9 ms·

Show HN: JavaScript-free personal bio hosting

123 points by mrkn1 6y ago

amelius 6y ago
I'd love to see something like this replace LinkedIn. But I guess it needs a few more features before that happens.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  Microsoft owns LinkedIn and GitHub. GitHub has “profile readmes” now. I expect us to (unfortunately) trend this direction.
janaagaard 6y ago
I know this is pretty harsh, but seeing justified margins immediately makes me hit the back button.
- pyentropy 6y ago
  Do you mean container margins? The text is left justified and I don't see any difference between that site and HN.
  - Stratoscope 6y ago
    For me it's left justified on desktop but flush justified on mobile (Android Chrome). The left justified desktop version looks fine, but the flush justified mobile version is kind of ugly. Oddly enough, even if I select "desktop site" in the Chrome menu on mobile, it is still flush justified. Web authors: don't use flush justified text. It never helps you, and usually hurts you. Gosh, as long as I'm nitpicking, here's another one. If I click New Bio, it lists my location as: PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA No, no, no! Proper names should never be forced into ALL CAPS. Besides being wrong and ugly, it makes me think you coded the site in COBOL.
  - montroser 6y ago
    The text is treated with `text-align: justify`, which can look pretty rough in small screen sizes where you have fewer words per line. In my opinion, it both looks bad and hurts readability.
adingus 6y ago
I like the idea but I don't see how being Javascript free is a good value proposition here. If I'm looking to hire or find additional information on a person, the way the page is implemented won't be important to me (especially if Im outside of the tech industry).
- mcny 6y ago
  Personally, I think no JavaScript means no third party tracking. Also requiring a .edu email is a good start.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    Why would you want to require a .edu? Seems like it closes it off to a lot of people (especially globally, but also within the US).
    - foepys 6y ago
      Sounds a bit like elitism. It asumes that people with .edu addresses are somehow better as first users. GP maybe has Facebook in mind that did exactly this.
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        That was when facebook was meant as an internal platform for colleges though, I don't understand why a platform for hosting bios/resumes publicly would want/need that restriction.
  - flavor8 6y ago
    > Also requiring a .edu email is a good start. Not really, unless the intent is to discriminate against immigrants to the US / people outside the US / people who went straight into a career from high school.
    - LadyCailin 6y ago
GrumpyNl 6y ago
I would be surprised if a page like that needed JS at all
- skinkestek 6y ago
  No ordinary pages need JS. Sadly the majority of newer ones never seems to have got that memo.
  - GrumpyNl 6y ago
    So true, that could be a simple static html page.
weltensturm 6y ago
How does "built-in privacy" hold up when the bios are basically public? It looks like the generated links are just based on the person's name as well, so it would be pretty easy to find a lot of people fast. Letting the user generate UUID (or something) based URLs that are valid for a limited time only should be standard.
rushikesh98 6y ago
Can you support ".ac.ccTLD" as well? Many countries [1] use that for educational institutes. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ac_(second-level_domain)
- foepys 6y ago
  If OP really only wants to allow academic email addresses, they could use the domains from JetBrains' swot repository: https://github.com/JetBrains/swot/tree/master/lib/domains https://github.com/JetBrains/swot/tree/master/lib/domains
  - captn3m0 6y ago
    This likely uses swot as the data source, but offers an API as well: https://github.com/Hipo/university-domains-list https://github.com/Hipo/university-domains-list
munna77 6y ago
how to find new people . Even after creating new account it is not showing any people or explore page It is remaining as the same but with log out button that's it nothing is coming up
factorialboy 6y ago
This webapp seems extremely trivial, unless there is some long term play to take on the likes of LinkedIn?
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  You need js to copy everyone's clipboard ;)
upofadown 6y ago
It would be nice if there was something like this that worked with PGP identities. The public version could just be indexed off the fingerprint. The private version would have to involve signing something, probably just the fingerprint.
- ytjohn 6y ago
  Keybase doesn't do this explicitly, but would be in a good position to do so. It's all about identities, including PGP keys. The profile page currently only shows your identities elsewhere, but they do have a "public folder" which could host a bio. They would need to do something similiar to Github profile readmes so that a specific folder or files show up on your profile. They might even have that as a feature and I'm just not aware of it. - profile page: https://keybase.io/ytjohn/ https://keybase.io/ytjohn/ - public folder: https://keybase.pub/ytjohn/ https://keybase.pub/ytjohn/ - github profile readme: https://www.aboutmonica.com/blog/how-to-create-a-github-profile-readme https://www.aboutmonica.com/blog/how-to-create-a-github-prof... UPDATE: They do let you create a homepage with an index.md or index.html. (https://ytjohn.keybase.pub/ https://ytjohn.keybase.pub/). However, you would be on your own getting the information from your profile page onto your public webpage. You would just be hosting a static page and not benefiting from the verified identity portion on the profile page.
