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    1. Proper iOS homescreen link

      A fancier way is here — but either is great. —- For those using iOS with a bookmark on their homescreen, you may have been plagued like me with Tildes opening in a private window instead of the...

      A fancier way is here — but either is great.

      —-

      For those using iOS with a bookmark on their homescreen, you may have been plagued like me with Tildes opening in a private window instead of the session where you’re logged in.

      I don’t know why I didn’t think about this sooner, but it’s so easy

      Shortcuts > New > Create New Tab > Open URL (remove the variable and put in https://tildes.net) > context menu next to the title of the shortcut > Add to Homescreen > Photo (left image option) > select your tildes logo that i forgot to tell you to save

      … done. Now Tildes will always open Safari in an authenticated session. ezpz.

      17 votes
    2. Possible site bug: Cannot send PM with moose emoji as the subject

      Bringing this up NOT because I'm worried about it, but only because it's very odd and might interest people here: I've been PMing people for my post in the Game Giveaway topic. For each one, I've...

      Bringing this up NOT because I'm worried about it, but only because it's very odd and might interest people here:

      I've been PMing people for my post in the Game Giveaway topic. For each one, I've just been making the subject of the PM the emoji they selected and nothing else.

      I have successfully sent PMs with the following subject lines:

      • 🦥, 🦆, 🐈, 🐸, 🦄, 🐙, 🦫, 🐌, 👻, 🐣, 🐻‍❄️, 🐖, 🐳, 🦚, 🦭, 😎

      But when I use

      • 🫎

      I get the following error message: subject: Length must be between 1 and 200. The PM fails to send.

      I was able to send the PM by appending text to it, sending it with the subject line 🫎 Marvin (because that's his name), and the PM sent with the subject line Marvin without the emoji or space.

      What's so different about the moose? Is it because he's wanted? 😂

      If anyone wants to test this for themselves, feel free to try it out in a PM to me.

      64 votes
    3. Follow up on the username thread: What Tildes users do you recognize when browsing and, without being rude or inflammatory, what is your impression of them?

      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise...

      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise I kind of have username blindness. I was absolutely shocked to see someone tag me and more shocked to see that someone remembered even a single thing I had ever posted.

      I'll start:

      @cfabbro is pretty on top of things around here. Super knowledgeable about various topics and a stickler for the rules in a really positive way that demonstrates their love for the community and their desire to keep it special. One of the most important Tilderinos (or Tildos, which is my personal favorite that someone suggested a while back). Thanks for all that you do, and if you're the one who has to go though and fix my god-awful tags then a double thanks and a sincere apology.

      @boxer_dogs_dance, like cfabbro has a very wide range of interests and is quick to share interesting tidbits of information that a lot of people may not know. I think I have disagreed cordially with boxerdogs a few times maybe? But I have a good impression of them overall.

      @deimos is a bit like God, which I think works on multiple levels. The highest power, behind-the-scenes, hard to prove his existence. I have a conspiracy theory that he uses alt accounts to participate anonymously, which I think would be a really smart thing to do. Joking aside, I think Tildes' resiliency and ability to maintain its small town vibe while being quite large is due mostly to his political/philosophical genius. The guiding principles for this site and moderation style have made this a pretty awesome place to be. Case in point: The few times I saw people complain about Tildes' moderation on other websites, I was able to immediately see why that person wasn't a good fit here. They were people who didn't even understand that they were being antisocial or were playing coy when they knew exactly what they were doing. Keeping Tildes more or less free of that stuff is one of the greatest internet achievements I've ever seen.

      61 votes
    4. When a notable face disappears

      Disclaimer: I don't quite know how to address the topic, so I want to state I'm trying to approach this with sensitivity; I hope this might lead to a helpful and insightful conversation on a...

      Disclaimer: I don't quite know how to address the topic, so I want to state I'm trying to approach this with sensitivity; I hope this might lead to a helpful and insightful conversation on a potentially difficult issue. Apologies if I don't quite get it right!

      I noticed the absence of a name I'd become familiar with on Tildes and wanted to start a discussion on how the community should handle situations where a person of community renowned abruptly departs.

      The user in question is @daychilde, who is one of the users I'd seen around quite a bit. I've been on Tildes for quite a while now, and would like to think I've had a positive - if not vast - contribution. Overall, I probably read more than I respond; I bring this up because I am aware that I probably represent the voice of a significant portion of the userbase here: I'm figuring stuff out as I go and probably am not in the loop on the majority of stuff going on on Tildes. All in all, I don't recognise a lot of names on Tildes, but @daychilde is/was a character who stuck out and seemed to have a significant impact on the community.

      From what I deduce, @daychilde has been banned some time in the past week, and I thought it worth discussing given there are at least a couple of things left in the lurch as a result that people might seek information on. The ones that have crossed my vision are the following:

      https://tildes.net/~tech/1od9/personal_offer_do_you_have_a_website_based_project_youve_been_wanting_to_do_but_worried_about_cost
      and
      https://tildes.net/~life/1n7e/daychildes_walking_thread

      At the risk of broaching a difficult topic - I'm not looking to cause drama or speculate - we should probably discuss the fallout of a situation like this. Hopefully at the very least this topic might be something others can find if they also become aware of the departure of a notable person and are looking for confirmation or where might be appropriate to discuss any fallout that might occur.

      For @daychilde in particular, this website seemed to be a resource that helped him manage his life. I wonder if we should consider whether there is some duty of care to users to depend on Tildes in some capacity?

      There are also people who might be looking to discuss the hosting that he had offered/agreed, and might now be left in the lurch.

