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I've created a community and learning platform for math, physics and CS lovers
- vitno 13y agoHave you considered integrating something like Persona? While I have never like FB sign up, this is the exact situation where I would be tempted to use it. Possible interest, but I don't really wanna go through the sign-up. I keep hoping to find a site in the wild using Persona. of course... in the time I typed this I could have just signed up. :P
- prezjordan 13y agoInteresting. LaTeX support?
- aditgupta 13y agoyes, LateX support is there! Inbuilt visual equation editor coming in a week or so! :)
- prezjordan 13y agoExcellent, site looks great :) I'd love the ability to edit/delete my "opinions" though.
- det23x 13y agoSo what do you want to achieve here, because such a platform is just useful if you find either people that are willing to answer specific questions - such as in mathoverflow - or if you want to read something up (and then you probably go to wikipedia or grap another introduction to a topic). Anyway, it is nicely done, but I wonder if there was another intention than "because we can". I have read the "How Function Space is different?" section, but it is not that convincing.
- alexholehouse 13y agoI actually think that for a lot of maths/CS/Physics issues, wikipedia is a horrible introduction to people unfamiliar with the topic. A site which curates explanations in normalspeak with some form of interaction (i.e. "Can you explain why...") would actually be a very useful resource for a lot of people, myself included.
- det23x 13y agoYeah, that's true, but you can also use free ebooks, slides from lectures, etc. and you often find really good stuff. Furthermore one should not have to register for such a service ... consider wikipedia would require you to login to find out how, e.g. merge sort works.
- pvarangot 13y agoWikipedia is supposed to be static, without questions from readers on any engagement besides reading and maybe correcting or expanding something. Also, no serious Wikipedia article about math or physics is thought of as an introduction. Sometimes its the other way around, its written for experts and goes into surface or line integrals, or sometimes even tensor notation, when an introduction would not. I think this website is trying to reduce friction for user interaction and aggregating it, and also tries to curate material into different levels of difficulty. Both things merit asking for a login, for social its obvious why, and to curate for difficulty its helpful to use the feedback from users as a signal of an innadecuate label.
- jonahx 13y agokhan academy, among others, already addresses this
- kyzyl 13y agoKhan academy is nice for the material it covers, but anybody going beyond high school will find it rapidly becomes obsolete (according to the content ca. the last time I checked). The treatments are simply too elementary and the topics too low level. I would think a site where people can ask anything, ala stackoverflow, would yield more useful results for many physics/math/cs students.
- aditgupta 13y agoI wanted to create a complete learning environment for these three subjects. So apart from discussions and articles, there are various other things like Video lectures, book reviews, problem solving techniques, subject groups and visualisations(which will soon evolve to virtual labs). Rather than quickly-learn,quickly-forget model, I wanted to implement a model that is based on solid understanding of concepts.
- SeanDav 13y agoVery polished site from the little I saw of it - and there lies the rub - I saw so little of it. Why don't you allow browsing without registration? I am sure you will miss out on a lot of traffic and future sign-ups because the initial experience is opaque.
- alexholehouse 13y agoRegistration is literally no more than the three boxes on the signup page, which was a pleasant surprise.
- moondowner 13y ago3 boxes, or 1 social sign-in, is the norm nowadays.
- JabavuAdams 13y agoThat doesn't make it good. Maybe you're arguing that the target market won't care?
- moondowner 13y agoI'm just saying that this is the standard way now. Everybody wants to make it as easy as possible for new users to sign in.
- ed209 13y agoI think people are starting to suffer from signup fatigue (even with just 3 boxes). Wherever possible, services should get right into the kernel of the experience and ask for registration later.
- npsimons 13y agoSeconded; it may be "only" three boxes, but I can browse SO or SE by filling in zero boxes. This reminded me of a site (can't remember which) that comes up in Google results for some UNIX CLI searches I've done and requires sign-in or payment(!) to view community contributed answers. Bugger that for a lark.
- mrgoldenbrown 13y agoWhy can't I see anything without signing in? Do I need to pay?
- aditgupta 13y agoNo need to pay. You can sign up within a few seconds and you're in! :)
- mkl 13y agoIt really seems like a pointless obstacle. The value of a site like this is in the content, which is inaccessible without handing over an email address, so nobody can tell if it's worth it. I think you would get far more participants if you made it openly viewable (and hence google-able).
- mrgoldenbrown 13y agoSo is it a policy decision to not allow browsing unless you're signed in? Or just a beta thing? Saying it's easy to register doesn't address the question of why it's necessary :)
- aditgupta 13y agoI just launched it a week ago. So, things will surely change with time. How about something like StackOverflow? You can view everything, but to vote or answer you have to login. All this feedback is really going to help a lot! :)
- SeanDav 13y agoSorry, I accidentally downvoted you. I wanted to say yes, this. Allow viewing of everything but to participate, you have to register.
