Become? Tildes is a link-aggregator so being an external link sharing platform, of which news articles make up a portion of, is largely what it was designed to be from the outset. Now that doesn't...
I don't want Tildes to become a news platform...
Become? Tildes is a link-aggregator so being an external link sharing platform, of which news articles make up a portion of, is largely what it was designed to be from the outset.
Now that doesn't mean what you're looking for in a community can't be accommodated here though, especially since "Let users make their own decisions about what they want to see" is an overall goal for the site. And while AFAIK you can't currently easily filter out external links unless you were meticulous and willing to fight an ongoing battle with your topic tag filters, you could unsubscribe from ~news and the other external link heavy groups for now. But I imagine that the ability to easily filter out all but text topics will come eventually too.
Reddit Enhancement Suite has a pretty awesome Custom Post Filters system that, amongst other things, allow you to filter out all but "self-text" posts and I would definitely love to see a similarly comprehensive topic filtering system here at some point too... hopefully natively supported instead of just via a browser extension though.
Yeah, and ideally by the time Tildes is fully developed it will be even more like a combo of all the best bits from other social media and community sites but with even more functionality and...
Yeah, and ideally by the time Tildes is fully developed it will be even more like a combo of all the best bits from other social media and community sites but with even more functionality and robustness thanks to the trust system. Inspiration for features has been take from Usenet, forums, Slashdot, reddit, etc... and hopefully the mistakes they all made can also be learned from here as well so history doesn't repeat itself. But even with all that in mind, Tildes is still a link aggregator at its core, IMO.
Indeed... but that's covered by the very next listed overall goal:
Indeed... but that's covered by the very next listed overall goal:
In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important
This includes linking to articles on other sites, posting text topics on Tildes itself, and the comment discussions. In general, any changes to the site that will cause "shallower" content to gain an advantage should be considered very carefully.
True, I totally respect that being the purpose of the site but it does seem a little silly to me. I mean, if you don't wanna see content X just don't subscribe to it's group, no need to make it a...
True, I totally respect that being the purpose of the site but it does seem a little silly to me.
I mean, if you don't wanna see content X just don't subscribe to it's group, no need to make it a site wide ban. That's supposedly the whole point of having communities you subscribe or not to.
Like, I like having productive discussion but sometimes I just like looking at hot girls doing somersaults, I don't really see a problem in that. But I mean, I just got here so I'm just going with the flow.
Unfortunately as reddit has proven, containment doesn't work since the users who primarily feed on that particular content and the culture that develops around them don't just stay confined in...
Exemplary
Unfortunately as reddit has proven, containment doesn't work since the users who primarily feed on that particular content and the culture that develops around them don't just stay confined in their own little sub-communities on the site. Memes, shitposts and other low-effort content/comments slowly take over the entire site if allowed to take root and take a tremendous amount of effort to prevent from spreading, even into places on the site they are unwelcome. And that's not the only issue with allowing low effort content (aka "fluff) either... see all the previous discussions on fluff for more reasons:
I don't feel like that's proven at all. Reddit has a ton of serious discussion communities despite the amount of fluff that's posted on there. Those communities might be small compared to the size...
I don't feel like that's proven at all. Reddit has a ton of serious discussion communities despite the amount of fluff that's posted on there.
Those communities might be small compared to the size of the site but if you think about places like /r/changemyview or /r/neutralnews are pretty good places to discuss and actually do have more more active users than Tildes.
Pardon me if I'm wrong but that kind of argument sounds a lot like "I don't want the dumb people who only like fluff to give their uneducated opinion on other parts of the site"
IMHO Tildes main advantage is the respect for users data and privacy, along with being open source and having a developer team who cares about user experience rather than money. It's not necessarily the quality of discussion. There's plenty of great discussion happening on Reddit already, if you sub to the right places.
But then again, I'm a new user, barely been here, just giving my 2 cents. I'm sure the opinion of the more established community means more.
Sure, but the amount of mod effort required to maintain those standards is incredibly high and burnout amongst mods there incredibly common. And because of that those type of communities do not...
