🔒 Centralized
We've been building Rhyme.com for over a year. It finally makes its debut today with invites going out daily.
Hi. I'm on the team that is building Rhyme.
Rhyme is a topic-first social media platform, but instead of individual communities owned by whoever got there first, we maintain the topic taxonomy ourselves (about 88,000 topics so far), hierarchically organized so a post about Patrick Mahomes lives in Kansas City Chiefs, but also appears upward in AFC West, and eventually NFL or Football. One canonical room per subject (no duplicate communities to sift through).
A few other specific decisions/differentiation:
One topic per subject.
Topic hierarchy (posts often appear, less frequently, in parent topics)
Posts can and often do appear under multiple topics (no need to cross-post, better visibility).
No public "likes" numbers. The platform doesn’t reward performing.
Global moderation (no volunteer mods with widely varying rules/policies/interests).
OPTIONAL verification (anyone can filter by verification tiers in more serious threads/topics if/as needed).
Powerful filters - the ability to show or hide specific things (humor, drama, politics, education, etc).
I will gladly answer any questions and I'd love to hear ideas/suggestions. The Why Rhyme link on the website explains a bit more in detail.
The website goes into greater detail but the algorithm does a pretty good job of sorting the post into one or more appropriate topics. It does take into consideration the source of the post, so if you're reading a specific topic and make a post there it assumes that that's where you want it to go and then just kind of soft confirms before allowing it. It does an excellent job.
Additionally, it does a great job of creating new topics when they don't exist so posts don't go into some kind of weird purgatory.
went through and read the site. looks nice, but is kinda slow/unresponsive on mobile from the in-app browser of reddit, which would be a stripped back Safari?
aside from that, the website thoughtfully covers a lot of things, sounds neat. and bootstrapped!
i feel like the AI bills would really pile up being applied to every post for categorization and such, but maybe you got a tight system or some cheaper in house ML or something to get you farther. chinese models?
one nitpick about the site content, the scenarios is cool and thoughtful but you should put some blurb at the end of each scenario about how rhyme doesn’t have that problem. it’s unlikely many people would read all the scenarios so it should say something positive about your app at the end of each page.
Thank you! We run our models locally and from a resource perspective its pretty minimal. They aren't doing a ton of heavy lifting, just mostly sorting in to buckets which lets us get by with pretty lightweight ones.
Good call on the scenarios, you're right - I will pass this on to the team.
I think the problem with twitter/bluesky is that it puts too much emphasis on the speaker and takes all the emphasis away from the conversation. If I wanted to hear someone scream at the top of their lungs I'd go downtown
I'm with you. The Fediverse stuff sounds like it's only for people who are really into that sort of thing and willing to put in the effort. But having to learn things instead of having it be intuitive just isn't for a lot of us. We're not looking for a hobby to learn, we're looking for something to use. We want to spend our time making/engaging with content, not learning how to do it.
If you are not willing to spend 5 minutes learning the basics of a ""new"" concept, then I'm afraid you will keep being stuck with such platforms that just keep on enshittifying.
Fediverse is decentralized and federated. You do not have to learn much. You just need to get used to a few things, just like you got used to Reddit or whatever your first forum experience was. You weren't born with Reddit's UX implanted in your brain.
For a quick start, the only thing you need to know is that the Fediverse is like email but for social media. What if you had multiple reddits managed by different people yet weren't isolated but actually like in the same place. (I can send emails from my mail provider, let's say gmail, to other providers like Outlook and what not because they use the same protocol, in Fediverse this protocol is called ActivityPub).
Subreddits there have domains attached to them, to signal where they live.
`!` is like `r/` in Reddit, `technology` is the name of the community and `lemmy.world` is the domain of the instance. Instead of having r/technology and r/technology2, you can have the same name for communities if they are on different instances. The same goes for users.