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    After zoom acquisition, I ditched keybase and I think a lot of keybase users feel the same way. [0]The original blog post didn't inspire much confidence in the future. 0] https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoomffering/ https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoomffering/
elondaits 6y ago
I really hate the statement "built-in privacy: this site does not use any javascript", because privacy is not specifically violated by JS, and you can track (or 3rd-party track) without JS just fine. Their site clearly does not need JS, but this misinforms their audience about privacy and safe browsing. Also, according to their Privacy Policy, they collect your IP (for Geolocation) and browser type... two pieces of data that are, in a great percentage of cases, enough to identify someone.
- rpdillon 6y ago
  Having used uMatrix over the past several years, I grow weary seeing almost every site bring in cascading JavaScript dependencies across 3-4 additional domains, sometimes as many as a dozen. I agree that technically, JS doesn't have to violate privacy, but in practice, the internet is packed to the brim with JS-powered 3rd party tracking.
  - b4ke 6y ago
    Philosopher kings communicate in ways the average individual has issue grokking, doesn’t invalidate the potential for abuse to complain that it’s free of “tracking”
  - mrspeaker 6y ago
    I agree - and I'm sick of it too. I don't think "no JS means no tracking", but it means "more likely less tracking" and "definitely a lot less bullshit 3rd party shenanigans". I absolutely love JavaScript, have been a fan of it since before it was cool, stayed a fan after it was not cool again, and am still a fan now! But now the benefits it brings me on the web is snowed under by the shit it delivers. It's not worth it. JavaScript is off by default everywhere for me now, and there has to be a really compelling reason to get me to whitelist a site. Most often (I'd say about 80-90% of unknown/non-regular links I click) I just close the tab and go somewhere else. Luckily there's a lot of sites out there, and there's starting to be more services like the OP's - which I will be able to visit!
- b4ke 6y ago
  How do you know that JavaScript doesn’t have an extra-dimensional component the human mind little understands?
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
Congratulations on the launch! I would like to inform anyone working on such bio website that there is a need gap for a universal employee verification system which works to independently verify employee experience even if the former company has shut its shop[1]. LinkedIn could have addressed that problem, but it chose to become another cat videos platform(I personally have nothing against cats). [1]https://needgap.com/problems/54-better-employee-verification-system-verification-employment https://needgap.com/problems/54-better-employee-verification... (Disclaimer: My problem validation platform)
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  I clicked on your link and read the problem. It's the problem of asserting authenticity of a claim all over again, and doing it in way that can be trusted by both parties. An applicant makes a claim about a former position, but there's no way of verifying the veracity of that claim. There's no notarized and properly archived record which allows verification of the authenticity claim. So, any 3rd party service that claims to be able to verify authenticity invariably acts as a neutral, impartial, trusted authority. In essence, this what a notary or notary public does in the analogue world. If such a service would be a private business, it's impartiality can and will automatically be contested - as per your example in the link. You could look towards the public administration and set up a publicly governed system (e.g. tied to public pension rights) which registers employment. But such a system would also come with a few fundamental questions regarding trust and privacy. And finally, you could look into a distributed network of actors verifying each other through block chain technology, but that still doesn't solve the problem of governing those actors and how they behave. In my corner of the world, employers are legally obliged to hand out a signed form to leaving employees that confirms their erstwhile employment. It's entirely up to employees to produce those copies when asked to verify the claims they make on their resume, and employers are free to take this into account as a formal condition to consider an applicant. It's also up to applicants to seek and reach out to their previous employers and secure a document if they didn't receive one, even when those have dissolved. This system puts the responsibility entirely with the employee, which may, arguably, be the best of all the bad options out there.
  - 6y ago
harryvederci 6y ago
