups develop, there will be more that appeal to women. At least that's the logic I imagine.
"Targeting" people is completely at odds with what this site is trying to accomplish. Tildes was created because traditional discussion sites have embraced increasingly less interesting content,...
"Targeting" people is completely at odds with what this site is trying to accomplish. Tildes was created because traditional discussion sites have embraced increasingly less interesting content, and because their moderation algorithms / philosophies stifle the good content that does appear. We want people to come who have interesting things to say, regardless of their background or other kind of origin, while also keeping the amount of fluff and such to a minimum. In other words, to be blunt, we're looking for a high signal to noise ratio. Trying to target large groups of people just because of their background would lower that. And honestly, I don't think background really has that much use in a lot of cases. For example, I'm among this site's gay population, and yet in a strong majority of things I write, whether I'm gay or not rarely has any relevance.
First, I'm going to respond to the common theme: "we're actually over-represented right now in trans and homosexuals." This is true by percentage maybe, but based on numbers, while we have a small site (only a few thousand people) we need even more over-representation in those groups so that we get a good cross-section of that particular group and the varying beliefs.
*ahem*... being lgbt is not a belief, it's part of who you are, and you're born with it. But I don't think we should artificially inflate the number of lgbt people on this site, that's not necessarily going to add anything. We should instead make sure that anyone who is lgbt is welcome to join, and those of us who want to, will. And if you want to help clear out the tumbleweeds, you're always welcome to contribute or ask questions of us there :)
I think OP was more saying that the LGBT community is not monolithic and can believe different things about being LGBT, like whether to use queer or not, who to include in the community, what we...
I think OP was more saying that the LGBT community is not monolithic and can believe different things about being LGBT, like whether to use queer or not, who to include in the community, what we should strive for, what good allyship looks like, etc. And having a small number of LGBT people, even if they're a larger percentage of the site than society overall, means you're likely not getting a good cross-section of those beliefs.
[EDIT] I, for example, clearly believe different things than you do, because I'm horrified that in light use of Tildes I've already waded through a thread where someone argued gay people have equal rights already because everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite gender. First, that argument was obviously wrong and tired in the aughties, and second, queer rights do not begin and end with marriage. And I'm disheartened that I'm seeing discussions about rules and norms and everyone is leaning on communities that are actively hostile to me for rule precedent, and everyone seems to be talking about the importance of civility without bringing up that some ideas do not deserve civil discussion and that civility is not always an appropriate response.
Tildes was created because traditional discussion sites have embraced increasingly less interesting content, and because their moderation algorithms / philosophies stifle the good content that does appear.
Is this true? I was pitched Tildes as a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it. That seems to be supported by the opening blog post, though that can be read multiple ways I guess.
I would argue Tildes isn't getting a good cross-section of nearly any group of people though. It's got only 3000 total users, of which a good chunk are relatively inactive. In order to get more...
I think OP was more saying that the LGBT community is not monolithic and can believe different things about being LGBT, like whether to use queer or not, who to include in the community, what we should strive for, what good allyship looks like, etc. And having a small number of LGBT people, even if they're a larger percentage of the site than society overall, means you're likely not getting a good cross-section of those beliefs.
I would argue Tildes isn't getting a good cross-section of nearly any group of people though. It's got only 3000 total users, of which a good chunk are relatively inactive. In order to get more lgbt users, we would need to divert a significant number of invites, and I don't think it's really fair to take away invites from other users just because they're straight. You could say, well why don't we just eliminate invitations and open the site to everybody? That would create massive moderation / scaling issues as is. If you want a website that is truly more representative of everybody, then tbh, I just don't think an alpha stage site is a good place to go. Furthermore, there are already plenty of discussion sites that are lgbt centered and where you most certainly could find a large and diverse lgbt community. I'd not really sure what Tilde's gay community could offer over these.
Is this true? I was pitched Tildes as a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it. That seems to be supported by the opening blog post, though that can be read multiple ways I guess.
Duh, how did I overlook that? Alright, I'll definitely concede this point to you. The primary reason was indeed because of toxicity. However, I still think quality and civil discussion is an important sub point of that, and I stand by that we want users with a good signal to noise ratio.
I, for example, clearly believe different things than you do, because I'm horrified that in light use of Tildes I've already waded through a thread where someone argued gay people have equal rights already because everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite gender.
I'm not sure where your clearly is coming from, because I have never said such a thing nor would I endorse it. Were did you get the idea that I would...? And that's the first time hearing about or seeing that post. I'll keep an eye out for it.
And I'm disheartened that I'm seeing discussions about rules and norms and everyone is leaning on communities that are actively hostile to me for rule precedent
Could you clarify this point a little? I'm not sure what communities and which rule precedents you're talking about, but I'd be curious to hear.
and everyone seems to be talking about the importance of civility without bringing up that some ideas do not deserve civil discussion and that civility is not always an appropriate response.
This was a point I brought up myself a while back. I agree, that there are many points (and sometimes people) that having a civil discussion either yields nothing or sometimes results in worsening a situation. There's no point in engaging in an argument with someone who is calling for genocide for example, because such a person is either trolling or so far away that you're not going to change their mind with a rational discussion. However, that's rather extremist, and I suspect not what you're referring to, especially not if we're talking about your previous example. In this case, I'd point out to him how marriage doesn't replace the numerous other challenges facing us, like for example legal employment discrimination. it doesn't mean you have to respect his opinion as equal to your own, it just means you say it in a calm way that gives him a change to reflect and change his mind.
Thanks for the in-depth reply! I'm going to try to return the courtesy, so apologies if this gets long, and I'll understand if you're not invested enough to bear with me. This is probably true and...
Thanks for the in-depth reply! I'm going to try to return the courtesy, so apologies if this gets long, and I'll understand if you're not invested enough to bear with me.
I would argue Tildes isn't getting a good cross-section of nearly any group of people though. It's got only 3000 total users, of which a good chunk are relatively inactive.
This is probably true and a fair point. I would, however, suggest that it's easier to recruit users not from under-represented backgrounds, and harder to end up with a community that doesn't end up with a good cross-section of majority viewpoints. So if we're worried about focusing effort, let's make sure we're doing justice to those communities that it's easy to wind up with imbalance in, and not worry as much about the communities it's easy to wind up with a good cross-section of.
In order to get more lgbt users, we would need to divert a significant number of invites, and I don't think it's really fair to take away invites from other users just because they're straight.
I think there's a false scarcity here. You could argue that right now we're taking invites away from people who don't feel welcome in communities like Reddit, with that mindset. What I'd be in favor of is not a "looking for queer people to join a website!" or "I have invites, they're only for queer people!" approach, but rather being mindful of where and how we're recruiting and what the experience looks like for queer users once they get here.
You could say, well why don't we just eliminate invitations and open the site to everybody? That would create massive moderation / scaling issues as is.
I think this is fine, but let's recognise that an invite-only model is by nature exclusive, and we have to exclude somebody. That's how invites work. As we're laying the foundation for the community, establishing the norms, and otherwise setting the direction for the future, having a 77% het population means that the space will, unless we actively combat it, cater first and foremost to het people, because the queer voices get overruled, drowned out, or lost amongst the het voices. This applies to any underrepresented minority, I just don't want to speak for other experiences besides my own, which is why I'm focusing on the queer bit instead of e.g. the race bit.
If you want a website that is truly more representative of everybody, then tbh, I just don't think an alpha stage site is a good place to go.
I don't think I'm worried so much about representative as much as I am about inclusivity. The alpha stage is where the basis and groundwork of the community is laid, and so it will have an oversized impact on the community over time. Do I think Tildes needs to be 50% queer or more forever? No, of course not. Do I think that it does today? I don't know, it's complicated. But I do think its queer population needs to have an equal voice to its cishet population, or it risks becoming accidentally exclusionary to queer people.
Furthermore, there are already plenty of discussion sites that are lgbt centered and where you most certainly could find a large and diverse lgbt community. I'd not really sure what Tilde's gay community could offer over these.
These would be good sites for us to recruit from like we do Reddit, on the understanding that by recruiting from Reddit, we're recruiting from a default-cishet space.
It's not that I'm looking for Tildes to be a queer space, like those discussion forums are, it's that I'm looking for Tildes to be a queer-inclusive space, and we need to have queer voices heard when establishing community norms and values for that to happen. I agree Tildes shouldn't be a "queer site", but I think--and maybe this is where some people disagree?--that Tildes should definitely be associated in people's minds with a "queer-friendly site".
However, I still think quality and civil discussion is an important sub point of that, and I stand by that we want users with a good signal to noise ratio.
