• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. Tildes fundraiser June 2023: Encourage an app developer (me) to work on a Tildes app faster, by donating to Tildes (not me)!

      Hey Tildes, with the renewed interest in the site, it got me thinking that we should hold a fundraiser for the not-for-profit company—which currently consists of just one person—that runs Tildes....

      Hey Tildes, with the renewed interest in the site, it got me thinking that we should hold a fundraiser for the not-for-profit company—which currently consists of just one person—that runs Tildes. It's overdue.

      Disclaimer: These are my words as a member of the community. I haven't run this message by the admin before posting. I may have gotten some details wrong.

      Where to donate

      History

      A bit of history: The site admin, @Deimos ran the first three years of the site working full-time on it, paid only by donations, plus a $5000 GitHub sponsor match one year, which I'm not even sure was fully achieved, or only just barely.

      For that time period 2018-2020, a lowball salary as a software engineer with his experience would have been $100,000 USD per year not including benefits.

      If he received $5000 in donations per year (almost certainly an overestimate for more recent years) plus the $5000 GitHub match for the first year—for the 5 years of Tildes' life, that's about $30,000.

      The remaining opportunity cost of $270,000 was essentially paid out of pocket by himself, as a donation to the community. Plus remember there are server expenses, legal incorporation expenses, etc. And, y'know, rent.

      In recent years he had to take a full-time job because the situation was, of course, unsustainable.

      App?

      I announced in April that a mobile app is under development. Originally, I was planning to take my time and release a first alpha by the end of 2023.

      How about if we struck a deal: get the donation numbers up and I will devote more time to the app, as opposed to splitting my time between it and contract work and other projects.

      What's the deal?

      • 150 active donors combined on GitHub Sponsors and Patreon—I'll release an alpha by November.
        GOAL REACHED
      • 300 active donors—I'll release an alpha by October.
        GOAL REACHED
      • 500 active donors—I'll release an alpha by September.

      The dollar amounts don't matter.

      As of writing, we are at 46 active donors.

      What's in it for you, though?

      Feeling like I did a good deed, I guess? I'm not looking for a "slice of the pie," to be clear. In some sense I'd be matching your donations with my time, aka opportunity cost.

      If I donate, can I bother the admin to work more on the site?

      No.

      Again, I haven't run this fundraiser by the admin. He will certainly keep his full-time employment for the foreseeable future, and will not magically have more hours in the day to devote to Tildes.

      With a sustainable budget, though, a lot can happen in the future. Contracting out work to others, for example.

      But the point of this fundraiser is more to make a small dent in the past debt we owe the admin, not making any promises whatsoever on the future of the site and how it's run.

      Let's go, my fellow Tilderinos!

      313 votes
    2. Can I just say that the 'label' function on this site is magnificent?

      I'm coming as a Reddit refugee from the most recent API shenanigans. I've had a few people drop Gold on my comments over there, and it's a nice little 'oh hey, look at that' but it's never been...

      I'm coming as a Reddit refugee from the most recent API shenanigans. I've had a few people drop Gold on my comments over there, and it's a nice little 'oh hey, look at that' but it's never been really particularly important to me.

      I just made a comment on here the other day that I put a little bit of thought and effort into - nothing crazy, but really did my best to try to explain my perspective - and every single 'exemplary' that post has gotten has meant more to me than any of the awards or upvotes I would get on Reddit. Just the simple act of including a small message of appreciation with exemplaries makes it mean so much more; every one of them has made me feel more and more like I did a good job and maybe actually informed some people, did some good in the world and all that.

      68 votes
    3. How has the Reddit drama affected the quality of conversations on here?

      I think we all know how redditors can be negative nancies looking for the next user to argue with, so I'm curious to know from the peeps that were here before the redditors: has the quality of...

      I think we all know how redditors can be negative nancies looking for the next user to argue with, so I'm curious to know from the peeps that were here before the redditors: has the quality of conversation and sense of community changed (either positively or negatively) since us redditors showed up?

      80 votes
    4. Label for appreciated course corrections

      With Tildes having a distinctive approach to content and comments I found that I was missing an option. Without calling out anyone someone posted a submission today that was simply an image...

      With Tildes having a distinctive approach to content and comments I found that I was missing an option.
      Without calling out anyone someone posted a submission today that was simply an image collection. I did invite them to also post a bit more about as a comment starter, which they did.

      I naturally gave their comment an upvote. But I found myself wanting to reward them a bit more for their recognition. I could go for exemplary as label, in fact I did. But I can't help but feel that I am missing a meta label that is positive but doesn't weigh as heavy.

      How do other people look at this?

      21 votes
    5. New users: Ask your questions about Tildes here!

      This thread is officially retired. Please see the new version to ask any new questions. We have a lot of new users joining the site. Welcome to Tildes! This thread is for you to ask any question...

      This thread is officially retired. Please see the new version to ask any new questions.


      We have a lot of new users joining the site. Welcome to Tildes!

      This thread is for you to ask any question you have about the site, from “what is the moderation philosophy?”to “what does that blue line next to some comments mean?” to “what is the general vibe like here?” Tildes has a lot of documentation, history, and embedded social norms that can be daunting or opaque at first glance, so here’s your opportunity to get help with anything you need.

      Questions about anything and everything are fair game. Follow-up questions are encouraged! No question is too simple.

      Also, a quick note: the only person who can speak in any official capacity on Tildes is our admin @Deimos. Everyone answering who is NOT him is just a helpful community member!

      EDIT: To be clear, is perfectly okay to ask any question — even if you think it’s been asked before, or even if you didn’t search for an answer beforehand. There are an overwhelming number of comments here to sift through, so don’t worry about trying to read all of them. Just ask away, and someone will answer you!

      294 votes
    6. Are there any plans for image-based communities?

      I've noticed that there are primarily text posts with some links thrown in, and I do like the "real" conversation that it brings, instead of the shitposting that ends up all over Reddit. I was...

