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How is Tildes doing?
I haven't been around here in a few months. Glad there's still some presence. What are your thoughts on the site overall now?
I haven't been around here in a few months. Glad there's still some presence. What are your thoughts on the site overall now?
I think its maturing, but also in danger of becoming an echo chamber. I agree with deimos's moderation policies, which is to say, I dont think thats why, but I feel that in the coming months it will be very important for people to consider rhe opposing poinr of view to their own thoughts, rather than dismiss it and discuss how absurd it is.
That's true, but (as I've said before) there are a lot of aspects in common between an "echo chamber" and a community that people enjoy being a part of. There isn't a clear line between them. It's exhausting to need to be on the defensive and debate constantly, so while that might seem desirable from a purely intellectual standpoint it's not necessarily a great goal in practice.
It's definitely good if we can manage it, but it's very difficult.
I really appreciate this distinction. I want to be a part of a community, not a debate club.
Totes fair my dude. Frankly, I dont think its something that can be managed, it needs to come from a personal place.
And aren't there enough places for hostile debate, like Twitter and Facebook and the comments section of any semi-controversial article online? I always hear the "echo chamber" debate being a negative to closed forums devoted to a hobby or topic, be they photography or motorsports or guitar. Some of my strongest friendships and most enjoyable time online have been formed in forums where, largely, people agreed with a basic set of facts. A gun forum doesn't really want to hear strict anti-gun viewpoints, because they're never going to agree, and it's just arguments. You might reach some middle ground, but it's largely futile.
All that might not hold true for a link aggregator, but I don't think there's much wrong with a group of like-minded people discussing topics, with occasional dissent and opposing viewpoints to keep it interesting and from becoming too much of a an echo chamber. It's a tough balance, though.
I guess in the end it comes down to the reason you join the forum. I came here seeking intelligent, but well-rounded discussion that I couldnt find on reddit, and tildes has defacto replaced it in that respect. But there's a middle ground to be had between unmanaged hate/vicious debate and a community of agreement, and tildes is just falling towards the latter side of the scale.
Not to be flippant but I think part of that might also be that discussion has, up to this point, often been fairly basic. So as long as you all agree on some of the core ideals there wouldn't be much disagreement. Truly interesting discussion is often to be found in the nuances and complexities of beliefs, not in disagreement over whether or not the sky is blue.
I'm currently not too worried about this, and I prefer people not style themselves expert's when they aren't. Otherwise you end up with LessWrong.
i'm going to repeat a refrain i've said a couple times on here since i joined with regards to the "echo chamber" thing (at least with respect to politics): tildes is not an echo chamber just because predominantly left-wing viewpoints are represented on it, and it will never be one for the simple reason that the "left-wing" in politics is incredibly diverse, ranging from people who want to abolish state and hierarchy (anarchists) to people who want a socialist state and to abolish capitalism (socialists) to people who want to reform capitalism (social democrats, some progressives) to people who like capitalism in most cases (most progressives, most democrats) to people who seek to expand capitalism (blue dog democrats, conservative democrats). and that's just from an american economic window with no regard to the nuances of social politics or anything about european politics. you probably could not get all of the ideologies i just listed to agree on anything beyond "don't be a dick and don't kill the poor". that's not exactly a recipe for an echo chamber.
i think people get very caught up in this notion that all left-wing politics are the same and stand for the same things, but if this site consisted exclusively of liberals and socialists, there would probably be more arguments than if the site consisted exclusively of liberals and conservatives because the differences are very stark between some of the "left-wing" ideologies that get jammed together.
Another important thing is that the less things people agree on, the less deep actual arguments or discussions will go. The discussion just ends up stagnating on the 101 of the relevant topic and never progresses beyond that. People will always disagree, the question is really just what level they will disagree on. I'd much rather disagree about intricacies of social policy than argue about if feminists are actually evil for the 500th time. It's just not an interesting discussion to be having.
That said, one thing I don't like and is often conflated but really something different is circlejerks. Circlejerks are for me characterized by a distinct lack of discussion, instead replaced by an endless chain of agreement. On reddit, this is the case in almost every thread. The consistent pattern is always:
[joke or sarcastic comment about the person pictured in the submission]
yeah, [statement how idiotic that person is]
[agreement]
These people are truly [statement]
I think there is nothing wrong with a space where most people generally agree on certain topics, an "echo chamber". But I do think you should try to prevent the dynamics that lead to circlejerks.
I think the fear of echo chambers is brought by the part of tildes who were invited from reddit (which are probably most people). Reddit in itself fosters seggregation into smaller, very specialized communities which most often have a leitmotif as their base of their community, that makes them special and destinct from others. Through insider jokes and memes they develop a distinct way of talking and a distinct view on politics.
I don't think the same can happen on tildes, simply because it's designed differently. You don't have the endless splitting into smaller and smaller subgroups, that more often than not are about the same thing but for different communities, but rather larger communities that branch off into smaller ones. Plus, the chance that you get power tripping moderators are way smaller as well.
If sticking to facts and rational discussion makes Tildes an echo chamber, then so be it.
