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What purpose does Tildes serve that Reddit does not?
It's a question I'm sure has been asked in a better way many times before, but somehow I haven't found it in search so I'll just post it here.
It's a question I'm sure has been asked in a better way many times before, but somehow I haven't found it in search so I'll just post it here.
Take a look at https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes, it covers exactly this.
All the "Philsophy" entries on docs.tildes.net go into more depth, too:
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/content
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/people
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/privacy
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/site-design
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/site-implementation
Also worth checking out:
https://docs.tildes.net/future-plans
(major thanks to @Algernon_Asimov for rewriting/reorganizing all the Tildes official documents)
You know you could just link to the Philosophy landing page? ;)
TIL the folders have landing page. :P
How are you viewing those pages? It seems like you're viewing them via the wiki in ~tildes.official. That's just the working draft copy. The actual final version is on https://docs.tildes.net/ (where it always was). Start there, and everything is nicely laid out and categorised, with landing pages and cross-links and everything.
Heh, I actually did go to the docs.tildes site... it's just that I got feature blindness to the main landing page (since I am so used to it being out of date and kind of useless) and so didn't realize it now linked to the other category/folder landing pages. It's also 1:30am and I have been up for well over 24hrs now. At least that's my excuse for being an idiot and I'm sticking to it! ;)
Tilderinos as a community aren't a hivemind, but because of the ethos here the real jerks (and their enablers) don't tend to last long. Reddit has been tolerant of fascists and white supremacists, but they get called out and banned on Tildes - even if they can avoid throwing around outright slurs. I think that is really important. There's also a focus on more substantive conversations and throw away comments or pun threads are heavily frowned on. Deimos is willing to step in and end back-and-forths that venture into counter productive territory or which become too focused on attacking other participants. All this with zero advertising or selling of user data - and a commitment to stay that way.
Nope. Nuh uh. Aint happening bud.
How that failed to make the cut I will never be able to fully fathom.
Bullet dodged. I'm proud of y'all.
Tilderinos: There are handfuls of us
How about Tiddlers?
Those of us with an affinity for felines can be kitty tiddlers, nothing can be misunderstood about that.
Or Tindies?
It's a thing and you cant stop it.
Tilditors.
Tildistas.
Tildustaceans.
Squiggly people.
Home invaders.
If you're talking about what features Tildes provides to users that Reddit does not... honestly, nothing. Tildes and Reddit are direct competitors as link aggregators. In fact, Reddit offers a wider feature set than Tildes because Reddit is a far more developed website. Tildes has tagging on topics, which Reddit does not - but that's not a necessary feature for most users, nor is its usage greatly supported on Tildes (yet). Tildes offers more in-depth discussion, but there are spaces on Reddit where that is available. Reddit also offers users other people to interact with: it has about 1,000 times the number of people on it that Tildes does.
Feature for feature, function for function, Reddit beats Tildes hands down.
But I'm not here for the features. I'm here for the philosophy behind those features, and for the different types of people who will be attracted here by that philosophy.
For starters, Tildes is focussed more on high-quality content and in-depth discussion. While these are also available on Reddit, they are the minority there, while they're the majority here. The signal-to-noise ratio is much higher on Tildes than on Reddit.
Tildes also aims to have a less tolerant culture for nastiness and bigotry than Reddit. You're much less likely to be insulted or attacked on Tildes than Reddit - and, if it does happen here, it won't be tolerated.
Tildes is also non-profit. The not-for-profit corporation behind Tildes is not trying to make money off me. It's not trying to monetise my views by serving advertisements to me.
The philosophy behind the development and design is more inclusive on Tildes. Reddit recently redesigned its website, and it was a very top-down "you'll take what you're given" process, despite a supposed desire for user feedback - which was usually ignored. On Tildes, user feedback on the development on the website is heard by the developer. He might not do everything that everyone wants, but we know he's actually listening to our feedback and actively considering our input.