- joey2714 13y agoI think that is a good idea, or something along those lines. I too clicked the link to the site, but when I noticed I had to register first, I came back here to check the comments rather than continuing. Showing more content before forcing a signup should gather a lot more interest. Looks nice though, and you seem very receptive to feedback, so I guess I will go sign up anyway! Good luck!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- strangestchild 13y agoLooks good - I've signed up :) I would say though that I think your articles and lectures could do with a bit more organisation. In both cases, the user would benefit from posts having tags denoting subject content, and from a search facility so that I can find things that specifically interest me. If you have five hundred videos about mathematics, finding one on Analytic Topology, say, by scrolling through them would be a bit painful. I also think it would be good if the lectures had some way of tying subsequent videos together - it seems a tiny bit messy to have 'Cosmology - Lecture 1', and 'Cosmology - Lecture 2' as separate entries. I'm also not certain that you want to limit lectures to being videos. A well-written explanation of a broad subject is sometimes better than a video that I can't search or skim through - and I think it serves a different purpose from the articles. It's also easier for your community to add written content than videos. Hope that was useful to you - but obviously take it all with a pinch of salt. You know your strategy better than some guy off the internet who's only spent ten minutes on your site :)
- aditgupta 13y agoThanks for signing up! And thanks a lot for positive criticism. I have noted your feedback regarding Lectures and Articles. Will surely implement it within few days! :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MartinMcGirk 13y agoLooks good, I look forward to exploring the site properly after work. One small niggle for you to address though. Log out and go to your home page. Navigate to the About page. Now try and get back to the home page without using your browsers back button. I would expect your site logo in the top left to take me to your home page, especially as it appears clickable, but it doesn't. It puts a # at the end of the url and that's it.
- aditgupta 13y agoThanks!! Fixing it now! :)
- mike_ivanov 13y agoLook, the thing is, the only reason why you are asking for registration is building an email database. If you stated that clearly like "please provide your email so we'd contact you later" or whatever -- that would be perfectly acceptable. However, by forcing me into surrending you my email address you make me wonder what else I'm going to be forced into down the road. So, thanks, but no, thanks.
- CamperBob2 13y agoTrue. He's more than welcome to email asfasdfasdf@asfasdfasdjfasdfjs.com with whatever further information he would like to release.
- JabavuAdams 13y agoTrue, but the site accepts foo@example.com ... so ...
- cing 13y agoCool site. I think you should include a citation importer and exporter for people referencing published articles in their posts.
- aditgupta 13y agoThanks!! Point noted! :)
- findomia 13y agoGreat site your created. Thanks!
- jsanders128 13y agoGreat idea! How did you make the website? Ie, did you contract out or make it yourself? And if so, how were you able to do it? Thanks.
- aditgupta 13y agoThanks! It took me about 2 weeks to design and a month to develop. I left my full-time job for Function Space. My wife also helped me out with some ideas. The biggest motivating factor was my love for these 3 subjects. :)
- nilkn 13y agoHow do you plan on monetizing Function Space?
- solistice 13y agoOn this tangent, I wouldn't suggest premium features, unless they're minor because they tend to tear apart communities (look at all the games). I'd suggest nonintrusive ads and/or affiliate links to books, which would fit this site nicely. You could also put a store in there selling things relating to these topics, either setting that up yourself, or again going the affiliate route. Honestly, you could just look into how similar sites are doing their financing, and see what you can copy from their methods.
- dusklight 13y agoClicked on link -- I am interested in learning about math, physics and CS. Saw registration screen. Closed window.
- Wonderdonkey 13y agoaditgupta, What I saw of this was pretty neat. Have you considered adding Common Core alignment for high school students/teachers who would benefit from it? Heads up: I left the site, and it didn't remember me when I came back. I forgot my random password and requested a password reset. Got a confirmation that an e-mail had been sent, but that hasn't arrived after a good 30 minutes so far.
- aditgupta 13y agoThanks! I am considering some kind of tie-up with schools and colleges. I see that a mail has been sent to some emails. If you can send me your email id, I will cross-check it for you.
- aditgupta 13y agoThank you all for such an overwhelming response! I will deal with the sign-up issue ASAP. All other suggestions would also be implemented soon. :)
- mdkess 13y agoReally like the idea of this, and especially enjoyed that you took the time to make the 2 minute video walkthrough (it made it easy for me to say "ok, I'll give you 2 minutes, let's hear your pitch"). I think the idea of having a focused community will work quite well. A suggestion: Redis has a very cool documentation system, where the documentation is "live" - for example, http://redis.io/commands/set http://redis.io/commands/set (scroll down to the example, you can type in the box). It'd be really neat to have something like that integrated with the code side of things.
- andreros 13y agoThe favicon is slightly unreadable, and could easily be improved.
- solistice 13y agoA FAQ would also be nice/neccesairy. If it's allready there, put it somewhere where people can find it.
- _chrismccreadie 13y agoI love the look and feel of the site, well done. I understand some of the frustration in the discussion about required registration but the site is still definitely worth a look. The half alive/half dead cat icon for quantum mechanics made me laugh, kudos to whoever designed it.
- Splendor 13y agoHome page tells me nothing, just wants me to sign up for something I don't understand yet. That's when I closed the tab. If you want idiots like me to signup you'll need to sell me before you ask me to type.