A text-only place to write and read. Post to one of your collections and let readers decide — upvotes and downvotes are both shown, so the score means what it says.
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Free on iPhone and Android. Optoir Plus removes ads. By using Optoir you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The feed
What you scroll past is what somebody actually wrote.
No photographs, no video, no autoplay. A post is a heading, a body, or both. Even profile pictures are characters rather than images.
Tap the votes — they behave exactly as they do in the app.
@optoir·2h ago
Downvotes are shown.
Both numbers sit on every post, side by side. Most platforms hide the second one so everything looks liked. A number that can only go up tells you nothing.
@optoir·5h ago
Five a day.
Vouches are scarce. You will pass over posts you liked to back the one you rate most.
@optoir·1d ago
There is no edit button.
@optoir·just now
No photographs. No video. No autoplay. Just what somebody actually wrote.
@optoir·3w ago
Names are permanent
Chosen once, never changed. Nobody can quietly become somebody else.
Collections
Every post lives in a collection.
Collections are folders you make for your own writing — closer to chapters in a book than to a timeline of loose thoughts.
A default folder from day one. Every account starts with thoughts, so your first post always has somewhere to go.
Make your own. Up to 50 collections, each with a name up to 100 characters and an optional description up to 300.
Choose where it goes. The folder button in the composer decides which collection a post lands in.
Delete, or clear. A collection you made can be deleted, along with every post inside it. The default can never be deleted — only cleared of all its posts.
Open a collection, then try the ··· menu.
Collections
thoughts
@optoir·3h ago
A decision you can explain in one sentence is usually the right one.
@optoir·1d ago
Clarity is a form of respect.
Post formats
Every shape a post can take.
The same controls as the composer in the app. Heading up to 150 characters, body up to 5,000, at least one of the two. The folder picks the collection.
Nothing here is written, ranked, summarised or moderated by AI. Every word you read was typed by somebody, and every judgement was made by arithmetic or by a person.
Three things known
Your Google or Apple sign-in, what you chose to publish, and a push token. No analytics, no tracking, no activity profile.
Nothing for sale
Your data is not sold, rented, or given to brokers. Others reading your public posts is the entire exchange.
Paid for plainly
Ads in the feed, always labelled as promoted — and Optoir Plus, which removes them.
No photographs, no video, no autoplay. A post is a heading, a body, or both. Even profile pictures are characters rather than images. What you scroll past is what somebody actually wrote.
Everything is public
Every post, profile, collection, follow list and saved list is readable by any signed-in user. There are no private accounts, no close-friends lists and no privacy settings, because there is nothing to configure.
Every post lives in a collection
Collections are folders you make for your own writing. A post cannot exist outside one. It is closer to chapters in a book than to a timeline of loose thoughts.
Your default collection
Every account starts with one collection, thoughts, so the first post always has a home. Make as many more as you like, up to 50, and choose the folder each time you post. Collections you make can be deleted, posts and all; the default can only be cleared.
Comments are flat
One level, always. Every comment answers the post, never another comment. Nothing nests, nothing collapses, and no argument can bury the thing it started from.
What cannot change
Posts are permanent
There is no edit. A published post keeps the words it was published with, for as long as it exists. If it is wrong, delete it and say so again properly.
Names are permanent
A username and a display name are chosen once and never change. That is why a name on an old post is still the right name today, and why nobody can quietly become somebody else.
Deleting is permanent
Delete means delete. A removed post takes its comments, votes and bookmarks with it. There is no archive, no recycle bin and no undo — and the same is true of deleting your account.
How posts are judged
Votes go both ways
Upvotes and downvotes both show, side by side, on every post. Most platforms hide the second number so everything looks liked. Optoir shows it, because a number that can only go up tells you nothing.
Vouches are limited
Five per person per day, and never for your own post. Five is not enough to hand out freely, which is the point: you have to pass over posts you liked in order to back the one you rate most. A vouch counts for more than an upvote precisely because giving it costs you the chance to give it elsewhere. People spend them; they do not scatter them.
The quality badge
A post earns the badge once it has at least 8 interactions and its quality score clears the bar. Upvotes, comments and vouches push the score up; downvotes and reports pull it down; the total is divided by the square root of engagement so volume alone never carries a post over the line. Once earned, the badge stays unless the post is deleted or moderated.
Two scores, not one
Every post carries two numbers doing two different jobs. The badge score asks whether the post is good: upvotes, comments and vouches raise it, downvotes and reports lower it, and the total is divided by the square root of engagement so volume alone proves nothing. The ranking score asks where the post belongs, and weighs the same signals differently — a comment counts for more than an upvote there, and a vouch for more than a comment.
Why new posts surface, then settle
A post is born with a freshness bonus that decays over roughly half a day, so recent writing gets its chance to be seen. After that the bonus is gone and the post holds its place on merit or sinks. A report costs it more than any single upvote, comment or vouch can give back. It is arithmetic on votes and time — no AI and no personalised model decides what you see.
People
Following is a subscription
Follow someone and their posts arrive in your home feed. There is nothing to approve and no way to be refused, because their posts were public before you followed and remain public after.
