FAQ

a small social network with no algorithm, no ads, and no engagement metrics that matter. you post. it appears. in order. forever. for as long as the bills stay paid on a shared $5-a-month server.

yes. there's nothing to pay. there's no premium tier. there's no future "pro" plan. there's no waitlist. the bill is small enough that one person covers it.

sign up with a handle, an email, a date of birth, and a password. you must be 18+. you'll get a verification email; click the link to start posting.

a label, not a promise. it means "everything that exists at launch." future changes go in the changelog.

really. your feed is your friends' posts in reverse chronological order. that's it. there is no "you might also like." no "people are talking." no shadowban. no boost. there's also an "everyone" tab that shows every public post on the site in the same order — newest first.

three ways: search by handle or post text, browse the directory, or get invited by someone who's already here. there are no "suggested" friends. that would be an algorithm.

it's the like button, basically. it means "i saw this." it's a counter. that's it. nothing about who noted what is shown to anyone (you can't see "who liked it"). it doesn't boost the post. it doesn't affect ranking. it's a one-bit acknowledgement — separate from the passive "seen by N friends" count under each post, which counts viewers without requiring them to click anything.

a repost. click share on any post; the composer opens with the original embedded as a quote card. add an optional caption, hit POST. the original author isn't notified.

mutual. i request → you accept → we're friends. either of us can defriend at any time, no notification. friends see each other in the "friends" tab of the home feed. if your profile is private, only friends can see your posts.

the operator of this site. when you sign up, you're automatically friends with @onion AND pinned at top-8 position #1 — like Tom on MySpace. you can defriend @onion or boot them from your top 8 if you want; there's no penalty. you'll just miss the occasional update post.

a small grid of up to 8 friends you choose to feature on your profile. position 1 is the biggest. it shows on your profile to anyone who can see it (i.e. everyone on a public profile, or only friends on a private one). you pick and reorder it from friends → YOUR TOP 8 using the up/down arrows. defriending or blocking someone auto-removes them from your top 8 (and you from theirs). it's the most MySpace-coded feature on the site, and yes, dropping somebody from your top 8 is in fact a small social act with social weight. that part is on you.

go to account → PRIVACY → flip to private. then only your friends can see your posts. your profile page shows your handle and bio but says "this profile is private" instead of your post list.

on their profile, click "block." it's instant. neither of you will see the other's posts, profiles, or activity anywhere on the site. you can unblock anytime from account → BLOCKED.

a little — and only in a way that's aggregated into a single number on each post: "seen by N friends." N is the count of distinct logged-in viewers of that post who are currently mutual friends of the post's author. that's the whole scoreboard. you, viewing your own posts, don't count. logged-out visitors don't count. nobody is ever shown who the N people are. if you defriend the author, you're retroactively removed from their next page's count. the underlying row (post_id, viewer_id, when) exists in the database so the count can be computed; nothing else is derived from it, no third party gets it, and it does not affect ranking — there is no ranking.

push: yes, but strictly opt-in and off by default. you turn it on per-browser in account → PUSH NOTIFICATIONS and pick which kinds you want (friend requests, replies, mentions, etc.). nothing pushes from this site unless you ticked the box. badges: no — there is no red dot, no unread counter on the nav, no haptic buzz on every refresh. notifications also live on the /notifications page; push is just an optional second copy delivered to your OS.

text up to 500 characters and an optional image. links in your post get turned into a preview card. @handle mentions become clickable. URLs get auto-linkified. that's the whole feature set.

yes, for 5 minutes after posting. after that, no — you can only delete and re-post. an "(edited)" badge appears next to the timestamp on posts that have been edited.

yes, any of your own posts at any time. it's soft-deleted — gone from feeds and the site but the row stays in the database for moderation. shared versions of your post still show but with "[original post deleted]" where the quote card used to be.

because we serve images straight from a shared web server. images go through compression in your browser before upload, then again on the server. final files are typically 100–200 KB. it looks fine.

replies turn timelines into threads, and threads turn conversations into arguments. we may add them. it's on the changelog queue. for now: post your own post, or @ them in it.

use the password reset flow. you'll get a link by email; click it within 24 hours and set a new password.

so we can confirm you're 18 or over at signup. only the year is stored after we check. we do not show your age to anyone or use it for ads. there are no ads.

the reason it's 18+ and not the usual 13+: we don't think social media is good for kids. there is nothing here a child shouldn't see — it's pg-13 and friendly. we just think a child should be doing something else. we know a determined teenager will lie at signup the same way they do everywhere. if that's you: hi. there are worse corners of the internet. but really, wait it out. it gets better.

account → DANGER ZONE → DELETE MY ACCOUNT. confirm. it's a soft-delete: your handle and email stay reserved (so nobody can impersonate you later), your posts are anonymized to @deleted, your bio is wiped. cannot be reversed by anyone but the operator with database access.

not built in yet. it's on the queue. for now, your public posts are available at /u/yourhandle/feed.rss as an RSS feed (50 most recent), which can be saved.

@onion. one person.

not yet. probably eventually. it's about 5000 lines of PHP and a small amount of JavaScript, running against a single MariaDB. nothing fancy.

as long as the bills are paid. the operating cost is roughly $5–8 per month for hosting. there's no business model and no scale ambition. if it goes away, your RSS still has your last 50 posts in it.

none, none, and none. there is no analytics service tracking you. the server logs IP addresses for two weeks for abuse response, and that's it. no third party gets your data. no advertisers exist on this site.

send @onion a friend request and post about it. there's no contact form yet.