I think these are important, too, but when building a community, I think it's important to know what your priorities are. If you want a community that's inclusive first and foremost, then even if a user is a power-user that posts a lot of good comments and is always polite, if they're a bigot and are making underrepresented users feel unwelcome, they need to go. If you want a community that always engages in polite conversation and has a bunch of good content, it may make sense to keep that user. If civility is the thing you value most, I'd actually say it's a bad idea to try to include underrepresented groups, because there's often so much emotional labor involved for them in engaging civilly in conversations about their humanity or rights, which inevitably come up, and it's not fair to try to recruit them to a community that is going to put them in that position.
I'm not sure where your clearly is coming from, because I have never said such a thing nor would I endorse it. Were did you get the idea that I would...? And that's the first time hearing about or seeing that post. I'll keep an eye out for it.
Sorry, this was unclear on my part. I read your original post as an expression that you believe Tildes to already be a sufficiently inclusive space for LGBT people, and I disagree pretty strongly on that point. Re-reading what you actually said, I've discovered I read into your post things you did not actually say, and apologise for that. So my clearly was not about accusing you of holding those views, but believing you thought a site where a new-ish user like me could accidentally run into those views in the first few threads he read is a sufficiently inclusive place. The example was less about you agreeing with it, and more an illustration of why I think the site is not sufficiently inclusive already.
Could you clarify this point a little? I'm not sure what communities and which rule precedents you're talking about, but I'd be curious to hear.
Sure, though I'm hesitant to get too far off-topic here. In this conversation there are people talking about what Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat all have as rules and how maybe we should look to those as precedent. Hopefullyyou can understandwhy I find these concerning as models for this community to be based on.
I agree, that there are many points (and sometimes people) that having a civil discussion either yields nothing or sometimes results in worsening a situation. There's no point in engaging in an argument with someone who is calling for genocide for example, because such a person is either trolling or so far away that you're not going to change their mind with a rational discussion.
The problem with remaining silent in the face of posts like that is that communities like this are defined by what content they allow. If someone is saying something hostile to a group, and nobody is correcting them, saying that's not what we do here, moderating, or otherwise making it clear that that content is not welcome in the community, anyone in the group being targeted can and should assume that that content is tolerated in the community.
it doesn't mean you have to respect his opinion as equal to your own, it just means you say it in a calm way that gives him a change to reflect and change his mind.
Tone argument is a good reason why I'm worried about the focus being on how things are said, and not what is being said.
dammit I'm going to be an old man by the time I get off this site :P and sorry that my replies are a little out of order, I had to jump around a lot to copy your points and reply on my small...
dammit I'm going to be an old man by the time I get off this site :P and sorry that my replies are a little out of order, I had to jump around a lot to copy your points and reply on my small laptop.
I think there's a false scarcity here. You could argue that right now we're taking invites away from people who don't feel welcome in communities like Reddit, with that mindset. What I'd be in favor of is not a "looking for queer people to join a website!" or "I have invites, they're only for queer people!" approach, but
That's what the OP means though, with "specifically targeting" gay users.
rather being mindful of where and how we're recruiting and what the experience looks like for queer users once they get here.
Could you clarify what this means...? Do you think the sight is unwelcome to lgbt people as is or?
I think this is fine, but let's recognise that an invite-only model is by nature exclusive, and we have to exclude somebody. That's how invites work. As we're laying the foundation for the community, establishing the norms, and otherwise setting the direction for the future, having a 77% het population means that the space will, unless we actively combat it, cater first and foremost to het people, because the queer voices get overruled, drowned out, or lost amongst the het voices. This applies to any underrepresented minority, I just don't want to speak for other experiences besides my own, which is why I'm focusing on the queer bit instead of e.g. the race bit.
Well, in what specific ways do you think we'd be overruled, drowned out, or lost amongst the het voices? I mean, /u/deimos has been perfectly accommodating in every instance I've observed. He created the ~lgbt subtilde for us, he's made clear he's not going to let Tilde be used as a platform for hate, and he and everyone else have given zero indication that have any negative feelings to us. Do you have a specific example for how they would overrule us...?
Sorry, this was unclear on my part. I read your original post as an expression that you believe Tildes to already be a sufficiently inclusive space for LGBT people, and I disagree pretty strongly on that point. Re-reading what you actually said, I've discovered I read into your post things you did not actually say, and apologise for that.
What I do not agree with is your original example, that gay people have equal rights just because we have gay marriage. For context, I come from a moderately conservative military family, in a sometimes very conservative military community. I know a lot of people who "tolerate" gay people, but don't really treat us with the same level of respect they would someone who's straight. This is the attitude in a lot of conservative places, and there are many services, like employment or housing discrimination, that we don't have protection from. So absolutely, I think that statement is garbage and made by someone who has little awareness of what being gay is actually like.
But Tilde isn't the same. Like I said again, he's made every accommodation for us that he can, and the one time we had a troll here who intentionally made inflammatory comments here against gay marriage, he was banned, and to some criticism might I point out. Far from merely tolerating us as users, he's shown that he intends to treat us just as equally as any straight users, and he's given us the full ability to establishing a community and everything. I'm not seeing how he isn't doing enough or dismissing us under a veneer of tolerance, which is what your first example is. What kind of thing would you expect him to do to make you sufficiently happy that he's accepting to lgbt people...?
Sure, though I'm hesitant to get too far off-topic here.
Nah, don't worry about it, I'll take the blame if anyone gives you trouble about :)
In this conversation there are people talking about what Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat all have as rules and how maybe we should look to those as precedent. Hopefully you can understand why I find these concerning as models for this community to be based on.
Well, I think looking at each in turn would provide some insight. If you look at Reddit's redditquette for example, you can see that it's actually pretty good at asking people to stay civil and preventing harassment. The problem is the enforcement of the policy is very lax. For example, if I even need to mention it, /r/the_donald still operates right? But it's not because these rules permit, in fact, /r/the_donald has broken just about nearly every rule in their and in the content policy, on a regular basis, along with breaking even the normal rules about vote manipulation and such. The problem however is that the admins don't enforce the policy they created, not that it's specifically lacking in this case. Given that Tilde's founding mission was as a result of reddit's unenforcement, and that /u/Deimos has been extremely strict about people who seek to break the site's rules, I don't think this is a problem we'll run into soon, since it's literally the founding basis of this site.
For Hacker News, it's worth noting that the site is exclusively for technical subjects, and isn't meant to be used for any other kind of talk, which is why they have little written about what to do. But Tildes is also very specifically setting out as a general purpose talking forum, so this worry won't really apply I think. I do find it quite odd they haven't removed some of the comments though -~- I guess they also suffer some of Reddit's enforcement.
And lastly, Voat is indeed an absolute shitshow. They embrace a lot of racist and nasty content, and they fully permit it to continue under their policies. However, from what I've seen, Voat is mostly being used as an example of what not to do, which is pretty heartening right? As nasty as Voat is, hopefully the opposite is as positive as Voat isn't. Plus, in a lot of these conversations, they're talking about the technical merits of for example whether we should have a downvote system like Reddit, the level of privacy we should track people at, etc. all of which is independent of content policies. So while it's definitely understandable why you're concerned, I don't think we need to worry to much about it, especially since it's been established pretty early on we want to avoid their mistakes :)
The problem with remaining silent in the face of posts like that is that communities like this are defined by what content they allow. If someone is saying something hostile to a group, and nobody is correcting them, saying that's not what we do here, moderating, or otherwise making it clear that that content is not welcome in the community, anyone in the group being targeted can and should assume that that content is tolerated in the community.
Oh, absolutely. I fully agree with your point here, if you allow something to remain even just unanswered, eventually it does become a tacit toleration. What I meant by "no point in engaging in debate" is, rather then try to respond to them by pretending to be civil, you'd be better off reporting the comment and having it deleted, and maybe banning the person if this becomes a regular thing. Of course, we don't have a report button so you'd have to PM, but my point still stands. Responding to them angrily will only feed them after all.
I'm running out of steam here, and having the same debates and conversations repetitively is getting old--none of which is your fault, but I'm getting burnt out here--so this'll probably be my...
I'm running out of steam here, and having the same debates and conversations repetitively is getting old--none of which is your fault, but I'm getting burnt out here--so this'll probably be my last reply in this thread. Sorry. Feel free to reply, I may read it, but I probably won't reply.
That's what the OP means though, with "specifically targeting" gay users.
Can't speak for OP's intent. I'd just say you can specifically target a group without excluding another group. Handing out flyers at a Pride parade (not saying we should do that, it's illustrative) is more likely to get the attention of queer people, but isn't necessarily excluding straight people. It's just being mindful of how the ways you advertise bias you towards groups, and deciding which groups you want your advertising to be biased towards.
