35 votes

Any chance we can get a ~space group?

I know that this has been discussed before (I personally participated in some of that), but, to my knowledge, it's been quite a while since it was brought up.

Currently, the three groups that seem to make the most sense for space exploration news are ~tech, ~science, and ~misc. Personally, I perceive ~tech as being best suited for general news about what's going on in the tech industry, more or less "hey, Google released this" or "these researchers are working on graphene batteries". Similarly, I understand ~science as a place for discussing scientific discoveries and "meta" discussion about science as a whole. I think that most would agree with me on those characterizations after looking at those groups when sorted by activity or new.

Space exploration, on the other hand, doesn't really fit in either. It's not exactly ~tech material, and it's also not really the right material for ~science, since much of it isn't about specific new discoveries or studies, etc. If we had an ~engineering, I would say that that would be the correct place for space discussion, but we don't have one.

If you look at what's been happening over the last few months in the realm of space exploration, I think that it's also pretty easy to see that there's enough going on to generate enough content and discussion for a dedicated group. There've been new launches on a weekly or biweekly basis, interesting moves made by different new entrants to the industry, all of the NASA Artemis news, plenty of things from SpaceX, etc.

47 comments

  1. [36]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    Information technology is only one of many types of technology - and rocketry is another type of technology. If someone's sending another rocket into space, that's technology in action. I would...

    Information technology is only one of many types of technology - and rocketry is another type of technology. If someone's sending another rocket into space, that's technology in action.

    I would love a group about the space-related sciences (such as cosmology, astrophysics, astronomy, exogeology, and exobiology), but I would hate to have to trawl through a flood of posts about SpaceX rocket experiments and NASA missions to learn about the latest scientific discoveries in space. That's why I ended up unsubscribing from /r/space on Reddit.

    9 votes
    1. [27]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Funny you should mention information technology, since that basically has its own top-level group in the form of ~comp... so similarly, if space is a popular enough topic, I don't really see why...

      Funny you should mention information technology, since that basically has its own top-level group in the form of ~comp... so similarly, if space is a popular enough topic, I don't really see why it couldn't/shouldn't also have its own top-level group (for now).

      Eventually ~space could be deprecated and ~tech.space and ~science.space could be created to accommodate and keep separate the different types of space related content, once the traffic can justify them. But in the mean time, you could always just filter out the spacex and space exploration tags if you didn't want to see anything related to those topics.

      12 votes
      1. [5]
        Icarus
        Link Parent
        Based off what I see for posts per week, ~science doesn't get enough traffic to justify splitting it out. ~science ~All subtildes ~ # of Posts # of Comments Vote Score Average # of Comments Per...
        • Exemplary

        , if space is a popular enough topic, I don't really see why it couldn't/shouldn't also have its own top-level group (for now)

        Based off what I see for posts per week, ~science doesn't get enough traffic to justify splitting it out.