      Unfortunately I don't have solutions, but I didn't see any discussion or information on this kind of a topic, nor any precedent for this kind of a situation!

      34 votes
    5. Can Bearblog links show authors?

      Both Medium and Substack include the author name in the site title (next to the favicon). Bearblog hosted blogs seem to be frequently posted, especially in ~tech, and only showing that it's from...

      Both Medium and Substack include the author name in the site title (next to the favicon). Bearblog hosted blogs seem to be frequently posted, especially in ~tech, and only showing that it's from bearblog doesn't give insight into authorship. (Authors are being added to tags, but this is not immediately visible on mobile clients until clicking into the comments.)

      Is this something that can be updated? If it's a technical limitation of some sort, I respect that. It would just be a "nice to have" feature. :)

      9 votes
    6. [SOLVED] Question about Tildes RSS feed

      Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've done some browsing and haven't found an obvious answer. Subscribing to the a tildes rss feed works great, except that link topics open the link itself, not...

      Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've done some browsing and haven't found an obvious answer. Subscribing to the a tildes rss feed works great, except that link topics open the link itself, not the Tildes thread. I'd ideally want it to open the thread in the first instance, not the link directly. Is this something that's possible that I just haven't been able to figure out?

      10 votes
    7. Question about sharing a photo on Tildes

      What's the best way to link a photo from my gallery to share here? My go to with friends and family is a Google drive link. Is there something I'm unaware of that means I shouldn't create links...

      What's the best way to link a photo from my gallery to share here? My go to with friends and family is a Google drive link. Is there something I'm unaware of that means I shouldn't create links through my Google drive for general public sharing?

      16 votes
    8. [SOLVED] How can I mark a comment as read if I dont want to interact with it?

      In the notification setting, I have untoggled both options but then I am wondering how can I mark a comment as read if I dont actually want to vote, label, reply or anything? I am used to the...

      In the notification setting, I have untoggled both options but then I am wondering how can I mark a comment as read if I dont actually want to vote, label, reply or anything?

      I am used to the reddit interface where iirc, you can just hit a button for toggle that state on a comment.

      12 votes
    9. How linked is an account to the original invite code?

      I tried looking through the docs but couldn't find an answer to this question: What is the nature of the link that is established to the sys-admin and devs of tildes for an account and the invite...

      I tried looking through the docs but couldn't find an answer to this question: What is the nature of the link that is established to the sys-admin and devs of tildes for an account and the invite account?

      as in, do they store the invite code that I used to create this account permanently and will be able to link that invite back to the issuing user? so that my account and the issuing user will always be linked in that way?

      21 votes
    10. Is the Middle East War megathread not generated anymore?

      There used to be lively discussion about this topic. For context: I find it fairly obvious that the Israeli government is deliberately attempting to wipe out the Palestinian people in a way that...

      There used to be lively discussion about this topic.

      For context: I find it fairly obvious that the Israeli government is deliberately attempting to wipe out the Palestinian people in a way that is slow/ambiguous enough to perhaps not officially qualify as genocide in a legal sense, but that is nevertheless effectively genocide from an emotionally aware human perspective.

      I've mostly steered clear of the related conversation because many people seemed to have gotten tangled up in the legal definitions, as if Tildes were a branch of the International Court of Justice, which made me feel like the humanitarian view is getting dismissed or implied as being inferior. I wanted to see if this approach or its popularity on Tildes might have shifted with the new developments, such as Israel blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza and its recent plans to seize the area and hand aid distribution to private companies.

      Am I somehow just not able to find the megathread? I believe I may have tried to filter it out earlier but it's not on my filters list and I'm unsure if there are other ways to hide content on Tildes that I may have forgotten about.

      15 votes
    11. How do you customize Tildes?

      Other than using the Atom One Dark theme instead of default theme, I also: View at 80% zoom (in desktop) Use the Tildes Formatting Toolbar userscript (not sure who wrote this or where the install...

      Other than using the Atom One Dark theme instead of default theme, I also:

      • View at 80% zoom (in desktop)
      • Use the Tildes Formatting Toolbar userscript (not sure who wrote this or where the install link is but I'm sure someone in the comments can say)

      And that's it for me! Which is relatively speaking almost no personal customization for me. (I also have a universal stylus sheet that removes ligatures on the entire internet but I don't think that does anything here)

      What does everyone else do? What do you recommend?

      22 votes
    12. Throwaway accounts / anonymous posting / temporary personas

      Edit: whoopsie, already being discussed here: https://tildes.net/%7Etildes.official/2x3 This is tangential to this post here about NSFW/controversial content. Sometimes one needs to make a...

      Edit: whoopsie, already being discussed here: https://tildes.net/%7Etildes.official/2x3


      This is tangential to this post here about NSFW/controversial content. Sometimes one needs to make a confidential post detached from their own identity (say for example about a psychological problem or advice on an event where the OP wants to conceal real identities), and most places one needs a throwaway account. I think it'd be nicer if we allowed people to make posts detached from their main accounts w/o having to create new throwaway accounts. It might be possible via allowing a certain number of "personas" (i.e. a couple names one can allocate and use as nicknames), or via allowing to post anonymously (i.e. hiding the poster's account name, not w/o one), or allowing personas but temporarily and randomly generated names. What's you thoughts?

      6 votes
    13. Anyone sucessfully self-hosted Tildes instance?

      I would love to self-host a Tildes instance with my domain to create a community in my native language speakers. I saw, from old posts, that it is not an easy process at all. But I really love the...