      I've noticed that there are primarily text posts with some links thrown in, and I do like the "real" conversation that it brings, instead of the shitposting that ends up all over Reddit.

      I was curious, though, if there were any plans to add a ~pics or something similar. I know the goal of Tildes isn't to be a true Reddit replacement of course, but I wasn't sure whether image boards were planned or were being left out to help encourage actual discussion.

      40 votes
    7. Does Tildes *want* Reddit 'refugees'?

      The Reddit company is screwing up and upsetting a lot of their "power users" and mods. A lot of people are fed up with Reddit, and are possibly ready to move on to a new platform. Is Tildes that...

      The Reddit company is screwing up and upsetting a lot of their "power users" and mods. A lot of people are fed up with Reddit, and are possibly ready to move on to a new platform.

      Is Tildes that platform? I've lurked here for most of Tildes' life, and from that, my impression is that Tildes does not especially want to replace Reddit. A lot of people here like the small, intimate atmosphere. I've even noticed a bit of derision toward Reddit's lowbrow appeal.

      The reason I ask is because there are communities on Reddit that I don't want to see die. /r/Permaculture and /r/composting are some of my favorite places. I've gotten to know quite a few people who also frequent those places and I've come to enjoy the tone of conversations there.

      But this seems like an important question for Tildes to answer not just for my sake. Reddit is full of niche communities like this. If they have to go somewhere suddenly (and I realize that this is a big "if"), where do they go? I know that they technically can't come here suddenly--slowing growth is one of Tildes' features. But if Reddit's niche communities decided to move here, would you welcome them? I'm interested in what you, personally, think, as well as how you think Tildes as a whole would handle this.

      P.S. I'm also sorta asking for permission to invite /r/Permaculture and /r/composting over here. I like this website, but I'm just a lurker, and don't feel like I'm part of the Tildes community. It feels super presumptuous to invite my friends over here without asking. But I think the wider question is more important. Do you, and does Tildes, want Reddit's 'refugee' niche interest communities?

      Edit: Thank you all for the excellent responses! I don't have time now to respond individually, but I really appreciate the thought so many of you have put into your replies. This will help a lot in considering how to proceed over on Reddit.

      148 votes
    8. Are there any plans to publish an official API?

      I understand there are no plans to develop an official app, which is understandable to me as that would require a lot of time and resources for a project like this. But it's clear that there are...

      I understand there are no plans to develop an official app, which is understandable to me as that would require a lot of time and resources for a project like this.

      But it's clear that there are lots of devs eager to chime in and create an app by themselves, just like they did for Reddit. There's even one iOS app already in progress, although it relies on HTML parsing to retrieve the data obviously.

      So is there any official stance on this? Why not publish the API and let the community do its magic? Any thoughts?

      56 votes
    9. Tildes ReExtended has been updated and is also back on the Chrome Web Store again

      Howdy everyone! In talklittle's fundraiser I pledged I would fix all outstanding issues of Tildes ReExtended before 2023 is over should we reach 200 donors. Well the 200 donors mark was hit pretty...

      Howdy everyone! In talklittle's fundraiser I pledged I would fix all outstanding issues of Tildes ReExtended before 2023 is over should we reach 200 donors. Well the 200 donors mark was hit pretty quickly, so after over a year of inactivity I've gotten back to it and brought Tildes ReExtended up to speed again.

      Most of the work so far has been on getting the codebase up to par with my current preferences, but there is also a new feature and some bug fixes. Namely: the long-awaited Hide Topics feature with 4 different ways of selecting topics to automatically hide. The content scripts will run as soon as the HTML is available, meaning there should be less stuff popping in or out, the Hide Votes was also fixed so it now hides the correct votes again (yay edge cases Edit: I just noticed another edge case doesn't work :^) fuck). And also the extension is about 3.5 times smaller in size now (245KB -> 70KB). :D

      If you don't know what Tildes ReExtended is, it's basically the Tildes equivalent of the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension. Commonly requested features that can be implemented client-side (like the Hide Votes feature) and quality of life utilities like the Jump To New Comment and Back To Top buttons.

      Hope you like it!

      Giving the Chrome Web Store a second chance

      A number of years ago now as I was publishing a new version of Tildes ReExtended to the Chrome Web Store, their automated review process denied the new version without providing any reason that made sense, and weirdly threatening to take down the extension if the problems weren't addressed. After a wasted effort trying to talk to Google support, I decided to say fuck it and just remove it from CWS. Leaving the only way to install the extension for Chromium users being needlessly complicated and a pain in the ass.

      So with 2.0.0 I've decided to give CWS a second chance, initially I had more to say about it but I'm just gonna leave it out.


      If you're new to Tildes and like what you see, please consider donating! Tildes is a non-profit community site driven by its users' interests and any amount of support ensures it can keep going. Thank you! 💖

      95 votes
    10. Group updates for July 2023

      As I'm sure some of you have already noticed in your sidebars, I've just added a bunch of new groups based on the discussion we had last week. That ended up being a very large discussion with a...

      As I'm sure some of you have already noticed in your sidebars, I've just added a bunch of new groups based on the discussion we had last week. That ended up being a very large discussion with a ton of suggestions, and while we can't add everything, I am adding a fairly large set of groups this time. Some of these are definitely experimental, and I expect that we'll need to make some more adjustments based on how they actually do in practice.

      Before I get into the specific updates, there are a few general things I want to mention first:

      Many of the discussions about groups turn into debates about how things should be organized in the hierarchy. I want to try to clarify that the hierarchy is not intended to be some kind of perfectly logical system, or that there should never be any crossover, etc. The groups are more of a social organization method, like "for people interested in X".

      For example, a common suggestion is to add something like an "entertainment" top level group that could contain ~games, ~music, ~tv, etc. This makes sense from a logical perspective, but not if you're basing it on interest. Someone's interest in gaming content doesn't really have any influence on them being interested in talking about music. There are similar reasons for other cases like having ~comp outside of ~tech and ~anime outside of ~tv, even though they feel like they should fit inside. The current hierarchy certainly isn't perfect for this either (for example, ~hobbies is extremely broad), but it's the general idea.