Exemplary
Those communities might be small compared to the size of the site but if you think about places like /r/changemyview or /r/neutralnews are pretty good places to discuss and actually do have more more active users than Tildes.
There's plenty of great discussion happening on Reddit already, if you sub to the right places.
Sure, but the amount of mod effort required to maintain those standards is incredibly high and burnout amongst mods there incredibly common. And because of that those type of communities do not scale well, and so need to remain small if they wish to maintain that quality, especially when they are forced to coexist with communities that cater to the exact opposite; lowest-common-denominator, low-effort, mass appeal content.
"I don't want the dumb people who only like fluff to give their uneducated opinion on other parts of the site"
I don't see it that way at all. Regardless of people's education level, understanding level, command of the English language or enjoyment of the occasional meme they can still be valuable contributors here and so are welcome. However what I don't want is the culture that comes along with catering to people whose primarily interest in the site is that sort of low-effort content since those people are more often than not completely incapable of recognizing when that culture and the behavioral norms they have developed in that environment aren't appropriate in other more quality focused communities on the same site. Just spend 10 minutes sorting by new comments on a rising submission on reddit and you will see an endless stream of that occurring. It's often a solid wall of noise comments with absolutely no substance or value whatsoever, and the only reason that crap doesn't show up in the high quality subreddits you mentioned is because an army of mods there is constantly keeping vigil and removing it all as soon as it appears.
IMHO Tildes main advantage is the respect for users data and privacy, along with being open source and having a developer team who cares about user experience rather than money. It's not necessarily the quality of discussion.
And I think it's main advantage right now is that is doesn't allow fluff and already has a few features which reddit desperately needs but will never, ever implement (like having no downvotes, topic tagging/filtering, etc). :P
But then again, I'm a new user, barely been here, just giving my 2 cents. I'm sure the opinion of the more established community means more.
No, not more. I do genuinely appreciate your differing opinion and understand your desire for non-serious content to be allowed here... I like the occasional meme too, but there is reddit for that and it does that sort of content incredibly well already and will likely continue to. And at some point maybe a system will be developed here to allow content like that to cohabitate along with the serious stuff without it being detrimental to the community culture as a whole, but IMO it's not just as simple as "it should be allowed and people can just unsubscribe to groups that cater to that sort of content if they don't like it" for all the reasons discussed.
Isn't that pretty much what happens here though? Mod work here isn't that high mainly because it's so small, if it gets big and you want to maintain this "quality of discussion" the mod work will...
Isn't that pretty much what happens here though? Mod work here isn't that high mainly because it's so small, if it gets big and you want to maintain this "quality of discussion" the mod work will increase in the same way. Unless you want to keep it small forever which is also valid but I think it would make the community less enjoyable, just in another way.
And aren't you talking mostly about what used to be the "default subs" though? It is known the poor quality of content there is due to the mass influx of people registering on reddit getting there. The other more niche subs do give moderation some trouble but I don't think it is the same.
TBH when I got here I thought it would be a Reddit alternative, though I quickly realized it's not the case. I am still on the lookout for a Reddit alternative which is FOSS and respectful of user's data. I think the main thing that frustrated me when I got here is that this place has all of the potential to be that but isn't because of trying to keep this ambience of "meaningful" discussion. But I mean, if it's what you guys are into then I guess it's okay.
Nope, at least that's not the plan. Rather than relying on a hierarchy of insular, recruited mod teams, which often end being way too small in number so have huge workloads to maintain any...
Exemplary
Isn't that pretty much what happens here though? Mod work here isn't that high mainly because it's so small, if it gets big and you want to maintain this "quality of discussion" the mod work will increase in the same way. Unless you want to keep it small forever which is also valid but I think it would make the community less enjoyable, just in another way.
Nope, at least that's not the plan. Rather than relying on a hierarchy of insular, recruited mod teams, which often end being way too small in number so have huge workloads to maintain any semblance of quality, Tildes intends to take a much more crowd-sourced and scalable approach to moderation using comment labels, vote weight, and eventually the trust system (amongst other ideas). Not to mention the cultural aspect as well, which not allowing fluff, being invite only and using the banhammer judiciously plays a huge part in as well, IMO.
