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  • Showing only topics in ~tildes with the tag "suggestions". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Should comments show votes?

      I feel like showing the number of votes a comment has gotten will lead to people voting something simply because it's gotten many votes and that must mean it's right. You see it happen all the...

      I feel like showing the number of votes a comment has gotten will lead to people voting something simply because it's gotten many votes and that must mean it's right. You see it happen all the time on Reddit. Someone will say something that sounds correct, and before someone else can come correct them they'll get a bunch of upvotes. Partly because they sounded correct, and partly because "all these upvotes must mean this is true".

      I don't really see any benefit to showing votes on comments.

      17 votes
    2. Voting on the main page discourages discussion

      I realize preventing people without first reading the link or text is impossible, but the least we can do is to not encourage it. By that, I mean the vote counts on the right hand side here...

      I realize preventing people without first reading the link or text is impossible, but the least we can do is to not encourage it. By that, I mean the vote counts on the right hand side here shouldn't be clickable if discussions are the priority for Tildes.

      What do you think?

      EDIT: Just to be clear - I'm not against showing the votes on the front page (though @AllMight below has a fair argument for that).

      21 votes
    3. How about an RSS feed for tildes?

      I've recently gone back to using RSS as a way to keep up with things that I like to follow, and I realized that it could be a good fit for tildes. I'm a developer by trade, so if other people are...

      I've recently gone back to using RSS as a way to keep up with things that I like to follow, and I realized that it could be a good fit for tildes. I'm a developer by trade, so if other people are interested too I could even help with development (though not until I graduate in December, I'm slammed with work and school at the moment).
      Any thoughts for or against RSS?

      19 votes
    4. How long until we can hide posts?

      At the moment, my front page (is that what it's called on Tildes) is filled with posts I already commented on or don't feel the need to participate in. So I could really use a hide function. Do we...

      At the moment, my front page (is that what it's called on Tildes) is filled with posts I already commented on or don't feel the need to participate in. So I could really use a hide function.

      Do we know when it's going to be implemented?

      19 votes
    5. Replying from my notifications sometimes makes me duplicate someone else’s response, since I didn’t see it - solution ideas?

      Sometimes I reply to a comment via my notifications page, then when I go look at my reply in the context of the thread, I see that someone else already addressed my point in a peer comment and I...

      Sometimes I reply to a comment via my notifications page, then when I go look at my reply in the context of the thread, I see that someone else already addressed my point in a peer comment and I feel dumb.

      Has this happened to other folks too?

      Any thoughts on possible solutions?

      Maybe there could be an indication of other replies to the comment which might prompt you to read them first prior to making your reply?

      Until this issue is magically resolved, I feel like I should never reply via my notifications.

      Example comment of this happening to me

      8 votes
    6. A group we are missing, that I would really like to see is ~Culinary. Would anyone else be interested?

      I think ~culinary would be beneficial to see, it could include areas like; ~culinary.news ~culinary.recipes ~culinary.videos ~culinary.photography I am a little biased because of my profession...

      I think ~culinary would be beneficial to see, it could include areas like;

      ~culinary.news

      ~culinary.recipes

      ~culinary.videos

      ~culinary.photography

      I am a little biased because of my profession (Sous Chef), but I do see a lot of Culinary related posts that are spread out over several different groups. It would be nice to have them organized into their own group.

      And if anyone is worried about it being active, I subscribe to several culinary news sites that I rarely post here so It would give me a chance to share some of that stuff. Not to mention giving us a place to share already popular Youtube series and recipes.

      I know this content doesn't lend to discussion as much as others, but it would still be high quality.

      EDIT: Maybe a solution is to have more of those posts end up in ~food instead of being spread out. Although I feel like the ~food heading is a little more restrictive, so maybe rename ~food to ~culinary?

      10 votes
    7. Crazy Idea: What if we remove traditional voting on comments entirely?

      Tildes already replaces some of the functionality of downvoting with its tags (troll, flame, off-topic). What if we replaced voting with "positive" tags: helpful, interesting, etc.? This would...

      Tildes already replaces some of the functionality of downvoting with its tags (troll, flame, off-topic). What if we replaced voting with "positive" tags: helpful, interesting, etc.? This would play off of people's indecision when faced with multiple options. A binary decision is very easy - upvoting vs. downvoting. But if you just want to vote on something because it backs up your political opinion you might pause to think for a second if you need to declare the comment "interesting".

      The number of positive tags could still be aggregated into a score. Perhaps we could list the positive tags at the bottom of the comment e.g.: "10 x helpful, 5 x interesting".