      As part of this, I also want to mention that something being a sub-group instead of top-level shouldn't be seen as being "less important" or somehow inferior. As a convenient example, ~tildes.official is one of the most important groups on the site, but it was the first sub-group (and the only one for a year). It's not significant yet while we're still subscribing everyone to all groups by default, but when we move away from doing that, it could actually be an advantage to be a sub-group, since it would give a larger audience to its content through the parent one(s).

      And finally, I want to mention that expanding the groups (and having higher activity in general) makes it more pressing to improve the capabilities for controlling subscriptions, filtering out groups and tags, and so on. This is something I want to treat as a high priority as I get back into Tildes development. I know there are also some existing problems such as topics from sub-groups being shown inside the parent group even if you're unsubscribed from them, and I'm hoping to resolve that one this weekend.

      Anyway, on with the changes and some brief comments on each. Note that I still need to do some administrative tasks like adding descriptions to the groups and moving old topics into them, and will be doing that over the next day or so.


      • Added ~comics, ~engineering, ~transport, ~travel (everyone auto-subscribed)
        The subjects of these groups are currently kind of awkward to fit into the existing groups, and I think there's potential for good content and discussion in all of these.

      • Added ~life sub-groups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~life)

        Whether to create groups for men and women took up a lot of the air in the suggestions topic (and was the source of some strife—please don't restart that in here). I think it's worth trying them, but it's definitely an experiment. I also think it's important to have them be sub-groups, because having a common parent group enables posting similar topics without feeling like posting in one of them is a binary choice. Much like ~lgbt, moderation will be somewhat stricter for posts in these groups (and yes, we need a way for the site itself to indicate that).

        ~life.pets also needs some clarification: this will not be a group full of images. There will be a weekly scheduled post for posting photos and casual chat about pets (the first one will post tomorrow), but separate topics like that will be removed. The standard content in ~life.pets should be of a similar quality level to the rest of the site, such as articles, requests for discussion/advice, and so on.

      • Added ~sports sub-groups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~sports)

        This is also fairly experimental, and I don't know if we'll keep all of these sub-groups. I'd like to see if this can help encourage more posts about specific sports. I also don't like the name ~sports.american_football much at all, but I don't know what a better option is. Should we just call it ~sports.nfl? That's not quite right either.

      • Added ~health.mental (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~health)
        A lot of the topics in ~health are about mental health, and I think having a clearer separation could be useful (including having a more clearly defined space for stricter moderation, as mentioned before).

      • Added ~humanities subgroups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~humanities)

        History topics are probably the most common subject posted in ~humanities currently, and I'm curious if these subgroups will help encourage posting both more history and more non-history.

      • Removed ~games.game_design (topics merged into ~games)
        This group has always been quite inactive, and I don't think the few topics in it still need their own separate space from ~games right now.

      That's it for this time. If there were other suggestions that you were hoping to see that weren't added this time, don't take that as an indication that we won't add them someday. But this is already a lot of new groups (likely too many), and I had to stop somewhere. Let's revisit in a month or so once these new groups and the new users have had some time to settle.

      And as usual when making a ~tildes.official post, I've also topped up every current user's invites to 5: https://tildes.net/invite

      295 votes
    11. How do I filter out topics from subgroup?

      Unless I'm missing something, it seems if I subscribe to parent group but not its subgroups, the topics from subgroups still show anyway. Back when they were just tags at least I can use filter...

      Unless I'm missing something, it seems if I subscribe to parent group but not its subgroups, the topics from subgroups still show anyway. Back when they were just tags at least I can use filter but that doesn't work anymore. Is it just me or isn't that the opposite effect we'd expect from subgroups?

      Edit: Everyone explained that it's a bug. I'll just need to be patient then.

      17 votes
    12. Wide Tildes: A user-style for better utilization of large monitors

      Install from here: Wide Tildes on UserStyles.world Features Multiple columns on list pages Wider site on all pages Source @-moz-document domain("tildes.net") { header#site-header { width: 97vw; }...

      Install from here: Wide Tildes on UserStyles.world

      Features

      • Multiple columns on list pages
      • Wider site on all pages

      Source

      @-moz-document domain("tildes.net") {
      header#site-header {
          width: 97vw;
      }
      
      .topic-listing li {
          break-inside: avoid-column;    
      }
      
      .topic-listing {
          column-width: 25em;
      }
      
      .topic-text-excerpt {
          display: none;
      }
      }
      
      25 votes
    13. Cosmetic bug: a.link-group:visited in groups list has same colour whether subscribed or unsubscribed

      See this image. Which groups are unsubscribed? All of the ~sports.X groups are unsubscribed, but american_football, basketball, football, and motorsports have been visited. The link-visited colour...

      See this image.

      Which groups are unsubscribed? All of the ~sports.X groups are unsubscribed, but american_football, basketball, football, and motorsports have been visited.

      The link-visited colour set by a.link-group:visited is taking precedence over the default colour otherwise set by .group-list-item-not-subscribed a.link-group, hiding the colour change associated with -not-subscribed. This is particularly troublesome when unsubscribing from a group, since one must go to the group's page – visiting the link – in order to unsubscribe.

      6 votes
    14. Does Tildes offer a personalized RSS feed? If not, could it?

      With the introduction of the new groups, I now, for the first time, have unsubscribed from some groups here on Tildes. I've been subscribed to the fire hose feed in my feed reader, but I'd love to...

      With the introduction of the new groups, I now, for the first time, have unsubscribed from some groups here on Tildes. I've been subscribed to the fire hose feed in my feed reader, but I'd love to get a feed that is personalized with only my subscriptions. Does this exist? If not, could it?

      19 votes
    15. Tildes and comment formatting, markdown: a quick and dirty guide

      At the suggestion of a certain heathen who shall remain unnamed. I'm tossing up a quick and dirty comment (and post text) formatting guide. There is a formatting guide in the docs/wiki with a link...