The other more niche subs do give moderation some trouble but I don't think it is the same.
Considering how many moderators and former moderators of said quality "niche" subreddits (and defaults) are on the site already who have largely echoed my sentiments regarding moderation difficulty on reddit and not allowing fluff on Tildes, I don't think so, no. At one point in reddit's history, I also moderated a significant portion of the subreddits on the site along with qgyh2 and a few other OG "power mods", and that was not my experience either. Moderating even niche subreddits is endless janitor duty, constantly having to mop up the crap so others don't have to see it or navigate through it. It's fucking exhausting and it's only gotten worse as the population of users whose primary interest is fluff has grown. A problem which has also been compounded by the fact that the tools reddit provides moderators are so damn inadequate and they refuse to dedicate enough resources to further develop them. But thankfully Deimos, the former reddit admin who created automoderator and was the dev in charge of /r/ModSupport, is the man behind Tildes... and the trust system/comment labels/etc, as well as all the other tools/policies/etc, are his ideas intended to help address all that as well as many other problems with reddit.
TBH when I got here I thought it would be a Reddit alternative, though I quickly realized it's not the case
First, something I obviously haven't done a very good job of making clear (and needs to be added to the FAQ) is that Tildes really isn't intended to be a replacement for reddit. It's not my goal to have most people want to move here away from reddit. The goal is much closer to a complement—reddit is making a lot of choices to prioritize "quick entertainment" content, often at the expense of more in-depth content and discussions.
Reddit wants to prioritize that kind of content because it works better for the business goals they have. "Fluff" content attracts the most users, and supports showing far more ads. You can show a lot of (in-line) ads to someone skimming down through hundreds of cat pictures, but you can't really show any to someone that spends an hour having an in-depth discussion inside a single post. So naturally they're going to prioritize quick content—it brings them more users, and directly makes them a lot more money.
Tildes doesn't have the same incentives, so my goal is to be a better home for that in-depth content that's slowly getting pushed out. Reddit can keep the fluff. It's going to be better at it than Tildes ever will be anyway, due to displaying images and autoplaying gifs in-line, and many other design choices they're making to prioritize that type of content.
But as I said, at some point, especially if the trust system works as intended, maybe that won't always be the case and fluff will be allowed here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, this is an issue with Tildes currently being private. People can't see what Tildes does before they sign up, so they can imagine it's something that it's not. Deimos has said that his next...
TBH when I got here I thought it would be a Reddit alternative, though I quickly realized it's not the case.
Yeah, this is an issue with Tildes currently being private. People can't see what Tildes does before they sign up, so they can imagine it's something that it's not.
Deimos has said that his next major goal is to make Tildes publicly visible (but still invite-only for participation), so that people can see what Tildes is about before they sign up.
...or maybe you could just advertise it as such? In the announcement post there's barely any mention to this point that is a pretty major thing in my point of view. All it says is that it will...
...or maybe you could just advertise it as such?
In the announcement post there's barely any mention to this point that is a pretty major thing in my point of view. All it says is that it will prioritize high-quality content, but right after:
Fixation on growth and related metrics results in a bias towards high-appeal, low-depth content like funny images, gifs, and memes. Tildes will still allow that kind of content, but its priority is to cultivate high-quality communities, which are far easier to build when they don't have to fight an uphill battle against the platform itself.
Which leads people to believe they will find this kind of thing here, which it seems like they won't. Just saying: it's a community for high-quality meaningful discussion and not for fluff would be pretty clear.
Well, the way it was described it seemed perfect to me. Some sort of algorithm that rewarded and showed top quality, thoughtful content upfront but space to let off some steam in some more laid...
Well, the way it was described it seemed perfect to me. Some sort of algorithm that rewarded and showed top quality, thoughtful content upfront but space to let off some steam in some more laid back ~'s that would stay in the background.
I don't think it needs to be proven at all. When we asked for an invite, when we asked for a username, this decision was there, openly and clearly documented. Many (most? me, definitely) of us...