As more people join views will diversify. As more groups are created and the hierarchy starts to develop more levels, that will begin the process of differentiating communities which will also lead to more diversification.
My advice is to enjoy the nice quiet period we're having, because it won't last. Right now the entire site has one culture because a single person can still consume every thread every day without investing a lot of time. Once it's busier that will no longer be the case, and people will have to start managing their subscriptions to control what subsets of content they see.
I'm sure next week reddit or facebook or twitter or youtube will do some other stupid thing that pisses off all of their users, which will drive another burst of 200-500 new people to join. That's how it goes. Tildes is following the pattern of a developing subreddit exactly as expected. The media hasn't even talked about Tildes yet, not so much as a single article, so we're still well under their radar.
I 100% agree, but the dismissal needs to still have a why. I find that's what has gone missing. Otherwise youre no better than the people you dismiss.
I disagree. I think @Deimos' moderation policies are a big part of why Tildes is in danger of becoming an echo chamber. I've explained this in more detail:
"While this site is not deliberately intended to be a safe space for left-wing politics, I believe it will end up with a strong left-wing bias, due to its rules and its philosophy."
"sites which have some sort of restriction on speech become homes for left-wing people, and sites which have a "free for all" approach to speech become homes for alt-right people"
And, to clarify: I also agree with Deimos' moderation policies and their consequences.
Depends on what's being echoed, whether I personally consider it a danger. I find discourtesy to be unspeakably ugly, and find opposing ideas and intelligent (respectful) discourse interesting and worthy. If civility and tolerance towards ideas/opinions that are not in the bell curve is pevalent, and as long as the ideas are at least somewhat intelligent, well thought out, and effectively communicated - then I am happy to have an echo chamber whether I agree with all/or/any of the ideas or not.
Everything I just wrote is the reason why I left reddit after barely 3 months.
And my opinion is that everything I just wrote cannot be legislated into happening.
The greatest "online" communities that spung up decades ago before being "online" was a way of life - they just happened, they weren't coerced into existence. Rules and banning won't do it.
I am optimistic about this site thus far, but sometimes seems a bit antiseptic.
I'll keep coming though, and do what little I can to contribute.
Maybe open discussions are a left-leaning ideal?
They are not. Being conservative economically does not mean that youre not open to discussing the pros and cons of the free market. Being harshly christian does not mean youre not open to discussing your faith and how it compares to other ideas.
Blinders and the narrow discussion they provide are the signature of idiots, and there are equal morons on both sides of the isle. The only difference is that conservatives are often willfully ignorant, whereas liberals often confuse having a progressive mindset with actually being smart.
I mean, I realize my comment was provocative (and it was a real question, not a rhetorical one) but I gotta say, I don't consider it as preposterous a theory as you make it seem. An open discussion requires a willingness to change your view of the world and accept change, which is a progressive ideal.
I disagree, all an open discussion requires is the ability and want to understand the opposing point of view, which is a human ideal. This ridiculous notion that conservative=irrational is the very essence of the liberal echo chamber, and the only difference between it and the conservative counterpart is that liberals are Brian Griffin and conservatives are toddlers screaming with fingers in their ears.
I write this at an airport, coming back from a weekend retreat with a staunchly conservative bunch of coworkers. At no point did I feel like discussion was squandered because of it. Understand that open, respectful dialog is no more a liberal ideal than, say, wanting respect from your children, or wanting your privacy, is conservative. And on that idea, I implore you, and anyone else reading this, to stop, and reconsider why you'd think that being a modern conservative = being unquestioned. If you think like this, you are just as much a part of the problem when that conservative looks at you and says youre trying to destroy american values. Both are only true at extremes.
What if an objective view of the facts (science, independent research, official data points, modern ethics and philosophy) lead you towards a conclusion that's associated with one side of the political spectrum? Are you forced to "question" that view ad absurdum as long as there is someone around who's bothered by it? I know "facts and logic" has (tragically) become a bit of a meme applied sarcastically, but it's not entirely unreasonable as a genuine ideal. I'd say climate change's "opposition" is entirely based on political loyalty and not on any reasonable discussion of the facts thus can't be "discussed" in a "listen to both sides" kind of situation. If both sides genuinely listened, they'd come to the same conclusion.
Now of course, maybe I was just horribly wrong and climate change was a hoax all along but at one point am I allowed to conclude, "yes, after a thorough look at the facts, I can pick a side"? Further, what's the minimum standard for an argument to force me to question my views? Someone saying lizard people lie to us? I "understand" their arguments but they don't form a basis for any serious discussion.
I picked climate change since it's entirely based on numbers. But even for way harder to judge topics about social issues and whatnot, there's also a (maybe blurrier) line you can draw. For example, few are still seriously arguing against women's rights to vote or different races being treated equally, yet those arguments exist and were prominent back when political reforms happened. I think it's reasonable to say that there is an objectively "correct" view of these issues and no one is inviting the KKK to a discussion about race. I think the push "against political correctness" is often problematic since it implies there's no right or wrong with these issues while, in many cases, there clearly is.
