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    1. Lets discuss tags, again

      There's been some discussion around tags since users were given tag-editing privileges, such as Tag Use and Article Tags I've noticed a few things about tags and rather than make a topic for each...

      There's been some discussion around tags since users were given tag-editing privileges, such as Tag Use and Article Tags

      I've noticed a few things about tags and rather than make a topic for each one I thought I'd make a few top level comments instead, hopefully with others doing the same for anything tag related they'd like to see discussed.

      20 votes
    2. 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
    3. Tildes code of conduct

      Tildes code of conduct says Do not post anyone's sensitive personal information (related to either their real world or online identity) with malicious intent. Can you change that to just say don't...

      Tildes code of conduct says

      Do not post anyone's sensitive personal information (related to either their real world or online identity) with malicious intent.

      Can you change that to just say don't post personal info? Even if it's not done with malicious intent it should still be removed to protect people's privacy.

      Also while it does say to not post spam on tildes terms of service I think It should say that on the code of conduct.

      Edit: I mean posting personal info without consent and not public information.

      Telling someone how to contact a company would be fine but not posting someone's address.

      12 votes
    4. 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
    5. Moderator tools: what do you have and what should be the immediate priorities?

      I don't want to get too high in the clouds with moderating philosophy. Instead I want to talk about action steps that can be taken in the very near term to improve moderating. Especially so long...

      I don't want to get too high in the clouds with moderating philosophy. Instead I want to talk about action steps that can be taken in the very near term to improve moderating. Especially so long as Deimos is the only one with most of the moderating tools at their disposal, I think it's crucial to make sure it's as painless as possible.

      So far it looks like Deimos has these moderating tools available to him:

      1. User bans
      2. Comment removal
      3. Thread locking/removal
      4. Title/tag editing (and this ability is shared by many of us as well)

      Am I missing anything?

      The three next tools I would hope are coming next are:

      • A reporting mechanism, where users can report comments and threads that they think should be removed.
      • A feedback mechanism for reports, telling users that a report they gave was acted on.
      • A note taking system for the moderator-type person, shareable with all other moderator-type persons at that level, with an expiration date probably around 30 days.

      Now I'll talk about why. First, the reporting mechanism. While it's still possible to keep up with everything that gets posted, I don't necessarily think it's the best use of Deimos' time to read literally everything, especially as the site expands its userbase and presumably activity level and depth. The reporting system at first should probably just be a button, maybe eventually with a pop-up field allowing the user a brief description why their reporting, and a queue that gets populated with comments and threads that get reported.

      Coinciding with a report queue/option should probably be an easy, rudimentary system for providing feedback to those whose reports led to moderating action. At first, an automated message saying something like "thank you for reporting recently. Action has been taken on one of your recent reports" without any relevant links would do fine, and we can leave the particulars of how much detail to add for later discussions.

      The last thing I think should help things considerably in the immediate term is a time-limited user tracking tool for the moderator-type person. As things scale, it isn't always going to be feasible to use mental bandwidth remembering each username and the relevant history associated with their behavior. A good note-taking tool with an auto-timed expiration date on notes would be a good way to address what can easily become a hugely mentally taxing role at almost any scale. This tool should let Deimos take a discrete note for himself (and other moderators at that permission level and higher) connected to a user regarding any questionable threads or comments that were yellow/red flags, or any other moderator action taken against a user within the last X days/months (the particulars don't matter to me as much as that there is an expiration date to these notes). This should let the moderator type person focus on the broader history of the users they're looking at before making a decision, without having to go searching for every relevant comment from the past 30 days. Fewer problematic users at scale should fall through the cracks and more users that might just be having a bad day can be let off with comment removals and/or warnings.

      Are these priorities fair? Are there design elements you would want to see in the immediate term that would help reduce the burden of moderating? Are there problems with these tools I'm suggesting that you would want to see addressed?

      19 votes
    6. Minor Voting System Suggestion

      A problem I've noticed on Reddit (and here sometimes) is that a thread will have a good subject and a good amount of replies, but less than half the upvotes/votes than there are replies, even...

