12 votes

Feature Idea Survey and Discussion - Browse by Topic Tag List - please vote in the comments

This feature already exists to a large extent thanks to Deimos's implementation of discovery by clicking a topic's tag. However, it might also be useful to list all of the topic tags aside from specific topics as a user may not find a topic with their favorite tags very easily. As I understand it, Deimos wants to keep the group list from growing too quickly, and this would allow another way to discover one's micro-interests.

Mockup of the 1 button added in the sidebar.

On click of that button the user would go to a page similar to https://tildes.net/groups - but it would list topic tags. In place of subscribers count, there could be a total count of topics with that tag. In place of subscribe/un-subscribe buttons could be Filter/Un-filter buttons. I think that the list should be sorted by count of related topics, descending.
1 This new tildes.tld/tags page would likely require pagination, and maybe a text input for a super-simple filter/search that would just change the SQL query where clause.

Once the user clicks the name of the topic tag the user would go to the existing page tildes.tld/?tag=tag-name. example: https://tildes.net/?tag=linux


What do you all think of this? Any other ideas on implementation? Any issues I did not consider?

As in my last post in this group, please vote on the comment which best reflects your views on the feature. Then add any comments as to why you feel that way, or qualifications on your vote in a reply. If you have questions or ideas prior to voting, please make another top-level comment.

If you want me to add an Ambivalent vote, let me know, but I thought that it was not that useful of a metric last time.

edit: added 1

edit2: Took a while to bring it back home, but:

The impetus for making this feature proposal was this new user's topic. This user was looking for specific content which did exist on Tildes, but it was not obvious to them. It was only organized by tag, and they were looking for it by group. How were they to find it in the current top-level org? Specifically, here is my comment that relates to this feature.

17 comments

  1. [8]
    Neverland
    Link
    Vote for this if you are in favor of this feature Vote for this even if you think this is low priority If so inclined, please comment why or add a qualification for your vote.

    Vote for this if you are in favor of this feature

    Vote for this even if you think this is low priority

    If so inclined, please comment why or add a qualification for your vote.

    11 votes
    1. [7]
      Amarok
      Link Parent
      You're scratching the tip of a big juicy iceberg here. I wrote a bit about this earlier in the movie trailer post. To sum up, there's a 'fetal' stage of a new group we need to address. The stage...

      You're scratching the tip of a big juicy iceberg here.

      I wrote a bit about this earlier in the movie trailer post. To sum up, there's a 'fetal' stage of a new group we need to address. The stage between when something becomes common enough to start to 'bother' some of the users in the host group, and the time it is active enough to survive as a group of its own. We need a way to facilitate this in-between phase, and I think tags are the answer.

      I want to go into ~music and see something like this across the top.

      [streams] [news] [live] [review] [roundup] [funk] [electronic] [soul] [folk] [etc...] [etc...] [etc...]

      It's basically a tag cloud of the current content, looking like a ribbon.

      You click on one of these tags, and it hides or unhides all of the posts in that group that have that tag. The site should remember these preferences for your next visit as well, so you're basically using a single click to tailor the group's tag filters to your own preference. That's enough to hide the stuff you aren't interested in within the larger group that you are interested in. You're subscribing to subsets of the group's content using the tag filters. I like this to be in-your-face so you're aware of what you are filtering, rather than having filters hidden somewhere else where people will forget about them.

      Eventually these tags become the new group once they are busy enough. I'd call busy enough to be around 10 submissions a month, that's the low-bar activity level on reddit for places that barely have a pulse yet still manage to survive and grow.

      So, I'm in-favor of this idea, but not the specific implementation. I'm not even married to my own solution here, it's just the best I've come up with, and seems to work in places that do this on reddit.

      Once search is implemented, some sort of sitewide tag browsing could be implemented, and maybe we'll find that useful too. If you think this is fun, just imagine the kind of submission-finder/community-finder we're going to need to help people find the right places to share their content.

      13 votes
      1. [2]
        Neverland
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        That is really interesting. I’m going to play with mockups of what you are talking about and ponder it some more. Could you please give me an example of a sub-reddit that does that kind of thing?

        That is really interesting. I’m going to play with mockups of what you are talking about and ponder it some more.

        Could you please give me an example of a sub-reddit that does that kind of thing?

