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    1. How is Tildes doing?

      I haven't been around here in a few months. Glad there's still some presence. What are your thoughts on the site overall now?

      59 votes
    2. A Thank You For A Small Detail

      I've noticed a small typographical detail. When you look at messages at one's user page, second level headers (aka <h2>) are shown with a smaller font. I really appreciate that. Don't see rules...

      I've noticed a small typographical detail. When you look at messages at one's user page, second level headers (aka <h2>) are shown with a smaller font. I really appreciate that. Don't see rules for other header levels, but as is the feature is pretty cool.

      5 votes
    3. Should submitters be able to edit their own topic titles afterwards?

      https://tild.es/55n has some discussion about this already, and now that this feature is actually implemented, I'd be interested what your opinions on allowing users to edit their own topic titles...

      https://tild.es/55n has some discussion about this already, and now that this feature is actually implemented, I'd be interested what your opinions on allowing users to edit their own topic titles after posting are.

      My main argument is that it would allow fixing typos and providing significant updates — think adding a [Solved] marker in the title for topics related to some problem or reflecting a title update of a linked article — without having to contact other users that have permissions to do that. The topic log allows that to happen transparently already.

      14 votes
    4. What are people's thoughts on CAPITALIZATION in headlines/titles for EMPHASIS?

      One of my favorite YouTube channels, Linus Tech Tips, does this all the time, but I have seen many others doing this as well, and I personally find it rather obnoxious. I understand that it's more...

      One of my favorite YouTube channels, Linus Tech Tips, does this all the time, but I have seen many others doing this as well, and I personally find it rather obnoxious. I understand that it's more effective at getting them views, which they rely on to stay in business... but I see it as just another form of clickbait, and so when I submit LTT videos I tend to remove that capitalization.

      However, are there any cases where capitalization for emphasis is appropriate in a headline/title? And if not, should titles be edited to remove them?

      p.s. Acronyms and Initialisms are obviously different, so let's ignore those and put them in the "clearly acceptable" category.

      19 votes
    5. Vim Vixen extension for Firefox breaks on Tildes

      Hi, I'm new here. I use an extension for Firefox called Vim Vixen that allows the user to navigate webpages pretty effectively via the keyboard. One of its features allows the user to press the f...

      Hi, I'm new here. I use an extension for Firefox called Vim Vixen that allows the user to navigate webpages pretty effectively via the keyboard. One of its features allows the user to press the f key to bring up an overlay of keybindings over all links on the page, and pressing the keys associated with a link causes the browser to follow the link. I'm not intimately familiar with how the extension works, but with some basic Inspect Element-fu, I'm reasonably sure this feature is implemented with an iframe that is injected over the entire page.

      On Tildes, the iframe is visible in the top left corner and shifts all the actual content over accordingly. Normally, it is invisible. This is the only time I've ever had a problem with the extension, which is why I'm posting here first rather than reporting an issue with the extension. If someone more knowledgeable is interested in creating a fresh Firefox profile and comparing how the extension works on Wikipedia and on Tildes, I'd appreciate it. The code for the iframe appears to be identical on both sites, and it's at the end of the page body.

      6 votes
    6. Notifications are now automatically marked as read when you take an action on the comment (voting, replying, etc.) - this can be disabled in Settings

      This is a relatively minor update, but one I've been meaning to do for a long time. By default, comment notifications will now be automatically marked as read if you interact with the comment...

      This is a relatively minor update, but one I've been meaning to do for a long time. By default, comment notifications will now be automatically marked as read if you interact with the comment (currently, by: voting on it, replying to it, labelling it, or bookmarking it). This will happen regardless of where you take the interaction, so if you're viewing the thread itself and interact with comments that you also had notifications for, they will be marked read.

      When you're on the unread notifications page, even though actions are resulting in the comments being marked read, they won't disappear like they do if you click the "mark as read" button manually. This is so that you can take multiple actions if you want (such as voting and then replying). However, if you reload the page, they will disappear.

      If you don't like this behavior and would prefer to continue marking all comments as read manually, you can go to the Settings page and disable "Automatically mark notifications read when you interact with the source comment".

      I've bumped everyone back up to 10 invite codes as well, which you can get from the Invite page.

      55 votes
    7. Weird bug. CSS messes up, even after page reload.

      https://tildes.net/~hobbies/bzx/what_are_your_hobbies_and_how_do_you_get_into_them#comment-2z4f See for yourself. Text is squished to the left side of the page, one or two words per line. No idea...

      https://tildes.net/~hobbies/bzx/what_are_your_hobbies_and_how_do_you_get_into_them#comment-2z4f

      See for yourself. Text is squished to the left side of the page, one or two words per line. No idea if anyone else can see this but since it happens every time l visit that link l thought it was worth asking.

      Going to poke @Deimos on this one l suppose.

      Edit: Issue created.

      6 votes
    8. Strange bug clicking comments url on posts

      Issue is occurring on iPhone 7 using Firefox mobile browser v15.1 but has occurred on previous versions of Firefox. When I try to click the link to view comments, the post grows in size seemingly...

      Issue is occurring on iPhone 7 using Firefox mobile browser v15.1 but has occurred on previous versions of Firefox.

