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I find that a lot of askers on SO are really in need of a consultation with a tutor or technical mentor, not a singular answer. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but

I find that a lot of askers on SO are really in need of a consultation with a tutor or technical mentor, not a singular answer. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but to me, really poor SO questions often look like opportunities - what if the asker was open to a 30 minute chat with someone knowledgeable that could totally illuminate things and set them on the right path, but there's just no forum for accomplishing that (or they don't know about it)? Is there any site/service out there that facilitates this? Paid, unpaid, whatever, I'm just curious if anyone in the HN community has done something like this, on either side (as either the tutor, or the tutored).

stinos 9y ago
Very good point. Best thing you can do on SO is starting a chat with the user I think, or sometimes you can give a 'teach a man how to fish'-style answer where you don't just give a code-only answer (i.e. how), or maybe don't even give a complete direct answer at all, but explain the bigger picture (i.e. why). Problem with the latter approach is that if the OP doesn't leave any comment you don't really know if it helped at all, whereas chat is more direct. But if you do get a 'well now I learned something' type of comment there's a good chance it actually helped the OP becoming more knowledgeable.
- kqr 9y ago
  > Problem with the latter approach is that if the OP doesn't leave any comment you don't really know if it helped at all I have thought before that somehow responding to people's answers should be mandatory to get them, but I have yet to figure out a good scheme for this.
jamessb 9y ago
I think hackhands is what you are describing: https://hackhands.com/how-it-works/ https://hackhands.com/how-it-works/
- arbie 9y ago
  This looks amazing! Any experience with getting help on an enterprise codebase?
gerbilly 9y ago
> a tutor or technical mentor Is there any site that provides this?
edem 9y ago
That's a very good idea. SO should introduce a tutor service where an user with the right tag badges can tutor juniors for a small fee. Win-win.
jpindar 9y ago
I wish people would put their email address or social media info in their SO profiles.

stinos 9y ago

Very good point. Best thing you can do on SO is starting a chat with the user I think, or sometimes you can give a 'teach a man how to fish'-style answer where you don't just give a code-only answer (i.e. how), or maybe don't even give a complete direct answer at all, but explain the bigger picture (i.e. why). Problem with the latter approach is that if the OP doesn't leave any comment you don't really know if it helped at all, whereas chat is more direct. But if you do get a 'well now I learned something' type of comment there's a good chance it actually helped the OP becoming more knowledgeable.

kqr 9y ago
> Problem with the latter approach is that if the OP doesn't leave any comment you don't really know if it helped at all I have thought before that somehow responding to people's answers should be mandatory to get them, but I have yet to figure out a good scheme for this.

jamessb 9y ago

I think hackhands is what you are describing: https://hackhands.com/how-it-works/ https://hackhands.com/how-it-works/

arbie 9y ago
This looks amazing! Any experience with getting help on an enterprise codebase?

gerbilly 9y ago

> a tutor or technical mentor Is there any site that provides this?

edem 9y ago

That's a very good idea. SO should introduce a tutor service where an user with the right tag badges can tutor juniors for a small fee. Win-win.

jpindar 9y ago

I wish people would put their email address or social media info in their SO profiles.