Open in
No app loads this, on purpose. A dating app that hosts no Pools of its own. It opens full, reading the Pools you already said yes to.
Roomful hosts no Pools and owns no one. It reads the lists you already joined, a curator’s date-me docs, a bookstore’s singles shelf, the list at your bar, and the public dating Pools other apps keep, so it opens full on the first day. We host no Pools. We read yours.
Free. Thanks after an introduction worked, if you like. Nothing before, and nothing to see who’s interested.
60 people in Jonah’s room on his first day, from 8 Pools on 8 sites: 16 through four curators’ doors, and 44 more through the Pools four dating apps keep in the open. We signed up none of them.
Why we built it this way
That’s the whole problem. The biggest pool in town wins, so one company ends up holding most of the people, and a new app can’t get started, because on its first day it is an empty room.
And the company in the middle is paid while you are still looking. So the wait gets longer and more expensive: likes you have to pay to see, attention in rations, a streak to keep up. Most of us are tired. Friendship never even got an app.
Kindling fixes the part underneath. Your profile stays on your own page. Pools are open lists anyone can keep and any app can read, with each person’s yes §3 §5.1. So we don’t have to own anybody. We host no Pools. We read yours. Our own discovery file is empty on purpose; have a look.
Opens full
Jonah Price builds boats in Port Ellery and keeps a date-me doc. He signed in this morning and joined nothing. Here is his room, and why it has these people in it and not others.
From every public Pool tagged dating in anyone’s discovery file §8.3: four kept by curators (Many Moons, Late Supper’s matchmakers, Second Tide Books and Wren’s List), and four that dating apps keep for their own people: Card Catalog, Heartwood, Face Up and Sundial. Someone on several lists counts once.
His page says he is a man looking for women. We show him the people whose own pages fit that, and who are looking for someone like him. The other 37 are one choice away: 31 left out by what he said he’s looking for, 6 by what they said.
Of the 23 who fit, 5 more asked that both people say yes first, 4 take messages only from people in a Pool with them and 1 only from people a curator vouched for §7.2. Everyone keeps their own rules.
Queer Harbor’s list and Late Supper’s tables are unlisted, and nobody gave him the address. Invite-only Pools are never readable, by us or anyone.
The first eight of 23, in the room’s order. Each portrait is shown from that person’s own page, never copied §2.5. They are illustrations: everyone here is invented.
How it works
Date-me docs
People already write these: a page about who they are and what they want, in their own words, with a link to send around. Kindling reads what is on your page §2. We show you what it read, and how.
docs.example/d/jonah-price-date-me
Boatbuilder. I cook on Sundays, read on the ferry, and I am looking for something that lasts.
A woman who likes early mornings, for something that lasts.
Small talk about the weather. Which, in a harbor town, is a problem.
If you like early mornings: jonah@mail.example
An invented doc, on an invented host. The portrait is an illustration; nobody in this example is real.
| Field | What was read | How we know |
|---|---|---|
display_name | Jonah Price | Inferred from the doc’s title |
pronouns | he/him | Inferred from the first line |
location | Port Ellery | Inferred from the first line |
intent_tags | dating, date-me-doc | Inferred: the doc calls itself a date-me doc |
about | Boatbuilder, 34. Cooks on Sundays, reads on the ferry… | Inferred and shortened from his own words |
contact_methods | jonah@mail.example | Inferred from “Write to me” |
verification | Email verified | Not from the doc: from the link Kindling emailed him (§4.2) |
| What | What his page says | How we use it |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 34 (born 1992) | His page says so |
| Gender | man | In his own words, from his page |
| Looking for | women; long-term | From his page; we use it to leave people out, and say how many |
| Portrait | An illustration on his page | Shown from his page, never copied (§2.5) |
Jonah’s doc has no h-card markup, so every field was inferred and is marked that way. Where a page has h-card, parsers read it first and never contradict it §2.2. Kindling asks parsers to record which fields were inferred §2.3, but the v0.1 schema has nowhere to put that yet, so today it travels only as far as this screen. The parsed profile has no age or gender either, so every app reads those from the person’s own page, each time. More on that.
What we won’t do to you
Those tricks only work when leaving an app costs you the people in it. Leaving us costs nothing, so a trick would just show you the door. Here is what we do instead.
The room is here when you are. Come back in a month; it will have kept.
Their own rules still decide what happens next, and a no is remembered.
The order is plain and written down: curators’ doors first, in town before further out, then the apps’ own Pools, and the curator’s own order inside each. Change it any time.
When someone would like to hear from you, you see who, their verification level and the door they came through, free (§4.5).
When you’ve seen everyone, that’s the room today. Go outside. It will be here tomorrow.
The only clock is Kindling’s own: a Pool’s request lapses after 14 days, and it just lapses.
You’re in a Pool only after your own yes, and the yes is kept where you can see it.
We show you the room. You and the people in it do the rest.
Where the money comes from
Roomful is free to use. There is no subscription, no paid tier, and no paywall on who is interested in you. Nothing is charged at the connection layer; that is Kindling’s own rule, not our generosity §1.3.
After an introduction worked, you can send us thanks, following Kindling’s v0.2 gratitude draft: voluntary, after the fact, never before, never required, and it can never turn into a paywall. That is where our money comes from.
If thanks don’t cover the costs of a small app, we close. You lose nothing, because nothing lived here.
We sell no ads and nothing about you. There isn’t much to sell: we hold almost nothing. Here is the full list.
The honest part
Try it. Two new dating apps open in Port Ellery on the same Monday. One owns its people. One is us.
?people, before it opens
It hasn’t opened yet.
?people, before it opens
It hasn’t opened yet.
The numbers are Jonah’s, from this page’s own data. Nothing is sent anywhere.
One room, many doors
The same people are reachable from any app that reads Pools, and from plain email. Apps like ours have to be good to you, because you can walk through a different door any day.
How: Pools are open manifests at addresses anyone can read §3.1 §8.3, and messages are email underneath §6.1. See Jonah through three other doors, or browse the library.