Live Rooms

When a room of N opens, each participant is granted floor(0.75 × (N − 1)) engagements at zero points spent.

The reasoning is simple: in a cohort of N, everyone can engage everyone else exactly once, so each participant can receive about N − 1. The 25% haircut is the safety margin against people leaving early.

That is why the threshold is the deliverable. The number of people required to open the room is the same number that determines what each of them gets.

Comments open lowest, at 6. Intent is highest and the result is publicly visible on the post, so a thin room still produces something checkable.

Stories open highest, at 12. Story dedup is pairwise, so opening thin permanently burns a pairing that could have been useful later.

Shares and saves sit at 8, follows at 10.

In the previous always-open design, a large majority of people who gave engagement received none and never came back. An exchange where you can donate but not receive is not an exchange.

The check-in grant exists so that nobody can end up a pure supply donor: if you are in the room when it opens, you are owed something before you do any work.

If an exchange sits closed for 7 days, everyone waiting is nudged. If it stays stuck for 14 days, the threshold steps down. A quiet exchange recovers rather than staying dark forever.