I don't think it needs to be proven at all. When we asked for an invite, when we asked for a username, this decision was there, openly and clearly documented. Many (most? me, definitely) of us signed up because these rules were there.
If you're a new user, you should definitely read the entirety of the docs, which are quite brief and clear.
@Deimos: maybe we need to make it clearer that Tildes is a rather particular community / platform on the landing page (the one shown when not logged in) and really urge people to read through them.
The problem is, as @flower pointed out elsewhere in this thread, those documents include this passage: That can lead people to believe that there is a place on Tildes for low-depth content like...
If you're a new user, you should definitely read the entirety of the docs, which are quite brief and clear.
Fixation on growth and related metrics results in a bias towards high-appeal, low-depth content like funny images, gifs, and memes. Tildes will still allow that kind of content, but its priority is to cultivate high-quality communities, which are far easier to build when they don't have to fight an uphill battle against the platform itself.
That can lead people to believe that there is a place on Tildes for low-depth content like funny images, gifs, and memes. Then they sign up and learn differently.
Oh, I've totally forgotten or missed that, sorry. But isn't that in direct conflict with the goal of "In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important" if interpreted as it'll be...
Oh, I've totally forgotten or missed that, sorry. But isn't that in direct conflict with the goal of "In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important" if interpreted as it'll be allowed to form communities around such content? I think what was meant is that you can use that sort of things in comments & posts (e.g. linking to or citing xkcds or memes &c) as sorts of intensifiers, and I think banning that sort of use of such content is unnecessary, but if the combination is taken as an allowance to form something like r/aww or r/gifs, I don't think that's compatible with the overall consensus we have, and I reckon we need to clarify where and when we accept this sort of "high-appeal, low-depth content". Personally I'm fine with linking to memes and stuff in comments as a means to enhance the comment, but I don't want these stuff being posted as topics, ever. They don't have a place in a discussion oriented community, and we should not fail to clarify that, IMHO. I agree the view that if we allow such communities, it'll be inevitably detrimental to the overall quality of content and discusison in all of the groups, and that once enabled, such effect can not be contained.
I wonder where I got the opinion that we openly and strictly ban fluff from being posted from? Maybe from discussion here about fluff and memes, IDK... Thanks for pointing this out to me!
I had forgotten about it, too, until flower pointed it out elsewhere in this thread. Probably! @cfabbro has helpfully collected these previous discussions about fluff. There's a very strong...
Oh, I've totally forgotten or missed that, sorry.
I had forgotten about it, too, until flower pointed it out elsewhere in this thread.
I wonder where I got the opinion that we openly and strictly ban fluff from being posted from? Maybe from discussion here about fluff and memes, IDK...
Probably! @cfabbro has helpfully collected these previous discussions about fluff. There's a very strong feeling against fluff and memes here: a community ban on these, rather than a top-level ban. They're just not seen as acceptable here.
EDIT: It seems I forgot how to format hyperlinks...
Thanks! I think we need to formalise this ASAP. Discussing back and forth on this topic is not really productive. Maybe amending the cited part of the release anouncement and clarifiying the topic...
Thanks!
There's a very strong feeling against fluff and memes here: a community ban on these, rather than a top-level ban. They're just not seen as acceptable here.
I think we need to formalise this ASAP. Discussing back and forth on this topic is not really productive. Maybe amending the cited part of the release anouncement and clarifiying the topic in the part of the docs I referred to? Would there be any significant opposition to that?
There isn't really any sitewide rules page. I could edit the blog post to try to clarify it, I just feel a bit weird about it because it's a blog post, not really a document. It was written before...
There isn't really any sitewide rules page. I could edit the blog post to try to clarify it, I just feel a bit weird about it because it's a blog post, not really a document. It was written before the site had any users, and things have changed since then.
Maybe it's good to edit anyway though, since it tends to be used as the primary source for what Tildes is about. It's just a bit unusual to go back and revise blog posts and change information in them. Overall, I hope getting the site publicly visible will address a lot of this anyway, since then people can see what actually gets posted on it.
I think I’m with @Algernon_Asimov on this one. Until the site actually is publicly viewable, people with no Tildes account yet are most likely to read the blog post as an introduction to the site...
