33 votes

More about scheduled topics, some group rearranging, and input needed on "content types"

A few pretty quick things to talk about today, with some input wanted on each:

Scheduled/recurring topics

As announced last week, the site now has native scheduled topics (which need to be configured by me). There have been a couple of these posted now, with the most recent one being today's "What are you reading these days?" topic in ~books.

Here's the schedule that I have set up right now. Times are in UTC (Pacific time is UTC-7 and Eastern is UTC-4).

Topic Timing (UTC)
~talk - What are you doing this week? Monday, 15:00
~games - What have you been playing? Monday, 16:00
~tv - What have you been watching? Tuesday, 16:00
~anime - What have you been watching/reading this week? (Anime/Manga) Wednesday, 16:00
~books - What have you been reading lately? Every second Thursday, 16:00
~creative - What creative projects have you been working on? Every second Thursday (alternating with ~books), 16:00
~talk - What are you doing this weekend? Friday, 15:00
~music - What have you been listening to this week? Friday, 16:00

These were all pre-existing topics that had been getting posted consistently. The timings are a bit arbitrary, but somewhere around 16:00 is usually the time the site starts getting more active each day, and I went with every 2 weeks for ~creative and ~books since I think people don't change through those as quickly.

There are a few other topics I think would be good too, let me know what you think or if this is starting to be too many:

One other question I wanted to ask, since I'm doing some work related to it: Is there any reason for people to still be able to post new top-level comments in old recurring threads? I'll definitely still allow posting replies to existing comments so conversations can continue, but I can't really think of a reason why anyone would need to post a new top-level comment in any thread except the newest, and may just disallow that to keep people from inadvertently posting in the old ones.

Group rearrangements

I deleted the three ~science subgroups (~science.formal, ~science.natural, ~science.social) and moved all the topics back into ~science. These were confusing (I had to keep checking which branch certain subjects were in), and the activity level across the science groups really isn't high enough to need 4 groups.

I also deleted ~hobbies.automotive and moved the (very few) topics from it back into ~hobbies with an automotive tag. The group was getting less than one topic posted a week, and doesn't seem necessary yet.

One other change I want to make but haven't yet, because I want input first: I think I'd like to move ~creative into a sub-group of ~arts. What do you think of calling it ~arts.original? Any other possible names that would work better as "content created by the poster?"

Content types

Finally, I've also just deployed a change that starts showing a "content type" on each topic. Currently it doesn't do anything other than get displayed in the listings, but the plan is to be able to use this for searching, filtering, and similar purposes. This will be able to cover the common requests like "I'd like a way to see only videos", and will also make some other things easier to customize (for example, there's no need to show word count on Ask topics).

Here's the list of content types that are shown right now, but I'm fairly sure that I'm forgetting about some others:

  1. Article
  2. Ask topic
  3. Image
  4. PDF
  5. Text topic
  6. Tweet
  7. Video

Update on Oct 11: if a type for a link topic isn't detected, it will display "Link"

What other types of content get posted to Tildes that aren't covered in there?

36 comments

  1. [3]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. 9000
      Link Parent
      I agree. I think if you're going to disable top-level comments on old recurring topics (which I agree is a good idea), there should probably be a link to either the succeeding topic or the current...

      I agree. I think if you're going to disable top-level comments on old recurring topics (which I agree is a good idea), there should probably be a link to either the succeeding topic or the current one. I guess the current one? Maybe both?

      8 votes
    2. cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Yeah, all the ones scheduled so far are the same week to week, and so I agree that users should probably just be redirected to the latest topic instead of being allowed to resurrect an old one...

      Yeah, all the ones scheduled so far are the same week to week, and so I agree that users should probably just be redirected to the latest topic instead of being allowed to resurrect an old one with a new top-level comment.

      However if/when other users start being able to set up their own recurring topics through this new system, those should not be top-level locked by default IMO, since new top-level comments in a bunch of the other the recurring topics (e.g. the episode discussions in ~tv) still have value, potentially even years later.

      3 votes
  2. [4]
    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    I am opposed to the idea. Looking at the groups it's clear that ~creative is about things the poster has done while ~arts is about things in the art world. One is very much a "hey look what I did"...

    One other change I want to make but haven't yet, because I want input first: I think I'd like to move ~creative into a sub-group of ~arts. What do you think of calling it ~arts.original? Any other possible names that would work better as "content created by the poster?"

    I am opposed to the idea. Looking at the groups it's clear that ~creative is about things the poster has done while ~arts is about things in the art world. One is very much a "hey look what I did" and the other is news. The term "arts" always has an unspoken the in front of it in my opinion, which seems to separate it from the individual. I believe that creating an ~arts.original with the intent of it being a replacement for ~creative will inevitably end up with people making their ~creative posts in ~hobbies.

