I got an invite code and so spent a bit of time browsing around because I’d heard good things about it. But I was surprised at how basic and non-diverse it all is. The forums are preset and are very generic. The conversations are definitely better than Reddit, but no better or worse than the ones I’ve had with people on Fedi.
Kbin is definitely my new home but I do like checking out the other options - I’d just heard really good things about Tildes and it definitely didn’t match up with what I was playing about with today. Anyone else had a go at it? What’s your take?
I haven’t browsed tildes so don’t have impression to give, but Reddit is Fun dev made a tildes app which I think is pretty cool. Decided to download it now. It’s called Three Cheers for Tildes.
Tildes could be intersting, but difficulty of sign ups I think is what would keep it from becoming bigger. But, maybe that’s what they want. Their way of controlling their own “instance”.
I really love Tildes, but the comments in this thread are fair enough criticisms, and pretty accurate.
The only thing I’d clarify in the comments here is that there’s not really a “waiting list” for invites. Deimos accepts emails requesting invites, and people receive access as he responds to each email. Users also get 5 invites every few weeks, so you can ask people for one here or on /r/redditalternatives. Or in the invite threads that are posted in /r/tildes. And the invite system isn’t used to make it feel “exclusive” (especially since it’s pretty easy to get one,) it’s used because the site has been around for years with an existing userbase, so there’s an effort to gradually add users to Tildes so the site doesn’t just turn into 99% disgruntled redditors.
Tildes simply doesn’t have the goals of “reddit alternatives” that are hoping to launch a new, popular site. It’s just doing its own thing. Personally I find it refreshing, but it’s definitely not for people who want to be part of the next “reddit” with millions of other people.
Actually, since you all aren’t being assholes about your criticisms of it, this gives me a good feeling about kbin. I was going to try this site as an alternative before I found Tildes and have been spending most of my time there, but I’ll probably hang around here eventually, for content that doesn’t belong on Tildes (image posts, memes, and other silly stuff.)
Tildes simply doesn’t have the goals of “reddit alternatives” that are hoping to launch a new, popular site. It’s just doing its own thing. Personally I find it refreshing, but it’s definitely not for people who want to be part of the next “reddit” with millions of other people.
Sure, I definitely respect that and it is one of the things I like about it. I like the way it’s focused on conversations over cut n paste memes.
But I think I’ve found a similar experience here on Kbin by blocking meme heavy groups and joining more specific communities. I’m still going to check out Tildes every now and then though
I browsed around it for a good 20 minutes or so. My initial knee-jerk reaction is that I would not want to join a community with no ability to create or join specific areas that could be narrowed down to more specific topics. “Gaming” for example (and as someone else already mentioned), has to be video games, of all forms (retro, console, computer, homebrew, hacks - from all years) alongside board games, card games, browser games, children’s games, educational games, physical toys, etc. It’s a mess, to me at least. There aren’t even that many categories.
It is also very sterile-feeling. I appreciate a good old-fashioned text wall, but no options for background and text colors even? (Maybe that is an option if you are able to log into the site)
The idea here is that you have general categories and then you rely on tags to do more granular filtering. so you may be on the gaming group, but if you really hate retro gamess you would instead add games.retro (or something similar) to a filter list.
The idea of only a few groups and no custom group creation is intentional. There were other reddit alternatives that died out because everone was creating new groups willy nilly and it meant no one group could get enough traction. In contrast, Tildes only started with a dozen groups and you start out subscribed to everything.
Waitlists are almost always just for hype.
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it’s not a waitlist, simply invite only. If you can find someone who browses tildes they can give you an invite with no issue. But a semi-common way to “go around” that is messaging the admin, who ofc has infinite invitess, has a business address, and probably has dozens of requests coming in to read.
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it’s quite the opposite here. The lack of free account creation is to purposefully limit growrth. Tildes doesn’t want to be a dumping ground for reddit refugees everytime a drama explodes.
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