Marla: Why we exist, and how it shapes every screen
Written Oct 22, 2026 by Grok and Claude together, from Gino's own words. Draft for Gino's review.
How to read this. "In Gino's words" is copied exactly from PHILOSOPHY.md and is never edited. Everything after it builds on those words. Anything that goes beyond what Gino said is marked proposal. Lines taken from the comment-system debate are marked The Table. Section numbers like §3 point back to Gino's sections.
Every brief and critique must cite which Design Commandment it serves (for example "serves C7").
In Gino's words
1. The core problem
Social media apps promised connection but delivered disconnection. Feeds are optimized for attention, not for people actually reaching each other.
2. The solution: geofencing
Create a feed that shows only what is happening in your area. You pick a radius (e.g., 2 miles) and see only posts within that circle. The outside noise (people from other countries, bots, strangers, tribal news, memes, comments that have nothing to do with you) is filtered out by geography.
3. The flagship example: Jim the crossing guard
Jim, a crossing guard, is walking to his corner in the morning. He starts recording himself saying, "Good morning everybody, this is Jim, it's a little cold today, make sure the little ones have their coats on."
A mom wakes up and sees Jim's post on her phone, so she learns it's cold. While driving her kids down that road, she sees Jim in person and finally knows who he is: the guy who crosses the neighborhood kids and says hello.
The connection is built with someone who has always been there and is trusted with the kids, but who never showed up before. Now he does.
4. Local discovery
- A new taco shop or hot dog stand down the road.
- A garage sale.
- A sale at a local store or restaurant you might never have gone to.
- A pet groomer you never knew existed.
Depending on what you're looking for, you turn on the feed and see what's actually new nearby.
5. Visibility for mom-and-pop shops
Little stores should be visible to the people around them, without having to compete with large companies to advertise. They shouldn't have to wonder whether Facebook, Google or YouTube is really showing their ads to the people they paid to reach. Marla gives a mom-and-pop shop more visibility.
The Manifesto
We were promised connection, and we got disconnection. Our feeds are tuned to hold our attention, not to help us reach each other. We know the details of a stranger's argument on another continent and miss the garage sale on our own street. proposal
Marla starts with something smaller. You pick a radius, say two miles, and you see only what's happening inside it. Geography filters out the outside noise.
And inside that circle, someone like Jim can show up.
Jim is a crossing guard. One morning, walking to his corner, he records himself: "Good morning everybody, this is Jim, it's a little cold today, make sure the little ones have their coats on."
A mom wakes up, sees Jim's post, and learns it's cold. Driving her kids down that road, she sees Jim in person and finally knows who he is: the guy who crosses the neighborhood kids and says hello.
The connection is built with someone who has always been there and is trusted with the kids, but who never showed up before. Now he does.
Lupe is an illustration proposal, not a real person. She grooms dogs in a narrow shop behind the laundromat. She's good at it, and half the neighborhood doesn't know she exists. She has paid the big apps for ads and never known whether they reached anyone on her own street. She can't outbid the national chains. She shouldn't have to.
On Marla, Lupe doesn't have to bid against anyone. She posts a photo of a freshly trimmed terrier: "Two openings Saturday." It appears in the feed the same way Jim's good morning does, by distance, so the closer you live, the higher it sits in your Around. Maybe a neighbor three blocks over, with a shaggy dog, stops scrolling. A groomer? Right there?
That's what the feed is for: the new taco shop down the road, the garage sale, the sale at a local store you've never gone to, the groomer you never knew existed. You open it and see what's actually new nearby.
Marla doesn't want your whole day. It wants the moment after: the mom who finally knows who Jim is, and the bell ringing over Lupe's door. proposal
Posting is the heartbeat
> "Posting needs to be so powerful and simple and really intuitive to make sure it's the most powerful along with the feed and discover system." (Gino, Oct 22, 2026)
Gino names three things that must be the most powerful in Marla: posting, the feed, and Discover. We read them as three pillars, and posting as the one that feeds the other two proposal: our framing. If Jim can't record his good morning on the way to his corner, there's nothing about Jim in the mom's feed. If Lupe can't post "Two openings Saturday" between two dogs, Discover can still find her shop, but it has nothing new from her to show. A beautiful feed with nothing in it is just a quiet street.
proposal So posting should feel like talking, not like filling in a form. Jim takes out his phone while he walks, starts recording, talks, stops, and posts. A shop owner snaps the sale sign, types one line, and posts (illustration). Nobody asks for a title, a category, or a hashtag (P5).
