Lyra: a platform for deep, meaningful conversations with people you care about
hellolyra.org
hellolyra.org
* The http://hellolyra.org/ page has that extremely generic "landing page" look, and doesn't actually show any of the unique things you say you're doing. I'd much rather see an example of a tree-based conversation than an unrelated stock photo or some gigantic icons in diamonds. The very start of the text on the page complains about words being replaced by images, but you're doing the same thing.
* All of the buttons inside the landing page content ("DISCOVER", and the three "MORE"s at the bottom) are useless and just scroll the page down slightly. I was expecting to be able to read more about the "no advertising" statement specifically, and just ended up with the page moving a tiny bit.
* https://hellolyra.com doesn't display any content with javascript disabled. A site that's primarily text shouldn't require javascript just to view.
* Your charter says "We will never sell or give away any data concerning you. Not one single bit.", but you're using Google Analytics. Using GA is giving away a lot of user data.
* On the "How Lyra Works" page, the image of a tree-based conversation is definitely not showing a high-quality discussion. If the site emphasizes quality discussions, show one there. And is that the actual way that a discussion displays on the site? If not, replace it with an image of the real interface.
- Will upgrade landing page shortly. I agree about those annoying "more" buttons. They are already gone.
- Correct about Google Analytics. This is an interim measure and will be gone soon.
- Good point re the sample discussion, we are changing this now.
I want to emphasize that if you're serious about protecting user privacy (and by putting it as the #1 item on your charter, I believe that you want to be), you'll need to be far more careful. You absolutely can't use Google Analytics, even temporarily. You need to remove your usage of Google Fonts as well, and ideally every other third-party service/resource.
This is not an easy thing to do, but truly protecting user privacy is difficult. If you have a small staff, you're going to have to make a choice about whether protecting privacy is worth all the additional effort that will be necessary.
Regardless of your choice, make sure that your public statements (and especially your charter) reflect the reality of the situation. When I see your charter start with "We will never sell or give away any data concerning you. Not one single bit.", but a quick look shows me that you are, in fact, giving away data, that immediately makes me distrust all of your other statements and principles as well. User trust is easy to lose and extremely hard to gain back, do your best not to lose it in the first place.
We have updated the charter to reflect use of Analytics and Fonts. We understand the security concerns associated with these services and will be phasing them out shortly.
Could you elaborate a bit more on your concerns with Google Fonts? According to this:
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/60464/are-ther...
..they can only collect request headers.
Again, maybe this isn't a level of privacy-loss that you're concerned about, but it's just not compatible with promising that you aren't giving away "a single bit" of user data.
Please don't misunderstand me, Wikipedia is also nonprofit and seems to work quite well, and it's a noble goal. I just happen to also remember my "eternal, irrevocable and always free" name@usa.com email address. They went bankrupt pretty rapidly. (I'm pretty sure that was the domain then, now it seems to be owned by some guide to US states and cities.)
Add a paid layer, with premium features. Make premium features a gift option to other accounts, so that it could be a token of appreciation.
Add a paid layer with the only paid feature being a "proud supporter" badge. Surprisingly many people take pride in that when it costs them a $5.
Add a donation button, run donation campaigns. It works for Wikipedia :)
There's no need to avoid being paid.
We simply charge £2.99 per year. We won't block any features from unpaid users unless we're running at a loss.
Another idea would be to somehow help me keep the important people on the service by paying for me and for them in one go, but I can't readily come up with something that sounds enticing.
If you actually used the idea, I'd be thoroughly flattered.
A subscription to Lyra costs £2.99 (about $3.70) per year. That's cheaper than a shit coffee. (Member of the team here)
That's a hell of a marketing slogan.
And this one: https://www.hellolyra.com/about?page=how-lyra-compares
The points which are most blindingly marvellous are a) control over your audiences and your news feed and b) a respect for language and words, which comes across in lots of different places in the interface.
Seems like a neat project, though.
Can you please give an example of how Lyra encourages a respect for language and words, when it is not moderated?
I'm trying hard not to be rude, as I respect anyone who produces their own platform, but as I see it, the only thing that makes words extra important in Lyra is the fact that it doesn't support images and other media.
And frankly, the UI is clunky af!
Lyra isn't aiming to move into Reddit's space. Reddit is a machine for sorting strangers' comments by interestingness.
The UI is constantly improving; can you tell us some specific issues you have so that we can look at them?
We are basically saying: your words are important, and we won't hide them.
Another massively important way in which we value language is that we don't build tools for the viral spreading of clickbait into our platform.
