51
votes
Why I Love Tildes: Quality
Well, I know that I'm just stating the obvious, but I love Tildes for a few reasons. Right now, however, I'd like to discuss one thing: text posts can become popular. "But Sans, they could on reddit too!" Text-only subs notwithstanding, not really. Find any fandom subreddit or r/games, and you'll find a bunch of memes. They're the only thing anyone likes. Here, however, one can actually ask insightful questions in text posts, and it is visible. People like it. They upvote it. On Reddit, that doesn't happen. Nobody upvotes text posts. Just my two cents.
thank you for coming to my ted talk
I think it's unfair to discredit Reddit as a whole just because people in general like memes and images as easier ways to share things.
Reddit is a reflection of its users just like Tildes. While Tildes now is invite only and contains a select group of users, it's easy to scoff and say "Look at the QUALITY of posts on Tildes vs that on Reddit!" whereas Reddit has tens of thousands of posts every ten minutes.
I think in time Tildes will have inside jokes, memes and things of that nature just like Reddit. It's inevitable, it's a result of a community growing. While text posts are popular now, it's also because its early in the sites life. We could see that change a lot with more users and feature changes.
Inside jokes and jokes in comments just like Reddit? Sure, to a degree... although they will be comment labeled as such so they can be filtered out and their visibility reduced compared to non-joke comments.
But memes/gifs/image macros and other low effort content as submissions, "just like Reddit"? That's very, very unlikey. See the site docs - overall goals - "In-depth content" section & the various discussions on "fluff" that have taken place already to learn more about why that is the case:
Wow! Thanks for informing me! I hadn't yet read this far and had not seen prior discussions like that.
While that definitely impacts what I think the site will shape into, I still believe that like any other site that Tildes will be a sum of its users and changes can happen. Look at Reddit, look at Digg, look at MySpace. Facebook even. Each of these sites can have very defined and or not very defined goals. It's the users that determine how it ends up. That and the influence of money.
Sure, what the users at large want is somewhat important here, but it's not the be-all end-all... and neither is the "influence of money" really a factor here either. Unlike reddit, digg, myspace and facebook, Tildes is a non-profit, donation driven (with no ads or investors), and Deimos has repeatedly said that self-sustainability (which has somewhat already been achieved) is all he really cares about.
And also unlike all those other sites you listed, the systems here are not being designed to maximize user growth or "retention" at all costs and instead actively discourage low-effort content (e.g. no expandos, comment labels that lower visibility), and eventually potentially give advantage to long-form, high effort content (e.g. through trust and vote-weights).
So long as its Quality over Quantity. At a fundamental level, I feel a good indication for this should be that users have a memorable and refreshing time spent over here, while I am fairly sure, people mostly regret their time spent on Internet these days. Just my two cents.
I've really enjoyed Tildes because the content seems more genuine, although I'm sure a large portion of that is the lack of memes (both images and text bc noise/joke tags). The discussion I have seen here feels superior to reddit (not trying to sound elitist), and I think that's largely due to the small size of the community.
It's nice to see more topical discussion; I find reddit comments have steadily become less interesting as the years passed, although I could attribute part of that to my own changing interests. Many of the comments I've received on my own haven't felt quite as adversarial as those from redditors tend to be. Discussions on this website feels more like having a conversation vs. shouting into the wind and hoping knights of new will allow my comments to be seen.
All that said, I'd like for Tildes to keep growing for a little while. The largest problem here is probably lack of content. I certainly don't want open registration, but having a couple more invite-request threads could be beneficial for the community.
On Reddit, I think it comes down to subreddit culture and the mod team. A good example of a large-ish subreddit where text posts, links, and pictures can all do well is /r/fantasy. Banning memes also seems to help. The biggest challenges for Tildes will be when it grows too large to be effectively moderated by one person and when (if?) registration becomes more open.