        ~science

        ~All subtildes

        ~ # of Posts # of Comments Vote Score Average # of Comments Per Post Average # of Votes Per Post Overall Participation Average Participation per Post % Participation from Voting % Participation from Commenting
        ~sports 422 1119 2699 2.65 6.40 3818 9.05 70.69% 29.31%
        ~music 1882 7242 11295 3.85 6.00 18537 9.85 60.93% 39.07%
        ~science 762 2138 7128 2.81 9.35 9266 12.16 76.93% 23.07%
        ~humanities 479 1697 4209 3.54 8.79 5906 12.33 71.27% 28.73%
        ~enviro 590 2208 6006 3.74 10.18 8214 13.92 73.12% 26.88%
        ~health 330 1589 3035 4.82 9.20 4624 14.01 65.64% 34.36%
        ~food 408 2156 3573 5.28 8.76 5729 14.04 62.37% 37.63%
        ~movies 444 2661 3920 5.99 8.83 6581 14.82 59.57% 40.43%
        ~lgbt 360 1630 3855 4.53 10.71 5485 15.24 70.28% 29.72%
        ~news 2684 12763 28260 4.76 10.53 41023 15.28 68.89% 31.11%
        ~creative 355 2019 3606 5.69 10.16 5625 15.85 64.11% 35.89%
        ~misc 1302 7288 13735 5.60 10.55 21023 16.15 65.33% 34.67%
        ~anime 195 1565 1644 8.03 8.43 3209 16.46 51.23% 48.77%
        ~books 386 3382 3650 8.76 9.46 7032 18.22 51.91% 48.09%
        ~life 513 3842 6384 7.49 12.44 10226 19.93 62.43% 37.57%
        ~tv 445 4037 4956 9.07 11.14 8993 20.21 55.11% 44.89%
        ~comp 1047 8600 13123 8.21 12.53 21723 20.75 60.41% 39.59%
        ~games 1414 13032 16696 9.22 11.81 29728 21.02 56.16% 43.84%
        ~tech 2350 19943 31896 8.49 13.57 51839 22.06 61.53% 38.47%
        ~hobbies 115 1634 1501 14.21 13.05 3135 27.26 47.88% 52.12%
        ~tildes 891 16228 14056 18.21 15.78 30284 33.99 46.41% 53.59%
        ~talk 773 23796 14984 30.78 19.38 38780 50.17 38.64% 61.36%
        ~tildes.official 150 7771 8034 51.81 53.56 15805 105.37 50.83% 49.17%

        (data is from July 2018-July 2019)

        My apologies if this sort of data collection is not allowed, I am trying to keep my data collection/analysis skills fresh and this data is interesting to me.

        ~science is ranked:

        • 9/23 for # of Posts
        • 22/23 for Comments per Post
        • 16/23 for Votes per Post
        • 21/23 for Participation per Post

        Overall, I would say a topic that would fit under the science umbrella wouldn't be a good choice in creating a new tilde from. When I look at tag use across all posts, space is only used 105 times (52nd out of all tags).

        Now, what we could say is by creating a new group, people would be more likely to post content that fits that groups topic. I know every once in a while I will skim through each of the groups and see if I have something to contribute. I would say that if we find tags that are commonly used across multiple groups, those should be considered in creating more groups.

        @Algernon_Asimov you might be interested in these stats if you have new groups in mind.

        11 votes
        1. [3]
          Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          As other people in this thread have already said, it's not just about whether there's enough traffic to justify creating a new group, it's also about providing some visibility for certain topics....

          Overall, I would say a topic that would fit under the science umbrella wouldn't be a good choice in creating a new tilde from.

          As other people in this thread have already said, it's not just about whether there's enough traffic to justify creating a new group, it's also about providing some visibility for certain topics. With that in mind, I'm going to suggest a ~socialscience group, to pick up all these posts currently sitting in ~science.

          We've got a crowd who's very into the "hard" sciences, but not so much into the "soft" sciences. I want to make the social sciences more prominent here so that people considering signing up to Tildes can see that Tildes doesn't just cater to the STEM crowd. As one of the five academic disciplines, I feel social science deserves more presence here on Tildes. And that has nothing to do with its current level of traffic, but with the level of traffic I'm hoping we can generate by making this discipline more visible.

          6 votes
          1. [2]
            Icarus
            Link Parent
            I definitely agree, but I would say my biggest thought is whether there will be an appropriate amount of engagement in a ~space group. Will there be enough people interested in the topic that...

            As other people in this thread have already said, it's not just about whether there's enough traffic to justify creating a new group, it's also about providing some visibility for certain topics.

            I definitely agree, but I would say my biggest thought is whether there will be an appropriate amount of engagement in a ~space group. Will there be enough people interested in the topic that would make posts there

            With that in mind, I'm going to suggest a ~socialscience group, to pick up all these posts currently sitting in ~science.

            We've got a crowd who's very into the "hard" sciences, but not so much into the "soft" sciences. I want to make the social sciences more prominent here so that people considering signing up to Tildes can see that Tildes doesn't just cater to the STEM crowd. As one of the five academic disciplines, I feel social science deserves more presence here on Tildes. And that has nothing to do with its current level of traffic, but with the level of traffic I'm hoping we can generate by making this discipline more visible.