    19 votes
    1. [2]
      Gaywallet
      Link Parent
      To add to this, creative things do not necessarily have to be artistic in nature. I could see someone posting some code, discussions around creativity in general, or an interesting way they solved...

      To add to this, creative things do not necessarily have to be artistic in nature. I could see someone posting some code, discussions around creativity in general, or an interesting way they solved a problem in ~creative.

      11 votes
      1. sharpstick
        Link Parent
        I agree with this. As a graphics designer I use my creativity every day but what I create would not be considered "art." Vice versa, not all aspects of the art world spring from creative...

        I agree with this. As a graphics designer I use my creativity every day but what I create would not be considered "art." Vice versa, not all aspects of the art world spring from creative expression but from other goals such as logistics, investment, investigation, prestige, etc. While the two topics are tangental, one is not a subset of the other.

        5 votes
    2. JoylessAubergine
      Link Parent
      I agree. For me ~arts carries a certain formal or at least quality weight to it that ~creative does not. I would consider posting my first miniatures to ~creative but not to ~arts for example.

      I agree. For me ~arts carries a certain formal or at least quality weight to it that ~creative does not.

      I would consider posting my first miniatures to ~creative but not to ~arts for example.

      4 votes
  3. [2]
    Wes
    Link
    Group rearrangement is probably for the best. I don't think the science subgroups were too popular of an idea. At a later date, going by field (physics, chemistry, medicine) would probably be...

    Group rearrangement is probably for the best. I don't think the science subgroups were too popular of an idea. At a later date, going by field (physics, chemistry, medicine) would probably be easier.

    For content types, how granular do you want to go? eg. would a music link on Youtube be covered by video?

    9 votes
    1. Deimos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Music is a bit tricky. Maybe it should be Video only if it's actually a music video, and Audio otherwise? I guess Audio will probably be necessary regardless for Soundcloud links and such.

      Music is a bit tricky. Maybe it should be Video only if it's actually a music video, and Audio otherwise? I guess Audio will probably be necessary regardless for Soundcloud links and such.

      4 votes
  4. unknown user
    Link
    Thanks for merging the science subgroups back in! It was confusing and just an absurdly technical structure that wasn’t really approachable to anyone. If one day Tildes gets popular, I think more...

    Thanks for merging the science subgroups back in! It was confusing and just an absurdly technical structure that wasn’t really approachable to anyone. If one day Tildes gets popular, I think more well-known subgroups like ~science.chemistry is a better idea.

    6 votes
  5. [13]
    Deimos
    Link
    Since I just submitted a GitHub link and it came out as "Article", that's obviously a missing content type too. I'm not sure what to call something like that. I don't know if going as specific as...

    Since I just submitted a GitHub link and it came out as "Article", that's obviously a missing content type too.

    I'm not sure what to call something like that. I don't know if going as specific as "Code" or "Repo" is necessary, maybe something like "Resource"? That can work for other types of links that are useful or information not in article form.

    5 votes
    1. [3]
      umbrae
      Link Parent
      Could you just leave it uncategorized? So, null? What happens if I link to a web based ascii rendering of Star Wars? Or an index directory? Seems like the ability to be undefined is useful.

      Could you just leave it uncategorized? So, null?

      What happens if I link to a web based ascii rendering of Star Wars? Or an index directory? Seems like the ability to be undefined is useful.

      5 votes
      1. [2]
        Deimos
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Yeah, defaulting to unknown/null is probably better overall. That adds some difficulty of needing to figure out how to detect Article for random blogs, but it's probably not bad. Edit: this is...

        Yeah, defaulting to unknown/null is probably better overall. That adds some difficulty of needing to figure out how to detect Article for random blogs, but it's probably not bad.

        Edit: this is done now, and will display "Link" in the unknown case.

        GitHub links are fairly common to submit though, and there is some sort of correct way to label them, so I'd still like to find a good term to be able to use on them.

        3 votes
        1. DrStone
          Link Parent
          The problem is that Github can and has been used to host all sorts of things, not strictly code repositories. I've seen it used for wiki-like resources (but without using the wiki feature),...

          The problem is that Github can and has been used to host all sorts of things, not strictly code repositories. I've seen it used for wiki-like resources (but without using the wiki feature), versioned and edited e-books, etc. If we're including Gists, there's even more.

