Notes on staying in touch
Occasional writing about relationships, the quiet ways we lose track of people, and what we are building.
Every group has one person who keeps the list
The team roster, the class list, the church directory — somebody always ends up holding it, and the job breaks the same way every time.
Contact information should belong to the person it is about
Every address book ever built assumes your number is a thing other people own copies of. That assumption is the bug.
What we learned building a permission system for phone numbers
Circles, the floor everyone gets, and why revocation has to actually revoke — three decisions that turned out to be load-bearing.
Why your address book goes wrong
A copy starts decaying the moment you make it. That is not a discipline problem — it is a design problem, and it has been in every address book ever built.