Tildes
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Tildes is a discussion site with link posts and text topics. The platform describes itself like this: "Tildes is a non-profit, community-driven site with no ads and no investors". The operator is Spectria, a Canadian non-profit corporation, corporation number 1034108-8; the governing law is that of Canada and the province of Alberta (terms of use).
For a guide about promotion this is a borderline case: Tildes is deliberately built so that it cannot be used as a channel. The wording in the code of conduct leaves no room for doubt: "Tildes is a community, not a free advertising platform". Even the robots.txt file gives fair warning: crawlers are welcome for informational purposes, while "crawlers from SEO and marketing services will be blocked".
Topics are published in "groups" with names of the form ~tildes, ~food, ~games; groups may have subgroups. The key idea is predictability: an explicit rejection of "personalization algorithms" in favour of chronology, metadata and tags, with which the user manages their own feed.
Who's here
Tildes publishes no audience figures: neither the number of users, nor the number of topics, nor any country breakdown appears on the pages we checked. There is one indirect pointer: the subscriber count is visible next to the subscribe button in a group's sidebar, so the data exists, but only inside the interface.
The site's language is English; it has no other versions.
The way the site is arranged says something about its size indirectly: it is still in "alpha", an invitation to which is requested by email, and groups are created only by the administrator, Deimos.
Getting started
Registration is closed. There is one official route: write to [email protected] to request an alpha invitation; do not write about invitations to any other address.
The age threshold is stated directly: at least 13, and if your country sets a higher age of consent for using digital services (as a number of European Union countries do) — no lower than that.
The next thing to set up is account recovery: the terms warn that if you do not set up recovery and lose access, they may not be able to restore it for you. A forgotten password means an email to [email protected], which must include your username.
There is no separate business account. The platform allows one person to have several accounts: you may register and use several accounts, but you must not mislead others — for instance by replying to yourself from different accounts to create the appearance of support — and you must not go beyond what you could do with a single account: voting twice on the same post or voting for your own.
What you can publish
A topic comes in two kinds: a link topic and a text topic. You can fill in both fields at once — then your text becomes the first comment under the link. A topic is always published inside a group or subgroup.
Tags are optional but hierarchical: a dot sets nesting (canada.qc.montreal, ask.recommendations), only letters, digits and the space character are allowed, and case is ignored.
The right to edit a topic is not given to everyone: in future this will be a trust system, but for now permission is granted by the administrator by hand; every edit goes into the topic log and is visible there for 30 days, after which it is deleted under the privacy policy.
Prohibited by the terms of use: material that breaks the law; spam, including unsolicited private messages; links to viruses and malware; anything that breaches the code of conduct. The code of conduct adds: do not impersonate another person with malicious intent, do not interfere with others deleting or editing their material, do not incite hatred and do not publish other people's personal data with malicious intent.
The rights to your texts stay with you: you retain copyright and grant the platform a non-exclusive licence to store and display; contributions to the wiki are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
How to grow
The platform provides no "growth" mechanism — and that is a deliberate position.
The rule on self-promotion
It is short and worth reading in full. Sharing your own site, project or channel is "generally fine (in moderation)", but it must not be the main reason you post on the site at all. Sharing your own material is welcome as long as you take part in the life of the community — but you must not treat Tildes simply as a source of an audience.
So promotion is not banned, but it is conditional on participation. An account that turns up only with links to itself breaks the rule, even if each individual link is useful.
How display works
The feed is configured by the user. There are five sortings: Activity (topics with recent comments on top; comments labelled Offtopic and Noise do not bump a topic), Votes, Comments, New and All activity; on top of them comes a time filter — 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, all time or a custom period. You can make your sorting the default separately for each group.
A user can also strike topics out: the tag filter in the settings removes from the front page everything marked with the selected tags. The conclusion for an author: a tag is not a reach tool, it is a cut-off tool.
