17
votes
Calling them groups
I love this website can’t think of anything bad about it apart from really not liking that communities are called groups, I feel this is due in part to Facebook using it but also it’s such an over used term on the internet, could we not think of something more unique for tildes to call it’s communities
On Tildes, groups are called "groups" because they are groups that group content.
A community is a more abstract social dynamic composed of people that can emerge from a group and share borders with it.
When it comes to Tildes, AFAIK, a group without a community is feasible, while there can be no community without at least one group.
I like the way it is, both regarding naming and concepts.
I would disagree I think most people see group as a group of people not content
They are also groups of people since the people that subscribe to them form a group.
In practice, it is very unlikely that the issue you present will ever present itself.
When you say
it seems like you are saying it is just content
I'm sorry. I do make mistakes from time to time hahaha
Each group was made with content in mind, and they will always be created with that in mind, but they also automatically group people (subscribers or whatever); a prototype of what can eventually become a community in the proper sense (a group of people with specific social dynamics).
It’s ok we forgive you:)
I disagree. We need to make Tildes friendly. 'Groups' isn't friendly.
What would be both friendlier and reasonable?
Literally anything but 'groups'. Tildes, squiggles, accents, etc. 'Groups' strikes me as too mechanical.
I find that objection kinda weak. I just don't know if not being pleasant enough is a good argument in this case.
It's not merely about 'not being pleasant enough'. It's about branding. It's about the image we want to present. Who is Tildes for? I personally think 'Groups' is a huge turn off for less technical users. But it is exactly that demographic that Tildes needs right now, lest we become yet another Hacker News, Reddit, etc. Branding is important. What if Instagram were called 'Photodump'? Even if it were exactly the same app, I don't think it would have achieved anywhere near the success it enjoys currently. The same applies with Tildes and 'Groups'. Sure, 'Groups' may make the most sense semantically, but IMO being inviting to a wide variety of users is much more important.
As a heavy metal fan, hell worlds sounds quite pleasant.
I propose we call them Fuck Groups instead. We preserve the cold utilitarianism of Groups combined with the unpleasant and generally understood swear word Fuck.
are these groups for fucking? or a statement in opposition to groups?
Yes.
Aren't fuck groups kinda pleasant, though? I mean, fucking is generally considered a wonderful activity.
Fornication tires you out and can give you diseases if you're not careful, I don't see what's pleasant about that at all.
sometimes it even results in... shudder babies!
Doom Fortresses, Torture Chambers, Forbidden Zones...
What? How is 'groups' hostile? I feel the word is very neutral.
You're right, it is neutral. Neutral, however, is neither friendly nor welcoming.
Isn't that what a category is?
Get this: Tilde.
You can join a 'tilde' on a tildes.net, its sort of reminiscent of 'team', its a singular version of 'tildes', and I think it perfectly sums up what we have here.
Example (speech): "Hey, have you joined the tilde for that?", "The Music Tilde really has some great tracks on it lately",
Example (chat): "Hey, have you joined the ~ for that?", the Music~ is really bopping lately"
So Tildes is just a collection of tildes. I can live with that moniker.
that why I could actually justify the name being plural, which has been bugging me till now.
Or maybe "subtilde" by analogy with subreddit?
I would disagree. We are not reddit nor are we trying to attain 'reddit's culture and tactics, and calling tildes, 'subtildes' would ascribe too much to them and bring about that culture from the (in)direct association.
What about calling them "accents"
I personally dislike cutesy themed naming like that. If I was new here, I'd be like, "WTF are accents? How do I find groups?"
I would disagree with you as this site obviously has a learning curve and I think that is done intentionally
It's not even much of a learning curve I'd think; the tilde symbol is used as an accent in ñ and accents are one way to distinguish populations
Are you sure about that? Wikipedia has this to say (emphasis mine):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde#Connection_to_Spanish
But then I found this on another site while trying to find a source on the difference between a diacritic and an accent:
https://www.rennert.com/translations/resources/diacritics.htm
So I guess it depends on context and whether the speaker is drawing a distinction between the two or not?
