[HN Gopher] Show HN: Gentle is a social app where you give and g...
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Show HN: Gentle is a social app where you give and get kindness
Author : andrewthebold
Score : 121 points
Date : 2020-04-18 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gentle.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (gentle.app)
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| I like the idea but I also think this is trying to replace
| something that already exists: churches.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| I think I get what you're saying. I'll say that this product
| isn't really meant to substitute a community. In fact, I'd
| consider it a failure if Gentle overtook other sources of
| companionship in a person's life. My belief is that tech should
| augment rather than replace, if that makes sense.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > My belief is that tech should augment rather than replace
|
| Love that idea - quite an insightful and healthy approach to
| technology in our life.
| Kye wrote:
| There is nothing to replace in a church if they never had a
| place for you.
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| I'm sorry you feel that way. There's a church for everybody.
| I attend church online a lot mainly because it's better for
| my schedule, the lessons are impactful and I'm completely
| comfortable in my own home.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| Churches don't appeal to everyone, they also aren't anonymous.
|
| I'm not saying this as an anti-religion thing, churches are a
| great source of community and it's probably the best thing
| about them, just that this is a very apples-to-oranges
| comparison.
|
| Also I don't think this is a replacement for anything really. A
| supplement perhaps.
| atmosx wrote:
| Seriously?
|
| This comment is wrong one more levels than I can count.
| kyle_martin1 wrote:
| Thank for the empty feedback. I'll continue in my ways.
| armatav wrote:
| Design is amazing.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thank you!
| tekkk wrote:
| Cool landing page. I first thought the tilted elements would be a
| bit jarring, but then I kinda started to like them. Stimulates
| your brain a little bit more. Nice trick. Can't really comment on
| the app itself as I don't have an iPhone. Best of luck to you.
|
| And as a frontend guy I really appreciate the proper use of
| summary and details elements, haha.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thanks! Love that you looked at the source. I've been trying to
| build more accessible webpages lately, so I try to use semantic
| elements wherever.
|
| One of the big problems with the gentle app today is that it's
| probably not very accessible, which is something I hope to
| address.
| kennydude wrote:
| The asthetic sorta reminds me of Animal Crossing with the
| envelopes and such. Seems kinda neat
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Super intentional. I haven't quite gotten to the cuteness and
| customization in animal crossing though.
|
| Also checkout the game "Kind Words", which was a big
| inspiration for this.
| prox wrote:
| Reminds me of https://emotionalbaggagecheck.com/
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! That's super cool and very similar in
| concept.
| ArekDymalski wrote:
| Sounds very interesting. Hope there'll be a web or Android
| version so I can test it :)
| andrewthebold wrote:
| It was built with the cross-platform framework Flutter, so an
| android version will be coming soon!
|
| (I just don't have an android device to test with right now)
| personjerry wrote:
| Can't I just make a Facebook Group or a subreddit to do this
| instead of a whole new app?
| andrewthebold wrote:
| I think this specific flow of creating a post and then
| receiving non-public replies back isn't normal on reddit or fb
| groups. I don't doubt it's possible!
|
| Do correct me if I'm wrong.
| personjerry wrote:
| You can for example create a subreddit where the rules are
| "post your worries and people will reply by DM" and moderate
| accordingly.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Super true! I'd argue the experience would probably be
| different in the context of reddit (like ads and it not
| being quite as streamlined), but your point is valid.
| DanBC wrote:
| /r/toastme is one reddit example.
| FairDune wrote:
| it's /r/roastme
| buf wrote:
| Fuck that
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| This works really well, nice! Do you plan iPad support? It's
| frustrating that I can't send my email in a reply, there was a
| message I'd have liked to give my email and start a conversation.
| I understand the downside of that, but it's frustrating to feel I
| could help someone and not be able to. One other thing, it's not
| obvious what the number next to the skip button is about - I
| assumed it was a limited number of skips and was trying to figure
| out how they worked at first.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| I'll look into iPad-compatibility and see if there's some low-
| lift stuff I could do. To be transparent, I would probaaaably
| invest in a webapp before a fully-blown iPad variant.
|
| I hear your frustration about the limitations of what you can
| share. I stand pretty firmly by it for safety reasons, but I
| don't totally rule out the potential for a way to connect
| further.
|
| Thanks for the feedback about the skip button -- I agree that
| it's confusing. I'll work to address it soon!
|
| Happy to take any other feedback or suggestions you might have~
| davidajackson wrote:
| I'm curious about your monetization strategy here, you mention
| using a 1 time app purchase + other what looks like
| 'cosmetics/item' purchases. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
| Have you thought about making this is a subscription based app
| where 'professional' feedback on worries etc could be a paid
| feature?
