Thanks so much for checking this out. I made this site as part of Ludum Dare 46, a game jam. The theme was "Keep it alive." I wanted to do something that was positive and that would give people an outlet to write about their experiences related to Covid. I've had to deal with some abuse, particularly after the first week, but overall it's been an incredibly positive experience.

There are certainly a lot of improvements I hope to make soon. I honestly built it in an evening and expected it might be dead within a day or two. That it's lasted over a month is incredible.

With a large influx of new readers, I'm sure you'll come across a few less savory posts. I'd encourage you to click the report button on the bottom of the page.

Thanks so much for checking it out!

Edit: Since this is HN, and I'm bound to get the question - It's built with Rails and Vue, with PaperCSS for the styling, Postgres for the database, and Redis is being used as part of the spam mitigation system. Oh, and the DB really will wipe itself if it goes more than 24 hours without a post.

2. It's strange how the simple things, efforts and connections mean so much these days

3. It is joyous and comforting how many interesting, loving, quirky, emotional, sincere messages I've found, and how few trolls I've stumbled upon. Hope it stays that way (understanding that it may be unlikely if it keeps getting more visibility).

4. I have no idea if by deleting reported spam you become more culpable/liable for any offensive messages you don't remove, or any freedom of speech issues - check the laws in your region I guess, and yes it's sad that one has to think about these things :-/

5. Best of luck! :)

Honestly, regarding 3, I've been really impressed by how positive people have been. When this was near the top of Reddit about a month ago, I really spend about 48 hours frantically coding and moderating. Those 48 hours taught me a lot about content moderation though.

On the whole, it's been an _incredibly_ positive community of people writing letters. We've received over 115,000 letters, and they've been read over 15 million times. Many of the first 75,000 letters were spam and highly moderated content. But I've been able to read most of the past 35,000 or so, and an astonishing number are kind, thoughtful, or heartbreaking.

We've also had a lot of positivity coming from non-english countries, which I've encouraged and enjoyed seeing on social media. It's been a bit of an excuse to brush up on my French. I'd eventually love to have a better native experience for non-english speakers, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Thanks again for the kind words.

My understanding that (recent news notwithstanding), generally publisher vs utility law in USA regarding ISPs, social networks, forums, etc, does take into account whether you are simply a platform (you don't moderate, just host) or publisher (you do write and moderate content), and protection against libel etc is different.

I am EXTREMELY not a lawyer but I do understand private websites have been bitten over their content once they started moderating / taking responsibility for it, i.e. unwittingly changed their status under that statute.

My suggestion to the author is merely to ensure they are taking the course that's wise and protective for themselves, in their particular jurisdiction, for their specific use case.

This isn't directly related to First Amendment freedom of speech rights, the issue is one of liability (but the purpose of the liability is -- allegedly -- to force platforms to uphold the principle of freedom of speech).

[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

(It's also not your responsibility to publish your abuse, I'm only opening up the opportunity to say more if you want to.)

The anti-trans messages were really important for me to remove. They weren't particularly hurtful to me, but a good portion of my webcomic's audience are trans teens, and I _really_ didn't want their first experience at this website I made to be hate directed at them.

Thanks for asking. I'll definitely write more at a later date. :)

The downside of it is that by the time you have 3 downvotes/reports, at least 3 people have already been exposed to the content. It might not seem like a lot, but that's 3 people who had to read something unpleasant, hurtful, or just a plain old waste of time on your resource.

Minimum 3 readers, usually many more, because people rarely report things, per spam/troll adds up fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queers_in_Love_at_the_End_of_t...

         border-bottom-left-radius: 15px 255px;
         border-bottom-right-radius: 225px 15px;
         border-top-left-radius: 255px 15px;
         border-top-right-radius: 15px 225px;

I think managing the spam could be the worse part, but best of lucky

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346004

“This website contains a timer for seven days. If this timer reaches zero a one million dollar donation will be made to numerous charities. The button below resets the timer.”