      I would love to self-host a Tildes instance with my domain to create a community in my native language speakers. I saw, from old posts, that it is not an easy process at all. But I really love the concept and the style of Tildes. It is better than Reddit and other Fediverse platforms.
      Is there anyone who managed to host Tildes instance?

      I would be so glad to have some guidance.

      33 votes
    14. Feature request: an option to deactivate or delete your account

      Before posting this, I checked my user settings page, the site’s documentation, and GitLab. I also did some site:tildes.net Google searches and used the on-site search for the ~tildes group. I saw...

      Before posting this, I checked my user settings page, the site’s documentation, and GitLab. I also did some site:tildes.net Google searches and used the on-site search for the ~tildes group.

      I saw that on GitLab there is a feature request for account deletion, but not deactivation, that was marked “Accepted” about 5-6 years ago (August 2019).

      I also saw some posts here in the ~tildes group, including one from about 6-7 years ago (June 2018) with a comment that said an option for both account deletion and account "dissociation" was planned. Both of these features sound great.

      In addition to account deletion and account dissociation, I want to also request an option for account deactivation.

      I don’t want to ask for the Moon here, but I envision account deactivation as having the option to remove all your posts and comments from the site (as well as your profile), with the option of restoring them if you reactivate your account. (I don’t know how annoying or how much effort this would be to code. I’m just imagining what I would find ideal from a user perspective.)

      Another wonderful bonus would be the option to set a timer limiting your ability to reactivate your account, e.g. don’t let me reactivate my account for 6 months.

      In the past, I’ve done this on another site through an elaborate system where I:

      1. Set up two-factor authentication.
      2. Saved the two-factor recovery code on an encrypted pastebin in a password-protected paste.
      3. Saved the password for the paste in my password manager.
      4. Used FutureMe.org to send an email with a link to the paste to myself X amount of time in the future.
      5. Deleted the link to the paste from my browser history.
      6. Deleted the entry for the site from my two-factor authentication app so the recovery code is the only way to get in.

      This works, but it’s an elaborate process and if something goes wrong with FutureMe.org or the paste bin site, you could lose your ability to ever reactivate your account. You have to be willing to take that risk!

      I might end up implementing this wacky system again for Tildes. For a site like Tildes, if I permanently lost access to my account (due to FutureMe.org shutting down or suffering data loss, for example) and wanted to re-join the site at some point in the future, I guess the worst consequence would be losing my username. (Also, getting an invite again might be a hassle, I don’t know.) That might be unfortunate depending how much you like your username, but it’s not as bad as a site with follows and followers where you would lose all of those.

      24 votes
    15. 'politics.usa' tag proposal

      I am genuinely sick of seeing all the US political news on Tildes, especially because of the sheer volume of it being submitted lately and how depressing it all is. The creation of ~society was a...

      I am genuinely sick of seeing all the US political news on Tildes, especially because of the sheer volume of it being submitted lately and how depressing it all is. The creation of ~society was a decent compromise since at least it keeps all the politics topics contained in one group, but it's still not ideal, IMO.

      I don't want to totally unsubscribe from ~society since, for the most part, I do actually enjoy reading about societal level events/issues around the world. I don't want to have to click 'Ignore' on every single topic about US politics, since there are a lot of them being submitted. And I don't want to filter out absolutely all 'politics' from my front page either though, which is currently my only other option since we can't yet filter tags by multiple criteria (e.g. filtering topics that only contain 'politics' AND 'usa').

      So I propose that we start using a 'politics.usa' tag, even though it's a bit redundant, so that US politics can be specifically filtered out by people like myself that want to avoid seeing such topics. Thoughts?

      98 votes
    16. Are there certain conditions where an "Exemplary" label does not show?

      I just used the label on a comment and to my surprise it is not visible for me, neither is it visible when I log out. On other comments I do see the label in both situations. This makes me think...

      I just used the label on a comment and to my surprise it is not visible for me, neither is it visible when I log out.
      On other comments I do see the label in both situations. This makes me think there is a condition where the label is now shown or that something might be up with tildes itself.

      17 votes
    17. I'm rate-limited to one comment reply every two hours

      I understand that Tildes implements rate limiting for replies to comments in order to discourage excessive back-and-forth debates or arguments. My current rate limit is one reply every 2 hours....

      I understand that Tildes implements rate limiting for replies to comments in order to discourage excessive back-and-forth debates or arguments. My current rate limit is one reply every 2 hours. So, if I reply to a comment on one post and then try to reply to a comment on another post, it tells me I have to wait 120 minutes (minus however many minutes since my last comment) until I can comment again.

      Is this the normal rate limit? If so, don't people find this... limiting?


      Update (2025-04-09 at 08:22 UTC): I was just able to comment twice within ten minutes, so it seems the rate limit has disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

      20 votes
    18. How come the mods on here keep editing the titles of my post to be exactly what they already were?

      I was going to get screenshots to backup what I am talking about but apparently they aren't kicking around in the system forever so most of the evidence is gone but I often see mycketforvirrad...

      I was going to get screenshots to backup what I am talking about but apparently they aren't kicking around in the system forever so most of the evidence is gone but I often see mycketforvirrad editing the title of a post I make to exactly what it already was while they are editing tags as they see fit.

      What's up with that?

      20 votes
    19. Do topic logs get deleted after a period of time?

      I was going to post a question regarding the topic logs but looking through my old posts, I see that much less than I remember have any topic logs on them. I can't tell if I am imagining that alot...

      I was going to post a question regarding the topic logs but looking through my old posts, I see that much less than I remember have any topic logs on them.

      I can't tell if I am imagining that alot more of them used to have topic logs or Deimos coded it to be a temporary record of the changes that the mods here make?

      and if so, why temporary?