These are extreme examples (and there's more nuanced discussion to be had about other topics, which I do see happening on Tildes, for example) but they're the ones leading to a lot of intellectual communities leaning left or rather, right-leaning people leaving them for not feeling like their views are respected (they're not). Why should we give a platform to objectively wrong arguments, isn't there a line where it does more harm than good? What issue with serious arguments for both sides of the political spectrum gets "suppressed" on left-leaning communities?
Maybe it's not an "echo chamber" but simply a conclusion?
Good point, and there are several different thoughts wrapped up in here that are worth addressing, so let me break it down. I think you've raised an excellent set of points, so let me now outline the differences that stop these discussions from sliding into an echo chamber.
(I hate doing this; if youd be so kind as to read the full post and reconsolidate your response in a couple of paragraphs rather than going point by point, thatd be appreciated)
First, understand that by taking a view of hard data before making a decision, youre already in the minority for anyone who's talking about the subject. Climate change is the perfect example; many leftists stand by that its happening, far fewer independantly know to the exact scale or what constitutes a reasonable response as a result, myself included, and are instead simply shepherded along into backinc a conclusion three-times-removed from the problem, with fundamental flaws (like the green new deal). So there's a good idea ('we need to slow down and stop climate change') being endorsed by a lot of people that dont understand it ('we need to slow down and stop climate change, and my solutions are accidentially unreasonable').
When you put many of those people together, it becomes something problematic ('we need to slow down and stop climate change, but we dont understand the full problem and as a result we'll end up causing damage'), and when no one is there to speak up against the idea, it becomes something dangerous ('we need to slow down and stop climate change, but rather than understanding the opposition, we are going to blame them for their opposition and damage them with our options.')
In the climate change argument, consider how the change towards green is represented by people like Trump's coal miners. Consider that the loss of inherent market efficiency from fossil fuels means we might lose further power to overseas markets. Consider that change fundamentally cannot be embraced by all if it hurts too much of that whole, which brings me to the next point:
YES. Because although the view might be valid and backed up logically ('climate change needs to be solved or we're provably fucked'), and although there are just as many peope with mental earplugs in on the opposite side ('I dont WANT this to be true so I choose not to believe it') its fundamentally important to consider WHY the opposition opposes something, even irrationally, every possible time you make the claim. This is how compromise works, and its something most established democracies have all but forgotten; change is not railroading radical ideas past people who oppose them - its understanding WHY theyre opposed, and doing everything in your power as the person asking for change to meet that opposition and help THEM to embrace it, too.
So, then,
Understand that this very dangerous idea is a direct result of the liberal echo chamber, just as much as the mental earplugs on the other side are the result of the conservative counterpart. People are stubborn, yes. And there are powerful interests preserving the status quo. But the simple idea of "change is scary and might hurt me" is something that the american conservative has had drilled into their head since WWII. THAT is far more of the reason why people are still so reluctant to embrace something like climate change than political idealism. THAT is the obstacle that liberals fundamentally dont want to face and, in congress, that democrats simply do not understand. Sitting someone pro-and anti-change in the same room and presenting the same facts will always result in two sets of conclusions, botth of which are fundamentally correct in different ways. Only by understanding this can wr move forward.
With this in mind, I hope you can understand how the remainder of the post needs addressed
Its not about sides, its about understanding that there is probably a valid set of concerns buried in the opposing argument that you cant simply railroad over and hope for the best. For climate change its comfort and economics.
For woman's sufferage and racism, for example of my abovd, its often about the people promoting the problem not feeling represented, or feeling threatened, or simply being affected and ignored by the consequences of something perceived as a problem of race or sex. In the US, for example, poverty has become rampant, the middle class is disappearing, and millions of immigrants areworsening the problem by continuing to pour into the country because our reduced lifestyle is still better than their part of the world. We're more afraid than ever, with the media painting all muslims as terrorists and not bothering to present them as sympathetic. Politicians and businesses use these points to further their own agendas, further twisting the conservative (republican) truth until their only truth is what they believe, or else they subscribe to a liberal (democratic) party that has fundamentally decided that their problems dont matter. So the result is:
This is 100% correct. But the conservative counterpoint - that the american way of life is falling apart because of issues that they misattribute to race and sex - is 100% correct as well, and nobody anywhere in washington or on the internet is able to have this discussion, because we're all too busy calling the other person wrong.
Which brings me to my final point:
tl;dr: because those wrong arguments are often based in reality as well, but wrapped in poor logic and manipulation that warps them to be offensive - i.e. 'I am now poor, and am told that race is thw cause of that issue, which seems basically reasonable, so therefor am racist.' Only by understanding the underlying issues can we divert course. Only by exposing the opposing argument to those underlying issues can they direct themselves to do the same,
Bringing it home, here is the crux of this problem, represented by our president.
The reason I believe that Trump spells doom for America is not because he lies, cheats, steals, or rubs toes with dictators and supremacists. Its not because he uprooted our political system, or caused tens of millions of people on both sides of the isle to fundamentally lose faith in our democracy. These are all things that were inevitable in our time, becaus the underlying issues that caused them have been present since 'trickle down' economic policy emerged, when government-sactioned corporste theft became mainstream, and have not been addressed in any form since.