Comment labels
The second ranking mechanism is labels: there are five (Exemplary, Offtopic, Joke, Noise, Malice), they can only be applied to other people's comments, access appears for accounts older than 7 days, a label fires when the combined weight of those applying it exceeds 1.0, and a new user's weight is 0.5, so two people are enough. Exemplary has conditions of its own: a short anonymous note to the author is required, and the next such label can only be applied 8 hours later. The effect on sorting is worked out by a formula: the weight of votes is multiplied by 1 plus the combined weight of Exemplary labels, so with one label of weight 0.5, ten votes count as fifteen.
There is no ad manager: advertising on Tildes does not exist at all — "no investors, no advertising, and the site sells nothing, including its users' data".
Path to monetization
Tildes does not pay authors. There is no revenue share, no paid subscriptions and no donations inside the site — the platform's only income, by its own account, is donations.
The money goes to the site, not to you. The methods: GitHub Sponsors (recommended, takes no commission, 100% arrives), Stripe (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay), Patreon (with no rewards for patrons), Coinbase (BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC), Keybase (XLM) and Interac e-Transfer for Canadians. An important caveat: Spectria is a non-profit corporation but not a charitable one, so donations do not reduce your tax.
The terms explicitly disclaim any trading role for the platform: "Tildes is not intended for purchases, exchanges or any other transactions in goods and services; any arrangements made through the site are at your own risk".
Tools and automation
Tildes has no public API: there is no developer section visible in the documentation table of contents. There is something else — the source code: Tildes is licensed under AGPLv3, and this is stated as a commitment, not as code protection.
Technical principles that affect how automation works: the site is fully functional for reading without JavaScript, the mobile interface is the site itself rather than an app, there are no third-party scripts in normal operation, connections are HTTPS only, a strict content security policy is in force, and there are no restrictions on viewing without logging in.
Restrictions on crawlers are spelled out in robots.txt in unusual detail: /login is closed to everyone; AhrefsBot, BLEXBot, Buck, Cloudfind, dotbot, GPTBot, MauiBot, MegaIndex, MJ12bot, SemrushBot, SemrushBot-BA and SEOkicks are closed off by name. Comments in the file explain why: of MJ12bot it says that it "claims to work for a search engine, while in fact it sells SEO and marketing data".
Given the self-promotion rule, scheduling is contraindicated here anyway.
Limits and rules
- Age. 13 and over, or the age of digital consent in your country if that is higher.
- Self-promotion. Acceptable in moderation and only if you take part in the community.
- Multiple accounts. Allowed, but not for deception and not for inflating votes.
- Spam. Prohibited, including unsolicited private messages.
- Labels. Unavailable for the first 7 days after registration.
- Groups. Users do not create them.
- The operator's discretion is declared openly. Access may be cut off, an account deleted and material taken down "at any time, without notice and for any reason".
- Vulnerabilities. Report them to
[email protected]; there is no bounty programme.
Who it's for
It suits you if you want thoughtful text discussion and are ready to take part in it personally and over the long haul. The platform states its priority: "substantive content (mostly text) is the most important", and any change that gives an advantage to "more shallow" content should be considered extremely carefully. It suits developers who care about openness: the code is open, there are no third-party scripts and there is no tracking.
It does not suit you as a promotion channel: there is no advertising here, no payouts and no organic growth you can steer. It does not suit you if you need to get in quickly: an account comes by invitation, and labels only after a week. It does not suit automated work: there is no API, and the platform declares data collection for marketing purposes undesirable.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform describes itself as follows: «Tildes is a non-profit community site with no advertising or investors. It respects its users and their privacy, and prioritizes high-quality content and discussions.»
