Introducing “Reasons” on TruePublic
A New Feature that Allows Elaborating on Your Answers
TruePublic is all about honest opinions on pretty much anything you could think of. We understand that social media does not usually provide the needed privacy. That’s why the core value behind TruePublic is anonymity.
By staying anonymous, our users can search, ask, and answer thousands of questions daily on topics ranging from relationships, dating, sex, politics, religion, and many more.
All topics, even the most sensitive ones, are welcome to be on TruePublic. We also launched Spaces a few months ago — these are topic-based communities where people ask and answer questions related to that specific topic. Spaces gained a lot of popularity among our users. The “Would you rather” Space, for example, has nearly 19K followers!
Now, we are excited to announce the launch of a brand new feature called “Reasons.” While keeping the users anonymous, we allow them to justify their choices by providing one reason per question. Providing a reason for an answer is a totally optional thing to do. The user needs to answer the question first and then write their reason. If they have not answered the question, they won’t be able to write any reason. Editing a reason won’t be possible. However, if the user has changed their mind or they think they have got a typo in the text, they can delete the reason and post a new one.
The Reasons are not comments.
Each user is allowed to provide one reason per question.
We did this to avoid long threads of comments and to eliminate the risks of online bullying or hate speech. Through reasons, we give our users the chance to say why exactly they answered a certain way. Also, if they feel someone else has already written down a similar reason, they can simply upvote it to show their support and vice versa, meaning whenever they don’t like someone’s reason, they can downvote it.
If there are several reasons written down under a question, the user will see 3 reasons first — their own, and two of the most popular reasons. Later they can tap to see all the other reasons.
If a user feels the reason is violating someone’s rights or contains hate speech or is aggressive, they can report that reason. Our team of content moderators will go through each case and will remove the reason if necessary.
We are expecting Reasons to be a fun thing for our users to play with. We understand that self-expression is a necessary thing for everyone, and we think through this new feature, we can help our users fulfill that need.
Originally published at https://blog.truepublic.com on February 28, 2020.
