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Show HN: Arrived – Stack Overflow for US Immigration
- passivepinetree 10y agoStack Overflow might not be the best comparison; it doesn't look like this app lets a user post questions or indeed interact with a community of any kind. It's more of a consolidation of resources designed to help immigrants. That being said, this does look potentially useful. A couple questions: who's curating the newsfeed? Where does the data in the FAQ section come from?
- wjmclaugh 10y agoThe newsfeed is curated from our blog via RSS (www.arrived.us/blog). The data in FAQ comes from expert interviews, NGO pamphlets, government sites, immigrant suggestions, and tips from the consular officials.
- geoffmcc 10y agoAgreed. Does not say anything about being able to post or being able to interact. I wonder what the add situation is like on that app. Can't decide if someone wants to help get info out or if they are capitalizing on the current situation
- wjmclaugh 10y agoSo we invite users to email us so we can anonymize, research, and vet each question. We also allow users and partners to contribute to our blog. (Also we launched back in July.)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pimlottc 10y agoI get the analogy, but it's a bit confusing since there sort of is a Stack Overflow for US immigration: http://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/usa+immigration http://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/usa+im... This seems more like a knowledge base for US Immigration (particular since it doesn't look like you can post your own questions).
- hashhar 10y agoStackExchange is the reddit of Q and A. You can find just about anything, and even start a new one if you find it's missing. The important part is answer percentages, quality of answers and the behaviour of people. StackExchange websites generally excel at that.
- saycheese 10y agoStack Exchange has had over 100,000+ communities started in some form, but there are only 162 that made it and still exist, so while it's true they're very good at doing Q&A for some topics, they've failed at the majority of them.
- fabian2k 10y agoWhere did you get the 100,000+ number from? I don't think there were more than a few dozen sites that were created in the Stack Exchange Area 51 process that were closed down. If you count Stack Exchange 1.0 sites when they licensed the software to other communities, there are probably a few hundred more. But I don't see how you could arrive at 100,000.
- saycheese 10y agoProposal IDs started at 1 and if you sort the list by "most recent" and look at the ID, it's over 100k: https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/106513/parliamentary-procedure https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/106513/parliament...
- fabian2k 10y agoThe ID you're looking at isn't just for proposals, it's used for every post on the A51 site. So this number doesn't mean there were 100,000 proposals. And most proposals are seriously terrible and never attract more than a handful of users. Even the real number of proposals on A51 wouldn't mean all that much.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tvanantwerp 10y agoI found this community very helpful for navigating US immigration for my non-American wife: http://www.visajourney.com/ http://www.visajourney.com/
- knz 10y agoLikewise. Visa journeys was the definitive source when I went through the process about 10 years ago.
- wjmclaugh 10y agoIt's a great site to be sure! But we have translated our content to Spanish (and soon ten other languages).
- kcorbitt 10y agoSeconded. Having access to a huge community of people who were a little further along in the visa issue process made navigating it much, much easier. Little stuff like "oh, they're now requiring 2 passport photos instead of 1 and the consular website hasn't been updated everywhere yet" saved a ton of pain. It was also really nice to see almost in real time how long processing was taking, because you could see when people ahead of you got their interviews scheduled and guess how long you had left.
- Cerium 10y agohttp://candleforlove.com/forums/ http://candleforlove.com/forums/ is also very good. Those two sites together have enough information for a person to educate themselves enough in the visa process to do all the work themselves. For marriage and fiancee visas, if the couple is not high risk (previous denials or red flags like short courtship of a high age difference couple) completing the paperwork yourself can be very straight forward. I did the paperwork for my wife to get her a k1 visa. Cost only a few thousand dollars in filing fees an a good amount of time preparing all the documents. It is a little frustrating that you put so much effort into the documents then they are simply looked at a bit and stamped. My wife reported that during her interview the officer looked at the papers we put together for a minute. Said, looks good and stamped them. 5 minutes total, while people before her had much more lengthy discussions.
- avip 10y agoShould have been called Arrival
- hughes 10y agoWhat was the motivation for making this and Android app? Since this is just a source of information, I'm not sure I see why you'd want to limit it to a platform-specific client.
- elastic_church 10y agoThe only android app I worked on that was more popular on android than iOS was predominantly used by people that identify as Hispanic as well as Black Women living in America. It was a pregnancy information app. Extrapolate whatever you want.