      When I try to click the link to view comments, the post grows in size seemingly indefinitely (eventually either the link works and redirects or I get frustrated and scroll to the next post). This has happened a few times. As far as I can tell it is seemingly random.

      https://m.imgur.com/8HHIvtl
      https://m.imgur.com/rhiA30y

      Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this. Still trying to get use to the proper place to put things. If you need any more details let me know.

      9 votes
    9. Differentiating between comments collapsed via noise versus user-actioned & old collapses

      Quick thought. Is there currently a purely visual way of distinguishing the rationale for why a comment is collapsed? It seems to me at the moment there's three distinct ways a comment can take on...

      Quick thought. Is there currently a purely visual way of distinguishing the rationale for why a comment is collapsed? It seems to me at the moment there's three distinct ways a comment can take on a collapsed property:

      • The user actively collapsed the comment while scrolling through the topic. This type of collapse is transient, and is neither persisted on the Tildes server, or in the browser, after the users leaves the page.

      • The comment was collapsed via the "negative weighting" heuristic as the community applied noise/joke tags to the comment. This is permanent, until presumably the comment gains enough votes to exceed any negative weighting causing its collapse.

      • Thirdly, the comment can be collapsed because the user has enabled "collapse old comments" in https://tildes.net/settings/comment_visits. Once a user visits a thread, any comments that existed at the last visit to the thread will be collapsed on any subsequent visits to the thread.

      Is there any visual way of distinguishing a user-collapsed comment from a community-collapsed comment currently? And if not, should there be one? Perhaps by making the collapsed text slightly more translucent? I'm actually looking to contribute to the Tildes source code in some small way, so this would potentially be an interesting shoehorn for that.

      26 votes
    10. Let's talk about titles

      A recent thread has had its title changed due to the title being sensationalized. I'm not sure that this is the correct move, as the title in question was also the title of the submitted article....

      A recent thread has had its title changed due to the title being sensationalized. I'm not sure that this is the correct move, as the title in question was also the title of the submitted article. I think this does a disservice to the community as a whole, as it makes it appear as though we want to editorialize the content submitted here which seems to go against the ideal of fostering quality discussion.

      "But wait!", I hear you say, "We have a topic log!" That will be ignored, easily, especially by those seeking to equate the community with something else. While we're busy misrepresenting content (because that's what changing a title does, it misrepresents), others will point at us and shout about how we're misrepresenting the content being posted. I cannot agree with this, and I think its detrimental to the community and the idea of Tildes as a whole. Note: Text-only posts obviously are excluded from this, I'm concerned with titles on submitted links that have their own title.

      Now, what happens when the title of an article is already sensationalist and editorialized? The authors, editor, and publisher obviously have biases and platforms they want to support. It currently seems as though we are changing titles to something different than what the title of the article is, and I find this extremely off-putting. I can understand wanting to avoid bringing that bias over to Tildes, but I cannot understand a reason to deliberately misrepresent that bias by changing an article's title. I think this is going to be detrimental to the community and the mission of Tildes to generate high-quality discussion.

      Where articles with sensationalized headlines are posted, I propose that we must retain those titles. The system of tagging is sufficient to indicate that a title is too strongly sensationalized. Deviating from this norm is antithetical with Tildes' mission to generate and foster quality content and discussion.

      There are too many responses to really get into things individually, but I must say I feel as though there has been a breach of trust. I had no idea that altering the titles of submissions would go so far, and it has destroyed the image I had of the site. Maybe the site will evolve more as the experiment continues, who knows. In the meantime, I've been accused of making arguments in bad faith multiple times in this thread. I'm deeply offended by this, as I've tried to present my thoughts and feelings as clearly as I could. This is deeply troubling to me, especially since those accusations have been given strong support by other users.

      unless we stopped editing titles

      This is a misrepresentation, I only ask that titles match the article they're from. Edit away if the title doesn't match the article, or is a user's text post. Maybe I wasn't clear, but there it is spelled out.

      Also, there was never an ultimatum, but Deimos and other users would smear me with such claims. Being unsure of whether or not a community is a good fit for yourself is not nearly the same thing as an ultimatum.

      32 votes
    11. I have to reload my inbox in order to vote on messages in it

      Not sure if this is intentional or not, but I've noticed today that the first time I click on the new messages link at the top right, I cannot vote on any messages I read. I need to reload my...

      Not sure if this is intentional or not, but I've noticed today that the first time I click on the new messages link at the top right, I cannot vote on any messages I read. I need to reload my inbox in order for the vote to stick.

      Anyone else encountering this?

      7 votes
    12. Tildes Docker Image

      Looking at the development setup page, the suggested setup is to use vagrant to create and provision a VM. Out of curiosity, is there a reason for this preference over setting up a Tildes Docker...

      Looking at the development setup page, the suggested setup is to use vagrant to create and provision a VM. Out of curiosity, is there a reason for this preference over setting up a Tildes Docker image inside the repo? Tildes seems like a pretty simple and straightforward web app, it shouldn't be difficult to create. Is it just a developer preference of Deimos/Tildes devs? Or is there a logistical reason?

      9 votes
    13. Does tildes have a mastodon group?

      I'm curious about joining mastodon but I spent a while looking through the LGBTQ and developer sections and I don't really see a server that appeals to me. Do a lot of people here use it, any...