      At the suggestion of a certain heathen who shall remain unnamed. I'm tossing up a quick and dirty comment (and post text) formatting guide. There is a formatting guide in the docs/wiki with a link just above the comment box, but it can be a bit much to digest.

      *italics*
      **bold**
      ~~strikethrough~~
      [Text goes here](URL goes here)
      <small>small text</small> 
      <sub>subscript</sub>
      <sup>superscript</sup>
      # headline
      `code which removes the formatting and makes it look like this block`
      * bulleted
      * lists
      1. and
      1. numbered
      1. lists
      

      Spoilers is a bit more complicated, the <details> start and end </details> is required, but the <summary> start and end </summary> is not unless you want text in the summary or you want the summary to be blank.

      <details>
      <summary>Summary text!</summary>
      
      Body text inside spoiler!
      </details>
      
      For example if you leave out the summary code then the box just says "Details" like this.
      Or you can have a summary...

      ...like this.

      Or by leaving the text between the summary code blank you can have the box be empty but still have spoiler text within

      You can use formatting like bold, italics, or even...
      ...spoilers within spoilers! ...but you have to leave an extra line above this or it *won't work* and your formatting will be revealed to **all!**

      Three underscores (or dashes, but dashes require an extra line) in a row on their own line creates a blank line to divide a topic...
      ---

      You also have a sub-headline text option by putting a single dash under text...
      -
      ...or headline text by putting an equal sign under text.
      =


      If you like userscripts (who doesn't?) you can install extensions like ViolentMonkey that allow you to install little bits of code like the Tildes Formatting Toolbar that can change/improve the sites you use and make formatting here a breeze.


      Do use the formatting responsibly, but here are examples for bold, italics, strikethrough, links, small text, subscript, superscript,

      headline text,

      sub-headline text,

      code,

      • bulleted
      • lists,
      1. and
      2. numbered
      3. lists

      Most formatting can be combined as well such as superscripts, lines, and small text to make...

      ...sentences with a...1


      1...footnote

      97 votes
    16. Bug with notifications

      Apologies if this isn’t the right place to put bug reports. I’ve noticed an issue where comments which are bookmarked don’t display as such in my notifications. For example: A bookmarked comment...

      Apologies if this isn’t the right place to put bug reports.

      I’ve noticed an issue where comments which are bookmarked don’t display as such in my notifications.

      For example:

      A bookmarked comment displaying as Unbookmarked in my notifications.

      Is anyone else seeing the same ?

      10 votes
    17. What happens if Deimos can't host the site anymore?

      I'm sorry if this was already answered in the docs somewhere but similarly to the question "What happens to my Steam games when Valve goes out of business?" I was wondering what happens to Tildes...

      I'm sorry if this was already answered in the docs somewhere but similarly to the question "What happens to my Steam games when Valve goes out of business?" I was wondering what happens to Tildes if Deimos can't sustain it anymore for whatever reason (e.g. death, prison, going off the grid and starting from scratch in Ecuador...)?

      Is there some kind of backup plan in place?

      79 votes
    18. I'm from the Reddit exodus. I'm really liking it here. What should I know?

      What do you long term users want to share about the culture? What about growth plans? The erudite discussion with (presumably) real people is what I love most, but I miss the really niche subs....

      What do you long term users want to share about the culture?

      What about growth plans? The erudite discussion with (presumably) real people is what I love most, but I miss the really niche subs. That needs more people.

      I just want to make sure this isn't "eternal July".

      109 votes
    19. Could we get a ~jokes, ~humor or ~funny group on Tildes?

      I read some funny stuff on here and there are plenty of witty responses around, but a community for humorous content may lighten things up a bit and it can start discussions too… after all:...

      I read some funny stuff on here and there are plenty of witty responses around, but a community for humorous content may lighten things up a bit and it can start discussions too… after all:

      “Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.” -Mark Twain

      69 votes
    20. Viewing all tags

      Hi all. I was wondering if there was a way to see all the tags that have been created on Tildes and their popularity? It would help when working out what tag to use, etc. Maybe even a popularity...

      Hi all.

      I was wondering if there was a way to see all the tags that have been created on Tildes and their popularity? It would help when working out what tag to use, etc.

      Maybe even a popularity break down by group that the tag was posted into would help loads when selecting the correct tag.

      I can see that auto-complete for tags uses the 100 most commonly-used tags, not sure if this is by group or site wide, but even that list would be great to see.

      Many thanks!
      RRR

      14 votes
    21. July 2023 Tildes Fundraiser

      Enshittification: begone!! Let us celebrate our newly found freedom from crap social media giants and sponsored goons by donating a few dollars to Tildes so they can keep the lights on and the...

      Enshittification: begone!! Let us celebrate our newly found freedom from crap social media giants and sponsored goons by donating a few dollars to Tildes so they can keep the lights on and the fireworks popping 🎉

      79 votes
    22. Best way to share / integrate photos on Tildes

      Hey gang, I’m a rather novice / hedonist tildes user and have just been posting links to uploaded images by hosting them on ibb and then sharing https://ibb.co/PF5nFf9 https://ibb.co/10pV1wB...

      Hey gang, I’m a rather novice / hedonist tildes user and have just been posting links to uploaded images by hosting them on ibb and then sharing

      https://ibb.co/PF5nFf9
      https://ibb.co/10pV1wB
      https://ibb.co/1GgyWCT

      Is there a better place to host and better way to post images?

      Thanks in advance. Sorry for any eye rolls I may have caused!

      14 votes
    23. [SOLVED] Question about post voting locking

      Hi, I was wondering if the current duration before voting gets locked on a post is still 30 days? I tried to find the answer in the docs but didn’t see it (apologies if I missed it) and all I...

      Hi, I was wondering if the current duration before voting gets locked on a post is still 30 days? I tried to find the answer in the docs but didn’t see it (apologies if I missed it) and all I turned up in a search of the site was a topic from 3 years ago mentioning the 30 days, so I wanted to see if that’s still accurate.

