Tildes – a non-profit community site

by nbrempel • 7 years ago

126 75 7 years ago

nbrempel• 7 years ago

I discovered Tildes several months ago. I have no affiliation but I thought the HN crowd might appreciate it.

I like the approach the creator is taking with the site and is a great candidate for a Reddit-like community with more intelligent discourse.

Fjolsvith6• 7 years ago

a great candidate for a Reddit-like community with more intelligent discourse.

Except the mod makes no effort to explain policies like HN mods do, and will ban accounts without explanation or recourse. Very clannish, IMHO.

elric2• 7 years ago

Reddit-like community with more intelligent discourse

I feel like that's an unfair assertion. There is a lot of intelligent discourse on Reddit. There is also a lot of utter garbage on there, sure, but byte for byte, there aren't many websites with as much quality content as Reddit.

mrzool• 7 years ago

So is this kind of like HN but for everything? I’m digging it.

KaoruAoiShiho• 7 years ago

Reddit clone? I think HN was a redditclone too right?

itslennysfault• 7 years ago

correct

earenndil• 7 years ago

To be fair, reddit was originally a usenet clone.

dredmorbius2• 7 years ago

Better Reddit is more like it.

johnnyAghands2• 7 years ago

This looks great! Can anyone sponsor an invite for me?

hmhrex2• 7 years ago

I would also be interested in an invite, this looks like the type of community I've been wanting.

solarkraft• 7 years ago

Yep, I can. How can you be privately reached?

johnnyAghands2• 7 years ago

Hi@vprasanth.com, thank you!

raptorraver• 7 years ago

I’d be very happy if someone could invite me aswell. This looks really promising.

_ps6d5• 7 years ago

(Tildes is my site)

The best explanation of the site's goals is probably still the original announcement blog post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

Here's the discussion on HN at the time (note that the site was totally private at that time and you couldn't even view it without an invite yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093

Feel free to ask any questions, and if you're interested in an invite please just email the address in the blog post and I'll send you one soon. It's not intended to be difficult to get an invite, I just want to keep the growth controlled while a base site culture and more features get built up.

matdehaast• 7 years ago

As an avid Redditor I love this!

The company I work for, Coil, is specifically looking to enable sites like this have an alternative revenue model that is not based on ads[1]. If you have any questions you can reach out to me matt[at]companyurl

I would also suggest you check out https://www.grantfortheweb.org/

[1] https://coil.com/creator

hmhrex2• 7 years ago

Wow. These links opened new doors I didn't know existed. I've been experimenting with sponsorship ads to fund my sites because I'm very against the current advertising model. However, Coil looks to be an interesting alternative to the ad model as a whole.

elric2• 7 years ago

The post states you're supported by donations. How do you go about keeping the site up and financially healthy based on just donations?

_ps6d5• 7 years ago

It really doesn't take much when your goal is "sustainable". The site's actual expenses have always been more than covered from donations, and the current servers can probably easily handle at least 100x the traffic. The goal now is just bringing in enough to be able to pay myself a somewhat respectable salary.

Here's the current month's financials (this is linked from below the donation goal meter on the home page): https://tildes.net/financials

1MachineElf2• 7 years ago

Thank you for creating Tildes, and open sourcing it.

I was wondering if federation, like with GNU Social/Mastodon, was part of the overall roadmap. I.e., having two separate Tildes instances that can interact with each other.

EDIT: Ok, I see it isn't planned according to the discussion here: https://tildes.net/~tildes/c8p/how_would_federation_work_wit...

tobenortobe• 7 years ago

What tech stack you are using? Ok found from ur link, sorry, here it is[0]

https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/site-implementation#use-m...

rglover• 7 years ago

Any chance of an invite from an existing user? This post alone has me thrilled: https://tildes.net/~talk/l4d/you_must_time_travel_to_any_tim...

squiguy7• 7 years ago

I can send you a code if you drop me a message. My email can be found in my profile.

windthrown• 7 years ago

Just email your request to invites@tildes.net

jagger27• 7 years ago

What struck me immediately was how fast this site loaded. No font popping, no cookie waivers, no newsletter nagging, no huge images, no JavaScript fade-in, no scrolljacking, no signup wall. Funny how practical it is to make a functional forum and news aggregator that Just Works.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this and would love to get an invite!