As a link aggregator website, Tildes can't compete with Reddit. As a community, it's miles ahead.
What happens when Tildes gets too big? Do we all move on to the next small website and abandon this one? Is that how we keep ahead of the nastiness - always jumping to the next new site?
Can't we stop somewhere and claim it as our own oasis of niceness?
Well why not? Death is a natural part of life.
I never really thought of it that way. I've been too caught up with looking for a permanent place, I didn't stop to realize that all things are temporary, and the only value they offer is in the here and now. Eventually, Tildes will become stale, or experience an eternal September, or something, and we'll have to move on...and that's OK! Tildes's value is in providing a great place to discuss topics today. That's all we can really ask for.
Absolutely! I love my experience with tildes right now and trying to make the best of it. And I hope it lasts but there's no reason to think it will be like that forever, at which point if I'm no longer happy I'll move on to something else.
The other answers already touch on the high-level ideas, so I'm going to focus on giving you a concrete piece of anecdotal experience.
On reddit, I've always been hesitant to reply to a comment. You can spend a lot of time thoughtfully considering how your comment will be interpreted and carefully phrasing it so that you can effectively communicate your thoughts, but in the end there will almost inevitably be at least one asshole who comes along and insults you or tears apart your comment because they disagree with you. Hell, just a couple of days ago I tried commenting on reddit again with a new account. Big mistake. Almost immediately some armchair "intellectual" suggested that I hadn't thought the subject through at all. Sure, the comment gained 50 karma, but that rude, condescending, toxic comment apparently had a decent amount of support from other readers.
On top of that, it's almost impossible to find quality discussions in the comments. Find any article and you'll find puns, platitudes, soundbites, and dismissive and defeatist tones everywhere. You can go into the comments hoping to find one person--just one single person--who might have brought up a small but important point on the subject at hand, but you'll have to dig through a sea of comments just to find it if it exists at all. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've thought "did I really have to scroll this far down to find this comment?"
I've never had that problem with Tildes. The mechanics on this site make even fairly popular "noise" comments less likely to be seen, because the "noise" tag drops the comment right down to the bottom with the rest of the "noise". I can find the content that actually has value with very little effort. People still get heated, but the culture surrounding this community is one that discourages toxicity and punishes those who refuse to cease its spread, keeping the overall level of toxicity to a minimum and creating a positive feedback loop that further encourages people to continue being civil and engaged.
For me, reddit feels like being in a large building full of grouchy people who you're afraid to accidentally bump into because you just know they'll start screaming at you, whereas Tildes feels like a warm home where sometimes you'll get in an argument with your family/roommates, but still want to have a good meal together when everything has simmered down. That purpose has been more than enough to keep me sticking around.
That's interesting, because for me it's the other way around. I comment on reddit a lot more often than I do here. There are a lot of comments I make on reddit that are on the lighter side that I wouldn't make here. I don't repeat meme phrases or any straight garbage like that, but I do like to throw some jokes around. That greases the wheels and makes me more comfortable making more serious comments when it's warranted.
I mostly stick to small niche subs and avoid the most toxic ones, so I don't get that many toxic replies. The ones I do get I've learned to mostly ignore.
I find Tildes an intimidating place to comment. I often feel like the Carla Ulbrich song Nothing to Say. There's these high-brow comments and me feeling like I don't have that many Capital I Important things to say.
Reddit has a undeniable signal to noise problem. There's way too much garbage comments and content. And focusing on high quality is a good thing. But I think It's possible to swing too far to the other extreme. By putting so much focus on keeping out noise we risk losing some of the signal. Finding the right balance is difficult.
Not all worthwhile comments are Capital I Important. A moderate amount of fun can be a social lubricant that loosens people up and gets them talking. Tildes could use more people talking. There are a lot of posts that only get a few if any comments.
