About

Liminal is a fresh take on old-school forums. Liminal is designed for long-form, asynchronous communications in a world that’s both always on and averse to deep thinking and deep work.

Liminal is built for small, independent communities that don’t want to be beholden to the free services of large corporations, and don’t want to self-host legacy software with outdated interfaces.

About Jeremy

Hey! I’m Jeremy Smith, a software developer running a tiny, one-person web studio called HYBRD. I’ve been building web products, and interested in online community, for a pretty long time. I still have a copy of Derek Powazek’s 2006 book, Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places, on my bookshelf.

Over the past several years, I’ve watched online discourse move increasingly to either social media or chat. And while each has advantages, neither lends itself to deep, thoughtful communication and safe, meaningful community.

Jeremy at Rails World 2024
Jeremy at Rails World 2024, special thanks to the Rails Foundation for the candid.

I think we are experiencing a pendulum swing back right now. But the tooling to support new or migrating communities either doesn’t exist or hasn’t stayed up with changing expectations in software and trends in user interfaces.

In the summer of 2024, I got fed up with the lack of good options and decided to build an initial version of what I personally wanted to see over the course of three months. And now I’m continuing the journey to build Liminal into a great forum solution for small communities that care about long-form writing, asynchronous communication, and safe online spaces.

Building Liminal

Interested in following along? I’ve been sharing my journey in videos on Twitter, and a podcast called Building Liminal. Special thanks to Julian Rubisch for the Building Liminal sound logo.

Explore Spaces • Make a Space • About • Changelog
A HYBRD concern. Contact Jeremy for support.