Key4Key Postmortem

A graphical admin dashboard so I could recruit volunteers for more effective moderation

Shadowbans which only match you with betrayed users to confuse the swarm

Logging when people viewed their match list and when circles got betrayed so I could analytically determine who was most likely to be a Swarmer

A mode where both sides must accept a trade.

Key4Key was operational for about 60 hours, starting at about 9pm PDT on April 3rd, and ending as /r/circleoftrust closed at 9am PDT on April 6th. During the last 12 hours or so, registration had to be closed due to the high threat of Swarm members infiltrating. During those 60 hours, 111 Reddit accounts were registered, and 596 exchanges were performed. I blame this mediocre performance on the fact that we had insufficient moderation tools; I just looked at the list of new accounts every so often, and banned suspicious ones. Swarm members were highly active and betrayed about half of the Key4Key users by my estimation, myself included. In hindsight, there were so many things I could have done if I had managed my time better and had a more cohesive plan:I'm still happy with what I did, and that I could help 100 people have fun during this crazy April Fool's event. I also learned a lot: This event was a great parallel of some real-world problems, such as communist witch-hunts during the mid-20th century, except with Swarm members instead of russians. I also have more sympathy for government agents who advocate wiretapping and invasive surveillance now, although I still don't agree with them, because that's what I had to start doing in order to keep Key4Key safe. I hope you enjoyed this event as much as I did, and I look forward to what I can make next year. Until then -- trust no one.Key4Key is Free and Open Source