      26 votes
    8. Notification to a user if their comment is hidden due to comment tags

      The new comment-flagging feature is in place and is starting to operate: some comments are being hidden based on tags applied by users. The irony is that everyone knows a comment is hidden except...

      The new comment-flagging feature is in place and is starting to operate: some comments are being hidden based on tags applied by users.

      The irony is that everyone knows a comment is hidden except the person who posted the comment. If someone's own comment is being hidden, they should know that. I assume that part of the motive behind these tags is to teach Tildeans what is and isn't acceptable here. If someone doesn't know their comments are being flagged and hidden, they'll just keep on doing what they're doing.

      There should be some mechanism to advise a user that their comment is hidden - like happens when their comment is removed by the admin.

      EDIT: It's not just about educating people not to post more shallow comments in future. It's also just letting them know their comment has been hidden, as a courtesy.

      14 votes
    9. ~esports

      Hi, I wanted to suggest the creation of an esports specific group. The taxonomy would work in a similar way to ~games, however it would home both the business and news side of our industry as well...

      Hi, I wanted to suggest the creation of an esports specific group.

      The taxonomy would work in a similar way to ~games, however it would home both the business and news side of our industry as well as allowing for the competitive communities of various games to have sub groups. ~esports.leagueoflegends, ~esports.dota2, ~esports.overwatch for example.

      Would like to hear other people's thoughts.

      4 votes
    10. Usability Suggestion: Mobile sidebar closing.

      Edit: As @Bauke pointed out, apparently this feature already exists via tapping outside of the sidebar. I never even thought to try that. I'm not sure if this is in the gitlab issues or not, but a...

      Edit: As @Bauke pointed out, apparently this feature already exists via tapping outside of the sidebar. I never even thought to try that.


      I'm not sure if this is in the gitlab issues or not, but a cursory search suggested it's not. On mobile, if you tap the link to the most recent comment from the sidebar, you navigate directly to that comment just as on the desktop site, but the sidebar remains open and can't be closed without scrolling all the way back up to the top of the page. This is incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient.

      Ideally there would either be a method of closing the sidebar from anywhere, or for the sidebar to close on clicking the link. I would imagine that the latter would be simplest.

      8 votes
    11. On user-created groups

      I read the FAQ when I signed up and was honestly kind of dismayed to see lack of support for user-created groups (UCGs from here on). I understand the reasoning, but wonder if there isn't some way...

      I read the FAQ when I signed up and was honestly kind of dismayed to see lack of support for user-created groups (UCGs from here on). I understand the reasoning, but wonder if there isn't some way to allow group creation without cluttering.

      Some ideas:

      • List UCGs in a different section of the site
      • Organize under creator's username (UserName.mygroup)
      • Limit number of UCGs one user can directly create (not moderate)
      • Group creation approval queue
      • Allow private groups (UserName.mygroup) to convert into public groups (~mygroup) with admin approval, good behavior from subscribers, meeting milestone goals (e.g. 5000 subscribers), and no conflicting groups

      I'm not sure how any of that would work, logistically, so I'm curious what ideas the community here has to offer.

      7 votes
    12. Suggestion : browsing keyboard shortcuts

      Hi, I used to browse reddit with the J/K scroll up down the feed or comments keyboard shortcut. Coupled with X for opening media or link and C to get to comments, it was a much more efficient way...

      Hi,

      I used to browse reddit with the J/K scroll up down the feed or comments keyboard shortcut. Coupled with X for opening media or link and C to get to comments, it was a much more efficient way of navigating the website. As do all vim-like controls like Vimium etc..

      There are a lots of more useful keyboard navigation possibilities but i think these are the more needed ones for now.

      13 votes
    13. Flattr support

      In keeping with Tildes' general philosophy of supporting budding technologies that have the potential to reform large domains of the internet for the better, I think you should look into Flattr...

      In keeping with Tildes' general philosophy of supporting budding technologies that have the potential to reform large domains of the internet for the better, I think you should look into Flattr (www.flattr.com).
      A Flattr subscriber reserves any set amount of money per month which will then get automatically distributed to content creators on the web, in proportion to an algorithmic estimate of how much the user has used that particular site or resource.

      First-tier support for Tildes on Flattr would be as simple as registering an account and connecting the tildes.net domain to it. From then on, a percentage of the reserved amount would automatically get transferred to Tildes' account for every Flattr user who uses the site (I myself have generated 64 "Flattrs" on this site as of this moment, which would lead to a significant portion of my reserved $5 to be transfered to Tildes for this month).