I think I’m with @Algernon_Asimov on this one. Until the site actually is publicly viewable, people with no Tildes account yet are most likely to read the blog post as an introduction to the site rather than dig through all the various other docs. But even after the site is publicly viewable that blog post is still likely to remain most people's first real introduction to the core concepts of the site since it's pinned to the top of /r/tildes and IIRC it's also mentioned in the introductory message you send out to every new user. And as flower and a few other people have pointed out, that section of the blog post is pretty misleading since things have changed since it was first written.
So I would definitely recommend editing the blog post even though it feels a bit weird doing so. To make it feel less weird, you can always leave the original text but add a very clearly marked as edited section with additional commentary on that part discussing why that previous stance regarding fluff has changed, perhaps with a link to the overall goals page too.
Yeah, but until Tildes is publicly viewable, that blog is the main source of information about Tildes for people, and it guides their guesses and preconceptions about what's happening behind these...
I hope getting the site publicly visible will address a lot of this anyway, since then people can see what actually gets posted on it.
Yeah, but until Tildes is publicly viewable, that blog is the main source of information about Tildes for people, and it guides their guesses and preconceptions about what's happening behind these locked doors.
None really. But if SITE 1 has A and B and SITE 2 has only B, in time there's a great chance I will just start using SITE 1 exclusively out of convenience. I would rather use only one site for...
None really. But if SITE 1 has A and B and SITE 2 has only B, in time there's a great chance I will just start using SITE 1 exclusively out of convenience.
I would rather use only one site for good discussion and juicy memes rather than having to switch sites every time.
But I mean, I'm saying this repeatedly, the site is yours[early users], you should decide what goes on here, I'll go along with the ride, but I fear I'll just end up forgetting to come here one day because I find all I look for on reddit, even though the site isn't the best in caring for it's users. But good luck though, I really hope you can accomplish what you're looking for, could be groundbreaking in the world of internet communities.
And that's fine. But for those of us who don't want A, SITE 2 can fulfil our needs.
None really. But if SITE 1 has A and B and SITE 2 has only B, in time there's a great chance I will just start using SITE 1 exclusively out of convenience.
And that's fine. But for those of us who don't want A, SITE 2 can fulfil our needs.
I'd use this view (and its opposite, link-only) as well. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a quick read, others I have some real time to sit down and participate. It'd be pretty handy being able to...
I'd use this view (and its opposite, link-only) as well. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a quick read, others I have some real time to sit down and participate. It'd be pretty handy being able to flip back and forth between them like that.
I like the way Hubski handles this. You can filter by content type (text, image, video (strangely not links though)). There's also a chatter page, where you can see all the comments written or...
I like the way Hubski handles this. You can filter by content type (text, image, video (strangely not links though)). There's also a chatter page, where you can see all the comments written or shared by the users you follow.
Not currently. The best you could probably do at this point is to unsubscribe from all groups that are primarily links, and maybe consider bookmarking or using this as your "main" view of the...
Not currently. The best you could probably do at this point is to unsubscribe from all groups that are primarily links, and maybe consider bookmarking or using this as your "main" view of the site, since discussion posts will generally have an "ask" tag: https://tildes.net/?tag=ask
Become? Tildes is a link-aggregator so being an external link sharing platform, of which news articles make up a portion of, is largely what it was designed to be from the outset.
Now that doesn't mean what you're looking for in a community can't be accommodated here though, especially since "Let users make their own decisions about what they want to see" is an overall goal for the site. And while AFAIK you can't currently easily filter out external links unless you were meticulous and willing to fight an ongoing battle with your topic tag filters, you could unsubscribe from ~news and the other external link heavy groups for now. But I imagine that the ability to easily filter out all but text topics will come eventually too.
Reddit Enhancement Suite has a pretty awesome Custom Post Filters system that, amongst other things, allow you to filter out all but "self-text" posts and I would definitely love to see a similarly comprehensive topic filtering system here at some point too... hopefully natively supported instead of just via a browser extension though.
I think the default sort being activity makes this function more like a forum than any link aggregator ever did.