You don't have to provide time-consuming high-brow commentary all the time. There are other ways to contribute, like asking interesting questions, writing about your life experiences, or posting links to material you're deeply engaged with that others might find useful. One of the most uncomfortable acts in life is to be genuine, without even accounting for all the ways other social media have encouraged and rewarded fake personas. Jokes as social "grease" are far more prevalent online than they are in FTF life, and they shouldn't have to be.
I don't think Tildes intends to ban fun, but humor can be a risky business. The basis of many jokes involves denigrating a person or group, and that's generally not okay here.
Tildes culture is conservative about spending time and attention, in resistance to commercial social media that encourage profligate time-wasting on trivia. Most Tilders would rather threads stay on topic and relevant; wading through long tangles of banter is part of the signal-to-noise problem, as others have mentioned.
It also depends on what ~ group you're in; ~talk is more likely to welcome in-context jokes than ~science. Ultimately, there will be sub-groups which evolve their own sub-cultures, that may have more relaxed and less formal ways to engage.
I agree that there is the danger of Tildes becoming (or already being) somewhat stodgy. I also agree that there should be room for fun, but from what I see, there's usually something going in ~talk at any given time where people can let their hair down. This partially ties into the idea about getting folks with more diversity of interests on the site. I've wondered what a ~relationship_advice would look like, or ~sex, for example. Would it be any better than on reddit? I can't help but imagine they'd be like lead balloons with our current userbase, but there's no reason things have to be that way. High-quality discussion doesn't necessarily have to mean scientific, intellectual, theoretical, etc. It would be amazing if we could be just as insightful in our discussions that require empathy for our fellow users.
Still, I'm all for us developing a culture that encourages some sort of minimum from users if it can discourage the kind of validation-seeking that contributes to noise. The overwhelming majority of what we think is only really of value to us having the thoughts. It goes back to the adage about us having two ears and one mouth for a reason. So, when you say this:
... personally, I don't see that as necessarily a problem in and of itself, and I've probably deleted just as many comments after typing them up, if not more, than I've actually posted. Sometimes all the important stuff has actually already been said! That's no reflection on me, or you. On top of that, the easiest (and often best) way to contribute to a discussion is by asking questions. In my online experience, a sincere question is always more valuable than a self-indulgent, well-cited editorial.
That'll wash out a bit as the userbase grows. Slashdot and Reddit both had stodgy periods when they were young - at least we haven't got reddit's old grammar nazi problem.
Slashdot had a stodgy period? Judging by how the site is today, that's crazy to think there was a time it was too uptight about the comments. Left the site after years of reading because it became so ridiculously toxic.
This is a problem I think tildes has to grapple with. There are plenty of comments that are not noise, that contribute to the conversation, but which are not high brow comments with research and footnotes. It's a shame that some people feel less able to make useful contributions here.
Tildes code development and feature brainstorming are all done out in the open, where anyone can contribute to the discussions about the site's direction, and anyone can contribute to the code to add whatever features they'd like to see. It's all tested openly in public with lots of user feedback too. A real open source 'reddit' where people take the conversations from places like /r/theroyofreddit and /r/ideasfortheadmins and /r/announcements seriously. The community is involved in the direction of the site, and their donations are the lever to keep it all open and honest. There's no profit motive, instead the only real motive is to build a site that facilitates discussions and builds communities.
Mainly, what @algernon_asimov said, though he might have glossed over some subtle but important feature differences.
Once you strip away the need to engage as many people as possible for maximum eyeballs-on-ads, you no longer have to promote content aimed for the limbic system, or encourage people to stop paying attention to each other as individuals.
Tildes early adopters generally had deep or broad experience with a wide range of social media platforms, some dating back to BBS, Usenet, and IRC. We've seen every variation on flame wars, trolling, dog-piling, brigading, sock puppets, bots, lawless black hole sub-groups, and other dysfunctions. There are many Tilders with substantive Reddit moderation experience.
One of the distinguishing elements in Tildes is a deliberate attempt to do better and create a social architecture for lasting, civil communities, without so much need for constant moderator intervention.
