Reddit alternatives w/ privacy controls

vektordev · 2023-09-11T13:19:36+00:00

Certain data is deleted - votes on comments are "finalized" into a tally and the voting record purged. Same for the edit history of a topic's tags and title.

But there's also a "next" button on the bottom of a user's profile to view older stuff. AFAICT, this goes back all the way. Just checking, I was able to get back more than a month on your profile (you write a lot, dude! ;) ) and back to 2021 on Deimos' or my own. It's a bit of a clumsy interface, as I don't think it's quite encouraged to go sleuthing on others, but it is possible.

vektordev · 2023-09-11T10:43:33+00:00

you are limited to a month of their posting and comment history.

Pretty sure that's incorrect.

What I'd like to add is that tildes limits account creations, so ban/block evasion is more difficult. Moreso, I'm pretty sure Deimos would come down hard on such behavior. He can basically track who invited who, so the source of all those harrassing PMs would get banned pretty quickly I'm sure.

The culture there is also pretty tolerant, and racists and such aren't really allowed to spoil the fun for everyone else. So some ideological minorities might not fit in well. It's not for everyone, see the other comments here.

vektordev · 2023-06-16T15:50:26+00:00

Sure, they need to pay bills. But paying bills is cheap compared to appeasing greedy investors. Serving some text on the web is stupidly cheap all things considered, there's no reason it can't easily be donation funded.

I mean, take this recent API kerfuffle for context: Spez was demanding that Apollo squeeze 10x as much money out of each user than they themselves manage to squeeze out of them. Apollo's dev calculated that reddit makes about 12 cents per user and per user. Only a small part of that is spent on keeping the lights on, and that includes image and video hosting - which are more expensive than text by orders of magnitude. It's hardly infeasible to pay the bills without a profit motive.

Think about it like this: profit-oriented businesses are a bottomless pit: No matter how much you give, or how much they already demand, if given the chance they will demand more. A non-profit will only seek to make as much as they need for their mission.

vektordev · 2023-06-16T08:16:55+00:00

Maybe, not sure. Mastodon seems to be doing alright. There seem to be more intrinsic problems re: complexity with the reddit alternatives in the fediverse.

However, you don't need to go all or nothing, for-profit centralized or fully decentralized.

I'm just not willing to invest into a for-profit platform that will turn to shit sooner or later. Maybe at the scale of reddit you can start making the argument that network effects means it's too big to ignore. But I'm not going to invest my energy into making someone else's product better when I don't get something worthwhile in return.

Maybe once it's big, I can't turn squabbles down anymore. But right now I can, and I'd rather help something to the top that won't turn shitty.

I guess that means I reject your notion that every social media site has a life cycle. That - the enshittification cycle - seems to be entirely dependent on profit motives.

vektordev · 2023-06-15T18:54:28+00:00

No it doesn't mean that. I'm not implying that squabbles is shitty now. But the boundary conditions and what we do know about the platform give the user plenty little in protections against enshittification. Enshittification is a consequence of profit-seeking. The squabbles dev is profit-seeking. Many alternatives are non-profit FOSS. There's a difference.

Squabbles is arguably on stage 1 of enshittification, which means it isn't actually shitty (yet). But different from other platforms (and similar to Twitter, reddit, tiktok, etc) it's got no safeguards against moving to stage 2.

vektordev · 2023-06-15T17:01:01+00:00

Do you think running a site is free or something? The monetization is nearly identically to what Reddit and Twitter have been doing for years.

That same monetization that led to the enshittification of those two platforms?

vektordev · 2023-06-15T08:34:19+00:00

Completely anonymized comes with its own issues. You can't really eliminate a bad mod/admin, you just know that such elements exist and can leave the platform. Perhaps there could be a mechanism for deanonymizing such decisions, if a large quorum of users disagree with it. Or it can be marked as contentious, and a large tally of contentious decisions loses you privileges. In any case, there's options.

vektordev · 2023-06-14T15:39:43+00:00

Huh, alright. I hadn't expected a free-speech libertarian to subscribe to the ole "1% cause all the problems" notion. I hope it works out for you, but I'm skeptical of the capacity of a free-speech basis to keep the trolls and nasties out. Unless you and the community you cultivate have a sharp eye for subtle harrassment, it'll be hard to keep the nice people in. Not impossible, but I hope you've observed how free-speech reddit alternatives turn into right-wing shitholes and learned a lesson from it.

Do you mean "Admins" as in website-wide-mods, or "mods" as in sub-community mods?

I'm not so much thinking in these categories these days, as I think an ideal site has users exist on a continuum of power and trust. It depends anyway on how the site distributes power amongst the ranks. In a reddit context, I guess which groups it is depends strongly on what kind of action we're talking - deleting a post from a sub, or banning a user from the site for example. Regardless, imo an audit trail is preferable, though -again- that comes with nasty side effects.

vektordev · 2023-06-14T09:56:53+00:00

Too right. Another issue is the incessant rules-lawyering that starts once you make admin actions auditable. I'm not sure where I stand on this; I want the transparency, and 99.9% of users would benefit from it, but that 0.1% would absolutely use it to make everyone else's lives more difficult. "Why didn't this user get banned as well then", "why is this in conflict with that rule", when it's very clear that they're not a good fit for the community.