Could you clarify what this means...? Do you think the sight is unwelcome to lgbt people as is or?
It's not the least welcoming site I've ever seen, but it's far from the most. If it's aiming to be inclusive for queer people, I'd say it's probably falling short right now. Of course, not all queer people have the same tolerance for content that's harmful to them, so you and I don't have to agree, and "inclusive for queer people" is probably reductive. I think, most accurately, I'd probably phrase it as "there are reasons a queer person could reasonably feel unwelcome here and decide to leave".
But Tilde isn't the same. Like I said again, he's made every accommodation for us that he can, and the one time we had a troll here who intentionally made inflammatory comments here against gay marriage, he was banned, and to some criticism might I point out. Far from merely tolerating us as users, he's shown that he intends to treat us just as equally as any straight users, and he's given us the full ability to establishing a community and everything. I'm not seeing how he isn't doing enough or dismissing us under a veneer of tolerance, which is what your first example is. What kind of thing would you expect him to do to make you sufficiently happy that he's accepting to lgbt people...?
This isn't a critique of Deimos. I'm not saying Deimos is just paying lip service, or something, or that he wants to appear friendly and actually isn't, or something. I just think execution of the ideals is a bit off. I've been told Tildes isn't going to shut down beliefs, which is concerning when some people believe I'm inferior or should be dead. I've seen users think it's totally fine to debate whether I already have equal rights because I can marry a woman, whether it matters or not if queer people feel welcome here, posit that the most important thing in a conversation is that it's expressed politely, regardless of whether the ideas under discussion are actually harmful or not, and express that it's better when people are just treated as people and we make no attempt to counteract centuries of oppression against marginalised groups, that if we just treat everyone in exactly the same manner now, things will all work out. And the community seems to think this is totally appropriate. Which doesn't make it a bad community, it just means that there seem to be some room for doubt here on whether queer people should feel totally welcome in this community or not. And I'm not saying everyone agrees with these beliefs or statements, I'm just saying people seem to generally think they're acceptable on Tildes.
Well, I think looking at each in turn would provide some insight.
Regardless of the rules being proposed, all three of these are communities Tildes is currently being pitched as being different from. If we're going to set the community apart from them, a good way to start is by being clear when we're looking at them for examples that we want to avoid becoming what they are. Doesn't mean we can't draw inspiration from them, but anyone looking at that commenting norms thread could be forgiven for thinking that Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat are being used as inspiration for the community, as opposed to communities whose problems we want to avoid. And the amount of resistance I've gotten to pointing this out is pretty disheartening, because--and it could just be my impression--it seems to me that people don't really want to be that different from Reddit, when it comes to community values.
you'd be better off reporting the comment and having it deleted, and maybe banning the person if this becomes a regular thing. Of course, we don't have a report button so you'd have to PM, but my point still stands. Responding to them angrily will only feed them after all.
The better approach, in my opinion, is exactly what happened with the joke thread: "that's not what we do here".
Except that happened pretty swiftly in the joke thread, and for other "fluff" content, but seems to rarely happen when it comes to community values. Which suggests maybe that is what we do here. Which is a decision a community can make, but, like, let's be honest about it at least.
For context on the guy who talks about the coat code of conduct, he is talking about the very early days before it became the shithole it is currently.
For context on the guy who talks about the coat code of conduct, he is talking about the very early days before it became the shithole it is currently.
We're well and truly off-topic now. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't understand why we're talking about Voat at all in a thread about what we want our community to be, unless...
We're well and truly off-topic now.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't understand why we're talking about Voat at all in a thread about what we want our community to be, unless it's to say "that's what Voat did, look what happened there, let's not do that." If our goal here is to make a non-toxic community, Voat, Reddit, and HN would be at the very top of my list for the things for the community to not emulate. Having all three brought up in a positive way in a conversation about establishing norms for this community raises giant warning signs and red flags for me, because... like.... how do people not have any better references for sites they think have good rules or etiquette or policies? Does the community here think those are good communities? Is Tildes going to turn out like them? Because if so, I want to find the exit now.
Which is why I'm bringing it up in this thread. There were like 400 responses to that poll, out of like 3000 members. Meaning we don't know anything about the 2600 members who didn't respond, and are presumably inactive. How do we know Tildes has a pipeline problem, and not a retention problem? Are we sure if marginalized people sign up for Tildes, they're going to stay? A lot of folks who are part of a URM in my circles, at least, actively avoid Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat because they're toxic and not worth the effort. If we're looking to them as examples, I would expect those demographic numbers to get worse, not better.
So far on Tildes I've:
had a really great conversation about surrogacy and parenting
had a really frustrating, borderline bad-faith conversation about why a white supremacy site is probably not the best thing to bring up when trying to decide what community norms to establish
read through a conversation about whether queer people have equal rights because they can marry someone of the opposite gender or not
had this conversation
On balance, can you see why I may not be entirely convinced yet that Tildes is a community I'll be able to engage in without having my rights questioned, a community where we disagree about what counts as a sandwich, not who counts as a person?
That's really what I'm getting at, here. The alpha is the time for Tildes to get the structure and community norms in place and practice what it means to be an inclusive, non-toxic community, or you're going to wind up with the Reddit problem of trying to graft it on later and upsetting users that didn't want a non-toxic, inclusive community. So what happens now in terms of community matters. Get the voices of those you want Tildes to be welcoming in here now, while there's still time to shape the community, or we're going to miss all the things that make a community toxic to them and enshrine them in community norms.
The reason voat is brought up is because there was a time when people thought it could actually be something, before all the racists moved in. During that time, a decent code of conduct was...
The reason voat is brought up is because there was a time when people thought it could actually be something, before all the racists moved in. During that time, a decent code of conduct was drafted, which is something that is actually worth looking at. This code of conduct was never adopted by voat, and we know what happened to voat afterwards.
Reddit and HN are brought up because its what people know. I do not think anyone here believes either site is perfect. I know a bit about what Reddits problems are, and I believe we have plans for not replicating them. I do not know much about HN, would you care to elaborate what the problems are?
As far as will people stay or not, I think it should be irrelevant if they are part of a minority group. The only important thing about people should be if they can add to discussions. I agree that we should make an effort to not discriminate against anyone, but I do not think we should do some form of outreach either. We should treat every group equally.
To the conversation you bring up, I believe it is important to bring up extreme cases when discussing community norms. Bringing them up immediately is better than trying to put off the problem until you cannot anymore. To the third conversation, it is a real view that some people hold. I believe it is wrong, and it gives you the opportunity to try and convince people why it is wrong. You claim that tildes was pitched to you as "a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it". That is true. However, I believe you misunderstood something about it. Tildes does not plan to do so by stifling beliefs, but by requiring everyone to be civil and polite.
If I may finish with two questions:
Do you believe that LGBT people are fundamentally more polite and adding more will lead to better discussion?
What site(s) do you think tildes should look at as an example?
I promise I have heard and understand the people that explained that the rules in question were never adopted at Voat, and I absolutely believe there was a time when people thought Voat could be a...
The reason voat is brought up is because there was a time when people thought it could actually be something, before all the racists moved in. During that time, a decent code of conduct was drafted, which is something that is actually worth looking at. This code of conduct was never adopted by voat, and we know what happened to voat afterwards.
I promise I have heard and understand the people that explained that the rules in question were never adopted at Voat, and I absolutely believe there was a time when people thought Voat could be a Nice Thing To Have. What I keep coming back to is, there are a lot of groups that Voat explicitly and actively does harm to. It is not a good look to mention "here's the kind of community I was trying to build at Voat" when you're trying to build an inclusive community, because when you don't mention when, or then follow up with "before the racists moved in", or otherwise indicate that you see anything wrong with Voat as it stands today, you're sending a signal to the people harmed by it that you consider it a community worth emulating. I don't really see why, if the poster was just saying "here's a suggestion for how it could be formatted", Voat needs to be brought into the mix. It didn't add anything, and instead made it look like the community here was basing its norms off Voat's.
Reddit and HN are brought up because its what people know. I do not think anyone here believes either site is perfect. I know a bit about what Reddits problems are, and I believe we have plans for not replicating them. I do not know much about HN, would you care to elaborate what the problems are?
If you don't see the problem in that thread, I mean, it's kind of a well-known thing. Here's an article from four years ago talking about how they were trying to turn it around from being toxic: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/hacker-news-pending-comments/
As far as will people stay or not, I think it should be irrelevant if they are part of a minority group. The only important thing about people should be if they can add to discussions. I agree that we should make an effort to not discriminate against anyone, but I do not think we should do some form of outreach either. We should treat every group equally.
I think if you don't care whether minority groups are mass exiting your community but privileged people aren't, you're not setting yourself up super well for creating a non-toxic community.
