# FAQ ## Basics ### So what's a Wusoup? Be honest. Wusoup's a thing [[About/Development Story|I made]] to help **cool people meet other cool people online**. It's old-school **1-on-1 text chat** with [[About/Community Standards#Rules|strict rules]] and unusual [[Usage/Reputation|reputation]] and [[Usage/Karma|karma]] systems to keep the place clean, and to incentivize kind and friendly behaviour. It's [[About/Mission|on a mission]]. It's weird. I think it's pretty cool. ### 5 words: tell me why I want Wusoup. Go! It's about the people. Falafel (I had a free word). ### Another chat app? _Really?_ I'm so sorry. If it helps, this one's actually quite unusual. I'm pretty lazy, so wouldn't have made this if I could have avoided it. But I wanted something like Wusoup, and no one else seemed to be working on the problem - so here we are. ### Why no dating or flirting? Because Wusoup is trying to protect something fragile: a place where people can talk without wondering if every friendly message has an ulterior motive. There's nothing inherently wrong with dating, flirting, or sexual expression. There are just already **innumerable** places for that stuff, and Wusoup isn't one of them. When you allow even a little dating energy into a space like this, it tends to pull everything in that direction. People start performing, testing boundaries, second-guessing each other, and bracing for nonsense. The quiet, sincere, friendship-shaped thing gets trampled. So Wusoup draws a bright line: no dating, no flirting, no sexting, no hookup fishing, no suggestive profile content, no "just being friendly" comments about someone's body. Is that strict? Yup. Consciously so. The point is to make room for a different kind of connection: curiosity, kindness, conversation, friendship, and the rare relief of not having to keep your guard up every five seconds. For the actual rule, see [[About/Community Standards#2. No **dating** or **sexual** content|No dating or sexual content]]. For the broader reason Wusoup exists, see [[About/Mission|the mission]]. ### Is it free? Joining without an [[Getting Started/How to Join#By invitation|invitation]] may later require a small fee - mostly as a way to help filter out low-effort or underage users, and to help provide a more reliable way to permanently ban people breaking the rules (it's easier to fabricate email addresses than credit card numbers). Otherwise Wusoup is free to use. I may later add some fun benefits for [[Misc/Supporters|supporters]]. There's also no ads, and never will be. The idea is to try make something that's legitimately meaningful and **brings joy to people's lives**. If I can genuinely achieve that, then I believe that some proportion of those people will be happy to help support the site's continued existence. As a [[About/Development Story|lone developer]] my costs are low, and I'm happy to keep low ambitions ^^ ### Why no filtering by age / gender / etc.? I understand why people are inclined to want this - but filtering encourages exclusion and stifles the sense of **openness, exploration, and surprise** that I'm hoping to [[About/Mission|achieve]] here. When you give people the ability to filter, they tend (naturally) to see things in an objective-oriented way - and that tends to shape their relationship with Wusoup and its community in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. I like that people in the RealWorld™ don't walk around with labels floating above their heads. Saying hi to a stranger on the street involves some uncertainty, and I think that's part of the excitement - not something to try eliminate. ### Why no group/room chats? There's something special/important about the one-on-one form that gets lost in the noise of a room or group chat. And since there's already a bunch of good apps/services that do the group/room thing well, it seemed reasonable to focus on really **perfecting the one-on-one form**. ### Can I send images in chats? Yes, if you have a "good" [[Usage/Reputation|community reputation]] or better. Image sending is gated because it creates obvious abuse risks. Please keep images aligned with Wusoup's [[About/Community Standards#Rules|rules]]. You know, for pics of really good pottery. Or whatever it is that people send each other that isn't smut. ### Dude, your Wusoup's broken. \<thing> doesn't work. Sorry! Wusoup's a [[About/Development Story|1-man project]] and there's bound to be issues and imperfections, especially while I'm working on new ideas. I'm consciously prioritizing **experimentation over polish** to get feedback sooner. Polish will come once the community and I have settled on exactly how we want all this to work. In the meantime, please do [[About/Contact|let me know]]! You might be experiencing something I'm not aware of, and even if I'm already aware - it can be helpful to know what issues are most affecting folks. ### Why no native mobile (iOS / Android) app? Just practical limitations, sorry! Wusoup's a [[About/Development Story|1-man project]], so I need to prioritize tasks carefully. A survey I ran showed that most members are decently(ish) satisfied with how Wusoup runs on **mobile web browsers**, so I'm focused first on improvements to the core stuff like community quality and growth. Once the core stuff is as good as it can be, I may revisit the idea of native apps if there's [[About/Contact|community interest]]. ### Can I be a moderator? This isn't something currently possible on Wusoup, though it's on the cards for later if there's [[About/Contact|community interest]]. In the meantime, a metaphysical thought: in a sense, you already are! Wusoup's [[Usage/Reputation|community reputation]] system means that everyone gets a say in what kind of content is/isn't welcome. ## Privacy ### Why do you want my email address? Wusoup uses your email address as your **private username** for logging in. It won't be shared with other users, or