Monday, 28 September 2026Read from twenty-eight well-known files at 05:00 UTCFree · nobody pays to be in it
Every Pool in the consortium, read from its own address.
60 public Pools on twenty-three sites246 adsTwenty-three members, four readersTwo Pools dormantBlock list, version 8
Two new doors
Roomful, for dating, and Familiar Faces, for friendship, keep no Pools. They read the ones curators and people already keep, and each person in them still decides who may write.
Read from Roomful’s and Familiar Faces’ well-known files, the manifests of the twenty-four Pools named here and Roomful’s and Familiar Faces’ own Under the hood pages.
New this week
Each one came from its own site’s well-known file. This paper adds no Pools and removes none; it prints what the sites publish.
Five Pools appeared in the consortium’s files in the seven days to Monday. Four are open on their own sites: Wes Adeyemi’s Door and Sound Crew at Ferry Room Players, Rizal Santos’s Tagalog ↔ English at Correo Lento, Ada Quillon’s Portland, Friday 23 October and Bram de Wit’s Carpool to the Coast at the Board. The fifth, Writers and Researchers, is one of the project’s own, and it is planned: nothing runs at TranquilTech yet, and the people listed in it are invented.
A new Pool is a promise before it is a crowd. The four open ones list seven people between them, and each of them said yes first (§5.1). The smallest, Door and Sound Crew, lists one: Wes Adeyemi, who keeps it.
Ferry Room Players · 22 September
Volunteers who work the door, the merch table and the monitor mix, in exchange for the show.
Kept by Wes AdeyemiSigned in with OAuth1 person listed
Correo Lento · 23 September
Mabagal na liham para sa mga nag-aaral ng Tagalog.
Kept by Rizal SantosSigned in with OAuth2 people listed
Ada Quillon · 24 September
Who is coming to Ada’s show in Portland on Friday 23 October 2026, in an upstairs room on the east side with sixty seats.
Kept by Ada QuillonEmail verified2 people listed
The Board · 24 September
Shared rides to the coast towns for work, errands and the Saturday market.
Kept by Bram de WitEmail verified2 people listed
Kindling (the project) · 25 September
People who write about social technology, the friendship recession and the open-protocol revival, and want to talk to the curators and builders doing…
Kept by Kindling maintainersSigned in with OAuth3 invented people listedPlanned · invented members
Read from Door and Sound Crew, Tagalog ↔ English, Portland, Friday 23 October, Carpool to the Coast and Writers and Researchers.
The apps
Four read many kinds of Pool, and dating is one of them: Face Up, Heartwood, Sundial and Card Catalog. Each opens any Pool it may, like a browser opens a page, and keeps shortcuts of its own, Face Up in decks, Heartwood in rooms, Sundial in dials and Card Catalog in drawers; a Pool that fits none opens under its own name. Every card names its Pool, and nobody is shown as open to dating unless their own tags say so. They compete on how they show people. Face Up deals one card at a time, face up; Heartwood sets the whole person on one long card, with the other rooms they belong to; Sundial makes one introduction a day, at the same hour for both people; Card Catalog is a search drawer, filed under every field people chose to fill in.
For dating, each reads the others’ Pools, so the same people turn up in all four. Each keeps a public dating Pool, which any app may read, and 36 of the 53 people in those four Pools are in more than one. By their own accounts, all four read their rivals’ dating Pools; Sundial introduces both ways only inside its own, and one way from the others. The files hold eight public dating Pools today, with sixty people in them. Each person still decides who may write, and leaving one app costs nobody their place in the others (§3.5, §7.2).
Their Pools read this consortium’s block list, so by this paper’s own rule their makers are members now. The Pools run in the classifieds as a directory, not as ads. Familiar Faces (friendship and groups), Bellows (asks and offers) and Threshold (a desk for the people who keep Pools) keep no Pools, so they are readers. Roomful, which reads the files too, is in the story above.
A flyer faded
Amos Whitlock kept it. His own page says: “Started Chess After Close three winters ago. Moved inland in June and has not been back since.” He has taken no curation action since 18 June. Ninety days later, on 16 September, the Pool turned dormant, and the Board’s well-known file says so (§9.1). Nothing in it was deleted.
