Third Place
Third Place support
Last updated 15 September 2026.
Third Place is for recurring, low commitment, in person gatherings: run clubs, board game nights, climbing, sketch meetups. One tap to say you are coming this week, and an honest count of how many people keep coming back.
Why a gathering says it is new instead of showing a number
Until a gathering has met four times, no regular count is shown at all. A group that has met twice cannot have regulars in any meaningful sense, and "2 regulars" would both overstate it and make every new gathering look like a failure beside an established one.
After that, a regular is somebody who turned up to at least three of the last six occurrences. The window means an old regular ages out rather than propping the number up forever.
Why the number is so small
Because it is the true one. Third Place counts people who keep coming rather than people who joined, and a small number is reported rather than rounded up. You deserve to know which kind of room you are walking into.
Why I have to say I am coming again every week
Your yes is attached to one specific occurrence and dies with it, so next week is a fresh decision. A standing yes is how a group ends up with twelve members and two people in the room, and asking again every week is what makes the regular count mean something.
The Yours tab shows how many times you have turned up, and deliberately not a streak. A consecutive counter that breaks turns one missed Tuesday into a reason to stop going at all.
Who can see me
The host of a gathering sees who has said they are coming to their own gathering, by display name, because somebody setting out chairs needs to know how many. Everyone else sees numbers only: how many come most weeks, and how many came last time. Never who.
There is no member list, no profile to open and no way to look at a person in this app, and that is built into the database rather than left as a screen nobody wrote. The name you set on the Account tab is what a host sees, so use something else if you would rather.
This is not a dating app
You cannot message anybody, you cannot browse people, and you cannot see who is coming, only how many. There are no photographs of people and no profiles, and the app asks for no camera or photo library permission.
Why there is no map and no "near me"
There is no location permission of any kind, and your phone is never asked where it is. A gathering has a place because the host typed one in words, a pub or a park gate.
Why the time did not change when the clocks did
It is not meant to. A gathering at 7pm on Tuesdays is 7pm in its own city every Tuesday, including the Tuesday after the clocks change. Fortnightly gatherings are anchored so they cannot drift, and monthly means the same weekday of the month.
Nothing reminds you
There is no push notification and no email, so somebody has to open the app to remember Tuesday.
Your data
Signing in is by an emailed code, so there is no password, and there is no Google or Facebook sign in, because that would import a real name, a photograph and a social graph into a product whose premise is that none of those are here. Stored: your email address, a display name, and which gatherings you said you were coming to.
Deleting from the Account tab removes your account and every record of what you turned up to, which is the most revealing thing this app holds. If you host anything, it stays and keeps running with your name on it. Turn it off first if you would rather it stopped.
The full policy is at carrierpress.com/thirdplace/privacy. The hosting provider that holds the database and sends the codes is the only other party involved: no analytics, no advertising, nothing sold, and nothing sent to a language model.
Contact
One person reads that, so a reply may take a few days.
Third Place is published by Jeffrey L Carrier.