anyone else. I'm not a fan of social logins \<rant redacted>, and an email address makes for a good username since it's unique, easy to remember, and useful as a password recovery mechanism. Your email address will also be used for **message notifications**, but these aren't spammy and can be turned off with _one click_. They're there to be useful, not bug you or sell you something. **Important**: to help prevent folks from trying to get around Wusoup's [[About/Community Standards#Rules|rules]] by creating multiple accounts, Wusoup **doesn't allow disposable email addresses** - you'll be occasionally asked to **log in by email** which won't be possible with a disposable address. ### What are you doing to protect my privacy? I take this seriously: - Passwords are **securely hashed** using [scrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrypt). So even if Wusoup's database were somehow stolen, your password would remain secret. - Wusoup runs over [HTTPS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Https) with [Strict Transport Security](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Strict_Transport_Security) and [Perfect Forward Secrecy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_forward_secrecy), protecting your data from eavesdropping. - Measures are in place to prevent [cross-site scripting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting) and similar attacks. - Wusoup's **servers are in Germany**, and subject to Europe's (generally decent) [data protection laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation). See Wusoup's [[Legal/Privacy Policy|privacy policy]] for more info. ### Do I have to use my Real Name™? Nope. If you prefer _NarwhalRaiderPope62_, go for it. **You choose your level of anonymity**. Just make sure you **don't lie** and claim to be someone that you're not, that's [[About/Community Standards#5. Don't **lie about who you are**|against the rules]] and may get you banned. ### Are you going to spam me? On pain of Reddit retribution: absolutely, positively **NOT** - Peter ([email protected]). I hate spam with gusto. Gusto. I don't share your email address with anyone, and any relevant notification emails all include a 1-click link to opt-out with immediate effect. Wusoup's totally okay with people leaving, and pissing people off with spam isn't in any way aligned with what I'm trying to do here. ### How long do my messages stay around? Each chat keeps a limited recent history to help you remember what you were chatting about. Older messages are automatically and **permanently deleted** once a chat grows past its storage limit. ### Are messages encrypted? Not currently, though I've already laid some [groundwork](https://github.com/taoensso/tempel) for a possible future update if there's [[About/Contact|community interest]]. ### Are you going to sell to EvilCo and give them all my data? Hah! Like anyone would want to buy this ^^ Anyway, I'm [[About/Development Story|clearly]] not doing this to sell out or for money - I'm doing it because I believe in [[About/Mission|the mission]] and want something like this to exist. Still, you don't need to take my word for it. Thankfully, many (most?) major legal jurisdictions today (including notably the EEA under [GDPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation)) provide users with the right to be informed of a transfer of data ownership, and the right to have their private data deleted on request. ## Fun nonsense ### Who made Wusoup? Who's answering these questions? Where are you? Are you my father? Hi, I'm Peter! I'm from South Africa, currently living in Berlin. I like to make things (like Wusoup, which is a kind of a thing). I'm [on Wusoup](https://www.wusoup.com/wz/user/8) and [X](https://x.com/ptaoussanis), and I have a [homepage](https://www.taoensso.com) like it's 1999. See Wusoup's [[About/Development Story|development story]] for more (sordid) info. ### Wasn't there another Wusoup a few years ago? Is this a glitch in the Matrix? There [was](https://www.reddit.com/comments/3hgyy8/hey_reddit_i_was_lonely_and_decided_to_do/) indeed! Good memory. I ran a small prototype a "few" years back that I ended up shelving due to a combination of burnout and family issues. This is the un-shelving, as it were. I.e.: **Wusoup's back, baby!**  This is a from-the-ground-up rewrite taking what I learned from ~~v1~~ v2 and some of my experiences since then. Will this reboot be more like Nolan's Batman, or Lee's Oldboy? Super Street Fighter II, or Duke Nukem Forever? Will Peter finally succeed, or will fate intervene and deny him his Wusoup win for a second time? What dark secret is Beatrice di Folco Portinari hiding? Who is the man with the wooden foot? Why did the old hag lie to Stephen about the TumTum tree? The answers to these questions and more - coming up (slowly). ### What programming language is Wusoup written in? Wusoup's 100% all-[Clojure](https://www.clojure.org/)-goodness on the JVM. I've released a lot of the architectural goodies as [open source](https://www.taoensso.com/clojure). [Redis](https://redis.io/) also deserves a special mention- Wusoup wouldn't have been possible without it. Not too incidentally, [Rich Hickey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Hickey) (Clojure) and [Salvatore Sanfilippo](https://antirez.com/latest/0) (Redis) are both major inspirations to me and absolutely worth checking out if you have any interest in this stuff. ### How long did all this take? Are you, like, nutso? Pretty much nutso. I've been working on Wusoup in different forms on-and-off now since 2008. Had logged well over 16k hours on the project last I checked, and that was... that was a while ago. I'm so tired and broke and lonely, oh god... what have I done with my life? ### How is babby formed? Is this meme still a thing in ~~2022~~ ~~2023~~ ~~2024~~ ~~2025~~ 2026, or am I just showing my age / irrelevance?