The fundamental reason that Trump has doomed America, and that I am planning to leave within 10 years, is because even after all of that, he is the only one who got it. That disenfranchisement, lack of representation, that complete alienation that his supporters feel, is why people continue to support him and go to his rallies. And more importantly, his disgusting tendancies and ideals have ensured that no matter what happens, after he leaves, the democratic, so called "liberal" party will never be allowed to embrace that or else be conflated with him. This is what not understanding the opposing argument has done. And unless you recognize that, it is only going to get worse.
First, let me say that I really enjoy this thread and it's an example for why I think Tildes works! Again, my initial question wasn't a rhetorical one but it might have been tainted by sarcasm, in the sense of "it never seems to work, why bother?". So I was playing devil's advocate a bit, musing why the status quo might be inevitable rather than a simple matter of shifting ideals. You convinced me to try and be less defeatist and give this a chance as yes, we definitely do need better discussions bridging the whole political spectrum and it might work if we learn to focus on the right issues.
If I had to summarize your arguments, am I correct to say you suggest separating "objective truth" from "political truth"? I'd say the conclusion is that, while maybe factually/scientifically wrong, a view can become part of the reality of a person for psychological reasons and part of our all reality when it leads to a vote cast in a political sense. So you have to take the "irrational", emotional arguments seriously if you want any basis for real discussion. I'm sorry if this is a bit of a superficial way of putting it.
I think I fell for a trap I have identified a while ago, especially in nerdy internet communities which are often full of people frustrated with the emotionality of real-life interactions and seeking "objective truth" as some kind of almost religious ideal. If you scoff too much at logical fallacies or factual errors, you miss that society is still largely based on emotional decisions.
Youve hit the nail on the head, that is exactly the point. The only addition is to consider that some facts exclude other facts. When I said that putting a pro and anti-change person in the room gets 2 different correct answers, its important to understand that those answers can both be factually correct. For climate change, for example: pro-change says 'we need to change or else we will destroy the planet.' This is true. Anti-change says, 'i dont want/need to change, because my life's difficulties will increase if I do, and whats more, I'm not individually causing most of the problem.' This, to an extent, will also probably be correct.
What it comes down to, I think, (and I'd be interested in getting @deimos opinion on this, if theres a way to tag) is that conservatives dont talk about the problems, abd when they do, they externalize that its someone else's fault. When liberals talk about problems, they talk about how bad it's gotten, but forget to walk the discussion towards a solution. Tildes has become a respectful place to talk about how bad it's gotten, but in many cases, is beginning to move away from the solution-focus while doing so, instead playing the blame game for all manner of things from conservative mindsets to capitalism itself. So, I guess, what do you want out of the platform? Do you just want to talk about how bad it is, or do you want to move the discussion towards a repair? Neither are bad answers, they just need to be stated goals and the platform adjusted accordingly.
i'm going to be honest: this reads like a bunch of enlightened centrist gibberish that seems to chide people for actually holding beliefs on what is and is not politically acceptable--and honestly it's not even accurate: literally everybody wears blinders sometimes, intentionally or not. unless you're about to seriously entertain the possibility of anarchism and fascism being viable political systems or are willing to consider that socialism might be a better economic system for people to live under than capitalism for example, you're wearing blinders. this doesn't inherently make you an idiot, and assuming it does is a weirdly reductive stance to take, because a whole hell of a lot more things influence those sorts of decisions than just an individual's intelligence.
people in america older than about 45 for example have largely written off socialism in all forms because they grew up in the cold war era, when socialism was portrayed as the ideology of an enemy; and similarly, those who grew up during the second world war tend to be least sympathetic to fascism, since fascism to many of them was an existential threat and brought ruin to europe. those people are wearing blinders too, but i think you can also agree here that those people are presumably not all idiots, nor does it imply willful ignorance on their part. do they narrow discussion? sure. but we all do that. nobody is ever going to be willing to discuss and entertain the full range of political beliefs that exist out there, because political beliefs often involve moral and ethical positions that are irreconcilable with personal beliefs.
Blinders let one see just one narrow way with small slack at best. I think the words you cite did not apply to anyone not willing to discuss everything, but to those bigoted on a single view. Note that it is about a narrow discussion, and not about a narrowed one.
Also, rejecting fascism is not like wearing blinders but like not willing to jump off a cliff. Fortunately, expressing pro-fascist views would be hate speech and thus forbidden on Tildes.
this is pretty pedantic. for most people, i would guess that "narrow discussion" and "narrowed discussion" carry pretty much the same implication since they refer to basically the same idea.
you're talking to a socialist. i'm aware of what fascism is and what it is like. that doesn't mean you can suddenly redefine it as though it is not a valid political ideology people adhere to, though, and to take it off the table of discussion really doesn't differ meaningfully from doing the same with socialism or anarchism unless you want to split hairs. in rejecting a fascist's viewpoint you are--justified or otherwise--putting on a blinder and intentionally not seeing that viewpoint, just as people who reject the viewpoint of socialism do so with socialism. and my point, overall, is that doing that has literally no implication on intelligence of any kind, so it's weird to say people are idiots for putting on blinders and engaging in narrow discussion, considering that's something we all do at one point or another in curating the political beliefs we hold.