      I'm curious about joining mastodon but I spent a while looking through the LGBTQ and developer sections and I don't really see a server that appeals to me. Do a lot of people here use it, any suggestions for getting started?

      15 votes
    14. Crazy idea to help stop the spreading of untruthful news

      One of the main issues with news on social media is the spread of fake or false news. This happens on every platform that allows sharing news. If Tildes continues to gain popularity, this will...

      One of the main issues with news on social media is the spread of fake or false news. This happens on every platform that allows sharing news. If Tildes continues to gain popularity, this will likely happen on Tildes. I had an Idea: what if tildes had a group of fact checkers that check to see if the news is truthful, and block posts that link to untrustworthy new sites? could be like a 3 strikes thing, where if a new source has 3 articles posted that have misinformation, they would be blocked (the post also removed).

      This is just an idea, feel free to highlight any issues with it.

      10 votes
    15. Merging threads?

      I think it'd be useful to merge duplicate threads when there's two topics that are very close to each other. I don't want the stackExchange style "closed as duplicate of x," but I think it would...

      I think it'd be useful to merge duplicate threads when there's two topics that are very close to each other. I don't want the stackExchange style "closed as duplicate of x," but I think it would be worthwhile to simply have the comments moved to the oldest thread and transfer any votes that are different users on each topic.

      This way, we aren't losing discussion by flat-out deleting topics that are dupes, and we're also able to take some sort of action on threads that are dupes.

      Just a thought.

      8 votes
    16. Geographical tags

      People are regularly using regional tags like "south america", "europe", "asia", and "africa" on posts... but almost never "north america". If we're going to use tags based on continents, should...

      People are regularly using regional tags like "south america", "europe", "asia", and "africa" on posts... but almost never "north america". If we're going to use tags based on continents, should we be consistent and include North America as one of those tags?

      On the other hand, are continental tags even relevant? Should we just drop them, and use only country-specific tags?

      (previous discussion)


      There are a lot of "eu" tags being used, which leads to ambiguity about whether it's "europe" or "european union".

      I think we should stop using "eu" entirely, and use only the longer, more informative, tags.

      (previous discussion)


      EDIT: Typo.

      12 votes
    17. Change the e-mail address.

      Is it possible to change the e-mail address my Tildes account is using? Asking this since I have switched from GMail to ProtonMail and want to move all my accounts over to ProtonMail as well.

      8 votes
    18. Can we have a dedicated ~econ group?

      Hi, simple request here, can we have a dedicated channel group for the economy & related financial topics? It is an important enough field of topics that deserves to be on its own and not just...

      Hi, simple request here, can we have a dedicated channel group for the economy & related financial topics? It is an important enough field of topics that deserves to be on its own and not just labeled via tags, IMO. Especially with interesting developments and happenings which may be driving political and other news, it would be nice to have them easily in one place.

      Now that I look again, ~politics probably deserves its own too, although I can see how that might turn into the most raucous part of the Tildes community. Economics is usually a bit more dry though--it's nicknamed the "dismal" science after all--so hopefully that would be less of an issue.

      Thanks.

      14 votes
    19. 10,000 Tilders!

      Right now, there are 10,000 subscribers to ~tildes.official, meaning that Tildes as a whole must have more than 10,000 users. We've passed a milestone! Congratulations to @Deimos for making this...

      Right now, there are 10,000 subscribers to ~tildes.official, meaning that Tildes as a whole must have more than 10,000 users.

      We've passed a milestone!

      Congratulations to @Deimos for making this happen.

      117 votes
    20. User bios added: you can write a short bio that will be visible on your user page

      This is something that's been discussed a number of times (recent example), and has now been added by an open-source contribution by @what, who's contributed multiple significant features now,...

      This is something that's been discussed a number of times (recent example), and has now been added by an open-source contribution by @what, who's contributed multiple significant features now, thanks again!

      It's totally optional, but if you want to, you can now write a short bio for yourself through the "Edit your user bio" link at the bottom of the Settings page (by the way, I also added a link to the Settings page at the bottom of the home page's sidebar). The bio supports markdown the same as topics/comments, and is currently limited to 2000 characters (about 300 words). I'm not particularly attached to that limit, but it seemed like a reasonable starting point.

      If you write a bio, there will be an expandable "View <username>'s bio" block at the top of your user page okay, okay, I'm convinced that it belongs in the sidebar. You can see an (unimaginative) example on my user page. I'm not particularly attached to this method of displaying it either, so let me know if you think something else might be better.

      I don't know if we need particular guidelines for what's appropriate to put in a bio, but please be reasonable about what you use it for. A link to your site or accounts elsewhere is definitely fine, as long as it's not done in a spammy/misleading way, not too much different from posting on the site itself.

      Also, I've topped everyone back up to 10 invites again. As always, these are available on the invites page.

      85 votes
    21. Let's talk about possible UI changes to make donating to Tildes more obvious.

      How do you all feel about making some UI changes to prompt more donations to Tildes? For newer users' edification, at the very least we need to pay Deimos enough to keep working on this project...

      How do you all feel about making some UI changes to prompt more donations to Tildes?

      For newer users' edification, at the very least we need to pay Deimos enough to keep working on this project full time. If I understand the situation correctly, Deimos has put around 2 years into this project and I know that we are really lucky to have someone as skilled as he is, working on a project as noble as Tildes.