To the conversation you bring up, I believe it is important to bring up extreme cases when discussing community norms.
I don't know what you're referencing here.
To the third conversation, it is a real view that some people hold. I believe it is wrong, and it gives you the opportunity to try and convince people why it is wrong.
My life is an opportunity to try and convince people why it's wrong. Every other community out there gives me an opportunity to convince people it's wrong. Where Tildes can shine as a non-toxic, inclusive community is giving me and people like me a space where I don't have to convince other people in the community that my marriage is really none of their business. Relitigating my existence is actually a really tiresome activity, and not one I do for fun or to relax.
You claim that tildes was pitched to you as "a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it". That is true. However, I believe you misunderstood something about it. Tildes does not plan to do so by stifling beliefs, but by requiring everyone to be civil and polite.
Tildes is absolutely going to stifle beliefs. That's the whole paradox of intolerance thing that the original blog post linked to. You're either tolerant of intolerance, in which case you're going to stifle the beliefs of everyone the intolerance impacts, or you stifle the intolerant beliefs. Tildes, as a community, needs to decide whether they want a healthy queer population who fail safe to engage fully here, or whether we want a population who feels safe to question whether queer people are actually people here. You can't have both those groups in the same community.
Do you believe that LGBT people are fundamentally more polite and adding more will lead to better discussion?
I believe that making a space that is safe for LGBT people to engage in will lead to better discussion, yes. I don't think they're fundamentally more polite, especially when faced with bigots, but I also believe that's healthy for a community, as well, and that a community should not be polite or civil when oppressive ideas are brought up, those ideas should be swiftly shown the door. I'm more than a little worried that people seem to be conflating toxicity with a lack of civility, as if nobody has ever used civil language to wish me dead before.
What site(s) do you think tildes should look at as an example?
That depends on what Tildes wants to be as a community. I keep hearing polite and civil being bandied about, in which case, Reddit and Hacker News would be great to look for, but that's not going to lead to a non-toxic community. You want to make Tildes safe for queer people? Look where queer people gather online, and look at the rules and norms they have in place. Want more women? Look at the communities they create and run and see what they're doing. You may have to expand your definition of "community", to include things like Glitch.com or fanfiction communities. Look into the problems the communities are talking about on Twitter.
Why would invites need to be diverted..? Just make posts to appropriate groups on reddit directing them to the invite threads on r/tildes. Also, what makes LGBT communities different than other...
Why would invites need to be diverted..? Just make posts to appropriate groups on reddit directing them to the invite threads on r/tildes.
Also, what makes LGBT communities different than other communities, when you say you aren't sure what tildes can offer them? It seems like that logic could be applied to anything that has an existing community...
Well, political beliefs do tend to fall along a spectrum. Perhaps you are just so far right that you think that viewpoints that OP considers conservative are actually liberal.
Well, political beliefs do tend to fall along a spectrum. Perhaps you are just so far right that you think that viewpoints that OP considers conservative are actually liberal.
I agree with @Mumberthrax: there really aren't lot of conservatives or alt-righters here. They might stand out more for @chrismc because they're so different to the majority views on Tildes so...
I agree with @Mumberthrax: there really aren't lot of conservatives or alt-righters here. They might stand out more for @chrismc because they're so different to the majority views on Tildes so far, but that doesn't make them more common.
It's like seeing two black sheep in a flock of white sheep, and saying there are too many black sheep. Sure, they're noticeable, but they're not common.
I definitely agree on the more women part (and the LGBT part as well). I think tildes' current overwhelming male majority is due in part to the places in which tildes has been promoted (i.e.,...
I definitely agree on the more women part (and the LGBT part as well). I think tildes' current overwhelming male majority is due in part to the places in which tildes has been promoted (i.e., hackernews). A massive majority of techbros will be detrimental to the perspectives available on the site in the long run. I'm not certain where specifically would be good to promote tildes to attempt to fix this problem, but I do think it is something that needs addressing sooner rather than later.
Promotions should focus on attracting the type of people that will be interested in tildes, not to fill a minority requirement. The nature of tildes (nerdy) means that there will be more men than...
Promotions should focus on attracting the type of people that will be interested in tildes, not to fill a minority requirement. The nature of tildes (nerdy) means that there will be more men than women. The important thing is to welcome any women who do come. As long as people think this is a safe environment to be in, they will stay.
I don't see it as a "requirement". It's more that tildes will benefit from having diverse viewpoints, and that we should make attempts to bring those diverse viewpoints here. I am certain that...
not to fill a minority requirement
I don't see it as a "requirement". It's more that tildes will benefit from having diverse viewpoints, and that we should make attempts to bring those diverse viewpoints here.
Promotions should focus on attracting the type of people that will be interested in tildes
I am certain that there are groups of women, as well as other groups that are in the minority here, who would be interested in tildes. I think it is important to find these groups and tell them about tildes so at the very least they are aware of it.
The nature of tildes (nerdy) means that there will be more men than women
This is a rhetorical question that I don't expect an answer to, but why does this need to be the case? Just because tildes is currently skewing heavily towards guys doesn't mean that is inherently the natural state of tildes.
I agree that tildes will benefit from a diverse community, but I feel iffy on attempts to specifically target these people. It comes across that they are wanted not because of their knowledge, but...
I agree that tildes will benefit from a diverse community, but I feel iffy on attempts to specifically target these people. It comes across that they are wanted not because of their knowledge, but because of their identity. It's like how a lot of code boot camps for women are crap, and are just a symbolic gesture, or a PR move. I know in tildes' case the intentions are good, but executions are often done in bad taste and might drive people away more than anything else.
I am certain that there are groups of women, as well as other groups that are in the minority here, who would be interested in tildes. I think it is important to find these groups and tell them about tildes so at the very least they are aware of it.
The main problem is that there is no place on the internet (that I know of) that consists mainly of minorities that are also interested in tildes. If you just barge in on a random forum to advertise tildes, it comes across as very spammy and ill-faithed.
I don't think we need to consciously try to diversity tildes, just maintaining it as a friendly and open-minded place is enough. Speaking to the state of tildes right now, it is very much tech and STEM focused, and studies have shown that there are more men than women in tech and STEM fields. It would only be natural then that there are more men here than women. Tildes draws a large part of its users from reddit, so it's logical to see a similar demographic. Also because tildes is an english website, it makes sense that most people here are from english speaking, western countries. This doesn't have to be the case in the future, but that's what it is now.
I think tildes will have a smaller gender gap compared to reddit, simply because it has a nicer community. A site's demographics and content influence each other. It's a 'chicken or egg' situation, do you change the content to attract diversity or bring diversity to change the content? I don't know.
A wide range of countries would be nice too. I appreciate that the US makes up a large part of the English speaking world, but Reddit has a 'US' identity where people just tend to assume that...
A wide range of countries would be nice too. I appreciate that the US makes up a large part of the English speaking world, but Reddit has a 'US' identity where people just tend to assume that everyone on the site is.
I don't think it's the type of thing you have much control over, people will be attracted by the content and stay on that basis, to diversify you need to cultivate content that appeals to diverse...
I don't think it's the type of thing you have much control over, people will be attracted by the content and stay on that basis, to diversify you need to cultivate content that appeals to diverse peoples. How to do that I ask?
On this subject: I think we have some right-libertarians and/or Conservatives, maybe a few socialists and/or anarchists, and a very sizeable population of center or center-left liberals who are...
Third, I am finding way more conservative views here vs. Reddit, but we are lacking the more-radical leftists.
On this subject: I think we have some right-libertarians and/or Conservatives, maybe a few socialists and/or anarchists, and a very sizeable population of center or center-left liberals who are more interested in social issues than not.
Perhaps we should have another unofficial survey, focusing on politics? The left/right spectrum has multiple interpretations (notably the American view that puts Democrats on the left), and it's all that was present in the previous survey.
Is there a reason we should have proportional representation for gender/sexual minorities? If we were hiring for a job, this would make sense, but it doesn't when we're talking about making sure perspectives are represented in discussions.
It makes people more comfortable sharing their thoughts and experiences if they know there are other people who can back them up.
Ah, I think I'm being unclear. I'm saying that over-representation of minorities is a good thing - for precisely that reason. That there's no reason to have proportional representation be the goal or limiter, because that's just ensuring a marginalized group is marginalized here as well.
Why would it have to be discriminatory? Simply post to major LGBT and women's subreddits promoting tildes, and link back to the r/tildes invite thread. No one is being excluded.
In that case, it's positive discrimination and not exclusionary - so what is the problem?
You're also continuing to use the word "disproportionate" as if it's a problem, but I don't believe you've given a reason as to why that's a problem either.