            I think that one of the things that stands out to me in the dataset is how infrequently tags are used and how differently they are used person to person. For your example specifically, I know I have posted a handful of tags with psychology but haven't added socialscience.psychology. But another thing that I notice as well is that you can often find tags across multiple groups as the OP of this post noted above.

            Overall it would seem better to me to instead rely on tag-driven group creation instead of high level buckets for posts. I believe I read somewhere that one day we will be able to subscribe to tags instead of groups and I view this as a better solution as I could theoretically make a post and have it show up in two high level groups, instead of needing it to be in one. I think if we had some minimum tagging rules or more people participated in adding tags to post (maybe extend the privilege of tagging to people automatically after they have contributed a minimum amount of posts), we would have enough data to automate some of the tagging through a classification system. For your example, socialsciences.psychology could theoretically built out if you were using a decision-tree based classifier where every split would add a tag. So some of my posts would get socialsciences.psychology.iopsychology or a post like the one listed by the OP could end up science.space.nasa while also being visible with tech.space.spaceflight. The tag filtering system would need to be worked so that it could identify tags at any point of the hierarchy.

            I don't know, thats just something thats been rattling in my head as I have seen tags used and posts moved between groups. I don't necessarily want to be subscribed to all groups but if a post overlaps with tags that are frequently found in my other subscriptions, I would still probably like to see it. Part of the reason why I am pulling this data is to see if a classification system could be built with the data thats available from user input or if we are missing certain dimensions to make one possible. Of course, going back to my first point, I don't know if a system like this would drive engagement more vs. posts having higher visibility in new main groups.

            1 vote
            1. Algernon_Asimov
              (edited )
              Link Parent
              I've been playing a long game. ;) I've been tagging a lot of social science-related posts with socialscience.___ tags in preparation for the time when Deimos would again ask for suggestions for...

              For your example specifically, I know I have posted a handful of tags with psychology but haven't added socialscience.psychology.

              I've been playing a long game. ;) I've been tagging a lot of social science-related posts with socialscience.___ tags in preparation for the time when Deimos would again ask for suggestions for new groups. I can then demonstrate the need for a ~socialscience group, based on the quantity of social science-related posts, as shown by the number of socialscience.___ tags. I'm using the exact mechanism you're talking about when you refer to "tag-driven group creation". I'm applying the socialscience.___ tags to relevant posts, in order to be able demonstrate the need for a new ~socialscience group when the time comes. If I haven't applied socialscience.psychology to your posts, that's just because I've missed those posts. (EDIT: I've standardised these tags now.)

              I think if we had some minimum tagging rules or more people participated in adding tags to post (maybe extend the privilege of tagging to people automatically after they have contributed a minimum amount of posts)

              That's part of the long-term plan. It'll be one of the many sub-features of the intended "trust system", where people gain higher abilities through participation.

              a post like the one listed by the OP could end up science.space.nasa while also being visible with tech.space.spaceflight.

              There has also been talk of using aliases. For example, an alias "~space" might link people to a combined feed of multiple sub-groups, such as ~science.space and ~tech.space.

              3 votes
        2. cfabbro
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Cool stats. Those can def come in handy. Bookmarked! :P Thanks for collecting/sharing them. However your interpretation of them regarding a space group is a bit flawed IMO, since space related...

          Cool stats. Those can def come in handy. Bookmarked! :P Thanks for collecting/sharing them.

          However your interpretation of them regarding a space group is a bit flawed IMO, since space related stuff is not just in ~science but kind of spread all over the place (which was one of my points for why it should get its own group), and barely any of the relevant content has been tagged with just "space". E.g. see:

          https://tildes.net/?tag=space
          vs.
          https://tildes.net/?tag=rocketry
          https://tildes.net/?tag=nasa
          https://tildes.net/?tag=spacex
          https://tildes.net/?tag=spaceflight
          https://tildes.net/?tag=space_exploration
          https://tildes.net/?tag=aerospace
          https://tildes.net/?tag=virgin_galactic
          https://tildes.net/?tag=cosmology
          https://tildes.net/?tag=astrophysics
          https://tildes.net/?tag=astronomy
          https://tildes.net/?tag=exobiology
          etc...

          p.s. AFAIK, collecting stats like that is perfectly fine, so long as it's not used for malicious purposes. Bauke has been doing roughly the same thing for quite some time and Deimos appeared to be fine with it.

