Thanks, everyone, for your feedback and attention. We're grateful for all the suggestions, sign-ups, comments and criticisms. Here are a few things we want to add to the original post in response to your questions and feedback:
1. First, a clarification about our mechanism:
* only the first message in a conversation or thread requires a reply or approval for publication. The algorithm is not "for every n messages in a conversation, publish n-1." The reason for this is discussed in some of your comments: if every message requires a reply to publish, then either party in a conversation can unilaterally end a conversation at any time.
* Instead, once a conversation or a thread is published, either party can add messages to the conversation in any order. Does this mean that once you get past the first-message test, you can troll to your heart's content? Not really. Yes, you can keep publishing messages into the conversation. But unless your counterparty replies to you, additional messages will be considered "post-scripts." Post-scripts do not push a conversation to the top of any feeds, whether on a user page or on the Explore page. This will remain the case even when we have individual feeds and a more complex algorithm than simple reverse-chrono. What this means is that a conversation gets less and less discoverable the longer it goes without both parties jumping in.
2. Second, a clarification about our ambitions:
* no system is perfectly troll-proof. We call Radiopaper "troll-resistant," rather than "troll-proof," for a reason. But we also believe that our level of troll resistance is sufficient to radically change the experience of using Radiopaper in the long term, vs other social sites.
* two reasons for this: one is that most trolls are pretty lazy. Raising the bar even slightly eliminates 90%+ of the worst actors. More importantly, however, we reduce incentives for trolling. Right now a good way to gain clout on social networks is to post inflammatory or insulting replies. On Radiopaper, that will just get you ignored. On Radiopaper, the incentives are instead to strike a balance between engaging your interlocutor and engaging your audience. We believe this will eventually disproportionally attract the best minds on the internet to the site.
3. Third, a note about where we're headed: our next steps in the medium term are to add social features like following, notifications, reactions, and individual feeds. This will make Radiopaper a bit more like Twitter or Facebook, and a bit less like Reddit or HN. Our goal is to be more social network than forum.
4. Lastly, a call to action: if you like the concept and/or the design, we'd love it if you started a conversation! One important feature of the site is that you can converse on Radiopaper with someone purely via their email address. Only one person in a conversation ever even needs to log in or make an account. This feature is available at radiopaper.com/new. If you don't have any ideas for who to start chatting with, check out my user page: radiopaper.com/DavidSchaengold. I'd be happy to talk.
1. First, a clarification about our mechanism: * only the first message in a conversation or thread requires a reply or approval for publication. The algorithm is not "for every n messages in a conversation, publish n-1." The reason for this is discussed in some of your comments: if every message requires a reply to publish, then either party in a conversation can unilaterally end a conversation at any time. * Instead, once a conversation or a thread is published, either party can add messages to the conversation in any order. Does this mean that once you get past the first-message test, you can troll to your heart's content? Not really. Yes, you can keep publishing messages into the conversation. But unless your counterparty replies to you, additional messages will be considered "post-scripts." Post-scripts do not push a conversation to the top of any feeds, whether on a user page or on the Explore page. This will remain the case even when we have individual feeds and a more complex algorithm than simple reverse-chrono. What this means is that a conversation gets less and less discoverable the longer it goes without both parties jumping in.
2. Second, a clarification about our ambitions: * no system is perfectly troll-proof. We call Radiopaper "troll-resistant," rather than "troll-proof," for a reason. But we also believe that our level of troll resistance is sufficient to radically change the experience of using Radiopaper in the long term, vs other social sites. * two reasons for this: one is that most trolls are pretty lazy. Raising the bar even slightly eliminates 90%+ of the worst actors. More importantly, however, we reduce incentives for trolling. Right now a good way to gain clout on social networks is to post inflammatory or insulting replies. On Radiopaper, that will just get you ignored. On Radiopaper, the incentives are instead to strike a balance between engaging your interlocutor and engaging your audience. We believe this will eventually disproportionally attract the best minds on the internet to the site.
3. Third, a note about where we're headed: our next steps in the medium term are to add social features like following, notifications, reactions, and individual feeds. This will make Radiopaper a bit more like Twitter or Facebook, and a bit less like Reddit or HN. Our goal is to be more social network than forum.
4. Lastly, a call to action: if you like the concept and/or the design, we'd love it if you started a conversation! One important feature of the site is that you can converse on Radiopaper with someone purely via their email address. Only one person in a conversation ever even needs to log in or make an account. This feature is available at radiopaper.com/new. If you don't have any ideas for who to start chatting with, check out my user page: radiopaper.com/DavidSchaengold. I'd be happy to talk.