Decentralised social networks are a bad idea. Communication tools need to be inclusive and open to everyone, especially laypeople. Decentralised tools and blockchain turn off non-techies, and are overkill for the social networking problem.
People use decentralized things all the time without a problem. Email, for example. They can use a shim like Gmail, decide one day they hate it, switch to something else, and still email everyone in roughly the same way without convincing all those people to migrate somewhere simultaneously.
That's an implementation problem mainly caused by decentralized social networks being designed mainly by techies for techies, and touted in technical circles.
One of our team members used to do this job; luckily, she managed to do it with deep learning, so didn't have to spend too much time looking at unpleasant images.
This experience is one of the main drivers that pushes our team to develop an open, nonprofit conversation platform on which harrassment is difficult by design.
It's absolutely hearbreaking to see the independence, critical thinking and self-determination that Western society has been building up since the Enlightenment, weakening under the forces of big data and targeted advertising.
Communication should be open, profit should not be involved in discourse, and advertising should not corrode conversation.
You really can't see the difference between the kind of advertising this guy is complaining about and a link to a personal website / manifesto complaining about advertising? Really?
Yes, we did! Self-promotion in a relevant context (in a discussion of a worsening problem which affects many) is a very different undertaking than paid, off-topic advertising.
The period since Enlightenment in West contains two world wars, genocide, nationalists movements, monarchy keeping in power through censorship, revolutionary attempts, KKK ... All of them totally full of critical thinking and self-determination for sure.
These aren't developments that should be encouraged. The political influence of targeted advertising on social media has encouraged and enabled several nationalist movements. We believe that the lack of an open communication platform makes accessing and discussing complex ideas, whether ethical or political, much harder.
An open conversation service needs to be open to all, not just people with tech skills; we need to prevent large numbers of people feeling locked out of discourse, or left behind.
Also, many of the distributed/federated services we've looked at have rapidly devolved into niche communities often centred around sexual content. These two reasons lead us to think that a centralised service is more open and approachable.
With regards to mastodon, there's at least one hosting service specifically for it already (https://masto.host), and people who don't know that much about the Linux command line/etc have set up their own instances using it.
Our team (mostly cognitive scientists and engineers) is nostalgic about the past of online communication and concerned about its future. Our platform, Lyra, provides support for effective conversations rather than social networking and advertising. You can read our history of online convesation - and more about our approach - here: www.hellolyra.com/introduction
Speaking as one notorious-for-promoting-own-stuff type to another, you don't need to reply to nearly every thread. This top-level one was probably sufficiently.
Thanks for the advice, we've been staying under the radar on HN recently but we honestly feel really strongly about this. We're a nonprofit, have been sinking lots of cash into this project, and are not in it for personal gain :)
Okay, since you're advertising your service here, I think it's only right I give you some feedback on it, as someone who registered an account to test it out just now.
Firstly, it took me a fair bit to realise that the book icon at the top was actually the menu button, and not just a logo linking to the home page. It's a neat idea (having the service logo act as the menu), but it's not at all clear to users, and should probably be replaced with a simple logo link and hamburger button instead.
Secondly, forcing users to log in to view any content is not a good design pattern, and has been seen as a bad idea in the community management world for decades. Scrap it, let people view at least some content as a guest.
Stylistically it isn't too great either. It works on a functional level, but all in all, it just feels very... dated. Like, the site was made in 1995 type dated. That's probably because the colour scheme feels drab and uninteresting, the fonts all staid and the general structure of the pages is all so academic and formal looking. It reminded me of one of those 'guestbook' features Microsoft FrontPage used to have, and not in a good way.
So again, change that up a bit, since the vast majority of the population have design tastes that are a bit more up to date than Lyra's here.
Not sure the tour is a good idea either. Facebook, Twitter and others like them don't need one, and the way it's implemented here feels a bit overbearing more than anything else.
Do like how profiles let you add new fields yourself though, that seems quite useful (especially in an era where new social networks and their respective profile links keep popping up every day).
As for conversations, those just feel a bit awkward at the moment. I mean, are there any groups here? Any tags? Hashtags? Any way of categorising content at all? Cause at the moment, it seems like it's just a list of conversations about whatever random topic that you're somehow supposed to find and wander into. Not sure how user friendly that is myself.
Overall though, it's a mixed bag. There are some neat ideas here, and I admire you for creating your own social media site, but the design aesthetics and general setup just seem so dated it isn't a viable competitor to the likes of Facebook and Twitter for me.
- It's OK to have a small learning curve; we think users will be OK with the menu symbol.