      8 votes
    20. Is there a way to filter out all link posts?

      I’m new to Tildes and really hope to get into interesting conversations. I’m not really interested in looking at the content behind links and commenting on them though. Is there a way to...

      I’m new to Tildes and really hope to get into interesting conversations. I’m not really interested in looking at the content behind links and commenting on them though. Is there a way to completely filter them all out so that only text posts remain visible to me?

      15 votes
    21. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (February 2025) — Version 1.3 uses edge-to-edge UI on Android

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care...

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.


      Recently:

      [Android] Version 1.3.6 (Feb 28, 2025): Fixed minor UI bugs.

      [iOS] Version 1.3.1 (Feb 27, 2025): Fixed an annoying scroll bug when typing comments and posts.

      [Android] Version 1.3.5 (Feb 19, 2025): Fixed keyboard and animation bugs.

      [Android] Version 1.3.4 (Feb 12, 2025): Fixed keyboard and markdown bar bugs.

      [Android] Version 1.3.3 (Feb 11, 2025): Fixed keyboard bugs. [Cancelled this release.]

      [Android] Version 1.3.2 (Feb 11, 2025): Fixed bugs reported in comments.

      Version 1.3.0 (Feb 9, 2025):

      This is an Android-focused update. Android 15 makes apps edge-to-edge by default so it's time to move to edge-to-edge. I've enabled it on Android 11 and higher.

      Edge-to-edge mostly means turning the system bars translucent, so you can see the content all the way to the edge, instead of a blank area. In practice, we still need to keep some translucent bars there, so status bar icons and the clock can still be distinguished from app content and not become a jumbled mess.

      Implementing this was a gigantic pain (which is why Google received pushback from so many developers and added an opt-out). I had to redo many layouts and re-test every screen in the app multiple times, on different Android versions and different settings (portrait, landscape, single pane, dual pane). Hope it's well received by Three Cheers users! Personally it took me a day to get accustomed to it, but I've ended up liking the edge-to-edge style more. I probably won't add a setting to turn it off.

      Screenshots of what it looks like on an Android 14 device as of v1.3.1:

       

      Three Cheers for iOS v1.3.0 is only minor bugfixes. iPhone apps are already edge-to-edge, and this change is Google's way of copying/catching up to Apple.

       

      Previous topic: November 2024

       


      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      83 votes
    22. a/s/l? Tildes user survey question.

      Another post got me thinking about this community as a whole. Where in each country do people live? What is the general age range? What occupations and industries are represented here? Have there...

      Another post got me thinking about this community as a whole. Where in each country do people live? What is the general age range? What occupations and industries are represented here?

      Have there been Tildes surveys in the past, and if so, where might I find one?

      41 votes
    23. Update on Tildes codebase: Less community fork, more official maintainers

      Last month we started a community-maintained fork of the Tildes codebase. A lot has happened since then. The biggest change: @Bauke and I have been added as maintainers to the official Tildes...

      Last month we started a community-maintained fork of the Tildes codebase. A lot has happened since then.

      The biggest change: @Bauke and I have been added as maintainers to the official Tildes repo! As a result, we're moving the community fork to the backburner for now, as we focus on nearer-term changes that will directly improve the main website. Later on it's possible we'll pick up the fork again, where it will likely serve the purpose of self-hosting your own Tildes spinoff sites.

      Deimos still has the final say on what makes it to the website. Bauke and I can't deploy changes directly. However, this arrangement is still much more streamlined than before, because we now have a lot more code review bandwidth for accepting outside contributions. Deimos has less work to do now: mostly testing out the live code on a staging server, and scanning over the code for security/privacy issues—but not full code reviews which often involve a lot of back-and-forth communication and reading and testing code.

      What work have we done this past month?

      It's mostly been setting up foundational stuff like configuring the GitLab repository, fixing the development environment, and writing docs.

      More recently we have started fixing actual website bugs too: a bug when escaping a user mention (making sure \@talklittle doesn't turn into a link), and hiding <details> content in collapsed comments. Starting small but we've found a good rhythm and will work on more and bigger issues soon.

      Big props to @Bauke for setting up a staging server! Currently at https://testing.tildes.community/ — This server will be instrumental in getting new code in a testable state in a live environment, which makes it easier to approve new features before deploying on the real Tildes site.

      So we shouldn't submit code to the community fork?

      No, please don't. We'll use the official Tildes repo from now on. I'll update last month's post to reflect this.

      Is Docker support coming to the official repo?

      Yes, very likely. Deimos has warmed up to the idea. Bauke and I have been using the Docker development environment and ironed out a lot of bugs this past month.

      The official repo looks the same as before?

      Our next steps are to port the community fork changes back upstream to the official repo. In addition to the master branch, we plan to add staging and develop branches. develop will be where development happens, while master will reflect what is currently deployed on Tildes.net.

      How do I contribute to Tildes development?

      Check this document: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

      104 votes
    24. How can I unsubscribe from the politics tag?

      I came to Tildes to get away from the endless political talk of reddit. Is there any way to unsubscribe from the political threads here? Most of them seem to be posted in ~misc, but there's other...

      I came to Tildes to get away from the endless political talk of reddit. Is there any way to unsubscribe from the political threads here? Most of them seem to be posted in ~misc, but there's other content there too.

      10 votes
    25. New users: Ask your questions about Tildes here! (v4)

      It looks like we're getting some new sign-ups! 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...

      It looks like we're getting some new sign-ups! 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!

      It 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. Just ask away, and someone will answer you!

