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Hey, Thanks so much for checking this out. I made this site as part of Ludum Dare 46, a game jam. The theme was "Keep it alive." I wanted to do something th

Hey, Thanks so much for checking this out. I made this site as part of Ludum Dare 46, a game jam. The theme was "Keep it alive." I wanted to do something that was positive and that would give people an outlet to write about their experiences related to Covid. I've had to deal with some abuse, particularly after the first week, but overall it's been an incredibly positive experience. There are certainly a lot of improvements I hope to make soon. I honestly built it in an evening and expected it might be dead within a day or two. That it's lasted over a month is incredible. With a large influx of new readers, I'm sure you'll come across a few less savory posts. I'd encourage you to click the report button on the bottom of the page. Thanks so much for checking it out! Edit: Since this is HN, and I'm bound to get the question - It's built with Rails and Vue, with PaperCSS for the styling, Postgres for the database, and Redis is being used as part of the spam mitigation system. Oh, and the DB really will wipe itself if it goes more than 24 hours without a post.

bathtub365 6y ago
Interesting website. How will the database wipe itself?
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  DROP TABLE table_name;
  - anticensor 6y ago
    DROP DATABASE website;
NikolaNovak 6y ago
1. Thank you for doing this 2. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much these days 3. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky, emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon. Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps getting more visibility). 4. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more culpable/liable for any offensive messages you don't remove, or any freedom of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad that one has to think about these things :-/ 5. Best of luck! :)
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. Honestly, regarding 3, I've been really impressed by how positive people have been. When this was near the top of Reddit about a month ago, I really spend about 48 hours frantically coding and moderating. Those 48 hours taught me a lot about content moderation though. On the whole, it's been an _incredibly_ positive community of people writing letters. We've received over 115,000 letters, and they've been read over 15 million times. Many of the first 75,000 letters were spam and highly moderated content. But I've been able to read most of the past 35,000 or so, and an astonishing number are kind, thoughtful, or heartbreaking. We've also had a lot of positivity coming from non-english countries, which I've encouraged and enjoyed seeing on social media. It's been a bit of an excuse to brush up on my French. I'd eventually love to have a better native experience for non-english speakers, but there are only so many hours in the day. Thanks again for the kind words.
  - the_af 6y ago
    I think it's something about the earnestness of your website. The welcome message is friendly and it sets the tone. It didn't even occur to me to write something nasty, and this was before I even checked what others had written.
    - NikolaNovak 6y ago
      Agreed - it's a great intro that really sets the tone :)
- kuzimoto 6y ago
  Regarding 4, it's a private website. I don't think freedom of speech applies. If you have some sources that say otherwise I'd be interested to read them.
  - cyphar 6y ago
    The recent Section 230 executive order[1] would be relevant here. Normally social networks have immunity from prosecution if they publish a defamatory or libelous statement (this is the so-called "magazine stand" model). But if the executive order is legal then selectively censoring (or "moderating") what your users post means that immunity no longer applies and you can be sued for any statement that you allowed a user to publish on your network. This isn't directly related to First Amendment freedom of speech rights, the issue is one of liability (but the purpose of the liability is -- allegedly -- to force platforms to uphold the principle of freedom of speech). [1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
keithnz 6y ago
Is there anything cool that happens when it does go boom?
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  Not at the moment. I'll probably do something if it lasts six months. Right now, I've still got some accessibility and legalese changes I'd like to make before I work on that. Right now, if it stopped getting messages, after 24 hours it would just error out.
  - battery_cowboy 6y ago
    Put it into a docker container, run with the `--rm` flag, then when it expires have it delete it's own git repo and other data before exiting, then it'll really be dead.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
Have you written about your experience with abuse, or are you willing to share? It's absolutely awful that you would experience that for something so obviously positive, but if you have thoughts you want to share on that it could be helpful for those of us who want to continue to challenge abuse in tech generally and might be educational for people here (maybe me) who engage in harmful behaviors and don't realize it. (It's also not your responsibility to publish your abuse, I'm only opening up the opportunity to say more if you want to.)
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  I definitely will once it's no longer up. I might before then, once I improve the moderation tools a bit more. But between just being a neat thing to spam, and specifically targeting me as a trans woman, a lot of people seemed to enjoy posting hateful messages on the site when it was popular on reddit. The anti-trans messages were really important for me to remove. They weren't particularly hurtful to me, but a good portion of my webcomic's audience are trans teens, and I _really_ didn't want their first experience at this website I made to be hate directed at them. Thanks for asking. I'll definitely write more at a later date. :)
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Thank you for this response. I'm sorry that it's been a magnet for abuse at all, I'm glad it hasn't been particularly hurtful to you, and I'm especially glad that you're taking moderation seriously. I will keep an eye out for whatever you write up and amplify it when that time comes.
  - geitir 6y ago
    May I suggest an upvote and downvote system for each message? With 3 downvotes removing the message
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      Three-reports-to-remove, along with moderator review for the removes, seems to be the golden standard for machine-aided moderation since the days of AOL. The downside of it is that by the time you have 3 downvotes/reports, at least 3 people have already been exposed to the content. It might not seem like a lot, but that's 3 people who had to read something unpleasant, hurtful, or just a plain old waste of time on your resource. Minimum 3 readers, usually many more, because people rarely report things, per spam/troll adds up fast.
battery_cowboy 6y ago
I wrote this earlier, I love art projects like this, it's better than a million Ubers to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346004
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  Thanks so much for the kind words! I agree. I love the internet for the weird and interesting things you can find. I’m glad this one has resonated with so many people.
  - onemoresoop 6y ago
    Dear website, Bring the old internet back, Pleeeease
    - amelius 6y ago
      Yes, before it is too late (eventually nobody will know what the old internet was like).
Gigablah 6y ago
I just want to say this: the angled design is absolute genius because it lets me hold my phone at an angle without bending my wrist. I thought it was a cute gimmick at first but turns out there’s a huge usability factor!
- Miraste 6y ago
  Not so for those of us of the left-handed persuasion, sadly (I suppose there could be a button to flip it)
- jooize 6y ago
  Makes me wonder how an ergonomic phone could be shaped. I imagine placing all content at an angle would be problematic. Anyone have RSI from holding a phone?
  - snazz 6y ago
    I'm guessing that RSI from holding a phone is not nearly as significant of an issue as RSI from using a keyboard, since there are quite a few more hand positions in which to hold the phone where you can scroll comfortably. Also, your wrist is never in a strange position holding a phone compared to a keyboard.
rurban 6y ago
I'm not impressed with the concept of the website but your comics are really good. Even excellent. No contract yet?
outofe 6y ago
Does the game Queers in Love at the End of the World have an influence on your website? You mentioned your audience is very LGBT. This, combined with the "time is running out" feeling of your website, made me think of that game immediately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queers_in_Love_at_the_End_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queers_in_Love_at_the_End_of_t...
- FemmeAndroid 6y ago
  While I don't know that I was thinking about Queers in Love at the End of the World specifically while making this, Anna Anthropy's games are definitely an inspiration for me more broadly.
taigi100 6y ago
Very cool idea, keep it up! It's one of the coolest projects I've seen in a game jam!
eddieoz 6y ago
Very nice social experience and it is a playground to test many things on game theory. I think managing the spam could be the worse part, but best of lucky
- makotoNagano 6y ago
  going through the responses, i've yet to hit a spam response which is pretty incredible
_nalply 6y ago
A technical question, how did you make these borders? With Bézier splines?
- computerex 6y ago
  Simple CSS border-bottom-left-radius: 15px 255px; border-bottom-right-radius: 225px 15px; border-top-left-radius: 255px 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px 225px;
  - _nalply 6y ago
    So simple and beautiful.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gprasanth 6y ago
The skewed elements gave me a headache! :(
rhyneav 6y ago
Thank you for using PaperCSS! It’s always a lot of fun seeing it used in projects out in the wild :)
GTP 6y ago
I really like your idea and I felt like leaving a comment on your website! But I have a question: what does the heart button below other people's comment?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
enz 6y ago
Just curious, what is the script/SQL to wipe the DB?