Short-duration content is inherently favored by reddit's voting algorithm: more people consume the content so more people vote on it (and something like 99 percent of reddit's votes are upvotes).
Simultaneously, the faster something accrues votes, the higher it becomes ranked leading to more exposure and yet more votes.
Additionally, I know I save long-reads and longer duration stuff for later and vote on videos and whatnot when I've consumed that content. Again, those votes don't really serve a purpose because they come in too late.
While moderation can help, the deck is really heavily stacked to favor quick to consume content, especially as more and more of reddit's (and the internet at large's) traffic comes from mobile.
I think the whole point of Tildes is that it emphasises quality over growth; so it shouldn't be possible for it to "grow too large" because that isn't the optimisation function at play.
We try not to mould our boundaries/principles based on numbers as much as possible. Tildes should be what it stands for, people who like may join.
I avoid most of the Reddit subs for this very reason. The few I enjoy either moderate memes out or their subscribers are respectful of the subs. I naively choose to believe the latter. But thank you Reddit Moderators.
It's really wild to me how much it reminds me of usenet.
Just a sea of... talk. It's really good.
I do find it tough sometimes to find conversation here. I'll see an interesting post topic, read the article and realize it only has one comment. I know I should contribute by posting my thoughts, but I've always been more of a "counter-puncher" in online forums. I'll comment if there's robust conversation, but I'm not likely to post a lot of topics or start the conversation. I'm too old now to expect that to change. So, while I love the level of discourse here, it's often so lacking I don't feel compelled to participate.
Yes, this is why we'll still need the site to keep growing for a while yet. There's a "critical mass" point where the activity is high enough that it encourages more activity, and we're not there yet.
It's along the lines of the "90-9-1 rule" that's mentioned fairly often—participating in existing conversations is in the type of activity that the 9% group will do, but starting them is up to the 1%. The specific numbers probably aren't especially accurate, but it's definitely true that a lot of people are far more comfortable getting involved in an existing conversation than feeling responsible for getting one started.
I'm very familiar with that rule, and aware that I lie mostly in the middle of those numbers. If it's a topic I know a great deal about, I'm not afraid to star the conversation, but most of the time it'll be something I don't.
Something that disheartens me a bit is the interest in invites seeming to die off on reddit. Threads used to have hundreds of replies, where now it seems they only generate enough to scoop up the available invites. Is interest waning, or are people sick of trying? I suppose there's no accurate answer to that; it's just something I've observed.
The interest in invites from reddit comes almost entirely in large spikes when someone mentions Tildes as a potential alternative in a popular thread (usually related to unhappiness with some aspect of reddit). There haven't really been any prominent mentions lately, so most of the people that wanted invites have managed to get them by this point.
Making the site publicly visible should allow some more gradual interest to happen, but otherwise it pretty much just depends if it gets suggested somewhere. I try not to do that very often myself because I feel a little weird about it.
Yeah, ditto. I occasionally pop-in and say something when I notice someone mention Tildes on reddit, but it feels a bit sleazy to actively try and promote the site myself anywhere on there. Everything is slowing down quite a bit though, so hopefully the announcement about Tildes being publicly visible will spark some more "organic" interest in the site again. I also have everything set up to almost fully automate the invite request process on reddit now using macros too, so if there is a huge spike in interest again I should be able to handle it without burning out.
I'm a bit this way too, but since the site is so small I try to make a bit more of an effort to leave comments just to contribute to (or start) the conversation. I want this place to succeed and I figure a bit more activity will help even if I have to reach a bit to think of something worthwhile to say.
Should I feel bad for being mainly a lurker? I enjoy reading other people's opinions, but almost never feel the need to add mine to the conversation.
I don't think you should feel bad. Some people are different and want to start the conversation. It's funny because in person I'm kind of a talker, and never really at a loss for words. Online, I'm much more a lurker and consumer of information than a creator.
How do you evangelize Tildes on reddit when the site is still private?