Moderation is a separate issue from whether you respect language or not. Lyra is carefully designed to be harrassment-proof without the need for moderation. We do this by prioritising people rather than online spaces (like forums or subreddits).
Scroll.
Click "View some conversations"
A registration form pops up.
There they lost me. Do they have nothing to show to a guest?
I'm also interested in what is fostering "meaningful conversations" beyond being able to manage your own groups and not having advertising...
A map in a book: no algorithms
A book and some fruit: no advertising
A book and some yarn: non-profit
And that a fruit symbolises growing a community organically rather than forcing it with ads.
And that some yarn symbolises spinning something worthwhile rather than creating a non-sustainable beast to flog for profit.
> As a result, subreddits need to be moderated, which mitigates - but does not always prevent - unpleasant behaviour.
Many subreddits aren't moderated, and many of those work fine regardless. Downvoting is the first line of defence against unpleasantness. (Or the second, with the first being "stay well away from the default subs".) Moderation tends to be more about enforcing house rules over and above basic civility.
> On Reddit, you have no privacy. Your entire post history is visible to anyone.
Is that true of private subreddits too? (Genuine question, I've never had anything to do with them.)
I'm not sure about post history on provate subreddits either.
Posts in private subreddits are not visible in your history unless the viewer also has access to that private subreddit.
and
"Lyra Communications Ltd, UK reg. 10534260"
are unfortunately not really compatible statements, particularly after the IP Bill passed.
To say that's not "giving" seems like semantics.
I think that if you're compelled to submit information, you didn't give it - it's been taken from you.
But we'll add a "within the realms of what is possible under UK law" section, I guess.
Just FYI, in the U.K. Non-profits are generally incorporated as companies limited by guarantee. If you are really not seeking profit for shareholders, this would be a better organization type.
I still feel like it would be nice to have something like a feed for my close members of my family. I can use IM to send messages to my parents, but a feed wld be nicer maybe.
I've played around with ideas like this in regards to non-profits, not having ads, keeping data private, and going long term. I'm not sure if the authors can post their tech stack, but I'm sorta scratching my head wondering what their stack requirements are and how $4/year will keep this going for a long time.
And while we're at it, how long is the plan? Decades? I only ask because in the way corps operate now, everything is short term. Outside of the megaliths (Google, Apple, FB), how many companies with your data can claim to be multi-generational? I ask this seriously, thx.
Lyra can be exactly this - a feed for close friends and family. Just make a group with them in, and set your Conversations feed to show just that group.
We have extensive experience with AWS (where Lyra runs) and we're confident that we can keep running at the price point we've set.
Because we don't intend to take any investment, our plan is to become sustainable. We don't have an exit strategy and we don't intend to sell. As long as our users are willing to subscribe, so that we can pay our engineers and cover our running costs, then Lyra is here to stay.
Apart from that, the only other data we store on you is your email/username/securely hashed password, and whatever you fill out on your profile. They will be available for download too.
And we have paragraphs. Do you have paragraphs? :p
We believe the tools you use to communicate influence the way you communicate, and a respect for language and the attention you pay to a conversation will lead to better conversations.
Yes, this. That looks like one of their goals, and I would say it's a welcome addition. The world has enough platforms for short, terse meme wars already.
They mostly occur in 1-to-1 scenarios.
And if they do occur, they quickly turn to ugly debates, not meaningful conversations.
Lyra also supports panel discussions (public read, but only a few people are allowed to comment) and blogging (private read AND private write).
Plus, the main issue is that email isn't nicely formatted or hierarchical.
> Public conversations can be viewed by anyone
So how do I view them without logging in?
alternatively, a thought provoking youtube video doesn't guarantee meaningful comments; and a meaningful comment doesn't guarantee a meaningful discussion
Lyra reestablishes people, rather than fora or subreddits, as the brokers of importance and validity.
You mean no images? No videos, too?
Even after we've known that a picture (or video) is worth more than a thousand words.
That's right. Lyra is a service that does one thing and does it well. There are loads of services that handle images really well (Flickr, Imgur etc). Lyra is for word-based conversations.
(We do inline links, so you can easily link to an external image. We MIGHT display thumbnails if there's enough demand.)
We'll add it to the menu shortly :)
> The only reason we exist is to enable deep, mearningful conversations.
Lyra's purpose is to take the control of your echo chamber out of the hands of an ad-revenue-maximisation algorithm, and return it to you.
Has somebody really got it out for Lyra? What's going on?
To be honest, creating multiple new accounts to promote your startup is slightly spammy behavior. Even if they are owned by different employees of that startup.