      For sites that host content creators, like Twitch and YouTube, Flattr offers a deeper support, where Flattrs go toward individual content creators as well as the host site in itself. An intuitive way to connect Tildes to this feature would be to have each upvote of a Tildes post generate a Flattr for the poster. I believe the money would then be divided between the user who was upvoted (if they have a Flattr account) and Tildes' own Flattr account, but I am unsure about the exact fraction that would get routed to the individual poster as opposed to Tildes itself. I'm sure Flattr's tech support can answer this in detail, though. Flattr is currently owned and maintained by the company behind AdBlock.

      What do other users think? Is Flattr's model good? Are there other sites or providers that offer a similar service? A notable difference between for example Patreon and Flattr is that Flattr is indirectly based on a "pay what you want" model, which marks a pretty significant shift in economic control from producers to consumers. This will obviously have both advantages and drawbacks. Personally, I think the model has a lot of potential on an arena like the internet, where the sheer number of potential consumers can make microtransaction-based models like Flattr really powerful.

      19 votes
    14. A group for finance/markets/investing/trading would be nice

      There is a conspicuous lack of that sort of thing here so far. I get that Tildes might not want to be a repository of "hey what stock do I buy" or "Oh my god MU is still going down" but...

      There is a conspicuous lack of that sort of thing here so far. I get that Tildes might not want to be a repository of "hey what stock do I buy" or "Oh my god MU is still going down" but strategy-oriented discussions around positions in markets and the way changes in the world will effect your financial future seems like high-quality content to me.

      6 votes
    15. Should deleting comments be the standard behaviour, or can we consider a less censored approach by default?

      I often stumble in to threads with entire comment chains deleted. I assume most people here have faced the same situation as well, either here or on reddit. I'd like to see a move to locking...

      I often stumble in to threads with entire comment chains deleted. I assume most people here have faced the same situation as well, either here or on reddit.

      I'd like to see a move to locking comments rather than deleting them by default. That would mean no further replies to the comment or any other comment in that chain, no one being able to delete or edit their comments, no one being able to add or remove votes to a comment, etc.

      I understand for particularly egregious comments removal is completely necessary (especially when it goes hand-in-hand with banning users), but a lot of times comments are deleted as a means to prevent long argumentative back-and-forth chains that spam and derail topics, as well as antagonize users.

      In a lot of cases I feel like deleting the comment only further serves to hide what is unacceptable behaviour (even if that behaviour should be obvious), rather than setting an example for the userbase.

      30 votes
    16. Feature proposal: Real-time moderation transparency page (vote in comments)

      Proposal: Create a new page where all users can view all moderation actions. This would make transparency a core part of the platform, hopefully avoiding any misunderstandings about mod actions. A...

      Proposal:
      Create a new page where all users can view all moderation actions. This would make transparency a core part of the platform, hopefully avoiding any misunderstandings about mod actions.

      A new page, maybe called tildes.net/moderation, is available to all registered users. I am not sure where the link to should appear on the site, maybe on the user's profile sidebar?

      This page contains a table of all possible moderation actions. The actions may include: deleted topics, deleted comments, tag modification, moved topics, edited topic titles, banned user, locked topics. (this begs the question, what are the possible mod actions, and that they must be codified.)

      Very roughly, the table columns might include: Date, User(being mod'ed), Mod Action(a list of possible mod actions), Mod Action Reason (either a text field, or a list of possible reasons for this action), Link (null if action is a deleted topic.)

      I think that the user who did the moderating should not be publicly listed for now, to avoid drama?


      Some of the related Topics: (please make a top-level comment with any others)

      Could we have a stickied list of all bans with reasons included?

      Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban


      Please vote for the comment which best reflects your position on this proposal.
      As a bonus question, please make a top-level comment if you have general comment about my format of voting on comments. Would you prefer a straw poll on a 3rd party platform? Is there a cleaner way to do this?

      Edit: added "banned user" to actions list, I probably missed others, let me know. Also added the obvious locked topics.

      23 votes
    17. Feature Request: Can we get a reply button at the top of every post?

      I spend far too much time looking for a reply button before I realise I have to scroll to the bottom. Also, it'd be a lot less work in big threads, where you might be scrolling for a while to get...

      I spend far too much time looking for a reply button before I realise I have to scroll to the bottom.
      Also, it'd be a lot less work in big threads, where you might be scrolling for a while to get to the reply box.
      Yes, I'm that lazy.
      I noticed that sometimes I don't engage if it's a big thread because of this, if the topic being discussed is only of passing interest for example.

      4 votes
    18. Feature request: A better way to navigate unread comments in a thread

      I've found that the red (X new) indicator next to a thread's comment count on the main page keeps me coming back to the discussion to see the latest messages. This is a good thing, but the UX for...

