8 votes

Is it said "tildes x" or "about x"?

Posted by freestylesno
Tags: groups

Is the ~ a approximately symbol meaning it's about equal to? So is ~tech thought of a tilde tech or about tech?

I might be over thinking this.

19 comments

  1. [10]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    It's a character called a "tilde". The "approximately equal to" symbol has two parallel wavy lines, like this: "≈". There's an FAQ entry entitled "Why is the site named 'Tildes'?" which you can...

    Is the ~ a approximately symbol meaning it's about equal to?

    It's a character called a "tilde". The "approximately equal to" symbol has two parallel wavy lines, like this: "≈".

    There's an FAQ entry entitled "Why is the site named 'Tildes'?" which you can read for further information about the name of the site.

    So is ~tech thought of a tilde tech or about tech?

    It's called a "group". ~tech is the tech group, ~anime is the anime group, ~news is the news group, and so on. Then there are sub-groups, of which ~tildes.official is the only current example, but which will increase in number as the site grows.

    15 votes
    1. [6]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Indeed and ~ also has some pretty strong history and significance in the computing space. TL;DR - The tildes symbol is essentially synonymous with "home" to many computer savvy people, so ~music =...

      Indeed and ~ also has some pretty strong history and significance in the computing space.

      The various subject-specific communities on Tildes are referred to as "groups", which can be identified by the tilde symbol (~) in front of their name. The reason for this naming convention is that having a unique way to distinguish groups from their subjects (e.g. ~music vs music) gives users a way to quickly recognize and reference them, and also allows for them to be automatically linked in the comments. There are several compelling reasons for using the tilde symbol to do this:

      • It is one of the few "unreserved" URI characters in web addresses. This means that it is not "reserved" for a specific purpose such as #, which is used for HTML anchors, amongst other things. As such, the tilde symbol should always be kept as ~ in the browser address bar since it doesn't require being percent encoded like reserved characters must be if used for anything other than their established purpose.

      • It also has an association with "home" to many technical people since when using the Bash shell in Unix-like operating systems, a tilde is often used to refer to a user's home location. For example, the command cd ~ navigates to the current user's home directory and cd ~deimos will go to the home directory of the user deimos.

      • Shared hosting platforms on the early Internet often similarly used ~ to distinguish their users' web spaces and many Universities still do. Paul Ford also caused a fun resurgence of this a few years ago when he started Tilde.club.

      TL;DR - The tildes symbol is essentially synonymous with "home" to many computer savvy people, so ~music = the "home" of music on Tildes.

      12 votes
      1. [5]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        And, for the rest of us, it's just a little curvy symbol with no practical use. :)

        The tildes symbol is essentially synonymous with "home" to many computer savvy people,

        And, for the rest of us, it's just a little curvy symbol with no practical use. :)

        5 votes
        1. [3]
          elcuello
          Link Parent
          Well it's actually my sisters name too so it's kinda practical for me :)

          Well it's actually my sisters name too so it's kinda practical for me :)

          3 votes
          1. [2]
            Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            Your sister's name is "~"? :P

            Your sister's name is "~"? :P

            2 votes
            1. elcuello
              Link Parent
              Spelled out yeah. It's fun and easy in texts.

              Spelled out yeah. It's fun and easy in texts.

              5 votes
        2. TheJorro
          Link Parent
          It's what you press to access the console i.e. cheat codes!

          It's what you press to access the console i.e. cheat codes!

          2 votes
    2. cge
      Link Parent
      It should be noted that this is somewhat nuanced, and depends on field and specific convention for usage. ~, ≈, ≃, ≅, ∽, and ∝ all have varied usages as relational operators. ~ specifically is...

      The "approximately equal to" symbol has two parallel wavy lines, like this: "≈".

      It should be noted that this is somewhat nuanced, and depends on field and specific convention for usage. ~, ≈, ≃, ≅, ∽, and ∝ all have varied usages as relational operators. ~ specifically is quite often used as an equivalence relation and to denote rough scaling relations.

      10 votes
    3. [2]
      Exalt
      Link Parent
      While technically true, I've often seen the tilde used to denote approximately equal in casual online conversations, probably because of its convenience. You can't type ≈ on a normal keyboard (I...