Nice! I'm creating something similar[0] in Clojure, as my first attempt at a Clojure project. It's still super early stage, but the author of plumebio is free to run it and get inspiration from the generated CV html/css page. If I have more time, what I'd strife for with this project is to become a competitor of LinkedIn (e.g.), but with only private profiles. Companies are then charged when they query for people with skills/certificates that they are interested in. Or they'll pay a subscription for unlimited querying. Users know they are not tracked by the platform itself, and companies that query users agree to a (TBD) license that limits their usage for HR goals. It'll provide public statistics on what companies query for, so if users with Java experience see that Kotlin is queried more than Java, they'll have an indication of what skill to invest their time in. (Just an example.) [0] https://github.com/harryvederci/resumator https://github.com/harryvederci/resumator (Any Clojurians that find this subject interesting, feel free to contribute.)
- Shared404 6y ago
  Interesting idea for a business model. How would you get users on board though?
  - harryvederci 6y ago
    For now I'm creating it as a tool that I'll use to generate my own CV + website, so even without the whole "compete with the likes of LinkedIn" idea, I'll get value out of the time I invested in it. The next phase will be to share it with colleagues and friends, to get some early feedback going. Then I'll expand it from a self-hosted website (/ tool to generate your CV from your local machine) to a hosted platform where people can sign up. Then I'll probably first market it to a business sector (/ Reddit groups e.g.) with a higher-than-usual amount of privacy-concerned people. Then branch out if it's successful. Note that I'm just brainstorming here, it's not like I've done something like this before myself. What I'd like even more than trying to turn this into a profit-oriented company is to do something more philosophical/political. Hear me out: 1. Create the Resumator tool, and turn it into a platform, as described above. 2. Create a charity organisation that owns the platform, uses the generated income to maintain it, and invests into other like-minded charity organisations. 3. Get governments to support the platform + foundation. They could even self-host Resumator themselves, and make it mandatory for recruitment to be done through the platform. Right now, if a Dutch organisation needs a Java developer, they can create an "easy apply" LinkedIn vacancy. A (probably also Dutch) Java developer now has to spend spare time (or even time in which they are supposed to be working for their current employer) searching LinkedIn for that vacancy. If they click it, the organisation that posted the vacancy pays Microsoft (/LinkedIn) money. So a Dutch employee was less productive because they had to search for a new job instead of just getting an offer, a Dutch company had to pay money to hire that employee, and now the previous employer will pay LinkedIn (/competitors) money. When will the government realise that this money that is going to $usa_based_company can go to its own tax paying citizens? 0. And at the very least, create an API standard for CVs. It's strange to me that it's 2020 and we still have to share PDFs to get a job, where each CV has a different layout, and the person reading it has to look for the relevant section again and again. And often after that, we still have to create a Workday/whatever account and put in the same information again. Edit: Oh and no more of this "talking to independent recruiters" nonsense. Companies can query for profiles themselves, no need to add more middle-men in between that add no value whatsoever.
tyingq 6y ago
There appears to be some issues with scrubbing input data (or escaping it when output): https://imgur.com/a/IUBHLsa https://imgur.com/a/IUBHLsa
benrapscallion 6y ago
The “Mark” example links to papers where Mark isn’t an author.
- julianlam 6y ago
  Fake it 'til you make it! I imagine they don't actually have a published author on the site yet?
OmarShehata 6y ago
I am suspicious at the lack of a "pricing" tab. It's free of ads, they won't sell my data, they're "here to help me" - so who's paying to maintain this? Should I use this if I don't know it will still be around in 3 months?
solarkraft 6y ago
> Academic email (.edu), to verify your affiliation. Uh, why? And since it's just a free text field, what makes it better than me just hosting something on my own?
memset 6y ago
I think this is a neat project - congratulations on getting it out there. I would love for the page to have more polish - maybe you could do it all using CSS and not JS :) about.me does a good job of this. I say this as a grudging backend developer: the "designy-ness" really does work to help any page seem more credible. Curious: is it your intention to make money with this project? On the one hand, awesome that you're doing this for free and presumably trying to get users. On the other, I myself would worry that the service "might go away one day", and although charging doesn't prevent that, it may be useful to find some way to better communicate the trustworthiness of your application not just in terms of privacy, but longevity too. Nice work!
- Shared404 6y ago
  I actually really like this look, see https://git.sr.ht https://git.sr.ht or https://100r.co/site/home.html https://100r.co/site/home.html for similar aesthetics.
6510 6y ago
Put your name on the website and tell the user who you are. The privacy pitch is silly if the user is to share his data with faceless nameless entities.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sally1620 6y ago
Most people would just use their github profile and readme. It tells a better story.