- We've thought extensively about whether to show content to non-logged-in users. This isn't really Lyra's use case. You can see it as closer to email than social media. Our goal is not to categorise "content". The very term "content" makes us itch. We don't aim to provide searchable communities or hashtags, as these are easy avenues for harassment, abuse and targeting vulnerable communities.
- Most of Lyra's existing use cases look like this: start converstion (with existing contacts, or invite them otherwise). Have conversation, usually private, with contacts.
- The tour can be removed with a single click, it was actually a requested feature and has received positive feedback.
- The general design is constantly evolving and it will improve as we have access to more funding.
- We offer a growing number of customisable themes (left menu); the look and feel of a platform should be in the user's control. Style is very subjective; some like basic, some like glitz. If you have any suggestions for a theme you would like, we will be happy to set it up for you.
There's no need to apologise for good, constructive feedback!
Money presumably. It's a lot easier to get a good design for your site or app if you have a decent amount of money to pay professional designers. Which most open source foundations and charitable organisations don't have.
Edit: Though I guess it could also be because a lot of alternative software and services are created by people with a 'hacker' or 'programmer' mindset, where very little attention is paid to the UX and everything is focused on the features/tech stack. They're the same people who seem to think IRC, email lists and newsgroups have decent UI.
Exactly! We agree that email and newsgroups do not have the most useful or accessible UI, and aim to offer a much better design. Needless to say, our design is constantly improving.
Not the parent, but I have two specific suggestions about the on boarding process.
One, please add a directory (feed?) of public conversations that can be viewed without logging in. I want to see how the platform is used by other people and whether that fits me - but if you ask me to create an account first, I'm going to bounce.
Two, here on HN you say the team is mostly cog sci and engg people, which sounds awesome and piques my curiosity about why you made this. But the web site itself doesn't mention that, or anything about the people behind it. Please add an 'about the team' page so that I can understand more about the people who are inviting me to use their platform.
We have been thinking carefully about whether to include a public conversation feed. Public communications are not Lyra's central use case, and as most conversations are private at the moment, such a feed would be quite sparse.
As a nonprofit which is not funded by advertising, it is not our main goal to support viewers without an account. There is no charge to sign up.
If you’re trying to be a new alternative to Big Social, you should aim to be better or at the very least more interesting than the competition. There’s no way your network can be THE network for all people but you’ve gotta get them in the door. Good design goes a long way, the bare minimum is MEH.
A quest to remain "more interesting" leads to constantly changing platforms, dark patterns, and intrusive notifications. A useful and effective platform enables communication in a reliable and stable way.
Thanks for your comments; we are very open to any more specific or detailed feedback on improving the platform.
Mmm, no. I don't think it should be a "quest". That's what Facebook is doing and I've never heard an FB user say they like any change that gets made.
I don't have any specific feedback about your platform (heck, I'm building my own social network at the moment), but I will say that your site is VERY text-heavy. I've seen your other comments about the common person not wanting to create a Mastodon instance and while I agree with you, the common person also doesn't want to wade through an essay just to find out what you're promoting.
Simple and Stripe are great examples of sites that have a LOT of text but it's designed in a way to make it not look tedious to peruse.
Lyra values language and aims to be an effective tool for large conversations; we're not worried about large amounts of text. We especially don't want to patronise users by hiding or folding up messages which they have taken time to write.
Huh? What does making your site less cluttered have to do with patronizing users and/or hiding their messages? Sounds like you're so wrapped up in Lyra land that everything you do is awesome.
This is what we are trying to rectify with Lyra, a conversation and debate service which respects the user's attention. Our team is led by a cognitive neuroscientist working on attention, and we're a nonprofit. You can read more about our approach at https://hellolyra.com/introduction .
This is what we are trying to rectify with Lyra, a conversation and debate service which respects the user's attention. Our team is led by a cognitive neuroscientist working on attention, and we're a nonprofit. You can read more about our approach at https://hellolyra.com/introduction .
There is plenty of research showing that the patterns and atmosphere a platform promotes can have huge effects on conversation and discourse.
This is what we're doing with Lyra (www.hellolyra.com): using a respect for language and cognitive load to create an open, sensible conversation platform.
Lyra isn't designed with any particular context in mind. We aim to allow the full expressive power of language, not imposing any ethos, topic or atmosphere. Lyra is a communication tool, not an opinionated social space.
You don't converse just to exchange news or learn. People converse to tell stories, to laugh, to discuss, to exchange points of view, to convince, to refute, to pass time, to plan, to reminisce... Lyra is like a blank sheet of paper. It doesn't tell you what to talk about. That's up to you.
Twitter wasn't designed to enable good conversations - it was designed for rapid, viral growth thanks to a gimmick which limits message length and sensible, nuanced interaction.
Have a look at Lyra - it's a nonprofit conversation service designed with respect for language and attention.