_ps6d5• 7 years ago

Thanks! Keeping the site minimal and fast is definitely one of my main goals, and I'm never going to add any third-party assets, advertising, or anything like that (for both speed and privacy reasons).

There's quite a bit more info about my approaches from a technical perspective here: https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/site-implementation

m463• 7 years ago

umatrix says there is one site: tildes.net no subdomains, no cdns (which nowadays track instead of cache), no third party anything. refreshing.

tootie• 7 years ago

I only browse reddit on https://i.reddit.com for that reason. You can disable thumbnails and then the front page weighs less than 1MB.

astrea• 7 years ago

What's to stop this from falling into the same trap as always? They grow, user donations aren't enough to sustain them anymore so they have to look into alternative ways of getting money, users hate it, they start a spinoff that promises to be better, rinse and repeat.

Deimorz2• 7 years ago

That trap happens because of sites basing themselves on venture capital, advertising, and chasing growth/profit.

Tildes is a non-profit with no advertising or investors, so none of that pressure is there. There's no danger of donations not being enough to sustain it. The expenses are already far more than covered and it could easily stay running in its current state forever.

city41• 7 years ago

How do you know donations will keep up with usage? I felt like the OP was referring to a situation where Tildes takes off and becomes large organically.

I'm currently building a site that I am considering attempting to make possible via donations, much like Tildes. Any advice you can share? How well have donations been working? Any gotchas? Thanks for any insights you can share!

1MachineElf2• 7 years ago

Starting a spinoff is encouraged - it's open source: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes

OJFord• 7 years ago

You could throttle (or even drop) connections from non-donor users, calculated to just be enough keep a manageable load on the servers.

Then, if users don't like it, they can pay for it. But with the throttling it actually has a direct affect; they can immediately see an improvement, rather than just an abstract 'vote with your wallet', 'oh if everyone thought like that [why pay, SEP] there would be no server' payment.

Semaphor2• 7 years ago

there are several people asking for invites. pm me or reply here and I'll invite you (Until my ten invites run out). In roughly 7h because I'm going to sleep now.

In a recent census we realized we have very few non-tech people and women, so please help us even the scales by reaching out if you see this ;)

neodymiumphish• 7 years ago

I would love an invite!

yanokwa• 7 years ago

I'd love an invite!

Y_Y• 7 years ago

I would also like an invitation.

This is how I felt when Gmail started.

lubujackson• 7 years ago

I would love an invite, thanks.

excitedleigh• 7 years ago

I'd also like an invite!

dotism• 7 years ago

May I have one?

rex_lupi• 7 years ago

may I have one, if you still have some available?

geolgau• 7 years ago

Hope it's not too late. Do you have one left for me?

Semaphor2• 7 years ago

Sadly I’m out of the edit window, so I’ll do it as a reply: If you don’t have any contact information in your profile, I really can’t send you an invite.

stevewodil2• 7 years ago

EDIT: All invites are now gone, sorry

I have 10 invites available, send an email to stevewodil@gmail.com for an invite code. Include your Hacker News username in the message so I can verify you.

EDIT: All invites are now gone, sorry

bartread• 7 years ago

This is great: fast, interesting content, comments, voting, but... I can't do anything until I get an invite.

Tedious.

This invite only model sucks an 18-metre radius dog anus. We've seen it far too many times before. It's really boring and overdone and needs to die. Seriously, just let us in.

And I know what you're thinking, "Wow, this comment is super-obnoxious and we don't want this kind of person in here", but check my karma: it's pretty good. You've just crossed a line.

The problem here is I'm getting old and one day I'm going to die and I only have so much breath left in my body, so I don't have the time or the patience for your infuriating invite only model.

Please: stop arsing around and open it up.

daviross• 7 years ago

I have no dog in this fight, but

  check my karma: it's pretty good. You've just crossed a line.

What does that have to do with anything? You're not wrong that your comment is super obnoxious, so if you're aware of the issue... why not just not?

(I'm sure that the response would be "the invite-only model merits being a jerk in response", but given the topic is community it feels like believing something that self-serving/self-perpetuating of malbehavior ought to be disqualifying.)

panarky3• 7 years ago

Tildes is a nice community. We don't tolerate assholes. If deimorz lets you in, please do better than this comment.