          4 votes
      2. Wes
        Link Parent
        I wonder what kind of link rot we'll be looking at if groups keep getting moved around. I guess thread IDs will make it a bit of a non-issue. As long as each post belongs to a group ID instead of...

        I wonder what kind of link rot we'll be looking at if groups keep getting moved around.

        I guess thread IDs will make it a bit of a non-issue. As long as each post belongs to a group ID instead of a specific slug, the site should be able to figure it out.

        2 votes
      3. [20]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        But what is the topic of “space”? Everything @Wes mentions as news they want to follow (“new launches on a weekly or biweekly basis, interesting moves made by different new entrants to the...

        if space is a popular enough topic

        But what is the topic of “space”? Everything @Wes mentions as news they want to follow (“new launches on a weekly or biweekly basis, interesting moves made by different new entrants to the industry, all of the NASA Artemis news, plenty of things from SpaceX”) is rocketry, rather than science. If that's where people's interest lies, that suggests we need a ~rocketry group rather than a ~space group.

        1. [15]
          cfabbro
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          What is the topic of "tech", "life", "comp", etc? They are what we choose to define them as. And in this case, the vast majority of people will likely have no problem figuring out what is meant by...

          But what is the topic of “space”?

          What is the topic of "tech", "life", "comp", etc? They are what we choose to define them as. And in this case, the vast majority of people will likely have no problem figuring out what is meant by "a group for space related content".

          Why not ~rocketry? Because ~rocketry is overly restrictive and ~space is more encompassing and accommodating, making it far more useful and usable as a top level group. NASA missions aren't strictly about rocketry, neither are satellite projects (e.g. Starlink). Rocketry is just the means to an end in those cases. That end being getting into "space".

          5 votes
          1. [8]
            sqew
            Link Parent
            I do agree with @Algernon_Asimov that it'd be easy to lose a lot of fascinating science content in a flood of posts about Elon's most recent tweetstorm. If we do end up with a group for space...

            Why not ~rocketry? Because ~rocketry is overly restrictive and ~space is more encompassing and accommodating, making it far more useful and usable as a top level group. NASA missions aren't strictly about rocketry, neither are satellite projects (e.g. Starlink). Rocketry is just the means to an end in those cases. That end being getting into "space".

            I do agree with @Algernon_Asimov that it'd be easy to lose a lot of fascinating science content in a flood of posts about Elon's most recent tweetstorm. If we do end up with a group for space exploration, I think we would need to make sure it was clear in the group description that it's a place for spaceflight discussion as opposed to the results of astronomy or physics work.

            That way we could have a good place to discuss things like Starship, Starlink, Artemis, Mars 2020, etc. that can end up involving a lot of different fields in conversations about them.

            I mentioned this a few minutes ago in a different reply, but what would you think about naming the hypothetical group ~spaceflight in order to keep it wider than rocketry but focus true space science posts to ~science?

            5 votes
            1. [7]
              cfabbro
              (edited )
              Link Parent
              TBH I personally think spaceflight is too narrow a subject for its own top-level group. At least with ~space, even though it potentially takes away some content from ~science and ~tech, it would...

              TBH I personally think spaceflight is too narrow a subject for its own top-level group. At least with ~space, even though it potentially takes away some content from ~science and ~tech, it would be broad enough to have enough activity to justify a top-level spot. But barring that, I think adding a separate ~science.space for more "hard science" space related topics, and ~tech.spaceflight is the best option.

              4 votes
              1. [6]
                sqew
                Link Parent
                Hmm. You might be right. I think it would depend on what kind of content we would want to encourage on a space group. If we went the narrower route but were OK with hearing about Elon's tweets,...

