

Show HN: Nightchamber, a slow-web social site - s_kilk
http://nightchamber.com

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sz4kerto
You could actually convert this into some kind of social network. Just enable
people to follow each other in some sense, i.e. their messages appear in your
feed with higher probability or so. It's nice and somewhat artistic to follow
other persons only based on what they say/said, not based on who they are.

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s_kilk
We think alike, that's been on the todo list for a while :)

Thanks for the input!

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sanderjd
Along those lines: people's handles could be more memorable but still random.
Maybe something like the github repository name recommender. "Oh, great,
another post from ice-badger-weasel-fox, I love those!"

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s_kilk
Good call, I like it!

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yzzxy
I would caution you not to go for the cutesy, "random" aesthetic that github
does with their name generator. People may not wish to be addressed in that
way.

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SquidLord
They'll never know if they are, and if they do -- they'll never know by who.

If that's still a problem, I humbly suggest that those people might not be the
right audience for a socnet that lets one post only once a day.

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s_kilk
Hi HN. I made this over the last few months.

The idea is to have an activity feed which is randomly generated, and only
refreshes once every 24 hours.

The auth system incorporates some ideas discussed in this thread (The God
Login):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8861800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8861800)

I'm happy to answer any questions!

~~~
tenpoundhammer
I'm confused about why a person would want to use this? If I only get a random
"tweet" every 24 hours that lacks context, I don't see myself coming back
often.

Two suggestions: 1\. Allow the user to configure how often they get new
thoughts. 2\. Allow voting so that hopefully the random thoughts that are
actually worth reading propagate out and people are reading something worth
reading.

~~~
sciguy77
I actually really like this as a reaction against Twitter. You only get one
thing to say per day, so you want to make it count. And I don't want another
site to visit 50 times per day, once is enough.

Kudos to the creator, this is really neat.

~~~
tenpoundhammer
I like the idea of only being able to post once a day, but I think the
solution would be more fun if you could read as much you want.

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Xeoncross
Neat exploration of a solution - but I wouldn't consider this a complete
product - more of a test of auth-less logins for a randomized guest book.

There is a lot more that would be needed before people used this. I can almost
guarantee that random posts will be worthless and I have no feedback on the
messages I personally send.

~~~
s_kilk
Thanks for the comment, and I agree, it's very bare-bones right now.

In an ideal world, what would a product like this look like when fully
fleshed-out?

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yaddayadda
Not quite building off of your current system, but I've long wanted a service
where I could log-in and be approved to participate ___anonymously_ __in
conversations that are still somewhat moderated. "? _& %$#?#$&_?", you ask.

There are a lot of sites that I participate in that allow you to rate and flag
other users (e.g. HN). I actually really like this ability. But frequently I
want to make many posts to such site, but I don't really want all my comments
to be able to be tied together

For example, there's an HN post about BFE, Idaho and I mention that's my
hometown. In another post, it's relevant to the conversation, so I mention I'm
Italian. In another post it becomes clear that I have extensive professional
experience in underwater basket weaving. Put these three facts together and
they can quickly undermine any anonymity (i.e. I'm the only Italian born in
BFE, Idaho that has a career in underwater basket weaving).

So having a log-on system that allows me to be held accountable (i.e. If I
make a comment on HN that gets downvoted, my HN rating still goes down) but
where I can still be anonymous (i.e. no one can aggregate my comments). From a
service perspective, I'm thinking of something like a Disqus plug-in
architecture where I could log-in to the primary service, and only that
service would ever know that I'm a singular entity. That service would provide
an api that other sites could use set and grab general reputation data.

For example, I log into Service as 'yaddayadda'. I navigate to HN, and log-in.
The Service reports to HN that I'm an authorized user currently known as
2051013165142 (new, random user id each time I visit HN). HN polls the Service
API for my current user id. The Service reports back that my identity has
earned a total of _X_ HN submission up votes, _Y_ HN comment up votes, and _Z_
HN downvotes. HN can then do what it does to calculate my reputation. When I
subsequently make a submission or comment and am rated, HN reports those
points back to the Service, which aggregates them into 'yaddayadda's' HN
totals.

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jacquesm
Quite a few brain (and cpu) cycles have been spent on 'author identification'
software that allows to tie together pieces of text at various points in time
to a single author.

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yaddayadda
I believe most of them still require sizable amounts of work. For example,
this individual comment might be able to narrow me down to native U.S. English
speaker with higher education, but not much beyond that.

I have played with gender-identification software[1], which has such a limit.
Frankly, the identification seems to be more topically sensitive than it is
gender sensitive. For example, if I put in my writing about robots it will id
me as male, but if I put in my writing about cooking it will id me as female.

Combining the 'author identification' software with known identities (such as
we have here on HN) will certainly make them more accurate. Hence, my desire
for a system that limits such computations.

[1]
[http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php](http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php)

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alexhawdon
Novel. I like it.

Has me thinking about a 'slow' messaging app: basically email but in daily
digest format. E-mail, but with the latency of physical mail. You may reply at
your convenience. Your message will be received at the time of the recipient's
choosing, along with the rest of the day's correspondence. Optionally
including weekly days off.

Probably not great for business. Between friends it might encourage more long-
format replies which might be more enjoyable; an alternative to short,
frequent messages.

~~~
tempermanent
You can just do this with your friends! Send long emails and establish an
expectation of reply-at-your-convenience. It's a tricky norm to get started
but once it does it's quite rewarding.

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thejteam
Love the concept. I would love for this to go big.

But I went to the site a couple of times and "I love turtles." was the most
coherent message I received.

Take that as you will.

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Gyonka
This is cool, but I kind of see the use case a little different. I'd like to
be able to receive a message like this on my phone once a day, just as a
notification, at a time of my choosing. It would still be a random anonymous
message, but it would be interesting because everyday I would receive some
random/hilarious crap from someone elsewhere in the world.

~~~
s_kilk
Nice idea,

It could make a nice companion app for the site actually.

~~~
Gyonka
Hit me up if you ever get around to it, would make for a fun project I could
maybe help you out with :)

jonathan@galperin.com

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vessenes
I like this. I think a good length for a 'daily' one-shot update might be a
bit longer than a tweet though. The layout makes it look like you're expecting
tweets right now. Have you experimented with longer-form posts to see how they
feel?

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s_kilk
I was intending for long-form posts to be encouraged on this site, but I do
agree that the current layout may not be the best for that.

I'll take your suggestion and experiment with longer content and find a layout
that makes it pleasant to read.

Ideally I'd love to see short-stories or poetry being shared on the site.

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heuermh
Interesting idea. Appears that whitespace is not preserved by the editor
though; another vote for supporting medium-to-long-form posts.

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s_kilk
I'm actually working on a fix for that just now :)

Will be deployed shortly, pending tests.

EDIT: and it's deployed to Live. Enjoy!

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Splendor
> Don't share your identity with anyone else.

Maybe implement HTTPS then?

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s_kilk
Deploying HTTPS is next on the todo-list for today :)