      57 votes
    26. New users: Ask your questions about Tildes here! (v2)

      At over 600 comments and over a month old, v1 of the questions thread is due for retirement. Here’s a new, fresh one for all the users we are continuing to get. We have a lot of new users joining...

      At over 600 comments and over a month old, v1 of the questions thread is due for retirement. Here’s a new, fresh one for all the users we are continuing to get.


      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!

      It 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. Just ask away, and someone will answer you!

      96 votes
    27. Interest in a new Tildes /~group?, ~electronics or perhaps ~makers?

      This is a community I've missed since leaving Reddit, but I didn't expect to find or create such a /~group here given Tildes is a much smaller community (I figured, statistically, there wouldn't...

      This is a community I've missed since leaving Reddit, but I didn't expect to find or create such a /~group here given Tildes is a much smaller community (I figured, statistically, there wouldn't be enough users with overlapping interests in Right to Repair / Electronics / 3D Printing / Makerspace / etc... for such a community to be present or to naturally form here.

      With the recent post asking for advice on a soldering station, and the number of users that participated in that discussion, I've been rethinking those assumptions of 'not enough users / not enough interest'. Then I further reflected on the significant number of people we have here that have fluently discussed other technical areas such as Linux, Programming, servers / Homelab topics and I realize upon reflection that a fair many of our users here are pretty high on tech literacy...

      So, as a prelude to requesting a new group like /~electronics or /~makers or some group name along that philosophical theme, I wanted to ask the community at large first as to how much interest there might be in this.

      Do you, dear reader, have an interest in electronics repair? In a garage workshop or other space at home where you fix or build things? Makerspace topics like 3D printing? Right to Repair law? If you want to know how to replace your cell phone screen, or ask about soldering or Raspberry Pi or Arduino, are you interested in having a place here on Tildes specifically for these things? Please, if you have such interests, let's discuss here.

      Pinging those who participated in the soldering discussion:
      @AugustusFerdinand @PraiseTheSoup @teaearlgraycold @Banazir @chocobean @elight @Plik @lynxy @Akir @TheD00d @pallas @ShroudedScribe @em-dash @luks @Tannhauser @kmcgurty1

      47 votes
    28. Three Cheers for Tildes: App updates and feedback (November 2024) — Version 1.2 lets you save comment drafts

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care...

      This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

      I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.


      Recently:

      Version 1.2.2 (Dec 5, 2024):

      • Added advanced settings to auto-vote on topics when opening them
      • Added advanced setting to hide "Reply" from text long-press menu
      • Fixed inserting markdown links with parentheses
      • Fixed UI bugs in profiles
      • Fixed crashes opening certain topics

      Happy Thanksgiving! Three Cheers version 1.2 is out for Android and iOS! (Nov 27, 2024)

      • Save drafts of comment replies, edits, and private message replies
      • Manage drafts via Settings
      • Improved some error messages

       

      Does not yet support saving drafts of new submissions

      I know some of you were hoping for topic submission drafts, but I wanted to release what I've implemented so far with comment drafts. This version took a decent amount of time to develop, and I didn't want to delay it further by adding submission drafts in this release. Thanks for your patience!

       

      Previous topic: September 2024

       


      Where to get it

      Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

      Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

      iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

      Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

      97 votes
    29. Is it possible to filter out posts or comments with Twitter links?

      I would like to see if I can filter out Twitter posts (and comments) from my feed on Tildes. I personally don't want to further engage anymore with the site and I've blocked the URL using ublock...

      I would like to see if I can filter out Twitter posts (and comments) from my feed on Tildes. I personally don't want to further engage anymore with the site and I've blocked the URL using ublock so would be good if I can pre-emptively filter the site. There's not a huge traffic but I'll do what I can.

      30 votes
    30. Sanity check: is using links to your personal blog as a glorified text post type reasonable?

      As a follow up to this, I now have a blog that I intend to use for longer write-ups on things I find interesting enough to want to share, and continuing this chain of thought, it would effectively...

      As a follow up to this, I now have a blog that I intend to use for longer write-ups on things I find interesting enough to want to share, and continuing this chain of thought, it would effectively fill the purpose of what I would until now use a text post for. This very post serves as an obvious counter-example of something that would make sense as a blog article, so there would presumably be exceptions, but overall that would mean I would switch from text posts to links to my blog where the text is (and I'd probably add a collapsible copy of the article as a comment for redundancy in case something happens to the blog. I have no idea if I'm keeping this specific domain name in the long term, and in fact I do want to switch to a proper domain name I own rather than using yunohost's domains, but for right now it's not in the cards.).

      To me, this reasoning makes sense and isn't in conflict with Tildes' principles, however I have a concern regarding the code of conduct's self-promotion policy, specifically the it shouldn't be the primary reason that you post on the site part. My gut tells me that I would be in the clear since the overall intent of this policy is to curb outright advertising and self-serving behavior, and I assume linking to my blog which is non-monetized and decoupled from any endeavor I might profit from wouldn't apply. While I think this is the most natural interpretation, I can't argue in good faith that, taking the text purely at face value outside of the broader context, "ceasing submitting text posts and replacing them with links to my blog" isn't pretty much making that blog the primary reason I post on the site (at least outside of the comment section).

      So, as a sanity check, I'm asking if going ahead with this does fit the expected conduct on Tildes and I'm not missing something that makes it not okay. If I am missing something, what should I do instead?

      29 votes
    31. Starting a community-maintained Tildes source code fork

      *Update (Feb 3, 2025): We've been added as maintainers on the official Tildes repo! Much of the below is outdated now. Bauke and I will be helping out on the official Tildes repo instead, and the...