                Hmm. You might be right. I think it would depend on what kind of content we would want to encourage on a space group. If we went the narrower route but were OK with hearing about Elon's tweets, etc. I think there would be enough content, but if we went with some other qualifier of what was "good" content it might be too limited.

                Just from the last couple days, I can think of a pretty decent chunk of content for a narrow ~spaceflight. There was the Chinese LM-2C launch with grid fins, Starhopper hop, some heat shield news from SpaceX, CRS-18, a Rocket Lab launch, some Artemis news about the green run, etc. Not sure how much that would fill a group, but, looking at some of the smaller ones sorted by new and activity, just that much content could probably outstrip a few of them.

                5 votes
                1. [5]
                  cfabbro
                  Link Parent
                  There being enough content to post and fill a group is not really the issue though. It's also whether there is enough of an audience for that content right now, which is really the heart of the...

                  There being enough content to post and fill a group is not really the issue though. It's also whether there is enough of an audience for that content right now, which is really the heart of the issue, IMO. I could easily post 50+ history.military articles and videos a day (my personal area of particular interest), but that doesn't mean that the ~humanities subscribers would appreciate that, or that ~military_history should get its own top-level group. ;)

                  5 votes
                  1. [2]
                    Algernon_Asimov
                    Link Parent
                    I think there is an audience for this content. I think a lot of people are interested in space exploration, from rocketry experiments here on the ground to the most distant outer-space missions. I...

                    It's also whether there is enough of an audience for that content right now,

                    I think there is an audience for this content. I think a lot of people are interested in space exploration, from rocketry experiments here on the ground to the most distant outer-space missions. I might not be one of those people, but there's no denying that space exploration is a very popular topic.

                    3 votes
                    1. cfabbro
                      (edited )
                      Link Parent
                      Possibly... but I have my doubts that the interest goes beyond the superficial and occasional in most cases, so having a top-level group dedicated solely to it might be a bit much, at least right...

                      Possibly... but I have my doubts that the interest goes beyond the superficial and occasional in most cases, so having a top-level group dedicated solely to it might be a bit much, at least right now. I could be wrong though, and it might be worth giving it a trial period. I'm sure it'll be brought up if/when Deimos does another new groups suggestion topic, so we shall see.

                  2. [2]
                    sqew
                    Link Parent
                    Definitely a fair point :) It'd be nice if we had a mechanism to "trial" things like this on a temporary basis, essentially give them a few weeks to see if they're worth keeping around and get...

                    Definitely a fair point :)

                    It'd be nice if we had a mechanism to "trial" things like this on a temporary basis, essentially give them a few weeks to see if they're worth keeping around and get enough participation.

                    1 vote
                    1. cfabbro
                      Link Parent
                      We kinda do: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/342/daily_tildes_discussion_proposals_for_trial_groups_round_1 Deimos just never did a round 2 after that. :P But he did mention below that it...

                      It'd be nice if we had a mechanism to "trial" things like this on a temporary basis, essentially give them a few weeks to see if they're worth keeping around and get enough participation.

                      We kinda do:
                      https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/342/daily_tildes_discussion_proposals_for_trial_groups_round_1

                      Deimos just never did a round 2 after that. :P But he did mention below that it might be time to add some more groups, so another new group trial period might be incoming.

                      3 votes
          2. [6]
            Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            Great. Another “space” forum where the content I'm interested in will be drowned out by news about the toys that Elon Musk and Richard Branson are building. Why can't science-related content be in...

            Great. Another “space” forum where the content I'm interested in will be drowned out by news about the toys that Elon Musk and Richard Branson are building. Why can't science-related content be in the science group? I'm going to miss interesting stuff because there's no way I can add enough filters to block the content I don't want to see - so I won't subscribe to ~space, just like I unsubscribed from ~games because I can't find the boardgames posts among the numerous posts about computer games.

