14 votes

What's the origin of the name of this website?

Posted by Phoenician_Flower
Tags: ask.help

I got invited recently and registered my account, but since hearing of it I was curious of where the name comes from. Tildes are dyacritics in Spanish that you put on top of vocals líké thís, and they stress syllables and help with pronunciation. Now, it is a coincidence, isn't it?

12 comments

  2. [11]
    Droplet
    Link
    Hi @Phoenician_Flower, welcome to the site! Here's an edited down summary on the origin of the name Tildes; If you want to read the whole explanation you can do so here. This and a couple other...

    Hi @Phoenician_Flower, welcome to the site!

    Here's an edited down summary on the origin of the name Tildes; If you want to read the whole explanation you can do so here.

    Originally, I wanted to have a name related to the word "spectrum". I think that's a great term for describing an online community platform—a wide range of variance inside a whole.

    ...For multiple reasons, I started really liking the idea of using a tilde as the "marker" for a community on the site (for example, the music community would be "~music").

    First, tilde is one of the only "unreserved" characters that can be used in web addresses (URIs).

    That means that a tilde can always be used in a web address without needing to be escaped. This isn't true for many other symbols [...] A tilde should always be kept as a tilde.

    In addition, the ~ symbol also has an association of "home" to many technical people. If you're using the Bash shell (or various others), a tilde can often be used to refer to the user's home location. [...] I like the idea of each community being thought of as "the home for <topic>".

    It's also a bit of a throwback to common addresses on the early web, where users would host their website on a shared system under their username...

    This and a couple other frequently asked questions have been answered, like @Deimos linked, in the documentation of the site and in previous threads (Which you can search for with the bar on the top right of the main site page).

    You can keep up with the latest changes to the site on the ~tildes.official group; I also recommend giving the announcement post a read if you haven't already!

    13 votes
    1. [4]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      You should use markdown's quote syntax (> before and in the blank line between each paragraph) for the quote, not code blocks as you have, since code blocks add horizontal scroll bars for long...
      • Exemplary

      You should use markdown's quote syntax (> before and in the blank line between each paragraph) for the quote, not code blocks as you have, since code blocks add horizontal scroll bars for long lines whereas quotes use line breaks.

      E.g.

      Using quote syntax:

      Quote paragraph #1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut blandit suscipit mauris et interdum. Nullam sit amet lectus vel mauris sagittis suscipit. Aliquam faucibus suscipit tincidunt. Aenean tempus nisi eu purus eleifend sollicitudin. In scelerisque felis quam, quis porttitor justo hendrerit id. Donec urna nisl, sollicitudin vel pellentesque ut, condimentum sed dui. Curabitur vestibulum felis sem, a imperdiet mi laoreet ut. Aenean imperdiet augue quis auctor commodo. Phasellus rutrum blandit felis vel egestas.

      Quote paragraph #2.

      Etc.

      vs. using code blocks:

      Quote paragraph #1.  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut blandit suscipit mauris et interdum. Nullam sit amet lectus vel mauris sagittis suscipit. Aliquam faucibus suscipit tincidunt. Aenean tempus nisi eu purus eleifend sollicitudin. In scelerisque felis quam, quis porttitor justo hendrerit id. Donec urna nisl, sollicitudin vel pellentesque ut, condimentum sed dui. Curabitur vestibulum felis sem, a imperdiet mi laoreet ut. Aenean imperdiet augue quis auctor commodo. Phasellus rutrum blandit felis vel egestas.
      5 votes
      1. [3]
        Droplet
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I edited it as soon as I noticed the scrollbar, thanks for the advice! EDIT: Actually, if anyone is curious on the formatting the site uses, check out this formatting help page. (Tildes utilizes...

        I edited it as soon as I noticed the scrollbar, thanks for the advice!

        EDIT: Actually, if anyone is curious on the formatting the site uses, check out this formatting help page. (Tildes utilizes CommonMark, a variation on the usual Markdown, which actually links to a really nice live preview playground that can be used until/if the site adds a similar feature for testing your markdown before posting.)

        4 votes
        1. [2]
          quan7hum
          Link Parent
          Stackedit is pretty nice if you have to write long bits with MarkDown or its variants.

          Stackedit is pretty nice if you have to write long bits with MarkDown or its variants.

          5 votes
          1. Droplet
            Link Parent
            Great resource, thanks for the link.

            Great resource, thanks for the link.

            3 votes
    2. SleepyGary
      Link Parent
      One aspects about tildes that may not have been intentional by @deimos but is a happy coincidence is that "~" is often used an approximation ~$5 which could be vocalised as "About 5 bucks" so I've...

      One aspects about tildes that may not have been intentional by @deimos but is a happy coincidence is that "~" is often used an approximation ~$5 which could be vocalised as "About 5 bucks" so I've internalised the groups like "~music" as "A place to talk about music"

      5 votes
    3. [3]
      Phoenician_Flower
      Link Parent
      Oh wow so it wasn't a coincidence after all, interesting. I wasn't aware that FAQ page existed, I'll go take a look. Thanks for the good reception!

      Oh wow so it wasn't a coincidence after all, interesting. I wasn't aware that FAQ page existed, I'll go take a look. Thanks for the good reception!

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        But Deimos linked you directly to the FAQ entry about the name "Tildes" his reply to you...

        I wasn't aware that FAQ page existed

        But Deimos linked you directly to the FAQ entry about the name "Tildes" his reply to you...

        3 votes
        1. Phoenician_Flower
          Link Parent
          I didn't see it until I replied to that comment

          I didn't see it until I replied to that comment

          1 vote
    4. [2]
      Algernon_Asimov
      Link Parent
      Why did you feel it necessary to quote the answer that Deimos already linked to?

      Why did you feel it necessary to quote the answer that Deimos already linked to?

      3 votes
      1. Droplet
        Link Parent
        Just in case someone couldn't access the link for whatever reason or the URL changes in the future. I also summarized it a bit in case they didn't have time to read the whole thing.

        Just in case someone couldn't access the link for whatever reason or the URL changes in the future. I also summarized it a bit in case they didn't have time to read the whole thing.

        3 votes