6 ms·

Show HN: A developers-only news site you join via pull request

96 points by matt2000 13y ago

kristopolous 13y ago
Unfortunately I'm not interested in working on this code for the sole purpose of posting comments on this website. I honestly don't have that kind of time.
- wbobeirne 13y ago
  I think that's what the site is banking on. That initial investment of time and effort is their way of building a serious community.
  - kristopolous 13y ago
    It's a fascinating idea. There is the Eternal September effect that can be combated by having a barrier to entry. Metafilter has $5 registration, stack-overflow has their own sauce. My friend who runs the VMS company prgmr.com requires someone to give them a public key to sign up. I generally think this is a good idea to keep the riff-raff out. (then again, I've done countless anonymous spelling, format, and grammar corrections on wikipedia - but some people say their convoluted markup is the barrier) The point here is, if I can get my eyes on the prize (the privilege to post), and if it doesn't look terribly valuable - then I have very little motive to hop on board. My core contention is that the barrier has actually been placed too high. $5, a public key, learning wiki markup, providing correct answers - these are all easy tasks of very little effort. Doing code comprehension and diving into a project - that's a fairly large commitment. Am I to be held responsible for the code? Will the people behind the project care if I continue to submit after I get the prize? I count the circle of people I listen to, respect, and care about (here, it would be the commenting accounts) as greatly outnumbering the circle I'd want to work on code with.
    - krapp 13y ago
      Unfortunately, it appears to include node developers who don't have the time or patience to submit a pull request, those who do but whose requests won't be approved, and developers who code in languages other than javascript and who therefore have nothing useful enough to add, among the 'riff-raff'. Some kind of proof of work is an interesting idea for a site like this, but I wonder if it self-selects for too narrow a domain? I don't know that the correlation between "submitted code" and "provides quality content" are strong enough for this particular filter to provide results worth the effort.
      - matt2000 13y ago
        Op here: yeah, it might be the case that the community selection will be too narrow, but we figured almost any programmer knows something of HTML or CSS or JavaScript, so that seemed like a good lowest common denominator for a minimal standard of contribution.
        pekk 13y ago
        Real contribution to a Node project requires more than passing familiarity with HTML, CSS or Javascript. If you just want a site for primarily Node developers, that's fine, just admit it straight up
        jpatokal 13y ago
        They're not asking for a "real" contribution, just a pull request. Two people have already gotten in by tweaking the 404 page: https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/commits/master/views/404.jade https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/commits/master/views/404...
        krapp 13y ago
        It might run counter to your goals but wouldn't it accomplish more or less the same thing to require an approved pull request for any open source project? A similar amount of overhead would still be required, but you would wind up with a much more diverse population. You could even showcase the repos being worked on.
sneak 13y ago
I'd have sent a PR except who the fuck writes serverside web apps in javascript?
- sehr 13y ago
  People. But seriously, it's 2014. node.js is a thing, has been for a while.
- rschmitty 13y ago
  Perhaps it will be a site focused on Nodejs news as only Nodejs developers will contribute in which case you wouldn't be interested anyways? No need for the negativity! I could easily say who the f* writes web apps in ___ and get much praise/hate.
  - pekk 13y ago
    Sure you could, but the point is rather to require this specific language. No option is totally without controversy, but this choice ensures a very specific audience (not just programmers/technical people, but ones who are into node) and anyone outside the audience is implicitly not welcome at all.
  - al2o3cr 13y ago
    "Perhaps it will be a site focused on Nodejs news" They could call it "Hacker News".... ;)
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    hmmm maybe you can make SEVERAL of these sites each in a specific tech so each person can get into their niche of interest
    - vvvVVVvvv 13y ago
      or different implementations all linked to the same DB ? Although it seems a bit of a waste of time.
      - 13y ago
1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
Neat, I added bender (robots.txt). Enjoy!
wnissen 13y ago
Whoa. Sort of like how you have to pay $5 to join Metafilter. That seems neat.
theatgrex 13y ago
also interesting because presumably... as more of the low hanging fruit get fixed or added...it will take more effort to become a member
- matt2000 13y ago
  Op here: yeah, exactly - that's part of the thinking. Or maybe the feature surface area will expand enough that there's always low hanging fruit somewhere. I'm not really sure.
  - tg3 13y ago
    Or perhaps it will be a sparkling clean codebase, as I'm sure a lot of the low-hanging fruit will be re-factoring existing stuff and improving clarity/readability.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
neoveller 13y ago
The step of just adding yourself to the userlist seems ill-conceived. Automatic merges are just going to overwrite the last person added unless manually merged. Can I propose this just use github for authentication, and only allow those on the contributors list (http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-contributors http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-contributors) to successfully log in?
- infogulch 13y ago
  Make a pull request! Also change the readme, faq etc. I like this better also because you can update the list without restarting the server.
  - neoveller 13y ago
    Still waiting on my first pull request to get merged (msied).
    - matt2000 13y ago
      Op here: sorry, we got a little back logged processing the PRs when we hit the front page, and also because of exactly this username merge problem (whoops).
      - neoveller 13y ago
        Added the proposed auth method. Still awaiting merge for previous pull request: https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11 https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11
        matt2000 13y ago
        Awesome, thanks. We're going to go through most of this in detail in the morning, getting late here for us but this looks awesome.
viclou 13y ago
Done! https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/14 https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/14
Killswitch 13y ago
> So far it's just a terrible and featureless clone of Hacker News I don't have to waste my time adding features to HN to be a user here. I think I'll stay here.
nilved 13y ago
What if you don't have a GitHub account?
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  Get one :). You're not selling your soul. They don't require much beyond an email, IIRC.
  - chriswarbo 13y ago
    Selling one's personal data and selling one's 'soul' (principles) are two different things. Just because GitHub only requires an email address to join, doesn't mean they're not incentivised to replace a decentralised Free Software system (git) with a centralised proprietary alternative (git+github). I'm a massive fan of git, which is precisely why I do not, and never will, use github.
    - andrewflnr 13y ago
      Hmm. I wasn't thinking about it from that perspective. Still, I don't see github as a replacement, but simply an optional nice UI for git collaboration. It's easy to set yourself up so that if Github went down or you wanted to move off it, you could. The only tricky part would be not investing too deeply in the issue tracker, but that's not a replacement for git anyway. I'm not sure they can be said to be incentivized to do something that's nearly impossible.
  - nilved 13y ago
    GitHub is shady in its tracking and data gathering and is opposite the decentralized nature of git, so signing up would indeed be selling out on my principles for the ability to use this website. Truthfully, I've forgone things much more convenient or interesting for far less important matters (which is not to say this site is uninteresting.)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
It's amusing because I've seen so many people mad at HN's lack of features, and spend so much noise demanding pg add this or that, or creating bookmarklets to "fix" it, or even forking the entire site just to try to modify a part of its functionality. But when offered the chance to collaboratively control the whole thing, on github, now it's "meh? why would anyone want that".
- krapp 13y ago
  People seem to be questioning the validity of having domain knowledge in node/heroku/mongodb and an approved pull request be a prerequisite for joining a site not obviously about node development, not to the idea of an open source site in and of itself. If people had to learn Arc and have a pull request approved just to join HN, there would be maybe two or three people here.
  - throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
    Ah, you're right.
  - coolsunglasses 13y ago
    Node, Arc, MongoDB, and Heroku are not difficult to learn at all. All are borderline facile. I don't think it's an unreasonable boundary at all and I strongly dislike those specific technologies. If you don't have the willpower or gumption to contribute to the community, then I don't really care to read what you have to say at all. tl;dr lazybones need not apply
    - krapp 13y ago
      Well, I managed to get a local instance running, poke around then hack together something. I would by no means call it 'borderline facile' though, just a set of annoying dependencies to install and hoops to jump through. That said, getting it set up was easier than I anticipated. (though granted, nobody has to do any of that to submit a pull request...)
  - hayksaakian 13y ago
tlack 13y ago
I had never thought about using the git push/pull model for anything but code and data. Could git, tunneled over ssh, build the decentralized web that we're all bandying about?
fibbery 13y ago
OK which of you broke it? The site is currently down.