"Positive discrimination" does not mean "good discrimination", it's just discrimination that benefits its target.
One's circumstances in life do increase the value of what they bring to the discussion, when their circumstances are on topic. The perspectives of marginalized people are wholly necessary to have any sort of a productive conversation about those marginalized people or their being marginalized. Would you expect a thread on asexuality stocked with hundreds of sexual people to be nearly as valuable as one with hundreds of asexual people? Or a thread on women full of men, black people filled with people who aren't black, and so on?
Please respond to what I'm directly saying, and not a stretched interpretation of it. I called for making posts in LGBT and women's subreddits encouraging them to post in the invite threads - this isn't forcing anything, and isn't hurting anyone.
Sorry if I came across as OP, but I am not them.
Regardless, I don't see how the OP is forcing anything either. Simply saying they are, and claiming there's a contradiction, isn't really an argument, so I'm left with no idea what you're even talking about.
That is really weird. Maybe message @deimos?
How did you mean this sentence? That we should hire people that way so we will have proportional representation of minorities?
I think they meant that hiring should be neutral so that a random normalised sample of employees should have propotional representation of all social stratas. This (I'm referring to my own understanding of their comment) obviously assumes that all strata are equally equipped to undertake the responsibilty the job entails which sadly isn't true in most cases.
With the singular exception that we are predominantly male, you have just shown that non-heterosexual and non-cis people are wildly overrepresented on tildes. I would support a drive to bring more women into the platform, so long as it was done the right way - what does that look like? No idea, all the options I've seen people try are terrible. But I would not support a false balance drive.
As for western democracies - tildes is English only right now, and staying that way for at least a while. While that remains true the western democracy part makes sense.
Is there really much variance between tilde user demographics and the internet as a whole?
The internet skews young and male; young people tend to be more liberal.
Yes, but do they use sites like reddit and tildes?
Reddit is something like 33% female. Their gender representation is pitifully imbalanced, but they're still doing better than Tildes on that front.
And duplicating reddit's lack of representation should not be our goal. If tildes is all about high quality content, there is no reason not to have close to 50% women. Women are just as interested in having high level discussions.
...what I'm saying is perhaps most women are not interested in this style of interaction. It might not be something we want to "fix."
And as a woman, I will tell you that that supposition is ridiculous.
Women are people, just like men, and they communicate in all sorts of varied methods on the internet, just like men. Some like text-based forums, some like sharing photos, some like chatting with friends, some like drawing art or making videos, others like in-depth discussion and analysis. As with men, some women like all of these things at once. Because women are just ordinary people.
However, one big difference between men and women on the internet is that many women on the internet have been conditioned to never mention their gender in certain spaces, because if they do then they get harassed by men: unsolicited dick pics, "tits or gtfo", some dudes trying to date them, others immediately dismissing them for being female... all of this bad behavior is a huge pain in the ass to deal with and it means that the number of visible women in spaces like reddit is much smaller than the number of women actually present. One-third of reddit is female, but I bet you assume that 90%+ of the people you interact with there are male. The women are quiet about it because we don't want to be harassed.
Had reddit been more careful from the outset about making itself a more welcoming community for women, then women wouldn't feel the need to hide in order to use it. Tildes has the opportunity to avoid the mistakes that reddit made by deliberately being more inclusive when building its initial community. We need to be better.
Look, there are clearly women who like using reddit and tildes. I never said there weren't. However, I don't think that reddit as a whole (regardless of individual subreddits) is particularly anti-women, or structured against women. I do not think there is any culture of harassment on reddit as a whole. I simply think that the style of interaction (impersonal, argumentative, and often callous) just isn't appealing to many women. I personally enjoy the discussions I read and have on reddit. I think the basic mechanics of the site (voting, decreased focus on identity (e.g. no prominent profiles or "friends feed), and hierarchal commenting) promote this style of interaction. I do not think any efforts to be more "welcoming" would have changed this, because this style of interaction is deeply ingrained in the format of the site. Again, this is not to say that all women dislike the style of interaction on reddit, just that many of them may not. There are plenty of other places on the internet to have other style of interaction, if one so chooses.
Forgive me, but I have to ask: are you a woman? Because this:
seems incredibly naive. Either you are a particularly lucky woman, or you aren't speaking from experience.
Feel free not to answer that question if you don't want to, but either way please consider that your experiences are not universal.
Sure they're not universal, but on the majority of subs I visit there is no strong gender bias one way or the other. Many of the posts you linked express frustration with some of the more inherently gender-oriented subreddits (such as /r/relationships), or after already having posted pictures of themselves. This sort of behaviour (harassment via pm's or semi-private communication) is relatively common on any open forum on the internet, and it only takes a few bad actors to perpetuate it. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone, male or female, to post personal pictures on a semi-anonymous forum like reddit or tildes, but that's of course up to the individual. While I can't deny that there are many individual cases of harassment which have occurred in some portion of the site, I still don't think there is a general culture of harassment. Many of the subs I read are well moderated, and discourage such behaviour when it occurs. I encourage you to venture beyond the defaults in forming your opinion. (As an aside, /r/twoxchromasomes has not traditionally been... neutral on this subject)
It's an invite-only site at the moment. These statistics are likely to drastically change in the future. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Here's a Pew Research Study that takes a look at it in the US. It looks like we have reached, or are reaching, gender parity, but it does skew younger with the 18-29 cohort coming in the lead, followed thereafter by 30+.
That being said, it does seem to rely heavily on those who have received some college education, if not a 4 year degree and studies have shown that college education rates correspond with liberalism.
I believe what tildes actually needs is more conservatives. We only have two people who are defending a conservative viewpoint, which risks us turning into a leftist echo chamber. I believe we currently have more anarcho-capitalists than conservatives at the moment, which is not at all representational.
No, instead it'll turn into a spectator sport. We don't need people to "defend" any viewpoint like a soccer goal or "represent" like a mascot does, nor is disagreement just for the sake of disagreement usually very productive*. We want people who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they contribute what they believe in. Sometimes it'll be agreement, sometimes it'll be disagreement, but whatever it is, it should be honest and actually contribute something. And recruiting people just for their political views isn't very fair imo.
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* Thinking critically is good, but just to disagree for the sake of disagreement rarely leads to anything insightful, for two reasons: when you're disagreeing, that means you're holding an alternative viewpoint, not just examining your own. This means, to contribute anything useful, you have to actually understand that viewpoint and how it applies to all of the same questions / challenges as your own, which is rare in something as emotionally charged and complex as politics. Secondly, that disagreement has to actually lead to something. I can argue with you all day over whether the earth is round for example, but nobody is going to come away learning anything from that discussion we didn't already know.
I am sorry if that came across wrong. I agree that we should not invite people based solely upon their political beliefs. I believe we are in agreement in the belief that we want people from a wide variety of backgrounds. I also agree that people should only contribute in what they believe in, and not become the mascot for their ideology. That’s why I think tildes could use more conservatives. If there are few conservatives, they end up feeling forced to take a more conservative side in every topic, simply because no one else is taking it, while if there are more, they can simply contribute what they believe in.
I'm not sure a "leftist echo chamber" is even possible—the further left you go, the more people argue with each other over ideological details.
Honestly, I'd prefer fewer ideological arguments and more discussion of shared interests and experiences. Emphasizing "ideological diversity" tends to draw in people who love arguing about ideology. I don't think it's a good strategy.
I’m a mostly-right leaning libertarian, but I know I’ve shown up and agreed with you in a few threads. I’m just usually not brave enough for politics.
I would call myself a right leaning libertarian if it wouldn’t make people think I am an anarcho-capitalist. I wasn’t counting myself amount the conservatives, and we are rather left of center as a whole if I look like one.
I agree in general, but this one might be a little tougher to accomplish due to the fact that Reddit/social media users tend to be more liberal in general so we're picking from a biased sample.
Going through today's invite thread, there were a couple more who have received invites. They are definitely in the reddit minority, though.
If we primarily invite people from reddit we're going to inherit reddit's demographic problems.
I think the most important one from this list is women in my opinion. Males have always been overrepresented on Reddit. I wonder if women had a larger role in shaping a new community, that community would be more interesting to/welcoming of women. I agree with other users that it would be nice for more political variety to prevent echo chambers from forming.
I agree, but how? One of tildes' feature is relative anonymity, you have no data attached to your profile, advertised on reddit and hackernews which probably have equally bad representation. Maybe advertising it more in communities with a higher female ratio than reddit? Where is that, even? Pinterest? Or should we make ads specifically asking women to give this a try in its early stages, when the community can still be shaped a little? It sounds awkward but I'm kinda serious since that's about the only answer I can think of.
