DayneRathbone's comments

Shameless plug: this is why my co-founders and I built https://letter.wiki

Thank you, satvikpendem :)

Thanks :)

Scott would be allowed to use a pseudonym - from our FAQs: Do I have to use my real name? Yes, please. We also ask that your profile picture is a photo of yourself. Anonymity tends to spoil the quality of online discourse, and we’re working to prevent that on Letter. Accounts which do not represent a real person may be muted: their letters will appear only on their own profile page. Exceptions are made when anonymity is necessary, eg: political/religious dissidents, whistleblowers, etc.

This. And also because we can't afford the .com ;)

Letter is open and free for anyone to use, and writers typically choose their own interlocutors.

Thanks for your kind words and insightful questions, schoen.

Are you aware of any kind of backlash, where non-parties to a letter exchange harshly criticize one or both participants, or your platform, for engaging in the exchange at all?

Yes, on rare occasions. Helen Pluckrose and Kathleen Stock both experience a backlash on Twitter for participating in their dialogue on trans/gender issues. Interestingly, they both reported that the backlash was predominantly from their own audience/tribe. Neither of them were particularly bothered by it.

A criticism I’ve heard with regards to the platform is that it appears to be aligned or associated with the Intellectual Dark Web. This is true to the extent that we strongly value free speech and good faith dialectic, but we don’t have loyalties to any particular group, and we welcome (and are actively trying to host) conversations with people from all sides of the ideological and political spectrum.

One thing that I notice in your platform somehow is a sort of I-Thou dynamic… Surely that militates against tribalism”

Thanks for noticing. We’ve put a lot of effort into nudging writers to engage in good faith. Little things seem to have a big effect. For example, the default text on the letter writing page is “Dear NAME,”.

surely some people are mad that some of the conversations are happening at all? ("Why is this person/platform legitimizing this terrible person by having this letter exchange?"

This hasn’t been a significant issue, but I’m sure we’ll see more of this as we grow. It’s not something we’re particularly worried about; my co-founders and I are happy to defend the primacy of free speech and the importance of dialogue.

Are you afraid that you'll be tempted to refuse certain letter exchanges because their topics are too intense or too taboo somehow,

No. In fact, we’ve actively worked to foster difficult conversations - https://www.impossibleconversations.info

...or because you're not sure the participants are interacting in good faith? Are you sort of at peace with the prospect of having to make that judgment?

We fully support writers' freedom of speech, and we do not censor content or ban users unless legally or ethically necessary (child porn, doxxing, fraud, and direct & credible threats of violence). If we’re convinced that a writer is acting in bad faith we’ll flag their account, and their content will only appear on their own profile.

How are people finding the platform and finding each other? Are you reaching out to them based on their prior reputations? Is someone suggesting your site to pairs of people who've been in social media fights, or seemed to be on the verge of them? Are people finding it themselves by word of mouth?

It’s a mix of all of these. When we launched, a little over a year ago, all of the conversations were initiated by me or someone on my team reaching out to writers. Now, the vast majority of our conversations happen organically: writers typically discover Letter via conversations shared to Twitter, and they invite other writers by starting conversations with them. We still do outreach, but limit our attention to high status writers.

How many of the participants do you think have some kind of celebrity or substantial following outside of your site? Do you think that makes things better or worse in some way?

The majority of our most popular writers have a following on Twitter, but our average writer doesn’t. Popular writers help with distribution, and the quality of their writing tends to be higher. As you might guess, there’s a strong correlation between the quality and expertise of a writer, and their popularity.

How do these exchanges compare to, say, a podcast video interview?

Good question. There are pros and cons to both formats. Audio is great because a lot of meaning is conveyed in tone, inflection, etc, and you often get a better sense of a speakers’ personality. The cons are that the conversation comes at you at the speed of mouth, and there’s a pressure to respond promptly. Podcast guests often feel a performative pressure, and they might misspeak, or convey an idea or argument less eloquently than they might’ve otherwise. Letter conversations, being asynchronous and written, provides writers the time to fully consider and understand their interlocutor’s position before responding, and enables them to present their best possible argument.

I did an SSC adversarial collaboration last year and my collaborator, and now friend, later interviewed me for his podcast, which felt like a pretty nice format too.

We’re currently exploring this format: a Letter conversation followed by a moderated, digital live event, which is live streamed and recorded. Our vision for Letter is to be the best place for conversation in any medium.