123 points by mrkn1 6y ago

amelius 6y ago

I'd love to see something like this replace LinkedIn. But I guess it needs a few more features before that happens.

whalesalad 6y ago
Microsoft owns LinkedIn and GitHub. GitHub has “profile readmes” now. I expect us to (unfortunately) trend this direction.

janaagaard 6y ago

I know this is pretty harsh, but seeing justified margins immediately makes me hit the back button.

pyentropy 6y ago
Do you mean container margins? The text is left justified and I don't see any difference between that site and HN.
- Stratoscope 6y ago
  For me it's left justified on desktop but flush justified on mobile (Android Chrome). The left justified desktop version looks fine, but the flush justified mobile version is kind of ugly. Oddly enough, even if I select "desktop site" in the Chrome menu on mobile, it is still flush justified. Web authors: don't use flush justified text. It never helps you, and usually hurts you. Gosh, as long as I'm nitpicking, here's another one. If I click New Bio, it lists my location as: PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA No, no, no! Proper names should never be forced into ALL CAPS. Besides being wrong and ugly, it makes me think you coded the site in COBOL.
- montroser 6y ago
  The text is treated with `text-align: justify`, which can look pretty rough in small screen sizes where you have fewer words per line. In my opinion, it both looks bad and hurts readability.

adingus 6y ago

I like the idea but I don't see how being Javascript free is a good value proposition here. If I'm looking to hire or find additional information on a person, the way the page is implemented won't be important to me (especially if Im outside of the tech industry).

mcny 6y ago
Personally, I think no JavaScript means no third party tracking. Also requiring a .edu email is a good start.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Why would you want to require a .edu? Seems like it closes it off to a lot of people (especially globally, but also within the US).
  - foepys 6y ago
    Sounds a bit like elitism. It asumes that people with .edu addresses are somehow better as first users. GP maybe has Facebook in mind that did exactly this.
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      That was when facebook was meant as an internal platform for colleges though, I don't understand why a platform for hosting bios/resumes publicly would want/need that restriction.
- flavor8 6y ago
  > Also requiring a .edu email is a good start. Not really, unless the intent is to discriminate against immigrants to the US / people outside the US / people who went straight into a career from high school.
  - LadyCailin 6y ago

GrumpyNl 6y ago

I would be surprised if a page like that needed JS at all

skinkestek 6y ago
No ordinary pages need JS. Sadly the majority of newer ones never seems to have got that memo.
- GrumpyNl 6y ago
  So true, that could be a simple static html page.

weltensturm 6y ago

How does "built-in privacy" hold up when the bios are basically public? It looks like the generated links are just based on the person's name as well, so it would be pretty easy to find a lot of people fast. Letting the user generate UUID (or something) based URLs that are valid for a limited time only should be standard.

rushikesh98 6y ago

Can you support ".ac.ccTLD" as well? Many countries [1] use that for educational institutes. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ac_(second-level_domain)

foepys 6y ago
If OP really only wants to allow academic email addresses, they could use the domains from JetBrains' swot repository: https://github.com/JetBrains/swot/tree/master/lib/domains https://github.com/JetBrains/swot/tree/master/lib/domains
- captn3m0 6y ago
  This likely uses swot as the data source, but offers an API as well: https://github.com/Hipo/university-domains-list https://github.com/Hipo/university-domains-list

munna77 6y ago

how to find new people . Even after creating new account it is not showing any people or explore page It is remaining as the same but with log out button that's it nothing is coming up

factorialboy 6y ago

This webapp seems extremely trivial, unless there is some long term play to take on the likes of LinkedIn?

DarthGhandi 6y ago
You need js to copy everyone's clipboard ;)

upofadown 6y ago

It would be nice if there was something like this that worked with PGP identities. The public version could just be indexed off the fingerprint. The private version would have to involve signing something, probably just the fingerprint.