Very defensive. Take a look at my other reply and try to glean meaning from it, please. I am comfortable generalizing that virtually all people are idiots in different ways, and I'm pointing out the fallacy that you yourself are ascribing to; that because your beliefs are progressive, they are therefor inherently smarter than the idiots who think otherwise. And, that because you believe hard on them, theyre more justifiable than the alternative. All you need to do is swap about 3 sentences in your above reply and it reads like a post out of the_donald about liberals.
I'm not being centerist, and you are being reductionist, putting a pile of words into my credit that I never claimed while somehow equating that there is no middle ground between blindly believing something (which most people do, hence, idiots with blinders) and considering fascism a valid state.
i did, and what you're arguing in that comment doesn't really have relevance to what i take issue with in your comment, which is the apparent implication that both sides and most people are idiots because they take political stances and sometimes wear blinders in doing so, without consideration to the many, many factors that determine political beliefs and what people deem acceptable that come before intelligence.
i don't really know where you're getting any of this? once again my whole assertion and the premise of my comment is that you're wrongly impugning people on the charge of being idiots for not being willing to entertain certain things when there's a lot more that goes into that than a person's intelligence--including things like upbringing, exposure to media, propaganda, moral beliefs, religion, and so on--and in doing so also seemingly presenting yourself as above all of that and not like those people. it has nothing to do with what i personally believe, and i make no claim to it having to do with that.
to be clear, i didn't say you were a centrist, i just said that what you wrote reads like enlightened centrism (i.e. the sorts of things you'd find on /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM if we were on reddit currently). beyond that, i don't really have a reply to this because i'm not entirely clear on what you're contesting about my reply specifically. in particular don't see where you get the "somehow equating that there is no middle ground between blindly believing something (which most people do, hence, idiots with blinders) and considering fascism a valid state." from my reply. for one thing i don't see where you brought up blindly believing things in the comment i replied to, but also i think you're mistaking examples of my points (which is the context i brought up fascism in) for some sort of genuine statement of values or whatever.
As Stanisław Jerzy Lec said,
“Those who put blinders on their eyes should remember that the set also includes a bridle and a whip.”
It's coming along quite nicely imo. I personally view Tildes as a long term project - I'm not expecting it to reach fruition for at least a couple of years, and realistically maybe longer. I've been regularly using it for almost a year now and in that time, it hasn't stagnated or fallen apart like a lot of other web communities do in their early days, so I think it's definitely going to stick around for a while.
For this to be sustainable it needs money.
At 450 a month in Patreon donations, I presume the time until Deimos needs another full time job is limited, which will slow things down significantly.
If you care about this community, contribute. It may still fail or stagnate even with contributions, but I think the odds of it failing or stagnating are a lot higher if the critical component has to work 40 hours a week on something else.
(Edit: Deimos I know you will have the urge to equivocate here in some way and say “slow growth is okay” or “I still intend to work on this on the side either way”. I get that, but... don’t! This thing is actually pretty cool and I think it could be cooler if you continue to have time to actually make it viable rather than do something else!)
Is Tildes setup to receive BAT donations through Brave?
Yes: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/7vm/tildes_can_now_receive_basic_attention_tokens_from_the_brave_browser_or_batify_extension
Are you happy with how it works so far?
How large of a revenue stream is it compared to Patreon and donations?
Have you considered other micropayment services? I know Mozilla is in talks with a service named Scroll for some sort of collaboration.
So far I've received a grand total of 182.11 BAT, which at today's value is about $53. It's not significant, and that's even with BAT going up about 200% in the last two months. For most of the last 6 months (since I set it up for Tildes), that amount of BAT would have been worth closer to $25.
The majority of it probably came from the 4 "successful" referrals for Brave installs, which should have each rewarded $5 worth of BAT.
I've wondered lately how many users are like me and mostly just lurk. I've enjoyed it so far, but I guess the only visible evidence of that is the occasional votes I cast. Would be curious to know the typical post:lurk ratio on more established sites.
That's the 1% rule. So far it's held up everywhere, and I'd be surprised if Tildes was any different. Seems like nobody ever takes steps to encourage lurkers to post, though. That might be something Tildes could do differently from other sites. Maybe we should just pick a weekend and encourage everyone to post at least one thing they find interesting or useful or worth discussing and see what happens.
While I am not suggesting that fluff content be allowed, maybe there could be a weekly/biweekly megathread (possibly in ~misc), where the rules are a bit lax and people can post stuff as a top comment.
I think most new users are daunted by the lengthy comments/discussions and are hesitant to post stuff (no offense to the authors, I very much appreciate them). It would act as a gentler introduction to the community and encourage the lurkers to interact more.
I'm wondering if there might be a better approach to the fluff problem. I don't think this would work for all kinds of fluff (like say, cat pictures) but I think it would work for a lot of content. I mentioned use cases for news and music in an older comment.