          A better option could be to suggest, but ultimately leave it up to the submitter. Have a UI control on the submission page with the preset types and make a selection automatically if a type is determined based on detection, allowing the submitter to see the result and make a change if necessary. Much like how submission title detection works on some other social media sites, filling in the input box that you can change before submission.

          6 votes
    2. [2]
      DrStone
      Link Parent
      Would it be helpful to look at the Open Graph protocol types? Most sites these days seem to implement OG meta tags in <head>, so you could parse the og:type meta to get a rough estimate of the...

      Would it be helpful to look at the Open Graph protocol types? Most sites these days seem to implement OG meta tags in <head>, so you could parse the og:type meta to get a rough estimate of the link type (at the very least, filter the possibilities). The Github link is specified as "object" rather than "article", for example.

      4 votes
      1. Deimos
        Link Parent
        Definitely could be helpful, but I'd need to start scraping them. It also depends on the site defining it correctly, and I don't think "object" is even one of the valid values. It's not listed on...

        Definitely could be helpful, but I'd need to start scraping them. It also depends on the site defining it correctly, and I don't think "object" is even one of the valid values. It's not listed on the Open Graph site as a valid value, and it seems like "website" is supposed to be treated as the default.

        2 votes
    3. [2]
      unknown user
      Link Parent
      I'd probably go with "Repository". Resource seems kind of generic and not very helpful. Maybe rename "Ask" to "Discussion" for topic category, also?

      I'd probably go with "Repository". Resource seems kind of generic and not very helpful. Maybe rename "Ask" to "Discussion" for topic category, also?

      3 votes
      1. Deimos
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Every topic is a discussion. Ask is a specific type that's basically "this topic itself has no content, and is requesting Tildes users to answer something". It's pretty well-established on the...

        Every topic is a discussion. Ask is a specific type that's basically "this topic itself has no content, and is requesting Tildes users to answer something". It's pretty well-established on the internet: /r/AskReddit, Ask HN, Ask Metafilter, and so on. I guess it could specifically say "Ask Tildes" to be a little more consistent/recognizable, but I don't know if it's necessary.

        4 votes
    4. [3]
      Deimos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Another few uncertain cases: A link to something like an AMA on reddit. "External Discussion"? I don't know, that's awkward. A link to a game's page on Steam/Epic/whatever, and/or bundles....

      Another few uncertain cases:

      • A link to something like an AMA on reddit. "External Discussion"? I don't know, that's awkward.
      • A link to a game's page on Steam/Epic/whatever, and/or bundles. "Product"? Just be explicit and say "Game", "Bundle", etc.?
      • A link to crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter/etc.
      3 votes
      1. DMBuce
        Link Parent
        Something that immediately stuck out to me in your OP: most of the content types are kinds of media (e.g. Article and Video) while others are a specific type of media format (PDF, Tweet). I would...

        Something that immediately stuck out to me in your OP: most of the content types are kinds of media (e.g. Article and Video) while others are a specific type of media format (PDF, Tweet). I would suggest "Document" instead of "PDF" and "Social Media Post" instead of "Tweet". That way, "Document" could also encompass things like Google docs links and "Social Media Post" could cover things like reddit AMAs.

        You could also do "Project" for GitHub links and crowdfunding campaigns. "Project" could potentially fit games too, although I like "Product" for those a little better.

        10 votes
      2. Wes
        Link Parent
        With groups, tags, and now content types, you must really enjoy taxonomy. :)

        With groups, tags, and now MIME content types, you must really enjoy taxonomy. :)

        5 votes
    5. skybrian
      Link Parent
      Maybe just "misc" or "other", since it's hard to tell what it is?

      Maybe just "misc" or "other", since it's hard to tell what it is?

      2 votes
    6. unknown user
      Link Parent
      “Software”, maybe? If not, “Resource” sounds reasonable.

      “Software”, maybe? If not, “Resource” sounds reasonable.

      2 votes
  6. unknown user
    Link
    (I wanted to write to the previous thread, but didn't have the time.) Re. ~comp and scheduled threads: My “Fortnightly Programming Q&A” threads are every other Tuesday. Since there were only two...

    (I wanted to write to the previous thread, but didn't have the time.)

    Re. ~comp and scheduled threads: My “Fortnightly Programming Q&A” threads are every other Tuesday. Since there were only two of them there is no set time, but 12:00:00 UTC seems like an okay time to me. If you decide to add that thread series, feel free to move it to a later time, but I would prefer no later than 15:00:00 UTC (18:00:00 MSK).

    Re. posting in old recurring thread: I think that it should be allowed until the next thread is up, give or take 24 hours. Also, if that is possible, the yellow warning about posting into a week-old thread should probably be removed or replaced for fortnightly1 and monthly threads.