      I've found that the red (X new) indicator next to a thread's comment count on the main page keeps me coming back to the discussion to see the latest messages. This is a good thing, but the UX for actually navigating through those messages leaves something to be desired.

      There are two relevant existing features I'd like to discuss:

      • All new comments since I last viewed the thread are highlighted with a conspicuous red stripe.
      • The sidebar on any given discussion page has a link to jump to the most recent comment.

      I use the most recent comment link in threads that I know only have one new comment. The link takes me right to it. But in threads with more than one new comment, it's a lot less foolproof. My only method for seeing them all is to scroll down the page and stop when I see a flash of that red stripe. This is tedious in busy discussions which both update frequently with new comments to read, and take a long time to scroll through every time I check them. It's also easy to miss something this way, and since comments are considered "read" after you load the page, there's no second chance to see whatever I missed.

      I'd like to propose a method for iterating through all unread comments on a page, either in chronological order (oldest first) or in order of appearance on the page. Or if @Deimos wants to get really fancy, some kind of hybrid sort that keeps nested comment chains grouped together for contextual continuity when navigating.

      This would require two controls: "Jump to next unread comment" and "Jump to previous unread comment." These could be "sticky" clickable icons on the page, or just some sort of keystroke (like , and . for previous and next, respectively) without a UI at all.

      An important secondary feature of this would be a count indicating both how many unread comments are on the page and how many within that set you have jumped to with this mechanism so far:

      Viewing 2 of 7 unread comments

      This could remain visible or only appear briefly when jumping to the next/previous unread, then fade away. It could also be shortened to something more minimal:

      2/7

      That on-screen feedback would help prevent getting lost in busy threads with high unread counts, particular if the sequence is not determined by order of comment appearance on the page.

      Edit: Whoops, fixed my formatting error I didn't notice after posting.

      12 votes
    19. Could we have a stickied list of all bans with reasons included?

      In the interest of transparency (and a little bit in statistics) it would be really cool to have a master banlist or at least a thread with links to all ban-worthy posts. This would help new users...

      In the interest of transparency (and a little bit in statistics) it would be really cool to have a master banlist or at least a thread with links to all ban-worthy posts. This would help new users understand what isn't acceptable in the community and allow for community discussion on what could be considered an unjustified ban or a weird influx of bad behavior. This wouldn't be super viable when the site goes public, but would be a neat implementation in Tildes' alpha state.

      14 votes
    20. Should we enforce an "article" tag?

      I don't know if it seems too pedantic but I feel like it would be much more convenient to tag any posts linked to articles as such, so that people could focus in on or filter out articles at their...

      I don't know if it seems too pedantic but I feel like it would be much more convenient to tag any posts linked to articles as such, so that people could focus in on or filter out articles at their convenience. Personally, I never read articles people post unless the subject matter greatly intrigues me, and in that case, I've read it because of reasons beyond it being an article. I think it'd be a pretty easily enforceable thing, as we have tagmods now and tagging articles (if anybody forgets) would be simple and quick.

      13 votes
    21. Feature request: set default comment sort

      I've found that I prefer to see comments sorted by order posted, rather than having the most upvoted as the first item. I'd rather read through the thread before deciding the relative merits of...

      I've found that I prefer to see comments sorted by order posted, rather than having the most upvoted as the first item. I'd rather read through the thread before deciding the relative merits of any post, and find that "most upvoted" often isn't necessarily the most insightful, especially on long discussions.

      It's not a huge effort to change the view, but I don't want to encourage my own lazy habit of looking at the first post and saying "good enough".

      May I request that a setting for default sort method be added?

      10 votes
    22. Allow users to set their own comments to default collapsed?

      Sometimes I comment and I'm low effort and jokey or a thread develops that ends up unnecessary... And now we have a whole in joke (sorry Kat, I started it & you earned it!). Anyway, perhaps it...

      Sometimes I comment and I'm low effort and jokey or a thread develops that ends up unnecessary... And now we have a whole in joke (sorry Kat, I started it & you earned it!).

      Anyway, perhaps it would be nice to add an option to set your own posts to default collapsed? We might also want an option to hide all collapsed in topic? Or do these features just encourage low effort fluff and I should just learn better self control?

      Edit> OK This obviously isn't clear:
      I was suggesting an option to set one of your comments & it's chain to collapsed for all other users by default.

      7 votes
    23. Suggestion: When unsubscribing to a group have an optional "Reason for leaving" field. For example: If a large percentage unsubscribe for 'toxicity' that's valuble information.

      The idea is to help combat the echo-chamber effect, if a group goes toxic then rational people are likely to leave, further concentrating the negative users left in the conversation. So the idea...