Commandments for the Post (Express) screen
All are tested on a 390×844 phone, signed in, counting taps from the named starting screen. Every tap counts, including focusing the text box and picker taps. Gino's line asks for simple, intuitive and powerful. P5 and P7 come straight from his design principles (one tap, no dropdowns, intuitive). Everything else here, thresholds included, is (proposal) until Gino agrees. "Powerful" isn't defined yet, and that's his to define (Hard Question 13).
| # | Commandment | The Post screen passes if… | Serves |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Seconds, not minutes proposal | from Home, a published text post takes 3 taps or fewer (Post · text box · Post), and a photo post 4 or fewer, typing excluded. | B3, B4, B5, B9 |
| P2 | Jim's good morning proposal | from Home, a video post takes 3 taps (Post · record/stop · Post), the same budget as C7. Recording time doesn't count. | B3 |
| P3 | One thumb proposal | every control needed to post (record, photo, Post, posting-as) has a tap area of at least 44 pt in the bottom half of the screen, with the keyboard open too. | design principle |
| P4 | Video first proposal | a labeled record control is on the first Post screen, with a tap area at least as large as the text box's label. A voice-only post is a further proposal; Gino hasn't asked for a new post type. | B3 |
| P5 | Only the content is required | Post turns on as soon as there is any content (one word, one photo, one clip). No title, category, tag, date, audience or location field is ever required. | design principle |
| P6 | Place is automatic proposal | the post's place is filled in automatically and shown as one plain line about where it's from ("From near Oak & 3rd"), in ½ mi bands, never a live pin (C12). The line never claims who will see it, because each viewer picks their own radius (§2). Any audience control for the poster is a further proposal. | B2, B8 |
| P7 | No dropdowns, even for "posting as" | someone with one Circle sees no switcher. Someone with two (Lupe's personal Circle and her shop) sees two visible face chips and switches with one tap, never a ⌄ menu. | design principle, B5 |
| P8 | A shop sale in seconds proposal | a business Circle posts a photo and one line in 4 taps or fewer from Home, the same as P1. Extra fields (price, dates, coupon) are a further proposal and are never required. | B5 |
| P9 | Nothing lost, nothing nagged proposal | leaving Post with ✕ keeps the draft. There is no "Are you sure?". After posting, the toast offers Undo for 5 seconds. | design principle |
| P10 | Intuitive on day one proposal, from Claude | a first-time user publishes a text, a photo and a video post with no help. Gino or the test plan sets the pass rate. | B9 |
How the current Express mock-ups score
Grok and Claude scored the live Express mock-ups independently. Both sides' "base" are the same screen (Claude's is a labeled copy of Grok's "Concept A · Words first"), so there's no second Express concept to compare yet.
| # | Grok's score | Claude's score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | PASS for text, FAIL for photo (≥4 taps plus the picker) | PASS for text, UNTESTABLE for photo | Text: Post tab → type → Post. |
| P2 | FAIL | FAIL | 📷 says "Camera", with no sign of video. At least 4 taps. |
| P3 | FAIL | FAIL | Post is in the top right (about 43 pt, under 44). Posting-as is at the top too. |
| P4 | FAIL | FAIL | No visible video or voice control. A big "What's happening?" (X's prompt), and the label even says "words first". |
| P5 | PASS (Post starts disabled; no required fields) | UNTESTABLE, leans PASS | No required fields visible. |
| P6 | FAIL | FAIL | "🌎 Public · Around": a globe on a geofenced app, jargon, and no place line. |
| P7 | FAIL | FAIL | "Preview Person ⌄" opens a hidden circle picker. |
| P8 | FAIL (same as photo) | UNTESTABLE (no business state) | No business-Circle state. The 📅 event tool is optional. |
| P9 | UNTESTABLE | FAIL (no Undo), draft UNTESTABLE | The toast says "Posted ✓" with no Undo. |
| — | — | Note: | The tab bar shows Around as a 5th tab, but in the spec it's a tab inside Home. |
Joint top 3 for the next Express draft (proposal):
- Recording first. A big labeled record control in the thumb zone, so the path is Post → record/stop → Post. Claude's next draft should be a genuinely different, camera-first concept.