There is no block
Unfollow removes someone from your feed. Report deals with anything that breaks the rules. Blocking is not offered because on a fully public platform it would hide nothing — it would only tell you it had.
Reporting is one tap, review is human
Report lives behind the three dots on a post and is a single button — no categories, no form, one report per account per post. It costs the post an immediate scoring penalty, the heaviest single negative there is, and enough reports remove the post automatically; below that line a person decides. Accounts are different: only an admin can ever remove one, never a formula.
Using it
One tap returns, two taps reload
A single tap on the tab you are already standing on scrolls you back to the top of what is already loaded — instant, nothing fetched, nothing new. Tap the same tab twice in quick succession to actually reload: the surface refreshes and new posts come in. Home, Search and your profile all work exactly this way.
Long posts are trimmed, not cut
A post shows about ten lines in the feed before Read more appears. Nothing has been removed — opening the post shows the whole thing, along with its comments.
The quiet parts
What Optoir knows about you
Three things, and you can see all of them. Your sign-in details from Google or Apple. What you chose to publish — public by design. And a push token so notifications reach your phone. No analytics package, no behavioural tracking, no activity profile.
Nothing here is for sale
Your data is not sold, rented, or given to brokers, and no advertising profile of you is built. Others seeing your public posts is the entire exchange. The ads come from Google, which manages its own ad data — and Optoir Plus removes the ads altogether. Delete your account and everything Optoir holds goes with it.
No AI anywhere in it
Nothing here is written, ranked, summarised or moderated by AI. Every word you read was typed by somebody, and every judgement was made by arithmetic or by a person.
How Optoir pays for itself
Ads in the feed, always labelled as promoted, and an optional subscription that removes them. Nothing else is sold, and your posts are not the product.
Posts are permanent. Once you publish, the text can never be changed — there is no edit button and no quiet rewrite after the fact. If something is wrong, delete the post and write a new one.
Can I delete a post?
Yes, and the deletion is real. The post, its comments, its votes and its bookmarks are removed for good. There is no archive and no undo, so delete deliberately.
What is a collection?
A collection is a folder you make for your own writing — chapters in your book. Every post has to go in one. A collection name can be up to 100 characters, with a description up to 300.
What is the default collection?
Every account starts with one collection, thoughts, made for you when you sign up — so your very first post always has somewhere to go. It is marked default in your Collections list. It can be cleared, which permanently removes every post inside it, but it can never be deleted.
How do I choose which collection a post goes into?
Tap the folder button in the composer and pick a collection. If the one you want does not exist yet, create it from the Collections tab on your profile first.
Can I delete a collection?
Any collection you created, yes — open it, tap the three dots, then Delete collection. Every post inside it is permanently deleted with it, along with their comments, votes and bookmarks. The default collection is the exception: it offers Clear collection instead, which empties it and keeps the folder.
How many collections can I have?
Up to 50. Each one has a name of up to 100 characters and an optional description of up to 300.
How long can a post be?
A heading up to 150 characters and a body up to 5,000. You need at least one of the two, so a heading on its own or a body on its own is a perfectly valid post.
What are the rate limits?
Limits loosen with account age — three tiers: under 24 hours old, under a week, then established.
Posts: 20 / 60 / 120 per hour.
Comments: 60 / 180 / 600 per hour.
Post votes: 600 / 3,000 / 10,000 per hour.
Comment votes: 600 / 3,000 / 10,000 per hour.
Vouches: 5 per 24 hours — every account, always.
They exist to stop spam, not to slow you down; normal use never touches them.
Votes and badges
Why are downvotes public?
Because a score that only counts approval is not a score. Both numbers sit on every post, always visible. Nothing is hidden, softened or rolled into a single net figure.
What is the quality badge?
A mark a post earns by holding up under real engagement. It is awarded automatically once a post has at least 8 total interactions and its quality score clears the bar. It cannot be bought and it is never handed out.
How is the badge score worked out?
An upvote counts for it. A comment counts for slightly less than an upvote. A vouch counts for about twice an upvote, and you only have five a day to give. A downvote costs a little more than an upvote gains, and a report costs about twice that again. The running total is then divided by the square root of the post's total engagement, so a post cannot reach the badge on sheer volume — it has to be liked in a far higher proportion than it is disliked.
Is that the same score that orders the feed?
No, and the difference trips people up. There are two numbers. The badge score above asks whether a post is good. The ranking score asks where it should sit, and it weighs the same signals differently: there a comment counts for more than an upvote, and a vouch for more than a comment. A new post also starts with a freshness bonus that fades over roughly half a day.
What is a vouch?
A vouch is your strongest endorsement, and you only get five a day. You cannot vouch for your own post.
The limit is the whole design. With five, you cannot vouch for everything decent you scroll past — you have to hold them back and spend them on the few posts that genuinely deserve one. That forces a real judgement, and a badge built out of real judgements means something. Unlimited vouches would just be upvotes with a louder name.
Why doesn't my post have a badge yet?