      I feel that the current UI which prompts users to donate is much too passive as compared to a normal "call to action." All we currently have is:

      It has no advertising, no investors, and is supported by your donations.

      The subtlety of that donate link is part of the coolness of Tildes, but I have come across users' comments about how they were not aware of the Tildes Patreon.

      So how can we do better without being annoying? What design patterns for this do you like on other sites?

      edit: phrasing

      32 votes
    22. Is fanart fluff? Could something be done to make it not fluff if so?

      What's the opinion on posting non-oc fanart? Is it considered fluff (which seems to currently have a negative stigma attached to it based off of my reading of previous threads)? Would more effort...

      What's the opinion on posting non-oc fanart? Is it considered fluff (which seems to currently have a negative stigma attached to it based off of my reading of previous threads)? Would more effort need to be put on the behalf of the poster before it's accepted (theme / several works from the same artist / some sort of comment showing analysis, reflection, or appreciation)?

      9 votes
    23. Openly editable posts. Crazy idea?

      I've been somewhat of a lurker here, actively reading posts, but today I came across a topic which had a small typo in it. No big deal, but if this was wikipedia, I could easily go in and fix...

      I've been somewhat of a lurker here, actively reading posts, but today I came across a topic which had a small typo in it. No big deal, but if this was wikipedia, I could easily go in and fix it... Then it hit me, what would a site like tilde be like if anyone could propose an edit to a post, and have that edit go into effect if the original poster approved it? Of course revision history would need to be available too, for accountability. Good idea? Bad? I'm just curious how that might play out.

      19 votes
    24. User Groups?

      I was just wondering if there would ever be user editable groups (like subreddits) If so, I would like to suggest a few features: 1: Public/Private. Users could choose whether or not to require an...

      I was just wondering if there would ever be user editable groups (like subreddits) If so, I would like to suggest a few features:
      1: Public/Private. Users could choose whether or not to require an invite to access the group.
      2: Stickies: The creator of the group and specified individuals should be able to create posts that are always at the top, such as a rules page.
      3: Other controls: #Posts/user/hour. Enable or disable voting. Allow or disallow images/videos etc.

      4 votes
    25. Group suggestion: ~socialmedia

      Hereby I suggest that there be a dedicated Tildes group for social media–related topics. Current State The (recent) number of topics tagged social media exceeds the number of topics in several...

      Hereby I suggest that there be a dedicated Tildes group for social media–related topics.

      Current State

      The (recent) number of topics tagged social media exceeds the number of topics in several existing groups:
      https://tildes.net/?tag=social_media
      In addition, there are more topics without the social media tag but with tags related to individual social media, e.g.,
      https://tildes.net/?tag=reddit
      https://tildes.net/?tag=facebook
      https://tildes.net/?tag=twitter

      These topics are quite scattered across the site (many of them are in ~tech, and some were moved to ~tech from places like ~talk and ~misc).

      Why Not Just ~tech?

      The topics are often focused on non-technical aspects of social media, and the mentioned moves from more general groups might suggest that social media are perceived as a general rather than a purely techn(olog)ical phenomenon. In addition, ~tech is already the biggest Tildes group.

      Special Relevance

      Tildes is itself a social medium site, and many of the above topics are thus specifically relevant for Tildes. For this reason, I suggest ~socialmedia as a top-level group rather than a subgroup (of ~tech, apparently).

      6 votes
    26. Tildes mobile app

      I wasn’t able to find a discussion on this, though I’m sure there has been, and for that, I apologize. Is there any kind of timeframe on the release of a mobile app for tildes? I would guess that...

      I wasn’t able to find a discussion on this, though I’m sure there has been, and for that, I apologize.

      Is there any kind of timeframe on the release of a mobile app for tildes?

      I would guess that on Reddit most of their traffic comes from people accessing the site on their phones at this point, but I could be wrong. In any case, it certainly is a large portion of the users that access the site in this way.

      With that in mind, it would be nice to be able to access tildes from a mobile app to do away with the clunkiness that comes with using the site through a mobile browser. I don’t mean to sound like it’s terrible. The site functions well enough through a mobile browser, but it would certainly have me using tildes a lot more if the convenience of a mobile app was available.

      I’m sure the developers are very busy, and I don’t want to sound demanding, I’m just curious.

      And once again, I apologize if this has been discussed recently.

      21 votes
    27. Comments, bumping, trees. Helping user discovering newer comments.

      Suppose you want to participate in an old post with hundreds of comments. You made your fresh new comment, injecting your thoughts and effort into it and hit the post button with hopes and dreams....

      Suppose you want to participate in an old post with hundreds of comments. You made your fresh new comment, injecting your thoughts and effort into it and hit the post button with hopes and dreams.

      The post is bumped to the top under Activity. Other tilders saw the old post on the top, they are intrigued, perhaps as much as you are and wonder what you can add to the discussion, but they couldn't find your comment.

      Why is that?

      You replied to a thread with a very old top-level comment.

      As Tildes is still relatively new, this isn't much of a issue now, but one that I feel needed to be addressed eventually as the site grows. It is certainly a low priority issue for the time being.