      *Update (Feb 3, 2025): We've been added as maintainers on the official Tildes repo!

      Much of the below is outdated now. Bauke and I will be helping out on the official Tildes repo instead, and the community fork is paused now.

      See the new topic.


      Original post below

      It's happening: We're launching a community-maintained Tildes source code fork!

      Link: https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/tildes-cf

      @Bauke, as one of the top Tildes open source contributors, is on board as a co-maintainer, alongside myself. I hear @cfabbro is willing to help manage the issue tracker as well, continuing their long term efforts from the official repo.

      Tildes' admin, @Deimos, has direct access to the repository as well. Although he is not expected to take an active role in maintaining this community fork, he will have visibility into everything going on with the fork.

      Why?

      Deimos has a lot going on outside of Tildes. We want to keep the Tildes codebase well maintained and remove some burden from him.

      Back when he founded Tildes, Deimos was working as a fulltime unpaid volunteer on it, continuing that way for a few years. Not just code, but on everything administrative and financial; public relations, as in communicating officially inside the community and beyond; moderating the community; system administering the systems. Basically a ridiculous amount of effort for one person.

      Now Tildes is a side project, and he has a day job, and there is not physically enough time for a (human, non-drug-reliant) owner to do all those things.

      How will this new fork affect the Tildes website?

      The hope is that Tildes can merge relevant changes back into the official upstream repository. If we implement things useful and desirable for Tildes, it should be possible to get those improvements onto the website.

      Why not just add maintainers to the official repository?

      There are some features that may be desirable for the community, but not relevant to Tildes itself. This includes things like a Docker development environment, which code contributors may find convenient, but are an extra maintenance burden on the official Tildes repo, as Tildes does not use Docker in any way (AFAIK).

      Adding us to the official repository would also create a different dynamic, where there'd be an implicit endorsement by Deimos of all changes. This means the burden would essentially remain on the Tildes administrator to review, critique, and greenlight every single change. However, the entire point of this endeavor is that there isn't free bandwidth for that.

      Also this fork opens up possibilities like making the code reusable for self-hosting entirely new websites based on the Tildes source code. While I don't personally have any specific plans regarding such, self-hosting has been a repeated request ever since Deimos open sourced Tildes years ago.

       

      Is "Tildes Community Fork" good enough of a name?

      Thanks for reading this far! The fork needs a name. It will live in the "Tildes Community" GitLab group at https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/.

      For now I've simply called it "Tildes Community Fork" and put it at https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/tildes-cf.

      Any better naming ideas? It's not too late to change.

      Next steps: We'll start migrating GitLab issues over

      I think we're ready to start copying any "low-hanging fruit" issues from the official issues to the new community fork issues. If you have an issue you think qualifies as such, especially if it was ever labeled as "Approved" in the past, please feel free to copy it to the new issue tracker. Please link back to the original too.

      It's still a side project for us

      Please keep in mind it's still a side project for us. Although we're excited to push the project forward, please keep expectations in check. We're doing this as volunteers. Please be polite and don't rush us!

      115 votes
    32. A vast swathe of varied topics, and the conversations built around them, were just lost from Tildes – what to do when users leave with their posts

      I'd just like to say that I never make meta posts like this one, but for some reason this topic has really struck a chord with me on this Wednesday evening... We recently lost a user from Tildes....

      I'd just like to say that I never make meta posts like this one, but for some reason this topic has really struck a chord with me on this Wednesday evening...

      We recently lost a user from Tildes. I don't know which day, but I'd already noticed they weren't around a few days before I did some digging into it. The names here are not important. But this user had been a prolific poster over the last six months. As someone on Tildes who does a lot of tagging, they were high up on my 'user interaction list' in the passive way that comes from amending tags can do.

      Some departing users leave all of their contributions behind, along with their username, never to be seen from again. Perhaps they regenerate with a new handle or perhaps they find pastures fresh elsewhere. Some users take all of their topics with them, along with the conversations, the ideas, the thoughts, and in my mind a little piece of the Tildes community. The latter is what happened here with our prolific user.

      This has made me unusually sad. There are lots of users I miss on a personal connection level, whether that be the status they held in the community, or simply missing the elegance of their prose. Sometimes they return and I smile at my keyboard. Sometimes I check how they're doing by looking on Reddit. The sadness here comes from a feeling that when a prolific user leaves with their topics, it feels like a library user leaving the country with their borrowed library books. I've never been very good with analogies.

      People talk about link rot and video game preservation and the walled gardens of the internet and it feels like this mourning over lost information from a link aggregator with a close-knit community bound up in it fits in there somewhere in the discourse.

      In a comment to this topic I'm going to link to as many of the lost topics as I was able to find. These will be direct links to the articles, not to the Tildes discussion. I don't want this act to feel like grave-robbing by linking to deleted Tildes pages.

      This is the end of my hopefully only foray into meta posting. I don't think I have the wordsmith-ery for it.

      70 votes
    33. "Rate limit exceeded. Please wait 56 minutes before retrying"

      I got this error message this morning when making content ( replying to a thread ) first thing in my Tildes.net session https://paste.pics/SN1N0 Oddly, I didn't have any trouble making a new...

      I got this error message this morning when making content ( replying to a thread ) first thing in my Tildes.net session

      https://paste.pics/SN1N0

      Oddly, I didn't have any trouble making a new thread ( this one ), just replying to existing threads.

      It happened on only the second comment I tried to make this morning.

      10 votes
    34. You make friends *HERE*?!

