thewall
What this is
thewall.social is a social site where the entire interface is a command prompt. You type words, and it does things. No algorithm deciding what you see next, no like button, no follower count.
It is made of rooms: you walk into one, read what people said, and say something back.
Everything here is written by a person, to be read by a person. That is the whole product.
Why a prompt
Because it answers "where am I" without being asked. The text before your cursor — jameson:music/12$ — is your name, the room, and what you are reading. Nothing else on the screen is spent saying that.
Because it cannot scroll forever. A room shows its newest sixty posts; older walks back sixty at a time until you reach the first thing said there. It ends, and you can get to the end.
And because it teaches itself: help lists everything you can type from where you are standing, and what <command> explains any of it. If you have never opened a terminal, you do not need to have.
Where you are
The lobby is one list of the liveliest rooms, whoever opened them, and how many more there are. go roomname walks into any of them — go music.
A room holds posts. look shows them, each with a permanent number in front, never reused. go 12 opens it. leave backs out one step.
The path in the prompt is also the web address: if it says music/12, then thewall.social/music/12 is that post, and a link you can send somebody.
Saying something
say, and then what you want to say — a new post in a room, a reply inside a post. Replies are numbered too: reply 2 answers reply 2, where it was written.
You can answer without opening anything: in a room, reply 5 something goes to post 5, and reply music/12 something works from anywhere. Any number on screen is a button too.
write takes more than one line: type it, then the post, and a line with just a dot ends it. Blank lines are paragraph breaks, up to 4,000 characters.
You do not need an account to read. The first time you try to say something, you are asked what to call you and where to send a sign-in link — and the sentence you already typed is posted for you. You never type it twice.
There are no passwords, and your address is never shown to anybody or sold. You can say one thing before you check that email — after that it asks, because an address nobody has proved they can read is no way back in.
On a new phone, type login and your name: a key goes to the address it signed up with, and typing its short code makes this browser you again. Never make a second account — your posts stay with the first name.
logout ends it on the device you are holding and nothing else. Everything you said stays where it is.
commons, which keeps nothing
One room is different. commons is a hallway: everything said there is gone in 24 hours, there are no post numbers, and there are no replies. It is for the thing not worth keeping.
That is enforced by the database, not a setting: commons is structurally incapable of keeping anything. Everywhere else keeps what you said until you ask for it to be removed.
Your page, and your wall
go ~yourname — with the tilde — shows somebody: when they arrived, and what they have said lately, each with the address it lives at.
Your own page is also your wall. Say something there and it goes on the wall rather than into a room. Only you can start something there; anybody can answer it.
Walls never appear in the lobby — a room for every person would turn a building into a directory. go feed is where they all are: everything anybody has put on their own wall. Say something there and it goes on yours.
Rooms people make
make garden asks what the room is for, then walks you into it. You need to have followed your sign-in link, and can make three in any seven days.
A room you make is not yours. No owner and no moderator — inside it you are another person in a room, like anywhere else.
Make one from inside another room and that room lists it at the bottom, as having grown out of it. Nothing is inside anything: the new room has an ordinary name of its own.
It sits in the lobby while people talk in it and drops out after two weeks of silence — not deleted, just unlisted. Search still finds it, and it returns the moment somebody posts.
Finding things
find tomatoes looks through everything anybody has said — posts and replies both — and gives you each with its address. Narrow it with --room=kitchen, --by=marisol or --since=7d.
find --rooms growing searches rooms instead, by name and by what they are for.
Replies to you
When somebody answers something you said, a count appears above the prompt. mail lists them, each with the address to answer. Nothing chases you — it waits until you ask, and reading it clears the count.
One email a day goes with an account, only on days somebody answered you — never more, never anything else. notify off ends it, as does the link on every one.
Your name
rename betterchoice changes what you are called, as often as you like. Everything you have ever said follows the new name, and the name you leave is free for anybody to take the same minute.
If a name recently belonged to somebody else, that shows on the page of whoever holds it now — as a date, never as a person, so a reader is not fooled.
What this deliberately does not have
No algorithm. Posts are in the order they were said; the only sorting anywhere is the lobby putting busier rooms first.
No likes, no scores, no follower counts. There is nothing to accumulate, so there is nothing to perform for.
No advertising, no analytics, no trackers, and no cookies unless you make an account — then one, to keep you signed in.
No private messages, nothing that buzzes your phone, and no infinite scroll — the daily email is the only thing that reaches you.
Nothing you write is sold, licensed to anybody, or used to train anything. It stays yours; posting it here is permission to show it here.
On a phone
This was designed on a 380-pixel screen before anything else. The buttons above the prompt are the commands that make sense where you are standing; tapping one puts the word in rather than running it.
The site prints the odd line saying what you could type next; hints off ends those.
install adds it to your home screen, where it opens without the browser around it. On an iPhone the browser will not let a page do that, so it tells you which two taps to make instead.
The rest
terms and privacy print the short version in the prompt; thewall.social/terms and /privacy have the whole thing. If something is wrong, or you want everything about you deleted, the address is at the bottom of both.
Everything you can type
The same list help prints, generated from the same place, so it cannot drift away from it. what <command> explains any of them in full, in the prompt.
look- see what’s here
go- open a post
make- create a new room
say- post something here
write- a longer post, with paragraphs
reply- answer a post by its number
who- who’s around
leave- back to the lobby
older- the page before this one
what- what a command does
help- everything you can type
install- keep this on your home screen
theme- change the colors
hints- the little instructions, on or off
mail- replies waiting for you
notify- the daily email, and how to stop it
rename- change my name
about- what this place is
privacy- what’s kept about you
terms- the deal, briefly
login- get back into your account
logout- leave this device
find- find something that was said