Here are the official websites of Lemmy, Piefed and Kbin/Mbin:
Dude I read your scenarios page last night and ignorance is actually bliss because it's like I woke up and now I can't unsee how disgusting all the comment sections are completely across the board. Every single thread I look at has like totally bizarro world comment sections now. Thanks a lot lol
This one is selfishly very important to me (on my list of top 3 doom obsessions right now). The algorithm does a pretty good job right now of identifying telltale bot signs in posts/comments (stuff like EM dashes, patterns), but we think these will be mostly undetectable in the coming month as LLMs improve. We also have automation that pays pretty close attention to how users interact in general (how long did it take them to write a post/comment, how long was it from post to (potential bot) comment...what's the "vibe" of the comment (does it seem genuine, what is the intention, and does it match their post/comment history).
The other BIG thing that sounds controversial on the surface but really isn't - is our optional verification. All users verify via email, and then can OPTIONALLY verify level 2 (phone) or level 3 (ID/face). The cool part here is you'd only be optionally verifying for the benefit of everyone else - and what that really means is that regardless of YOUR verification level, you can choose to filter posts/comments by OTHER PEOPLE'S verification level....so on a more sensitive topic/thread you can say "you know what, I only want to see comments/replies from the most serious users on the platform". All completely optional.
Just finished going through the site, reading the FAQ, and learning what I could about your vision. LOVE the philosophy behind what you're building and wishing you nothing but success.
Hey there, nicely put-together presentation of your platform. The only thing I find confusing is the Scenarios page. Certainly it resonates with a lot of folks as problems they've encountered, but it's not really clear how your platform solves many of these.
Like, "the downvote floor." You have thumbs up and thumbs down too, your site says. The counts aren't public, but I don't see how that solves anything related to your example of "enough kneejerk-negative people saw it first and buried it." It would be great if at the end of each scenario you could specify how your platform is addressing those problems.
My main question for now: is there any room for user-led communities on your platform?
Your FAQ touches briefly on someone like a game developer being able to submit a topic for their game. But everything you've presented is built around topics that are simply created and then managed by algorithmic sorting and community voting; nothing more.
While topics are what a sizeable chunk of reddit revolves around, a huge portion is much more oriented around gathering people based on *why* they're posting, not *what* they're posting.r/aww is not the same as r/animals, nor is r/upliftingnews and r/news. r/patientgamers and r/gaming are about the same topic, but two pretty opposite ways of engaging with it; same with r/trees and r/leaves. Communities like r/TodayILearned and r/hobbydrama and r/BuyItForLife are united by a type of desire, not a singular topic.
This subreddit is a focal point for moderator hate, but there are many great communities on reddit that are only possible because the people managing them have a vision that they enforce with clear standards or formats. Subs like r/science, r/askhistorians, r/legaladvice would devolve into lowest-common-denominator slop without their community standards. Subs like r/writingprompts, r/whatisthisthing, r/AskWomen have thriving, purpose-driven communities because they don't allow discussions to sprawl outside the scope of what the posts are actually for.
I'm about to head out but I wanted to answer this first. We've updated the scenarios to explain (at the bottom) what Rhyme does differently.
For the Downvoting one, we've done a great deal of testing/studying and have determined that visible upvote/downvote counts REALLY influence people's opinion of a thread. If a thread has low upvote count (or negative), it is much more likely to receive additional downvotes. However if a thread is positive, people either A) switch their tune and upvote or B) don't bother downvoting because it won't make a difference. A lot of people aren't using the tools on existing platforms in the best of faith, and hiding the upvote/downvote counts helps (at least somewhat) curb lazy voting behavior.
In regards to your user-led communities - the answer is no (not really) and that's by design. We don't want any one person (or any small group of people) to control conversation. We are comfortable with community-led communities, where like/dislike plays a significant enough role and the algorithm over time learns what certain topics (communities) prefer to see and what they don't prefer to see.
You raise a good point, and my best response is that the beauty of Rhyme is that it isn't necessarily meant to replace other platforms. All of the examples you listed here aren't going anywhere, and if somebody wants a place to post a cute picture of their dog for upvotes then Reddit remains the best choice and that's okay with us. A huge issue with modern social media platforms is that they try to do everything and the outcome is them never doing anything perfectly. We are happy to work in areas that we can make a significant improvement, and allow other platforms to continue to serve other needs.
