Nachimir Posted September 8, 2014 In several discussions last week, a few developers I know voiced their disgust at how badly Twitter handles abuse, and started talking about alternatives (Twitter only accept reports of harassment from the subject of the harassment, but cap reports, making it impossible for someone in a situation like Zoe Quinn's to defend themselves). A few of us are trying this: http://ello.co I have ten invites if anyone wants one. It's funded by arts money with the intent of not following startup/social media business models. It might be another Google+, it might fizzle pathetically, but they have a pretty good statement of why and how they're building it. At the moment the normal model of web enterprise development is to make it and then hope it gets big enough that you can stick advertising on it. But we don’t want to do that. Our initial development has been funded by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Public money, in other words. But we don’t want to (and can’t!) rely on that. Payments – whether subscription, upfront, or micro-, are limiting and kill the roots of culture (i.e. all the people doing great DIY stuff who could never afford to pay for our service). So, here’s the deal – we’re anti advertising, can’t continually publicly fund it, and we don’t want to put a price tag on this service. You will always be able to access it for free. We don’t know whether it will all work yet. But we also don’t think any other way is sufficiently proven either. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted September 8, 2014 That's infuriating, his first (that I know of) public comment is to brag about his Twitter blocklist? To not have it occur to you at all that this might be a bad idea to lump several people's lists together? This sounds really cool, I particularly like the artist focus and the design looks way nicer. I'd be up for taking an invite if that's alright. Also any recommendations on people to follow there? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JonCole Posted September 8, 2014 I requested an invitation already, but I'd be happy to take one of yours if you don't mind. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted September 8, 2014 Well. My phone picked an interesting time to include a quote. You can disregard the words of Bjorn there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 8, 2014 PMed you both invite codes. If they don't work, you might need to reply to me with your email addresses. People to follow: You can probably take a look at my list for people who interest you once in. There aren't many people I know on there yet, but this person is posting incredible screenshots this afternoon: https://ello.co/cabbibo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Professor Video Games Posted September 8, 2014 Honestly I only use Twitter to follow people and rarely post myself, but even with that in mind I've found the company's practices (and perhaps consequently) much of the userbase very shitty so I'd be interested in encouraging some alternatives. Though with their noble ambitions I don't know how they plan on paying the bills. Uh...in other words I'd take an invite I guess? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted September 8, 2014 Got the code, thanks! I can't find where to use it on my phone browser do I'll try on a desktop in a bit. As för lofty goals, I do agree that it's always good to retain scepticism. But Wikipedia is entirely ad free, isn't it? Not to say this could be as big as Wikipedia but the possibility of large scale non profit Internet site is precedented. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 8, 2014 Sent, video games. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikemariano Posted September 8, 2014 This looks good! I'm interested. Do they have open APIs? Non-crappy business model is great, but openness in how people want to scoop out their own data is also important. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 8, 2014 No idea I'm afraid. I guess they haven't built that this early. They have a feature list here: (Edit: It's AJAXy and I can't link to it. Paste of current/planned feature list: http://pastebin.com/uddjPQHV) For anyone wondering, invites are redeemed here (sorry, I assumed it'd be linked from the home page): https://ello.co/join (Six left now) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twig Posted September 8, 2014 I actually really hate navigating this thing and I'm not sure why people like it. X: Give me an invite anyway?! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hermie Posted September 8, 2014 Sure, I'm game, invite away. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twig Posted September 8, 2014 ello already wins because it let me edit a typo i made in my... what do i call an ello post is it just an el https://ello.co/twig this is me i made it Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Problem Machine Posted September 8, 2014 Sounds neat but I'm so bad at twittering in the first place that I'll just wait and see if it becomes a thing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tegan Posted September 8, 2014 Twitter et al are for chumps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 8, 2014 Invite sent, fellow chump. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Erkki Posted September 8, 2014 That site is kind of horrible to navigate as Twig said. But I wouldn't mind if I could leave Twitter behind. I have followed too many people and now my stream is just so much constant noise that I only read maybe 5% of it. And I can't be arsed to go and unfollow another bunch of people. Too bad the lists thing never really worked well in Twitter. I would have loved to have contexts I could easily switch between while keeping my main stream rather minimal. Seems like this ello thing might have something like that, though I didn't yet figure out what the Friend/Noise distinction is. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 9, 2014 I think it just lets you follow people but effectively divide them between two receptacles. Nobody you follow gets to know which they're in. It certainly has a long way to go, but I think it's a promising start just because of where they're coming from. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Merus Posted September 9, 2014 I'll give this thing a go; it's beta software so I guess things will improve (Twitter went a long time without retweet functionality). Invite please! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nachimir Posted September 9, 2014 Done. I've seen a few people complaining about the amount of whitespace, but their current layout it works really well for posting images. Mobile, apparently, really sucks right now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JonCole Posted September 9, 2014 Mobile is very lacking, but better than just plain desktop viewed on mobile. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Merus Posted September 9, 2014 One of the things I like about Twitter is that the character limit really makes it hard to fill other people's feeds with long diatribes, and if you start arguing or get angry you start running up against the character limit and have to work out how to edit down. I think I agree that 140 is too short but I wouldn't mind a social network that forced you to put a cut after a certain amount of characters. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
James Posted September 9, 2014 My tweets are neither frequent nor high-quality, but I wouldn't mind an invitation if there are still any going. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted September 9, 2014 On the off chance Nachimir runs out of them, I see I have ten invites too so I can keep the invites flowing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