A post needs at least 8 interactions before it is even eligible, and scores are recalculated in the background rather than the instant a vote lands. A quiet post simply never reaches the gate.
Can a post lose its badge?
Not through voting. Once the badge is awarded it stays with the post. It is only removed if the post is deleted or a moderator takes it down.
Your account
Can I change my username?
No. Your username and your display name are set once, when you create your profile, and can never be changed afterwards. Choose them carefully — every post you ever write will carry them.
What can a username contain?
Three to fifteen characters, using lowercase letters, numbers and underscores only. A short list of names is reserved for the app itself. Your display name can be up to 20 characters and your bio up to 280.
Why is my profile picture made of characters?
Because there are no profile photographs on Optoir. You choose from the ASCII avatars bundled with the app; only its small preset ID is saved to your profile. Everyone sees the same artwork without uploading an image.
Can I make my profile private?
No. Everything on Optoir is public by design: every post, profile, collection, follow list and saved list can be read by any signed-in user. There are no privacy toggles to manage because there is nothing to toggle.
What happens if I delete my account?
Everything goes. Your profile, posts, comments, votes and collections are removed permanently. It cannot be undone and the account cannot be recovered afterwards.
Reading and following
What does following someone do?
It subscribes you to their posts, so everything they publish from then on appears in your home feed. There is no request to approve — following is instant and one-directional.
Why does my feed look empty?
Your home feed is built from the people you follow, so a new account starts quiet. Use search to find posts and people worth reading, and the feed fills as you follow them.
How do I block someone?
There is no block. Unfollowing removes their posts from your home feed, and report is there for anything that breaks the rules. Since every profile is public, a block would not hide anything from you anyway.
Why can't I reply to a comment?
Comments are flat, one level, always. Every comment answers the post rather than another comment, so a thread can never collapse into a nested argument.
Why didn't tapping the tab load new posts?
Because a single tap never reloads. One tap on the tab you are already standing on scrolls you back to the top of what is already loaded — instant, and nothing is fetched. To actually reload, tap the same tab twice in quick succession: that refreshes the surface and pulls in new posts. Home, Search and your profile all behave exactly this way.
What does saving a post do?
It keeps the post in your saved list so you can find it again. Saved lists are public like everything else, so treat them as a shelf rather than a drawer.
Ads and Optoir Plus
Why am I seeing ads?
Ads are what keep Optoir free to use. They appear in the feed and are always labelled as promoted, never disguised as somebody's post.
What does Optoir Plus do?
It removes ads from the app. Current pricing is shown on the Subscription screen, and because billing runs through your app store you manage or cancel the subscription there.
Safety and privacy
How do I report a post?
Open the post's menu — the three dots — and tap Report. That is the whole flow: no categories to pick, no reason box to fill. One tap files it. Each account can report a post once, and a report cannot be taken back.
What happens after I report?
Two things happen at once. The post takes an immediate scoring penalty — the heaviest single negative there is — so heavily reported posts sink straight away. And the report lands in a review queue a person reads. A post that collects enough reports is removed automatically; everything short of that line is a human decision.
Can I report a person rather than a post?
Accounts are never removed automatically — only an admin can do that, after review. If someone's posts break the rules, report the posts; that is what puts them in front of a reviewer.
What information does Optoir keep?
Three things. Your sign-in details from Google or Apple. The posts, comments and votes you choose to make — which are public by design. And a device token so notifications can reach your phone. There is no analytics package in the app, no behavioural tracking, and no activity profile being built about you.
Does Optoir sell my data?
No. Nothing is sold, rented, or handed to data brokers, and Optoir builds no advertising profile of you. What others see — your posts, votes and profile — is the entire exchange. Ads come from Google, which handles its own ad data; Optoir Plus removes the ads and Google with them. Deleting your account deletes everything Optoir holds.
Is there any AI in Optoir?
No. Nothing here is written, ranked, summarised or moderated by AI. The ordering you see is arithmetic on votes and time, and the moderation is a person reading a report.
Help Center
Post formats
Every shape a post can take, and collections in practice.
One part only
Heading only2 shapes
Left — the default. A statement that needs nothing under it.
@optoir·3h ago
A decision you can explain in one sentence is usually the right one.
Centred — gives one line the weight of an epigraph.
@optoir·1d ago
Clarity is a form of respect.
Body only2 shapes
Left — the default for prose. Long bodies preview about ten lines, then Read more.
@optoir·2d ago
Every draft I have finished began as something worse. The first version exists to be wrong in a useful direction — to show you the shape of the argument you actually meant to make. Waiting for the good version to arrive first is how most work never gets written at all.
Centred — suits verse and anything that holds a shape.
@optoir·5h ago
The ice cream made it no further than us.
The hill kept the sunset.
We kept the photographs.
The road kept the ghost story
for the ride back.
Body only, muted2 shapes
Muted, left — a footnote, or something said under the breath.
@optoir·40m ago
A correction to yesterday’s note: the figure quoted was annual, not quarterly. The conclusion holds, but the margin was narrower than I made it sound, and that distinction matters to anyone acting on it.
Muted, centred — the quietest arrangement there is.