Theo Lindqvist nominated Priya Raman on 21 September. Priya is elected if at least two-thirds of the active members who answer support her. The Board notes: “Priya plays most Thursdays and has the night staff’s blessing.”
If the window closes without a keeper, the Pool archives: still readable, with no new requests or messages (§9.4). The vote, on the Board’s own page.
Read from the Board’s well-known file, its manifest and the Board’s own page for the vote.
Another went quiet
Marit Halvorsen kept it. Her own page says: “Director of the Slack Water Festival, which eleven months a year is her and a desk above the chandlery. Books the stages and asks the harbor nicely for the parking lot.” She has taken no curation action since 26 June. Ninety days later, on 24 September, the Pool turned dormant, and Slack Water’s well-known file says so (§9.1). Nothing in it was deleted.
Kofi Mensah nominated Birdie Novak on 25 September. Birdie is elected if at least two-thirds of the active members who answer support her. Slack Water notes: “Birdie keeps the 2026 Pool and offered to keep both years.”
If the window closes without a keeper, the Pool archives: still readable, with no new requests or messages (§9.4). The vote, on Slack Water’s own page.
Read from Slack Water’s well-known file, its manifest and Slack Water’s own page for the vote.
The block list
Two entries went on this week, both for a consent violation. On Saturday, a Pool’s address: free-friends-now.example/pools/everyone.json. Its entry says it “listed profiles that never accepted a handshake.” On Sunday, a curator’s identity: listed-them-anyway@mail.example. Its entry says the curator “submitted other people’s pages, a whole household’s among them, to Pools without asking any of them.” The protocol allows none of it: nobody is in a Pool without their own yes (§5.1).
Any member may propose an entry, and two others must second it. All 55 of the consortium’s public Pools read this list, alongside the project’s own (§7.3), and so do Roomful, Familiar Faces, Bellows and Threshold, which keep no Pools, by their own settings. The project’s five planned Pools read only the project’s list.
One person, several Pools
A profile lives at one address, and any number of Pools may list it (§3.5). Each Pool asked on its own, and each keeps its own proof of the yes.
One page, at theo-lindqvist.
Eight Pools on four sites
Also on more than one site
One page, at june-okafor.
Seven Pools on four sites
One page, at dario-bajo.
Six Pools on four sites
One page, at bea-nunes.
Five Pools on three sites
One page, at wes-mixes.
Four Pools on three sites
One page, at elena-v.
Four Pools on two sites
One page, at kiri-walsh.
Four Pools on two sites
One page, at kofi-mensah.
Four Pools on two sites
One page, at maecastellano.
Four Pools on two sites
One page, at yusra-h.
Four Pools on two sites
One page, at ada-quillon.
Three Pools on two sites
One page, at gideon-park.
Three Pools on two sites
One page, at bram-dewit.
Two Pools on two sites
One page, at lorena-castaneda.
Two Pools on two sites
One page, at maribel-soto.
Two Pools on two sites
One page, at docs.
Two Pools on two sites
What the paper can see. Only memberships in public Pools listed in a well-known file. If anyone named here is also in an unlisted or invite-only Pool, this paper does not know it, and would not say.
Not joined up. Personals, non-monogamy and chosen family are left out of this count, on purpose. Being in one of those columns says nothing about any other, so the paper prints each ad where its owner put it and never lines it up beside their other columns. The personals.
Counted apart. Eight people in the consortium’s Pools also appear in the project’s planned Pools: Ruth Adler, Imani Brooks, Inés Calloway, Rosa Delgado-Park, Obinna Eze, Nadia Farouk, Valeria Ortiz and Oswaldo “Ozzie” Reyes. Those Pools are not open, and their members are invented, so they are not counted above. From the project.
Kindling publishes a well-known file like every site here, and the paper reads it the same way.
The project plans to run its own Pools on Kindling, to support the protocol’s development and its larger mission: curators, builders, readers, the people who would govern it, and the people who write about it. Nothing runs at TranquilTech yet. The people listed in these Pools are invented, so readers can see how each one would work, and every file here says status: active only because the schema has no word for planned (the gap).
The project’s Pools read one block list, the project’s own at blocklist.json, and not the consortium’s (§7.3). To take part in any of them once they open, the curator contact in every one of the five manifests is josh@
Planned · invented membersCurator-only adds
People who already do introduction work, invited by the maintainers to run the first Pools and write down what curation is as a craft.