      Sort by new only sorts comments by the time when top-level comment is posted, which is an inherent characteristic of comment threads. If my last years of memeing on redditting has taught me anything, it is that a new post gathers the most views in the first few minutes when it was posted (This might be a few days on Tildes).

      Bumping helps extend the longevity of a given post if the thread gathers enough attention and discussion value to warrant a comment, but that alone would not alleviate the fact that new comments is seen by less and less people as the post gets older (as indicated by votes). If we want to make high-quality comments seen by more people, we need to make comment age a less limiting factor.

      Tildes needs to help its users to discover new comments.

      A few solutions come to my mind.

      1. By presenting comments in a linear fashion like the good old bulletin board does without any hierarchy such that sort by new would truly be sort by new.

      2. By highlighting ( or whichever other means ) comments that meet certain criteria (Comments that are among the latest 10 or comments that were posted within the last hour, this can vary depending on the activities of the comments)

      3. I would like to propose a novel solution to this problem by compacting the comment threads to a forest of trees with navigable nodes. This sounds totally outlandish, it might very well be, but its an idea that I think worth sharing.

      The editing is rudimentary but I hope the idea is communicated well.

      Cheers!

      15 votes
    28. Tildes and personal content?

      I've been thinking about the way some people use their opportunity to share in places like Tildes. There are weekly topics what the music the users listen and the books they read. Since the...

      I've been thinking about the way some people use their opportunity to share in places like Tildes.

      There are weekly topics what the music the users listen and the books they read. Since the community is small, there are rather few people interacting with those, which has the capacity to create stronger interpersonal connections.

      There's also the fact that I see a few names very often, in many different threads. Unlike some other places, though, I don't automatically map them to an idea of a person behind them. It's more Reddit than a small forum: people share their opinions and discuss subjects, but there's little personal interaction. It's a more a space of intellectual, rather than emotional, engagement.

      And yet, there are threads here about oneself where the person asks questions or raises subjects that are of importance to them. Some time ago, someone asked what to do with their existential dread. I bet there were similar threads here that I didn't get to see. There was also the "Hey, whatcha working on?" thread a while ago. So it's not that asking personal questions is opposed here: you can, if you want, ask for community support.

      So I'm wondering: what's Tildes' attitude towards more personal content? Things like life updates: "So hey, I'm doing okay, am still in a relationship (going great), looking for a job, working on the pet project I mentioned" etc. etc.. Is this something the users and the admins approve of? would enjoy?

      21 votes
    29. Adding number of search results found to search results page?

      I recently did a search for "Wikipedia" and got quite a few results. I think it would be nice if somewhere it showed how many results were found as I had a search term or two I could've added to...

      I recently did a search for "Wikipedia" and got quite a few results. I think it would be nice if somewhere it showed how many results were found as I had a search term or two I could've added to narrow things down. Is this something anybody else would find useful?

      8 votes
    30. Prompt for unsaved changes on iOS?

      I was just writing a different long post here and lost it all because of accidental navigation away from the page. I know the feature to prompt for unsaved changes works on desktop, but is there...

      I was just writing a different long post here and lost it all because of accidental navigation away from the page. I know the feature to prompt for unsaved changes works on desktop, but is there any way to get it working on iOS?

      Edit: maybe another solution would be to save one new topic draft in local storage, and clear the draft data on click of Save or a new Discard/Cancel button? This way if there was data on load of the new topic page, it would still be there.

      5 votes
    31. How can a broke dude who can barely code help Tildes?

      Right now I'm not only utterly broke, but also don't have access to international payment methods (you may ask the reasons for this, but I probably won't answer :P). But I wanna give back to...

      Right now I'm not only utterly broke, but also don't have access to international payment methods (you may ask the reasons for this, but I probably won't answer :P). But I wanna give back to Tildes somehow.

      I know enough English to communicate and have a general understanding of programming (with a focus on basic Python and very basic C) but never did anything beyond book and class exercises. I'm also familiar with Regex, Vim (including patterns) and Emacs.

      I also have some Inkscape skills (not a designer), and wouldn't mind working with documentation and other things actual developers usually find trivial or dull.

      20 votes
    32. Your chosen theme on Tildes now carries over to the Blog and Docs sites

      No functional changes, but the themes available on Tildes itself now transfer over to the Blog/Docs sites (previously those sites were always using the "Solarized Light" color scheme). It was a...

      No functional changes, but the themes available on Tildes itself now transfer over to the Blog/Docs sites (previously those sites were always using the "Solarized Light" color scheme). It was a little painful before if you were using a dark theme and clicking something like the "Formatting help" link took you to a bright page, so this should be a lot better.

      There's currently no way to select a theme from the other sites, just on Tildes itself, but it should carry over when you've selected one here (using the dropdown in the footer if you're logged out, or through the settings page if you're logged in).

      Please let me know if you come across any issues with it. It was pretty straightforward overall, but it did involve redoing a lot of the CSS and HTML for the Blog/Docs sites, so it's very possible that I messed some pages up and haven't noticed yet.

      49 votes
    33. Some small updates over the past week

      A decent number of smaller changes have been implemented over the past week, and while I don't think any of them individually were worth devoting a post to, I figured it would probably still be...

