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Hey HN! Gentle is an app where you write requests about your worries and get (gentle) replies back from strangers. It’s cute, anonymous, and moderated. I was i

Hey HN! Gentle is an app where you write requests about your worries and get (gentle) replies back from strangers. It’s cute, anonymous, and moderated. I was inspired by: * My disappointment in how most social media today incentivizes outrage over empathy. * The growing trend of feel-good experiences like Kind Words, Animal Crossing, Slowly, and more. I'm interested in getting more people testing it out. Eager to take feedback and/or talk about it. :) Direct testflight link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/tXMfOfOl https://testflight.apple.com/join/tXMfOfOl

xiaolingxiao 6y ago
Hey I love your landing page! Did you design it or used a template? And how is moderation done? I assume they're very private so no person is moderating them... so a machine is doing it? Are you using some sort of off the shelf stuff?
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  The landing page is custom designed! So using tools like paper and Figma, and then translating into a next.js site. Moderation is based on two things: 1. A spam/bad word filter. It's pretty aggressive and inspired by a variety of OSS tools, but definitely could be better. 2. An easy reporting tool available for any user-generated content. It could be more prominent for requests, so that's something I'll fix shortly. I hacked together a small dashboard to surface whatever's caught by those two things. For the beta test, it's been working pretty well. Feel free to ask any followups!
  - xiaolingxiao 6y ago
    You know one thing you can do w/ content moderation is go all the way to the source, if you make it more "expensive" (by some measure, not necessarily w/ money) to send a message, then it would discourage a lot of trolls who wouldn't even bother to make the effort.
    - andrewthebold 6y ago
      Yeah! Lots of potential in this idea. Right now it's a free-for-all, but limiting the number of things you can do in a given session might also incentivize more quality messages. Other possibilities too. I'm trying to avoid gamification mechanics (like maintaining a request-reply ratio, like counts, etc), so that's a consideration.
      - xiaolingxiao 6y ago
        Hey Andrew I just downloaded your app and it's very tastefully done! The UI just puts me at ease and is a "living breathing character" in itself, may sound silly but I definitely get the vibe. Could I reach out to you and give you some feedbacks? And I have tons of ideas about automated content moderation, etc.
        andrewthebold 6y ago
        Yeah! My main email for gentle-related stuff is andrew@gentle.app Feel free to reach out and connect.
        xiaolingxiao 6y ago
        Ok sent!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
faitswulff 6y ago
That’s cute and I’ll definitely try it out. I can see it failing to hit the mark for, say, minorities with particular concerns, though, simply due to sympathy versus empathy.
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  Agreed! It's not a silver bullet or anything like that. More like a quiet place to go to if you're inclined. I will say one of the "rules" you agree to when you first start is "I know I can’t fix other’s problems, but I can share kindness". I know that's not enough, so it'll be something to keep working on.
  - anticsapp 6y ago
    Thank you for making a beautiful and thoughtful product in a vain and thoughtless age. They are few and far between these days. Also, .app domains rule.
adam_fallon_ 6y ago
How long did this take to develop? It’s absolutely delightful
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  Hey! The project started in early February, so it's been around 2-1/2 months. The time was split ~50/50 between design and development. Happy to elaborate if you have followup q's!
  - adam_fallon_ 6y ago
    That is seriously impressive for that short amount of time, fantastic work! I did comment elsewhere in this thread, but have since deleted, but I just had another question: Can you say a bit more about the OSS libraries I’m always looking for tools to help with comments in my projects!
    - andrewthebold 6y ago
      Thank you! I'm a bit wary of giving big hints to how the filters work, but I was inspired by: - npm packages like redact-pii, bad-words (and numerous other "bad word" lists) - askismet's open source spam code - regex unicode categories I also wrote a variety of checks for word counts, combinations of words, known "bad patterns", etc. You may not realize it, but the text input forms block a lot of potential inputs. It's not perfect, but that's why I'm manually handling things that surface. Happy to answer any follow-ups.
tobr 6y ago
I would like to have a small way to react to a message I receive. Not reply to it, but maybe an emoji reaction or some other “thank you” to the sender.
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  Hey! That's one of the main features I want to add before actually launching the app. Expect to see something like that soon if you stick around in the beta! Happy to listen to other feedback or suggestions you might have~
hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
Uhm. why is the website requesting access to my webVR?
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  That's... unusual and concerning. You're talking about the gentle.app site, not the testflight link, right? The only thing I could think of to cause that is the embedded vimeo iframe. But why? If you're open to share, I'd love to know what browser you're using.
  - burk96 6y ago
    Not the person you are replying to, but on Firefox 75 player.vimeo.com is requesting WebVR permissions on gentle.app upon first load. Also just quickly I want to say I love the idea and intentions behind Gentle! I haven't had a chance to play around with it too much yet but it really is a pretty app too.
    - andrewthebold 6y ago
      Thanks for the info! I guess it also only happens if you have some VR device setup. Sorry for the trouble with that. I'll swap out the vimeo embed soon since that sounds like annoying and unnerving behavior. Also, thank you for the praise!
  - hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
    Yep. we site itself. An as burk96 said, it's the current Firefox. I'm assuming the vimeo player asks for VR access just in case it's a 360 video. I took a quick look at their API and help site and it doesn't look like you can turn that off. In fact, even their own support site is riddled with it :/ Seems a glaring issue on their end!
technofiend 6y ago
Is the app meant to really only work on iPhone or is there a way to turn off mandatory 90° screen rotation on an iPad other than assistive touch?
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  Hey! For now I have it locked to portrait orientation and no official support for iPad. Very sorry for the trouble with this — it does sound annoying. I'll look into enabling iPad-specific rotation.
andrewthebold 6y ago
For anybody who comes into this thread in the future, I've closed off public signups for the iOS beta. I've hit a critical mass of testers and want to make sure the app isn't overrun by trolls and predators. Reach out to me if you really want in [0]! To know what's on the roadmap, checkout my public trello board [1] for more info. [0] Email beta@gentle.app [1] https://trello.com/b/65BxuxBa/gentle https://trello.com/b/65BxuxBa/gentle

