6 ms·

Show HN: Skillswap, a tiny site to help people help each other

62 points by jackfranklin 13y ago

Argorak 13y ago
Nice idea, simple and helpful, especially as there are quite a number of interesting offers with different skill groups like "need help with coding, can offer help in writing" already.
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Thanks! The idea was to keep it stupidly simple, and not limit what people could ask for / search for. Had a couple of people ask if non web dev topics were allowed - to which my reply was "of course!"
  - mkl 13y ago
    Do you have plans to make it work without a Twitter account?
    - jackfranklin 13y ago
      Not currently, no. Twitter seems like the perfect way to allow people using the site to connect and get learning.
      - cac04 13y ago
        I really, really like the idea. However, I neither have nor want a Twitter account. Would it really be difficult to allow people to use the site without a Twitter account?
realrocker 13y ago
Good Idea. Well executed. Edit: Hide "Offer My Help" on my own swap(when logged in)
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Good spot, thank you. Will add it to the list.
enrmarc 13y ago
Fantastic idea! Just out of curiosity, what hosting service are you using?
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Currently it's on Heroku, using the free instance and the MongoHQ addon. Find it perfect for little side projects like this, especially when launching at first to see if the idea is any good or not.
chrismorgan 13y ago
Something I would really like to see here is use of gender-specific pronoun "he" or "she" instead of "they". Yes, the language has changed so that "they" is acceptable as gender-neutral singular, but it's still regularly jarring, and when the information is or can conveniently be there (you can very easily collect it—male, female or unspecified) it makes it much more pleasant to read.
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Do you know how we would go about doing it? (That's not a snarky Q - I genuinely don't know!). I too would love to but I'm unsure as to how to reliably do it - and in the mean time gender-neutral was a safer bet.
  - chrismorgan 13y ago
    You could tie it in with letting the user specify the name to display; changing away from using Twitter handles is probably not a bad thing anyway. Thus you could have as part of the sign-up process: 1. Call me _________ 2. Refer to me as ( ) male ("he") ( ) female ("she") (x) gender-neutral or plural ("they") ( ) actually, we're a group ("they") For e.g. Twitter sign-up, you'd auto-fill the first with their username and the second with gender-neutral. That does sound rather awkward and could hopefully be improved upon. (I added the final option as it occurred to me businesses could use this.)
    - danielrmay 13y ago
      I agree that the concept of displaying "he" or "she" would indeed be an improvement, but I feel as though the only way to get over the awkwardness of the form questions you defined would be to go through some kind of "profile builder". This obviously takes the app to a new place - now talking about some sort of profile system - this would obviously be a huge feature to add with a load of other implications.
  - snoonan 13y ago
    You can try to avoid it grammatically. @person is looking for help with PHP. In return, @person can help with CSS. I like this because it means each sentence is meaningful out of context and can be separately indexed, searched, etc.
DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
Good one, beautifully done. Just signed up. :) Request: Provide an option to delete swaps. Once I've found someone willing to exchange help, maybe I wouldn't want to continue advertising the swap? Just a thought... :-)
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Thanks - that one is absolutely on our list.
  - DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
    In fact, you don't even have to allow delete - you can just let the users 'hide' them. That way, if I want to offer the same swap, I can just 'unhide' it. :-) Out of curiosity, what's the stack? I read Heroku & MongoDB. I'm guessing it is an Ember.js app? EDIT: unhide not unidentified. Damn you auto correct!
    - jackfranklin 13y ago
      The entire source code is on my GitHub account: https://github.com/jackfranklin/skillswap https://github.com/jackfranklin/skillswap It uses the free Heroku instance with the free MongoHQ addon. That way if the site failed completely I wouldn't be out of pocket! If it keeps being used we'll either stump up some cash for Heroku or look at other hosting options. For now the free Heroku is fine, and the free MongoHQ addon still has enough space, particularly as we're storing so little. There's no Ember or any similar framework, just a bit of jQuery that does the search filtering (which I want to improve - the entire site is a result of a 3-4 hour hack yesterday, plenty can be improved upon). It's a small Ruby app that uses Sinatra, with Mongoid my gem of choice for talking to MongoDB. Uses the omniauth gem to authenticate with Twitter, and that's about it. Dead simple :)
      - DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
