5 ms·

Ok, I bite. I went to your site and then clicked to learn javascript. There is a short description about javascript and then a couple of links to javascript tut

Ok, I bite. I went to your site and then clicked to learn javascript. There is a short description about javascript and then a couple of links to javascript tutorials. What now?

breeze_em_out 9y ago
Well, your browser info and metadata have now been sold to third parties for a few pennies, so I'd say mission successful for site owner. Are people actually still this naive? Reading HN users makes me feel like I'm trapped in the 80s where the internet was a magical mystery that nobody really understood. It's about 40 years too late to just assume the average trash website is actually a meaningful statement about something, or a viable product of some sort. 99.9999999% are just junk. The big ones, you already know about.
- dotancohen 9y ago
  > 99.9999999% are just junk. And that, my friends, is how the mystical nine nines was finally achieved!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
metalmanac 9y ago
This is exactly the problem users are having. Since the purpose of the site and how it works is buried in the About page, people are clueless about what to do next. I am redoing the front page to only focus on explaining what the site is about. The idea is this : * provide a community reviewed wiki explaining what X is about and how to go about learning it. The aim is to answer the questions how to learn X programming language/framework/platform and what are the best resources to use. * provide a Stackoverflow like QA section for users to ask and answer questions. * provide a forum to submit and discuss learning resources (like HN) * provide a chatroom to replicate the IRC experience As you can see this I have completely failed to convey this. So that's what I am working on now : to convey the purpose of the site and improve the UX and UI. Reason for completely failing at this : I focus too much on the tech, the backend, unnecessary optimizations and time wasters like load testing.
- type0 9y ago
  It sound like you are trying to compete with codementor.io the problem is that Metal Manac doesn't say anything meaningful and it looks kinda boring with just the bootstrap and no theme. You need to work on the integration between the features and UX, make it memorable! There was a HN tread recently that even bad web design can bring you more visitors/users as long as it's memorable and stands out from the croud.
  - metalmanac 9y ago
    I agree with you. The site is still very, very early and I am currently focusing on the UI and UX to make the site memorable. Thanks for the honest feedback!
- _fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
  It's a decent idea. I think a problem will be that you are trying to compete too much with stackoverflow. * "provide a community reviewed wiki explaining what X is about": http://stackoverflow.com/tags/javascript/info http://stackoverflow.com/tags/javascript/info * "provide a Stackoverflow like QA section": http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript * "provide an chatroom to replicate the IRC experience": http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/17/javascript http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/17/javascript
  - metalmanac 9y ago
    My hypothesis is that 99% of the people who use Stackoverflow only visit the QA part of it and things like the community wiki and chatroom receive minimal traffic. From talking to a few dozens of users, most people don't even know that the chat room and wiki exist! The current number of users in the Stackoverflow chat rooms > with 100 users currently talking in 57 rooms. The usage of the chat is shockingly low. I think there's room to provide a better learning experience for developers and providing chat rooms for developers is a low hanging fruit IMO. People here on HN know about IRC and how to use it, but we represent a very small fraction of the population interested in programming, so the idea is to tend to the general population eventually.

Ok, I bite. I went to your site and then clicked to learn javascript. There is a short description about javascript and then a couple of links to javascript tutorials. What now?

breeze_em_out 9y ago

Well, your browser info and metadata have now been sold to third parties for a few pennies, so I'd say mission successful for site owner. Are people actually still this naive? Reading HN users makes me feel like I'm trapped in the 80s where the internet was a magical mystery that nobody really understood. It's about 40 years too late to just assume the average trash website is actually a meaningful statement about something, or a viable product of some sort. 99.9999999% are just junk. The big ones, you already know about.

dotancohen 9y ago
> 99.9999999% are just junk. And that, my friends, is how the mystical nine nines was finally achieved!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

metalmanac 9y ago

This is exactly the problem users are having. Since the purpose of the site and how it works is buried in the About page, people are clueless about what to do next. I am redoing the front page to only focus on explaining what the site is about. The idea is this : * provide a community reviewed wiki explaining what X is about and how to go about learning it. The aim is to answer the questions how to learn X programming language/framework/platform and what are the best resources to use. * provide a Stackoverflow like QA section for users to ask and answer questions. * provide a forum to submit and discuss learning resources (like HN) * provide a chatroom to replicate the IRC experience As you can see this I have completely failed to convey this. So that's what I am working on now : to convey the purpose of the site and improve the UX and UI. Reason for completely failing at this : I focus too much on the tech, the backend, unnecessary optimizations and time wasters like load testing.

type0 9y ago
It sound like you are trying to compete with codementor.io the problem is that Metal Manac doesn't say anything meaningful and it looks kinda boring with just the bootstrap and no theme. You need to work on the integration between the features and UX, make it memorable! There was a HN tread recently that even bad web design can bring you more visitors/users as long as it's memorable and stands out from the croud.
- metalmanac 9y ago
  I agree with you. The site is still very, very early and I am currently focusing on the UI and UX to make the site memorable. Thanks for the honest feedback!
_fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
It's a decent idea. I think a problem will be that you are trying to compete too much with stackoverflow. * "provide a community reviewed wiki explaining what X is about": http://stackoverflow.com/tags/javascript/info http://stackoverflow.com/tags/javascript/info * "provide a Stackoverflow like QA section": http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript * "provide an chatroom to replicate the IRC experience": http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/17/javascript http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/17/javascript
- metalmanac 9y ago
  My hypothesis is that 99% of the people who use Stackoverflow only visit the QA part of it and things like the community wiki and chatroom receive minimal traffic. From talking to a few dozens of users, most people don't even know that the chat room and wiki exist! The current number of users in the Stackoverflow chat rooms > with 100 users currently talking in 57 rooms. The usage of the chat is shockingly low. I think there's room to provide a better learning experience for developers and providing chat rooms for developers is a low hanging fruit IMO. People here on HN know about IRC and how to use it, but we represent a very small fraction of the population interested in programming, so the idea is to tend to the general population eventually.