A photo of your gaming shrine is fluff. A thread of several hundred people sharing photos of their gaming shrines, workshops, etc somehow isn't. One of them is a five-second vote and forget link, the other is a thread that gets bumped for days and generates a lot of conversation - without spamming every photo as a separate submission.
There's a new submission class waiting to be unearthed here to compliment self.posts and direct links... call it a 'collaborative' thread, where multiple users contribute links to the body and vote/curate the link order, rather than just the original submitter having total control. That might help civilize some of the fluff content, put it into a better framework.
You're not, and it's still present on certain subreddits, but by-and-large reddit's current culture is joke, meme, Office quote, Douglas Adams reference, etc. repeat ad nauseum. My account there is 13 years old, and it wasn't always like that. I can't count the number of links I read there, and want quality discussion for, and find exactly that in the comments, even on more serious subjects.
Not sure where the 2013 reference comes from, but I was there when reddit was very young. I didn't say '2013'; I said '13 years old', as in 2006-ish. I remember it well. It was actually very dry at the beginning, with a heavy emphasis on programming and compsci topics. Comments didn't even exist yet. I used to think they added so much to every submission. Now, it's pretty much the opposite.
I mostly lurk as well. When I have a differing view point I refrain from posting it because I don't have the energy to - what feels like - legally defend my position. This is particularly true when my view is clearly in the minority (like Christian world-view).
I go through periods of lurking and posting. Mostly because I browse Tildes on mobile and making long, detailed comments is difficult due to the keyboard and difficulty formatting several links. I would like to get in a contributing mood again soon but I will definitely need to find some interesting content to post about.
In my view, Tildes has already reached the bar of being a good forum. We have a well-established culture of treating each other pretty well and everyone still actively posting is clearly putting in effort to make high quality posts that make the site better. It's good enough to be my home on the internet, and that's worthy of praise.
But I do feel like we don't yet have much to stand out from other good forums, as our defining feature is pretty much just good moderation that the users understand and trust, but that can be found in plenty of small forums. I don't know anything about site development so I have no clue of the actual time that goes into these things, but I think we would really benefit from starting to scope out some of the major planned features, ideally either the hierarchy or distributed moderation / trust system. The day-to-day here is almost too stable and functional, there isn't much of a sense that we're testing so much as we are just building community. That's great, but I do wonder when people will start to ask "Why am I doing this here, of all places?"
Tildes is good and something that Deimos and everyone involved should already feel proud of. Building what's been built here is hard! I would just like to see it shaken up and experimented with.
@Deimos how much work is left to get the basics of the subgroup mechanics going? Not having the sub-group posts showing up in the parent groups is enough to get started there I think, so that the subscriptions matter. I feel like we're nearing the time when experimentation with sub-groups is more appropriate. This isn't the first time I've seen people express some concern that the general nature of the top level groups is a bit intimidating/offputting, and I feel like having some sub-groups around in the groups list might make it more obvious to people at a glance how this stuff is supposed to work. We could try creating a couple and see if their presence teases out content that was absent before.
I don't think it would be very hard to get the basics in place. I agree that it would probably be a good next thing to try out, and see if that makes people more comfortable with submitting topics that aren't as "general interest".
I agree. I think sub-groups is the next big feature that needs to be implemented.
I wish I could contribute more to ~music. I also wish more people would contribute in general, as well as vote on the things they liked.
An idea I've been playing around is a weekly language-exchange topic in ~talk.
I think weekly threads are a good way to keep the conversation going. A few subreddits I'm on do this (4 times a week) for a slow chat thread where everyone posts an update on what they're doing. It really adds to the community feel, and keeps up momentum.
I feel like it's still in a holding pattern. It's gestating, but not yet growing. I'm optimistic, but it's taking longer to develop and grow than I expected. I thought we'd be a bit further advanced by now than we are: more features, more changes, more subscribers.
I like it overall and I think it’s decent. I check tildes before I look at reddit or Twitter. But I will say it is a bit off-putting sometimes. I only post like 5 links a week, and then there are days where I refresh the front page and my posts are all on it (and not because they have a ton of interaction). It feels sometimes like I’m spamming the site, but that’s not my intent I just post articles here when I read something interesting. It’s a balance I’m trying to walk that feels doubly weird since I only posted on one subreddit and was otherwise a lurker.
Looking at your topic submissions, I see absolutely no indication that is the case. And your topics actually do get a fair amount of interaction compared to most others... If you want to see low interaction, check mine out. ;) But that isn't going to stop me from submitting them, because they are still being upvoted reasonably consistently, so clearly at least a few other people are appreciating them.
If you're spamming the site with only 5 links a week, then I'm Tildes' biggest spammer!
I don't think of it as spamming. I think of it as supplying content to keep Tildes healthy and active. You are helping, not spamming.
Good I think, it feels sustainable to me though I'd be interested to see some recent stats after we became publicly visible.
Thanks for linking that!