        4 votes
        1. Amarok
          Link Parent
          Sure thing. You'll be needing to turn subreddit styles and visiting with an actual web browser to see them. The most famous examples... Our own little corner is /r/listentothis and you can see the...

          Sure thing. You'll be needing to turn subreddit styles and visiting with an actual web browser to see them. The most famous examples...

          Our own little corner is /r/listentothis and you can see the browsing elements that are a hackey-half-assed implementation of this idea in this screenshot. it's using goo.gl shortlinks and reddit's broke-ass search, but it works. The goo.gl counters register between 300-1500 hits a week on these, depending on how popular they are. That's been dropping off lately as reddit forces people into the redesign. You can also check the l2t sidebar for links to another 600 music subs by genre.

          The most popular/widely used one would probably be in /r/askscience with their sidebar-based discipline filter that lets you select what you see by area of scientific inquiry.

          Another great example is /r/nfl and their corresponding team navigation banner. I really like this one because it's not showing the content, it's helping tie the community together by linking all of the team subreddits. We may want to do something like this for groups that have a lot of sub-groups in the future. It's nice to have a hierarchy, sure, but perhaps we can be a bit more clever about how we support navigation between groups and sub-groups than a big old usenet-style monster listing.

          Over the years a lot of these ad-hoc networks have formed on reddit, but they typically fall apart over time and take a shitload of work to maintain. That's because reddit doesn't give anyone tools or features to bring this natural community evolution to fruition. I'd like to see Tildes fully support this stuff, though as I said, I'm not wedded to any particular mechanism. Whatever it is here, it should be simple, lightweight, flexible.

          6 votes
      2. [4]
        Neverland
        Link Parent
        Also, it took me way too long to realize this, but you nailed it. The goal of my implementation is to allow new users to globally discover the ‘fetal’ topics that have not yet developed into a...

        Also, it took me way too long to realize this, but you nailed it. The goal of my implementation is to allow new users to globally discover the ‘fetal’ topics that have not yet developed into a group or subgroup.

        For admins, and everyone else, the /tags page would also allow you to see which tags may need to be elevated to a group or subgroup. If the tag traffic is > than say 80% all in one group, like ~creative with a poetry tag, then that probably means that we need ~creative.poetry. If a tag is less concentrated in one group, then maybe it should be it’s own top level group. I guess this is what Deimos has been doing with admin level access, /tags could just make it obvious to everyone.

        2 votes
        1. [3]
          Amarok
          Link Parent
          The duality of the tag/hierarchy system is a bit funky. People's brains want to see one or the other but not both at the same time. The key insight is that any given group is just...

          The duality of the tag/hierarchy system is a bit funky. People's brains want to see one or the other but not both at the same time.

          The key insight is that any given group is just tildes.net/~that.groups.core.tags.

          The core tags lock down everything in that group as being part of that topic (those tags auto-apply), and give that 'view' of submissions tagged that way a community-driving framework (trust, mods, wiki, governance systems etc).

          It's tags all the way down, and the 'hierarchy' is just where we stick a pin in the tag pyramid and call it a community. Eventually we'll have 'highways' between the groups (the basic bubble up / push down for all of them, but side to side for others), which is just a fancy way of doing quality-vetted crossposting.

          If the group fails for some reason, all the content is still in there. If a group is deleted, the tag search can recreate it on demand. Once a certain set of tags reaches critical activity/mass, that's our cue it's time to pin a community on it. The whole thing really sort of runs itself.

          That's partly why I think we can get away with a simple tag cloud as the navigation ribbon across the top - minus the core tags of course. It'll suggest groups to us over time. We probably want mods to be able to 'pin' some tags to the ribbon, I can think of use cases for that especially in groups that take a more curated approach to discourse (such as /r/changemyview).

          3 votes
          1. [2]
            Neverland
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            Thank you for sharing all of this. I feel much smarter, or at least more informed all of a sudden. This rings very true to me. I wonder if a new user, given a big shiny search box on the front...

            Thank you for sharing all of this. I feel much smarter, or at least more informed all of a sudden.

            The duality of the tag/hierarchy system is a bit funky. People's brains want to see one or the other but not both at the same time.

            This rings very true to me. I wonder if a new user, given a big shiny search box on the front page, would be better served by that than another top-level hierarchy like Browse by Tags. I honestly wouldn’t know the answer until I saw user data on A/B tests. Or in the case of Tildes, just watched new user gripes.