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Yep, that's the plan at the moment!
|
| I'm trying to design this product so that it doesn't become a
| crutch for people, but rather a source of general kindness and
| compassion. So I think it'd need a lot more thought to figure
| out if professional support would fit. I'm also wary of
| providing "official" advice due to potential regulatory and
| moral issues. But I do see the potential, especially from a
| business perspective.
|
| If you have any other thoughts or feedback on the app, I'm
| eager to listen~
| justforyou wrote:
| Monetizing compassion and kindness! Very enlightened work.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| That second part is probably sarcastic, but I agree with
| the potential moral hazards with this product. I hope it's
| evident that I've tried to design and monetize this in a
| way that isn't exploitative. Frankly, it's not a strong
| business position, but I'd rather lose money than introduce
| more harm into people lives.
|
| I'm pretty happy with the planned approach of a one-time
| purchase because it helps sustain the product without ads .
| davidajackson wrote:
| Mental health is a lot more than "compassion and kindness".
| See Headspace. Probably wouldn't be where it is today if it
| were totally free.
| askafriend wrote:
| This is not going to work in it's current form. The content needs
| to be more compelling than the premise.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| I hear what you're saying. I'll say that the "compelling" I'm
| looking for is content that entices you to want to give some
| kindness. If it's not doing that, I'll work to make it better!
|
| A feature I'm hoping to add in shortly is better scaffolding
| for better content, such as:
|
| 1. examples of good requests and responses 2. a brief tutorial
| that gives you a better sense of what's good/bad
| amelius wrote:
| By the way if people think that online kindness doesn't exist,
| then they should visit some online health forums.
| jpindar wrote:
| Or OpenSimulator worlds.
| 0x8BADF00D wrote:
| Plenty of online kindness exists, but it's usually paid for.
| The prototypical example is female streamer and simp. Or the
| NSFW version of that. Parasocial relationships are typically
| kind in nature.
| bgnm2000 wrote:
| Love the design, looks great!!
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thank you! Do call out if anything seems nonintuitive or bad
| grawprog wrote:
| I was just reading through the 'how the app keeps me safe'
| section. Not trying to be dour, but things like this tend to
| attract, trolls to put it nicely, if your service expands, you're
| likely to have some fairly nasty people with plenty of time and
| ingenuity on their side, who see your service as an opportunity
| to fuck with people, to put it nicely.
|
| >We moderate the content and provide easy-to-use reporting tools.
|
| This requires exponentially larger numbers of staff as the
| service grows.
|
| >We use spam and bad word filters.
|
| Easy to get creative around. It's pretty easy to say fairly awful
| things without using bad words.
|
| >We timeout or ban users who repeatedly or flagrantly break our
| rules.
|
| Easy to circumvent by changing IP'S, or if you ban by IPS, by
| abusing multiple accounts.
|
| >Personally identifying information is banned from any messages.
|
| Falls under the above issues.
|
| >All new users agree to community expectations.
|
| Doesn't stop people who don't care.
|
| (Soon) If the app notices that somebody is writing about
| concerning topics like self-harm, it will privately and
| proactively offer resources from professionals.
|
| Not really applicable to my worries.
|
| I like the idea of your service, the internet can always use more
| things dedicated to just being nice, but I also know human nature
| and unfortunately, there's people who look at things like that as
| a challenge to be as horrible as possible cor no real reason
| other than they like being assholes.
|
| Just to make a suggestion, some kind of shadow banning system,
| similar to hn could be effective here. Having been on the dark
| side of the shadow bans, they really do keep undesirable things
| at bay and do tend to be hard to notice for a while. Allowing
| trolls and assholes to believe they're interacting, while having
| their posts be invisible to the rest of users could at least help
| curb repeated account creation and such.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| 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
| vegannet wrote:
| I think the key to understanding the scope for abuse is to
| understand the opportunity. There will always be abusive
| behaviour and tools are required to tackle it _but_ the
| majority of abusive behaviour on the internet comes from a
| desire for attention, and one-to-one abuse is much less common.