      The idea is to help combat the echo-chamber effect, if a group goes toxic then rational people are likely to leave, further concentrating the negative users left in the conversation.

      So the idea is that if there's a large exodus of people unsubscribing then that's valuable information if we can determine the cause. Hence if there's an option to explain why you're leaving it can help flag a group as in trouble, first to the moderators and then to the admins that "are these moderators doing their job".

      Now the parties leaving could show their protest in comments or threads, but if they're already leaving then they've already forgone that option. I know on reddit I'm not going to try help a dieing subreddit, I'm just going to leave.

      26 votes
    24. How would you feel about "levels" a user could gain with accompanying priviledges?

      Lately, there's been talk about new priviledges users could gain, either by requesting them (and being judged as fit) or discussing if everyone should gain a new ability like editing titles The...

      Lately, there's been talk about new priviledges users could gain, either by requesting them (and being judged as fit) or discussing if everyone should gain a new ability like editing titles

      The problem with new priviledges is of course that they can be abused by malicious users. One of the overall goals of Tildes is to trust users, but punish abuse, however I don't see this working with a large userbase. Even if this site grows slowly and the community remains mostly small or perhaps invite only, eventually we will reach a tipping point where the mods, if you want to call them that, won't be able to effectively manage the userbase. I feel like if we locked certain abilities (like editing titles, even within a time limit) behind tiers or levels users could achieve with certain actions, we could manage to keep low-effort trolls out and use it a sort of tutorial, where after certain actions for a new user (like writing their first comment or receiving their first vote) a window could pop up, informing them that they now have gained a new ability like voting, simultaniously explaining what the goal with the actual votes is.

      I understand that this would gamify the system, but it would stop new users from abusing the system and lock those more dangerous abilities behind things they needed to do, ideally things that require a time investment so they'd feel less inclined to abuse the tools they've been granted (because they'd value their account more due to said time investment). It would also automate some things for the masses, which would make moderating easier.

      An example:

      A new user joins the site, at first, he can only vote. After casting his first vote, a message pops up, telling him that he can now post comments. Maybe there's a link to the rules and code of conduct there, maybe just a little tidbit about how stuff works on Tildes. Things that require more trust in the user are locked behind more difficult milestones, maybe editing titles is locked behind writing a hundred comments or receiving a hundred votes, maybe both.

      What are your thoughts on this?

      13 votes
    25. Feature request/discussion: Tag everyone that replied to a post

      Hi, It would be nice for the OP to be able to tag everyone that answered a post to give some solution to some problem that didn't had a solution (something like a post "my computer does not turn...

      Hi,

      It would be nice for the OP to be able to tag everyone that answered a post to give some solution to some problem that didn't had a solution (something like a post "my computer does not turn on, what can i do?" and no one finds the solution, then the OP finds the solution and tags every one that replied to let them know what the solution was [this is a super dumb example, but you got the point :) ]).

      Problem is that this may be abused, maybe limiting use of one/two calls for everyone on one post?

      EDIT: added "on one post"

      9 votes
    26. Should we hide the vote count display?

      The only benefit that I can think of is that it gives users a rough idea of how good a post or comment is, which in my opinion, is not a very good thing. It prompts us to judge a post based on how...

      The only benefit that I can think of is that it gives users a rough idea of how good a post or comment is, which in my opinion, is not a very good thing. It prompts us to judge a post based on how many votes it has, when we should judge the post based on its actual content instead. It doesn't do a very good job as a quality meter either. A post with 12 votes is not that much "better" than a post with 10 votes but seeing those number, it sure does feel like it. On the other hand, is a post at 100k ten times better than a post at 10k? Voting as a way to sort content is fine as the sorting is like a suggestion, the number next to it however makes it feel like a popularity contest.

      I know this is a very petty thing to complain about, just want to know if anyone else feels the same way. Personally, I've caught myself getting jealous when my submission "only" have 2 upvotes while also thinking of comments with higher vote count as more trustworthy before actually read them.

      29 votes
    27. Thoughts on restricting tags?

      Often when I go to post, I have to check first what the most commonly used tag is for the thing I want to post. There is quite a bit of tag duplication/proliferation. Granted, this could also be...

      Often when I go to post, I have to check first what the most commonly used tag is for the thing I want to post. There is quite a bit of tag duplication/proliferation. Granted, this could also be dealt with in part by suggesting tags as the user types, but:

      What do you think about having a specific set of tags to choose from, and when there are a handful of posts about a specific topic, new tags are added by administrators? This is essentially the way Lobsters works, and I think it works pretty well.

      On one hand, this could reduce tag proliferation, but on the other hand, it could also corral people into only posting about certain topics that are sufficiently similar to existing tags.