ytjohn 6y ago
Keybase doesn't do this explicitly, but would be in a good position to do so. It's all about identities, including PGP keys. The profile page currently only shows your identities elsewhere, but they do have a "public folder" which could host a bio. They would need to do something similiar to Github profile readmes so that a specific folder or files show up on your profile. They might even have that as a feature and I'm just not aware of it. - profile page: https://keybase.io/ytjohn/ https://keybase.io/ytjohn/ - public folder: https://keybase.pub/ytjohn/ https://keybase.pub/ytjohn/ - github profile readme: https://www.aboutmonica.com/blog/how-to-create-a-github-profile-readme https://www.aboutmonica.com/blog/how-to-create-a-github-prof... UPDATE: They do let you create a homepage with an index.md or index.html. (https://ytjohn.keybase.pub/ https://ytjohn.keybase.pub/). However, you would be on your own getting the information from your profile page onto your public webpage. You would just be hosting a static page and not benefiting from the verified identity portion on the profile page.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  After zoom acquisition, I ditched keybase and I think a lot of keybase users feel the same way. [0]The original blog post didn't inspire much confidence in the future. 0] https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoomffering/ https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoomffering/

elondaits 6y ago

I really hate the statement "built-in privacy: this site does not use any javascript", because privacy is not specifically violated by JS, and you can track (or 3rd-party track) without JS just fine. Their site clearly does not need JS, but this misinforms their audience about privacy and safe browsing. Also, according to their Privacy Policy, they collect your IP (for Geolocation) and browser type... two pieces of data that are, in a great percentage of cases, enough to identify someone.

rpdillon 6y ago
Having used uMatrix over the past several years, I grow weary seeing almost every site bring in cascading JavaScript dependencies across 3-4 additional domains, sometimes as many as a dozen. I agree that technically, JS doesn't have to violate privacy, but in practice, the internet is packed to the brim with JS-powered 3rd party tracking.
- b4ke 6y ago
  Philosopher kings communicate in ways the average individual has issue grokking, doesn’t invalidate the potential for abuse to complain that it’s free of “tracking”
- mrspeaker 6y ago
  I agree - and I'm sick of it too. I don't think "no JS means no tracking", but it means "more likely less tracking" and "definitely a lot less bullshit 3rd party shenanigans". I absolutely love JavaScript, have been a fan of it since before it was cool, stayed a fan after it was not cool again, and am still a fan now! But now the benefits it brings me on the web is snowed under by the shit it delivers. It's not worth it. JavaScript is off by default everywhere for me now, and there has to be a really compelling reason to get me to whitelist a site. Most often (I'd say about 80-90% of unknown/non-regular links I click) I just close the tab and go somewhere else. Luckily there's a lot of sites out there, and there's starting to be more services like the OP's - which I will be able to visit!
b4ke 6y ago
How do you know that JavaScript doesn’t have an extra-dimensional component the human mind little understands?

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

Congratulations on the launch! I would like to inform anyone working on such bio website that there is a need gap for a universal employee verification system which works to independently verify employee experience even if the former company has shut its shop[1]. LinkedIn could have addressed that problem, but it chose to become another cat videos platform(I personally have nothing against cats). [1]https://needgap.com/problems/54-better-employee-verification-system-verification-employment https://needgap.com/problems/54-better-employee-verification... (Disclaimer: My problem validation platform)

CaptArmchair 6y ago
I clicked on your link and read the problem. It's the problem of asserting authenticity of a claim all over again, and doing it in way that can be trusted by both parties. An applicant makes a claim about a former position, but there's no way of verifying the veracity of that claim. There's no notarized and properly archived record which allows verification of the authenticity claim. So, any 3rd party service that claims to be able to verify authenticity invariably acts as a neutral, impartial, trusted authority. In essence, this what a notary or notary public does in the analogue world. If such a service would be a private business, it's impartiality can and will automatically be contested - as per your example in the link. You could look towards the public administration and set up a publicly governed system (e.g. tied to public pension rights) which registers employment. But such a system would also come with a few fundamental questions regarding trust and privacy. And finally, you could look into a distributed network of actors verifying each other through block chain technology, but that still doesn't solve the problem of governing those actors and how they behave. In my corner of the world, employers are legally obliged to hand out a signed form to leaving employees that confirms their erstwhile employment. It's entirely up to employees to produce those copies when asked to verify the claims they make on their resume, and employers are free to take this into account as a formal condition to consider an applicant. It's also up to applicants to seek and reach out to their previous employers and secure a document if they didn't receive one, even when those have dissolved. This system puts the responsibility entirely with the employee, which may, arguably, be the best of all the bad options out there.
- 6y ago

harryvederci 6y ago

Nice! I'm creating something similar[0] in Clojure, as my first attempt at a Clojure project. It's still super early stage, but the author of plumebio is free to run it and get inspiration from the generated CV html/css page. If I have more time, what I'd strife for with this project is to become a competitor of LinkedIn (e.g.), but with only private profiles. Companies are then charged when they query for people with skills/certificates that they are interested in. Or they'll pay a subscription for unlimited querying. Users know they are not tracked by the platform itself, and companies that query users agree to a (TBD) license that limits their usage for HR goals. It'll provide public statistics on what companies query for, so if users with Java experience see that Kotlin is queried more than Java, they'll have an indication of what skill to invest their time in. (Just an example.) [0] https://github.com/harryvederci/resumator https://github.com/harryvederci/resumator (Any Clojurians that find this subject interesting, feel free to contribute.)

