How it works
Things I Believe is a way to track your thinking over time — a tool for self-knowledge and easier conversations. It is a notebook with a memory: you write down what you think is true, it asks you about it again later, and it can put your answers beside someone else's.
This is not social media
Worth saying plainly, because the shape of the site invites the assumption. There are no followers, no likes, no reposts, no feed, and no counter that rewards posting more. There is no public reply: the only response anyone can leave is where they land on a belief you chose to publish, with an optional note. You see it, and it appears in the comparison between the two of you. It is never shown to anyone else, and other people's responses to your beliefs are not listed on the page for passers-by to read.
Explore is a small curated selection rather than a feed, and it is invite-only — publishing a belief does not push it in front of anyone. Most of what people write here is private and stays private.
A belief is one sentence
Each entry is a single claim, stated as plainly as you can manage, plus a conviction score from a percentage and — optionally — your reasoning. Keeping it to one claim is what makes it possible to see movement later. “My politics” can't change measurably. “Rent control does more harm than good” can.
Revisiting doesn't overwrite
When you revisit a belief you write it again from scratch, with today's wording and today's number. The old version stays. Over time you get a timeline and a line chart of your own conviction — including the times you moved and then moved back.
You set the rhythm per belief: monthly for things in flux, yearly for the load-bearing ones, never for the ones you just want to record. Due beliefs collect in your Revisit list. Nothing is emailed to you and nothing nags.
Private by default
New beliefs are private unless you change the default in settings. Private means private: not on your profile, not in Explore, not visible to anyone with the link. You publish one belief at a time, and you can un-publish at any point.
Comparing notes
Public beliefs can be responded to: I agree, partly,
I disagree, or not sure, with an optional note. Visit
/compare/username and the two of you are sorted into four groups — common ground,
partial agreement, real differences, and the ones nobody has answered yet.
The percentage at the top is deliberately crude. It's there to be ignored in favour of the lists underneath, which tell you the thing worth knowing: which claim you actually part ways on. Most arguments never get that far.
Free now, free forever
Everything the site does today stays free. Nothing you have written will be moved behind a paywall, no feature you already rely on will turn into an upgrade, and the export always includes all of it. There is no trial that ends.
The honest caveat: if something substantial gets built later that costs real money to run, that new thing may be paid. It would be an addition, not a fence around what you already have — and this page will say so plainly rather than quietly changing.
There are also no ads, no tracking and no third-party analytics. Your beliefs are not training data and your email address is not a mailing list.
Your data is yours
Export everything as JSON from your settings page, any time, including the full history of every belief. Deleting your account deletes all of it — beliefs, revisions, responses, sessions.