      8 votes
    28. User bios?

      Should we have optional short user bios? Say a 300-500 character markdown bio, a la Hacker News (IDK their character limit BTW)? edit: add the word "optional"

      19 votes
    29. Remember display theme preferences even after cookie clearing

      For those of us have our browsers set to clear all cookies upon exit find it annoying to login in the middle of the night only to get our eyes blasted with the white theme. Settings need to dug...

      For those of us have our browsers set to clear all cookies upon exit find it annoying to login in the middle of the night only to get our eyes blasted with the white theme. Settings need to dug around with to switch is to something darker every time. This could be avoided by having the server remember the theme preferences of the users.

      If this is something that's already discussed previously or planned to be worked on internally, please correct me below. Thank you

      10 votes
    30. Per Tilde Tag Based Background Reading Links (wikipedia?)

      If tildes wants to foster deeper discussions I wonder if there should be some mechanism for linking off to external background knowledge. This could possibly be semi-automatic based on the...

      If tildes wants to foster deeper discussions I wonder if there should be some mechanism for linking off to external background knowledge. This could possibly be semi-automatic based on the containing tilde & topic tags.

      If we end up with news discussions around topics like say Israel & Palestine in order for anyone to begin to understand wtf is going on (and so reasonably discuss the current news topic) there's a load of relevant history. It seems like it would be nice to have a link so that a topic from poltics.news with the tag Israel could automatically get some further reading links.

      Wikipedia has the advantage that it's another user driven org so this could have the added benefit of motivating people to fact check & improve it.

      19 votes
    31. Embedded video player

      Hi, It would be nice to have a privacy aware youtube/vimeo/etc video player (by this i mean, not the official one), not sure if this is feasible, but it would be a really good feature (i remember...

      Hi,

      It would be nice to have a privacy aware youtube/vimeo/etc video player (by this i mean, not the official one), not sure if this is feasible, but it would be a really good feature (i remember that there was a website that implemented an opensource player, but i don't recall the name)

      7 votes
    32. What if replying to a comment forced upvoting of the comment being replied to?

      This would help, but not completely fix, two issues that seem to be inherent in the Tildes design: \1 Voting is mostly treated as an "I agree" button. You'll see this in pretty much any thread...

      This would help, but not completely fix, two issues that seem to be inherent in the Tildes design:

      \1 Voting is mostly treated as an "I agree" button. You'll see this in pretty much any thread where there's back and forth discussion. When you reply to a comment you're implicitly saying "this comment is worth engaging with," in which case an upvote is warranted.

      Same thing for topics: leaving a top-level comment should force an upvote for the topic.

      \2 It encourages non-engagement with comments that maybe shouldn't be engaged with. For example, one hot topic of this week has been the calling out of low-effort posts and how the community ought to chill out a bit. By forcing an upvote, it discourages replying to said posts, which makes it more likely that such comments will be ignored and drift to the bottom of a topic.

      Edit: Whether this idea is implemented or not, as long as Voting = "I Agree" this site will become an even bigger echo chamber than Reddit because there are no downvotes to balance out the "I support the message of this topic/comment" crowd.

      19 votes
    33. Tackling the Comment Voting Problem

      I took a break from Tildes for a week and came back to look at things again with a fresh perspective. One of the things I immediately noticed was how the earliest comments are the ones that get...

      I took a break from Tildes for a week and came back to look at things again with a fresh perspective.

      One of the things I immediately noticed was how the earliest comments are the ones that get the upvotes to the top of the comment list, and tend to stay there, even when better comments and chains flow below.

      I started thinking about why this is so pervasive. Not just on tildes, but everywhere. Reddit and tumblr both suffer this issue to a degree. At the end of the day, going through any comments requires a certain amount of time, and a certain approach to the existing library of commentary. If we lock in the amount of time an average person will examine comments (which...is not much), we’re left with the only thing to address: the approach to going through the existing library.

      Plenty of proposals (mostly already done) come to mind. Perhaps you go by most active or most recent comments. Controversial perhaps, or sorting by newest, rather than most popular. Maybe some secret mix of it all (the reddit “hot” formula). What about complete and utter randomness? ...yeah remember that Certain Amount of Time we discussed earlier? It’ll only be a couple posts before the user will switch back to another sort method.

      So what should we try? What HASN’T been tried?

      What about multiple panes? User-selectable, arrangable, 1-4. Vertical columns of different views, updated dynamically synchronously or asynchronously for the most controversial, new, and active. You could see all the views at once, side by side, so that your time switching between views and waiting for page loads evaporates and 100% of that limited attention span is spent on the comments in each of the sorts.