      No, really. Sincerely putting this out there. Using Tildes sometimes feels like talking into the void. The UI, even in Three Cheers, is minimal. The conversations sometimes clinical, though I...

      No, really. Sincerely putting this out there.

      Using Tildes sometimes feels like talking into the void. The UI, even in Three Cheers, is minimal. The conversations sometimes clinical, though I greatly appreciate the compassion that comes through here versus other places that shall remain nameless.

      Yet I am struck. I've seen people here, more recently, cite meeting other Tildans (Tildaniens? Tilwhoseits?).

      As a somewhat reclusive 51 year-old married dude with only furry children, I don't get it. But I do know that I need more friendships. It gets harder, as you get older. (As for me, not keeping toxic friendships from school and later 2 decades working remotely led to, well, this.)

      So how do you connect with humans as humans here? How do you "make friends"?

      Asking as someone who has a diagnosed potent ADHD and perhaps other as yet medically undetermined NDisms.

      (No idea what tags to use for this. Help?)

      67 votes
    35. Tags for filtering out news content

      I've made a strong effort toward intentional news exposure by trying to limit the times I run across news articles. This has "minimized" my exposure to the times when I specifically look to read...

      I've made a strong effort toward intentional news exposure by trying to limit the times I run across news articles. This has "minimized" my exposure to the times when I specifically look to read news sources.

      I'd be curious to know if anyone here is accomplishing something similar by filtering out Tildes tags and, if so, what does your list look like? Seems to be a hard balance between quieting the unwanted news posts and not limiting exposure to posts and articles I'd like to see.

      12 votes
    36. Font size?

      I recently upgraded to a pixel 9 pro and noticed that the higher resolution resulted in text that was often too small. I went to my settings and increased my font size to 125%. However, I noticed...

      I recently upgraded to a pixel 9 pro and noticed that the higher resolution resulted in text that was often too small.

      I went to my settings and increased my font size to 125%. However, I noticed that this doesn't seem to apply to titles on Tildes, at least not in a uniform way.

      It's hard to say without going back to my old phone, which I can't easily do right now, but I do think I recall title font size varying depending on the length of the title. But perhaps the difference wasn't as drastic on my old phone due to the difference in resolution? Perhaps the titles with smaller font sizes were still easy to see so I didn't really notice? It's just very noticable on this phone. I don't want to increase zoom on Chrome for every website just to solve this issue.

      Ideas?

      12 votes
    37. I've added ~society for topics related to politics, law, policies, and similar societal-level subjects

      The quick summary and important info first: I've just added a new group to the site named ~society, which will encompass politics as well as some other similar subjects. Over the next few hours,...

      The quick summary and important info first:

      I've just added a new group to the site named ~society, which will encompass politics as well as some other similar subjects. Over the next few hours, I'll be moving many existing topics into it, and then based on those topics I'll be automatically subscribing users who have a history of regularly participating in them (based on commenting, voting, labeling, etc.). Feel free to subscribe manually now if you already know you'll be interested, and if you'd like to ensure that you're not automatically subscribed to it by me, go to your topic tag filters page, add politics on a line by itself, and click the save button (I'll be excluding anyone that has politics ignored). I'll edit a note into the bottom of this post later today when I've finished doing the automatic subscriptions.


      Adding a group like this is something that I've been thinking about doing for a long time, but I didn't want to make any major changes as it got closer to the US election, and then I've considered the last week to be a bit of a "blowing off steam" period, where I've been more lenient on the number and quality of political topics than I normally would have. However, I think now will be a good time to add it, since we're probably going to have a lull in significant political news for a short while until it kicks up again, and this will allow the group to get established.

      I've never wanted to have a group devoted to politics on Tildes, and I'm sure that a lot of the older users will be able to remember my explanations about why and find our old discussions about it. I don't think a lot of those reasons have actually borne out over the years. ~misc has effectively ended up as ~politics-in-all-but-name, and political topics are also spread over a lot of other groups (politics-but-with-a-financial-angle ends up in ~finance, politics-but-with-a-healthcare-angle in ~health, politics-but-based-on-a-study in ~science or ~humanities, and so on).

      The default topic sorting on Tildes being activity-based has also ended up making these types of topics feel too prominent. In terms of number, they're a small portion of the total topics posted to the site, but there's a set of highly-active users (who are also a very small portion of the active commenters on the site overall) that comment heavily and quickly in them, which keeps them being constantly bumped back up in the activity listings.

      And on the opposite side, many users clearly want to avoid these topics. "politics" is by far the most common tag that people filter out, with about four times as many users putting it in their filter list as the second most common one (to nobody's surprise, "elon musk"). In theory, tag filtering is a good solution for this, but it's not a visible enough feature and the large majority of users don't use it (or even seem to know it exists). The group system is far more intuitive for this purpose.

      I could continue with other reasons for a while, but the upshot is that I believe it's time to accept that the existing approach hasn't worked out and it's worth trying something different. There are also a few other similar subjects/tags that are generally spread across other groups for lack of an obvious relevant place, so I think going with ~society as a little broader of an umbrella will be able to give those ones more of a home as well. I'd appreciate input about which other subjects you think might fit (but to be clear, I don't intend for this to subsume or replace any of the other existing groups, and especially not ones like ~lgbt, ~life.men, and ~life.women).

      I expect to be busy for quite a while today figuring out which topics to move into the group and experimenting with some different possibilities for choosing which users to auto-subscribe to it, so I probably won't be replying much, but I'll definitely read through the discussion here later. I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank @mycketforvirrad again for their tireless devotion to keeping topics well-tagged across the site—it's a mostly-invisible and mostly-thankless task, but it makes doing a major reorganization like this so much more feasible than it otherwise would have been.

