
Show HN: Gentle is a social app where you give and get kindness - andrewthebold
https://gentle.app/
======
andrewthebold
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](https://testflight.apple.com/join/tXMfOfOl)

~~~
tobr
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
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~

------
grawprog
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.

~~~
vegannet
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.

~~~
anticsapp
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.

~~~
def8cefe
>with patience and focus the trolls can be steamrolled.

I agree with your observation that trolls are a problem that comes with scale,
but I've never seen an online community solve it. At best you can only slow
them down.

If anybody has some examples of large online communities that did solve
trolling I would be interested to see them.

~~~
anticsapp
Early Flickr was really good at troll containment:
[https://mastersofscale.com/caterina-fake-build-a-more-
human-...](https://mastersofscale.com/caterina-fake-build-a-more-human-
internet/)

------
tropshop
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?

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you!

My impression is that my use of Flutter has been successful (especially in an
iOS build) because of my heavy use of custom-designed components. There are
packages built by the Flutter team to mimic native behavior, but they aren't
good enough in my opinion. I'd go with react native if you want something that
feels (at least on iOS) native.

The biggest plus for Flutter in my opinion is its great animation system. It's
difficult to learn, but it makes things that would have been near-impossible
in react native relatively straightforward.

I'd use Flutter again for sure. I'd rate it like an 8/10?

------
gumby
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.

~~~
sz4kerto
Honest question: what's interesting in a hugging game? Children are playing
games partly because they're competitive, and fighting is a simple way of
competing. How can you do this with hugs?

~~~
gumby
There are plenty of fun activities that involve cooperation rather than
competition. Building a bridge instead of blowing it up, for example.

Kids are generally pretty enthusiastic about such things as well until it is
socialized out of them.

------
tekkk
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
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.

------
eranation
So basically, /r/toastme in an app? This might work. Great initiative.

~~~
andrewthebold
Yeah! or /r/RandomKindness

------
sleepyfran
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
Thank you! Happy to take feedback or suggestions if you have any.

------
yogodojo
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.

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank for you trying the app out!

On your first point: scroll down on your mailbox screen to see a history of
what you've opened up! Sorry about that. It's a poor design decision on my
part to make it so undiscoverable. Will fix it soon.

Reactions of some sort are one of the high priority features I plan to build.

No strong opinion from me on horizontal cards and swiping. It _is_ intentional
to add some friction to skipping a message (so it feels a bit more weighty),
but I'll play with it!

------
puranjay
Won't comment on the idea but I love the execution. The design is cheerful
without being maudlin, clear without being cluttered. Super impressive!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you for the praise for the design!

------
davidajackson
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
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
Monetizing compassion and kindness! Very enlightened work.

~~~
andrewthebold
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 .

~~~
divbzero
Maybe in addition to a one-time purchase you could offer “sponsorship”
subscriptions for app users who want to provide extra support.

------
abhishekjha
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.

~~~
Endlessly
it’s never too late — and currently find it hard to believe that there’s more
than enough demand/need for purely positive mutually beneficial exchanges,
both offline & offline.

------
dlivingston
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?

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you for the praise for the design :)

My path to using flutter was that I wanted to use SwiftUI because of its
native-ness, but found it was too buggy. I know react native well, but I
realized that a lot of the interactions I wanted (e.g., animations) would be
much more difficult. Flutter was a compromise that's overall been great to
work with.

I do feel very at-the-whim of the flutter team's progress (mainly native
behavior I can't hide behind custom UI like text editing), but that's not
unique to flutter.

If you don't mind a link to reddit, I also wrote a comment about the decision
[0].

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/g3qrkj/gentle_is_a_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/g3qrkj/gentle_is_a_social_app_where_you_give_and_get/fnu7o83/)

------
mcintyre1994
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
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~

------
_bxg1
"\- 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.

~~~
andrewthebold
Not at all arguing that this is novel or innovative — rather my own take on
the genre. I'd argue that some aspects of the system incentivize better
behavior:

\- It'll be a purchased app (not free), so the stakes of being banned are
higher. Right now in beta, it is more open for sure.

\- The 1:1 message sending doesn't give any feedback to bad actors, so
attention-seeking behavior is more limited.