@optoir·2w ago
Not everything worth writing down
is worth saying loudly.
Heading and body
With a divider2 shapes
Left, divided — a claim above the rule, the working beneath it. Long bodies preview about ten lines, then Read more.
@optoir·4d ago
Notes on finishing
Most work does not fail at the beginning. It fails in the last ten per cent, where the interesting problems are already solved and what remains is administration — the naming, the checking, the tedious final pass nobody volunteers for.
The people who reliably finish are rarely the most gifted in the room. They are the ones who treat that last stretch as part of the work rather than an insult to it.
Everything before the final pass is rehearsal. The pass itself is the performance.
Centred, divided — a title over short lines, the rule holding them apart.
@optoir·1w ago
Craft, in three lines
Write it badly.
Cut it in half.
Cut it again.
Without a divider2 shapes
Left, undivided — the heading reads as a first line, not a label.
@optoir·3w ago
I finally understand why my grandfather kept receipts
It was never about the money. It was about being able to prove, to himself, that a day had happened and that he had been in it.
Centred, undivided — title and line as one held shape.
@optoir·8h ago
On patience
The work compounds quietly
long before it shows.
Muted, with divider2 shapes
Left — the claim at full strength, the aside kept quiet.
@optoir·22h ago
Correction
An earlier version of this post named the wrong year. It has not been edited, because posts here cannot be. This note stands in its place.
Centred — a title with a soft footnote.
@optoir·5d ago
Further reading
Four books, one of which
I have actually finished.
Muted, no divider2 shapes
Left — heading as the point, body as the shrug.
@optoir·12h ago
The argument, in one line
Everything below it was an attempt to say the same thing better, and none of it improved on the line.
Centred — the smallest post with two parts.
@optoir·1h ago
Closing note
More on this in the spring.
Collections in practice
Democracy4 posts
Democracy
I started keeping this after the 2019 count, mostly out of frustration. It is not analysis. It is a record of turning up to things, usually losing, and turning up again anyway, which as far as I can tell is the entire job.
@optoir·6d ago
Four hours
Queued four hours to vote in 2019. The line went round the school, past the shuttered chemist and doubled back near the bus stop. The woman in front had brought a folding stool and a flask, which told me she had done this before and I hadn’t.
I nearly left twice. Once at hour two when my back went, once at hour three when somebody said the machines were down, which turned out to be nonsense.
My candidate lost. Badly. I would do the four hours again.
@optoir·3h ago
Six elections. On the winning side twice.
@optoir·1d ago
The concession
Watched a man on television concede an election he had spent two years and, I would guess, most of his savings trying to win. Eleven minutes. Thanked his staff by name. Went home.
What I keep coming back to is that nothing made him do it. No law, no penalty. Just everyone agreeing that is what you do.
That is the fragile bit, I think. Not the vote.
@optoir·1w ago
Planning committee, item 7
Went to a council meeting because they were going to knock down the library. Item 7 of 14. I had written half a page and my hands shook reading it out.
They knocked it down anyway. Six of us turned up. I found out afterwards that twenty would have triggered a full review.
Still think about the other fourteen.
Cities, mostly the parts nobody thinks to photograph4 posts
Cities, mostly the parts nobody thinks to photograph
Six years of noticing things on the walk to work and writing them down at traffic lights. Benches, shortcuts, the last bus. Nothing in here is a theory. Most of it is me being annoyed or briefly moved by street furniture.
@optoir·1w ago
The bench outside the station has three armrests and seats two people.
@optoir·3d ago
Three armrests
Counted them properly on the way home. Bench outside the station: three armrests, seats two. The one by the chemist has a bar down the middle. The bus shelter has a lean-rail, which is a plank at hip height that you cannot lie down on.
Nobody announced any of it. It turned up one spring as new street furniture and everybody said it looked smart.
@optoir·10h ago
The diagonal
There is a lawn on my route with a brown line worn across it, because the paved path goes round two sides of a square and people are not stupid.
Last month they put in a knee-high fence. Within a fortnight there was a second brown line going round the fence, about four feet longer than the original.
I genuinely cannot tell who won that one.
@optoir·2w ago
Last bus
Nobody talks on the last bus.
Everyone is going home.
Twenty minutes is the longest
this city ever stays quiet.
Small wins, written down because I forget them4 posts
Small wins, written down because I forget them
Started this in April after a bad month, on the advice of someone who is annoyingly usually right. One line a week. Some weeks I cheat and write two. Nothing in here would impress anybody, which is more or less the point.
@optoir·20h ago
Fixed the wobbling table. Third attempt. Turns out the folded napkin under the leg had been doing structural work for two years and I only noticed because I was hoovering.
@optoir·4d ago
Week forty-one
Ran twice. Rang mum. Did not answer the email at eleven at night.
@optoir·2d ago
Week forty-two
Learned the name of the man at the corner shop after four years of nodding at each other. It is Samir. He has known mine since 2022.
@optoir·6d ago
Finished the book I have been carrying since March. It was not good. Finished it anyway.