Fjolsvith6• 7 years ago

This could also be described as being cliquish, or an echo chamber.

bananamerica4• 6 years ago

Tildes is a heavily moderated community with strict guidelines. Right now it doesn't have the advanced moderation tools required to accommodate an unlimited number of people while still enforcing quality content and civil interactions.

Anyway, you haven't got an invite yet, send an email to mrbig033@protonmail.com asking for invite code. Please include your Hacker News username in the message. We'll be happy to have you!

_fs• 7 years ago

https://tildes.net/register?code=EPFF9-HWU9Z-4D5U6

https://tildes.net/register?code=B2M91-W6VD5-ABFG8

https://tildes.net/register?code=LGG9Q-26K5G-LU8RK

https://tildes.net/register?code=GBLXM-N3GPO-V4MN4

https://tildes.net/register?code=MWMSC-2970F-VPWYM

https://tildes.net/register?code=2LDQG-FJ1N2-SM8F0

https://tildes.net/register?code=GLF5C-JHMWP-MV4YH

https://tildes.net/register?code=9HBBF-WC5CC-LBJQX

https://tildes.net/register?code=ASYR8-V3KQJ-U96N7

Deimorz2• 7 years ago

To save anyone else the trouble of trying, all of these links have been used now and are no longer valid.

If you want an invite, you can just email me as explained in the announcement post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

dredmorbius2• 7 years ago

I've been on Tildes since Early Days, same username, really like the features and development.

And I've got a few invites. Reply and ping via email (see my HN user page) if interested.

chrysoprace• 7 years ago

Signed up and it looks great! Looking forward to seeing it grow.

The main reason I actually use Reddit is because there's a community for almost anything. I had a quick browse through the issues/roadmap but; do you have a plan to allow user-created groups or subgroups? For example, ~food is too general for bread-making and so reddit has communities like https://old.reddit.com/r/breadit, which is a great place to ask for baking advice specific to baking bread.

_ps6d5• 7 years ago

Yes, that's definitely planned over the longer term, but the community is too small to support highly-specific groups for now. Various other "reddit clones" have made the mistake of allowing users to create communities immediately, and they ended up with thousands of inactive, abandoned ones.

Even reddit itself didn't support subreddit creation for over 3 years. It takes a long time to have a userbase large enough for it to work.

In the meantime, Tildes has a pretty flexible tagging system to help categorize topics, and tags can transition into formal groups quite nicely.

chrisfrantz• 7 years ago

Is this the official launch?

Tildes is great, glad it’s getting exposure here. It was interesting watching the community unfold on a subreddit before eventually migrating over to a hosted third party site.

LargoLasskhyfv• 7 years ago

Hm. This is rare (for me). Something i liked because at first glance nothing which is disturbing or annoying from a design point of view. Has usable themes even, with the exception of the solarized ones. Always wondered who the people are which would profit from that, or what displays? Could maybe use some setting for different padding.

Edit: Different padding as in tiny/small/compact/cozy/comfortable/large/huge view like in some google apps?

petecox2• 7 years ago

Top discussion currently is on Hitler.

No thanks, I'll give it a miss.

bananamerica4• 6 years ago

Have you actually read it?

Stories about killing Hitler and saving millions of lives are a staple of science fiction, and an interesting way to reason about time travel.

I created that thread as a creative exercise for others to partake in good, light-hearted fun. Despite the subject, there were absolutely no cases of misbehavior. That's what you get when you're in a heavily moderated community that takes being nice to each other very seriously.

petecox2• 6 years ago

Yes, I did. 'Light-hearted fun' perhaps but it strikes me as in very poor taste as someone whose parents lived through the 1940s. Okay, you went there - to its logical conclusion in which your time adventures messing around with the past inadvertently sees the Axis win the war and the 1000 year reign commences as forseen. And nobody wants that.

'a heavily moderated community that takes being nice to each other very seriously' would describe this forum, for the most part. Thus my reluctance to join another community comprised somewhat of HN invitees merely to discuss topics HN might find taboo such as time travelling assassination of historical figures.

aabbcc1241• 7 years ago

How is it better than here?

(I like both at the moment.)

kidfiji• 7 years ago

By any chance does anyone else have an extra invite?

byproxy• 7 years ago

Yep. Dunno the best way to send it out, though.

bananamerica4• 6 years ago

I have 10 invites available, send an email to mrbig033@protonmail.com for an invite code. Include your Hacker News username in the message so I can verify you.

Tildes – a non-profit community site

Related Stories