      Having the more rapidly-changing columns (newest, active) update synchronously (every # seconds, configurable) would allow a user to engage those comments in time for the next refresh. The less-rapidly changing columns could be set to be asynchronous- updating as the orders change (top, controversial). This can also be tweaked as the site gets either more or less active as a whole. So what might need to be asynchronous now while things are quiet, can be made synchronous later.

      Again, all of this is just a possibility, or perhaps starting point for a way to address the overall issue of the first comments being the most voted on.

      36 votes
    34. RSS/Atom feeds for groups?

      Could we have RSS or Atom feeds that correspond to a given view? There could be two kinds of feeds, one that links to the comments page, and one that follows the link itself. The comments feed for...

      Could we have RSS or Atom feeds that correspond to a given view?

      There could be two kinds of feeds, one that links to the comments page, and one that follows the link itself. The comments feed for ~comp could be https://tildes.net/~comp?rss=comments, and the link feed could be https://tildes.net/~comp?rss=link, or something like that. Ideally this could apply to tags as well, so if I just wanted to see posts in ~comp tagged web, I could view https://tildes.net/~comp?tag=web&rss=comments.

      Several similar sites have this ability, so it's nice to be able to browse them all in one place. (On Reddit you can put .rss at the end of a subreddit for a feed, and on Hacker News and Lobsters it's just /rss).

      What do you think?

      15 votes
    35. Is there any way to move the text box for topic replies to the top of the page rather than after all the comments?

      It took me a while to find where to post a reply to a post, and it was a little annoying to scroll past all the comments to write my own. On the other hand, it does encourage reading the other...

      It took me a while to find where to post a reply to a post, and it was a little annoying to scroll past all the comments to write my own.

      On the other hand, it does encourage reading the other posts before replying, but I feel like that hopefully won't needed on this site.

      7 votes
    36. Building "Board Culture" for each separate group through scrapping the 'front page' view

      Partially inspired by @Amarok's comment on culture specific to /r/listentothis and some thoughts I've been having: how can we make sure that each group (and sub-, and sub-sub-groups, etc) each...

      Partially inspired by @Amarok's comment on culture specific to /r/listentothis and some thoughts I've been having: how can we make sure that each group (and sub-, and sub-sub-groups, etc) each have a sort of identity of their own? In my own experience and opinion having a cohesive identity as a subgroup helps the content quite a bit, as opposed to "just being a subgroup".

      And I have a suggestion: If we scrap the front page as is, and we don't show all the subgroups' content mixed through each other, but stick to either a "classic" forum view, or like 4chan's view where you have to click through to a subforum, people would be forced to visit just that subgroup, and do so consciously. Thoughts?

      7 votes
    37. Given our Non-Profit nature, wouldn't having a "Gold" option make sense?

      Forgive me if this has been posted before, I am still pretty new here. Coming here having the option to "Gild" was something I kinda just assumed would be a thing. Obviously it wouldn't need to be...

      Forgive me if this has been posted before, I am still pretty new here.

      Coming here having the option to "Gild" was something I kinda just assumed would be a thing.

      Obviously it wouldn't need to be call "Gold" or "Gilding", those are just terms from some other site that I know all of us will understand.

      I have always liked the idea of users buying made up medals for topics and comments they felt the need to reward. It gives the users a sense of accomplishment/reward and gets the devs little micro donations.

      Currently the most valuable material in existence is antimatter, so maybe a little "AM" medal?

      EDIT: Something I also meant to mention, but forgot, was the badge system on DeviantART.

      dA has always had these little pixel llama badges that I thought were really cool. The basic concept was/is that you can gift someone a little llama if you think they or their art is cool or for any reason you want. These llamas stack on your profile. People can additionally gift gear for existing llamas and the site occasionally gives out rare llamas (and other badges) for milestones, events or promotions.

      I think a hybrid of reddit's gilding system and a badge system (like dA's) could be really cool.

      27 votes
    38. Saving topics with the ability to add Your Tags

      I see there is an issue open to add a saving feature for topics, which is great! I would like to make a suggestion for this feature. Do you think it would be possible to give users the ability to...

      I see there is an issue open to add a saving feature for topics, which is great! I would like to make a suggestion for this feature.

      Do you think it would be possible to give users the ability to add their own tags to a saved topic?

      A lot of times I search for content related to a project I am working on, and it would be nice if I could tag the topics I find as "project-xyz", as this would allow me find them easily when I come back to reference something. This tag would be useless to anyone else, but having our own personal tags, that only we can see, would be very useful in curating content.

