4 ms·

No problem - I appreciate the good feedback! Finding the 'Paul-Graham-of-Knitters' for each community is exactly how I was thinking of approaching this. Gettin

by jsmoov 16y ago

No problem - I appreciate the good feedback! Finding the 'Paul-Graham-of-Knitters' for each community is exactly how I was thinking of approaching this. Getting those people to buy in to the concept will be a challenge, indeed - but not impossible. With Reddit, the difference is in how customizable it is. You can hit "Politics" and get a list of posts loosely related to politics. But you can't get a feed specifically for "New York Politics" or better, "New York Republicans". I may be wrong, but HN could be a business if PG wanted it to be. We all take pride in being outliers, I agree. However would you agree that even HN has it's share of trolls? How does HN keep them out? I believe there are people out there who take topics (of the non-technical variety) seriously enough to fight for the maintenance of their community. Hopefully I'm right! Thanks again for the feedback.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
Finding the 'Paul-Graham-of-Knitters' for each community is exactly how I was thinking of approaching this. Getting those people to buy in to the concept will be a challenge Indeed. And you are competing with the likes of StackOverflow and their millions. With Reddit, the difference is in how customizable it is. You can hit "Politics" and get a list of posts loosely related to politics. But you can't get a feed specifically for "New York Politics" or better, "New York Republicans". Folks can create sub-reddits as detailed as they want. Some get enough traction to survive, some don't. I still don't see how your site would be different. I may be wrong, but HN could be a business if PG wanted it to be. And how would you monetize it? I don't see an obvious business model. However would you agree that even HN has it's share of trolls? How does HN keep them out? HN has trolls, despite the fact that and PG spends a lot of time trying to cultivate the commnity. There are (all too often) posts complaining that "HN is turning into Reddit"-- which ought give one pause. I believe there are people out there who take topics (of the non-technical variety) seriously enough to fight for the maintenance of their community. I imagine there are. And I imagine that in a large number of cases, they've already done so. I imagine there is at least one Knitter's forum successfully meeting the needs of a large chunk of the Knitter's community. I'm not really sure there is an untapped market out there. I don't mean to sound so negative-- but there's a difference between an application and a startup. You've written some software; I'm not sure there is a viable business model behind it, especially in competition with Reddit.
- jsmoov 16y ago
  Re: differences - I would say Reddit is 1) disorganized and 2) has its focus primarily on front-page. I don't know many people who know how or have to time to dig through all the sub-reddits offered to maybe find something they like. This structure does work for many of us, and that's cool. I think it can be improved upon, though. Same with your argument about untapped markets. I'm sure Hackers had a preferred method of communicating pre-HN (IRC?), but something better and more structured came along and displaced it. Re: HN business model - paid job board, paid newsletter, hacker conferences, hacker news apparel, regular old google ads, etc. there would be many paths to take if this was a for-profit endeavor.
  - gmartres 16y ago
    I'm pretty sure HN didn't replace IRC.
  - shawndrost 16y ago
    The Reddit comparison is critical: I don't understand why I would want to go to your empty site, when Reddit has a full one that is largely identical. So far, the only concrete difference that I see is that you emphasize the list of subreddits.
notahacker 16y ago
I like the filter UI, but I'm not sure how much of a differentiator for the service they are from subreddits. You sound like you might be on the way to a key differentiator from Reddit with the idea of actively courting respected people within respective communities to curate their corner of the site, but the tough problem isn't so much finding the right curators as persuading them you offer something better than the skinned vBulletin or phpBBS with thousands of members they're already running... A "Hacker News of New York Politics" wouldn't stand out for UI or precise filters though, it would stand out because or a relative lack of people battering each other over the head with slogans and Bloomberg and Giuliani popping in to offer their opinion every now and then. The former is achievable through aggressive moderation; the latter is a tough ask.

by jsmoov 16y ago

michael_dorfman 16y ago

Finding the 'Paul-Graham-of-Knitters' for each community is exactly how I was thinking of approaching this. Getting those people to buy in to the concept will be a challenge Indeed. And you are competing with the likes of StackOverflow and their millions. With Reddit, the difference is in how customizable it is. You can hit "Politics" and get a list of posts loosely related to politics. But you can't get a feed specifically for "New York Politics" or better, "New York Republicans". Folks can create sub-reddits as detailed as they want. Some get enough traction to survive, some don't. I still don't see how your site would be different. I may be wrong, but HN could be a business if PG wanted it to be. And how would you monetize it? I don't see an obvious business model. However would you agree that even HN has it's share of trolls? How does HN keep them out? HN has trolls, despite the fact that and PG spends a lot of time trying to cultivate the commnity. There are (all too often) posts complaining that "HN is turning into Reddit"-- which ought give one pause. I believe there are people out there who take topics (of the non-technical variety) seriously enough to fight for the maintenance of their community. I imagine there are. And I imagine that in a large number of cases, they've already done so. I imagine there is at least one Knitter's forum successfully meeting the needs of a large chunk of the Knitter's community. I'm not really sure there is an untapped market out there. I don't mean to sound so negative-- but there's a difference between an application and a startup. You've written some software; I'm not sure there is a viable business model behind it, especially in competition with Reddit.

jsmoov 16y ago
Re: differences - I would say Reddit is 1) disorganized and 2) has its focus primarily on front-page. I don't know many people who know how or have to time to dig through all the sub-reddits offered to maybe find something they like. This structure does work for many of us, and that's cool. I think it can be improved upon, though. Same with your argument about untapped markets. I'm sure Hackers had a preferred method of communicating pre-HN (IRC?), but something better and more structured came along and displaced it. Re: HN business model - paid job board, paid newsletter, hacker conferences, hacker news apparel, regular old google ads, etc. there would be many paths to take if this was a for-profit endeavor.
- gmartres 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure HN didn't replace IRC.
- shawndrost 16y ago
  The Reddit comparison is critical: I don't understand why I would want to go to your empty site, when Reddit has a full one that is largely identical. So far, the only concrete difference that I see is that you emphasize the list of subreddits.

notahacker 16y ago

I like the filter UI, but I'm not sure how much of a differentiator for the service they are from subreddits. You sound like you might be on the way to a key differentiator from Reddit with the idea of actively courting respected people within respective communities to curate their corner of the site, but the tough problem isn't so much finding the right curators as persuading them you offer something better than the skinned vBulletin or phpBBS with thousands of members they're already running... A "Hacker News of New York Politics" wouldn't stand out for UI or precise filters though, it would stand out because or a relative lack of people battering each other over the head with slogans and Bloomberg and Giuliani popping in to offer their opinion every now and then. The former is achievable through aggressive moderation; the latter is a tough ask.