Shared404 6y ago
Interesting idea for a business model. How would you get users on board though?
- harryvederci 6y ago
  For now I'm creating it as a tool that I'll use to generate my own CV + website, so even without the whole "compete with the likes of LinkedIn" idea, I'll get value out of the time I invested in it. The next phase will be to share it with colleagues and friends, to get some early feedback going. Then I'll expand it from a self-hosted website (/ tool to generate your CV from your local machine) to a hosted platform where people can sign up. Then I'll probably first market it to a business sector (/ Reddit groups e.g.) with a higher-than-usual amount of privacy-concerned people. Then branch out if it's successful. Note that I'm just brainstorming here, it's not like I've done something like this before myself. What I'd like even more than trying to turn this into a profit-oriented company is to do something more philosophical/political. Hear me out: 1. Create the Resumator tool, and turn it into a platform, as described above. 2. Create a charity organisation that owns the platform, uses the generated income to maintain it, and invests into other like-minded charity organisations. 3. Get governments to support the platform + foundation. They could even self-host Resumator themselves, and make it mandatory for recruitment to be done through the platform. Right now, if a Dutch organisation needs a Java developer, they can create an "easy apply" LinkedIn vacancy. A (probably also Dutch) Java developer now has to spend spare time (or even time in which they are supposed to be working for their current employer) searching LinkedIn for that vacancy. If they click it, the organisation that posted the vacancy pays Microsoft (/LinkedIn) money. So a Dutch employee was less productive because they had to search for a new job instead of just getting an offer, a Dutch company had to pay money to hire that employee, and now the previous employer will pay LinkedIn (/competitors) money. When will the government realise that this money that is going to $usa_based_company can go to its own tax paying citizens? 0. And at the very least, create an API standard for CVs. It's strange to me that it's 2020 and we still have to share PDFs to get a job, where each CV has a different layout, and the person reading it has to look for the relevant section again and again. And often after that, we still have to create a Workday/whatever account and put in the same information again. Edit: Oh and no more of this "talking to independent recruiters" nonsense. Companies can query for profiles themselves, no need to add more middle-men in between that add no value whatsoever.

tyingq 6y ago

There appears to be some issues with scrubbing input data (or escaping it when output): https://imgur.com/a/IUBHLsa https://imgur.com/a/IUBHLsa

benrapscallion 6y ago

The “Mark” example links to papers where Mark isn’t an author.

julianlam 6y ago
Fake it 'til you make it! I imagine they don't actually have a published author on the site yet?

OmarShehata 6y ago

I am suspicious at the lack of a "pricing" tab. It's free of ads, they won't sell my data, they're "here to help me" - so who's paying to maintain this? Should I use this if I don't know it will still be around in 3 months?

solarkraft 6y ago

> Academic email (.edu), to verify your affiliation. Uh, why? And since it's just a free text field, what makes it better than me just hosting something on my own?

memset 6y ago

I think this is a neat project - congratulations on getting it out there. I would love for the page to have more polish - maybe you could do it all using CSS and not JS :) about.me does a good job of this. I say this as a grudging backend developer: the "designy-ness" really does work to help any page seem more credible. Curious: is it your intention to make money with this project? On the one hand, awesome that you're doing this for free and presumably trying to get users. On the other, I myself would worry that the service "might go away one day", and although charging doesn't prevent that, it may be useful to find some way to better communicate the trustworthiness of your application not just in terms of privacy, but longevity too. Nice work!

Shared404 6y ago
I actually really like this look, see https://git.sr.ht https://git.sr.ht or https://100r.co/site/home.html https://100r.co/site/home.html for similar aesthetics.

6510 6y ago

Put your name on the website and tell the user who you are. The privacy pitch is silly if the user is to share his data with faceless nameless entities.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sally1620 6y ago

Most people would just use their github profile and readme. It tells a better story.