            1. [5]
              cfabbro
              Link Parent
              https://tildes.net/?tag=board_games https://tildes.net/?tag=cosmology https://tildes.net/?tag=astrophysics https://tildes.net/?tag=astronomy https://tildes.net/?tag=exobiology And in the future:...
              6 votes
              1. [4]
                Algernon_Asimov
                Link Parent
                You're teaching me how to search by tags? You cheeky monkey! :P Of course, this approach could just as easily solve the space buffs' problems as mine: https://tildes.net/?tag=rocketry...
                1 vote
                1. [3]
                  cfabbro
                  Link Parent
                  Sure, but IMO it makes way more sense to bundle all the myriad space related tags into a single unifying group, especially since the majority of people interested in one tend to be similarly...

                  Sure, but IMO it makes way more sense to bundle all the myriad space related tags into a single unifying group, especially since the majority of people interested in one tend to be similarly interested in the others, than it does to continue to have them spread out over ~news, ~tech, ~science, ~misc, and even ~creative (in the case of amateur stellar photography).

                  Another factor here is that the list of space industry, exploration, mission, etc. related tags is likely to continually change and grow over time, which is a PITA to maintain a running list of, whereas with the very specific space related hard-science subjects you're exclusively interested in, the tags are unlikely to change much over time since they're particular fields of study.

                  2 votes
                  1. [2]
                    Algernon_Asimov
                    Link Parent
                    This hypothetical ~space group is going to include photographs?! Well, there goes the neighbourhood. That's definitely not a group I would subscribe to. Luckily, this is all hypothetical. I doubt...

                    even ~creative (in the case of amateur stellar photography).

                    This hypothetical ~space group is going to include photographs?! Well, there goes the neighbourhood. That's definitely not a group I would subscribe to.

                    Luckily, this is all hypothetical. I doubt Deimos is going to create more new groups any time soon. So I don't have to worry.

                    1 vote
        2. [4]
          Quanttek
          Link Parent
          Wouldn't rocketry stuff be perfectly fit for ~tech? Keep in mind that it's not limited to IT but can include all kinds of technology

          Wouldn't rocketry stuff be perfectly fit for ~tech? Keep in mind that it's not limited to IT but can include all kinds of technology

          1 vote
          1. [3]
            sqew
            Link Parent
            My main personal reason for not wanting all of the spaceflight posts around here to be in ~tech is that a lot of things that are discussed on spaceflight content tend to stray outside of the main...

            My main personal reason for not wanting all of the spaceflight posts around here to be in ~tech is that a lot of things that are discussed on spaceflight content tend to stray outside of the main realm of tech.

            You've got plenty of posts about material science and flight hardware that could fit (although many would stray towards ~science material), but you've also got plenty of things about human biology in space, social science viewpoints about long term flight and colonization, etc.

            Space exploration has such a strong mix of so many different fields that it seems like a good idea to have a central place for people who are interested to discuss things rather than spread posts across 2-3 different groups.

            4 votes
            1. [2]
              spit-evil-olive-tips
              Link Parent
              When I read a space-ish article and ask myself if it's worth posting on Tildes, my next question is usually whether it would fit better in ~science or ~tech. But...I'm not sure that means there...

              When I read a space-ish article and ask myself if it's worth posting on Tildes, my next question is usually whether it would fit better in ~science or ~tech.

              But...I'm not sure that means there should be a separate ~space group separate from ~science and ~tech. There's certainly overlap, but also a healthy divergence between ~science space topics (exoplanets, black holes, dark matter) and ~tech space topics (SpaceX using 3rd-printed rocket engines, Jeff Bezos declaring himself Prime Overseer of Mars, etc)

              So instead, what I think we're missing is the much-talked-about subgroup support (specifically, supporting users who are interested in ~science but not ~science.space), and then on top of that some way of having ~space that's not quite a full-blown ~ in the same way that ~news or ~tildes is, but is a "multi-reddit" of sorts that combines ~science.space and ~tech.space and ~creative.space (for astrophotography) and ~games.space (for Kerbal Space Program) and so on.

              1 vote
              1. sqew
                Link Parent
                The endgame should definitely be to have subgroups that can be browsed as one but also "bubble up" to what's above them. There was some super cool discussion that I remember from about a year ago...

                The endgame should definitely be to have subgroups that can be browsed as one but also "bubble up" to what's above them. There was some super cool discussion that I remember from about a year ago about fancy graph structures that would allow some really fascinating mechanics for that.