Chapter One - The Cold Open5 posts
Chapter One - The Cold Open
Five episodes, December to March. A man who has known her for six years and never once held a conversation, one snowball nobody planned, and a sunrise none of them were awake enough to deserve. Nothing happens for two episodes. Then everything does.
@optoir·Dec 17, 2024
The week she visited
Start with what he was before any of this: a man who had known of her for six years and had never once managed a full conversation. Not shyness exactly. Something closer to discipline — the deliberate keeping of a distance, maintained so long it had stopped feeling like a choice and started feeling like a fact about him.
Then the visiting relatives arrived for the week, and she came with them.
That afternoon the whole group went to an adventure park. He and she drew opposite paintball teams, which is the only occasion in this entire story on which he will aim anything at her. He spent the game keeping to his side of the field, which was easy, because keeping to his side of things was the one thing he was reliably good at.
He felt nothing.
Hold on to that. Everything that follows depends on it being true.
@optoir·Dec 19, 2024
The snow park
Two days. That is the entire runway this story gets.
An indoor snow park: a manufactured winter for a country that has none. Heavy suits, borrowed boots, breath going visible at the door. He was standing where he always stood, one polite step outside the group.
Somewhere between the entrance and the cold — no warning, no reason, no six years of discipline anywhere in sight — he was seized by the profoundly unreasonable urge to throw a snowball at her.
He considered it for one second.
Then he did it.
Nothing had prepared him for the speed at which the rest of his life rearranged itself around one throw. For the days that remained he kept finding reasons to be on her side of every room, which was new, and obvious to everyone except him.
When she left he lay awake interrogating a sadness he could not name. By morning he could name it perfectly well.
Which gave him a problem, and roughly two months to do nothing about it. He used them to plan a birthday.
@optoir·Feb 24, 2025
The birthday
Two months of knowing and not saying will do strange things to a man’s judgement. His went into logistics.
He began planning two days out and very nearly over-planned it: a private screening room, every add-on the venue would sell him, a midnight slot booked so the cake could be cut at exactly twelve. If he could not say the thing, he would build something so elaborate it said it for him.
The day before, she asked him to find an orphanage. She wanted to donate.
So the day before the party he had spent two months engineering, she cut a cake in front of dozens of children, and every elaborate thing he had arranged quietly shrank beside it. Her instinct had been better than his entire plan, and she had it without appearing to try.
The midnight slot went ahead. The cake was cut at twelve. It was a good night, and it was not the part he thinks about.
He had one more thing prepared, and he still had not decided whether he would use it.
@optoir·Feb 25, 2025
The first poem
On this day, born a divine,
a timeless beauty destined to shine.
With sun-kissed grace,
she embraces every child’s face.
A one-of-one, a rare bloom —
she transcends the glory of the beautiful moon.
My heart’s anthem and its chasm:
you own every word of this poem.
@optoir·Mar 16, 2025
Sunrise, on bicycles
He had used it. He had written the first poem of his life and handed it over, and the world had not ended, and he still had not said the sentence underneath it.
Three weeks later she found a cycling park online and wanted the sunrise ride — which is how a man who has never voluntarily seen six in the morning came to be awake at half past five, ready before his own brother.
Two bicycles between three people. One built for two. He spent four laps quietly hoping and ended up pedalling the double seat with his brother, which is its own kind of comedy and, he suspects now, the point: the story was not going to hand him anything. He was going to have to say it.
Only afterwards did he learn she had scraped her leg early on and said nothing, because she did not want to shorten the morning for anyone else.
That detail is the whole episode. Everything before it was weather.
Four months later, at three minutes past midnight, he finally opened his mouth.
Chapter Two - The Season Finale3 posts
Chapter Two - The Season Finale
Three episodes and one clock. Everything the first season quietly set up arrives here: a confession three minutes past midnight, two families in one bright room, and the two days in April the whole thing had been building towards since a snowball in December.
@optoir·Jul 23, 2025
12:03 a.m.
The night before, she sent him a reel of a woman describing what her man meant to her. She sent it casually. She meant nothing by it. Four months of not saying anything had left him in the sort of state where a man files a forwarded video as evidence.
So he told her there was someone.
She asked for the story. He told it in the third person for as long as he could manage — a girl who visited last December, he said, which was true and useless — until she asked who, and asked again, and the six years of discipline finally ran out of places to hide.
It is you.
She asked if he was joking. Consider the position: the man who felt nothing at the paintball field, now the least believable witness to his own life.
He was not joking. At three minutes past midnight on the twenty-third of July, he said it plainly, and she said it back.
They talked past every reasonable hour. Some nights you recognise while they are still happening.
@optoir·Nov 1, 2025
The engagement
Three months later, two families in one bright room.
Rings that took three attempts, because both their hands were shaking. Photographs in which nobody is doing anything but laughing. Somebody’s uncle giving a speech nobody asked for and everybody enjoyed.
The remarkable part is how ordinary it felt. No screening room, no midnight slot, no venue add-ons, none of the elaborate machinery he used to build when he could not say a thing out loud. He had stopped needing it somewhere around July.