    Re. group rearrangements and ~creative: The rearrangements look reasonable. I would vote against moving ~creative to a subgroup of ~arts, because the word “arts” has a narrower definition in my head. For example, I remember we've had a user post a link to their ASMR video. And ASMR or VA videos, while certainly being creative, do not (yet?) fall under the “arts” category for me personally. And don't even mention the old “Are video-games art?” debate going.

    Re. content types: Clearly missing is the “Music” or “Audio” type. E.g. links to song.link, YouTube channels with a “musician status” or what's it called, bandcamp, MP4 or OGG files, etc. “Ask topic” and “Text topic” could be shortened to “Ask” and “Discussion” IMO. “Tweet” seems to only imply Twitter, the company; “Microblog”, maybe?

    Hopefully, I've covered everything this time :-)


    1 I dislike the timing terms starting with “bi-” because they can mean either “two times per period” or “one time per two periods”. Luckily, English has a word for “two weeks”, so I use it. I don't suggest re-tagging all recurring.biweekly posts, but at least let me use a more precise term in the topic title :-)

    5 votes
  7. [2]
    Gaywallet
    Link
    I agree with limiting top level replies as soon as the new thread comes up. I've actually tried to do a weekly thread some time ago in health for fitness related stuff but it wasn't very active....
    1. I agree with limiting top level replies as soon as the new thread comes up.
    2. I've actually tried to do a weekly thread some time ago in health for fitness related stuff but it wasn't very active. Looking at the amount of replies in the thread today, I wonder if it's still too early to be doing so. Maybe part of the reason of the inactivity is that it hasn't been regular? I'm not entirely sure - it might even pick up later today. It may also make more sense for it to be biweekly or monthly.
    3. We should probably standardize a specific tag for weekly topics, so that people can choose to filter them or not... ask.survey seems to be on most of them but maybe even ask.weekly or automated.weekly or something more specific could be useful.
    4 votes
    1. Deimos
      Link Parent
      Yeah, I'm not sure about the ~health topic. We can see how much response it ends up getting. I definitely like it in theory, I just don't know if it'll really take off yet. As for the tags,...

      Yeah, I'm not sure about the ~health topic. We can see how much response it ends up getting. I definitely like it in theory, I just don't know if it'll really take off yet.

      As for the tags, "recurring" is on a lot of the topics, with variants like "recurring.weekly" or "recurring.monthly". It's not perfectly consistent yet, but we could fix it up. It could also be treated as one of the content types too, I suppose, like "Ask (Recurring)".

      3 votes
  8. spacecowboy
    Link
    How about a content type for podcast episodes? For example: https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/138-charleseisenstein/ It's not just audio because an episode belongs to a collection of episodes and new...

    How about a content type for podcast episodes?

    For example: https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/138-charleseisenstein/

    It's not just audio because an episode belongs to a collection of episodes and new episodes are added to the collection over time. Finding an interesting episode may lead to subscribing to the podcast.

    4 votes
  9. skybrian
    Link
    Maybe art.makers and music.makers would work well?

    Maybe art.makers and music.makers would work well?

    3 votes
  10. DrStone
    Link
    @spacecowboy brought up an interesting point with the podcast being audio and also part of a series. Lots of things can be part of a series or collection, like podcasts, tv series, or articles in...

    @spacecowboy brought up an interesting point with the podcast being audio and also part of a series.

    Lots of things can be part of a series or collection, like podcasts, tv series, or articles in a series. The OP suggestions are also a mix of format and content type. I think it would make sense to have multiple bits of meta here rather a single type. Something like (just spitballing):

    • Primary Medium - This is probably what I've seen people care about the most, particularly video vs not-video. "Can I read it, listen to it, see it, or a combination. Can I consume this where I am now, or do I need to wait or get headphones?" In the case of significantly mixed media, try to pick the core (difficult to do automatically)
      • Audio
      • Video (could include animated GIFs, or not)
      • Image
      • Text
    • Content-Type / File-Type ? - Not sure if necessary, but if you want to get more specific than the broad media, this could help. JPG, GIF, MP4, PDF, etc. I think it could be a useful distinction, especially with various devices having varying degrees of support
    • Type - General type, along the lines of original OP suggestions (minus the above).
      • Article
      • Website
      • Music
      • Ask Topic
      • Tildes Text Topic (distinct an external linked text)
      • ... etc
    • Collection - Something to indicate whether it's a stand-alone piece, or part of a larger whole that you might want to seek out. Could be a simple "stand-alone / collection" binary, or could get more specific with things like "series", "anthology", etc.