    2. [3]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      This sounds more of a personal dislike than an argument against a space group. The tildes mechanism which solves this would be tag filtering.

      This sounds more of a personal dislike than an argument against a space group. The tildes mechanism which solves this would be tag filtering.

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        And having a space group is a personal like. It's all about balancing people's likes and dislikes.

        And having a space group is a personal like. It's all about balancing people's likes and dislikes.

        1. unknown user
          Link Parent
          Well, that's not always clear. It's clear that "spacex" is not a top level group, under any circumstances, despite my like for topics related to it—which shows that group hierarchy has more to it...

          Well, that's not always clear. It's clear that "spacex" is not a top level group, under any circumstances, despite my like for topics related to it—which shows that group hierarchy has more to it than just personal favorites. Whereas arguing against a "space" group because it will contain posts you don't care about—something Tildes already provides a mechanism to solve—seems relatively more subjective than group hierarchy.

          5 votes
    3. [5]
      Algernon_Asimov
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I've re-read @sqew's post more carefully (EDIT: but not carefully enough to get the username right!). I notice that the request is for a group about space exploration, and specifically excludes...

      Space exploration, on the other hand, doesn't really fit in either. It's not exactly ~tech material, and it's also not really the right material for ~science, since much of it isn't about specific new discoveries or studies, etc. If we had an ~engineering, I would say that that would be the correct place for space discussion, but we don't have one.

      I've re-read @sqew's post more carefully (EDIT: but not carefully enough to get the username right!). I notice that the request is for a group about space exploration, and specifically excludes "new discoveries or studies". In other words, this is quite similar to the ~rocketry group I keep going on about (as I pointed out down-thread), and wouldn't include the space-related sciences that I've been concerned about.

      I went off half-cocked. I was arguing against a suggestion that hadn't been made. I would support a ~space group about space exploration and excluding the space-related sciences - it's pretty much what I wanted all along. I just lacked reading skills.

      Sorry for the fuss.

      FYI: @cfabbro

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        sqew
        Link Parent
        Sorry I've been offline for a while and missed the activity on my own discussion post! I definitely agree with you that the "hard science" posts about space topics should stay in ~science. Things...

        Sorry I've been offline for a while and missed the activity on my own discussion post!

        I definitely agree with you that the "hard science" posts about space topics should stay in ~science. Things like exoplanets, asteroids, gravitational waves, etc. All of that certainly belongs in that community.

        My idea for ~space (or ~rocketry, as you mentioned), is basically just a group to capture all of the stuff about NASA, ULA, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and friends, along with all the other news about the launch industry, future vehicles, colonization, bases, and other things that go on in the realm of human and robotic spaceflight (upon further thought, ~spaceflight could be another solid name for the hypothetical group).

        Looking at space exploration Twitter, r/spacex on reddit, NSF, and other areas for discussing the field, I would argue that there's plenty of material produced daily to support good discussion on Tildes. Based on the people I've seen here mentioning an interest in spaceflight, I think we could have some interesting dialogue.

        7 votes
        1. Algernon_Asimov
          Link Parent
          Thanks for clearing that up! (Although most of the confusion was of my own making, because I seem to lack reading comprehension skills.)
          • Exemplary

          Thanks for clearing that up!

          (Although most of the confusion was of my own making, because I seem to lack reading comprehension skills.)

          3 votes
      2. [2]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        Hey, you keep pinging me but I'm not sure which comment you're talking about? I mean, I actually do want a ~space group but I don't remember arguing for it yet.

        Hey, you keep pinging me but I'm not sure which comment you're talking about?

        I mean, I actually do want a ~space group but I don't remember arguing for it yet.

        3 votes
  2. [9]
    Amarok
    Link
    @Deimos, perhaps it's time for another 'what groups would you like to see' thread. We've discussed creating some just to see if it prompts more of that type of content to be submitted. Perhaps it...

    @Deimos, perhaps it's time for another 'what groups would you like to see' thread. We've discussed creating some just to see if it prompts more of that type of content to be submitted. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't, I'd like to find out and see what happens.