      A decent number of smaller changes have been implemented over the past week, and while I don't think any of them individually were worth devoting a post to, I figured it would probably still be good to let people know. If you're interested in following Tildes's development more directly, you can always keep an eye on the commits on GitLab (an RSS feed is available as well). I try to write good commit titles/descriptions, so anyone should be able to follow what's being changed without needing to be able to understand the actual code.

      Anyway, here are some recent updates:

      • Last week, I tried to add a "back to top" button on mobile and broke the site for a lot of people. I reverted it and haven't tried to re-implement it again, since it seemed like a lot of people didn't like it anyway. I'd be interested in hearing feedback about whether that's still something that many people want.
      • @what added a new dark theme called "Atom One Dark". It's pretty nice, give it a try if you like dark themes.
      • @wirelyre fixed the very first issue ever created on the Tildes repo. Markdown includes support for embedding images with a syntax almost exactly like a link, except with an exclamation point in front: ![image mouseover text](https://example.com/link-to-image.jpg). However, since Tildes doesn't allow people to embed images, anyone attempting this would end up with an escaped <img> tag inside their post. It's fixed now so that it just treats an attempt to embed an image as a link to the image instead.
      • As requested, I added the ability to "quick quote" when you're going to post a comment reply. If you select some text from a comment before clicking the "Reply" button, the reply form will start out with the selected text already quoted for you.
      • Subsequent quotes in comments are now merged by default. Previously, if you were quoting two or more paragraphs by putting > in front of them and you had a blank line in between them, you would end up with a separate quote block for each paragraph unless you also put a > on the blank line. This behavior was clearly unexpected most of the time and people ended up with longer quotes broken up into many quote blocks for no reason. I've now changed it so that it will automatically merge subsequent quote blocks into a larger one, but you can still force them to be separated by putting at least two blank lines between them (or other methods like using a horizontal rule between quotes). Info about this was added to the Text Formatting docs page.
      • For about the last month, we've been showing domain names for link topics and usernames for text topics in the listings, but some people (rightfully) pointed out that this isn't very good for groups like ~creative where it's important to be able to see who's posting a link. I've updated it now so that I can change this behavior on a per-group basis, and for now, both ~creative and ~music will always show the submitter's name, even on link topics.

      I've topped everyone back up to 10 invite codes again as well. With the site being publicly visible now, I know that some people are getting requests for invites and have been using them fairly often, so always just let me know if you need some more. You can get your invite links from here: https://tildes.net/invite

      Let me know if you have any feedback or notice any issues with any of the things I listed above (or anything else). Thanks as always, it's been nice to see the site's activity level moving up again lately.

      96 votes
    34. What is the point of votes?

      So, votes are supposed to be used on quality content and comments that contribute to the conversation, right? I think the problem with this is, most of the content on Tildes is to that standard,...

      So, votes are supposed to be used on quality content and comments that contribute to the conversation, right? I think the problem with this is, most of the content on Tildes is to that standard, and if it isn't, we can just tag/report it. Voting feels redundant to me. What does everyone else think?

      13 votes
    35. The long-awaited moment... Dracula theme added! Oh also, the site is publicly visible now (but let's not be too noisy about it yet).

      Alright, after repeatedly delaying it for various reasons, Tildes is now publicly visible. This means that people no longer need to get an invite to be able to browse the site. An invite is still...

      Alright, after repeatedly delaying it for various reasons, Tildes is now publicly visible. This means that people no longer need to get an invite to be able to browse the site. An invite is still required to register and participate though (and I'm intending to keep it that way for the foreseeable future).

      This should be a huge boon to the overall process—people will be able to check out the site before requesting an invite, which will save a lot of effort giving out "wasted" invites to people that just wanted to look and don't continue visiting afterwards. I want to talk more soon about making the process of getting an invite easier, but this should help a lot for now.

      Please don't try to bring a lot of attention to the public visibility just yet (you're welcome to tell friends or small groups though). I fully expect some people to notice it naturally, but I'd like to try to keep it a little quiet still over the weekend. There are still a few things that I'm working on, and I'd like to get a bit more done before we start promoting it too widely. Early next week I'll make a post on the Tildes blog announcing it, and then we can go all out with it.

      A couple of other notes about public visibility:

      • Logged-out users can select their theme - there's a dropdown box in the site footer for them to change it, but they'll have to set it individually on each device.
      • Logged-out users can only see the most recent 20 posts on user pages, they don't have access to the full pagination like logged-in users do. That was discussed a little in this thread. I don't know if it will stay this way permanently, but we can try it out for now.

      I've also topped everyone back up to 5 invite codes again. The public visibility may cause some of you to get requests from people for invites, so please let me know if you need more. You can access your invite links here: https://tildes.net/invite

      And as one other thing, I've also added the tirelessly-requested Dracula theme. This is the first time I've tried using the revamped theme system that @Bauke set up to add a completely new theme, so please let me know if you notice any oddities with it (or if you think I used the colors of it wrong or anything, I don't use Dracula personally).

      Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, feedback, etc. about the public visibility. This is a huge step in the site's progress, and I'm definitely both excited and terrified about it.

      222 votes
    36. Does anyone else feel the default theme is too bright?

      I opened Tildes unlogged in an anonymous window and felt the amount of amount of white to be excessive, even for a bright theme. This feels a bit overwhelming. What do you guys think? EDIT: I...