xiaolingxiao 6y ago

Hey I love your landing page! Did you design it or used a template? And how is moderation done? I assume they're very private so no person is moderating them... so a machine is doing it? Are you using some sort of off the shelf stuff?

andrewthebold 6y ago
The landing page is custom designed! So using tools like paper and Figma, and then translating into a next.js site. Moderation is based on two things: 1. A spam/bad word filter. It's pretty aggressive and inspired by a variety of OSS tools, but definitely could be better. 2. An easy reporting tool available for any user-generated content. It could be more prominent for requests, so that's something I'll fix shortly. I hacked together a small dashboard to surface whatever's caught by those two things. For the beta test, it's been working pretty well. Feel free to ask any followups!
- xiaolingxiao 6y ago
  You know one thing you can do w/ content moderation is go all the way to the source, if you make it more "expensive" (by some measure, not necessarily w/ money) to send a message, then it would discourage a lot of trolls who wouldn't even bother to make the effort.
  - andrewthebold 6y ago
    Yeah! Lots of potential in this idea. Right now it's a free-for-all, but limiting the number of things you can do in a given session might also incentivize more quality messages. Other possibilities too. I'm trying to avoid gamification mechanics (like maintaining a request-reply ratio, like counts, etc), so that's a consideration.
    - xiaolingxiao 6y ago
      Hey Andrew I just downloaded your app and it's very tastefully done! The UI just puts me at ease and is a "living breathing character" in itself, may sound silly but I definitely get the vibe. Could I reach out to you and give you some feedbacks? And I have tons of ideas about automated content moderation, etc.
      - andrewthebold 6y ago
        Yeah! My main email for gentle-related stuff is andrew@gentle.app Feel free to reach out and connect.
        xiaolingxiao 6y ago
        Ok sent!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

faitswulff 6y ago

That’s cute and I’ll definitely try it out. I can see it failing to hit the mark for, say, minorities with particular concerns, though, simply due to sympathy versus empathy.