      One way this could be done is by having a new section named "Your Tags" that appears under the existing "Tags" one, in the sidebar for a topic. Then on the Saved page, the sidebar could list all your unique tags, and clicking one would filter the topics.

      Anyway, just throwing out an idea. I can add a comment to that GitLab issue, if this is a possibility and something people are interested in.

      11 votes
    39. Idea that could change Tildes - Agree/Disagree buttons

      At first I didn't want to post this idea, because its pretty big change, but I think I'll post my idea here, thanks to @kiyoshigawa. Here is my comment that pretty much sums up my idea. My idea...

      At first I didn't want to post this idea, because its pretty big change, but I think I'll post my idea here, thanks to @kiyoshigawa. Here is my comment that pretty much sums up my idea.

      My idea is, that when people read something, and they agree/disagree with it, they want to express their agreement/disagreement (this is covered in this thread). When you want to express disagreement, you have to, because it's no downvote here, comment to disagree with some opinon. But when you want express agreement, and you don't want to comment (or simple 'I agree' wouldn't add anything to the debate), you just hit the upvote button. And that's problem, as the Vote button should serve as "quality content here" indicator, not "popular content" indicator. We've seen it on Reddit, where the effect is even larger because of the downvote button.

      So my idea is - Add agree/disagree buttons. These buttons doesn't have to do something - I even think, that it'll be better if they didn't do anything. But they'll help users express themselves, so when someone agrees with me, but doesn't want to simply say "I agree", he can hit the 'I agree' button - and he won't hit the vote button. This way, popularity won't affect the "quality" score of the post.

      Edit: As @Kat, @Kijafa, and others said, maybe add only agree button - not the disagree one. I think they might be right, disagree button might have negative effect, as now users have to express disagreement via comments.

      Edit 2: Thank you all for discussion. You made me change my mind about disagree buttons, you are right - it'd be used as downvote and would probably suppress discussion. However, I'm still curios about the "I agree" button and if it would decrease of usage Vote button to express agreement.

      28 votes
    40. Quotes should have more contrast (default light theme)

      Quotes serve two purposes: 1) Replying to a specific part of someone else's comment, and 2) introducing new information from an external source. Replying to a specific part When replying to...

      Quotes serve two purposes: 1) Replying to a specific part of someone else's comment, and 2) introducing new information from an external source.

      Replying to a specific part

      When replying to someone, the current low-contrast black-on-gray style makes sense because it's redundant info.

      However, when quoting an external source, my eyes tend to gloss over the quote, which is unfortunate. Current workarounds are: mild editorializing by bolding certain words; or paraphrasing the source, which is often a waste of time or can be misleading if someone misread the original.

      In summary, my inner thoughts say:

      I suggest we make quotes higher contrast, so that the ones introducing new info can add to the conversation, rather than be ignored due to visual de-emphasis.

      Quotes from external sources often imply authority and that their author has given a topic a lot of thought. Therefore they are valuable to include in a conversation and should carry the same weight as text written by any random user.

      Edit: Screenshot of this post using light theme: https://i.imgtc.com/wVdoFN6.png

      3 votes
    41. New comments column

      One of the more frustrating things about posts that become popular on reddit, is when you get to them several hours later when they have 1000+ comments. You'd love to give input, but know it'll be...

      One of the more frustrating things about posts that become popular on reddit, is when you get to them several hours later when they have 1000+ comments. You'd love to give input, but know it'll be lost in all the traffic. No one ever scrolls to the very bottom to see the newer comments.

      What if the sidebar displayed a handful of newer comments, with the main comment section remaining as it currently is? Think of it being similar to Amazon reviews, where the newest reviews are displayed on the right. This way you get to see both the most popular and newest comments at the same time.

      7 votes
    42. When subgroups come out, each group should have a .ask or .asktildes subgroup.

      With so many threads asking about what operating system people use, favorite music, favorite tv-shows, etc, I feel like this is a good subgroup for all of the groups (other than maybe tildes and...

      With so many threads asking about what operating system people use, favorite music, favorite tv-shows, etc, I feel like this is a good subgroup for all of the groups (other than maybe tildes and talk).

      8 votes
    43. Require decluttering clickbaity titles?

      I suggest we require decluttering clickbaity titles. The rule can be: if the title leaves you asking "Which X?", include that X in the title; if it asks you "Why X", change it to "X Because Y". It...

      I suggest we require decluttering clickbaity titles. The rule can be: if the title leaves you asking "Which X?", include that X in the title; if it asks you "Why X", change it to "X Because Y". It can be a spoiler, but I'd rather have an idea of the content than the suspense, which with this sort of articles is almost never really gratifying. What do you think?

      26 votes