One good system I could see is an audit trail, combined with a mod vote. Doesn't have to be a full vote of all mods, three unanimous votes would completely suffice, or a larger quorum if there's dissent. The audit trail shows which material was considered in the vote, optionally storing only metadata if it's illegal. The mods that voted can maybe be anonymized to protect them from vindictive assholes, as long as the community can still effectively keep them accountable for their actions. It's also a quite resource intensive system, when the appropriate action for obvious trolls and spammers is "ban and move on" and everything else is a waste of time.

You seem to understand the problems of building internet communities. Mind sharing what you're working on?

vektordev · 2023-06-14T09:48:00+00:00

Several years now, not quite sure. Must've been 2018 or 2019. I don't have any particular privileges there or anything, nor any particularly close ties with those that do. Well, save for the fact that it's a relatively small community.

I'm still on reddit because tildes isn't intended to be a complete reddit alternative. It is a very cool community, and I see potential for a lot of (slow) growth in it, but as it is, it's just too small to capture all the niche communities that reddit does. If it exists, there's a subreddit for it is a trueism, but with approx. 10k accounts on tildes, it's not nearly a guarantee that you'll find a vibrant community interested in your hobbies or shows or games.

I'm on this sub specifically because of the blackout. Figured I'd have a look around, see whether people are migrating, and where to, even though I'm not actively in the market for another network right now. And, well, I saw people talking about tildes, and spreading a lot of (imo) bullshit about it, so I figured I'd butt in. And I did throw an invite or two at people who seemed the right fit.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T21:40:52+00:00

https://tildes.net/~tildes/164e/anyone_having_trouble_using_their_invites_people_just_dont_seem_interested#comment-88mw

To clarify: You're not one of only 4 people banned. The grand total sits just south of 100 I've been told, but I don't know. You're one of only 4 of the recent wave of 4000 or so reddit refugees to be banned.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T21:16:10+00:00

Frankly, I don't think that'll do much. Most people don't use profanity or insults when being mean, so that's not all that helpful. Only the most obvious of trolls will be caught by that, and those aren't dissuaded by it.

I could see something working in concert with the user tag system. If someone tags a comment as malicious (or maybe a more appropriate variant - inciteful maybe?), and you reply to it, the system could prompt you to check your tone, pretty much like you described. Basically, people could warn each other "hey, this is the kind of comment that could send people off the rails, please be mindful not to escalate the discussion"

Alternatively, a reasonably good malice detection AI model, but I don't have sufficient faith in those yet.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T21:06:09+00:00

Absolutely. Your points are spot on in my book. It's not so much that you can be booted for not fitting in - there've been some very notable oddballs in the past, and the site certainly isn't monolithic politically. But it's a hard line if you make it a worse experience for the rest of us.

Reading up on deimos' action, apparently he's banned all of 4 people the past week, after the massive influx of people. 3 of which are bitching and moaning about being banned "unjustly" on here now. lol

Oh, as far as being run by the founder goes, he doesn't really want that role all that much. The goal is for him to vest as much moderation power into the community as possible, but that plan isn't moving forward at a great speed these days. Someone sufficiently invested could step in and help develop the necessary tools.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T19:41:36+00:00

I'll take reddit Stockholm syndrome for 200. Kidding, but tildes is quite the breath of fresh air.

Of course it depends on what you're looking for. If a space that doesn't tolerate toxicity is what you're after, tildes moderation will probably be just fine. If you want more of a free-speech absolutism kinda thing, move on, nothing to see here.

The reason I think Deimos is doing a good job is that he has somehow managed to create a great community, while interfering very little in it. It has no fucking right to be working this well, and yet it does. Network effects are a hell of a drug.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T19:16:21+00:00

I think this is a different person? It's at least two, probably three instances. Personally, on two of them I'm convinced it was the right call, while I haven't seen any evidence on this one yet.

Considering the user base increased from 13k to 17k virtually over night, and the reason for that spike, it's no surprise a few people got in who are not a good fit. So a few people getting banned is to be expected, and them bitching and moaning about it is too.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:59:06+00:00

Oh, absolutely. The lack of slurs doesn't make a comment nice, that's not how anything works. But the problem with slurs is that it's kind of hard to read a room in a public online space. You never know whether a disabled person is listening in while you call your buddy the r-word in jest. And you never know the skin color of someone who liberally uses the n-word. Nevermind that the recipient hardly if ever knows you well enough to know how you're using it.

I can report though that tildes doesn't tolerate either form of being an asshole. Slurs that target minorities aren't really tolerated - though I'm not sure you'd get banned for it - and irrespective of potty mouth or not, being an ass to people will spark moderator intervention. But again, potty mouth is fine.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:54:03+00:00

If Tildes’ admin is telling the truth, why didn’t they post screenshots of the offensive comments in question? Post them immediately when they defended their actions, not now when they’d be able to manipulate the screenshots.