Yeah, and ideally by the time Tildes is fully developed it will be even more like a combo of all the best bits from other social media and community sites but with even more functionality and robustness thanks to the trust system. Inspiration for features has been take from Usenet, forums, Slashdot, reddit, etc... and hopefully the mistakes they all made can also be learned from here as well so history doesn't repeat itself. But even with all that in mind, Tildes is still a link aggregator at its core, IMO.
Unless you wanna see cat gifs, then you better head out to reddit
Indeed... but that's covered by the very next listed overall goal:
True, I totally respect that being the purpose of the site but it does seem a little silly to me.
I mean, if you don't wanna see content X just don't subscribe to it's group, no need to make it a site wide ban. That's supposedly the whole point of having communities you subscribe or not to.
Like, I like having productive discussion but sometimes I just like looking at hot girls doing somersaults, I don't really see a problem in that. But I mean, I just got here so I'm just going with the flow.
Unfortunately as reddit has proven, containment doesn't work since the users who primarily feed on that particular content and the culture that develops around them don't just stay confined in their own little sub-communities on the site. Memes, shitposts and other low-effort content/comments slowly take over the entire site if allowed to take root and take a tremendous amount of effort to prevent from spreading, even into places on the site they are unwelcome. And that's not the only issue with allowing low effort content (aka "fluff) either... see all the previous discussions on fluff for more reasons:
I don't feel like that's proven at all. Reddit has a ton of serious discussion communities despite the amount of fluff that's posted on there.
Those communities might be small compared to the size of the site but if you think about places like /r/changemyview or /r/neutralnews are pretty good places to discuss and actually do have more more active users than Tildes.
Pardon me if I'm wrong but that kind of argument sounds a lot like "I don't want the dumb people who only like fluff to give their uneducated opinion on other parts of the site"
IMHO Tildes main advantage is the respect for users data and privacy, along with being open source and having a developer team who cares about user experience rather than money. It's not necessarily the quality of discussion. There's plenty of great discussion happening on Reddit already, if you sub to the right places.
But then again, I'm a new user, barely been here, just giving my 2 cents. I'm sure the opinion of the more established community means more.
Sure, but the amount of mod effort required to maintain those standards is incredibly high and burnout amongst mods there incredibly common. And because of that those type of communities do not scale well, and so need to remain small if they wish to maintain that quality, especially when they are forced to coexist with communities that cater to the exact opposite; lowest-common-denominator, low-effort, mass appeal content.
I don't see it that way at all. Regardless of people's education level, understanding level, command of the English language or enjoyment of the occasional meme they can still be valuable contributors here and so are welcome. However what I don't want is the culture that comes along with catering to people whose primarily interest in the site is that sort of low-effort content since those people are more often than not completely incapable of recognizing when that culture and the behavioral norms they have developed in that environment aren't appropriate in other more quality focused communities on the same site. Just spend 10 minutes sorting by new comments on a rising submission on reddit and you will see an endless stream of that occurring. It's often a solid wall of noise comments with absolutely no substance or value whatsoever, and the only reason that crap doesn't show up in the high quality subreddits you mentioned is because an army of mods there is constantly keeping vigil and removing it all as soon as it appears.
And I think it's main advantage right now is that is doesn't allow fluff and already has a few features which reddit desperately needs but will never, ever implement (like having no downvotes, topic tagging/filtering, etc). :P
No, not more. I do genuinely appreciate your differing opinion and understand your desire for non-serious content to be allowed here... I like the occasional meme too, but there is reddit for that and it does that sort of content incredibly well already and will likely continue to. And at some point maybe a system will be developed here to allow content like that to cohabitate along with the serious stuff without it being detrimental to the community culture as a whole, but IMO it's not just as simple as "it should be allowed and people can just unsubscribe to groups that cater to that sort of content if they don't like it" for all the reasons discussed.
Isn't that pretty much what happens here though? Mod work here isn't that high mainly because it's so small, if it gets big and you want to maintain this "quality of discussion" the mod work will increase in the same way. Unless you want to keep it small forever which is also valid but I think it would make the community less enjoyable, just in another way.