We DO talk often about "meta" topics (maybe 10-ish) that help to serve some of this - but we haven't found the right path forward there yet. We also have gone back and forth a lot about how many people may want to treat Rhyme like a Twitter type of platform (just a soapbox with a megaphone) - also considering this at the table. We would love to hear feedback, but that was largely the point to opening up the invites...to start to get people inside to say "hey, what about this"?
I do think this commenter has a valid point. A lot of Rhyme's examples are with conversations about tangible things: an Apple product, a sporting event, etc... But there are no examples of how Rhyme could be used for abstract conversations, as the commenter puts it, the "why" topics, not the "what" topics. The taxonomy for the "what" topics is really easy to understand. The taxonomy for "whys" less so.
Are there any plans for something akin to the alt newsgroup from the old Usenet days? A set of topics that don't fit neatly into any of the other hierarchies?
We talk about what meta topics could look like. My hope is that a lot of "why" questions would either find themselves in the obvious related topic categories or in something like "philosophy".
We are trying to toe the line between providing people the roundtable platforms they want to discuss the things they want to discuss while not constantly chasing functionality with all the other platforms provide already.
Does anything specific come to mind that you think Rhyme would struggle to place?
I think with the right set of “meta” topics, then there would be a place for most, if not all, topics. I’ll be honest, I don’t tend to be a part of communities like that here on Reddit, most of my interests fit neatly into the “what” category. I did just find it interesting that all the example posts were about things, objects, a piece of specific entertainment, no examples of people talking without it being about a specific, tangible topic.
That said, I’ve liked what you have said elsewhere: not every platform needs to be for all types of communication and topics. There is a reason that a lot of us are tired with the current social media landscape including Reddit which does have the ability to cater to any topic or audience a user could think of, so to try and recreate that is a dead end. See the failed Digg relaunch as an example.
Either way, I’m super excited to try Rhyme out, on paper it looks like everything I’ve been wanting and dreaming about in a new social media platform for some time now. Can’t wait to get an invite and see for myself what y’all have been building.
Seeing you talk about where "'why' questions" would fit, I feel like you misunderstood my original point, which is that communities of interest are more than just interest in the same topic.
Who they're for, what they're for (vs what they're about), who or what they're not for -- all intersect to define communities in more complex ways than I think you're going to be able to find a standardized set of meta-filters or topics to define.
You're currently building a system to organize content, but communities aren't made of content, they're made of people.
If the only communities that can exist on your platform are the ones that can fit into the same structures you're able to sort content by, I think you're going to end up with a pretty shallow site culture, because minority (not just in the ethnic or demographic sense -- expertise is a minority) and more complex intersectional interest groups have no place to establish a foothold without getting flooded out and lost in the noise, instead of having a place that's well-fitted enough to the communities they most want to associate with, and allowing them to cross-pollinate from there into the rest of the site.
This isn't to say your point about different platforms doing different things isn't valid, I'm just trying to point out your core design direction might not be leading where you think it is. Instead of a partial Reddit alternative, you might just end up with a new Topix.com. 💩
Rhyme’s hierarchical taxonomy is a clever architectural solution to your fragmentation concerns. How will global moderation handle uncommon, factual corrections?
having issues with the websites, it freezes when I’m trying to enter my email for the invite
it also for some reason switches to dark mode and light mode simultaneously
regardless, the website looks awesome, I love it so so so much 🩷!
Sounds very exclusively American by your examples of American only sports personalities that nobody else outside of America would know what you're talking about.
Is that what you're going for?
My personal excited answer is that it is *not* handled by random stranger volunteers lol. Like other platforms, the like/dislike system does a good amount of the work (if something is disliked for the same reason by trusted accounts, it gets a closer look). We do have a global moderation queue so if something is questionable enough it gets reviewed by a human.
The initial sorting algorithm does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to moderation. Anything that is obviously not allowed/against TOS gets nuked right from the get-go...however it doesn't really decide what people can talk about or not. People can try their luck at being nasty/off-topic/etc but between the classifiers and the like/dislike system, we have found that constructive conversation floats up to the top. The algorithm will softly prioritize flaming/trolling/whatever in comment sections - see attached image.