      It's a character called a "tilde". The "approximately equal to" symbol has two parallel wavy lines, like this: "≈".

      While technically true, I've often seen the tilde used to denote approximately equal in casual online conversations, probably because of its convenience. You can't type ≈ on a normal keyboard (I copied that from your text) but typing ~ is easy even if it's not a very common symbol.

      8 votes
      1. Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Same here. That's probably why the OP thinks a tilde is the "approximately equal to" symbol, which is why I pointed out that the "approximately equal to" symbol is not what most people see in...

        While technically true, I've often seen the tilde used to denote approximately equal in casual online conversations, probably because of its convenience.

        Same here. That's probably why the OP thinks a tilde is the "approximately equal to" symbol, which is why I pointed out that the "approximately equal to" symbol is not what most people see in casual usage.

        3 votes
  2. [2]
    knocklessmonster
    Link
    I would think, in a sentence, "I saw this on the Science tilde." I was never one to say "I saw this on 'arr' Science" when talking about Reddit, anyway. When tags get fleshed out, I'd say "home"...

    I would think, in a sentence, "I saw this on the Science tilde." I was never one to say "I saw this on 'arr' Science" when talking about Reddit, anyway.

    When tags get fleshed out, I'd say "home" (like what gets a reference in the FAQ), since you'll have ~science.biology or some such (science home vs biology tag), kinda building off of @cfabbro's same idea.

    5 votes
    1. freestylesno
      Link Parent
      See I say I say it arr slash science or arr science all the time to friends that are familiar with it. To people less informed it's the science sub Reddit. But the way tildes is said "the science...

      See I say I say it arr slash science or arr science all the time to friends that are familiar with it. To people less informed it's the science sub Reddit.

      But the way tildes is said "the science tilde makes the most sense. I posted this as I reality I would use the ~ when typing and saying about equal to. Saying "about science" kinda clicked in my head.

      5 votes
  3. [7]
    Bladerunner
    Link
    It's meant as the literal tilde character. For instance, you posted this topic in ~talk (TIL-duh talk). The reasoning behind this choice is explained here.

    It's meant as the literal tilde character. For instance, you posted this topic in ~talk (TIL-duh talk).

    The reasoning behind this choice is explained here.

    3 votes
    1. [6]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      ... but I moved it to ~tildes, because it's a discussion about Tildes itself. (And I'm not even going to try to guess how to say "~tildes"!)

      you posted this topic in ~talk (TIL-duh talk).

      ... but I moved it to ~tildes, because it's a discussion about Tildes itself. (And I'm not even going to try to guess how to say "~tildes"!)

      2 votes
      1. freestylesno
        Link Parent
        Interesting my thought was that I wanted to talk about it but I guess this makes sense.

        Interesting my thought was that I wanted to talk about it but I guess this makes sense.

        3 votes
      2. [4]
        vakieh
        Link Parent
        I'm going to coin the term 'stackoverflow' as the name of ~tildes, since nobody else was using it that I can see.

        I'm going to coin the term 'stackoverflow' as the name of ~tildes, since nobody else was using it that I can see.

        3 votes
        1. Crespyl
          Link Parent
          To bring things full circle, "~tildes" might be read as "tilde-tildes", or "double tildes", which as mentioned in an earlier comment, might just be "≈" or "about".... :P

          To bring things full circle, "~tildes" might be read as "tilde-tildes", or "double tildes", which as mentioned in an earlier comment, might just be "≈" or "about"....

          :P

          3 votes
        2. [2]
          Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          I understand the reference, but I don't get the joke.

          I understand the reference, but I don't get the joke.

          1 vote
          1. vakieh
            Link Parent
            A stack overflow occurs when you repeatedly call a function too much (usually infinitely), which adds to the stack until it overflows and everything crashes and dies. Usually, that occurs when...

            A stack overflow occurs when you repeatedly call a function too much (usually infinitely), which adds to the stack until it overflows and everything crashes and dies. Usually, that occurs when something calls itself, which calls itself, which calls itself, etc. Thus, ~tildes, which is self referential and likely to overflow the stack.

            6 votes