/r/twoXchromosomes might be a good place to start. I am not super familiar with female dominated subreddits, but I'm sure someone has that information. I agree that this is a tough problem.
I wouldn't mind focusing on advertising Tildes on subreddits with higher female ratios and allowing an influx while something can still be done about the initial male-female-ratio (once it's 100k users while staying 90% male, I don't see the demographics ever changing).
The other side of this would be making the site generally more attractive to female users. But that's a subtle and somewhat awkward challenge. What "do women like"? On the one hand, the politically correct thing to say is that they like all the same things as men and shouldn't be treated differently. On the other, there's even some feminist views that women do have different interests than men (more social, interpersonal topics, etc) and that not being considered is discriminatory. Once there'd be a more balanced male-female-ratio, that shouldn't be a problem and women could simply shape the community by posting content they're interested in and voting it up but we currently have a 90% male ratio so that's not going to just happen.
I must say, the extreme male-dominated culture of reddit is probably what bothers me the most about general reddit content. Yea, I share many of the nerdy interests and that male ratio is the same everywhere, but that's not a reason to not try to change it. All that testosterone occasionally tends to... stink a little.
How does one make a community more interesting/welcoming to women? Genuinely curious as I can't picture in my brain what that would look like.
That gave me chuckle.
Again, I'm still unsure what a 'safe' place for women is in an online context, or an unsafe place for that matter.
Perhaps the negative effect on reddits female userbase explains why /r/twoxchromosomes turned out the way it did if most of the sensible women left.
My idea is that by having women, the community becomes more available to women. If we have more women here early on, more articles/conversations/media that are relevant and interesting to women will be shared. Then, as subgroups develop, there will be more that appeal to women. At least that's the logic I imagine.
"Targeting" people is completely at odds with what this site is trying to accomplish. Tildes was created because traditional discussion sites have embraced increasingly less interesting content, and because their moderation algorithms / philosophies stifle the good content that does appear. We want people to come who have interesting things to say, regardless of their background or other kind of origin, while also keeping the amount of fluff and such to a minimum. In other words, to be blunt, we're looking for a high signal to noise ratio. Trying to target large groups of people just because of their background would lower that. And honestly, I don't think background really has that much use in a lot of cases. For example, I'm among this site's gay population, and yet in a strong majority of things I write, whether I'm gay or not rarely has any relevance.
*ahem*... being lgbt is not a belief, it's part of who you are, and you're born with it. But I don't think we should artificially inflate the number of lgbt people on this site, that's not necessarily going to add anything. We should instead make sure that anyone who is lgbt is welcome to join, and those of us who want to, will. And if you want to help clear out the tumbleweeds, you're always welcome to contribute or ask questions of us there :)
I think OP was more saying that the LGBT community is not monolithic and can believe different things about being LGBT, like whether to use queer or not, who to include in the community, what we should strive for, what good allyship looks like, etc. And having a small number of LGBT people, even if they're a larger percentage of the site than society overall, means you're likely not getting a good cross-section of those beliefs.
[EDIT] I, for example, clearly believe different things than you do, because I'm horrified that in light use of Tildes I've already waded through a thread where someone argued gay people have equal rights already because everyone has the right to marry someone of the opposite gender. First, that argument was obviously wrong and tired in the aughties, and second, queer rights do not begin and end with marriage. And I'm disheartened that I'm seeing discussions about rules and norms and everyone is leaning on communities that are actively hostile to me for rule precedent, and everyone seems to be talking about the importance of civility without bringing up that some ideas do not deserve civil discussion and that civility is not always an appropriate response.
Is this true? I was pitched Tildes as a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it. That seems to be supported by the opening blog post, though that can be read multiple ways I guess.
I would argue Tildes isn't getting a good cross-section of nearly any group of people though. It's got only 3000 total users, of which a good chunk are relatively inactive. In order to get more lgbt users, we would need to divert a significant number of invites, and I don't think it's really fair to take away invites from other users just because they're straight. You could say, well why don't we just eliminate invitations and open the site to everybody? That would create massive moderation / scaling issues as is. If you want a website that is truly more representative of everybody, then tbh, I just don't think an alpha stage site is a good place to go. Furthermore, there are already plenty of discussion sites that are lgbt centered and where you most certainly could find a large and diverse lgbt community. I'd not really sure what Tilde's gay community could offer over these.
Duh, how did I overlook that? Alright, I'll definitely concede this point to you. The primary reason was indeed because of toxicity. However, I still think quality and civil discussion is an important sub point of that, and I stand by that we want users with a good signal to noise ratio.
I'm not sure where your clearly is coming from, because I have never said such a thing nor would I endorse it. Were did you get the idea that I would...? And that's the first time hearing about or seeing that post. I'll keep an eye out for it.
Could you clarify this point a little? I'm not sure what communities and which rule precedents you're talking about, but I'd be curious to hear.
This was a point I brought up myself a while back. I agree, that there are many points (and sometimes people) that having a civil discussion either yields nothing or sometimes results in worsening a situation. There's no point in engaging in an argument with someone who is calling for genocide for example, because such a person is either trolling or so far away that you're not going to change their mind with a rational discussion. However, that's rather extremist, and I suspect not what you're referring to, especially not if we're talking about your previous example. In this case, I'd point out to him how marriage doesn't replace the numerous other challenges facing us, like for example legal employment discrimination. it doesn't mean you have to respect his opinion as equal to your own, it just means you say it in a calm way that gives him a change to reflect and change his mind.
Thanks for the in-depth reply! I'm going to try to return the courtesy, so apologies if this gets long, and I'll understand if you're not invested enough to bear with me.
This is probably true and a fair point. I would, however, suggest that it's easier to recruit users not from under-represented backgrounds, and harder to end up with a community that doesn't end up with a good cross-section of majority viewpoints. So if we're worried about focusing effort, let's make sure we're doing justice to those communities that it's easy to wind up with imbalance in, and not worry as much about the communities it's easy to wind up with a good cross-section of.
I think there's a false scarcity here. You could argue that right now we're taking invites away from people who don't feel welcome in communities like Reddit, with that mindset. What I'd be in favor of is not a "looking for queer people to join a website!" or "I have invites, they're only for queer people!" approach, but rather being mindful of where and how we're recruiting and what the experience looks like for queer users once they get here.
I think this is fine, but let's recognise that an invite-only model is by nature exclusive, and we have to exclude somebody. That's how invites work. As we're laying the foundation for the community, establishing the norms, and otherwise setting the direction for the future, having a 77% het population means that the space will, unless we actively combat it, cater first and foremost to het people, because the queer voices get overruled, drowned out, or lost amongst the het voices. This applies to any underrepresented minority, I just don't want to speak for other experiences besides my own, which is why I'm focusing on the queer bit instead of e.g. the race bit.
I don't think I'm worried so much about representative as much as I am about inclusivity. The alpha stage is where the basis and groundwork of the community is laid, and so it will have an oversized impact on the community over time. Do I think Tildes needs to be 50% queer or more forever? No, of course not. Do I think that it does today? I don't know, it's complicated. But I do think its queer population needs to have an equal voice to its cishet population, or it risks becoming accidentally exclusionary to queer people.
These would be good sites for us to recruit from like we do Reddit, on the understanding that by recruiting from Reddit, we're recruiting from a default-cishet space.
It's not that I'm looking for Tildes to be a queer space, like those discussion forums are, it's that I'm looking for Tildes to be a queer-inclusive space, and we need to have queer voices heard when establishing community norms and values for that to happen. I agree Tildes shouldn't be a "queer site", but I think--and maybe this is where some people disagree?--that Tildes should definitely be associated in people's minds with a "queer-friendly site".
I think these are important, too, but when building a community, I think it's important to know what your priorities are. If you want a community that's inclusive first and foremost, then even if a user is a power-user that posts a lot of good comments and is always polite, if they're a bigot and are making underrepresented users feel unwelcome, they need to go. If you want a community that always engages in polite conversation and has a bunch of good content, it may make sense to keep that user. If civility is the thing you value most, I'd actually say it's a bad idea to try to include underrepresented groups, because there's often so much emotional labor involved for them in engaging civilly in conversations about their humanity or rights, which inevitably come up, and it's not fair to try to recruit them to a community that is going to put them in that position.
Sorry, this was unclear on my part. I read your original post as an expression that you believe Tildes to already be a sufficiently inclusive space for LGBT people, and I disagree pretty strongly on that point. Re-reading what you actually said, I've discovered I read into your post things you did not actually say, and apologise for that. So my clearly was not about accusing you of holding those views, but believing you thought a site where a new-ish user like me could accidentally run into those views in the first few threads he read is a sufficiently inclusive place. The example was less about you agreeing with it, and more an illustration of why I think the site is not sufficiently inclusive already.
