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.
Props on your design + dev execution.
I noticed your personal website mentions building products with React Native, but in this thread you mentioned Gentle was built with Flutter.
It's been a few years since I took a serious look at mobile, and after trying out NativeScript and React Native then, I ended up just wrapping web views. The bar for app experiences is much higher now, and it sounds like you have been able to iterate quickly without compromising quality. Will Flutter be your tool moving forward? Do you give it the upper hand over RN? Or is the difference just personal taste?
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.
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.
So basically, /r/toastme in an app? This might work. Great initiative.
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! :)
Thanks for the app. I love the functionality.
Why do messages in the mailbox disappear? I want them always to remain! Especially when they are so good. Also, grouping responses would be amazing.
I would also like a thank you or a thumbs up emoji or something that makes the person who sent me a message or me feel that we're not screaming into an empty void.
In the reply tab, I was looking to swipe right - like the way cards in Google work. That seems intuitive.
Won't comment on the idea but I love the execution. The design is cheerful without being maudlin, clear without being cluttered. Super impressive!
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?
This is amazing. Feels so nice. I hope this grows to something awesome. One of my colleagues had the similar idea and we were discussing of creating a webapp for it. Lol, too late now.
The UI and UX are serendipitous and feels almost joyous just to click and scroll. Well done.
I see this app was done in Flutter. What was the motivation to choose Flutter over React Native or SwiftUI?
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.
"- We moderate the content and provide easy-to-use reporting tools.
- We use spam and bad word filters.
- We timeout or ban users who repeatedly or flagrantly break our rules.
- Personally identifying information is banned from any messages.
- All new users agree to community expectations."
That's all well and good, but fairly par for the course when it comes to social media (except the anonymous part, but there are plenty that do have that). I don't really see anything innovative here around making sure things stay positive.
By the way if people think that online kindness doesn't exist, then they should visit some online health forums.
Would be cool to have this app which supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... like, acknowledge when you see a right in action, allow you to track when the rights are visibly violated and tie some set of incentives to promoting the values of the UDHR in its usage.
It's funny how a 1 degree rotation creates a new vibe.
This is very cool. Beyond being kind, it makes me think about what I'm about to say, and how best to say it given I don't know the audience.
Good work!
Reminds me of https://emotionalbaggagecheck.com/
I always wondered about the privacy implications of using Google Firebase, but didn't yet take the time to investigate it thoroughly.
Built using flutter but no Android version :/
The design is great. I noticed that I can’t select text while writing, which is frustrating and makes editing very difficult.
This is not going to work in it's current form. The content needs to be more compelling than the premise.
This is just wonderful. Yes, the world needs more of this. Thank you for building and sharing it, Andrew!
The asthetic sorta reminds me of Animal Crossing with the envelopes and such. Seems kinda neat
Sounds very interesting. Hope there'll be a web or Android version so I can test it :)
This is really fantastic and well executed. Congrats on the launch and on making this.
This is a fantastic idea, and great execution. Congratulations on a winner, Andrew!
Love the design, looks great!!
This is so cool. What did you use for the send button animation...Rive?
FYI the Reddit link under the Android FAQ item is broken
Design is amazing.
Wow, you are a craftsman. Excellent work!
Can't I just make a Facebook Group or a subreddit to do this instead of a whole new app?
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.
Fuck that
I like the idea but I also think this is trying to replace something that already exists: churches.
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