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Does anybody else find themselves lurking a lot more on Tildes?
On Reddit I'm a fairly active user, commenting a lot even it it doesn't really need to be commented, but on Tildes I find that a lot of the time I will not comment if it seems like it isn't needed, and I'll spend time actually reading other comments to see if what I wanted to say has been said before.
To me it feels like Tildes is a more mature(IMO) and better place for discussion instead of just random quips.
For me its been the opposite; I have definitely been more active on tildes, especially if you don't /r/me_irl. Part of it is certainly because my voice isn't drowned out by hundreds of comments here, but I also lurk reddit logged-out a lot.
I can see what you mean. When I joined Reddit and the comments section was still relatively new, I felt that if I had a well reasoned opinion, people would appreciate it. That obviously doesn't describe the Reddit crowd anymore. But I get that sense here.
I'm more of a lurker on both fronts - but slightly more so on reddit. On reddit I'll be "active" in places like r/tech, r/hardware, r/askscience, and other places where I can offer my expertise. But I dare not comment on anything opinion-related because of how easily searchable it is. At least on tildes, given its mission and privacy, I do feel at least a little more comfortable to just share some miscellany.
I think it has to do with the size of the ocean, so to speak. You're probably more friendly and talkative to your next door neighbors than to random people on the road. Reddit is a road full of strangers and tilde is like your neighborhood block, you might run into the people you're speaking to later and you might have people judge you based on what you say and how you act. On reddit, you'll probably never run into those people again. At least that's how I see it.
That is actually a pretty good way of putting it. There's so few people here that if I start always fucking around I'll be known by a lot of the users as "that one guy"
And I'd rather not be that
Yeah, there's definitely a lot more reading going on when I browse Tildes, which means I'm not commenting as much usually. That, and there's a lot of people that seem to think the way I think on here as well, so plenty of times someone's already written a comment that says the same thing I would have said. That, plus I think it's partly the nature of the content that's being submitted too, plenty of long reads and things that require some homework before making a comment on them.
I get what you're saying, and find I definitely read a lot more and consider my responses before commenting. However, Tildes feels welcoming enough that I actually post and comment a lot more than I ever did on Reddit.
Yes, and I actually commented on this on Reddit earlier today!
Most of the discussion here on Tildes is by a handful of power users, who also happen to always be pushing for "no low-effort comments!" --- but casual users like me don't have the time to type paragraphs in reply to every single thread or discussion I go through. Holding all users to a standard of "high effort all the time!" will eventually turn everyone (except those who have the time and desire to be power users) into lurkers. You can inject new blood with new waves of invites, but they'll just come and go through the same thing.
I'll lurk, but only because I don't have the time or energy for high effort ALL the time.
Yeah, I think there's some correlation with post length and effort, but you can absolutely have insightful and good discussion in a sentence or two, or an entire novel that says nothing at all. Shorter comments can especially be part of a good discussion if they are part of a thread of back-and-forth.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.
Will there ever be room for levity on Tildes? Because according to the Mechanics, there is supposedly a "Joke" tag for comments written purely for humor. What does a non-low-effort, acceptable joke look like here?
https://tildes.net/~talk?tag=jokes
And even in comments people are free to make jokes. They just probably shouldn’t be top-level comments or their comment solely a joke either, especially if it’s just a one-liner. If everyone started doing that here it would eventually be no different than reddit where the vast majority of all comments are just predictable one liner jokes and all semblance of quality discussion is drowned out by them. So my recommendation would be to make your joke, regardless of the “effort” it takes, but also try to say something else more substantial in the same comment.
I like those guidelines, especially no jokes in top-level comments. Thanks.
Something that you can do if you want to move the discussion along, but don't want to leave a long reply, is ask lots of questions. Especially if someone appears to know a lot about a subject.
Good idea. I'm a bit wary of it because at some point it crosses into "just asking questions" territory, which is highly counterproductive in an actual discussion and wouldn't want to see a flood of that here on Tildes. But when asked genuinely, you're right, questions are a good way to keep a topic going!
I'm the opposite. I contribute more here because I want to see an active community here and be a part of that. But yeah, I do sit out if I see an opinion exactly like my own and just vote instead.
Most of my posts on Reddit are answering questions and/or providing support. There isn't much of that on Tildes so as a result of that I don't do much posting.
I very rarely contribute to discussion on Reddit because there will typically be hundreds if not thousands of replies by the time I even see the thread. At which point, no one's going to read any post I'd make and any posts I have would have already been posted by someone else.
Conversely, Tildes is much slower in that regard so I don't quite feel like I'm wasting my time. That said, I probably lurk 75% of all the posts I read.
I can't imagine this is a particularly unique viewpoint to have.
