Why Tildes doesn't need to be fully public

Tildes will probably remain invite-only to register for quite a while, but some things do definitely need to change, including making it publicly visible before long. Going to copy-paste one of my comments from the thread a couple of weeks ago related to this:

It's not that I want to grow big, but that the current size/growth of the site really isn't sustainable. The activity level has been slowly but consistently dropping, and a large portion of users aren't coming back, or only very rarely. The donations have been quite good for how small the site is and how little effort I've made to ask for them, but they're nowhere near what they'll need to be for me to continue focusing on the site. I'm very likely going to start looking for a job in the new year and switch to treating Tildes as a side project, unless something major happens in the next couple of months. (Note that this isn't something I'm unhappy about, I'd rather have the site grow slowly as a side project and stay high-quality than try to force it to grow too quickly and ruin it)

Overall, I just don't think a completely private site can possibly attract (and keep) enough interest to become sustainable. I don't want Tildes to be a massive site, but it needs to be large enough to sustain communities related to different interests and I don't believe the current setup will ever be able to get there.

I mean, I am also not in support of making the site free to sign up to at the moment, but yikes, it's been a bit quiet around these parts recently. I'm trying to submit interesting posts fairly frequently, but commentary wise, I've never really felt my opinions or comments are worth sharing so I rarely post much on that end. Plus remnant PTSD from being a mod on reddit makes me wary to share opinions.

I think making Tildes public read/invite write needs to happen soon if we want Tildes to continue to have momentum.

Reasons why it does need to be public: the activity level is fairly low and likely won't increase significantly while it remains private. There's no reason to use a site like this without people on it.

This is the first thread I’ve seen on tildes in several months. I stopped checking Tildes because there is so little new content. I’m coming back to Tildes now, because I’ve gotten tired of Reddit's problems, namely viral advertisement and the growing toxicity. I was thinking how I really liked the smaller communities, since nobody bothered spamming ads, and it kept the toxicity relatively low, then I realized Tildes was the solution to those problems.

One of the good things about Tildes is the amount of control Deimos has over it. It’s a double edged sword, but as long as users trust the people running the site, it isn’t an issue. Censorship isn’t an issue if nothing valuable is removed, and the community recognizes things like spam and hate speech as valueless “content.” Tildes has the ability to keep the smaller community feel through invite only sign ups.

Throwaways can't be made. Making a throwaway account on Tildes costs one of your invites, so it's much more annoying to do so.

Oh, they can definitely be made. I still have my 10 invites saved up for example, which would in theory give me room for 10 alts. I think the bigger factor is that accounts can be traced by who invited them, so it's very easy to see if someone is consistently inviting trolls into the platform, or if they're creating alts to troll. The inconvenience itself isn't that hard to get around.

Personally, I guess I could support requiring an invite or application to make an account, but at the very least the site should be open for people to browse and read. Staying as private as it is right now isn't viable for keeping the site floating in the long term, and tbh unless trolling becomes an issue, I think we'll be okay with public registrations. If someone really wants to troll, they can so far more easily at Reddit, where the punishments are easier to evade and they have a much greater audience. I don't think they'd waste there time trying to do so here.

It definitely needs some advertising if its to grow I think, and recruitment can be done rather than having open registration.

Ultimately I guess it depends on what the goal is - if its to have specialized discussion for other things in the future, then it'll have to open up more.

If we don't get more people, internet addicts like myself will have to rely on less friendly places to find great articles and engage in conversations with cool interesting people.

In order to develop a vast and sustainable culture, we must have more people. With all the issues this entails. I'd rather deal with the growing pains than with the boredom of purity.

Bans are actual bans. Getting beyond a ban is ridiculously hard compared to on Reddit, where someone just makes a second account. On Tildes, if you're banned, you're banned. That's it. It weeds out a lot of trolls.

@Deimos, do you consider invite trees when you ban someone? As long as users are able to create invite codes, they could simply invite themselves to create a backup account if they plan to troll.

Throwaways can't be made. Making a throwaway account on Tildes costs one of your invites, so it's much more annoying to do so.

I get the feeling most people don't send out many invites. The cost is more than on reddit, but it's not like you couldn't have a few spare accounts even after inviting 2 or 3 people.