        For a few-hour hack, it has been done quite beautifully, I must say. Kudos! I'm more of a Django/Python guy myself and I've been running a few of my own self-learning projects on Heroku, too. So yeah, I know where you're coming from. :) You might want to look into using Bootstrap Typeahead.js to auto-tag topics posted by users. I recently got it working with a bit of jQuery on one of my own projects by using Django Rest Framework to serve the corresponding JSON content. It may even help you auto-match users in the future! (I'd like my ESOPs now, please. :P) I wish I knew how to Rails, but I've only just begun with Django, so I suspect I may not be of much use to you with the code. :( Good luck, and may this project take you places! :)
gp- 13y ago
phpmentoring.org
danielrmay 13y ago
Great idea, novel execution. However - you might want to stick some validation or a moderation step in: the first in the list is currently "necenzurat is looking for help with getting laid. In return, they can offer their help with massage.". Unless, of course, that is the real underlying intention of the app... EDIT: After a short think, I think it would be nice to use a similar auto-complete "tag" entry system a la Stack Overflow. This would make entering any number of skills a great deal easier than just a text field.
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Yup - spotted and deleted that one. I think we need some form of being able to flag an entry as spam, and it going into moderation when that happens.
joshcrowder 13y ago
Great idea! I'm going to sign up
eksith 13y ago
This is a brilliant! Excellent execution as well and it brings people together to form connections that can last longer than the current exchange. This is what we should be seeing more of on HN.
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Thank you :)
grumps 13y ago
I like this... I was just thinking about last night how it would be nice if I could just swap with someone. I would note you might want to protect against things like "help me get laid" I see it it on the homepage just a moment ago. while a legit request, you'll likely lose users over it. I can imagine there will be other crazy and illegal requests too.
- jackfranklin 13y ago
  Agreed - going to add some system to enable people to flag entries as spam, at which point they will be removed and undergo moderation.
afandian 13y ago
I know I'm a bit old fashioned about correct use of TLDs. But. Is this for Indians to swap their skills or not? If not, the domain is very misleading.
- dbaupp 13y ago
  "skill swappin'", perhaps?
  - afandian 13y ago
    I'm sure there's an aesthetic argument. But I think there's a stronger correctness and not-misleading-ness argument.
    - garg 13y ago
      Where is the 'correct use of TLDs' documented? I hope you never come across URL shortening services, like goo.gl, or bit.ly or you'll really get confused. Do you run afandian.com? You should change it to afandian.co.uk because that's really not a commercial website and by your logic, you're misleading people by using incorrect usage of the TLD system.
      - afandian 13y ago
        Well you could start with RFC 1591 which indicates that Country Code TLDs are associated with countries. If I want to sell fish to the United Kingdom I could register fish.co.uk . If I wanted to sell to France it could be fish.fr (or poissons.fr). India, fish.in (I'm not going to guess that the translation). You may decide that you want to grab an Indian address because it looks nice but that doesn't stop it being a technically not a correct usage. If you accept the existence of ccTLDs (and they do exist) then you have to accept that inherent to their existence is an association with a country. Non-geographic TLDs exist. They may not look nice, but they exist for a particular reason (cases where geography isn't relevant). I know people are doing their best to dilute the naming conventions for aesthetic reasons, but it doesn't change the facts of the matter. If someone wants to register a Skill Swap for use in India they're SOL. EDIT: Yes, afandian.com is mine. My presence on the web has nothing much to do with my geographic location (unlike my imaginary fish shop). And .com is non-geographic, so surely that's the right choice on geographic grounds? As for whether or not I'm a commercial entity, that's a fair question on technical grounds. But I think most people understand that .com has become the general purpose domain (I'm not an ORG or a NET or a GOV). The .co.uk domain is equally 'commercial'.
scirahul 13y ago
Awesome job, bang on target, no bullshit, good luck!
bjourne 13y ago
Awesome. It's a site-idea I have myself been toying with but never gone with. Maybe you can extend the scope of your site beyond programming-related topics? For example, I'd be interested in exchanging driving lessons for programming tutoring.
teh_klev 13y ago
Nice one. Would be better if folks asking for help could be made to (or optionally) be a bit more specific about the sort of help they're after.
jscore 13y ago
This one is the best: _vojto is looking for help with Data analytics. In return, they can offer their help with Relationship advice.
anuragramdasan 13y ago
This is amazing. Actually anything that allows people to ask help without being treated badly by other users or mods is something i find amazing. It would have been much better if there were any way to ask for help without twitter. A simple PM system maybe.
realrocker 13y ago
Already connected to 2 people. You might onto something grand here!
Nicholas_C 13y ago
I love this. This is the type of idea/site I aspire to create. Simple, easy, useful.
nimrody 13y ago
How about letting people add some more information besides 'skill'. I.e., what sort of project they need help with or what is the scope of the help needed?
shloime 13y ago
Brilliant. I'm loving this.

