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I agree with all your points! One piece that will likely help minimize spammy users and multiple accounts is that at launch, it'll be a one-time purchase app.

I agree with all your points! One piece that will likely help minimize spammy users and multiple accounts is that at launch, it'll be a one-time purchase app. I do have uncertainties overall, but I'm doing my best to keep the experience clean and safe. If the experience starts to veer towards being a toxic and uncontrollable mess, I'll be quick to shut it down. Happy to talk more about this because I do see the abuse vectors, and don't take this lightly. Edit: on your last paragraph, shadow bans are definitely on the table

jlokier 6y ago
(I feel dirty asking this question, btw, but it's the first thing that came to mind when considering the GP's points.) How do you see the system handling someone's answer to "What are you worried about?" being something like "My dad's been raping me for years but I'm worried that if I tell someone he'll get into trouble and we won't be able to carry on paying for my mom's medicine and she will die"? That could either be someone in really difficult circumstances, or someone who is trolling others to upset them - there's no way to know from one message. If you shadow-ban the person in difficult circumstances it's not very kind, but if you let the troll through (with identical words), whoever reads it may have an awful day agonising over how to respond. I wouldn't call something like that toxicity, because it might be genuine distress.
- andrewthebold 6y ago
  I think there's better scaffolding/explaining to do with content guidelines and expectations, but the general idea is that content that causes concern like this should be reported. A lot of explicit content would probably already be caught by a filter for manual review. It would be taken down and I would send a message to the writer with mental health or counseling resources (ex: crisis text line). I take all messages seriously by default, even if it appears to be trolling. If that person continued to write content like that, I'd do a bit more digging. This is where it'd be subjectively up to me as the moderator to take action. Banning or shadow-banning would be a last resort, generally. There's no strong accountability on my end (beyond people not using the app), but I'm interested in creating a system people can trust. If the app continues to gain traction, I'm thinking about writing formal moderation rules and expectations and seek input from the community. If you have any ideas, I'm eager to listen!
wolco 6y ago
Not sure a kindness app is a one time purchase app. If I buy the app I probably want some kindness my way. I would expect feedback.. and be less likely to offer kindness. If you made asking for kindness a paying feature but allowed replies from non-paying members. You have the same spam problem but at least it is limited to replies plus it provides a revenue stream. It creates another problem because people want to give and receive (not just give). The free open model is the best. But it has other problems. Anyone remember spiritweb.org from early the early 2000s? They had a feature where you would ask a question and a random person would get an email asking to answer a question (but the question was not given you had to psychically guess). Kind of a neat idea but in the end it falls apart because of spam and garbage questions. For a spammer being able to send kindness would be a great opportunity.

jlokier 6y ago

(I feel dirty asking this question, btw, but it's the first thing that came to mind when considering the GP's points.) How do you see the system handling someone's answer to "What are you worried about?" being something like "My dad's been raping me for years but I'm worried that if I tell someone he'll get into trouble and we won't be able to carry on paying for my mom's medicine and she will die"? That could either be someone in really difficult circumstances, or someone who is trolling others to upset them - there's no way to know from one message. If you shadow-ban the person in difficult circumstances it's not very kind, but if you let the troll through (with identical words), whoever reads it may have an awful day agonising over how to respond. I wouldn't call something like that toxicity, because it might be genuine distress.

andrewthebold 6y ago
I think there's better scaffolding/explaining to do with content guidelines and expectations, but the general idea is that content that causes concern like this should be reported. A lot of explicit content would probably already be caught by a filter for manual review. It would be taken down and I would send a message to the writer with mental health or counseling resources (ex: crisis text line). I take all messages seriously by default, even if it appears to be trolling. If that person continued to write content like that, I'd do a bit more digging. This is where it'd be subjectively up to me as the moderator to take action. Banning or shadow-banning would be a last resort, generally. There's no strong accountability on my end (beyond people not using the app), but I'm interested in creating a system people can trust. If the app continues to gain traction, I'm thinking about writing formal moderation rules and expectations and seek input from the community. If you have any ideas, I'm eager to listen!

wolco 6y ago

Not sure a kindness app is a one time purchase app. If I buy the app I probably want some kindness my way. I would expect feedback.. and be less likely to offer kindness. If you made asking for kindness a paying feature but allowed replies from non-paying members. You have the same spam problem but at least it is limited to replies plus it provides a revenue stream. It creates another problem because people want to give and receive (not just give). The free open model is the best. But it has other problems. Anyone remember spiritweb.org from early the early 2000s? They had a feature where you would ask a question and a random person would get an email asking to answer a question (but the question was not given you had to psychically guess). Kind of a neat idea but in the end it falls apart because of spam and garbage questions. For a spammer being able to send kindness would be a great opportunity.