andrewthebold 6y ago
Agreed! It's not a silver bullet or anything like that. More like a quiet place to go to if you're inclined. I will say one of the "rules" you agree to when you first start is "I know I can’t fix other’s problems, but I can share kindness". I know that's not enough, so it'll be something to keep working on.
- anticsapp 6y ago
  Thank you for making a beautiful and thoughtful product in a vain and thoughtless age. They are few and far between these days. Also, .app domains rule.

adam_fallon_ 6y ago

How long did this take to develop? It’s absolutely delightful

andrewthebold 6y ago
Hey! The project started in early February, so it's been around 2-1/2 months. The time was split ~50/50 between design and development. Happy to elaborate if you have followup q's!
- adam_fallon_ 6y ago
  That is seriously impressive for that short amount of time, fantastic work! I did comment elsewhere in this thread, but have since deleted, but I just had another question: Can you say a bit more about the OSS libraries I’m always looking for tools to help with comments in my projects!
  - andrewthebold 6y ago
    Thank you! I'm a bit wary of giving big hints to how the filters work, but I was inspired by: - npm packages like redact-pii, bad-words (and numerous other "bad word" lists) - askismet's open source spam code - regex unicode categories I also wrote a variety of checks for word counts, combinations of words, known "bad patterns", etc. You may not realize it, but the text input forms block a lot of potential inputs. It's not perfect, but that's why I'm manually handling things that surface. Happy to answer any follow-ups.

tobr 6y ago

I would like to have a small way to react to a message I receive. Not reply to it, but maybe an emoji reaction or some other “thank you” to the sender.

andrewthebold 6y ago
Hey! That's one of the main features I want to add before actually launching the app. Expect to see something like that soon if you stick around in the beta! Happy to listen to other feedback or suggestions you might have~

hutattedonmyarm 6y ago

Uhm. why is the website requesting access to my webVR?

andrewthebold 6y ago
That's... unusual and concerning. You're talking about the gentle.app site, not the testflight link, right? The only thing I could think of to cause that is the embedded vimeo iframe. But why? If you're open to share, I'd love to know what browser you're using.
- burk96 6y ago
  Not the person you are replying to, but on Firefox 75 player.vimeo.com is requesting WebVR permissions on gentle.app upon first load. Also just quickly I want to say I love the idea and intentions behind Gentle! I haven't had a chance to play around with it too much yet but it really is a pretty app too.
  - andrewthebold 6y ago
    Thanks for the info! I guess it also only happens if you have some VR device setup. Sorry for the trouble with that. I'll swap out the vimeo embed soon since that sounds like annoying and unnerving behavior. Also, thank you for the praise!
- hutattedonmyarm 6y ago
  Yep. we site itself. An as burk96 said, it's the current Firefox. I'm assuming the vimeo player asks for VR access just in case it's a 360 video. I took a quick look at their API and help site and it doesn't look like you can turn that off. In fact, even their own support site is riddled with it :/ Seems a glaring issue on their end!

technofiend 6y ago

Is the app meant to really only work on iPhone or is there a way to turn off mandatory 90° screen rotation on an iPad other than assistive touch?

andrewthebold 6y ago
Hey! For now I have it locked to portrait orientation and no official support for iPad. Very sorry for the trouble with this — it does sound annoying. I'll look into enabling iPad-specific rotation.

andrewthebold 6y ago

For anybody who comes into this thread in the future, I've closed off public signups for the iOS beta. I've hit a critical mass of testers and want to make sure the app isn't overrun by trolls and predators. Reach out to me if you really want in [0]! To know what's on the roadmap, checkout my public trello board [1] for more info. [0] Email beta@gentle.app [1] https://trello.com/b/65BxuxBa/gentle https://trello.com/b/65BxuxBa/gentle