62 points by jackfranklin 13y ago

Nice idea, simple and helpful, especially as there are quite a number of interesting offers with different skill groups like "need help with coding, can offer help in writing" already.

jackfranklin 13y ago
Thanks! The idea was to keep it stupidly simple, and not limit what people could ask for / search for. Had a couple of people ask if non web dev topics were allowed - to which my reply was "of course!"
- mkl 13y ago
  Do you have plans to make it work without a Twitter account?
  - jackfranklin 13y ago
    Not currently, no. Twitter seems like the perfect way to allow people using the site to connect and get learning.
    - cac04 13y ago
      I really, really like the idea. However, I neither have nor want a Twitter account. Would it really be difficult to allow people to use the site without a Twitter account?

realrocker 13y ago

Good Idea. Well executed. Edit: Hide "Offer My Help" on my own swap(when logged in)

jackfranklin 13y ago
Good spot, thank you. Will add it to the list.

enrmarc 13y ago

Fantastic idea! Just out of curiosity, what hosting service are you using?

jackfranklin 13y ago
Currently it's on Heroku, using the free instance and the MongoHQ addon. Find it perfect for little side projects like this, especially when launching at first to see if the idea is any good or not.

chrismorgan 13y ago

Something I would really like to see here is use of gender-specific pronoun "he" or "she" instead of "they". Yes, the language has changed so that "they" is acceptable as gender-neutral singular, but it's still regularly jarring, and when the information is or can conveniently be there (you can very easily collect it—male, female or unspecified) it makes it much more pleasant to read.

jackfranklin 13y ago
Do you know how we would go about doing it? (That's not a snarky Q - I genuinely don't know!). I too would love to but I'm unsure as to how to reliably do it - and in the mean time gender-neutral was a safer bet.
- chrismorgan 13y ago
  You could tie it in with letting the user specify the name to display; changing away from using Twitter handles is probably not a bad thing anyway. Thus you could have as part of the sign-up process: 1. Call me _________ 2. Refer to me as ( ) male ("he") ( ) female ("she") (x) gender-neutral or plural ("they") ( ) actually, we're a group ("they") For e.g. Twitter sign-up, you'd auto-fill the first with their username and the second with gender-neutral. That does sound rather awkward and could hopefully be improved upon. (I added the final option as it occurred to me businesses could use this.)
  - danielrmay 13y ago
    I agree that the concept of displaying "he" or "she" would indeed be an improvement, but I feel as though the only way to get over the awkwardness of the form questions you defined would be to go through some kind of "profile builder". This obviously takes the app to a new place - now talking about some sort of profile system - this would obviously be a huge feature to add with a load of other implications.
- snoonan 13y ago
  You can try to avoid it grammatically. @person is looking for help with PHP. In return, @person can help with CSS. I like this because it means each sentence is meaningful out of context and can be separately indexed, searched, etc.

DjangoReinhardt 13y ago

Good one, beautifully done. Just signed up. :) Request: Provide an option to delete swaps. Once I've found someone willing to exchange help, maybe I wouldn't want to continue advertising the swap? Just a thought... :-)

jackfranklin 13y ago
Thanks - that one is absolutely on our list.
- DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
  In fact, you don't even have to allow delete - you can just let the users 'hide' them. That way, if I want to offer the same swap, I can just 'unhide' it. :-) Out of curiosity, what's the stack? I read Heroku & MongoDB. I'm guessing it is an Ember.js app? EDIT: unhide not unidentified. Damn you auto correct!
  - jackfranklin 13y ago
    The entire source code is on my GitHub account: https://github.com/jackfranklin/skillswap https://github.com/jackfranklin/skillswap It uses the free Heroku instance with the free MongoHQ addon. That way if the site failed completely I wouldn't be out of pocket! If it keeps being used we'll either stump up some cash for Heroku or look at other hosting options. For now the free Heroku is fine, and the free MongoHQ addon still has enough space, particularly as we're storing so little. There's no Ember or any similar framework, just a bit of jQuery that does the search filtering (which I want to improve - the entire site is a result of a 3-4 hour hack yesterday, plenty can be improved upon). It's a small Ruby app that uses Sinatra, with Mongoid my gem of choice for talking to MongoDB. Uses the omniauth gem to authenticate with Twitter, and that's about it. Dead simple :)
    - DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
      For a few-hour hack, it has been done quite beautifully, I must say. Kudos! I'm more of a Django/Python guy myself and I've been running a few of my own self-learning projects on Heroku, too. So yeah, I know where you're coming from. :) You might want to look into using Bootstrap Typeahead.js to auto-tag topics posted by users. I recently got it working with a bit of jQuery on one of my own projects by using Django Rest Framework to serve the corresponding JSON content. It may even help you auto-match users in the future! (I'd like my ESOPs now, please. :P) I wish I knew how to Rails, but I've only just begun with Django, so I suspect I may not be of much use to you with the code. :( Good luck, and may this project take you places! :)