Personally I always thought of ñ as having a diacritic and not an accent like those things on áéíóú.
No it’s not going to take you months to learn but I feel it’s been made in a unique way to attract a certain person not just your average Facebook user
It'll be familiar to some folks. Tildes' heritage is usenet and reddit, continuing that trend into new territory. The hierarchy here should help make the discovery more simple.
I imagine a new user just starting at the top level groups, which are just general topic categories. They'll click on what they are interested in, same as most sites.
When you click into something like ~music or ~science the sub-groups become apparent somehow, likely tied into the way tags work. As you drill down the hierarchy just opens up like a flower at each level.
An "accent" is how you pronounce a language, it says nothing about content. If I was a new user, I would be completely confused. In my view, the term "groups" follows Tildes' design philosophy which is to be clear and explicitly, requiring little to no interpretation from the user. So a group is called a "group", a comment is called "comment", a vote is called a "vote" and so on.
No silly business!
What do you think would be better? Some specific piece of vocabulary, like "subtilde", or a less overused word, like "community" or "room"?
How about calling it a Tile?
Then grouping a bunch of Tiles together makes a Mosaic, so people can share those the way multi-reddits work. And the name ends up being a fun little reference for a community that skews heavily towards nostalgic nerds from the "Old" Internet.
Yeah a Tile has nothing to do with a Tilde neither conceptually nor etymologically, but they're just one letter apart!
Yeah it sounds pretty incipient. It’s probably fine not being articulated clearly as long as Deimos is just one guy handling most things. The need for manifestos about what something is really for doesn’t really kick in until you have a bigger team.
I like the sentiment of stacking the terms that way. What is a group, really? It's a topic and it's built up of all the subgroups/subtopics that fork off from it in the hierarchy. It's also a community. I don't think anyone is married to the use of 'groups' as the moniker, that's just kinda what we fell into without thinking about it much.
I think from a design perspective it would probably behoove us to decide whether we want subgroupings to be focused on discussion topic or to be more descriptive of a community organized around it. The design philosophy there would inform how those things should work. If they're communities we'd be more tolerant of cross-posting and have more relaxed attitudes towards on-topic/off-topic posts. If they're primarily for segregating by topic then we'd be stricter on those things, leading to more focused discussions but also more duplication of threads and less cross-pollination between groups.
I agree with this sentiment (but really dislike "tiles" since it isn't obvious what that means in this context). I like the term "topics" or "groups" depending on how we want it to be organized.
I love this idea great thinking
I kind of like the term 'room' it brings the old IRC ideologies into play and seems a lot more inviting, open, and less-closed-in.
Tildes seems like a far cry from an IRC, right? Also if it resembles IRC rooms then it's probably overused as well, which is the problem we're having this discussion to solve.
Chatrooms in IRC are actually called "channels" though.
sometimes the community gets it right lol
On "community", see my other comment.
And a "room" is basically a chatroom, so that is not ideal.
I personally don't see anything wrong with "group".
I had a good think and couldn’t actually find an Alternative off the top of my head but if we all came together I’m sure we could come up with something. It might be just me that doesn’t like it everyone else might like that they are called groups just thought I would put out my opinion on it
What about squiggles? That sounds kind of cool,
We tried to decide on what we were going to call our specific brand of netizen for this website. I don't think we're going to be at any more of a consensus here...
I think the majority voted not to have one, which also seemed to be the hope Deimos had.
We never did figure out a good demonym after all those threads, did we?
I still like "tildoes" even though it's admittedly immature and self-deprecating.
The majority voted no demonym. It's even in the doc.
Tildos was my favorite too. Maybe we should move to have groups called Tildos?
I like "Tild~ers", for Tildes users. Thing is, we're not really the type of people that find this type of stuff fun.
I put my money on "Tilda Swinton's". Who would not want to be Tilda Swinton?
The Ancient One in Doctor Strange, probably.
That was an odd one.