And aren't you talking mostly about what used to be the "default subs" though? It is known the poor quality of content there is due to the mass influx of people registering on reddit getting there. The other more niche subs do give moderation some trouble but I don't think it is the same.
TBH when I got here I thought it would be a Reddit alternative, though I quickly realized it's not the case. I am still on the lookout for a Reddit alternative which is FOSS and respectful of user's data. I think the main thing that frustrated me when I got here is that this place has all of the potential to be that but isn't because of trying to keep this ambience of "meaningful" discussion. But I mean, if it's what you guys are into then I guess it's okay.
Nope, at least that's not the plan. Rather than relying on a hierarchy of insular, recruited mod teams, which often end being way too small in number so have huge workloads to maintain any semblance of quality, Tildes intends to take a much more crowd-sourced and scalable approach to moderation using comment labels, vote weight, and eventually the trust system (amongst other ideas). Not to mention the cultural aspect as well, which not allowing fluff, being invite only and using the banhammer judiciously plays a huge part in as well, IMO.
Considering how many moderators and former moderators of said quality "niche" subreddits (and defaults) are on the site already who have largely echoed my sentiments regarding moderation difficulty on reddit and not allowing fluff on Tildes, I don't think so, no. At one point in reddit's history, I also moderated a significant portion of the subreddits on the site along with qgyh2 and a few other OG "power mods", and that was not my experience either. Moderating even niche subreddits is endless janitor duty, constantly having to mop up the crap so others don't have to see it or navigate through it. It's fucking exhausting and it's only gotten worse as the population of users whose primary interest is fluff has grown. A problem which has also been compounded by the fact that the tools reddit provides moderators are so damn inadequate and they refuse to dedicate enough resources to further develop them. But thankfully Deimos, the former reddit admin who created automoderator and was the dev in charge of /r/ModSupport, is the man behind Tildes... and the trust system/comment labels/etc, as well as all the other tools/policies/etc, are his ideas intended to help address all that as well as many other problems with reddit.
Indeed as Deimos himself has said.
But as I said, at some point, especially if the trust system works as intended, maybe that won't always be the case and fluff will be allowed here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nice, I didn't know that, thanks for sharing!
Yeah, this is an issue with Tildes currently being private. People can't see what Tildes does before they sign up, so they can imagine it's something that it's not.
Deimos has said that his next major goal is to make Tildes publicly visible (but still invite-only for participation), so that people can see what Tildes is about before they sign up.
...or maybe you could just advertise it as such?
In the announcement post there's barely any mention to this point that is a pretty major thing in my point of view. All it says is that it will prioritize high-quality content, but right after:
Which leads people to believe they will find this kind of thing here, which it seems like they won't. Just saying: it's a community for high-quality meaningful discussion and not for fluff would be pretty clear.
Good point. I didn't realise that passage was in the blog post. That's something that only @Deimos can address.
Well, the way it was described it seemed perfect to me. Some sort of algorithm that rewarded and showed top quality, thoughtful content upfront but space to let off some steam in some more laid back ~'s that would stay in the background.
But oh well, wish you guys luck then!
I don't think it needs to be proven at all. When we asked for an invite, when we asked for a username, this decision was there, openly and clearly documented. Many (most? me, definitely) of us signed up because these rules were there.
If you're a new user, you should definitely read the entirety of the docs, which are quite brief and clear.
@Deimos: maybe we need to make it clearer that Tildes is a rather particular community / platform on the landing page (the one shown when not logged in) and really urge people to read through them.
The problem is, as @flower pointed out elsewhere in this thread, those documents include this passage:
That can lead people to believe that there is a place on Tildes for low-depth content like funny images, gifs, and memes. Then they sign up and learn differently.