      I opened Tildes unlogged in an anonymous window and felt the amount of amount of white to be excessive, even for a bright theme. This feels a bit overwhelming. What do you guys think?

      EDIT: I changed my theme to Solarized Dark a long time ago, I'm asking because now that an account is not required to view the content a lot of people will get to know Tildes, so maybe the default theme could be improved

      22 votes
    37. An easy way to browse tildes on mobile

      Using Hermit - Lite Apps Browser you can make a shortcut to a dedicated browser session (with cookies and such, so you can stay logged in like an app) for tildes! I find that it works pretty well...

      Using Hermit - Lite Apps Browser you can make a shortcut to a dedicated browser session (with cookies and such, so you can stay logged in like an app) for tildes! I find that it works pretty well for a mobile app "substitute" and also it lets me keep tildes separate from all the tags I have open in my main web browser. Figured I'd share my solution for tildes mobile for the curious :)

      16 votes
    38. Remember the person: Effortposting about Tildes and anti-social UX patterns in social media

      I've been meaning to make this post for a while, and it's actually going to wind up being a series of several posts. It's kind of a long meditation on what it means to socialize online and the...

      I've been meaning to make this post for a while, and it's actually going to wind up being a series of several posts. It's kind of a long meditation on what it means to socialize online and the ways in which the services we use to do that help or hinder us in doing so. Along the way I'm going to be going into some thoughts on how online discourse works, how it should work, and what can be done to drive a more communal, less toxic, and more inclusive of non-traditional (read: non-technical) voices. I'm going to be throwing out a lot of inchoate opinions here, so I'm hoping to pressure test my views and solicit other viewpoints and experiences from the community.

      I mentioned in an introduction thread that I'm a policy analyst and my work is focused on how to structure policies and procedures to build a constructive organizational culture. I've been a moderator in some large PHP forums and IRC channels in the old days, and I've developed some really strong and meaningful friendships through the web. So I've always had a soft spot for socializing on the interwebs.

      Okay, so that's the introduction out of the way. The main point I want to focus on is the title: Remember the Person. This was the something Ellen Pao, former CEO of Reddit, suggested in a farewell message as she stepped down from the role in the wake of a community outcry regarding her changes to Reddit's moderation practices. The gist of it was that online communication makes it too easy to see the people you're interacting with in abstract terms rather than as human beings with feelings. It's a bit of a clichéd thought if we're being honest, but I think we still tend not to pay enough attention to how true it is and how deeply it alters the way we interact and behave and how it privileges certain kinds of interaction over others. So let's dig in on how we chat today, how it's different from how we chatted before in discussion forums, and what we're actually looking for when we gather online.

      Since this is the first in a series, I want to focus on getting some clarity on terms and jargon that we'll be using going forward. I'd like to start by establishing some typologies for social media platforms. A lot of these will probably overlap with each other, and I'll probably be missing a few, but it's just to get a general sense of categories.

      To start with we have the "Content Aggregator" sites. Reddit is the most notable, HackerNews is big but niche, and Tildes is one too. This would also include other sites like old Digg, Fark.com, and possibly even include things like IMGUR or 9Gag. The common thread among all of these is user submitted content, curation and editorial decisions made largely by popular vote, and continued engagement being driven by comment threads associated with the submitted content (e.g. links, images, videos, posts). In any case, the key thing you interact with on these sites is atomized pieces of "content."

      Next up are the "Running Feed" services. Twitter and Mastodon are the classic examples as is Facebook's newsfeed. Instagram is an example with a different spin on it. These services are functionally just glorified status updates. Indeed, Twitter was originally pitched as "What if we had a site that was ONLY the status updates from AOL Instant Messager/GChat?" The key thing with how you interact with these services is the "social graph." You need to friend, follow, or subscribe to accounts to actually get anything. And in order to contribute anything, you need people following or subscribing to you. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself (although if we're being honest, that's what most people are doing anyway they just don't know it). This means the key thing you interact with on these sites is an account. You follow accounts get to put content on your feed. Follower counts, consequently, become a sort of "currency" on the site.

      Then you've got the "Blogs" of old and their descendants. This one is a bit tricky since it's largely just websites so they can be really heterogenous. As far as platforms go, though, Tumblr is one of the few left and I think LiveJournal is still kicking. Lots of online newspapers and magazines also kind of count. And in the past there were a lot more services, like Xanga and MySpace. The key thing you interact with here is the site. The page itself is the content and they develop a distinct editorial voice. Follower counts are still kind of a thing, but the content itself has more persistence so immediacy is less of an issue than in feed based paradigms where anything older than a day might as well not exist. This one gets even trickier because the blogs tend to have comment sections and those comment sections can have a bunch little social media paradigms of their own. It's like a matroishka doll of social platforms.

      The penultimate category is the "Bulletin Board" forum. PHP BB was usually the platform of choice. There are still a few of these kicking around, but once upon a time these were the predominant forms of online discourse. Ars Technica and Something Awful still have somewhat active ones, but I'm not sure where else. These also have user posted content, but there is no content curation or editorial action. As a result, these sites tend to need more empowered and active moderators to thrive. And the critical thing you're interacting with in these platforms is the thread. Threads are discussion topics, but it's a different vibe from the way you interact on a content aggregator. On a site like Reddit or Tildes all discussion under a topic is 1 to 1. Posts come under content. On a bulletin board it works like an actual bulletin board. You're responding under a discussion about a topic rather than making individual statements about an individual post or comment. Another way to put it is on an aggregator site each participant is functionally writing individual notes to each other participant. On a bulletin board each participant is writing an open letter to add to the overall discussion as a whole.