bathtub365 6y ago

Interesting website. How will the database wipe itself?

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
DROP TABLE table_name;
- anticensor 6y ago
  DROP DATABASE website;

NikolaNovak 6y ago

1. Thank you for doing this 2. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much these days 3. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky, emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon. Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps getting more visibility). 4. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more culpable/liable for any offensive messages you don't remove, or any freedom of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad that one has to think about these things :-/ 5. Best of luck! :)

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
Thanks for the kind words. Honestly, regarding 3, I've been really impressed by how positive people have been. When this was near the top of Reddit about a month ago, I really spend about 48 hours frantically coding and moderating. Those 48 hours taught me a lot about content moderation though. On the whole, it's been an _incredibly_ positive community of people writing letters. We've received over 115,000 letters, and they've been read over 15 million times. Many of the first 75,000 letters were spam and highly moderated content. But I've been able to read most of the past 35,000 or so, and an astonishing number are kind, thoughtful, or heartbreaking. We've also had a lot of positivity coming from non-english countries, which I've encouraged and enjoyed seeing on social media. It's been a bit of an excuse to brush up on my French. I'd eventually love to have a better native experience for non-english speakers, but there are only so many hours in the day. Thanks again for the kind words.
- the_af 6y ago
  I think it's something about the earnestness of your website. The welcome message is friendly and it sets the tone. It didn't even occur to me to write something nasty, and this was before I even checked what others had written.
  - NikolaNovak 6y ago
    Agreed - it's a great intro that really sets the tone :)
kuzimoto 6y ago
Regarding 4, it's a private website. I don't think freedom of speech applies. If you have some sources that say otherwise I'd be interested to read them.
- cyphar 6y ago
  The recent Section 230 executive order[1] would be relevant here. Normally social networks have immunity from prosecution if they publish a defamatory or libelous statement (this is the so-called "magazine stand" model). But if the executive order is legal then selectively censoring (or "moderating") what your users post means that immunity no longer applies and you can be sued for any statement that you allowed a user to publish on your network. This isn't directly related to First Amendment freedom of speech rights, the issue is one of liability (but the purpose of the liability is -- allegedly -- to force platforms to uphold the principle of freedom of speech). [1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

keithnz 6y ago

Is there anything cool that happens when it does go boom?