Actually, I see a spike in the week of 15/02/2019, followed by an overall downward trend despite a smaller secondary spike. Sure, the overall activity after 15/02/2019 is slightly higher than before, but it still looks like a downward trend after that date:
4 out of 6all of the following weeks were lower than that week, and the final week is the lowest since 01/02/2019.In fact, there was more of an upward trend in the two weeks before we went public than the weeks after that date. The latest week's activity has almost dropped back to pre-public levels.
EDIT: Fixed "4 out of 6".
Not quite yet. I don't feel like Tildes has quite hit critical mass yet. It still relies on a small core of people to support it.
I was talking more in terms of the culture but from looking at Bauke's graph I agree we're not there numbers wise.
My thinking is that a place like tildes will always rely on a small subset of users to function, though maybe with the trust based moderation system implemented that group would be bigger than normal.
I check it almost every day, but post much less frequently. Compared to when I first joined there are a lot fewer nimrods now and it seems like we've moved past the norm-forming stage of a group.
I check it pretty frequently, but I don't post or comment much because the topics that come up that actually interest me are fairly sparse still.
The role that highly specific subreddits play in my online interactions has not (and maybe never will be) filled by tildes. For example, I frequent programming-specific subreddits and hobbyist subreddits like /r/mechanicalkeyboards. But the stuff I see on tildes remains very oriented towards a general audience, and covers topics that I have no interest in talking about, like news and politics.
But I do still come here to check in from time to time, so that's a positive indication in my opinion.
I hate to be that guy, but please post more of what you want to see. By doing so more people will be encouraged to similar content. When you come across something that interests you, just shoot us all a link. That should be enough to start a community.
Oh, I know. I agree with you. That's what I should do. But it's hard to find the time to dedicate to posting interesting stuff here in hopes of building a community around it instead of just lurking in existing communities that already have what I want. It's my failing, but I don't think it's an uncommon one.
Depending on users to be self-starting and exceptional contributors in order for your platform to work is a bit optimistic.
Are you aware of the 90:9:1 rule of participation on the internet? Generally, 90% of people on a forum will read posts and lurk silently, 9% of people will comment on posts, and only 1% of people will post content for everyone else to read and comment on.
Right now, there are only about 10,100 people subscribed to Tildes - and lots of those aren't active (they signed up, looked around, and never came back). Let's be optimistic and say that half those accounts represent currently active users of Tildes. Of those 5,000 people, only 1% - which is 50 people - will post content. I'd say that, more realistically, based on my observations, the numbers are more like 2,000 active accounts and 20 people posting. Everyone else is waiting for content to arrive.
For contrast, Reddit has tens of millions of subscribers, which means they have hundreds of thousands people to post content.
Therefore, every single person who makes posts is valuable in these early days. Right now, we're relying on a very small percentage of an overall low number of people to post. That will change as Tildes grows. But, right now, every post and every poster counts.
I agree. New niche communities need to be created and things need to branch out. Currently everything is too generalised.
That's intentional for now. If you fragment too much, you get a bunch of empty sub-groups with one or two people posting in them, who then give up because there's too little activity. Feel free to post more specific topics in more general groups though; at least you'll gauge the interest in that topic to demonstrate that a sub-group would have sufficient activity.
Agree completely, and I'm happy to see that @Deimos is open to prioritizing subgroups creation.
While I can only speak for myself, I know I would be more motivated to comment regularly if there were subgroups that were focused on my areas of interest. For instance, investing / finance. As it stands, I don't post investing topics because I'd be placing them in ~misc or maybe ~life.
I don't want to fatigue readers of a broad category like ~life with my niche posts which will be irrelevant to 99% of viewers. ~life.investing solves this problem I think.
I understand the desire to curate the groups and subgroups, but I do think there's a happy medium between the wild-west subreddit creation on reddit, and what we have here on tildes. Perhaps a mechanism that would allow users to propose subgroups, where they would go into a vote queue and are only activated after passing a threshold of user votes + an admin endorsement?
I can't search for it right now, but this has been discussed here. The problem is that just because people will vote for a sub-group doesn't mean they'll actually participate in that group once created. The only real way to know a sub-group is a good idea for a niche topic is by seeing activity on a lot of those type posts in a more general category. Consider if ~music had a sub for every conceivable band. You'd see huge fragmentation with very little activity in the vast majority of the subs.
If instead it was obvious that there are a lot of very active topics in ~music that were devoted to one band, that would indicate that a sub for that band would be a good, sustainable idea.
I agree. I subscribe to several hobby subreddits (mk, nootropics, running, etc) and I just don't see them having a good community here on tildes.
I know this has been discussed ad-nauseum, but subs are easy to understand, use and compartmentalize while groups or subgroups or tildes or whatever the name is, are not. And the idea that first you're supposed to comment on general tags and only after there are enough people using said tag a community is formed, also feels wrong to me.
Haven’t posted in a bit. It seems friendly and a nice place.
It's turning into a very quality aggregator. I can only compare it to reddit, because that's the site I was stuck with for this type of stuff for years and it will take a while before I can separate the two. Considering Tildes has like 0.00005% the user base, it's impressive how I find 90% of the content I look for on here as well (and 0% of the bullshit). But somehow, I'm still on reddit.
