SpeakBits: A civil Reddit alternative without censorship
Transparent moderation and inclusivity built-in
I created SpeakBits as an alternative to Reddit after becoming disillusioned with the extremely corporate direction that they have decided to take. I would like to return to the internet of a little over 10 years ago that was a much less about making money off of every interaction and more about the content and connections with users all over the world. I really hope to grow this site to fulfill that desire and hope that you feel the same way. I welcome any and all feedback and criticism as I believe that is the only way this site can grow to be what I want it to be.
Creating your own posts and groups is strongly encouraged so that everyone can start cultivating the type of content they would like on this site.
Why not just contribute to other alternatives instead of building this?
Ideological differences mostly. I think having NSFW content is part of the experience of these sites for a lot of people and removing that ability hampers the site as a whole. I think there is a decent middle ground between the wild west of the internet from the early days and the extremely sanitized experiences sites are leaning towards today. Aside from extreme, hateful, and illegal content, I don’t want to control and lord over what everyone posts. I would like the culture of the site to grow organically in the same way that others in the past initially did.
Features
I want to provide users of SpeakBits with all the features they know and love along with anything that might be missing from their experience today. The following is what the site currently has in place today:
User Experience
“Trending” posts page of subscribed groups
Defaults to “all” without NSFW when not signed in
“Top” posts page of subscribed groups with time sorting
“New” posts page of subscribed groups
“Controversial” posts page of subscribed groups
“All” posts page of all groups
List, Card, and Compact views
Click-to-expand images/videos in list view
Infinite Scroll and Pagination
Defaults to Infinite Scroll
Light and Dark modes
Profile page with all posts and comments
Site-wide search of all posts, comments, and groups
User to user private messaging
Site notifications
Progressive Web App
Posts
Text
Link
Image with 20MB limit
Video with 1GB limit
Poll
1 post per user id per minute
Youtube/vimeo embedding
Automatic GIF to MP4 conversion
Automatic link image scraping
Markdown for content with preview
Click-to-expand images/videos in list view
Up/down voting
NSFW content tagging
Crossposting
Cross site tagging for users with “@" and communities with “g/”
Spoiler tags
Multi Image upload and gallery view
Comments
Nested comments
1 comment per user id per minute
Markdown for content with preview
Trending/top/new/controversial sort
Permalinks
Thread collapsing
Up/down voting
Groups
Communities/subreddits/etc. equivalent
Public/Restricted/Private types
1 group submission per user id per hour
User subscription to see posts on Trending page
Post tags (flairs)
NSFW content tagging
Pin posts and comments
Post type limiting
Profiles
Expanded profiles with upvotes, downvotes, saved posts
Saving posts and comments
Moderation
Moderation is key for a well functioning site and reddit would not be where it is without the work of the mods. For that, I'm planning to build out robust moderation tools. I have never been a mod so this is one area I would love to have lots of input on. The following is what has already been built with much more coming very soon:
Post and comment reporting
Rules that appear in sidebar and reports
Management for group moderators/approved/removed users
Moderator queue for approving/removing/tagging/spam posts and comments
Post/comment thread locking
Moderation logs
Reasons required for approving, removing, spam marking, and tagging
Sortition moderation and appeal system
Temporary Banning system
Automatic CSAM flagging system
Monetization
I think everyone here knows that, at some point, the site would start costing a lot of money and would need to be funded in some way. I would love for the Wikipedia donation model to work for a site like this but everything I find points to that not being the case. Only 2% of users donating to Wikipedia, Reddit gold not covering server costs, and open source devs not tied to a corporation struggling to continue working on their projects being three prime examples. If anyone has anything that can convince me to give it a try, please let me know and I will switch this to a non-profit.
Otherwise, I am inspired by the PhotoPea model of advertising and subscription: one unobtrusive ad to the side of the screen that can be removed with a subscription. PhotoPea also has a premium feature that could be provided but I’m unsure what kind of feature is ultimately worth having on a site like this.
Following that model, I would have three available options for funding:
Donations for those that want to decide how much to give.
Monthly subscription to remove ads ($1.99)
Ads
One ad below sidebar on desktop
Mobile will switch to have one inline ad per page (every 27 posts)
Ideally, the first option would fund everything and the next two would never be needed. If that is the case, I would guarantee that ads would never make it onto this site.
Join SpeakBits Today
Whether you're a casual user, a passionate advocate, or simply looking for a platform where your voice is heard, we welcome you to join our growing community. Your ideas, opinions, and thoughts matter here.
Create an account today, be part of something extraordinary, and let your voice be heard on SpeakBits. Together, we can create a more open, inclusive, and free online world. Come join us!