Oh, I've totally forgotten or missed that, sorry. But isn't that in direct conflict with the goal of "In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important" if interpreted as it'll be allowed to form communities around such content? I think what was meant is that you can use that sort of things in comments & posts (e.g. linking to or citing xkcds or memes &c) as sorts of intensifiers, and I think banning that sort of use of such content is unnecessary, but if the combination is taken as an allowance to form something like r/aww or r/gifs, I don't think that's compatible with the overall consensus we have, and I reckon we need to clarify where and when we accept this sort of "high-appeal, low-depth content". Personally I'm fine with linking to memes and stuff in comments as a means to enhance the comment, but I don't want these stuff being posted as topics, ever. They don't have a place in a discussion oriented community, and we should not fail to clarify that, IMHO. I agree the view that if we allow such communities, it'll be inevitably detrimental to the overall quality of content and discusison in all of the groups, and that once enabled, such effect can not be contained.
I wonder where I got the opinion that we openly and strictly ban fluff from being posted from? Maybe from discussion here about fluff and memes, IDK... Thanks for pointing this out to me!
I had forgotten about it, too, until flower pointed it out elsewhere in this thread.
Probably! @cfabbro has helpfully collected these previous discussions about fluff. There's a very strong feeling against fluff and memes here: a community ban on these, rather than a top-level ban. They're just not seen as acceptable here.
EDIT: It seems I forgot how to format hyperlinks...
Thanks!
I think we need to formalise this ASAP. Discussing back and forth on this topic is not really productive. Maybe amending the cited part of the release anouncement and clarifiying the topic in the part of the docs I referred to? Would there be any significant opposition to that?
I totally agree. However, I don't know who - if anyone! - can edit the blog or sitewide rules apart from @Deimos.
There isn't really any sitewide rules page. I could edit the blog post to try to clarify it, I just feel a bit weird about it because it's a blog post, not really a document. It was written before the site had any users, and things have changed since then.
Maybe it's good to edit anyway though, since it tends to be used as the primary source for what Tildes is about. It's just a bit unusual to go back and revise blog posts and change information in them. Overall, I hope getting the site publicly visible will address a lot of this anyway, since then people can see what actually gets posted on it.
I think I’m with @Algernon_Asimov on this one. Until the site actually is publicly viewable, people with no Tildes account yet are most likely to read the blog post as an introduction to the site rather than dig through all the various other docs. But even after the site is publicly viewable that blog post is still likely to remain most people's first real introduction to the core concepts of the site since it's pinned to the top of /r/tildes and IIRC it's also mentioned in the introductory message you send out to every new user. And as flower and a few other people have pointed out, that section of the blog post is pretty misleading since things have changed since it was first written.
So I would definitely recommend editing the blog post even though it feels a bit weird doing so. To make it feel less weird, you can always leave the original text but add a very clearly marked as edited section with additional commentary on that part discussing why that previous stance regarding fluff has changed, perhaps with a link to the overall goals page too.
Yeah, but until Tildes is publicly viewable, that blog is the main source of information about Tildes for people, and it guides their guesses and preconceptions about what's happening behind these locked doors.
Why is it an issue to visit two different websites for those two completely different purposes?
None really. But if SITE 1 has A and B and SITE 2 has only B, in time there's a great chance I will just start using SITE 1 exclusively out of convenience.
I would rather use only one site for good discussion and juicy memes rather than having to switch sites every time.
But I mean, I'm saying this repeatedly, the site is yours[early users], you should decide what goes on here, I'll go along with the ride, but I fear I'll just end up forgetting to come here one day because I find all I look for on reddit, even though the site isn't the best in caring for it's users. But good luck though, I really hope you can accomplish what you're looking for, could be groundbreaking in the world of internet communities.
And that's fine. But for those of us who don't want A, SITE 2 can fulfil our needs.
You can only filter by tag/group at the moment. You might want to unsubscribe from ~news.
I'd use this view (and its opposite, link-only) as well. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a quick read, others I have some real time to sit down and participate. It'd be pretty handy being able to flip back and forth between them like that.
I like this idea...
I like the way Hubski handles this. You can filter by content type (text, image, video (strangely not links though)). There's also a chatter page, where you can see all the comments written or shared by the users you follow.
Not currently. The best you could probably do at this point is to unsubscribe from all groups that are primarily links, and maybe consider bookmarking or using this as your "main" view of the site, since discussion posts will generally have an "ask" tag: https://tildes.net/?tag=ask