FYI, two of our writers, Buster Benson and BJ Campbell used Letter to flesh out their SSC Adversarial Collaboration submission on gun policy: https://letter.wiki/conversation/129

Edit: fixed formatting & typo

Letter is a platform for nuanced, public conversation - http://letter.wiki

I'm one of the founders. Happy to answer any questions.

Karma | Canberra (Australia), or Remote | Full-time or Part-time | $60k - $100k (cash & equity; negotiable) | UI Designer and/or Web Developer | https://karma.wiki

Karma is a platform for writing and sharing gratitude; our mission is to help people have meaningful experiences online, and help create a kinder world. We were recently selected as a top 50 finalist in https://openbookchallenge.com (final 20 announced 13 July).

This is a 6 month contract, with the possibility of a permanent position. In this role you'd be working with our UX designer and frontend developer to create our new UI. Ideal candidate has skills and experience in UI and web development, but we are willing to consider applicants with specialisation either.

Technologies we use: React / HTML5 / CSS

Contact me for more info: [email protected]

Karma | Canberra (Australia), or Remote | Full-time or Part-time | $65k - $100k | UI Designer and/or Web Developer | https://karma.wiki

Karma’s is a platform for writing and sharing open letters; our mission is to help people have meaningful experiences online. The platform is in beta, and currently undergoing significant changes.

This is a 6 month contract, with the possibility of a permanent position. Min 20 hrs/week. In this role you be working with our UX designer and frontend developer to create our new UI (https://goo.gl/Cpeoie). Ideal candidate has skills and experience in UX, UI, and web development, but we are willing to consider applicants with specialisation in UI or web development.

Technologies we use: React / HTML5 / CSS

Contact me for more info: [email protected]

Thanks, I appreciate the balanced criticism.

Karma | Software Engineer | Canberra, Australia | www.karma.wiki

Karma’s vision is to make it easy to learn about any person. We’re a small team of 3 founders, our product is in beta, we’ve raised a seed round of investment, and we’re ramping up for our launch in March.

Ideal candidate has experience in web development (front or back end), and is able to work full-time & on-site. However, we will consider all applicants. Remuneration is negotiable, and will include cash and equity.

Learn more about us here: * Blog: https://blog.karma.wiki/ * Pitch deck: https://docsend.com/view/ejkkpwd * Founder’s Karma bios: http://tinyurl.com/ClydeKarmaBio, http://tinyurl.com/MonishKarmaBio, http://tinyurl.com/DayneKarmaBio

Contact: [email protected]

Australia / Remote - Karma (https://www.karma.wiki)

Frontend Engineer Needed to Help Change the World

My name's Dayne, I'm a programmer from South Africa currently living in Canberra, Australia. Last year my brother and I started working on a project with the potential to radically shift culture in the direction of openness and accountability.

In the last 6 months we’ve built an incredible team (including an ex Google & Quora senior programmer, and some great tech entrepreneurs and CEOs), completed our MVP designs, launched a prototype, and secured seed investment.

Our plan is to demonstrate traction in Australia over the next few months, and migrate to San Francisco in late 2015 or early 2016. Our company is already incorporated in Delaware, and we’re hoping that with traction and growth we’ll get accepted into YC’s next batch.

We’re looking for someone with exceptional skills and experience in:

    - HTML5
    - CSS
    - AngularJS
    - Bootstrap
    - Ideally experience with: Grunt, TDD, Go, Cassandra (or other NoSQL).

Personality traits and experience we’re looking for:

    - Hard working & 100% honest
    - Passionate about freedom of speech & information. If you think that the EU's "Right to Be Forgotten" legislation is a good thing, or that Assange and Snowden are bad guys, you probably won't like what we're doing.
    - Must be smart. We’re looking for someone who could have created the frontend for sites like AirBnB, Quora, etc. The interview process will include a programming and logic interview with an ex-Google senior programmer.
    - Must show evidence of having worked on a project from start to finish.
    - Extensive experience is not necessary - our priority is building a team of smart people who share our passion for Karma.
    - Must be willing to relocate to San Francisco.

We are offering a salary as well as potential to earn equity in the company for the right applicant. If you’re interested, please send a resume/CV/letter/demo to [email protected].

Thanks, Dayne

Learn more about what we’re doing here: https://karma.wiki/#/app/start/about and here https://blog.karma.wiki