- Everything you touch in the bottom half, and no ⌄. Post, record and the posting-as chips all move to the bottom, reachable with the keyboard open.
- One honest place line and Undo. Replace "🌎 Public · Around" with "From near Oak & 3rd", and make the toast "Posted · Undo" (5 s).
Core Beliefs
- Reach, not attention. A feed should help people actually reach each other, not hold their attention. (§1)
- Near is the filter. You choose the radius, and geography, not a machine guessing what will keep you scrolling, decides what you see in Around. (§1, §2)
- The people who have always been there deserve to show up. Jim is trusted with the kids and never showed up before; seeing him on the screen helped the mom know him in person. (§3)
- What's new nearby is worth finding. Depending on what you're looking for, you open the feed and see what's actually new nearby. (§4)
- A small shop should be seen by the people around it. It shouldn't have to compete with big companies to advertise, or wonder whether its ads are really shown to the people it paid to reach. (§5)
- Volume never wins. A loud crowd gets no extra space, and a powerful person's claim can be challenged in plain view. (Gino's comment brief, points 3 and 9. "Volume never wins" is Claude's proposed rewording of point 9, "Reward substance over volume without burying good minority takes") proposal until Gino agrees
- Success happens off the screen. It's a wave at the crosswalk or a visit to the shop, not minutes in the app. proposal, drawn from §1 and §3
- Being seen must never mean being tracked. proposal: safety for Jim, for families, and for kids
- Posting is the heartbeat. Gino: posting must be "the most powerful along with the feed and discover system". Three equals at the top, with posting the one that feeds the other two proposal: our framing. (Gino, Oct 22: "Posting needs to be so powerful and simple and really intuitive…")
What Marla Refuses To Be
- An attention machine. No feed is tuned to keep you scrolling. (§1)
- A window onto the whole world's noise. Outside noise (people from other countries, bots, strangers, tribal news, memes, comments that have nothing to do with you) is filtered out of Around by geography. (§2)
- An ad auction against giants. A small shop never has to outbid a national brand to reach its own street. (§5)
- A black box for shop owners. A shop should never have to wonder whether its neighbors were actually shown its post. (§5; how to show that is a proposal, see Hard Questions)
- A scoreboard. No like, view, reply or follower counts about anyone else. (The Table says "No counts appear anywhere"; "about anyone else" is the exception proposed in Hard Question 2) proposal
- A quote-and-dunk machine. Replies never travel into anyone's feed, and they never boost a post. The Table
- A complaint board. (Gino's comment-system brief, point 2: not becoming Nextdoor)
- A tracker. Marla shows where a shop or a post's neighborhood is, and never where a person is right now. proposal
Design Commandments (testable)
Each commandment serves a belief (B1–B9). Commandments P1–P10 for the Post screen are in "Posting is the heartbeat." A screen passes or fails. Cite the commandment number in every brief and critique.