      A problem I've noticed on Reddit (and here sometimes) is that a thread will have a good subject and a good amount of replies, but less than half the upvotes/votes than there are replies, even though people are clearly enjoying the discussion. So, I was wondering if we'd be able to implement a feature that automatically votes for a post if you comment on it. Or, instead of forcing it, have a checkbox near the post form specifying whether or not you'd like to vote the post up upon completion of the comment. That might give good discussion posts some visibility instead of just posts that are a shitshow in the comments section

      EDIT: I don't know what I'm talking about move along please

      3 votes
    7. 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
    8. Added buttons to collapse all reply comments and expand all comments

      Another open-source contribution, this time from Jeff Kayser. There are now two buttons at the top of the comments section, next to the header that says "X comments". The minus button will...

      Another open-source contribution, this time from Jeff Kayser.

      There are now two buttons at the top of the comments section, next to the header that says "X comments". The minus button will collapse all the reply comments, leaving only the top-level comments expanded, and the plus button will uncollapse any comments that have been collapsed.

      This lets you browse the comments in kind of the "opposite" way of normal—instead of collapsing the conversations you don't want to read, you start out with only the top-level comments visible, and can un-collapse responses if you want to read more.

      There will probably be some more work done along these lines in the future. A user setting would probably be nice so that reply comments are always collapsed by default, if that's what you prefer. And I'd also like to see the collapsed comments say how many comments there are in that chain, since right now there's not really any way to tell how large of a discussion you might be un-collapsing.

      60 votes
    9. Does eSports content belong in ~games or ~sports?

      This post is meant to provoke a discussion and possibly find a resolution or at least set an expectation as far as where to post esports content. I don't really have an opinion either way but...

      This post is meant to provoke a discussion and possibly find a resolution or at least set an expectation as far as where to post esports content.

      I don't really have an opinion either way but would like to discuss the topic, because it seems like not setting an expectation might lead to similar content being posted to one or the other of the two communities when all the content would be prefered in one community to make finding things easier.

      19 votes
    10. 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
    11. We need a loveable mascot

      Reddit has the snoo, we need to have a cute mascot that can represent us. Any suggestions? What do you think @Deimos? Edit: maybe we should organize a drawing contest for someone to make the mascot

      34 votes
    12. 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
    13. Extremely basic search added

      Okay, okay. We really needed some sort of search, so I decided to just get an extremely basic version out today. It's very limited, but it should work for now and can be improved as we go forward....

      Okay, okay. We really needed some sort of search, so I decided to just get an extremely basic version out today. It's very limited, but it should work for now and can be improved as we go forward.

      Details/limitations:

      • Currently, the search only includes the title and the text of the post (if it's a text topic). It doesn't include the tags, the group, the link, the author name, comments, anything. Only the title and text right now.
      • There's no way to restrict the search to specific group(s) yet. Just full-site search.
      • All searches are "all of these words". There's no phrase-searching yet, or "X or Y", or anything else.
      • The search results page is just a quick hack on the normal topic listing page and will probably display some things weirdly in some cases (like the message when there's no results).

      It's a start though, and certainly better than not having any search at all. There will probably be a lot of minor issues, but let me know if you notice anything especially broken with it.

      118 votes
    14. Tag Use

      Let's talk about what tags we should be using and how they should be used. For those of you who haven't yet read it here is the doc page on tags. Here's what I'm looking at so far: Talk: I removed...

      Let's talk about what tags we should be using and how they should be used. For those of you who haven't yet read it here is the doc page on tags.

      Here's what I'm looking at so far:

      Talk: I removed the talk, discussion, and conversation tags from the topics in ~talk in accordance with "Don't add a tag that's the same or very similar to the group that you're posting in." If you're in ~talk of course you're having a discussion or conversation. (There are exceptions that are about conversation such as "How do you discuss open minded topics with close minded people?"). I tagged some "How was your weekend" type topics with casual conversation.

      What do you think about talk and/or discussion tags in other groups?

      Question: As I understand it, question should be ask Update: done

      Meta: I would define meta as topics about the site or ~ the topic is posted in. Since ~tildes is entirely meta, meta is redundant here. Most of the meta topics elsewhere are about the ~ they are in. As an example of something I think is mistagged, I wouldn't tag the ~lgbt introduction topic meta since it isn't about the ~ . Update: removed meta from ~tildes topics.