Sure, though I'm hesitant to get too far off-topic here. In this conversation there are people talking about what Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat all have as rules and how maybe we should look to those as precedent. Hopefully you can understand why I find these concerning as models for this community to be based on.
The problem with remaining silent in the face of posts like that is that communities like this are defined by what content they allow. If someone is saying something hostile to a group, and nobody is correcting them, saying that's not what we do here, moderating, or otherwise making it clear that that content is not welcome in the community, anyone in the group being targeted can and should assume that that content is tolerated in the community.
Tone argument is a good reason why I'm worried about the focus being on how things are said, and not what is being said.
dammit I'm going to be an old man by the time I get off this site :P and sorry that my replies are a little out of order, I had to jump around a lot to copy your points and reply on my small laptop.
That's what the OP means though, with "specifically targeting" gay users.
Could you clarify what this means...? Do you think the sight is unwelcome to lgbt people as is or?
Well, in what specific ways do you think we'd be overruled, drowned out, or lost amongst the het voices? I mean, /u/deimos has been perfectly accommodating in every instance I've observed. He created the ~lgbt subtilde for us, he's made clear he's not going to let Tilde be used as a platform for hate, and he and everyone else have given zero indication that have any negative feelings to us. Do you have a specific example for how they would overrule us...?
What I do not agree with is your original example, that gay people have equal rights just because we have gay marriage. For context, I come from a moderately conservative military family, in a sometimes very conservative military community. I know a lot of people who "tolerate" gay people, but don't really treat us with the same level of respect they would someone who's straight. This is the attitude in a lot of conservative places, and there are many services, like employment or housing discrimination, that we don't have protection from. So absolutely, I think that statement is garbage and made by someone who has little awareness of what being gay is actually like.
But Tilde isn't the same. Like I said again, he's made every accommodation for us that he can, and the one time we had a troll here who intentionally made inflammatory comments here against gay marriage, he was banned, and to some criticism might I point out. Far from merely tolerating us as users, he's shown that he intends to treat us just as equally as any straight users, and he's given us the full ability to establishing a community and everything. I'm not seeing how he isn't doing enough or dismissing us under a veneer of tolerance, which is what your first example is. What kind of thing would you expect him to do to make you sufficiently happy that he's accepting to lgbt people...?
Nah, don't worry about it, I'll take the blame if anyone gives you trouble about :)
Well, I think looking at each in turn would provide some insight. If you look at Reddit's redditquette for example, you can see that it's actually pretty good at asking people to stay civil and preventing harassment. The problem is the enforcement of the policy is very lax. For example, if I even need to mention it, /r/the_donald still operates right? But it's not because these rules permit, in fact, /r/the_donald has broken just about nearly every rule in their and in the content policy, on a regular basis, along with breaking even the normal rules about vote manipulation and such. The problem however is that the admins don't enforce the policy they created, not that it's specifically lacking in this case. Given that Tilde's founding mission was as a result of reddit's unenforcement, and that /u/Deimos has been extremely strict about people who seek to break the site's rules, I don't think this is a problem we'll run into soon, since it's literally the founding basis of this site.
For Hacker News, it's worth noting that the site is exclusively for technical subjects, and isn't meant to be used for any other kind of talk, which is why they have little written about what to do. But Tildes is also very specifically setting out as a general purpose talking forum, so this worry won't really apply I think. I do find it quite odd they haven't removed some of the comments though -~- I guess they also suffer some of Reddit's enforcement.
And lastly, Voat is indeed an absolute shitshow. They embrace a lot of racist and nasty content, and they fully permit it to continue under their policies. However, from what I've seen, Voat is mostly being used as an example of what not to do, which is pretty heartening right? As nasty as Voat is, hopefully the opposite is as positive as Voat isn't. Plus, in a lot of these conversations, they're talking about the technical merits of for example whether we should have a downvote system like Reddit, the level of privacy we should track people at, etc. all of which is independent of content policies. So while it's definitely understandable why you're concerned, I don't think we need to worry to much about it, especially since it's been established pretty early on we want to avoid their mistakes :)
Oh, absolutely. I fully agree with your point here, if you allow something to remain even just unanswered, eventually it does become a tacit toleration. What I meant by "no point in engaging in debate" is, rather then try to respond to them by pretending to be civil, you'd be better off reporting the comment and having it deleted, and maybe banning the person if this becomes a regular thing. Of course, we don't have a report button so you'd have to PM, but my point still stands. Responding to them angrily will only feed them after all.
I'm running out of steam here, and having the same debates and conversations repetitively is getting old--none of which is your fault, but I'm getting burnt out here--so this'll probably be my last reply in this thread. Sorry. Feel free to reply, I may read it, but I probably won't reply.
Can't speak for OP's intent. I'd just say you can specifically target a group without excluding another group. Handing out flyers at a Pride parade (not saying we should do that, it's illustrative) is more likely to get the attention of queer people, but isn't necessarily excluding straight people. It's just being mindful of how the ways you advertise bias you towards groups, and deciding which groups you want your advertising to be biased towards.
It's not the least welcoming site I've ever seen, but it's far from the most. If it's aiming to be inclusive for queer people, I'd say it's probably falling short right now. Of course, not all queer people have the same tolerance for content that's harmful to them, so you and I don't have to agree, and "inclusive for queer people" is probably reductive. I think, most accurately, I'd probably phrase it as "there are reasons a queer person could reasonably feel unwelcome here and decide to leave".
This isn't a critique of Deimos. I'm not saying Deimos is just paying lip service, or something, or that he wants to appear friendly and actually isn't, or something. I just think execution of the ideals is a bit off. I've been told Tildes isn't going to shut down beliefs, which is concerning when some people believe I'm inferior or should be dead. I've seen users think it's totally fine to debate whether I already have equal rights because I can marry a woman, whether it matters or not if queer people feel welcome here, posit that the most important thing in a conversation is that it's expressed politely, regardless of whether the ideas under discussion are actually harmful or not, and express that it's better when people are just treated as people and we make no attempt to counteract centuries of oppression against marginalised groups, that if we just treat everyone in exactly the same manner now, things will all work out. And the community seems to think this is totally appropriate. Which doesn't make it a bad community, it just means that there seem to be some room for doubt here on whether queer people should feel totally welcome in this community or not. And I'm not saying everyone agrees with these beliefs or statements, I'm just saying people seem to generally think they're acceptable on Tildes.
Regardless of the rules being proposed, all three of these are communities Tildes is currently being pitched as being different from. If we're going to set the community apart from them, a good way to start is by being clear when we're looking at them for examples that we want to avoid becoming what they are. Doesn't mean we can't draw inspiration from them, but anyone looking at that commenting norms thread could be forgiven for thinking that Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat are being used as inspiration for the community, as opposed to communities whose problems we want to avoid. And the amount of resistance I've gotten to pointing this out is pretty disheartening, because--and it could just be my impression--it seems to me that people don't really want to be that different from Reddit, when it comes to community values.
The better approach, in my opinion, is exactly what happened with the joke thread: "that's not what we do here".
Except that happened pretty swiftly in the joke thread, and for other "fluff" content, but seems to rarely happen when it comes to community values. Which suggests maybe that is what we do here. Which is a decision a community can make, but, like, let's be honest about it at least.
For context on the guy who talks about the coat code of conduct, he is talking about the very early days before it became the shithole it is currently.
We're well and truly off-topic now.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't understand why we're talking about Voat at all in a thread about what we want our community to be, unless it's to say "that's what Voat did, look what happened there, let's not do that." If our goal here is to make a non-toxic community, Voat, Reddit, and HN would be at the very top of my list for the things for the community to not emulate. Having all three brought up in a positive way in a conversation about establishing norms for this community raises giant warning signs and red flags for me, because... like.... how do people not have any better references for sites they think have good rules or etiquette or policies? Does the community here think those are good communities? Is Tildes going to turn out like them? Because if so, I want to find the exit now.
Which is why I'm bringing it up in this thread. There were like 400 responses to that poll, out of like 3000 members. Meaning we don't know anything about the 2600 members who didn't respond, and are presumably inactive. How do we know Tildes has a pipeline problem, and not a retention problem? Are we sure if marginalized people sign up for Tildes, they're going to stay? A lot of folks who are part of a URM in my circles, at least, actively avoid Hacker News, Reddit, and Voat because they're toxic and not worth the effort. If we're looking to them as examples, I would expect those demographic numbers to get worse, not better.
So far on Tildes I've:
On balance, can you see why I may not be entirely convinced yet that Tildes is a community I'll be able to engage in without having my rights questioned, a community where we disagree about what counts as a sandwich, not who counts as a person?