gp- 13y ago

phpmentoring.org

danielrmay 13y ago

Great idea, novel execution. However - you might want to stick some validation or a moderation step in: the first in the list is currently "necenzurat is looking for help with getting laid. In return, they can offer their help with massage.". Unless, of course, that is the real underlying intention of the app... EDIT: After a short think, I think it would be nice to use a similar auto-complete "tag" entry system a la Stack Overflow. This would make entering any number of skills a great deal easier than just a text field.

jackfranklin 13y ago
Yup - spotted and deleted that one. I think we need some form of being able to flag an entry as spam, and it going into moderation when that happens.

joshcrowder 13y ago

Great idea! I'm going to sign up

eksith 13y ago

This is a brilliant! Excellent execution as well and it brings people together to form connections that can last longer than the current exchange. This is what we should be seeing more of on HN.

jackfranklin 13y ago
Thank you :)

grumps 13y ago

I like this... I was just thinking about last night how it would be nice if I could just swap with someone. I would note you might want to protect against things like "help me get laid" I see it it on the homepage just a moment ago. while a legit request, you'll likely lose users over it. I can imagine there will be other crazy and illegal requests too.

jackfranklin 13y ago
Agreed - going to add some system to enable people to flag entries as spam, at which point they will be removed and undergo moderation.

afandian 13y ago

I know I'm a bit old fashioned about correct use of TLDs. But. Is this for Indians to swap their skills or not? If not, the domain is very misleading.

dbaupp 13y ago
"skill swappin'", perhaps?
- afandian 13y ago
  I'm sure there's an aesthetic argument. But I think there's a stronger correctness and not-misleading-ness argument.
  - garg 13y ago
    Where is the 'correct use of TLDs' documented? I hope you never come across URL shortening services, like goo.gl, or bit.ly or you'll really get confused. Do you run afandian.com? You should change it to afandian.co.uk because that's really not a commercial website and by your logic, you're misleading people by using incorrect usage of the TLD system.
    - afandian 13y ago
      Well you could start with RFC 1591 which indicates that Country Code TLDs are associated with countries. If I want to sell fish to the United Kingdom I could register fish.co.uk . If I wanted to sell to France it could be fish.fr (or poissons.fr). India, fish.in (I'm not going to guess that the translation). You may decide that you want to grab an Indian address because it looks nice but that doesn't stop it being a technically not a correct usage. If you accept the existence of ccTLDs (and they do exist) then you have to accept that inherent to their existence is an association with a country. Non-geographic TLDs exist. They may not look nice, but they exist for a particular reason (cases where geography isn't relevant). I know people are doing their best to dilute the naming conventions for aesthetic reasons, but it doesn't change the facts of the matter. If someone wants to register a Skill Swap for use in India they're SOL. EDIT: Yes, afandian.com is mine. My presence on the web has nothing much to do with my geographic location (unlike my imaginary fish shop). And .com is non-geographic, so surely that's the right choice on geographic grounds? As for whether or not I'm a commercial entity, that's a fair question on technical grounds. But I think most people understand that .com has become the general purpose domain (I'm not an ORG or a NET or a GOV). The .co.uk domain is equally 'commercial'.

scirahul 13y ago

Awesome job, bang on target, no bullshit, good luck!

bjourne 13y ago

Awesome. It's a site-idea I have myself been toying with but never gone with. Maybe you can extend the scope of your site beyond programming-related topics? For example, I'd be interested in exchanging driving lessons for programming tutoring.

teh_klev 13y ago

Nice one. Would be better if folks asking for help could be made to (or optionally) be a bit more specific about the sort of help they're after.

jscore 13y ago

This one is the best: _vojto is looking for help with Data analytics. In return, they can offer their help with Relationship advice.

anuragramdasan 13y ago

This is amazing. Actually anything that allows people to ask help without being treated badly by other users or mods is something i find amazing. It would have been much better if there were any way to ask for help without twitter. A simple PM system maybe.

realrocker 13y ago

Already connected to 2 people. You might onto something grand here!

Nicholas_C 13y ago

I love this. This is the type of idea/site I aspire to create. Simple, easy, useful.

nimrody 13y ago

How about letting people add some more information besides 'skill'. I.e., what sort of project they need help with or what is the scope of the help needed?

shloime 13y ago

Brilliant. I'm loving this.