      I wanted to get some feedback before I continue so I don't make a mistake unilaterally retagging something that I shouldn't.

      What are your thoughts on these tags? What other tags do we need to talk about? What strategies are you using for tagging and retagging?

      24 votes
    15. 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
    16. 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
    17. Users can now be (manually) granted permissions to re-tag topics, move them between groups, and edit titles

      It's a bit late tonight (for those of us in North America, anyway) so I'm not sure how much attention this will get today or how many people I'll start granting permissions to yet, but it's now...

      It's a bit late tonight (for those of us in North America, anyway) so I'm not sure how much attention this will get today or how many people I'll start granting permissions to yet, but it's now possible for people-who-are-not-me to start helping with some moderation-like tasks.

      As of right now, these abilities are restricted to (and I can grant each individually):

      • Changing the tags on topics
      • Moving topics between groups
      • Editing topic titles (I may not actually give anyone this permission yet)

      All these actions will be logged publicly, and if any of them are taken, they'll display in the topic's sidebar, in the "Topic log" (which you have to click to expand, and will only show up at all if anything's been done). I've changed the tags on this post so that you can see an example here.

      For the immediate future, these permissions will be getting granted manually, will apply site-wide (not to specific groups), and will probably only be given to people that specifically express interest in helping with these tasks. I've written about grand, vague plans for a "trust"-based system that will hopefully help with doing this automatically in the future, but for now we'll have a more rudimentary trust system. Here's how it works:

      1. I trust you, and give you access to more powerful tools.
      2. If you abuse it, I take the tools away, and don't trust you any more.

      It's not very sophisticated, but I think it should do the trick for a while.

      So if you're interested in helping keep things organized, please let me know (post here or send me a message if you prefer). I'd probably prefer if you had at least some history of submitting well-tagged/titled topics to appropriate groups, but it's not necessarily required.

      Edit: I would prefer that you have at least been around on the site for at least a week or two though. This is mostly important because the tasks are mainly organizational, so I think it's best if you've had some time to get accustomed to what's "typical" on Tildes for tags, which types of posts go in which groups, and so on.

      109 votes
    18. Contributing to Tildes - Accessing on localhost

      Hi, I've started developing syntax highlighting, but I'm unable to connect to Tildes on localhost. It's running, I can connect to Prometheus, but not to Tildes. I use Ubuntu. I know there are few...

      Hi, I've started developing syntax highlighting, but I'm unable to connect to Tildes on localhost. It's running, I can connect to Prometheus, but not to Tildes. I use Ubuntu.

      I know there are few people here who already contributed to Tildes, how do you connect to Tildes?

      • Firefox shows Secure Connection Failed, even after adding exception in about:config for domains localhost, *, 127.0.0.1, both with and without port, I even tried adding https:// before them.
      • Qutebrowser displays nothing
      • Chromium displays ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (not something like insecure connection)
      • Chrome displays ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (not something like insecure connection)
      • Curl displays OpenSSL SSL_connect: SSL_ERROR_SYSCALL in connection to localhost:4443
      • wget displays Unable to establish SSL connection.
      • lynx displays Unable to connect to remote host.

      Could someone tell me how to config Firefox / install certificate for Tildes on localhost / move Tildes to http?

      Thank you

      Edit: I tried setting firefox security exception in a different way and this happened.

      6 votes
    19. 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
    20. What are everybody's thoughts on archiving?

      Do you think it should be a thing or not? Explain your answer. I personally don't think it should be a thing because it indirectly encourages reposts. I also think a thread can always be relevant...

      Do you think it should be a thing or not? Explain your answer. I personally don't think it should be a thing because it indirectly encourages reposts. I also think a thread can always be relevant as long as people are bringing new information to the table.

      12 votes
    21. Necroposting?

      So I just posted a comment in a month-old topic and it shot to the top of the Activity tab. I'm still new here and forgot that that would happen. Is there any stance for or against necroposting on...

      So I just posted a comment in a month-old topic and it shot to the top of the Activity tab. I'm still new here and forgot that that would happen.

      Is there any stance for or against necroposting on Tildes? I looked around for a search feature but didn't find one, so apologies if this has been discussed before.

