Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

lonelyworld.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 132 posts

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#111

Post by nofreelunch »

mLuby wrote: post #51
low_tech_love wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that always bothered me is how much wasted potential there is in tools like Omegle or chatRoulette. On paper they sound amazing, and a few years ago back when they started and not everyone was aware, I remember having two or three amazing (and entirely SFW) interactions with some random people from around the world. It was genuinely exciting in a super legit way. And then, yeah. It turned into what it is to…

Using Call of Duty (a military game) with voice chat was oddly similar experience. You can match with two other teammates, then you chat as you help each other succeed in the game, naturally building rapport. Then the game round ends and… that's it, you'll never talk to those people again. It's very abrupt and makes the whole interaction feel weirdly transactional.

That game is pro-war US military propaganda. Feed your brain better things. At least PUBG doesn't have a real world agenda.

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#113

Post by bubblic »

grapesurgeon wrote: post #24

this reminds me of the game Kind Words by popcannibal, like just a chill place where people share their frustrations and just wanna be heard. https://popcannibal.com/kindwords i do recommend adding an option for people to change the scope of their location, such as limiting to just state/region, country or continent for privacy reasons. this is a really cool idea

That game is real cool! There was a comment on its Steam page, describing the game like, this is a game that shouldn't exist yet it does. The fact that this game is selling shows that there is a market for a product like this. People are lonely out there.

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#114

Post by bubblic »

siwatanejo wrote: post #108
bubblic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you! The prime motivation to create this webapp (and the future project that is in the oven) was from my extreme loneliness during grad school. I never thought that I would be someone to experience loneliness because I thought I was a generally happy person with quite a few close friends I can talk deeply with. I thought, why is it that in this today and age with ultimate connectivity, there is not a reasonabl…

Hey nice initiative! I have similar ideas as you, maybe we should collaborate?

cool, DM/email me :)

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#115

Post by growt »

Delk wrote: post #104
growt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not going to mess with Schopenhauer, but I feel this is wrong in respect to hedgehogs and also humans.

It's probably wrong with respect to hedgehogs, but then, it's a metaphor, and what it's trying to say about human relationships makes sense to me in some way. The more intimate you are with someone, the more you're also aware of their pain and hardships. Intimate relationships involve conflicts and require compromises you would be able to avoid or not get into in a more distant relationship. They involve vulnerabilit…

I 100% agree with you that greater intimacy leads to greater risk of being harmed. The thing I don't agree with is "human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm". That sounds a bit too absolute to be true and is also not my personal experience. But it might be just the way philosophers talk, or maybe "harm" has another definition here and includes things like "changing the partner" that one would not define as "harm" in another context?

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#116

Post by MasterBel2 »

tchock23 wrote: post #109
mLuby wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Call of Duty (a military game) with voice chat was oddly similar experience. You can match with two other teammates, then you chat as you help each other succeed in the game, naturally building rapport. Then the game round ends and… that's it, you'll never talk to those people again. It's very abrupt and makes the whole interaction feel weirdly transactional.

I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s awkward to send a ‘friend’ request after one round, yet if you enjoyed the round it would be great to do another.

Recently in LoL I've been sending a friend request to anyone I have more fun with than the average random, and queueing with friends whenever possible. It is a little awkward, but definitely nicer than just randoms. Some players I'll play a few with then unfriend, if I learn that they're generally dislikable.

Wonder if you could ask them before the round ends, "y'all wanna play another?"

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#117

Post by sameers »

bubblic wrote: post #13
sameers wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need some moderation technique for any community - mores are not inherent in a society, they are formed through dialogue and enforcement. Digital communities are not immune to this dynamic. The digital tools could help you enforce rules more efficiently but someone still has to formulate the rules and adjudicate tricky situations. The good thing is that the prior experience of lesser-known and more-famous…

You get me. I am torn between releasing cool features to help people feel connected and holding them back until I have established some sort of code of conduct. Move fast and break things along the way, or try to do it right, especially when the people on the platform would bias towards the vulnerable ones. The engagement I am seeing right now feels magical, and I am afraid if I don't move fast enough, people would l…

People WILL lose interest and not re-engage - that's the default state for any social network. You have to figure out why they would come back - is it to re-connect with someone they spoke to, or to read some new content on the site, or to express again how they are feeling? And how do you make this all easy through the features you build?

You can start with some basic Code of Conduct that let's say Github, Reddit or Twitter uses - no need to reinvent the wheel. Then you can modify it as time goes to suit what's working or not for your community.

If you have a good model for iterative improvement that puts the user in the loop somehow, it'll be reflected in your engagement stats.

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#118

Post by adityapurwa »

bubblic wrote: post #42
adityapurwa wrote: post #25

I made something similar during Covid to help people cope, but it was specific for people who played Sky: Children of The Light game. The game launched right before Covid hit us and it helped people to went through the isolation. https://thatskywish.netlify.app if you wanted to give it a try. It follows the same principle that allows people to leave message for a friend anonymously. Wish that we have more website lik…

Nice, I love the graphics. Which framework did you use? Phaser? or just React?

Thank you! It is built with Vue. The star animations is built with canvas. The constellation was a collection of div and a canvas to draw the lines.

I recently open sourced the star animation at https://github.com/adityapurwa/starflies if you want to take a look.

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#119

Post by KomoD »

adityapurwa wrote: post #25

I made something similar during Covid to help people cope, but it was specific for people who played Sky: Children of The Light game. The game launched right before Covid hit us and it helped people to went through the isolation. https://thatskywish.netlify.app if you wanted to give it a try. It follows the same principle that allows people to leave message for a friend anonymously. Wish that we have more website lik…

Just visited it and saw several racial slurs and other profanity.

Re: I made a website for lonely people, and got >100 people to log their locations

#120

Post by boring_twenties »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #97
fiala__ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sites like meetup.com or reddit can be great for that sort of thing

I made the mistake of organizing a meetup through reddit once. The people that showed up were weird and socially awkward. Not saying that to hate on the site, it's just something I'll definitely never do again. Meetup is slightly better because it's more of a mixed bag but you still regularly get creepy or annoying people. The problem with all these sites for using them to meet people imo is that they're too open. If…

Wouldn't this strongly select for only desperately (for lack of a better word) lonely people? For everyone else, simply talking to strangers in real life is less friction than tackling some online quiz.
Post reply on HN