| # | Commandment | A screen passes if… | Serves |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Content first | on a 390×844 phone screenshot, the post's content (photo, video, text) covers more area than all buttons and controls combined. | design principle |
| C2 | One tap, no dropdowns | every main action (Express, reply, follow, Around/Following, changing the radius, list/map) is a single tap from where it's used, and no dropdown or select menu appears anywhere on the path. | design principle |
| C3 | The fence holds | Around shows no post from outside the radius the person chose. | B2 |
| C4 | An order you can say out loud | the feed's order is computed only from distance and post time, and can be stated in one sentence. proposal: "closest first, from the last 24 hours" | B1, B2 |
| C5 | Your radius, one tap | the radius can be changed from Home and Discover with one tap on a visible chip proposal: ½ · 1 · 2 · 5 mi. | B2 |
| C6 | Faces lead to people | every face or name on a post or reply opens that person's Circle in one tap. | B3 |
| C7 | Jim in three taps | from Home, a person can record and publish a short video, like Jim's, in 3 taps or fewer proposal: clips up to 60 s. | B3 |
| C8 | New is one tap away | Discover has a visible "New nearby" view, one tap away proposal: "new" means a Circle opened, or a post made, in the last 7 days. | B4 |
| C9 | Shops stand on the same ground | a shop's post in Around has the same size and layout as a neighbor's, and its position depends only on distance and time. proposal: nothing paid ever reorders Around; see Hard Question 3 | B5 |
| C10 | Nothing to count about others | no like, view, reply or follower number about another person or Circle is visible anywhere. (The Table says no counts at all; the owner-only exception is Hard Question 2) proposal | B6 |
| C11 | Volume doesn't move anything | replying or reacting never changes a post's position in Around or Following; a repost appears only as the reposter's own post. | B6 |
| C12 | Never a live location | no screen reveals a person's live location; personal posts show distance in bands no finer than ½ mi, and Around orders personal posts by band, then time; a business's distance is measured from its address, not the owner's phone. proposal | B8 |
| C13 | An honest end of the feed | when Around runs out, it says so ("That's everything within 2 mi today") and offers a one-tap wider radius. It never widens the radius silently. proposal | B2, B4 |
| C14 | A way out of the app | every business Circle puts directions and opening hours one tap from its posts. proposal | B5, B7 |
| C15 | The Table holds | comments follow The Table's rules: one reply per person; only the poster answers; replies never enter feeds; no counts (see Hard Question 2); a surge hold after 10 replies in an hour from non-followers (length: Hard Question 11); on power posts, challenges quote a sentence, wait one waking hour with a public countdown, and stay visible with the answer. The Table | B6 |
Belief-to-Screen Map
| Screen | What it must do | Beliefs and commandments |
|---|---|---|
| Home: Around | Posts from inside your radius, closest first. Every card is mostly content: Jim's face and voice, Lupe's terrier. It shows how far away the post is (rounded for people, exact for shops proposal) and has one thin line of actions. When the posts run out, it says so honestly and offers to widen the radius. | B1, B2, B3 · C1, C3, C4, C12, C13 |
| Home: Following | Circles you chose to follow, newest first proposal. (Whether this tab can show Circles from outside your radius is an open question; see Hard Questions.) | B2 · C4 |
| Discover / radius | Circles nearby with their distance; one tap switches between list and map; radius chips; a "New nearby" view for the taco stand, the garage sale and the groomer. proposal: the map shows shops and places, not where people live; Gino decides | B2, B4, B8 · C2, C5, C8, C12 |
| Post (Express) | The heartbeat (P1–P10). Camera first proposal. Jim's good morning takes three taps. One plain line says where the post is from ("From near Oak & 3rd"), never who will see it, since each viewer picks their own radius proposal. The post is attached to a neighborhood, never a live pin. | B3, B8, B9 · C7, C12, P1–P10 |
| Circle | A real person, shop or group, with a face, so the mom can put a name to the crossing guard. A business Circle has hours and directions one tap away. No follower count is shown to visitors. | B3, B5, B7 · C6, C10, C14 |
| Comments (The Table) | Under a neighbor's post there's one quiet line, "💬 Lena, Marco replied," which opens a calm sheet: one reply each, only the poster answers, no counts. Under a powerful person's post, a challenge to a specific sentence can appear, with the answer beside it. | B6 · C10, C11, C15 |
| How local shops appear | A shop is a Circle. Its posts sit in Around exactly like a neighbor's: same size, ordered only by distance and time, never boosted by money. The owner gets honest, plain information about where the post went proposal; the form is a Hard Question. Front Porch Forum in Vermont shows that local ads targeted only by geography can work, though FPF also reviews every post and sends a daily digest, which Marla doesn't. | B5 · C9, C10, C14 |
Hard Questions We Haven't Solved
Where Grok and Claude disagree, both views are given. Gino decides.
- Kids in posts. Jim's story happens at a school crossing at the same time every morning. Children's faces, tied to a fixed place and time, are the biggest real-world risk to the whole idea. Under "mechanics over moderation," the answer can't be a hidden classifier.
- Grok: add a one-sentence pre-post reminder when a clip is recorded at a school-zone place.
- Claude: don't. It would fire on every one of Jim's posts every morning, teach him to ignore it, and need a school-zone map we don't have. Keep "never a live location" and let Gino set the kids policy.
- Both agree this needs a decision from Gino, not a design trick.