Self-description: this is the platform's claim about itself, not an independent assessment
source, checked 2026-07-28
the site is run by Spectria, a Canadian non-profit corporation, corporation number 1034108-8
The corporation is not a charity, so donations do not reduce your tax
source, checked 2026-07-28
the site is fully functional for reading without JavaScript, the mobile interface is the site itself rather than an app, there are no third-party scripts in normal operation, connections are HTTPS only, a strict content security policy is in force, and there are no restrictions on viewing without logging in
source, checked 2026-07-28
the platform declares a rejection of «personalization algorithms» in favour of chronology, metadata and tags, with which the user manages the feed themselves
The stated priority is that substantive, mostly text, material is the most important thing
source, checked 2026-07-28
Getting started
registration is closed: an alpha invitation is requested by email to [email protected]
Invitations should not be requested at any other address
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
several accounts are allowed, but you must not mislead others (replying to yourself from different accounts) and must not go beyond what a single account could do: voting twice on the same post or voting for your own
source, checked 2026-07-28
users cannot create groups: all groups and subgroups are created by the site administrator
The way to show that a group is needed is to post topics with the corresponding tag in an existing group
source, checked 2026-07-28
What you can publish
two kinds of topic: link and text; both fields can be filled in at once, in which case the text becomes the first comment under the link
A topic is always published inside a group or subgroup
source, checked 2026-07-28
tags are hierarchical: nesting is set with a dot, only letters, digits and the space character are allowed, case is ignored, and several tags are separated by commas
source, checked 2026-07-28
Promotion
five sortings on the front page: Activity (comments labelled Offtopic and Noise do not bump a topic), Votes, Comments, New, All activity; time filter: 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, all time or a custom period
A sorting can be made the default separately for each group and for the front page
source, checked 2026-07-28
a user can remove topics with selected tags from the front page using the filter in the settings
For an author this means a tag works to cut an audience off as well as to reach it
source, checked 2026-07-28
there are five labels (Exemplary, Offtopic, Joke, Noise, Malice), they can only be applied to other people's comments, access appears for accounts older than 7 days, a label fires when the combined weight of those applying it exceeds 1.0, and a new user's weight is 0.5; Exemplary requires a mandatory anonymous note to the author and an 8-hour pause before the next such label
The weight of votes is multiplied by 1 plus the combined weight of Exemplary labels: with one label of weight 0.5, ten votes count as fifteen
source, checked 2026-07-28
How the money works here
donations are accepted through GitHub Sponsors (recommended, takes no commission), Stripe (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay), Patreon, Coinbase (BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC), Keybase (XLM) and Interac e-Transfer for Canadians · the source is dated 2021-04-18
The page is marked as updated on 18 April 2021
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
edits to a topic are written to a log and are visible there for 30 days, after which they are deleted under the privacy policy
The right to edit topics is granted by the administrator by hand
source, checked 2026-07-28
robots.txt closes /login to everyone and blocks AhrefsBot, BLEXBot, Buck, Cloudfind, dotbot, GPTBot, MauiBot, MegaIndex, MJ12bot, SemrushBot, SemrushBot-BA and SEOkicks by name; the comments say that crawlers from SEO and marketing services are blocked
Informational crawlers at a reasonable rate are welcomed by the platform
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
the site may be used from the age of 13, and if the user's country sets a higher age of digital consent (as a number of European Union countries do) — no lower than that
source, checked 2026-07-28
the rule on self-promotion: sharing your own site, project or channel is «generally fine (in moderation)», but it must not be the main reason you post; «Tildes is a community, not a free advertising platform»
Promotion is not banned, but it is conditional on taking part in the life of the community
source, checked 2026-07-28
the site is not intended for purchases, exchanges or other transactions in goods and services; any arrangements made through the site are at the user's own risk
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
legal matters are governed by the laws of Canada and the province of Alberta · the source is dated 2019-08-08
The page is marked as updated on 8 August 2019
source, checked 2026-07-28
the author retains copyright in their posts and grants the platform a non-exclusive licence to store and display them; contributions to the wiki are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
the Tildes code is licensed under AGPLv3, and this is stated as a commitment, not as code protection · the source is dated 2020-01-21
The page is marked as updated on 21 January 2020
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: en
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
the interface, documentation and rules are in English; no other language versions were found
source, checked 2026-07-28
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