      Thanks !

      14 votes
    24. Feature idea: A 'Best Of Tildes' page that shows the newest Exemplary'd comments

      With the increase in activity, it's now more difficult to read every topic and every bit of discussion. As well, there are some topics that I wouldn't click into naturally, but I would very much...

      With the increase in activity, it's now more difficult to read every topic and every bit of discussion. As well, there are some topics that I wouldn't click into naturally, but I would very much click into if I knew there was a high-quality comment hidden within.

      So, it would nice to have a page that specifically highlights comments that have received an Exemplary label. That way, it would be possible to jump straight to the most insightful/thoughtful/interesting discussions that Tildes has to offer, regardless of the topic.

      I'm imagining that the page would be somewhat off to the side, so that it doesn't incentivize misuse of the label. Something like how Hacker News hides the pool/invited/best/bestcomments pages under the lists page in the footer of the site.

      What do you think?

      74 votes
    25. T-Mobile SMS is filtering tildes.net

      I just noticed that when I sent an invite to family member over SMS it never arrived. After experimenting it looks like if text contains "tildes.net" it is filered. This also happens with another...

      I just noticed that when I sent an invite to family member over SMS it never arrived. After experimenting it looks like if text contains "tildes.net" it is filered. This also happens with another family member's phone. It is weird why would those companies want to filter it.

      I also checked and the message didn't show up in spam & blocked. Does anyone else observe the same thing?

      41 votes
    26. Should Twitter links be banned?

      Or at the very least, should there be a requirement to have users take screenshots of Twitter content if they want to link to it? It feels a little backwards to have to make an account for another...

      Or at the very least, should there be a requirement to have users take screenshots of Twitter content if they want to link to it? It feels a little backwards to have to make an account for another website in order to consume certain content on this site.

      104 votes
    27. Is there a way to filter YouTube links?

      I lurk here at work and don't watch YouTube in general. Often it's annoying to see something of potential interest and it's a YouTube video. Is there a way to filter youtube.com here or an...

      I lurk here at work and don't watch YouTube in general. Often it's annoying to see something of potential interest and it's a YouTube video. Is there a way to filter youtube.com here or an extension enabling that functionality?

      Thank you.

      10 votes
    28. Is searching for comments possible?

      I never noticed this before today, but I don't seem to be able to search for comments. Is that supposed to be doable on Tildes? It took me way too long to figure out that the links at the top of...

      I never noticed this before today, but I don't seem to be able to search for comments. Is that supposed to be doable on Tildes?

      It took me way too long to figure out that the links at the top of the search results page are sort options; I had been clicking "Comments" hoping to see comment search results, and I was a bit confused why only full topics were still being listed. I guess comment search doesn't currently exist?

      12 votes
    29. Deimos, how is it going?

      Hi Deimos Its been a while since a lot of redditors started to move over to tildes, yours truly included, and I wondered how is it going for you? I know you have a full time job and tildes was...

      Hi Deimos

      Its been a while since a lot of redditors started to move over to tildes, yours truly included, and I wondered how is it going for you?

      I know you have a full time job and tildes was relatively quiet until the last few weeks but is it becoming too noisy?

      I'm guessing that you have had a lot of positive feedback but I'm also guessing you have had a lot of 'why can't we make this more like Reddit?' comments as well.

      I see you responding to comments left, right and center and while good this must mean you are reading everything as well as all comments in order to evaluate things, which takes time out of your day.

      I know that you have a clear vision of where you want tildes to go, so I guess my question still stands, how is it going?

      149 votes
    30. Tildes constitution

      Looking at the current top thread in ~talk, it seems many of us were forged in the fires of Mount Digg, and now suffer again through the great Reddit diaspora. Perhaps it is here our journey ends?...

      Looking at the current top thread in ~talk, it seems many of us were forged in the fires of Mount Digg, and now suffer again through the great Reddit diaspora. Perhaps it is here our journey ends?

      I am not from the US of A, but one thing I have always found fascinating about that country is the concept of the constitution. I believe it was so incredibly well conceived, the three legged stool, with all the thought that went into how it might be attacked and edge cases, that the founding fathers would have made excellent software testers. The fact American democracy has stood this long is some feat.

      Which brings me to my question. Should Tildes create some form of constitution? A set of principles that binds and guides it? I believe something like that would make questions like this easier to answer. A founding set of ideals from which everything else should derive.

      We have something akin to this at my company, where the founding principle is the customer is always our main priority. This has served our business well for decades; is everything we do in service of the customer and their needs. You would honestly be amazed at the loyalty and trust this builds over time.

      Anyway just some food for thought. I think I will be calling this my new home for now - it feels very much like the Reddit of old right now, a feeling I haven't felt for a great age.

      17 votes
    31. Do you spend more time creating a Tildes reply than on other platforms?

      So like many others, I'm a refugee from the Rexxit, and the collaborative, positive enthusiasm here is infectious. I've had an odd observation about my brief time here - when I think I can...

      So like many others, I'm a refugee from the Rexxit, and the collaborative, positive enthusiasm here is infectious.

      I've had an odd observation about my brief time here - when I think I can contribute to a thread, I find myself trying to step up my posting game - doing a bit of extra research, making sure I add links, and double checking my grammar (as best as I can!). I want my thoughts to have value or be meaningful here, moreso than anywhere I've contributed to in the past.

      Do others feel the same way?

      95 votes
    32. Thoughts on making Tildes groups more independent

      Hi. It's been a while since we had a ~tildes.official post, huh? There are a few things I want to discuss today about potential changes to the way that Tildes works. But first, a couple of other...

