Noterook is a social platform where your content lives on YOUR computer, not mine. The server is a phonebook - it knows who you are and helps you find people, but it never stores your posts. This model has proven functional with carrion.chat after some growing pains and I think it could scale nicely to a microblogging platform.
You have a Book. It's yours. You write in it, you staple other people's posts into it, and anyone who visits your profile can flip through it and staple things they like into their own Book. Content spreads because people copy it, not because a server distributes it.
There is no algorithm. There are no engagement metrics.
Writing
You write a post. Markdown, images (hotlinked - paste a URL, we're not hosting your files), tags. No meaningful character limit. It goes in your Book and exists on your device.
Stapling
You see a post you like on someone's Book. You staple it - now you have a copy in your Book. The original author is always credited and linked. Anyone who visits your Book can staple it from you. That's how content spreads: person to person, copy to copy.
If the original author deletes their account, your copy stays. Their name becomes a dead link. You own your copy. That's the deal.
Additions
You can add commentary when you staple - just like a Tumblr reblog with a comment. This creates a chain: the original post, plus everyone who added something. When you staple a post, you get the whole chain as it exists at that moment. It forks naturally just like tumblr reblogs can fork.
Other people can add to the chain after you, and those additions spread through the network the same way everything else does.
Tags & Search
Tags work. That's the whole selling point.
You tag your posts. When you come online, your tags are registered in the search index. When someone searches a tag, they see everyone who's currently online with matching posts. Search only shows live results - if someone's offline, their stuff is unreachable (it's on their device, which is off). This is honest. No dead ends, no ghost results.
You search, you find people, you visit their Book, you staple what you like.
Reconciliation
Here's the magic: when two users interact (you visit someone's Book, you staple something, etc.), your clients silently sync in the background. Posts you see will be reconciled to live in your database ephemerally, being hosted for other people, until you log off. Posts you staple get put into your database permanently (until unstapled by you). If you already have that post, it doesn't get re-added, unless it's a fork in a chain.
Basically, you are all hosting everything for me. This not only keeps costs basically bottom-floor dirt cheap, but also means there's literally no physical way I can sell your information. The database system we are using (IndexedDB) can hold up to a couple of gigabytes of text. That's about 400 million words. You're not gonna run out of room.
This also means popular content is naturally resilient. If a thousand people stapled a post, it exists in a thousand places. It literally cannot be lost.
Following
If you follow someone, you get their Book squeezed into your feed as long as they're online or as long as you've been online with them long enough to reconcile.
You Control Your Space
Your Book is yours. You decide what's in it. You can remove any addition from a chain on your copy. You can block users so their content never appears in your Book and they can never see yours.
Tombstones (The Nuclear Option)
For content that is unambiguously illegal (CSAM, doxxing, etc.), admins issue a tombstone - a cryptographically signed kill order that spreads through the network the same way content does. When your client receives a tombstone, it deletes the targeted content before you ever see it. Tombstones are permanent and irreversible.
This is reserved for zero-tolerance content only. Regular moderation (harassment, spam, TOS violations) is handled through account-level actions: warnings, mutes, temp bans, permanent bans. Your stapled content survives your ban - only tombstones kill content network-wide.
Reporting
When you report something, you submit a snapshot of the content as evidence. This is the only time post content touches the server. Admins review the snapshot and decide whether action is warranted.
What the Server Knows About You
Your username, avatar, and bio
That you're online right now
What tags your posts have (while you're online)
Who you've blocked (stored as hashed records - the server can enforce it but can't easily enumerate your block list)
Who you've followed (same)
Your reports and any moderation actions against you
What the Server Does NOT Know
Who you interact with (reconciliation is relayed but not read)
How many staples anything has (some other numbers metric or view graph will be available in its place)
What's NOT in V1 (But Coming)
Asks - anonymous/named questions you can answer publicly
Queue/Scheduling - drip-feed posts on a timer
Sideblogs - multiple Books per account
Custom Themes - make your Book look like your weird little corner of the internet
Likes/Feed - lightweight bookmarking without stapling (a reference, not a copy)
DMs - maybe. I already built a whole chat platform, so, we'll see
Archive View - grid/calendar view of your Book history
Complex Tag Search - "show me posts tagged A and B but not C"
V1 is the core: write, staple, browse, follow, search. Everything else gets layered on once the foundation is solid.
Where do my posts go if I clear my browser?
They're gone from your device. If other people stapled them, their copies still exist. You should export your Book regularly. We'll make this easy.
What if nobody has a post I'm looking for?
If nobody online has it stapled, you can't find it. That's by design. The network remembers what people cared about and organically forgets what nobody saved. If you want something to survive, staple it.
Can the original author edit a post after I stapled it?
No. Your staple is a snapshot. If they edit, your copy stays as it was. They can publish an updated version that people can re-staple, but your copy is yours.
Can the original author delete my copy of their post?
No. Only admin-issued tombstones can remove content from your Book, and those are reserved for illegal content. Your copy is yours.
How do you handle NSFW?
The server doesn't store your content, so there's nothing to police at the hosting level. NSFW posts should be tagged appropriately so people can filter, but the platform doesn't ban adult content. Content filtering (v1.1) will let you hide tags you don't want to see.
Is there an algorithm?
No. Your feed is your Book, displayed chronologically. There is nothing between you and the content you chose to keep.
How do you make money?
TBD. Likely a Dreamwidth-style model: optional paid accounts with cosmetic perks, no ads. The server costs are low because we're not storing anyone's content, and the content we are storing is very slim. We could run this on a 15-dollar VPS forever.
What's stopping someone from stapling my art and removing my credit?
Attribution is baked into the data structure. The original author's name and link are part of the post, not a removable tag. They can't be stripped by stapling. (They could screenshot it, but that's true of literally every platform.)
It's called Noterook because Notebook + Rook the bird species.
This is a really radical, kind of insane idea for a website. But I am nothing if not a radical, kind of insane woman.
