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Updated the description of the opt-in "mark new comments" feature
Tildes has a feature that marks which comments are new in threads since you last visited (kind of like a combination of the similar gold comment-highlighting and RES features on reddit), but I've noticed that not many people are enabling it so far.
I think the reason is that I made the label/description of it a bit too scary, and it sounded like it was some sort of tracking for the sake of tracking, without explaining the actual benefit enough. So I've updated the info now, and added a small image that shows what it does to its settings page. If you didn't already have the feature enabled because I scared you off about it, please take a look at the Settings page again and see if it makes more sense now.
I don't think it was too scary to begin with, but more that the announcement was made before the last 100 or so people joined ~. That said, it definitely reads better now!
One thought is that we might start collecting these types of things (this, the moderation discussion, etc.) into a "Intro to Tildes" page for the documentation / wiki (perhaps this would even be the landing page displayed upon logging in for the first time?). I think most people coming from reddit wouldn't think to go diving through their settings for this sort of feature, as everything there (and most other places on the web) are opt-out (if available at all)
Agreed. There's currently a welcome message that I send everyone when they register, but I don't want to cram too much stuff in there. Maybe a "getting started" type of page on the docs site would be a good idea, and the welcome message could link to that?
Or you could have all the options visible to people on a landing page after account creation. Like a checklist of all the available opt-in features with a brief description and link to the full description should they wish to read it. This way new users could go through them one by one and choose whether to enable them immediately after they arrive here.
Completely missed it in the first place, do like it on reddit so appreciate it being an option here.