      Hi. It's been a while since we had a ~tildes.official post, huh? There are a few things I want to discuss today about potential changes to the way that Tildes works. But first, a couple of other things while I have your attention:

      Welcomes and thanks

      Welcome to all the new users! It's been great to see activity here increasing again lately, and I hope a lot of you end up enjoying the site and sticking around. It's really nice to read so many posts and emails from people who are excited about the principles behind Tildes. (And if you're someone who doesn't have an account yet and emailed to request an invite, I hope to get back to you relatively soon—there are about 2000 requests in the queue right now, and I'm trying to gradually work through them over the next week or so)

      I also want to say thanks to all the long-time users who have been welcoming and answering so many questions from the new people. As I mentioned the other day, my time to devote to Tildes recently is more limited, and it's been amazing to find that in practically every thread I open, people have already answered all of the questions (and often more comprehensively and eloquently than I would have). An extra special thank-you as well to @cfabbro and the other people who have been handling the demand for invites via Reddit, and to @mycketforvirrad, the unsung hero of the site who's constantly doing the thankless, almost-invisible job of re-tagging topics and making sure everything is organized.

      Reminders

      Also a couple of reminders and things to keep in mind:

      Whether you're an old or new user, if you haven't set up a recovery email address on your account, I highly recommend that you do. A lot of people who registered years ago are trying to come back this week and finding that they don't know their password any more, and it's much simpler if they did this. (The site itself really should encourage this more strongly—it's done in a secure and privacy-friendly way, and it's impossible for me to use it to send you any email because there's no way for me to see the actual address)

      It's already been brought up in various threads a lot, but I also want to emphasize that Tildes is not the same as Reddit, and is not trying to be a "replacement" for Reddit. There are a lot of similarities between the sites, but there are also a lot of differences. The site structures are different, many of the site mechanics here work differently, and the types and style of posts that are appropriate are not the same. Please try to look around at the site and the docs and get a feel for the place, don't assume that things will work the same way here as they do somewhere else (or that they should).

      One other aspect that's different between the two sites that's coming up a lot is that Tildes does not have user-created groups, and the groups aren't "owned" or run by specific users. Currently, the only person with "true" moderation powers anywhere on the site (like the ability to remove topics and comments) is me. This isn't because I want to keep absolute control or anything like that, but Tildes has been very quiet for the last few years and more moderators haven't been necessary. If the activity stays at this level or keeps increasing, we will probably need to add more moderators soon. And related to that, the actual main topic that I wanted to talk about:

      Should we try separating the groups more?

      Even though Tildes has almost 30 groups, until now, it's really always just been one community. New users are automatically subscribed to all groups and need to manually unsubscribe if they don't want to see the topics from that group, and logged-out users see everything when they visit the homepage as well. Most users stay subscribed to almost everything, with only some of them unsubscribing from more-niche interests like ~anime.

      I've always intended to make the groups more independent, but the site's activity has generally been too low for that to be feasible. All of the groups needed to be able to reach all of the Tildes users, but there have been significant downsides to doing it this way.

      One of the main consequences (which is becoming more obvious over the last few days) is kind of ironic: by showing all groups to all users to increase activity across all of them, it actually discourages activity in any individual one. For example, I follow video game news closely, and it's currently a very busy time with tons of events and announcements. But I wouldn't want to post all of those announcements to ~games, because it would completely flood the site and annoy everyone.

      I think we should probably take advantage of this current high activity level to try moving the groups towards being more independent spaces. This would involve switching away from the current "opt-out" approach to an "opt-in" one, and would probably need updates to a few different sections of the site to support it.

      A lot of the new users have been asking to add new groups for things they're interested in (sometimes very specific, niche things), and this would allow us to try some of them out more easily to see if they'd be able to sustain themselves. One of the benefits of the groups+tags system here is that it's relatively easy to test something as a group, and if it doesn't work out, all of the posts can just be merged back into a "more comprehensive" group as a tag.

      I've also been receiving a decent number of messages from Reddit moderators that are investigating whether they will be able to migrate their community to a different platform. I've had to tell them that the current structure of Tildes wouldn't easily support it, but making the groups more independent would change that.

      So overall, I'm looking for general feedback about whether we should try this soon, and if there are any major concerns we should be careful about. I also have three specific questions I'd like input on, related to how it could be implemented:

      1. What should logged-out users see on the homepage? Just a list of links to individual groups, and they have to pick a specific one to see any posts?
      2. Should logged-in users still have a homepage made up of all their subscribed groups mixed together (Reddit-style), or should we lean further into the separation by requiring groups to be viewed individually (forum-style)? (I think I'd want the mixed style to be available long-term, but maybe starting without it would help establish the individuality more strongly?)
      3. How should we transition existing users over to the opt-in approach? Should we effectively treat everyone as a new user, and get them to select the groups they're interested in from scratch? Or should we do something like use their activity (voting, posting) to pre-subscribe them to some groups?

      Thanks, please let me know what you think. The current growth and activity is a great opportunity for us to try some new things on Tildes that would be able to move it forward, and I hope we can figure out ways to do it well. (And if it ends up not working, we can always change things back)

      I've also given 5 invites to every current user, so feel free to use those if you know anyone that would like to join: https://tildes.net/invite

      (Edit: and to set expectations, I'm not sure how much time I'll have to reply to anything substantially, but I'll absolutely be reading all the discussions)

      533 votes
    33. What's your favorite theme on Tildes?

      I adore the available themes and it makes browsing quite pleasing to do. Currently I'm in a fight between Solarized Dark and Dracula. I'm curious though if there's a clearly preferred theme here...

      I adore the available themes and it makes browsing quite pleasing to do. Currently I'm in a fight between Solarized Dark and Dracula. I'm curious though if there's a clearly preferred theme here or if people are using all kinds of stuff.

      Some previous threads on themes (some are about themes in general and aren't Tildes specific):

      28 votes
    34. Is anyone else anxious about using the bookmark feature on Tildes?

      Maybe it's just because I've lost my bookmarks so many times, one way or another. I now avoid using website-specific bookmarks, you never know when the website could shut down or you could lose...

      Maybe it's just because I've lost my bookmarks so many times, one way or another. I now avoid using website-specific bookmarks, you never know when the website could shut down or you could lose the bookmarks some other way. not saying Tildes will shut down; I'm sure it won't be any time soon, but I still can't get myself to use it even though it's so convenient ☹️ does anyone else feel the same way ?