Kept by the Kindling maintainers Signed in with OAuth
With Rosa Delgado-Park, invented. Seven invented members.
Planned · invented membersUniversal opt-in
Developers building Kindling clients, readers, hosts and tools, in any stack.
Kept by the Kindling maintainers Signed in with OAuth
With Imani Brooks, invented. Three invented members.
Planned · invented membersUniversal opt-in
People who read the specification and the RFCs closely and say where they are ambiguous, missing something, or overreaching.
Kept by the Kindling maintainers Signed in with OAuth
With Tobias Weiler, invented. Four invented members.
Planned · invented membersVouching required
People willing to stand for the Working Group that governs Kindling by v1.0: two elected implementer seats, one IndieWeb seat and a rotating advisory.
Kept by the Kindling maintainers Signed in with OAuth
With Tobias Weiler and Ingrid Solberg, invented. Three invented members.
Planned · invented membersUniversal opt-in
People who write about social technology, the friendship recession and the open-protocol revival, and want to talk to the curators and builders doing the work.
Kept by the Kindling maintainers Signed in with OAuth
With Mei-Lin Zhou, invented. Three invented members.
Read from the project’s well-known file, its five manifests and the project’s own Pools page.
The paper reads what each site publishes about itself, from its own address, and nothing else. That leaves some things out on purpose.
| Site | In its file | Printed | Ads | What it keeps out, by its own account |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Many Moons | 2 | 2 | 9 | Publishes two Pools. Its own page also describes The Orchard Street Household, unlisted, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| Hearthhold | 2 | 2 | 6 | Publishes two Pools. Its own page also describes Intentional Co-Parents, unlisted, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| Late Supper | 1 | 1 | 1 | Publishes one Pool, its matchmakers. Its manifest says “the tables are separate, unlisted Pools”, and its home page describes two of them without a single name. Unlisted Pools are in no well-known file and no registry. |
| Scattered Light | 1 | 1 | 3 | Publishes one Pool, its stewards. Its stewards vouch newcomers “into a constellation”, in the words of that Pool’s charter, and constellations travel by invitation. It does not say how many there are, and the paper does not guess. |
| Foul Weather Friends | 3 | 3 | 14 | Publishes three Pools. Its own page also describes The Check-In Circle, unlisted, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| Midspan | 1 | 1 | 5 | Publishes one Pool. Its own page also describes Midspan Students, invite-only, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| Seen Work | 1 | 1 | 2 | Publishes one Pool. Its own page also describes Seen Work: Harbor Trades, unlisted, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| The Board | 7 | 7 | 20 | Publishes all it keeps, one of them dormant. Its page tells of a neighbor whose own page says noindex: no Pool lists him, and this paper would not print him if one did. |
| Ferry Room Players | 5 | 5 | 12 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Correo Lento | 4 | 4 | 12 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| The Circular | 1 | 1 | 4 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Drip Line | 4 | 4 | 21 | Publishes four Pools. Its own page also describes Thursday Night: Women and Nonbinary Climbers, unlisted, so it is in no file and never prints. |
| Ada Quillon | 4 | 4 | 20 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Rain Check | 6 | 6 | 41 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Slack Water | 5 | 5 | 43 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account, one of them dormant. |
| Wren’s List | 1 | 1 | 4 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Second Tide Books | 1 | 1 | 4 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Queer Harbor | 0 | 0 | 0 | Lists no Pools. Its keeper’s own page says the bar’s dating list is unlisted, because the regulars asked. That is as it should be: an unlisted Pool travels by hand, from the bar and from friends, not by file. |
| Face Up | 1 | 1 | directory | Publishes its own Pool. They are set as a directory, with counts and a link to the app, not as ads. |
| Heartwood | 2 | 2 | directory | Publishes its two own Pools. They are set as a directory, with counts and a link to the app, not as ads. |
| Sundial | 1 | 1 | directory | Publishes its own Pool. They are set as a directory, with counts and a link to the app, not as ads. |
| Card Catalog | 1 | 1 | directory | Publishes its own Pool. They are set as a directory, with counts and a link to the app, not as ads. |
| Cape Tarrow Alumni | 1 | 1 | 5 | Publishes every Pool it keeps, by its own account. |
| Roomful | 0 | 0 | 0 | Keeps no Pools, and its file says so. It reads other sites’ Pools, as this paper does. |
| Familiar Faces | 0 | 0 | 0 | Keeps no Pools, and its file says so. It reads other sites’ Pools, as this paper does. |