      If it hasn't been discussed before, what do you think? My gut instinct is that it's bad, but only because I've been conditioned to think that way from long ago when forums reigned before social media. Are there any downsides? And if necroposting is allowed, will it indirectly promote a kind of "NO DUPLICATE THREADS!" culture?

      27 votes
    22. Night/Dark interface request!

      Hi there! I do not know how to program anything and I am writing this from my android- has anyone created a night/dark mode with a black screen and light lettering yet? If so, please post the...

      Hi there! I do not know how to program anything and I am writing this from my android- has anyone created a night/dark mode with a black screen and light lettering yet? If so, please post the link!

      I suffer from chronic migraines- it would likely help more than just me!😄

      9 votes
    23. A general introduction to Tildes

      Lots of new folks seem to be coming in these past days, so I wanted to make a post that compiles some useful things to know, commonly asked questions, and a general idea of tildes history (short...

      Lots of new folks seem to be coming in these past days, so I wanted to make a post that compiles some useful things to know, commonly asked questions, and a general idea of tildes history (short though it may be). Please keep in mind that tildes is still in Alpha, and many features that are usually present such as repost detection haven't been implemented yet.

      Settings

      First of all, check out the settings page if you haven't yet. It's located in your user profile, on the right sidebar. There are different themes available, the account default is the 'white' theme, which you can change. I recommend setting up account recovery in case you forget your password, and toggle marking new comments to highlight new comments in a thread. There are more features available but you should go look in the settings yourself.

      Posting

      You can post a topic by navigating to a group and clicking on the button in the right sidebar. Tildes uses markdown, if you are not familiar with it check the text formatting doc page. Please tag your post so it is easier for other people to find, and check out the topic tagging guidelines. Some posts have a topic log in the sidebar that shows what changes were done to the post since it was posted. You can see an example here. Some people have the ability to add tags to posts, edit titles, and move posts to different groups. They were given the ability by Deimos, see this post.

      Topic Tags

      You can find all posts with the same tag by clicking on a tag on a post, which will take you to an url like https://tildes.net/?tag=ask, where ask is the tag you clicked on. Replace ask with whatever tag you want to search for. You can also filter tags within a group like this: https://tildes.net/~tildes?tag=discussion, and it will only show you posts within that group. Clicking on a tag while you are in a group achieves the same effect.

      You can also filter out posts with specific tags by going to your settings and defining topic tag filters.

      Comment Tags

      Comment tags are a feature that was present in the early days of tildes, but was removed because of abuse. There were five tags you can tag on someone else's comment: joke, noise, offtopic, troll, flame. The tags have no effect on sorting or other systematic features; they were only used to inform the user on the nature of a comment. The tags would show up along with the number of people who applied them, like this: [Troll] x3, [Noise] x5

      People used these tags as a downvote against comments they disliked, and because the tags appeared at the top of a comment in bright colors, they often would bias the user before they read the comment. The abuse culminated in the first person banned on the website, and the comment tags were disabled for tweaking.

      As of September 07, 2018, the comment tags have been re-enabled and are experimented with. Any account over a week old will have access to this ability. The tagging button is located on the centre bottom of a comment. You cannot tag your own comment. Here are the comment tagging guidelines from the docs.

      Currently, the tags are: exemplary, joke, offtopic, noise, malice. The exemplary tag can only be applied once every 8 hours, and requires you to write an anonymous message to the author thanking them for their comment. Similarly, applying the malice tag requires a message explaining why the comment is malicious. The tags have different effects on the comments, which you can read about here, and here.

      Search

      The search function is fairly primitive right now. It only includes the title and text of posts and their topic tags.

      Default sorting

      The current default sorting is activity, last 3 days in the main page, activity, all time in individual groups. Activity sort bumps a post up whenever someone replies to it. 'Last 3 days' mean that only posts posted in the past 3 days will be shown. You can change your default sort by choosing a different sort method and/or time period, and clicking the 'set as default' button that will appear on the right.

      Bookmarks

      You can bookmark posts and comments. The "bookmark" button is on the bottom of posts and comments. Your bookmarked posts can be viewed through the bookmark page in your user profile sidebar. Note: to unbookmark a post, you have to refresh first.

      Extensions

      @Emerald_Knight has compiled a list of user created extensions and CSS themes here: https://gitlab.com/Emerald_Knight/awesome-tildes

      In particular, I found the browser extension Tildes Extended by @crius and @Bauke very useful. It has nifty features like jumping to new comments, markdown preview and user tagging.