      22 votes
    35. How to search and switch between Tildes groups in Firefox using bookmarks

      I just wanted to share a handy feature in Firefox that can be used to create shorthanded keywords. For instance, you could make it so that typing "t ~books" brings you to...

      I just wanted to share a handy feature in Firefox that can be used to create shorthanded keywords. For instance, you could make it so that typing "t ~books" brings you to "https://tildes.net/~books". Or "ts banana" that brings you to Tildes search engine, searching for "banana".
      I've been using a similar trick on another browser I use for years (Qutebrowser), but lately I've been using Firefox more and a post on the Ferdiverse reminded me that I could do this in Firefox as well.

      Instructions

      • In FIrefox, open the Bookmark Manager. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+O , alt: Burger-menu in the upper right > Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks)
      • Select a folder where you want to save your bookmark
      • Go to "Organise > Add Bookmark"
      • Enter whatever name you like.
      • In the URL textbox, enter the static part of the url you want to use. Replace the part that can change (like the page name or the search term with this: "%s"
      • Optionally, add tags seperated by a comma in the tags textbox.
      • At last, choose a keyword. This is the word that replaces the static part of the URL when you use the bookmark. For example, I use "t" for the community-switching and "ts" for searching.
      • Save you bookmark and try it out. When you now type just the letter "t" in your URL-bar and press enter, it should bring you to the home page. When you type "t ~books" , it should bring you to the books community page.

      You can use this feature with any website, so I encourage you to play around with it :)

      14 votes
    36. Question on sorting for new comments on old posts

      Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but is there a way to search which would list comments made on any topic in chronological order regardless of how old the original post...

      Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but is there a way to search which would list comments made on any topic in chronological order regardless of how old the original post was made? Meaning, even if a post was one of the first on Tilde, if someone commented within it in the last few minutes, it would be displayed before a newly created post that hadn't had a comment in several hours.

      I tried all of the sorting options and didn't seem to find one that performed this function. Any assistance would be appreciated.

      7 votes
    37. How to contribute a theme to Tildes

      Want to contribute a theme to Tildes but don't know where to start? Let's fix that. Before we start, get yourself a development environment setup and do a quick read through of the general...

      Want to contribute a theme to Tildes but don't know where to start? Let's fix that.

      Before we start, get yourself a development environment setup and do a quick read through of the general development info to get acquainted with how Tildes works (or at least the HTML and CSS section).

      For this walkthrough I'll be using tildexample as the example name for the theme, but if you decide to contribute a theme for real, make sure it uses the proper name of your theme. :P

      Step 1: Sassy _Sass

      Open the Tildes codebase using your text editor of choice and navigate to the themes directory at tildes/scss/themes. Then create a copy of _default.scss at _tildexample.scss. The default White theme is the canonical source of all colors used, so it's the best place to start from.

      Below is an annotated example of all the things you need to change in your new theme file.

      Annotated example theme
      // Add a small description of the theme here with maybe a link to its website.
      // Check the other themes for examples. https://example.org/tildexample
      
      // Change the theme variable to $theme-tildexample
      // ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ 
      $default-theme: (
        // A whole bunch of color definitions, edit as your theme demands.
        // ...
      );
      
      // Append ".theme-tildexample" to the body selector.
      // ↓ ↙
      body {
        // Don't forget to update the theme variable here too.
        //                  ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
        @include use-theme($default-theme);
      }
      
      @include theme-preview-block(
        // Change the text to tildexample.
        // ↓ ↓
        "white",
        // And again update the theme variable here.
        //       ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
        map-get($default-theme, "foreground-primary"),
        map-get($default-theme, "background-primary")
        //       ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
      );
      

      Once that's done, head to tildes/scss/styles.scss and at the bottom of the file add your theme import:

      @import "themes/tildexample";
      

      Step 2: Hardcoding a TheMe coLor

      Boy that title is a stretch just to say, we need to add 2 lines to the HTML base template.

      Inside the tildes/tildes/templates/base.jinja2 file is a section of if/elif/elif/elif/... statements to set the theme color meta element. Add yourself an elif block and add your theme color.

      For this you probably want to use the background-primary color you used in your theme definition. I've used #ff00dd below because it spells food. I'm such a jokester.

      {% elif request.current_theme == "tildexample" %}
      <meta name="theme-color" content="#ff00dd">
      {% endif %}
      

      Step 3: Snakey Wakey

      Finally the last step is to grab your trusty pungi and give it a blow.

      Head to tildes/tildes/views/settings.py and find the THEME_OPTIONS constant. Here you want to add the theme class you used in body.theme-<this part> and a proper name that will be shown in the theme dropdown.

      THEME_OPTIONS = {
          "white": "White",
          # Many other themes...
          "tildexample": "Tildes Theme Example",
      }
      

      Once that's all been done, check it out in your development site and see if it works.

      Now git!

      Commit. Push. Merge request. Have some water. Deimos reviews, merges and deploys your theme. Job's done.

      26 votes
    38. Where to ask Tildes dev questions?

      If I have a quick Tildes dev question, where should I ask it? For an example that is not actually just an example, but the actual question which drove me to post, where can I found logging output?...

      If I have a quick Tildes dev question, where should I ask it?

      For an example that is not actually just an example, but the actual question which drove me to post, where can I found logging output? Specifically, if I want to print out something every time a request comes in, how should I do so?
      18 votes
    39. Tildes CSS and Android accessibility

      Hi all. On my Pixel phone I have the accessibility option for font size and display size turned up a notch or two but noticed that not all of the text in Tildes adheres to this. Some front page...

      Hi all. On my Pixel phone I have the accessibility option for font size and display size turned up a notch or two but noticed that not all of the text in Tildes adheres to this. Some front page topic text is bigger, some of them remain small.

      Is this something that can be quickly tested and fixed if it's a bug? It might drive poor sighted people away from the site.