That's really what I'm getting at, here. The alpha is the time for Tildes to get the structure and community norms in place and practice what it means to be an inclusive, non-toxic community, or you're going to wind up with the Reddit problem of trying to graft it on later and upsetting users that didn't want a non-toxic, inclusive community. So what happens now in terms of community matters. Get the voices of those you want Tildes to be welcoming in here now, while there's still time to shape the community, or we're going to miss all the things that make a community toxic to them and enshrine them in community norms.
The reason voat is brought up is because there was a time when people thought it could actually be something, before all the racists moved in. During that time, a decent code of conduct was drafted, which is something that is actually worth looking at. This code of conduct was never adopted by voat, and we know what happened to voat afterwards.
Reddit and HN are brought up because its what people know. I do not think anyone here believes either site is perfect. I know a bit about what Reddits problems are, and I believe we have plans for not replicating them. I do not know much about HN, would you care to elaborate what the problems are?
As far as will people stay or not, I think it should be irrelevant if they are part of a minority group. The only important thing about people should be if they can add to discussions. I agree that we should make an effort to not discriminate against anyone, but I do not think we should do some form of outreach either. We should treat every group equally.
To the conversation you bring up, I believe it is important to bring up extreme cases when discussing community norms. Bringing them up immediately is better than trying to put off the problem until you cannot anymore. To the third conversation, it is a real view that some people hold. I believe it is wrong, and it gives you the opportunity to try and convince people why it is wrong. You claim that tildes was pitched to you as "a community that was trying to avoid becoming as toxic as other communities like it". That is true. However, I believe you misunderstood something about it. Tildes does not plan to do so by stifling beliefs, but by requiring everyone to be civil and polite.
If I may finish with two questions:
Do you believe that LGBT people are fundamentally more polite and adding more will lead to better discussion?
What site(s) do you think tildes should look at as an example?
I promise I have heard and understand the people that explained that the rules in question were never adopted at Voat, and I absolutely believe there was a time when people thought Voat could be a Nice Thing To Have. What I keep coming back to is, there are a lot of groups that Voat explicitly and actively does harm to. It is not a good look to mention "here's the kind of community I was trying to build at Voat" when you're trying to build an inclusive community, because when you don't mention when, or then follow up with "before the racists moved in", or otherwise indicate that you see anything wrong with Voat as it stands today, you're sending a signal to the people harmed by it that you consider it a community worth emulating. I don't really see why, if the poster was just saying "here's a suggestion for how it could be formatted", Voat needs to be brought into the mix. It didn't add anything, and instead made it look like the community here was basing its norms off Voat's.
I linked to an exemplary thread already in:
https://tildes.net/~tildes/24t/suggestion_recruit_new_users_from_a_wider_demographic_range#comment-msq
If you don't see the problem in that thread, I mean, it's kind of a well-known thing. Here's an article from four years ago talking about how they were trying to turn it around from being toxic: https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/hacker-news-pending-comments/
I think if you don't care whether minority groups are mass exiting your community but privileged people aren't, you're not setting yourself up super well for creating a non-toxic community.
I don't know what you're referencing here.
My life is an opportunity to try and convince people why it's wrong. Every other community out there gives me an opportunity to convince people it's wrong. Where Tildes can shine as a non-toxic, inclusive community is giving me and people like me a space where I don't have to convince other people in the community that my marriage is really none of their business. Relitigating my existence is actually a really tiresome activity, and not one I do for fun or to relax.
Tildes is absolutely going to stifle beliefs. That's the whole paradox of intolerance thing that the original blog post linked to. You're either tolerant of intolerance, in which case you're going to stifle the beliefs of everyone the intolerance impacts, or you stifle the intolerant beliefs. Tildes, as a community, needs to decide whether they want a healthy queer population who fail safe to engage fully here, or whether we want a population who feels safe to question whether queer people are actually people here. You can't have both those groups in the same community.
I believe that making a space that is safe for LGBT people to engage in will lead to better discussion, yes. I don't think they're fundamentally more polite, especially when faced with bigots, but I also believe that's healthy for a community, as well, and that a community should not be polite or civil when oppressive ideas are brought up, those ideas should be swiftly shown the door. I'm more than a little worried that people seem to be conflating toxicity with a lack of civility, as if nobody has ever used civil language to wish me dead before.
That depends on what Tildes wants to be as a community. I keep hearing polite and civil being bandied about, in which case, Reddit and Hacker News would be great to look for, but that's not going to lead to a non-toxic community. You want to make Tildes safe for queer people? Look where queer people gather online, and look at the rules and norms they have in place. Want more women? Look at the communities they create and run and see what they're doing. You may have to expand your definition of "community", to include things like Glitch.com or fanfiction communities. Look into the problems the communities are talking about on Twitter.
Why would invites need to be diverted..? Just make posts to appropriate groups on reddit directing them to the invite threads on r/tildes.
Also, what makes LGBT communities different than other communities, when you say you aren't sure what tildes can offer them? It seems like that logic could be applied to anything that has an existing community...
I am more interested in content of people's character, rather than their gender, sex-orientation or ethnic.
This bears no resemblance to my experiences on tildes thus far whatsoever.
Well, political beliefs do tend to fall along a spectrum. Perhaps you are just so far right that you think that viewpoints that OP considers conservative are actually liberal.
I agree with @Mumberthrax: there really aren't lot of conservatives or alt-righters here. They might stand out more for @chrismc because they're so different to the majority views on Tildes so far, but that doesn't make them more common.
It's like seeing two black sheep in a flock of white sheep, and saying there are too many black sheep. Sure, they're noticeable, but they're not common.
It's strange to want many views just to create a monolith no one can deviate from out of it. It's really not for everyone.
I definitely agree on the more women part (and the LGBT part as well). I think tildes' current overwhelming male majority is due in part to the places in which tildes has been promoted (i.e., hackernews). A massive majority of techbros will be detrimental to the perspectives available on the site in the long run. I'm not certain where specifically would be good to promote tildes to attempt to fix this problem, but I do think it is something that needs addressing sooner rather than later.
Promotions should focus on attracting the type of people that will be interested in tildes, not to fill a minority requirement. The nature of tildes (nerdy) means that there will be more men than women. The important thing is to welcome any women who do come. As long as people think this is a safe environment to be in, they will stay.
I don't see it as a "requirement". It's more that tildes will benefit from having diverse viewpoints, and that we should make attempts to bring those diverse viewpoints here.
I am certain that there are groups of women, as well as other groups that are in the minority here, who would be interested in tildes. I think it is important to find these groups and tell them about tildes so at the very least they are aware of it.
This is a rhetorical question that I don't expect an answer to, but why does this need to be the case? Just because tildes is currently skewing heavily towards guys doesn't mean that is inherently the natural state of tildes.
I agree that tildes will benefit from a diverse community, but I feel iffy on attempts to specifically target these people. It comes across that they are wanted not because of their knowledge, but because of their identity. It's like how a lot of code boot camps for women are crap, and are just a symbolic gesture, or a PR move. I know in tildes' case the intentions are good, but executions are often done in bad taste and might drive people away more than anything else.
The main problem is that there is no place on the internet (that I know of) that consists mainly of minorities that are also interested in tildes. If you just barge in on a random forum to advertise tildes, it comes across as very spammy and ill-faithed.
I don't think we need to consciously try to diversity tildes, just maintaining it as a friendly and open-minded place is enough. Speaking to the state of tildes right now, it is very much tech and STEM focused, and studies have shown that there are more men than women in tech and STEM fields. It would only be natural then that there are more men here than women. Tildes draws a large part of its users from reddit, so it's logical to see a similar demographic. Also because tildes is an english website, it makes sense that most people here are from english speaking, western countries. This doesn't have to be the case in the future, but that's what it is now.
I think tildes will have a smaller gender gap compared to reddit, simply because it has a nicer community. A site's demographics and content influence each other. It's a 'chicken or egg' situation, do you change the content to attract diversity or bring diversity to change the content? I don't know.
A wide range of countries would be nice too. I appreciate that the US makes up a large part of the English speaking world, but Reddit has a 'US' identity where people just tend to assume that everyone on the site is.
I don't think it's the type of thing you have much control over, people will be attracted by the content and stay on that basis, to diversify you need to cultivate content that appeals to diverse peoples. How to do that I ask?
On this subject: I think we have some right-libertarians and/or Conservatives, maybe a few socialists and/or anarchists, and a very sizeable population of center or center-left liberals who are more interested in social issues than not.
Perhaps we should have another unofficial survey, focusing on politics? The left/right spectrum has multiple interpretations (notably the American view that puts Democrats on the left), and it's all that was present in the previous survey.