I definitely fluctuate between reading and posting. Sometimes there are days where I feel that I have a lot to contribute, and sometimes there are days where I don't really have anything to contribute at all because the points I want to cover have already been discussed pretty thoroughly. It's a nice balance to have :)
I definitely spend a lot more time reading comments here, but I think that only serves to make me more likely to leave one of my own. On reddit I could read half of a comment and just think it's boring and pointless, but here I legitimately enjoy reading through discussions. As a result of reading more, I feel like I might have something to say about it myself, especially since it usually takes me a bit of time to even gather my thoughts.
Overall I think it comes down to whether you're the kind of person who can make quick-witted responses that a ton of people will see and upvote, or the kind of person who prefers to write sentences to paragraphs at a time to try and make some sort of longer and more involved discussion.
I think I've posted more on here in the past two months than I have in the past eight-or-so years on reddit. By the time I found Reddit, it was already pretty sizable. I've always just used it as a sort of social barometer. Interacting on there has always felt like mumbling into a crowd of megaphones. People rarely responded, even on smaller groups. The sort of conversations I've had on here feels much more natural to me. I went ahead and set up a little cot in the corner so I can mumble away all day long. And the crazy thing to me is that sometimes people actually mumble back, and hardly anyone uses a megaphone.
I got burned once for making the kind of shit-post I would have made on Reddit. Here I want to be sure I have something to say of value, worthy of the post.
Haha yeah, I was briefly banned because a mod thought I was a troll due to the combination of my name and the fact that I had only made a single-emoji comment. 😂 Nope, just think it's amazing/hilarious that I got this name and thought I was being funny with the emoji. Kind of a shame because I love shitposting and making dumb jokes-- not with bad intent, just to be silly. Oh well, guess this isn't the place. I like deep discussions too. Though it would be cool if there were a comedy section on here or something. I like going on r/ScenesFromAHat and r/PhotoshopBattles and such. And r/Ooer. I love r/Ooer.
I think everyone has at least a little bit of shitpost in them now and again, but that it should be largely kept to certain places. I don't even shitpost on reddit anymore because I've found that discord servers, especially small ones with people I know, are a much better place to have that sort of no-filter shitpost because there everyone is just friends.
I dunno, I guess if "shitpost" means truly worthless content and absolute gibberish then I can see what you're saying. But I think there's a lot of value to making light of things even in a really silly or simple way-- like those punny comment chains I see on Reddit, for example-- and I think we'd be remiss to be "above" them here. They definitely bring joy (at least to me), which is what life is all about. And then there's the fact that humor increases creative problem-solving ability, so even if our goal on Tildes is as noble as literally trying to solve every societal issue we get our hands on, jokes are still valuable.
I've seen a lot of rhyming pun chains that amaze me with their ingenuity and impress me with the fact that 15 different people made 15 different comments that are smart and didn't break the chain. Not to mention make me laugh out loud. In my opinion if we don't allow some creative silliness we run the risk of being more "highbrow" than high quality.
I've been slightly more active on tildes, mainly due to the low traffic. If there's an interesting topic, there's actually a chance someone will read my comment due to there being only ~20-30 in total. Compare this to the several hundreds or thousands you'll see on a popular post over reddit, you don't really stand a chance.
Tildes is sort of like browsing the new queue on reddit, without needing to specifically click on 'new'.
I'm always hesitant to post on tildes, because honestly I don't really have all that much experience or insight, and someone else has usually made a comment that articulates how I feel better than I could.
The standards for discussion on Reddit are very different. I can just make a cheap joke or say something meaningless and get upvoted, so I'll post whatever comes to mind.
Oh I will read! That thread popped up while I wasnt checking Tildes so I never saw it!
No... and also yes. I do a lot of commenting on posts in which a "casual" response makes sense (~talk) and I'll post a link here and there - but with all the debate over what does and doesn't constitute "low effort" - posting a comment on an article, etc. is still a bit too intimidating for me. I'm usually browsing Tildes from work and while my job is slow, I don't quite have the time it'd take for me to write a long, thoroughly thought-out and fact-checked response.
For the record, this isn't a complaint, really. I really enjoy reading submitted content and comments by users who do have the time to post lengthy responses - but I'm not sure there's a place for me in that part of Tildes yet.
Yes. Like others have stated it was like yelling into a big void of mindless voices on reddit.
I find exactly the opposite. I think it's a combination of subjects (mostly more political/'deeper') and responses; people seem like they actually care, they've read your post, etc. To me it's mostly about the absence of trolls or people who just want to broadcast their opinion - less twitter and less facebook, so to speak. It feels more like an actual conversation.
I found that on Reddit I didn't do anything past comment, and I would only do that if I had reasonable knowledge on a topic. On ~ tho I'm finding that I'm submitting a lot more links to make sure that the communities I care about are more active.
I've also found my self voting far more frequently here then on reddit. Just feels like it matters way more. But then again just been using it since today so ~
I lurk more just because there's less content here and overall I'm just here less.
I lurk on both, I'm fairly quiet in general.