      I'm assuming it's not me, as my Pixel 7 is quite new .... but I am on the Android beta program.

      Can anyone else try and see if it's a localised issue or more global?

      I can post screen shots of needed but not sure what image sharing sites you prefer to use in here!

      Edit:

      Fixed with a chrome flag....

      the text-scaling is being replaced by the "Accessibility Page Zoom" feature (currently hidden behind the feature flag in chrome://flags)

      23 votes
    40. Tildes Userscript: Tildezy

      Updated: June 29th 2023 Hello folks, Like many of the other people that have been around lately, I'm new to Tildes, I've been browsing it without an account since last Monday or so while waiting...

      Updated: June 29th 2023

      Hello folks,

      Like many of the other people that have been around lately, I'm new to Tildes, I've been browsing it without an account since last Monday or so while waiting for an email response (thanks @Deimos), and in that time I've been working on a little tool to add some QOL features I thought would make my experiences with the site feel better.

      I didn't plan on sharing it initially, because I didn't think I'd be able to get the javascript into a usable state, and I'm not fond of sharing my code in general, as I always get a big wave of impostor syndrome whenever I do, "What if they look at my messy code and see how silly I do some things", that sort of thing. But with Tildes I want to try to correct some of my internet behaviours, for years I've generally stayed as a lurker, never commenting or sharing content of my own, so, hello there, hopefully, I stick to my guns and you see more of me.

      Onto the script itself, currently, I've built five main features into it all of them being rather minor on their own, I did do bug testing on everything and couldn't find anything else, but if you notice anything please feel free to report it to me or post an issue on the repo. It's easy to miss bugs when you've only got one set of eyes.

      Tildezy Github

      The GitHub contains installation instructions if you've never used a userscript before, and contains some images showing off each feature described below.

      Comment Collapser The comment collapser was built because, with my shakey hands, I had a few times when I would click someone's name instead of the [-] beside it. With this feature *Triple* clicking anywhere on a comment, be it text or header, will collapse it as if you used the [-] button. It's set to 3 clicks as sometimes I double-click to begin copying a line and didn't want the conflict, but it can be changed to any amount of clicks on line 132

      https://github.com/TeJayH/Tildezy/blob/main/Tildezy.user.js#L132

      Group Stars/Favourites Allows you to click a ☆ beside each ~group on the Tildes homepage to *favourite* it, moving it to the top of the list. Supports as many or as few favourites as you'd wish.
      Scroll to Top Button Adds a button pinned in the top right of every Tildes thread that sends you back to the top of the page. No more scrolling or reaching for the home key
      Open Comments in New Tab Replaces the default function of a posts "x comments" to open the page in a new tab instead of the current tab
      User Colors This one is the thing that I made the entire script for, an entirely useless feature but one I love for silly reasons. Replaces the stock username color with a randomized one based on a hash made from the user's username. So everyone gets assigned their own color which will always be their color anywhere you see them. This one helps multi-person conversations flow better in my head
      New Comment Traveller Gives you navigation buttons either beside the Collapse Replies/Expand all buttons when scrolled up, or pinned in the top right when scrolled past those buttons. Navigation buttons jump quickly between each new comment in a thread.
      Markdown Buttons Adds a selection of various buttons under every comment box that automatically insert markdown for you. No more forgetting which bracket style goes first for a clickable URL.
      Settings Not really a *feature* on its own, but it exists. Adds a "Tildezy Settings" beside the Log In/Username button in the top right of the header, which opens a settings window to enable/disable any and all features of the script. Features can also be disabled by modifying lines 26-41 in the script, allowing you to hard toggle everything *including the settings itself* off should you wish.

      https://github.com/TeJayH/Tildezy/blob/main/Tildezy.user.js#L26-L41

      Hopefully, someone gets some use out of this with me, I look forward to chatting with you all.

      EDIT
      Refactored the code and added a new comment traveller feature based on some of the comments below.

      EDIT 2
      Up to 1.3.0, we've got markdown buttons now, see comment explaining the change or check out the github readme

      120 votes
    41. Invite system

      Hey everyone! Can I get a rundown on how to earn an invite link? I've got a friend who is interested in migrating off of Reddit and I'd like to be the one to invite him :)

      12 votes
    42. Should bylines be more prominent in the topic posts?

      I've noticed we've gotten in the habit of using the author.[name] tagging convention on articles and blogs and I think this is a great idea. But to me it just seems more important than having to...

      I've noticed we've gotten in the habit of using the author.[name] tagging convention on articles and blogs and I think this is a great idea. But to me it just seems more important than having to see it as just a tag amidst all the other tags. Right now we put the site name and favicon in a prominent spot whenever we post a link, and I get that this is much easier to extract reliably from just scraping the page than the bylines tend to be. But I wonder if any author.[name] tag could get promoted to a special spot in the "Article: X words" element?

      Of course this does leave the question of what to do about multiple authors, but I think the usual convention in academia is to list the first author who appears on the list as the primary author.

      I assume this has been discussed before, but when I tried searching for it the abundance of topics with "author" tags made it so I couldn't find anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      10 votes
    43. How would you feel about a PC building/tech deals group?

      Yeah that's the question. I was thinking of the possibility of posting deals here. But it might just eat up the other tech content here. That's not my goal, but I'd like to start a PC...

      Yeah that's the question. I was thinking of the possibility of posting deals here. But it might just eat up the other tech content here. That's not my goal, but I'd like to start a PC building\support\tech deals tilde.

      22 votes
    44. How does the "collapse old comments when I return to a topic" feature work?

      I have the "collapse old comments when I return to a topic" setting turned on, but I can't quite figure out how it works. For example, when open a new topic for the first time and scroll through...

      I have the "collapse old comments when I return to a topic" setting turned on, but I can't quite figure out how it works. For example, when open a new topic for the first time and scroll through the comments, the next time I open the topic, they're all still open.

      Does anyone have more details about how this feature works or how I should be using it?

      Thank you!

      19 votes