- wjmclaugh 10y agoWe launched back in July because we felt tech could scale the great resources and tips shared in guides, forums, and in-person visits to NGOs. Given we are a team primarily of immigrants, we also wanted to combat the xenophobia in this country. iOS is coming soon! Android headsets are cheaper and have a higher market share, and are therefore are more likely to be used by undocumented immigrants.
- Ajedi32 10y agoI think hughes's point was why isn't this just a website? (Which would work on all platforms, including iOS and desktop PCs, and would be searchable through Google.)
- Johnny555 10y agoWhy is this (apparently) just an app? I'd much rather have a mobile web site that I can read on any of my devices and not have to install an app on my phone to use it. If StackOverflow were only available as an app, it'd be much much less useful.
- wjmclaugh 10y agoFor the majority of Hispanic immigrants, smartphones are their only computing device. I'm a believer than an app always outdoes a "mobile-friendly" site. Also an app lets you require a user to sign a ToS once after installation without requiring accounts. For a website it's not as seamless.
- SamBam 10y agoBut if all you're doing is reading the feed on this app, then why do you need to require accounts or ToS? StackOverflow doesn't require accounts to read posts (unlike some similar sites...).
- wjmclaugh 10y agoTo protect ourselves. While we do not offer legal advice per se, we do explain how removal proceedings, visa processes, and other sensitive topics work . Given how quickly immigration policy changes, the ToS allows us to say that info is provided as-is.
- Kiro 10y agoYou can have that without anyone having to sign anything.
- cmdrfred 10y ago>I'm a believer than an app always outdoes a "mobile-friendly" site. I disagree. Downloading and installing a binary blob in order to then download some text is a worse UX for me. >Also an app lets you require a user to sign a ToS once after installation without requiring accounts. A cookie would solve this problem. I suspect the real reason people keep pushing apps is they are much more monetizable rather than taking the user into account.
- jc4p 10y agoOnly giving this very minor and not-useful feedback because you say "The Stack Overflow" for and I make Stack Overflow's mobile apps: This app is a good idea. It'd look a lot more professional and believable if it had some minor changes like "Don't have the selected tab's text color be black on navy blue", or "give your list items consistent margin and padding". Both of these minor suggestions, and more, are also listed in the Material Design guidelines: https://developer.android.com/design/index.html https://developer.android.com/design/index.html
- wjmclaugh 10y agoGreat points! We are constantly improving the UI since it's our first foray into Android.
- miguelrochefort 10y ago- You should have made a website. - The application doesn't look good.
- Spooky23 10y agoSO is a pretty brutal place from a question experience pov. The stakes are really high for immigrants. I cannot imagine a worse model unless you have actual lawyers answering questions.
- samorto 10y agoI noticed it asked for few permissions. I'm curious though, what do you need location for?
- wjmclaugh 10y agoWe focus map that has every sanctuary city/immigration NGO and law clinic in the country on your approximate location.
- hughes 10y agoAs an immigrant I like the idea of having this information on my phone, especially during border crossings. - under Learn > Emergency I would love to see a section on "What should I do/say if I'm detained at a border crossing" - the See section responds slowly then crashes on my device (Nexus 5X), possibly because I denied the Location permission and it showed the entire map - I'm not sure if denying the Location permission removed information from the Learn section - You've marketed it at the Stack Overflow for US immigration, but there doesn't seem to be a way to ask questions or provide answers to others. Is this coming soon or not planned?
- wjmclaugh 10y ago1) We'll add that in the next release. Thanks. 2) That's entirely likely. I realize the location part is sensitive, but we want to show you immediately the closest NGOs and sanctuary cities. 3) No, it doesn't. 4) We accept submissions via email, Twitter, and FB that we then research and vet with experts. We're planning an anonymous forum as well in the future.
- dudul 10y agoAs far as I know, phones are forbidden between 20 minutes before landing and clearing customs. If you run into troubles while going through BC, you are not allowed to check your phone. Better study/prepare your answers before :)
- secfirstmd 10y agoWe have a section on physical/digital security when crossing through high-risk borders in Umbrella App (our stuff is open source and Creative Commons so people should feel free to reuse it): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u... or https://www.secfirst.org https://www.secfirst.org
- brilliantcode 10y agoOr just come to Vancouver and take a 30~50% pay cut because "You are living in the best place on earth"™
- BHSPitMonkey 10y ago"What do I do when they take this phone away from me before I've had a chance to open this app?"
- bbcbasic 10y agoHey. Australia is the best place on Earth.
- louhike 10y agoThe french translation of the application description is really bad. You should let it in plain english until you have a decent translation.