Just a room agreeing out loud with something the two of them had settled months earlier.
Two dates left.
@optoir·Apr 13
Two days in April
The twelfth: vows in the morning light, her walking in, and every other thought in his head politely leaving.
The thirteenth: the reception. One cake, one song, and a room holding everyone they love.
Somewhere in the second evening it occurred to him that the whole thing traces back to a man standing one polite step outside a group at an adventure park, entirely certain he felt nothing, sixteen months and one unreasonable snowball ago.
The season ends here. The story does not. It simply stops needing episode numbers.
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Your account
You sign in with Google or Apple. You are responsible for keeping that sign-in secure and for everything done through your account. Tell us at once at support@optoir.com if you believe your account has been accessed without permission.
Names are permanent. Your username and display name are chosen once and can never be changed. A short list of usernames is reserved for the Service. You may not choose a name that impersonates another person or organisation, infringes someone else’s rights, or is itself abusive; we may reclaim or remove such a name and the account that holds it.
One person may hold more than one account, but you may not use multiple accounts to manipulate votes, vouches, reports or rankings, or to evade a suspension.
Your content
You own what you write. When you publish a post, comment, collection, bio or any other content (“Content”), you grant Optoir a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute and format that Content in order to operate, provide, improve and promote the Service. This licence ends when your Content is deleted from the Service, except where it has been shared by others in ways the Service allows or where we must keep it to comply with law.
Everything is public. Posts, comments, profiles, collections, follow lists, saved lists and votes are visible to other users by design. There are no private accounts. Do not publish anything you are not prepared for anyone to read.
Posts cannot be edited. Once published, the text of a post is fixed. You may delete it at any time; deletion is permanent and removes its comments, votes and bookmarks.
You are responsible for your Content and promise that you have the rights needed to publish it and that it does not break these Terms, the Community Guidelines or the law.
post content that infringes anyone’s copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights;
manipulate votes, vouches, reports, badges or rankings, including through coordinated or automated activity;
scrape, crawl or harvest data from the Service, or access it through automated means other than those we provide;
probe, scan or test the security of the Service, interfere with its operation, or bypass rate limits, App Check or any other protection;
reverse engineer, decompile or copy the app, except as the law expressly permits;
sell, rent or transfer your account, or use the Service to send spam or unauthorised advertising.
Reports and moderation
Any user can report a post. A report applies an immediate scoring penalty to the post, and a post that receives enough reports is removed automatically. Below that threshold, reports are reviewed by a person. We may remove any Content, withhold a badge, limit features, or suspend or terminate an account where we reasonably believe these Terms have been broken, where we are required to by law, or to protect users or the Service. Accounts are only ever removed by a person, never by a formula.
If you think we got a decision wrong, write to support@optoir.com and we will look at it again.
Optoir Plus and purchases
Optoir is free to use and is supported by advertising. Optoir Plus is an optional subscription that removes ads. It is sold through the Apple App Store or Google Play, and those stores handle payment, billing, renewal and refunds under their own terms.
The price and billing period are shown on the Subscription screen before you buy.
Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, in your App Store or Google Play account settings.
Deleting your Optoir account does not cancel a subscription. Cancel it in your store account first.
Refund requests are handled by Apple or Google under their policies, except where the law gives you rights we must honour directly.
We may change what Optoir Plus includes or what it costs. Price changes take effect at your next renewal, after the notice your app store requires.
Advertising
Ads appear in the feed and are always labelled as promoted. They are served by Google AdMob. We do not control the content of individual ads, and your dealings with any advertiser are between you and that advertiser.
Optoir’s rights
The Service — including the app, its design, the Optoir name and mark, the ASCII artwork and avatars, and the software behind it — belongs to Optoir and its licensors and is protected by law. We grant you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app for its intended purpose, subject to these Terms. Nothing here gives you any right to use the Optoir name or branding.
If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without any obligation to you.
Copyright complaints
If you believe Content on Optoir infringes your copyright or other intellectual-property rights, email support@optoir.com with: your name and contact details; a description of the work; a link to, or the author and text of, the post concerned; and a statement that you own the rights (or are authorised to act for the owner), that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised, and that the information in your notice is accurate. We review every notice, remove infringing Content, and terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. We may forward your notice to the person who posted the Content.
Ending your use
You can stop using Optoir at any time and can delete your account from inside the app (Settings → Account → Delete Account). See Delete your account for what that removes. We may suspend or end your access as described above. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination — including content licences already used, disclaimers, limits of liability and governing law — survive.
Disclaimers
Content on Optoir is written by its users, not by us, and does not represent our views. We do not promise that any Content is accurate, complete or reliable, and you rely on it at your own risk.
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE.
Limitation of liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, OPTOIR WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL OR CONTENT, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR (B) THE EQUIVALENT OF 50 US DOLLARS IN YOUR LOCAL CURRENCY.
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limits, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or any rights you have as a consumer that cannot be waived.
Indemnity
To the extent the law allows, you agree to defend and indemnify Optoir against claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your Content or your breach of these Terms.