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
Not at the moment. I'll probably do something if it lasts six months. Right now, I've still got some accessibility and legalese changes I'd like to make before I work on that. Right now, if it stopped getting messages, after 24 hours it would just error out.
- battery_cowboy 6y ago
  Put it into a docker container, run with the `--rm` flag, then when it expires have it delete it's own git repo and other data before exiting, then it'll really be dead.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

Have you written about your experience with abuse, or are you willing to share? It's absolutely awful that you would experience that for something so obviously positive, but if you have thoughts you want to share on that it could be helpful for those of us who want to continue to challenge abuse in tech generally and might be educational for people here (maybe me) who engage in harmful behaviors and don't realize it. (It's also not your responsibility to publish your abuse, I'm only opening up the opportunity to say more if you want to.)

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
I definitely will once it's no longer up. I might before then, once I improve the moderation tools a bit more. But between just being a neat thing to spam, and specifically targeting me as a trans woman, a lot of people seemed to enjoy posting hateful messages on the site when it was popular on reddit. The anti-trans messages were really important for me to remove. They weren't particularly hurtful to me, but a good portion of my webcomic's audience are trans teens, and I _really_ didn't want their first experience at this website I made to be hate directed at them. Thanks for asking. I'll definitely write more at a later date. :)
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Thank you for this response. I'm sorry that it's been a magnet for abuse at all, I'm glad it hasn't been particularly hurtful to you, and I'm especially glad that you're taking moderation seriously. I will keep an eye out for whatever you write up and amplify it when that time comes.
- geitir 6y ago
  May I suggest an upvote and downvote system for each message? With 3 downvotes removing the message
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Three-reports-to-remove, along with moderator review for the removes, seems to be the golden standard for machine-aided moderation since the days of AOL. The downside of it is that by the time you have 3 downvotes/reports, at least 3 people have already been exposed to the content. It might not seem like a lot, but that's 3 people who had to read something unpleasant, hurtful, or just a plain old waste of time on your resource. Minimum 3 readers, usually many more, because people rarely report things, per spam/troll adds up fast.

battery_cowboy 6y ago

I wrote this earlier, I love art projects like this, it's better than a million Ubers to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346004

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
Thanks so much for the kind words! I agree. I love the internet for the weird and interesting things you can find. I’m glad this one has resonated with so many people.
- onemoresoop 6y ago
  Dear website, Bring the old internet back, Pleeeease
  - amelius 6y ago
    Yes, before it is too late (eventually nobody will know what the old internet was like).

Gigablah 6y ago

I just want to say this: the angled design is absolute genius because it lets me hold my phone at an angle without bending my wrist. I thought it was a cute gimmick at first but turns out there’s a huge usability factor!

Miraste 6y ago
Not so for those of us of the left-handed persuasion, sadly (I suppose there could be a button to flip it)
jooize 6y ago
Makes me wonder how an ergonomic phone could be shaped. I imagine placing all content at an angle would be problematic. Anyone have RSI from holding a phone?
- snazz 6y ago
  I'm guessing that RSI from holding a phone is not nearly as significant of an issue as RSI from using a keyboard, since there are quite a few more hand positions in which to hold the phone where you can scroll comfortably. Also, your wrist is never in a strange position holding a phone compared to a keyboard.

rurban 6y ago

I'm not impressed with the concept of the website but your comics are really good. Even excellent. No contract yet?

outofe 6y ago

Does the game Queers in Love at the End of the World have an influence on your website? You mentioned your audience is very LGBT. This, combined with the "time is running out" feeling of your website, made me think of that game immediately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queers_in_Love_at_the_End_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queers_in_Love_at_the_End_of_t...

FemmeAndroid 6y ago
While I don't know that I was thinking about Queers in Love at the End of the World specifically while making this, Anna Anthropy's games are definitely an inspiration for me more broadly.

taigi100 6y ago

Very cool idea, keep it up! It's one of the coolest projects I've seen in a game jam!

eddieoz 6y ago

Very nice social experience and it is a playground to test many things on game theory. I think managing the spam could be the worse part, but best of lucky

makotoNagano 6y ago
going through the responses, i've yet to hit a spam response which is pretty incredible

_nalply 6y ago

A technical question, how did you make these borders? With Bézier splines?

computerex 6y ago
Simple CSS border-bottom-left-radius: 15px 255px; border-bottom-right-radius: 225px 15px; border-top-left-radius: 255px 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px 225px;
- _nalply 6y ago
  So simple and beautiful.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gprasanth 6y ago

The skewed elements gave me a headache! :(

rhyneav 6y ago

Thank you for using PaperCSS! It’s always a lot of fun seeing it used in projects out in the wild :)

GTP 6y ago

I really like your idea and I felt like leaving a comment on your website! But I have a question: what does the heart button below other people's comment?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

enz 6y ago

Just curious, what is the script/SQL to wipe the DB?