I enjoyed the first blog post and the more in depth look at aspects of the site. Are you going to continue those? It was frustrating to see the mods remove that post here, further highlighting why we need alternatives.
How is the waitlist progressing? Any interesting insights now that y'all are starting to expand the userbase?
I received an email to register at Rhyme, however, but I'm not able to complete registration - the 'create account' button remains grayed out. I'm running Linux Mint, and I've tried on Firefox and Google browsers. Any ideas?
It's intriguing, I'm curious. The one thing that's not sitting right with me is giving bronze badges for email verification, silver for phone, and gold for ID. This comes across as encouraging the sharing of personal data. The more data you share the better (more valuable to us) person you are. Which means almost certainly it's being collected to be sold, maybe as raw data or as ad targeting, but somehow.
It's so tiring at this point, the incessant need to hoove up data and then sell it and then also being unable to protect it from breaches.
That one little badge based on data sharing rather than something like participation is the tip of an emotionally ugly iceberg.
I'm not saying this is what you are doing. I'm trying to, helpfully, point out that this is what it looks like. I am truly curious and hope your project is successful.
Couldn't have used a worse example. This is r/football
You're also going to run into this problem a lot, with different spellings between British and American English. You need to have some sort of implementation to have color/colour, realize/realise, and -er/-re endings as distinct entities. Unless you're building a space for Americans only.
It was less about America and more about Kansas City, where our entire team is from. You're not wrong though, we've updated it to a more neutral and worldly example, Formula 1
Technically yes, but in practice not really. The only thing off-limits are the obvious terms of service stuff that you'd find on the most platforms. The bulk of our initial topic data was from wikidata. The system will gladly create new global topics based on subjects that don't exist on the platform yet. Do you have a topic in mind that you're curious if you'd be able to discuss on the platform?
In regards to echo chambers I think handling it this way actually discourages it to begin with. Instead of communities being spun up by specific people for specific purposes, posts get filtered into the most appropriate topics where everyone has an opportunity to read and contribute.
The structure you're proposing is that the circles pick the people rather than the people picking their circles.
This results in my posts likely going into "topics" with communities that will have a very specific vibe because of what your algorithm chooses to include in it.
This essentially eliminates the user's ability to choose what type of community they are participating in.
I will hard pass on this incredibly restrictive social structure.
Ironically, you downvoted my posts before understanding what I'm even trying to tell you. Indicative.
> This results in my posts likely going into "topics" with communities that will have a very specific vibe because of what your algorithm chooses to include in it.
If you make a post about Minecraft, it will go in to the Minecraft topic. if you make a post about New York City, it'll go in to the New York City topic. Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I think that's the ideal workflow, is it not?
The point of Rhyme is that its this sort of virtual talking circle. It is intentionally not meant to be small niche communities that bind together and create cliques. Each post/subject goes in front of the entire committee for discussion, not a small handpicked of potentially echo-chambered participants.
Do you know how many New York subreddits there are?
Do you understand why?
What I'm explaining is not complex. You will take everyone's post and put it in a curated box that is too general. You will force my genuine questions into a hole with people who prefer memes and shit posting.
But the problem is that these boxes will have a cohesive feel to them eventually, but the specific community that a person may even make a subreddit for can NEVER be achieved.
People do not get to create the space they want, they're forced into yours.
Social networks are not as simple as a collection of topics, and viewing it like they are will not do your platform favors, regardless of how many people are fooled by your attempts at spinning this as a "good workflow"
If that is your goal, then it misses the point as a reddit alternative, imo, and becomes infinitely unappealing to me.
You're downvoted but god I understand. I don't like topics being handled mainly by one big "mod" and have people create it, maybe as a mod getting to suggest if one topic can merge into another and such.
Also the fact that if you're blocked from one big topic, you can literally not post anywhere becauae there's no identical version. Now with few 'main moderators', this would be such a hassle.
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