- Can a shop owner see a number? §5 says shops shouldn't have to wonder whether they were seen. The Table says no counts. Joint proposal: "Nobody ever sees a number about anyone else. A Circle owner may privately see how many times their own posts were shown nearby." That means "Shown N times within 2 mi this week," and never "people," because Marla doesn't verify identity. It's an exception to The Table, so it needs Gino's yes. Claude adds: owner numbers cover reach only, never followers, or a candidate sees 999 and stays there. Even then, the ⚖️ label switching on gives the cliff away, which argued for Grok's declared badge (see T2, where Grok now accepts Claude's removable-challenge fix).
- How Marla pays its way. Every refusal above gets tested the first month money is tight. The one tested model we found is Front Porch Forum: ads targeted only by geography, sold to local businesses.
- Grok: any paid feature must be labeled and must never reorder Around.
- Claude: ask the stricter question: can anything paid ever affect Around at all?
- Gino hasn't said how Marla makes money, so neither of us decides this.
- Can a shop reach beyond the viewer's radius? A food truck might want 10 miles, but the viewer chose 2. Paying past the radius would break C3 (the fence). Gino decides.
- Following vs. a pure geofence. §2 says "see only posts within that circle." The app's Following tab can show Circles from anywhere. Is Following the one deliberate exception? Both drafts assumed yes, and Gino never said so.
- Gaming "closest first." Without a time window, a week-old post at 0.1 mi beats today's at 0.3 mi forever, and a shop can post while standing in the busiest spot in town.
- Joint proposal: "closest first, from the last 24 hours," with business posts anchored to the shop's address.
- Grok would also test a per-poster cap in Around, so one prolific neighbor can't fill the screen.
- Claude: the hourly quota doesn't stop a prolific neighbor, so take the cap in its simplest one-sentence form: "Around shows only each Circle's newest post." proposal
- This makes it a joint proposal: 24-hour window + address anchoring + newest-post-per-Circle.
- Small towns. In a rural town with a 2-mile radius, Around may show three posts a week. Pew found rural residents already know more of their neighbors (40% vs 24% urban). The "meet your neighbors" pitch may be weakest exactly where the feed is thinnest. C13 is our answer for now: say so honestly and offer one tap to widen.
- People on the map. Gino's Discover finds Circles nearby, and that includes personal ones. Showing personal Circles on a map is a home-location leak. Grok: show shops and places only. Claude: agreed on the safety risk, but that changes Gino's spec, so it must be his call.
- Measuring "off the screen." "Success happens off the screen" is our proposal, not Gino's words. It has consequences: no time-in-app goals, ever.
- Geography won't make neighbors kind. The fence removes outside noise. Complaint spirals still start as new posts in Express, from people inside the radius, and no comment design fixes that alone.
- Still open from The Table:
- How long the surge hold lasts (Claude: until the next morning; Grok: hourly).
- What makes a Circle "powerful": an automatic 1,000-follower trigger (Claude) or a declared badge (Grok).
- Officials posting from personal Circles to avoid challenges.
- Whether a ⚖️ line on officials' posts teaches people that officials are there to be fought (Grok's worry; test: a feed-tone mock-up).
- The lonely new user who gets no replies.
- Gino's own tie-break between his comment points (3) accountability and (5) positive connection. B6 assumes Claude's: (3) wins on power posts, (5) everywhere else.
- "No moderators" still has to keep report and block for threats. That matters for Hard Question 1, kids in posts.
- Jim says, on camera, where he'll be every morning. That's his choice, and it's the heart of the story. Marla can protect everyone around him (rounded distance, no live pins). It can't make his corner a secret, and it shouldn't pretend to.
- What does "powerful" posting mean? Gino asked for posting to be "powerful and simple and really intuitive". P1–P10 test simple and intuitive. Powerful could mean reach, richer media (video, voice, events), or the post's effect on the neighborhood. We haven't defined it on purpose; it's Gino's word to define. Related open questions: whether a voice-only post exists (P4), whether the poster gets any audience control (P6), and whether Marla opens straight to a camera (Claude flagged that P2 must not quietly imply it).
- Waves and challenge thresholds (T1, T2 in "Why comments are the hardest part") are disputed between Grok and Claude, and both views are recorded there.