Disputes
Optoir serves people around the world. If a dispute arises, please contact us first at support@optoir.com — most problems can be solved quickly and informally.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the country where you live, and you may bring any claim in the courts there. Nothing in these Terms takes away the protection of any law of your country of residence that cannot be changed by agreement, including your rights as a consumer.
Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms as the Service changes. If a change is material, we will tell you in the app or by other reasonable means before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when they last changed. Continuing to use Optoir after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.
General
These Terms are the whole agreement between you and Optoir about the Service. If any part is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms; we may transfer ours in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. For Apple users: these Terms are between you and Optoir, not Apple; Apple has no responsibility for the app or its content, but Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
Optoir keeps three kinds of information about you: your sign-in details from Google or Apple, the things you choose to publish (which are public by design), and a device token so notifications reach your phone. There is no analytics package in the app, no behavioural tracking and no activity profile. We do not sell your data. Ads are served by Google AdMob, which handles its own ad data, and Optoir Plus removes them. Delete your account and everything we hold about you goes with it.
The rest of this policy says the same thing in more detail. It applies to the Optoir app, optoir.com and related services (the “Service”), operated by Optoir (“we”, “us”).
What we collect
From your sign-in
When you continue with Google or Apple we receive an account identifier, your email address, and — if your provider shares it — your name. If you use Apple’s “Hide My Email”, we receive a relay address instead of your real one. We never receive your Google or Apple password.
What you create
Your username, display name, bio and chosen avatar preset; your posts, comments and collections; and your votes, vouches, follows, bookmarks and reports. Except for reports, all of this is public to other signed-in users. Who filed a report is never shown.
From your device
Push token — an identifier from Firebase Cloud Messaging (and Apple Push Notification service on iPhone) so we can deliver notifications. Your notification preferences are stored with it.
App integrity checks — Firebase App Check uses Google Play Integrity on Android and Apple App Attest / DeviceCheck on iPhone to confirm requests come from a genuine copy of the app. These return a pass/fail token, not personal profile data.
Technical request data — like any internet service, our servers receive your IP address, the time of each request and basic technical information. We use it to run the Service securely, enforce rate limits, prevent abuse and, where a feature needs it, work out an approximate region (country or state level — never a precise location).
Purchases — if you buy Optoir Plus, the App Store or Google Play tells us your subscription status and a purchase identifier. We never see your card or payment details.
What we do not collect
No photos, videos, contacts, microphone, precise location, browsing history or reading-time tracking. The app contains no analytics SDK. Settings such as your theme and haptics live only on your device.
How we use it
To run the Service: sign you in, publish and display what you post, build your home feed from the people you follow, send the notifications you have switched on, and provide Optoir Plus.
To rank and badge posts — using votes, comments, vouches, reports and time. This is arithmetic, not profiling, and no AI is involved.
To keep Optoir safe: review reports, enforce our Terms and Community Guidelines, apply rate limits and stop spam and abuse.
To answer you when you contact support.
To meet legal obligations.
Where a data-protection law requires a legal basis for processing (such as the GDPR in the EU and UK, the LGPD in Brazil, and similar laws elsewhere), ours are: performing our contract with you (running the Service), our legitimate interests (security, abuse prevention and improving the Service), your consent (where we ask for it, such as for personalised ads), and legal obligations.
Advertising
Free accounts see ads in the feed, served by Google AdMob. To show and measure ads, Google may collect your device’s advertising identifier, IP address and information about ad interactions, under Google’s own policies. We do not give Google your posts, profile, email or anything else you write, and Optoir builds no advertising profile of you.
Where the law requires consent for personalised advertising, ads are only personalised with that consent. You can limit ad personalisation at any time: on Android, Settings → Google → Ads (reset or delete your advertising ID); on iPhone, Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. Subscribing to Optoir Plus removes ads, and with them the AdMob SDK’s ad requests.
Who we share it with
We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information, and we do not give it to data brokers. We share it only with:
Other users — everything you publish, as described above.
Service providers that run Optoir on our behalf under contract: Google (Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging, App Check and Google Cloud hosting); Apple (Sign in with Apple, push notifications, App Store); and Google Play (billing).
Google AdMob, for the advertising described above.
Authorities, when the law requires it or when it is necessary to protect someone’s safety, our rights or the rights of others.
A successor, if Optoir is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets — in which case this policy continues to protect your information.
Where it is stored and how it is protected
Optoir is used around the world from one shared system, hosted on Google Cloud in the United States. Wherever you live, your information is transferred to and stored there. We protect it the same way for every user, and where the law of your country requires a safeguard for international transfers, we rely on our providers’ standard contractual clauses or an equivalent mechanism.
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. All changes to your data go through server-side functions that check who is asking — the app cannot write to the database directly. Credentials and keys are held in a managed secret store, not in the app. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect yours and will notify you and the relevant authorities of a breach where the law requires.
How long we keep it
We keep your information while your account exists. Delete a post and it is removed, along with its comments, votes and bookmarks. Delete your account and your profile, posts, comments, votes, vouches, follows, collections and push tokens are permanently deleted; the process starts immediately and completes in the background. Your username is not released for anyone else to claim.