    So, an example for "Setting up a Linux home server - Part 2" might be: "Text - HTML - Article - Series". It tells me that I can read it (e.g. consume almost anywhere at my own pace) and what sort of thing it is (an article), but it's only part of a bigger thing (e.g. it can be a bigger commitment and I might need to consume other things before and/or after)
    Or a scientific study might be: "Text - PDF - Article - Standalone"

    To me, that seems far more useful than just a single "Article"

    3 votes
  11. [2]
    yellow
    Link
    Maybe one for interactive pages like this or this. I'm not sure if you are implying a "none" type, but if not there should be or a general webpage type.

    What other types of content get posted to Tildes that aren't covered in there?

    Maybe one for interactive pages like this or this. I'm not sure if you are implying a "none" type, but if not there should be or a general webpage type.

    2 votes
    1. Deimos
      Link Parent
      Ah, hmm, that's an interesting one. I'm not sure if labeling them "Interactive" is good or if something more general would make sense. For now, there's no "Unknown" type and "Article" is basically...

      Ah, hmm, that's an interesting one. I'm not sure if labeling them "Interactive" is good or if something more general would make sense.

      For now, there's no "Unknown" type and "Article" is basically treated as the default and is what something will get labeled with if it's not detected as being one of the other types. Just labeling them "Link" or something more generic would probably be okay too, but right now the large majority of posts end up being articles, so I think it's reasonable.

      3 votes
  12. aphoenix
    Link
    I think the group changes that you've made all make a lot of sense. I think moving creative into arts makes sense, but that's as someone who is subscribed to neither, so weigh my...

    I think the group changes that you've made all make a lot of sense.

    I think moving creative into arts makes sense, but that's as someone who is subscribed to neither, so weigh my worth-less-but-not-worthless opinion accordingly.

    2 votes
  13. myk
    Link
    For ~code, how about “Show us your code”? Suitable for projects, snippets, puzzling bugs, or even (grr) ideas with no code yet.

    For ~code, how about “Show us your code”? Suitable for projects, snippets, puzzling bugs, or even (grr) ideas with no code yet.

    2 votes
  14. Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    In retrospect, that wasn't one of my better ideas. :(

    I deleted the three ~science subgroups (~science.formal, ~science.natural, ~science.social) and moved all the topics back into ~science. These were confusing (I had to keep checking which branch certain subjects were in), and the activity level across the science groups really isn't high enough to need 4 groups.

    In retrospect, that wasn't one of my better ideas. :(

    2 votes
  15. [3]
    ibis
    (edited )
    Link
    I would like a ~women group please. I think it is a topic that is not neatly contained in existing groups, eg this post : https://tild.es/ib4 I put it in science because I didn’t really know where...

    I would like a ~women group please.

    I think it is a topic that is not neatly contained in existing groups, eg this post : https://tild.es/ib4

    I put it in science because I didn’t really know where to put it. But is an article about the workplace culture in science really “science”? I think the group is designed for discussing actual scientific concepts/ideas.

    Having a seperate group would also hopefully filter out commenters with dismissive takes such as “I don’t think we should believe women when they make sexual harassment accusations”, or, “maybe he called all the women who go to bars in this city bitches because all the women are bitches”, or “it doesn’t matter if workplaces are hostile for women, they should just suck it up”.

    10 votes
    1. cfabbro
      Link Parent
      Just FYI, the user behind those "removed by site admin" comments you're referring to is now banned. And given the fact that another "controversial" user, who was pretty much the sole dissenting...

      Just FYI, the user behind those "removed by site admin" comments you're referring to is now banned.

      And given the fact that another "controversial" user, who was pretty much the sole dissenting voice against the ~girltalk group proposal from a few months ago, has voluntarily deleted their account and left the site, I definitely think that a women-centric group idea should be revisited too.

      8 votes
    2. unknown user
      Link Parent
      My first knee-jerk reaction was the same as the first comment of the [unknown user] in the thread that @cfabbro has linked. But the more I think about it the more I support the idea of the ~women...

      My first knee-jerk reaction was the same as the first comment of the [unknown user] in the thread that @cfabbro has linked. But the more I think about it the more I support the idea of the ~women group.

      To others who are in doubts: The Western society is still not 100 % egalitarian. Women still have a distinct set of issues that either concern only them or concern them way more than they concern men. The proposed ~women group should be a perfect place to post the content about those issues.

      I rewrote this comment, like, twenty times and I am still not sure if it's too condescending or “mansplaining”. Sorry if it is.

      6 votes
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