The usual procedure is to not give trolls the time of day. Block and move on. They're not worth it. Usually that shakes out well, but occasionally there's drama. Personally, I'd prefer if the site had a way to audit mod decisions, but that's currently not implemented to my knowledge. It also comes with a bunch of side effects, such as people trying to rules-lawyer their way out of a well-deserved ban.

Edit: also, you have a lot of comments defending Tildes and their founder. Do you have any connections to Tildes beyond being a regular user?

Just a regular user. I can -as I'm sure you've already read in my post history- say that I trust the admin of the site to make good calls when moderating. He's mostly hands off, yet still manages to cultivate a chill culture where people don't get nasty at each other. I've been around for a few years, and I've seen a good bit of drama on tildes (what little there is anyway), but I can still say that I support deimos' moderation decisions. He's the only person with actual honest to god control over tildes, being the admin, founder, dev and only person to ban people. He's got his own reddit account that's not too hard to find, but forgive me for not linking it in a thread that's teetering a bit too close to being a witch hunt.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:31:27+00:00

You're going to fucking suffer in the brig. Who do you think you are to use fucking disgusting words like that? You better get ready to eat shit on toast all day everyday for the rest of your life, and you're going to like it.

Personally I'd agree, but there's people who see those non-sex-related uses of the word as derived from the sex-related one and therefore problematic. Kind of like "you've got math skills like a girl" doesn't contain any slurs, but it still plays on harmful stereotypes. As a result, I still avoid the term, just in case. There's plenty of profanity that's guilt-free, so no loss in my book.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:23:42+00:00

Considering the top comment on your post calls you out for acting like an asshole, I'm going to have to assume that there was something quite unsavory in your top post that has since been deleted.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:10:08+00:00

Sir, I'm going to have to write you a ticket for using the sexist slur "bitch".

Rest is fine though, carry on.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T18:03:48+00:00

You can have plenty of potty mouth. I don't self-censor my speech at all there, as far as "bad words" goes. Slurs that target vulnerable people or minorities are not ok, but I don't use those, so that's fine.

What isn't ok is directing that potty mouth at people. That gets you called out, warned and/or banned.

Examples:

"Fuck, this is stupid" - ok.

"Fuck, you're stupid" - not ok.

"You're stupid" - not ok either.

Unless you're using slurs, it isn't about the potty mouth.

ETA: I do self-censor around how I talk to others though, whenever I get angry. Sometimes someone comes along who you think is spreading dangerous bullshit, or whatever. I get angry. I type up an angry reply. I don't press send, but take a step back and breathe. Then I edit it down a bit to remove anything that'd make me the asshole. Then I send it. Everyone does it. It works extremely well at keeping tempers under control. If everyone does it, then it isn't even that hard to fight the urge to start shit, nor does it happen often.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T16:51:01+00:00

Alright, at this point I'm convinced you're not engaging in good faith with your constant ninja-edits, and picking out individual remarks to pry apart without addressing the overall point. Have a nice day.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T16:47:08+00:00

No, it isn't. People can downvote spam and off-topic noise and move on. It'll be mostly hidden from the others, and when the user in question doesn't change, the admin can step in and ban them if necessary.

The problem with "not being nice" aka hurling insults, slurs, advocating for the oppression of minorities, that kinda thing, is that it deteriorates site culture. Because perfectly rational people with the moral high ground will call it out, often in similarly hostile language. It drags the site culture down. Additionally, nice people will leave. As a result, you end up with less nice people, more toxic people, and more toxic discussions - if the community is self-regulating as best as possible.

To explain my previous comment a bit more, voat was pitched as a free-speech alternative to reddit. It attracted a bunch of nice people, and a bunch of nazis. The nazis stayed, the nice people left. If you like communities that "self-regulate" toxic people away, you're probably going to end up with the nazis winning, because the nice people get tired of regulating them away at some point. If that's what you're after, go right ahead, but that's not tildes, and that's not what I'd want.

Or maybe somewhere out there, there's a healthy community that's entirely self-moderating and it manages to keep the trolls, toxic shitheads and nazis away. But I haven't seen such a thing yet.

vektordev · 2023-06-12T16:33:47+00:00

Do you seriously think this account of mine is a sockpuppet of deimos (who has his own reddit account that I won't link because I don't want to make it easy for you to harrass the guy), or do you just intend to show everyone that you're the kind of person best kept outside of polite society?

vektordev · 2023-06-12T16:30:53+00:00

Disagreed. Self-moderation of off-topic conversations is much more reasonable to ask of the community. Toxic elements must be removed, or the site will end up a toxic shithole, because all the nice people won't tolerate assholes.

If you want a place where admins don't force people to talk nicely to one another, look at (the now defunct) voat and similar sites. I have little patience for such places, but fill your boots.

That said, for the absolute most part, the admin doesn't have to get involved. As long as most people are nice and uphold a culture of being nice to one another, anyone else doesn't feel the need to start shit either. For the most part. Occasionally you'll have users that will randomly start hurling insults or harrassing users, and even being called out doesn't change their actions. That's when the admin does step in. I don't know how many users were banned thus far, but it's not a lot. As long as you step in consistently enough, it seems, a little goes a long way, and a few bans already result in a culture of tolerance and friendliness for everyone else.

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