\- I'm also hopeful to continue to design an experience that's calm and
cheerful, and provides guidance about good behavior (in a way that's more in-
your-face than most social media).

Of course, there will always be malicious people, and neither I nor this
project are perfect. As I mentioned elsewhere in this post, I'd be quick to
shut things down if it got out of hand.

Happy to discuss this more.

------
amelius
By the way if people think that online kindness doesn't exist, then they
should visit some online health forums.

~~~
jpindar
Or OpenSimulator worlds.

------
fit2rule
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.

------
grumpy8
It's funny how a 1 degree rotation creates a new vibe.

~~~
andrewthebold
I know, right? It's definitely a quirky vibe

------
michaelwilson
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!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you and that's amazing! It's great that you're really embracing the
attitude of thinking about this other person and trying to empathize.

------
prox
Reminds me of
[https://emotionalbaggagecheck.com/](https://emotionalbaggagecheck.com/)

~~~
andrewthebold
Thanks for sharing! That's super cool and very similar in concept.

~~~
prox
It’s actually online since the flash days, I try to contribute from time to
time.

------
rapnie
I always wondered about the privacy implications of using Google Firebase, but
didn't yet take the time to investigate it thoroughly.

~~~
andrewthebold
I hear you. I've turned off all the analytics I can with firebase, but if you
don't trust Firebase/Google, I'm happy to recommend avoiding this app.

Checkout my privacy policy (and critique it too!) if that's useful:
[https://gentle.app/privacy](https://gentle.app/privacy)

------
mesaframe
Built using flutter but no Android version :/

~~~
andrewthebold
It's coming soon! Blocked by me getting my hands on an android device to test
with.

Sorry for the trouble if you were hoping to try it out. If you're interested,
you can join the subreddit for updates [0].

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/gentleapp/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gentleapp/)

------
tobr
The design is great. I noticed that I can’t select text while writing, which
is frustrating and makes editing very difficult.

~~~
andrewthebold
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
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!

------
askafriend
This is not going to work in it's current form. The content needs to be more
compelling than the premise.

~~~
andrewthebold
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

------
chrisweekly
This is just wonderful. Yes, the world needs more of this. Thank you for
building and sharing it, Andrew!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you! I'm really happy you tried it out

------
kennydude
The asthetic sorta reminds me of Animal Crossing with the envelopes and such.
Seems kinda neat

~~~
andrewthebold
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.

------
ArekDymalski
Sounds very interesting. Hope there'll be a web or Android version so I can
test it :)

~~~
andrewthebold
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)

------
flaque
This is really fantastic and well executed. Congrats on the launch and on
making this.

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you! If you have any, I'm happy to hear any feedback or critique

------
exogeny
This is a fantastic idea, and great execution. Congratulations on a winner,
Andrew!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you! I appreciate the praise.

If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to share~

------
bgnm2000
Love the design, looks great!!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you! Do call out if anything seems nonintuitive or bad

------
rjrogerto
This is so cool. What did you use for the send button animation...Rive?

~~~
andrewthebold
Hey! It's a Flutter application, so I'm using their concept of Hero animations
[1]. It renders a new component (the flight shuttle?) that does the visual
animation.

[1] [https://flutter.dev/docs/development/ui/animations/hero-
anim...](https://flutter.dev/docs/development/ui/animations/hero-animations)

------
blkstormy
FYI the Reddit link under the Android FAQ item is broken

~~~
andrewthebold
Thanks for catching that! Fixed it up.

------
armatav
Design is amazing.

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you!

------
programmarchy
Wow, you are a craftsman. Excellent work!

~~~
andrewthebold
Thank you! I appreciate the praise

------
personjerry
Can't I just make a Facebook Group or a subreddit to do this instead of a
whole new app?

~~~
andrewthebold
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
You can for example create a subreddit where the rules are "post your worries
and people will reply by DM" and moderate accordingly.

~~~
andrewthebold
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.

------
0x8BADF00D
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
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
I personally like a conversation bubble as a reply icon.

------
kyle_martin1
I like the idea but I also think this is trying to replace something that
already exists: churches.

~~~
andrewthebold
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
> My belief is that tech should augment rather than replace

Love that idea - quite an insightful and healthy approach to technology in our
life.