            Anecdote: I am working on an enterprise single page app. We spent time making sure the browser Back button worked perfectly. But it turns out many (older) users are trained to not click the Back button because it has been broken in major enterprise apps for years. So now we need breadcrumbs everywhere.

            I wonder if I should wait on proposing solutions like my current top-level proposal until Search is deployed and we see what happens.

            However, your concept of tag clouds in a group would still be valid even with search. That makes more sense.

            Thanks again for both of your replies, I’m going to have to investigate the goo.gl duct tape solutions on Reddit to understand that fully.

            1 vote
            1. Amarok
              Link Parent
              It's partly on us, we suck at explaining ourselves - I know I do. So much of our theorycrafting is brain droppings littered all over here and reddit. When @cfabbro's new docs section goes up on...

              It's partly on us, we suck at explaining ourselves - I know I do. So much of our theorycrafting is brain droppings littered all over here and reddit. When @cfabbro's new docs section goes up on the tildes site, that should help get everyone on the same page.

              I'm just glad that other people are interested in this stuff - to an almost absurd degree, here. Lots of eyes, lots of ideas, we're bound to find good solutions.

              5 votes
  2. [2]
    EightRoundsRapid
    Link
    Seems like it's unnecessary to me. I wouldn't be averse to it happening, but I also wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't.

    Seems like it's unnecessary to me.

    I wouldn't be averse to it happening, but I also wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't.

    1 vote
    1. Neverland
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Your comment is now the official Ambivalent Vote comment :) Vote for parent comment if you are ambivalent about this feature.

      Your comment is now the official Ambivalent Vote comment :)

      Vote for parent comment if you are ambivalent about this feature.

      2 votes
  3. [6]
    meghan
    Link
    Please leave these suggestions for the issue tracker https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues

    Please leave these suggestions for the issue tracker https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues

    1 vote
    1. [5]
      Neverland
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Thanks, and I do, I just try to build some momentum and consensus here on the platform first. This one is 100% not "against" so far, so it will definitely get written up. Here is my damage so far...

      Thanks, and I do, I just try to build some momentum and consensus here on the platform first. This one is 100% not "against" so far, so it will definitely get written up. Here is my damage so far :)

      edit: I just got back into software a couple years ago after many years away from it. And if there is one thing I wished I had learned quicker in my own startup is that these boring user surveys are extremely valuable to give initial feature validation.

      2 votes
      1. [4]
        meghan
        Link Parent
        Awesome :D I guess a part of me just thinks that the "upvote if agree/disagree" comments seem unnecessary

        Awesome :D
        I guess a part of me just thinks that the "upvote if agree/disagree" comments seem unnecessary

        1 vote
        1. Neverland
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          I had just added an edit in the parent to explain why before I saw your reply... I have ideas for days, but not all of them are necessary as it turns out. My previous proposal was to notify you...

          I had just added an edit in the parent to explain why before I saw your reply... I have ideas for days, but not all of them are necessary as it turns out. My previous proposal was to notify you that I had edited the comment you had just replied to, and that was mostly voted "against." That may still get written up if Deimos thinks it's helpful, thankfully Tildes isn't entirely a democracy. But customer dev always helps. Otherwise you build features no one wants, like I did for the second half of the first year of my startup. :/

          2 votes
        2. [2]
          Amarok
          Link Parent
          Well, they are certainly sub-optimal. :P We should have some sort of consensus-building polling system around here to help organize and educate the users when issues arise. That dovetails into the...

          Well, they are certainly sub-optimal. :P

          We should have some sort of consensus-building polling system around here to help organize and educate the users when issues arise. That dovetails into the concept of 'Tildes governance' or 'the power you earn with trust' that other sites call moderation.

          We've got a long way to go to realize even the basic forms of these ideas. We'll get there. Luckily for us here there's no 'rush' to make money or sell eyeballs. Hopefully that means we take the time needed to get all of this right.

          2 votes
          1. meghan
            Link Parent
            which is why i like the system of having up and down votes but also showing both numbers separately

            which is why i like the system of having up and down votes but also showing both numbers separately

  4. Neverland
    Link
    Vote for this if you are against this feature, it is not useful at all If so inclined, please comment why or add a qualification for your vote.

    Vote for this if you are against this feature, it is not useful at all

    If so inclined, please comment why or add a qualification for your vote.