    5 votes
    1. [8]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      Yeah, I've been hesitating on it for a while because the site's activity level has been pretty stable (and we honestly already have quite a few groups), but it's definitely been a long time since...

      Yeah, I've been hesitating on it for a while because the site's activity level has been pretty stable (and we honestly already have quite a few groups), but it's definitely been a long time since we added the last ones. So sure, I'll post another one sometime this week and see what comes up.

      6 votes
      1. [7]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Will this be for top-level groups only? Or will we have the option to suggest sub-groups?

        Will this be for top-level groups only? Or will we have the option to suggest sub-groups?

        2 votes
        1. [6]
          Deimos
          Link Parent
          I think both would be good, I've mentioned before that it might be good to try setting up some more-niche subgroups so that people feel more comfortable about posting more often about specific...

          I think both would be good, I've mentioned before that it might be good to try setting up some more-niche subgroups so that people feel more comfortable about posting more often about specific subjects. Some people have said they hesitate to post as much as they want to because they don't want to flood the whole site with some niche interest.

          9 votes
          1. Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            Time to polish up my list of potential sub-groups! So far, I've got one group suggestion and 15 sub-group suggestions ready to go when you make this post. :)

            Time to polish up my list of potential sub-groups! So far, I've got one group suggestion and 15 sub-group suggestions ready to go when you make this post. :)

            4 votes
          2. [4]
            Algernon_Asimov
            Link Parent
            By the way: the issue with unsubscribing from sub-groups still exists: if you unsubscribe from a sub-group, you still see that sub-group's posts if you're subscribed to its parent group.

            By the way: the issue with unsubscribing from sub-groups still exists: if you unsubscribe from a sub-group, you still see that sub-group's posts if you're subscribed to its parent group.

            3 votes
            1. [3]
              Deimos
              Link Parent
              Yep, hasn't mattered with ~tildes.official being the only one until now, but if we're going to start some other ones it'll need to be figured out.

              Yep, hasn't mattered with ~tildes.official being the only one until now, but if we're going to start some other ones it'll need to be figured out.

              4 votes
              1. [2]
                spit-evil-olive-tips
                Link Parent
                This is my naive assumption from not being familiar with the code, but this seems like it shouldn't be too hard to implement? If I subscribe to ~foo but unsubscribe from ~foo.bar, that's a clear...

                This is my naive assumption from not being familiar with the code, but this seems like it shouldn't be too hard to implement? If I subscribe to ~foo but unsubscribe from ~foo.bar, that's a clear intention that I don't care about ~foo.bar and shouldn't see any posts from it.

                Every time subgroups has come up, we seem to have gotten in a catch-22. There isn't enough traffic to justify creating them, people say "I'd post more if that subgroup existed but I don't want to feel like I'm spamming", and we don't create the subgroup because there's currently no value in differentiating between ~foo.bar and ~foo plus "bar" as a very commonly used tag.

                Maybe what we need is some kind of "provisional" status for subgroups, where they exist but only temporarily, and are likely to be killed off if they don't generate any interest? The way Stack Exchange ran beta Q&A sites may be a useful model for this.

                4 votes
                1. Eylrid
                  Link Parent
                  For me it's also a feeling of shouting into the void because the people who are interested in the topic may not see the post.

                  "I'd post more if that subgroup existed but I don't want to feel like I'm spamming"

                  For me it's also a feeling of shouting into the void because the people who are interested in the topic may not see the post.

                  2 votes
  3. [2]
    heady
    Link
    No, but you may be able to make ~%20 group.

    No, but you may be able to make ~%20 group.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. Deimos
        Link Parent
        Yes, tags and groups use the same restrictions deliberately, since a lot of tags are almost like "potential groups". Letters, numbers, and underscores (the spaces in tags are actually underscores...

        Yes, tags and groups use the same restrictions deliberately, since a lot of tags are almost like "potential groups". Letters, numbers, and underscores (the spaces in tags are actually underscores internally, just displayed as spaces), and dots to separate "segments" for the hierarchy.

        1 vote