      Tildes Development

      Tildes is open source and if you want to contribute to tildes development, this is what you should read: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

      For those who can't code, you might still be interested in the issue boards on Gitlab. It contains known issues, features being worked on, and plans for the future. If you have a feature in mind that you want to suggest, try looking there first to see if others have thought of it already, or are working on it.


      Tildes' Design and Mechanics

      In other words, how is it going to be different from reddit? Below are some summaries of future mechanics and inspiration for tildes' design. Note: most of the mechanics have not been implemented and are subject to change and debate.

      1. Tildes will not have conventional moderators. Instead, the moderation duties will be spread to thousands of users by the trust system. [Trust people, but punish abusers]. More info on how it works and why it is designed that way:

      2. Instead of subreddits, there are groups, a homage to Usenet. Groups will be organized hierarchically, the first and only subgroup right now is ~tildes.official. Groups will never be created by a single user, instead, they will be created based on group interest [citation needed]. For example, if a major portion of ~games consists of DnD posts and they are drowning out all the other topics, a ~games.dnd subgroup would be created - either by petition, algorithm, or both[citation needed] - to contain the posts, and those who don't like DnD can unsubscribe from ~games.dnd. There is currently no way to filter out a subgroup from the main group.

      3. Tildes is very privacy oriented. See: Haunted by data


      Tildes History/Commonly answered questions

      I recommend you check out this past introduction post by @Amarok before anything else, it's a bit outdated but contains many interesting discussions and notable events that have happened on tildes. @Bauke also tracks noteworthy events each month on his website https://til.bauke.xyz/. Also see the FAQ in the docs. Other than that, the best way for you to get an idea of how tildes changed over time is to go to ~tildes.official and look at all the past daily discussions.

      Below are some scattered links that I found interesting, informative, or important:


      If anyone thinks of a link that should be included here, post a comment with the link and I'll edit it in.

      Markdown source for this post: https://pastebin.com/Kbbh7pYU (outdated, and probably will not be updated unless someone explicitly asks for it)

      To the rest: have fun!

      57 votes
    24. How would Tildes feel about a mascot?

      Just an idea. I feel like the charm of certain sites or products is the charm that they have a certain, identifiable anthropomorphic mascot (e.g. the Android Bugdroid, Reddit Snoo). I wanted to...

      Just an idea. I feel like the charm of certain sites or products is the charm that they have a certain, identifiable anthropomorphic mascot (e.g. the Android Bugdroid, Reddit Snoo). I wanted to know if people here think it could be a good addition to Tildes, or if it seems unnecessary.

      31 votes
    25. Input wanted about title-editing, especially by topics' authors

      It was a bit of a side topic in the thread last night about giving other people access to some organizational tools for topics, so I wanted to have a more specific discussion about how we should...

      It was a bit of a side topic in the thread last night about giving other people access to some organizational tools for topics, so I wanted to have a more specific discussion about how we should handle title-editing.

      Editing titles is definitely a useful ability, both for being able to fix typos/mistakes as well as remove editorialization or misleading phrasing, or even update the title later if the story progresses and the original title is no longer correct. However, it can also be confusing or mis-used—the title is the main way that we (the users on the site) identify a particular topic, and when the title changes it can be difficult to recognize what happened.

      So I just want to have a general discussion about how we should handle title-editing, and especially whether we should allow people to edit their own topics' titles, and if there should be any restrictions on that. For example, should a topic's author only be allowed to edit the title in the first 5 minutes? Should they always be able to edit it, like they can always edit the post text itself? Maybe it varies, based on their history/account-age/something-else?

      One thing to keep in mind is that this doesn't need to be a system that's immune to abuse. If someone uses the title-editing to change a popular ~music post's title into a Star Wars spoiler or something, we don't just shrug and go, "oh well, they're allowed to edit titles, nothing we can do." We edit the title back, and either take that ability away from them or ban them from the site entirely if it was done maliciously. Trust people, but punish abusers is a good approach in my opinion—we don't need to hobble features constantly to try to make them un-abusable.