| Bellows | 0 | 0 | 0 | Keeps no Pools, and its file says so. It reads other sites’ Pools, as this paper does. |
| Threshold | 0 | 0 | 0 | Keeps no Pools, and its file says so. It reads other sites’ Pools, as this paper does. |
| Kindling (the project) | 5 | 5 | 20 | Publishes five planned Pools. The paper prints them as planned. |
| Site | Role | Operator | Pools | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Many Moons | Member | Many Moons, a community for consensual non-monogamy in the harbor counties | 2 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Hearthhold | Member | Hearthhold, introductions for chosen family: platonic partners, co-parents and housemates | 2 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Late Supper | Member | Late Supper, introductions by matchmakers who have met you | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Scattered Light | Member | Scattered Light, a rare-condition peer network (nonprofit) | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Foul Weather Friends | Member | Foul Weather Friends, a mutual-aid network in and around Port Ellery | 3 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Midspan | Member | Midspan, the first-generation mentorship program at Ellery Coast Community College | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Seen Work | Member | Seen Work, a trades referral circle for Port Ellery and the harbor counties | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| The Board at Port Ellery Free Library | Member | Port Ellery Free Library | 7 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Ferry Room Players | Member | Ferry Room Players, a musicians’ collective at the Ferry Room and Neap Tide Records | 5 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Correo Lento | Member | Correo Lento, a language-exchange letter co-op | 4 | Its site Its well-known file |
| The Circular | Member, and publishes the list | The Circular consortium | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Drip Line | Member | Drip Line, a climbing gym in an old trolley barn in Seattle, with a free Saturday run | 4 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Ada Quillon | Member | Ada Quillon, a songwriter in Port Ellery, who keeps a Pool of her listeners on her own site | 4 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Rain Check | Member | Rain Check, a board-game community in the Northwest with Thursday game nights in four towns, a monthly Big Game Day and a Discord server | 6 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Slack Water | Member | Slack Water, a folk and maritime music festival on the Port Ellery waterfront | 5 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Wren’s List | Member | Wren Alvarez, who keeps a list of date-me docs | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Second Tide Books | Member | Second Tide Books, an independent bookstore in Port Ellery | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Queer Harbor | Member · lists no Pools | Queer Harbor, a queer bar in Port Ellery | 0 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Face Up | Member · an app with its own Pool | Face Up, an app that plays its cards face up | 1 | The app Its well-known file |
| Heartwood | Member · an app with its own Pools | Heartwood, an app that reads the whole person and the rooms you belong to | 2 | The app Its well-known file |
| Sundial | Member · an app with its own Pool | Sundial, one introduction a day, at the same hour for both people | 1 | The app Its well-known file |
| Card Catalog | Member · an app with its own Pool | Card Catalog, search-first, with every field people chose to fill in | 1 | The app Its well-known file |
| Cape Tarrow Alumni | Member | The alumni office of Cape Tarrow College, a community college up the coast from Port Ellery | 1 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Roomful | Reader · keeps no Pools | Roomful, a dating app that hosts no Pools and reads the ones you joined | 0 | Its site Its well-known file |
| Familiar Faces | Reader · an app, keeps no Pools | Familiar Faces, a friendship app that reads the groups you already belong to | 0 | Its site Its app Its well-known file |
| Bellows | Reader · an app, keeps no Pools | Bellows, asks and offers from the Pools you belong to | 0 | The app Its well-known file |
| Threshold | Reader · an app, keeps no Pools | Threshold, the desk for people who keep Pools | 0 | The app Its well-known file |
| Kindling | Not a member Planned Pools | Kindling maintainers (TranquilTech) | 5 | Its site Its well-known file |
The consortium is the twenty-three organizations whose Pools read its block list, this paper among them. Twenty-two show it in their manifests’ block list subscriptions. Queer Harbor, whose file lists no Pools, is on the desk’s own roll. Roomful, Familiar Faces, Bellows and Threshold honor the list too, by their own published settings, and keep no Pools: they are readers, not members. The project is read like any other site and is not a member: its Pools read only its own list.