I was going to call it “This is why we can’t have nice things”

But I couldn’t find a million dollars.

For a charity, you could choose a good cause that upsets assholes. So they have to donate money to the charity to prevent it from getting the money that was donated.

Edit: Wait, are we reinventing poker?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction

Ah, here we go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_(Reddit)

Looks like it lasted about 4 months. So I guess that gives us a baseline for the over-under on the lifetime of this site.

A single person can send an unlimited number of messages to this new website.

Given that I would expect this to go longer.

On the other hand, The Button was an april fools experiment on one of the internet's most popular websites and thus garnered a ton of attention. This could easily fade into obscurity much faster.

So who knows!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_(Reddit)

I wish I didn’t make this life I have. I wish I had made different choices and had the foreknowledge to not meet certain people. I wish I felt happier with what I have, instead of yearning for the things and situations I don’t.

I just wanted to say, whoever posted this, things can get better. I was in much the same situation about four years ago.

One thing that helped greatly was antidepressants. But that's a can of worms that seems to upset people whenever it's brought up, so perhaps I'll just mention it in passing.

Good luck, whoever and wherever you are.

I am not person who wrote the message but I am in similar situation, may be it’s the quarentine and being alone at home for weeks now but I have been thinking about my choices and mistakes.

I hope it gets better eventually.

curl -XPOST -d 'body=you cant die. you will never die' "https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com/api/send_letter"

:)

Outlive an AWS account that never generates a bill? That could be a challenge.

Maybe run something like this hourly, which would give about 2 hours notice:

curl https://www.thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com/api/get_ttl -s | wc -c | grep -v 26

(Though don't run it right on the hour as too many people doing that might temporarily take down the website.)

The FTC has resources for small-business COPPA compliance and there are plenty of free tools to help with a privacy policy.

Thanks for the reminder.

Great page and excellent attention to the little details that makes it feel like it was made with love :)

"You are Big Brain. Good job finding an Easter egg. Know that God is Real. Believe in Jesus Christ and repent for your sins. It's not just a bunch of rules you have to follow but a relationship with him. Know that everything happens for a reason and God only wants the best for you."

And that if you reload the webpage, it's always at the appropriate seconds for 24 hours?

A Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen.

And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

And if it is, that’s not my fault.

And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

And if I did…

You deserved it.

1 AND 1=2 UNION SELECT table_schema, table_name, 1 FROM information_schema.tables

If you were a person you would be the type that threatens suicide for attention. Not the most healthy. Good luck!

https://krystalrose.com/rosewood/library/BigButton.htm

Eventually she died because because of website having issues and people not being able to support her

𐐌 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐑉𐐴𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐻𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻, 𐐮𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅 𐐿𐐭𐑊. 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐿𐑅 𐐼𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑉𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑄𐐰𐑌 𐑅𐐻𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐐲𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐩𐑋 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐑁𐐫𐑉𐑋𐐼 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐑄 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻. 𐐆𐑋𐐰𐐾𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐲𐑅𐐲𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐹𐑉𐐰𐐿𐐻𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐐹𐐲𐑉𐐹𐐲𐑅𐑆.

𐐡𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑋 𐐼𐐭𐐼 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐑉𐐨𐑀𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐑄 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐈𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻 .

> I like writing in this text, it looks cool. Works different than standard old Latin alphabet, but at the same time formed* from the Latin alphabet. Imagine this being used for practical purposes. Random dude intrigued by the Deseret Alphabet.

* The converter gave me "/f/aw/r/m/d/" here

Although I did see what looks like a blockquote rendered in what looked like code blocks. Markdown?

I'm missing the point

Some of the things you read can be incredibly sad, to be followed by something inspirational.

Excellent job, I'm interested in just how long it lasts!

“Dear Website,

I wish I was aborted.”

I wish you would put the "Read a message" button above the content so it doesn't jump around vertically each time I click it.