There's been a concerted, community-driven effort to design a more sophisticated framework for rewarding the content that keeps people engaging in a sustained, considered way, and discouraging behaviours that are detrimental to a shared forum.
Tildes mechanics reward effort towards better quality and reasoned discourse. In addition to generic upvoting, exemplary tags grant higher comment ranking in a thread, but users are rate-limited in awarding them, and have to provide a justification.
There are no generic downvotes, but there are ways to label posts and comments that manifest ill-will or otherwise fail to generate quality discussion - again, with justification required.
You can't follow or block other users, but you can easily see user history if you're unsure whether a poster is reputable and trustworthy.
New posts aren't labeled by poster, so filter bubbles and cults of personality are less likely. You have to exert some effort to create filter rules if you really want to emphasize narrow interests.
These seemingly subtle changes resulted from a great deal of group deliberation.
The whole project is open-source, secured for user privacy (minimal logging, end-to-end encrypted, two-factor authentication, etc.), and the code base is fully visible to all concerned.
Though @Deimos remains a BDFL for now, there are other contributors who are capable of assuming architect, developer, and administrator roles if needed. It's still early days - more formal governance may be required as the site grows, but we're doing okay with a broadly demarchic, minimally despotic arrangement right now.
On a personal level, I've found that Tildes is where I go to learn new things, or philosophize in public. There are genuinely deep thinkers here, people who aren't posturing for drama points, or debating to draw metaphorical blood. It's been a long time since I've felt so comfortable, even though I'm not a member of the majority demographic in many respects.
The source is the demographics survey. It's been a while since the last one.
I don't have to suffer through the endless joke comments. I can't tell you how many times I've read, "to shreds, you say?" or something similar. Doesn't matter the article or nature of the discussion.
Tildes feels like a room full of grownups. It's nice that there's not a bunch of people just saying stuff for attention.
This is precisely why Tildes doesn't aggregate vote totals. There are no badges and no trophies, and the only "score" to speak of is the vote for a particular comment or topic. Votes are even specifically engineered to be something you have to seek out (comment votes being located at the very bottom without being eye-catching, and topic votes being on the far right away from the rest of the information like title and tags), rather than being something that your eyes are immediately drawn to. The entire philosophy in Tildes' design is to minimize the user's focus on scoring and keep their attention primarily on the content itself.
The effects of incentives to raise scores are fairly well-known and something that Deimos has paid particular attention to for that very reason :)
Haha, that's alright. It's probably a conditioned response from the toxic state of social media. It takes a while to readjust.
Can confirm! Sometimes I see the new comment notification in the top right corner and I bristle a bit, expecting the worst, despite the fact that I've had almost universally positive experiences in my comments with others on this site.
I also worry sometimes that a neutrally worded comment from me can come across as mean or angry to others. I worry about this, because, like @suspended, I sometimes find myself reading others' neutral comments in a default harsh tone. I have to consciously break the negative lock-on my brain seems to have and realize that the person is probably writing their response matter-of-factly or even casually.
I come here because I liked the idea of reddit. I liked the idea of aggregating and user-curating content and then having conversations around said content. But, after many years of dealing with reddit, I now yearn to read thoughtful posts and post thoughtful replies that I know won't just automatically be shat upon by a horde of knee jerks. It always seems like everyone on reddit is looking for someone to be WRONG on the INTERNET. That is increasingly tiring. So Tildes is like reddit, but not a pain in the ass. I also like that it seems built with an eye to keeping it that way.
Reddit can be okay. The real point of departure I have is Hacker News. THAT place is weapons grade toxic with too many argumentative people at every turn
Just take a look at this post for an example. You ask a simple question and you get nearly 50 comments, each consisting of high-quality discussion and ideas. On r/askreddit or wherever else, you'd get maybe a few real subpar answers and tons of dumb puns or jokes.
On Tildes being nice is not just a suggestion, it’s actually enforced.