      Edit: Auto-subscriptions should be mostly done now, hopefully I managed to select a decent set of users (and didn't subscribe many people that don't actually want to be—please unsubscribe if you'd like)

      242 votes
    38. Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?)

      Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen...

      Last night I posted a video that came across my YouTube feed. I had never seen this particular creator before, but I found the video entertaining and thought provoking in isolation. I hadn't seen any videos like this anywhere else on Tildes, so I decided to post a new Topic. I wasn't sure how to word the description. I knew I wanted to hear other points of view, so I hinted at wanting a discussion and didn't really get into my own thoughts.

      I hit submit and went to bed, thinking that in the morning I might be able to clarify my thoughts, and add to the discussion without dominating it.

      But I woke up to a mess! A mess that I made. The post had been locked and deleted. Apparently this particular YouTuber is very controversial, and posting without any context turned out to be problematic. I was hoping for discussion and boy howdy did I get discussion.

      But since I never really voiced my original intent for posting, it all left me feeling like I had spilled some milk and then someone else had cleaned it up for me. The problem is that I never got to apologize for spilling the milk, and never got to thank the people who cleaned up for me while I was sleeping.

      So I suppose this is sort of a meta post. Has anyone else here had something locked/deleted before being able to "make it right"? Should I have provided more context up front? Vetted the creator better by researching their other videos or other online activity? Am I doing the wrong thing by talking about it post-mortem? I definitely don't want to make things any worse, and super duper do not want to be kicked from Tildes! I really enjoy interacting with people here, and want to make sure I'm adding rather than taking away.

      Also, I just want to say that I'm sorry if this reignites any problems related to the original (now deleted) Topic, and I will happily accept if this Topic also needs to be removed. Please excuse my mess. :)

      49 votes
    39. Can/should Tildes pull out of search engine results?

      The other thread about potential spam on the site got me thinking, can/should Tildes hide itself from Google and other search engines (aside from just the main page) to avoid the tentacles of SEO...

      The other thread about potential spam on the site got me thinking, can/should Tildes hide itself from Google and other search engines (aside from just the main page) to avoid the tentacles of SEO from infiltrating the site? I'm not sure how feasible that is, but I know reddit has the option to prevent your profile from getting indexed by search engines so perhaps that could be applied to the site as a whole.

      23 votes
    40. Tildes often takes me away from Tildes (via links) and that's a good thing

      It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external...

      It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external news article, an image/video hosted somewhere else or relying on external communication tools, is antithetical to your business model if you rely on ad impressions or sponsored content.

      So when I visit Tildes it's feels different. Often I stumble across interesting links or discussions that take me elsewhere on the web and encourage me to research or think about topics in a variegated way. So after an hour or two I can decide that I have gotten my share of curiosity, entertainment or social interaction and can move on to something else. It helps that the content on here is generally genuine and high quality.

      This is in stark contrast to the endless scrolling loop of other sites that keeps one busy, but never quite satisfied. It's a very good sign.

      37 votes
    41. Could we get a ~politics.us?

      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into...

      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into one corner so it can be hidden.

      While Tildes is quite US focused, there is still a lot of us non-us people here.

      40 votes
    42. I am missing a neutral way to flag low-effort or potentially spammy posts

      Lately I have seen a few posts here and there from accounts that have been silent for a while, where I can't help but feel that these new posts are made by different people or that the initial...

      Lately I have seen a few posts here and there from accounts that have been silent for a while, where I can't help but feel that these new posts are made by different people or that the initial posts they made were intended to "pad" the account. In other words, they feel a bit like spam and because of that I would like to "flag" them somehow.

      The obvious question people will have is likely "Why not just comment about it under the post?"

      I have done that various times, and it has the opposite effect of what I'd like:

      1. Commenting boosts the post for people who sort based on comments or activity.
      2. From what I have observed, when a post has one comment, it is more likely to receive more votes as well. If it has more than one comment, it will receive more votes. This, to me, bizarre voting behavior is something worthy of a meta discussion in itself. But from what I gather, people seem to think that it indicates discussion. Making them think that there must be something worthwhile about the post. This obviously doesn't apply when it's just the OP sharing a quote and me raising a concern.
      3. Sometimes I am not entirely sure and would like to have someone with more insights behind the screens take a look at it. If I commented my suspicions while being wrong, that would suck for everyone involved.

      Basically for the first two points I am not sure what a good solution would be. I am not advocating for a downvote ability, though something would be nice.
      For the third point, I guess I am saying that I am missing the ability to report a post. With comments, I can use the malice label and write out a report, for posts there is no such thing.

      29 votes
    43. Has there been a discussion about labels on posts themselves?

      I love the labels feature of Tildes and use it fairly regularly where I feel appropriate. But recently I wanted to label a post (rather than a comment) and realized that there is no option for...

      I love the labels feature of Tildes and use it fairly regularly where I feel appropriate. But recently I wanted to label a post (rather than a comment) and realized that there is no option for that.

      Is this something that has been discussed before? I did a cursory search but was not able to find anything specific to labels on posts. I'm not even saying that I'd be 100% for the feature, just wondering if it's been discussed before. Questions like 'would it provide a benefit?' or 'if so, should those labels be the same as the ones for comments?' were along the lines of what I was thinking.

      Might be a terrible idea, or difficult to implement for some reason or another, but sometimes I feel like a post could use a label (like 'exemplary' for a well-thought-out post, or 'malice' for one where the article posted feels deceptive and/or misleading) and right now there does not appear to be a way of doing that. Wondering what others think.

      18 votes