| Abusive people are typically looking for a platform to
| broadcast.
|
| I think that the methods outlined on the website will help but
| I think the concept is inherently anti-abuse.
|
| Context: I worked in community management for many years,
| dealing with some of the worst of abusive online behaviour.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Screenshot the abuse, post to forums, get attention and
| inspire copycat abusers.
|
| I like the idea of the service, and agree with the moderation
| approach, but I also think trolls are a potential problem.
| anticsapp wrote:
| I think you are in the right here. If one is trolling an
| audience of one, it's not really the same dopamine hit as
| Tweeting a death threat to a Senator that thousands see. It
| gets boring quick. Also, troll management as a problem is
| sort of like the "What if I burn $100,000 on AWS in one
| month?" problem. It's a good problem to have, it means you
| have traction, and with patience and focus the trolls can be
| steamrolled.
| gumby wrote:
| I love this idea!
|
| I have long wished for video games based on kindness (as I used
| to say to my kid, "how about a game where you hug each other?")
| but fighting seems to be the cultural norm. There are a few
| exceptions, but they are exceptions.
| masona wrote:
| I always wanted to be able to play a version of Red Dead
| Redemption where you just build a homestead, ride your horse
| and play through the story with no killing.
| anticsapp wrote:
| Yeah. I've taken a few breaks on RDR2 where I put the
| shotties away and just go fishing for a couple days. So
| peaceful. I haven't played in nine months, need to fire the
| Xbox back up again.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| If you're looking for a more gamey-version of this concept,
| check out _Kind Words_. I 'm a big fan of it!
| eranation wrote:
| So basically, /r/toastme in an app? This might work. Great
| initiative.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Yeah! or /r/RandomKindness
| rapnie wrote:
| I always wondered about the privacy implications of using Google
| Firebase, but didn't yet take the time to investigate it
| thoroughly.
| sleepyfran wrote:
| Just tried it and my oh my, the design is amazing and it really
| makes the whole experience much better. I really love both the
| idea and the execution and I can't wait to see what's coming
| next. Amazing job! :)
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thank you! Happy to take feedback or suggestions if you have
| any.
| tobr wrote:
| The design is great. I noticed that I can't select text while
| writing, which is frustrating and makes editing very difficult.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I'm so sorry for the frustration
| caused. I'll address it!
|
| If you're curious where that comes from, the app is built with
| Flutter, which tries to mimic native behavior. Text editing is
| something that's not quite there yet, unfortunately, so I'll
| have to manually make fixes.
| tobr wrote:
| I figured it might be something like that - I believe I've
| noticed it in other apps too. But the small frustration is
| unfortunate when the rest of the design is so careful and
| does such a good job building a positive vibe.
|
| Good luck!
| flaque wrote:
| This is really fantastic and well executed. Congrats on the
| launch and on making this.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thank you! If you have any, I'm happy to hear any feedback or
| critique
| grumpy8 wrote:
| It's funny how a 1 degree rotation creates a new vibe.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| I know, right? It's definitely a quirky vibe
| 0x8BADF00D wrote:
| Overall I like the UX. But I was a bit confused by the "flag"
| button being on the left. I usually think the back button is
| there.
|
| I think it would be better to go back to the previous message
| instead of scrolling through all the messages and then starting
| from the top. Also the reply button looks like what I'd consider
| a back button to be.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! I was already planning on changing
| these buttons (especially to make the flag button more
| obvious), so I'll take this into account.
|
| I'm curious: do you have thoughts on what a "reply" button's
| icon should look like?
| jjnoakes wrote:
| I personally like a conversation bubble as a reply icon.
| andrewthebold wrote:
| 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
| adam_fallon_ wrote:
| How long did this take to develop? It's absolutely delightful
| andrewthebold wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| 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!
| xiaolingxiao wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| [deleted]
| xiaolingxiao wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yeah! My main email for gentle-related stuff is
| andrew@gentle.app
|
| Feel free to reach out and connect.
| xiaolingxiao wrote:
| Ok sent!
| faitswulff wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| tobr wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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~
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(page generated 2020-04-18 23:00 UTC)