      And finally, you've got the "Chat Clients." This is the oldest form besides email newsletters. This began with Usenet and then into IRC. The paradigm lives on today in the form of instant messaging/group texts, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, etc. In this system you're primarily interacting with the room(s) as a whole. There isn't really an organizing framework for the conversation, it's really just a free-flowing conversation between the participants. You might be able to enforce on-topic restrictions, but that's about as structured as it gets.

      That about covers the typologies I can think of. Next up I want to delve into the ways in which the UI and design patterns with each of these platforms affects the way users engage with them, what sorts of social dynamics they encourage, and what sorts of interactions they discourage. In the mean time, I'm eager to hear what people think about the way I've divided these up, whether you think I've missed anything, or have any additional thoughts on the ones I put up.

      30 votes
    39. Removing or editing "Exemplary" labels?

      Might it be useful for our Exemplary (and I imagine Malice) labels to be removable or editable? I recently added an Exemplary label with a description that was a bit more "fuck that other guy!"...

      Might it be useful for our Exemplary (and I imagine Malice) labels to be removable or editable? I recently added an Exemplary label with a description that was a bit more "fuck that other guy!" than I would've liked, and despite it not being publicly visible, I still felt the need to in some way correct my mistake to not drag the other user into my hostility, but there's no option to do so. If we can't remove the labels because users shouldn't be juggling the timer or something, I get that, but editing seems like a good (yet low-priority) thing to implement.

      I can't recall this being explicitly outlined anywhere when labels were being introduced, sorry if I've forgotten something. Knowing me, I probably argued against it somewhere :P

      16 votes
    40. I feel it would be convenient to make theme changing faster

      If I'm the weirdo in the minority here, feel free to let me know, but I ideally switch between day and night modes almost daily on my websites and apps based on time of day. Here, it's usually...

      If I'm the weirdo in the minority here, feel free to let me know, but I ideally switch between day and night modes almost daily on my websites and apps based on time of day. Here, it's usually between the White and Black settings. And while it's not a big problem by any means, navigating between 3 different pages (the homepage, my user page, then settings) is a tiny hassle that I feel could be avoided by placing the theme switching option on the homepage. I don't know if my usage of themes is normal or an abnormality, so I understand if putting it directly on the homepage isn't ideal if most users don't switch themes constantly. It would still be a fair bit faster if it were to be placed on the profile page somewhat similar to Reddit or YouTube (I'm not talking about the overlay, just moving the switcher from settings to maybe part of the User Menu).

      I have noticed that most apps with a dark mode tend to bury it in settings, clearly indicating that it's designed to be a one time change, so again, maybe this is just a me problem, but I am curious on how others feel about a more easily on hand theme option.

      13 votes
    41. Feature suggestion: Highlighted text in comment automatically creates quote when you respond to that comment

      I'm fairly sure it's either a Reddit or RES feature, but whenever I select text in a comment and then click Reply, it'll copy that text to the comment box and add a > in front so it'll turn into a...

      I'm fairly sure it's either a Reddit or RES feature, but whenever I select text in a comment and then click Reply, it'll copy that text to the comment box and add a > in front so it'll turn into a quote. It makes it a little quicker to respond to a specific part of someone's message.

      I'm no IT bird and as such I don't know if this is something that can be implemented easily(if at all). It'd also require more JS, not sure if that's an issue as well.

      In any case, let me know what you think.

      Edit: I'd like to suggest something else, should I make a secondary post or append it to this one? I'd like to avoid cluttering up the front page.

      37 votes
    42. Feature suggestion: Bookmark posts from front page

      I'd like to be able to bookmark posts from the front page. Right now it really isn't an issue yet since posting frequency is low, but I often quickly check the front page for interesting reads,...

      I'd like to be able to bookmark posts from the front page. Right now it really isn't an issue yet since posting frequency is low, but I often quickly check the front page for interesting reads, while not having the time to actually read them. I'd like to see a "Bookmark" button on front page posts that allow me to save those posts for later when I actually do have time to read the posts.

      For quick scrolls over the front page, tapping the post and then bookmarking is one click too many.
      You could argue I'm lazy, I call it efficiency.

      While on the subject, if I click "bookmark" on a topic, it'll read "bookmarked" but does not offer an "unbookmark" option until I refresh the page. Since I have big thumbs(large bones) I often tap wrong, so it could be nice if there was a quick way to undo this, similar to how we can undo votes.
      Edit: this seems to be a bug: it does work for comments.
      Edit2: Made this into an issue.

      24 votes
    43. Can we make the new "Back to top" link optional?

      I just noticed we got a back to top link, floating on the bottom right. It is easy to block on desktop, but on mobile, not as easy. I think it'd be great it we had an option to disable it in user...

      I just noticed we got a back to top link, floating on the bottom right. It is easy to block on desktop, but on mobile, not as easy. I think it'd be great it we had an option to disable it in user settings.

      11 votes