7
votes
Why do we need Link or Test and not both?
One of the common issues that I've run into on reddit as a moderator is that lots of people put in a link and then put a bunch of text into the text area, and then they have a text link with no link.
I realize that you may have built things already in a way that is fundamentally not supportive of this, but I wonder about allowing both to coexist within one post?
This is something that I've thought a decent amount about, because I was originally planning on just combining the two types as well. I've talked with others about it multiple times too, and I eventually ended up being convinced that it was better to keep them separated.
I think, for me, the main argument against it is that it basically gives the submitter an unfair advantage in adding their own commentary to a link—they get a "soapbox" that they can use to comment on the link, and everyone looking at the post is basically forced to read what they think, even though they probably don't have any more authority to talk about that link than anyone else would if they submitted it. If the submitter wants to comment on the link, it should probably be... in the form of a comment, just like it is for everyone else.
Also, if you combine them, it muddles the voting (and some other mechanics) a bit. As a voter, now I have to try to decide how to account for the submitter's commentary as well, instead of just the link on its own. What if I think it's a good link that should be posted in the group, but their commentary on it is wrong? Do I have to upvote it anyway, and give that wrong commentary more exposure? You also end up with a lot of the top-level comments being responses to the submitter's commentary, instead of to the link itself.
Because of reasons like that, I think keeping them separated makes more sense than combining. The error on reddit of people filling in both is more of a UI issue than anything (tabs are the wrong element to use). The Tildes interface is currently terrible too, but at least it tells people not to fill in both, and won't let them submit if they do.
A good example of this soapboxing was /r/AskReddit before they banned text inside of posts.
Title: "What do people think of X?"
Text: "Well I think blah blah blah..."
Great reasoning - definitely agree on the fact that then you're voting on the link and the potential editorializing.
To a degree, title adds to that muddiness already, but I think adding text does so even more.
Ah, and that's why Tildes definitely needs to have title-editing (including by people other than the author)!
That's definitely something I want to do, and just keep a history of the changes and who made them so people are accountable for doing it. It will need to be linked to the "trust" system (which I really need to write something up about) as well, so it's restricted. But there's definitely no reason that titles need to be un-editable if we do it right.
The Trust system sounds super interesting - and editable titles is a fantastic idea. I'm excited to see how they both turn out.
What if external links required commentary from the op, but the commentary was automatically attached as a regular comment instead of as part of the post?
I am deeply convinced that external links without context are necessarily low-quality. I don't come to tildes to then immediately turn around and leave tildes, and if a link is worth posting, it's worth discussing. if a link is worth discussing, it shouldn't be hard for op to kick off the discussion with the first comment.
so then you no longer have to muddy the "first comment" requirement with the "link" part of the post, and you also provide a mechanism for OPs to self-diagnose low quality fluff links (edit: if they can't think of a first comment, they probably shouldn't post the link)
I like that there's two sides of the coin here already:
I think the issue is a little more abstract than this: the OP designation. I've always felt that having a visibly flagged OP on some services always gave them some sort of elevation in status, even if localized entirely within that submission. The visual indication of who they are may have helped this along.
I remember the days of internet forums when OPs weren't really marked, they became just another person in the conversation—only the first post ever carried any extra weight, and then after that it was up to each reader to note whom OP is in the rest of the convo, or let everyone's argument and comment speak for itself.
So, in that vein: one feature I'd like to experiment with is the ability to remove the OP designation as a submitter. This would be useful in the context of sharing something I'd like to learn more about, or have other people discuss as a method of inquisitiveness or learning, without any additional status to myself. To @nalixor's point, I submitted something similar as him and had my OP comment first up to explain why I shared it. In that case, I used the OP designation to tell people why I submitted it and why I think it was worth sharing.
But I can easily imagine a case (e.g. Twitter screws up password storage....again) where I'd like to submit the news but carry no extra status to my comments or participation, since I don't really have anything to contribute beyond the submission itself. I would to exist inside the comments asking questions without any extra attention.
I actually like that idea but only if OP designation is defaulted on and disabling it is an option on a per-submission or even per-comment basis (like distinguishing moderator and admin works on reddit but the reverse). Since in a lot of cases easily identifying the OP can be extremely useful such as in AMAs, guides, tutorials, announcements, etc. and if it was defaulted off or a global setting, them forgetting to re-enable it would be far more annoying and common than the few times people "abuse" or take advantage of it.
As an example, earlier today, I made this post. My comment in there could have easily been included as 'text' if that option was available. It would give a nice little introduction to the link that you could read from the front page.
@deimos seems open to suggestions on alternative ways to do submissions but we have actually already talked about the link/self-text hybrid option a fair bit and saw some pretty big issues with allowing that particular one. E.g. Extreme editorializing in the self-text and giving way too much power of the submitter to control the tone of the discussion. Not only that but, as you pointed out, if a submitter wants to make a statement along with their submission they can already do so on standard link submissions by making a comment. That comment can then be judged independent of the submitted link's quality. However if you allow self-text along with the link then they will be judged together and so even if someone posts a really interesting link but is a dumbass in the accompanying self-text then the link may not get the attention it deserves.
However some other ideas we came up with for unique submission, comment thread and group types were Live Event, Q&A/AMA, Debate (similar to Kialo), Polls and Brainstorming/Idea tracking (similar to Games2Gether) among others. All of which may eventually get added as comment section modes, submission types and maybe even specific group types.
So worry not, ~ will likely not be stuck in the "link or self-text only" paradigm forever like reddit is. Unique, new, experimental features will be coming eventually. The basics just need to get covered first.
I ran into a similar issue with one of my posts. I just ended up including the little description in the title, which made it excessively long.
Yeah, I had the same thought. Opens up a route towards "submission statements" of a sort.