So I guess Tildes serve the purpose of being a place to have nice conversations.
Eh... people can still be dicks here on occasion. Lord knows I have been guilty of being that here sometimes too. However, generally people here do at least seem more willing to recognize when they go too far, apologize for it, and earnestly try not to do it again.
And while niceness is not exactly enforced, at least for those that staunchly refuse to even admit any fault in their actions when they are being a dick, and regularly exhibit such behavior, there is the real potential here to be banned from the site for it, unlike on reddit. Plus, Tildes being invite only means bans actually have teeth, since the person can't just create a new account immediately without at least some level of subterfuge to get another invite.
I’d say it is not only enforced, but also effective. I was subject to reprimands myself. I think it was fair and promptly recognized my mistake.
"Be nice or get out" is a form of enforcement.
"Be nice or get out" is not an entirely accurate depiction of the situation though, which is precisely my point. There are varying degrees of enforcement here and niceness is not the be-all and end-all. Someone can still be "not nice" frequently and even a dick (on occasion) but not get banned for it, as there are mitigating factors involved. It's just unapologetic, habitual, total dicks that tend to go bye bye.
I was focussing on this part of your comment:
But niceness is enforced. And one of the ways it is enforced by banning "unapologetic, habitual, total dicks".
Enforced means forced, mandatory and/or compulsory. And IMO "Niceness" is none of those things here (although it is encouraged), and while being the opposite of nice (i.e. being a dick) can get you banned, there is still a myriad of behavior in between "nice" and "dick" that is perfectly acceptable here.
Yes, I know that's what you were doing, and it's remarkably annoying when you do that since it completely ignores the rest of people's sentences/paragraphs which provide further clarification of their meaning and completely ignores the context. And by doing that you also usually wind up turning things into needless, pedantic bickering over semantic minutiae rather than adding anything substantive to the discussion... which is exactly what is happening here IMO.
I disagree that niceness is not enforced on Tildes. I believe that statement is false. And it's an important statement, because it goes to the core of how Tildes works, what culture is desired here, and how that culture is created and reinforced. A discussion about whether niceness is enforced here or not is therefore not "pedantic bickering over semantic minutiae".
People are forced to be nice here because if they are not nice, their ability to participate is removed. Banning someone for not being nice is a form of enforcement. When there is a negative consequence to not doing something, then this is considered enforcement. When someone receives a fine for exceeding the speed limit, then driving below the speed limit is being enforced. When someone is ejected from a bar for being violent, then being non-violent is being enforced.
So, saying that being nice here is not really enforced is untrue. It is enforced. "Be nice or get out" is a form of enforcement.
The reason why it's about to lead to "pedantic bickering over semantic minutiae" (regardless of who is at fault) is that the answer to your line of reasoning here is that you just mean something different by "nice". Is niceness the absence of meanness, or is it doing something positive? You can act neutrally toward others on Tildes and not be told to get out. Is speaking neutrally toward someone a way of being nice? Depends how you're using the word and how you define it, a conversation that most would rather not have happen.
Alternatively, it's the same kind of thing about what "enforcement" means.
Here's my context for being "nice":
"Now, you kids play nice! If there's any shouting or fighting or crying like last time, I'm going to come back in here and take away all your toys. You hear me? So play nice."
The main difference to me is the community and quality of content. I generally lurk on Reddit for content that is easy and quick to consume, such as cute kitty pics and funny comics. Perhaps because I've been on Tildes near the beginning, I find the community here much easier to engage with, so content and leading discussions are generally more in-depth and thoughtful. Not that you can't find that level on Reddit, but more that it's not necessarily what I would look for there. Also, Tildes is Canadian, and there's a subtle difference from Reddit, though it seems most members are American on both.
Edit to add:. I can't believe I forgot to include that Tildes is ad-free!
The difference is that people here tend to be mature (no "adulting" nonsense, e.g. ""oooh I filled the coalchute today"), polite, and above all reasonable.