      Also, whatever we decide to do doesn't necessarily need to be kept forever. We can always try something, and if it obviously isn't working very well, we just change it. Decisions about how the site works don't need to be final, it's very difficult to predict how features will actually be used in practice.

      Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks.

      38 votes
    26. What do we want as a community?

      Just got invited here and looking at the content of the front page, Tildes is basically a "poor-man's version" of reddit right now. That's OK: it's a new community and I imagine a big part of...

      Just got invited here and looking at the content of the front page, Tildes is basically a "poor-man's version" of reddit right now. That's OK: it's a new community and I imagine a big part of users are coming here from reddit so they're doing what they're used to doing on social networks, that's only fair.

      However, more than that, looking at the groups, they are set up pretty much similarly to reddit's default subs - if not on a 1:1 basis, at least in the general tone: pretty casual, daily life topics, big focus on entertainment media, etc. Maybe again this is, by design catering to the people who are bound to be incoming from reddit, so they can immediately relate to a similar user experience. Good.

      So I think it's fair to say that it's proven that Tildes can be "like reddit". It kinda looks like reddit, it kinda feels like reddit. That part of the deal is covered. Now, what can makes us different? I doubt anyone here has no ambition besides being a soft-fork of reddit.

      What topics make you tick? What sort of online discussion makes you go "that's the good stuff"? What subjects are you truly passionate about? I'd like to know what the community here is all about, whether the current ~groups represent their interests and passions or not and, hopefully we could come up with some less generic ideas for new ~groups out of the discussion.

      EDIT I realize Tildes has a specific policy of "lesser active groups are better than a billion inactive groups" but at this point in time a good selection of groups would really help define the identity and content, not to mention promote quality discussion that actually aligns with people's interests. Hopefully seeing common trends in the replies would allow us to identify a few potential new groups, perhaps.

      36 votes
    27. Concatenated tags - how do they work?

      I have a question about the technicalities of tagging, now that this ability is going to be spread around. I don't understand how concatenated tags work. I've seen occasional instances of tags...

      I have a question about the technicalities of tagging, now that this ability is going to be spread around. I don't understand how concatenated tags work. I've seen occasional instances of tags that look like "abc.xyz", and I've seen technical discussions about tags like this, but I've never really been clear about what this does. What does a tag like "abc.xyz" mean? How does it work?

      7 votes
    28. How will Tildes work with bans?

      Basically, with groups being admin controlled rather than the reddit system of mods, will all bans be site wide or should group bans be possible? Let's say somebody is harassing or being an...

      Basically, with groups being admin controlled rather than the reddit system of mods, will all bans be site wide or should group bans be possible? Let's say somebody is harassing or being an asshole on ~LGBT, should they be banned from ~LGBT or from the website?

      21 votes
    29. Making an apk that just links to a Hermit Lite app

      I've been using the Hermit app for Android to make a lite app for Tildes. It's awesome. Just one main problem. Because of some Android limitation shortcuts aren't allowed to be put in the app...

      I've been using the Hermit app for Android to make a lite app for Tildes. It's awesome. Just one main problem. Because of some Android limitation shortcuts aren't allowed to be put in the app drawer. I wanted to keep it there to make everything more organized. Does anyone know if it's possible to make an apk (so it can go in the app drawer) that will just link to my Tildes lite app?

      6 votes
    30. Users thoughts on groups?

      As of right now of course, users can not create their own groups, however this may change in the future as is stated here. What do the users think about this? Although tildes is similar to reddit,...

      As of right now of course, users can not create their own groups, however this may change in the future as is stated here.

      What do the users think about this? Although tildes is similar to reddit, it's obviously not got the same goals in mind, and I think it makes sense to keep groups up to the admins.

      13 votes
    31. Two-factor authentication is now available

      Another excellent open-source contribution has been deployed today - @oden has added two-factor authentication support (via TOTP apps like Google Authenticator). Here's the code, if anyone wants...

      Another excellent open-source contribution has been deployed today - @oden has added two-factor authentication support (via TOTP apps like Google Authenticator). Here's the code, if anyone wants to take a look.

      If you want to set it up for your account, the link is available on the settings page. If you do, please please please write down or store the backup codes that it gives you after you enable it. If your phone dies or you otherwise lose access to your 2FA device, you won't be able to recover access to your Tildes account.