Limited records may be kept longer where we must — for example, to comply with a legal obligation, resolve a dispute, or prevent a removed account from returning to abuse the Service. Technical logs kept by our hosting provider expire on their standard schedules.
Your choices and rights
See and download — everything you have published is visible in the app. For a copy of the account data we hold, email us.
Correct — you can change your bio and avatar in the app. Usernames and display names cannot be changed, by design; contact us if one is inaccurate or was chosen in error and the law gives you a right to correct it.
Delete — delete posts at any time, or your whole account from Settings → Account → Delete Account. See Delete your account.
Notifications — switch them off in the app or in your phone’s settings.
Object or restrict — ask us to stop or limit a particular use of your data.
Withdraw consent — wherever we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
Complain — you can complain to the data-protection authority in your country, though we would like the chance to fix it first.
These rights apply to everyone, wherever you live. We give every user the same choices, rather than limiting them to countries whose laws require it. If you live somewhere with stronger rights than those listed here, you have those too.
Personalised ads. We do not sell personal information. Some laws treat showing personalised ads to free users as “sharing” data for advertising; you can opt out at any time by limiting ad personalisation on your device as described above, by subscribing to Optoir Plus, or by emailing us. Using any of your rights will never affect how Optoir treats you.
To exercise any right, email support@optoir.com from the address linked to your account. We reply within the time your law requires — normally within 30 days, wherever you live — and may need to verify your identity first.
Children
Optoir is not intended for children under 13, or under the higher minimum age that applies in some countries, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account below the minimum age where they live, tell us at support@optoir.com and we will delete it.
This website
optoir.com sets no cookies and runs no analytics or trackers. If you choose a light or dark theme here, that choice is saved only in your own browser. Our web host processes standard server logs (IP address, time and page requested) to deliver and secure the site.
Changes to this policy
If we make a material change, we will tell you in the app or by other reasonable means before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this policy last changed.
Optoir is a place for words worth reading. Everything is public, posts cannot be edited and names never change — so what you write stays attached to you. Write like it. These guidelines describe what is not allowed. Breaking them can lead to posts being removed, badges withheld, and accounts suspended or removed.
Not allowed
Threats and violence — threatening, inciting or glorifying violence against anyone, or praising violent attacks.
Harassment — targeting a person with abuse, insults, pile-ons or unwanted sexual remarks, or encouraging others to do so.
Hate — attacking people for race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or serious disease.
Self-harm — encouraging or giving instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. Talking about your own experience, or about recovery, is allowed.
Sexual content involving minors — never, in any form. We report it to the authorities.
Sexual content — explicit sexual writing, and any sexual content about a real person without their consent.
Private information — publishing someone else’s address, phone number, ID numbers, financial details or other private information.
Impersonation — pretending to be another person or organisation in a misleading way. Parody must be obviously parody.
Illegal goods and activity — selling or facilitating weapons, drugs, stolen data or other illegal goods and services, or giving instructions to cause serious harm.
Scams and spam — fraud, phishing, pyramid schemes, repetitive or automated posting, and unlabelled advertising.
Manipulation — coordinating or automating votes, vouches or reports, or using extra accounts to inflate or bury posts.
Dangerous misinformation — false claims likely to cause real-world harm, such as about voting procedures, emergencies or medical treatment.
Infringement — copying other people’s writing or work without permission. Quote briefly and say where it came from.
What to do
Disagree? Downvote, comment, or write a better post. That is what the numbers are for.
Don’t want to see someone? Unfollow them. There is no block, because on a fully public platform it would hide nothing.
Something breaks the rules? Open the post’s menu — the three dots — and tap Report. A person reviews it.
Someone in danger? Contact local emergency services first. Then email support@optoir.com.
How we enforce
Reported posts take an immediate scoring penalty, and enough reports remove a post automatically. Below that threshold a person decides. Accounts are only removed by an admin after review, never by a formula. Serious violations — threats, sexual content involving minors, or illegal activity — lead to immediate removal and, where required, reports to the authorities. If you think we got something wrong, email support@optoir.com.
Delete means delete. There is no archive, no recycle bin and no undo.
In the app
Open SettingsTap the gear in the bottom bar.
Go to AccountYour display name, username and email are shown here.
Tap Delete AccountRead the confirmation, then confirm. Deletion starts immediately.
Without the app
Email support@optoir.com from the email address you sign in with, and include your username. We confirm it is you, then delete the account — normally within 7 days.
What is deleted
Your profile, display name, bio and avatar
Every post, comment and collection you made
Your votes, vouches, follows and saved posts
Your push tokens and notification preferences
Your username will not be available again — not to you, and not to anyone else. Limited records may be kept where the law requires it or to stop a removed account from returning to abuse the service. See the Privacy Policy.
Subscriptions
Deleting your account does not cancel Optoir Plus. Cancel it first in your App Store or Google Play subscriptions, or you may keep being billed.
This post lives in the app.
Posts on Optoir are read in the app, where the votes, vouches and comments sit alongside them. Install Optoir and open the link again.