Sources
- Granovetter, M. (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties." American Journal of Sociology 78(6). From the abstract: "Stress is laid on the cohesive power of weak ties." This is the case for knowing Jim, not just your close friends. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469
- Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling Alone. American social ties and trust declined after the 1960s, and people knew their neighbors less. http://robertdputnam.com/bowling-alone/
- Oldenburg, R. (1989). The Great Good Place: third places are "the core settings of informal public life." Oldenburg & Christensen (UNESCO Courier): a third place "has regulars. But strangers aren't out of place." Oldenburg ("Neighborhood Third Places"): "people who don't know their neighbors become suspicious of them. Local gathering places replace suspicion with familiarity." https://greatgoodplace.org/the-third-place-first-defined/ · https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/third-places-true-citizen-spaces · https://greatgoodplace.org/neighborhood-third-places/
- Pew Research Center (2018 survey): 31% of Americans know all or most of their neighbors (rural 40%, suburban 28%, urban 24%). 23% of adults under 30 know none of them. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/how-urban-suburban-and-rural-residents-interact-with-their-neighbors/ · https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/15/facts-about-neighbors-in-u-s/
- U.S. Surgeon General (2023), Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. About half of U.S. adults reported loneliness. One of its six pillars is "Reform Digital Environments." https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html
- DZ Reserve v. Meta ("Potential Reach" class action). Advertisers allege Meta's reach metric counted accounts, including duplicate and fake ones, as people. Meta denies this, and there's no ruling on the merits. It's cited only to show why a small shop "shouldn't have to wonder" (§5). https://facebookpotentialreachlawsuit.com/ · https://www.reuters.com/business/facebook-advertisers-can-pursue-class-action-over-ad-rates-2022-03-29/
- New_ Public and UT Austin Center for Media Engagement (2024) on Front Porch Forum: a Vermont local platform with ads targeted only by geography and sold to local businesses. It beat Nextdoor and Facebook on every Civic Signal, and 97% of members called it valuable to their community. https://newpublic.substack.com/p/the-vermont-miracle-how-one-local
- The comment system ("The Table"): Grok × Claude debate, Oct 22, 2026, in
notes/comments-debate.mdon this site (Home → Notes); working copy at/workspace/marla-mockups-notes-comments/debate.md.
Source of truth: /MANIFESTO.md · Gino's own words live unedited in /PHILOSOPHY.md. Grok × Claude, Oct 22, 2026.
Why comments are the hardest part
> "So you can also see why the interaction comment system has to be carefully considered." (Gino, Oct 22, 2026)
proposal: our thesis Everything above can be undone in one place: the space under a post. The fence keeps out the outside noise, but replies are where neighbors meet each other's worst moods. Gino's comment brief named the failures: X's fights and Nextdoor's complaints. The feed decides who shows up. Comments decide whether they come back. That's why the comment system, "The Table," took six adversarial rounds (see Sources), and why we test it here against this manifesto's flagship stories.
The Table, in one breath The Table: only people in your area, or who follow your Circle, can reply. One reply per person. The poster answers each reply once. Replies never travel into feeds. No counts. A surge hold when more than 10 non-followers reply in an hour. On power posts, a challenge quotes one sentence and stays visible with its answer.
Red-team 1: Jim's good morning (illustration)
A good morning. Under his clip, one quiet line: faces and "💬 Ana, Luis replied." He taps it and reads, one each: "Thank you Jim! Coats on 🧥". "My son says you're the best." Each face opens that neighbor's Circle (C6), so Jim can start to put names to the families he crosses.
A bad morning (from Claude's red-team). It's day 4 and nobody replied on days 1–3. Today there's one reply: "You waved my son across on a red yesterday." It might be fair, and it's public. Jim can answer once, standing at the corner with kids around him. Or he can remove it, and then his 15-second good morning reads "poster removed some replies", which on a tiny post looks like a cover-up. And there's one reply he has no defense against: "which one is yours?"
Red-team 2: Lupe's "Two openings Saturday" (illustration)
Under it: "💬 Maria replied": "Is Saturday 10am free? Shaggy terrier." Lupe answers once: "Yes! See you at 10." That's the whole interaction, and it works.
Changes the philosophy asks of The Table (all proposal; Gino decides)