      On that note, I wanted to ask for input about whether I should be willing to bypass 2FA for people if they've set up the email-based account recovery. People will lose access to their 2FA device and not have the backup codes, and I don't know if just telling them that I can't help them is truly the best thing to do. Allowing it to be bypassed does lower the security, but sometimes it's a reasonable trade-off. One possibility is adding a security option that people could enable for maximum security, like "Do not bypass 2FA for me under any circumstance, I promise that I've kept my backup codes".

      Let me know what you think about that, as well as if you have any concerns or notice any issues with the feature. Thanks again, @oden!

      74 votes
    32. Suggestion: Tag-shortcut-buttons on post create page

      So there is a basic flair in use for the nsfw and spoiler There was also a recent discussion about using tags to warn about content in posts...

      So there is a basic flair in use for the nsfw and spoiler There was also a recent discussion about using tags to warn about content in posts https://tildes.net/~tildes/50o/trigger_warning_tag_special_flair

      Would it help to have buttons for the common "standard" tags next to the Tags entry on the post creation page? So e.g. there could be an nsfw-button and a spoiler-button below the text field

      • The buttons could be styled with the same flair as the corresponding tags
      • The buttons could simply append the tag to the text in the field.

      A few plus points:

      • This would help encourage people to use these important tags correctly (they will be reminded visually that the tags exist when creating a post, and clicking the button is easy which will reduce the effort required)
      • Also it would avoid typos where e.g. someone types "nfsw" and the flair will not be applied (fyi: I had to re-read that 3 times to be sure I correctly mis-typed the word)

      And some potential downsides:

      • Might it encourage people to just click the buttons and skip correctly tagging their post?
      • If more of these "standard" tags were added it might get cluttered

      What do you think?

      5 votes
    33. 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
    34. What would you think of completely supressing user invites?

      By user invites I mean the invites that are given to Tildes' users which they then can give out to their friends. Personally, I think more often than not they're sort of gifted to strangers online...

      By user invites I mean the invites that are given to Tildes' users which they then can give out to their friends. Personally, I think more often than not they're sort of gifted to strangers online without much consideration or deliberance behind the decision. And the user receiving it hasn't done much to “earn” it.

      Now, I'm sorry if this sounds like an obnoxious case of gatekeeping. But I think there's a certain beauty to checking the sub daily waiting for the next official round of invites. And that's the kind of user I'd want to interact with, rather than someone who just accidentally stumbled upon r/tildes, opened the sub, found an invite thread active and got one without having even read the docs page.

      What do you think?

      14 votes
    35. Location of settings

      Should the settings link be accessable from all sidebars instead of only being accessable by clicking on the username link and then the sidebar?

      6 votes
    36. 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
    37. At what point is a post too old?

      I wanted to make another post asking about podcast recommendations. I last asked this 3 months ago, is it worth just reviving discussion on that post, or at this point is it better to just make a...

      I wanted to make another post asking about podcast recommendations. I last asked this 3 months ago, is it worth just reviving discussion on that post, or at this point is it better to just make a new post?

      I know Tildes values long-lasting discussion, but when a post is that old, isn't there value in starting over, especially since there are a lot of new people who haven't answered before and might benefit from a bit more visibility on their answers?

      23 votes
    38. Suggestion: Filter topics by ones I've participated in?

      Probably most appropriate for the "Activity" tab. I would love to be able to click some kind of toggle that only showed topics that I've started and topics that I've commented in. Not sure how...

      Probably most appropriate for the "Activity" tab.

      I would love to be able to click some kind of toggle that only showed topics that I've started and topics that I've commented in. Not sure how taxing this would be on the server, but figured I'd throw it out there for consideration. If it's been suggested before, sorry. No search function yet!

      14 votes
    39. What group is most appropriate for talking about game development?

      ~games would seem to be more about gaming rather than development. I can see ~comp being the better option but it seems to be more about programming in general. There's also ~hobbies, which is...

      ~games would seem to be more about gaming rather than development. I can see ~comp being the better option but it seems to be more about programming in general. There's also ~hobbies, which is perhaps the best place when talking about amateur stuff which can include game development, but not necessarily.

      I'm mostly curious to see if there is a community of game developers here

      13 votes
    40. 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