I remember back in 2012 (or so?) I unsubscribed from a bunch of "fluff" subreddits like /r/pics and /r/funny. I thought I would miss that content but I so didn't. When I look at my reddit frontpage, though, I see a lot of that crap having returned through some "silly but somehow the quality kind of silly" subreddits I subscribed over the years and it made me realize that it probably takes a site-wide policy for me to stop spending time looking at gifs of innovative suitcases. I'm comparing reddit to Tildes and there is barely a single post on the frontpage of reddit that I would miss on Tildes, yet I still go back to reddit almost every day. What a drug.
The only argument against Tildes (and smaller sites like it in general) is that you'll find less "niche" sub-communities. On reddit, even something rather specific can have a 50k+ subscriber count and nicely cover all relevant content in that niche. For that, Tildes is simply too small. I bought a Switch a year ago and it's fun to be part of a dedicated fan community again, so I hang out on /r/NintendoSwitch which is 99% fluff but I don't mind (and the occasional really good post like the one I actually submitted to ~games recently). If anything, that's the only thing that keeps me from switching to Tildes entirely and it has nothing to do with quality, it's mostly just a size thing.
I disagree with most people here. i think, from the UI perspective, this is the best site out there. It's beautiful and fast. Sadly, as far as content goes, there is very little. Just general posts that are of little interest to me. There are pretty much no posts pertaining to my hobbies.
I know this has been discussed ad-nauseum, and so I am not re-opening this discussion because the admins have made their opinions known, but I'll just mention that I find subs(reddits) highly superior to subgroups. Subs are simple to use, to explain and to compartmentalize and that drives a community.
Most (some?) people have mentioned that they don't want to post using the tag system, which I agree. Creating a community (a subgroup) only after there are over X posts tagged with Y feels wrong to me. Also, some themes deserving of a group while others do not is disruptive of their importance.
So ya, I wish tildes didn't try to be the smart kid in the block by complicating things but I hope I am wrong and it becomes a viable alternative for my internet needs.
This could all be, however, a symptom of the low number of users and not the use of groups over subs. I feel like the numbe of users is mostly stagnant. I don't remember how long ago it was (@Algernon_Asimov ?) that tildes reached 10k users. It is now 10.1k. So, an increase in 100 users over more than 10 days (I think? Possibly weeks? My sense of time is broken) does not sound good to me.
I think it's important to keep context in mind. Reddit didn't allow users to create subreddits for almost 3 years (starting in March 2008, and the site launched in June 2005). Before that, it had even fewer sections than Tildes already has. Two years after it launched, it had only three subreddits: the main/general one, programming, and science. They didn't even have a page listing the subreddits until more than 6 months after that, and at that point (over two and a half years after launch), they had fewer registered users than Tildes.
What do you find simpler or superior about subreddits? Imagine you're a new user to reddit and you want to post the newest XKCD comic. It's a humorous webcomic about astronomy. Which of these should you post in?
All of those sound appropriate, but it will get removed from almost all of them (and might result in you getting banned for posting it). The subreddit system is quite unfriendly for new users, especially when the "real" subreddit for a topic doesn't have the name you would expect.
You forgot /r/xkcdcomic (for the time it existed as a competitor to /r/xkcd). :)
Yeah, that's pretty much a perfect example of the "real" subreddit being under an unintuitive name. There was a fairly long period there where people would have said that posting in /r/xkcd was wrong (because it was controlled by a Holocaust-denying redpiller) and that the real community was in /r/xkcdcomic. Luckily they managed to eventually get the obvious name back, but there are a lot of other subreddits that aren't able to do that and have to stay under names that nobody would ever look for initially.
Like /r/Trees - the most notoriously misnamed subreddit ever. :)
It's not really that misnamed, by reddit standards, at least. "Smoking trees" is incredibly widely used slang for smoking joints in the stoner community.
Also worth noting is that b34nz (creator of /r/marijuana) is an incredibly racist, Islamophobic shithead and power-tripping asshole. And when that was revealed and the original /r/marijuana community broke up as a result, /r/trees (which was originally an arborist subreddit IIRC) was chosen as a refuge.
Exactly. People who are in on the joke get the in-joke.
Meanwhile, outsiders who don't know the in-joke will face an extra barrier to discovering this subreddit.
It's not a joke so much as just common parlance amongst stoners, but I agree that it sucks for discoverability... which is why I much prefer the Tildes approach to group naming, creation and organizing.
Plus, since groups on Tildes don't have a "creators" with dictatorial control over them (other than Deimos of course ;), hopefully community splits like what happened with /r/marijuana won't happen here. And if something does arise amongst the trusted users that might potentially fracture a community, Deimos has already expressed his willingness to actually step in and deal with it, unlike reddit.
As someone else already said in this thread, and I've said elsewhere before: post more of the content you want to see. Lead by example. If you post content of a certain type, you'll encourage other people to post similar content.
The problems you're describing are mostly symptoms of the low number of users. More users = more posts. More posts = more groups/sub-groups.
It was about 2-3 weeks ago that we reached 10,000 Tilders. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, Tildes is not growing very fast.