96 points by matt2000 13y ago

Unfortunately I'm not interested in working on this code for the sole purpose of posting comments on this website. I honestly don't have that kind of time.

wbobeirne 13y ago
I think that's what the site is banking on. That initial investment of time and effort is their way of building a serious community.
- kristopolous 13y ago
  It's a fascinating idea. There is the Eternal September effect that can be combated by having a barrier to entry. Metafilter has $5 registration, stack-overflow has their own sauce. My friend who runs the VMS company prgmr.com requires someone to give them a public key to sign up. I generally think this is a good idea to keep the riff-raff out. (then again, I've done countless anonymous spelling, format, and grammar corrections on wikipedia - but some people say their convoluted markup is the barrier) The point here is, if I can get my eyes on the prize (the privilege to post), and if it doesn't look terribly valuable - then I have very little motive to hop on board. My core contention is that the barrier has actually been placed too high. $5, a public key, learning wiki markup, providing correct answers - these are all easy tasks of very little effort. Doing code comprehension and diving into a project - that's a fairly large commitment. Am I to be held responsible for the code? Will the people behind the project care if I continue to submit after I get the prize? I count the circle of people I listen to, respect, and care about (here, it would be the commenting accounts) as greatly outnumbering the circle I'd want to work on code with.
  - krapp 13y ago
    Unfortunately, it appears to include node developers who don't have the time or patience to submit a pull request, those who do but whose requests won't be approved, and developers who code in languages other than javascript and who therefore have nothing useful enough to add, among the 'riff-raff'. Some kind of proof of work is an interesting idea for a site like this, but I wonder if it self-selects for too narrow a domain? I don't know that the correlation between "submitted code" and "provides quality content" are strong enough for this particular filter to provide results worth the effort.
    - matt2000 13y ago
      Op here: yeah, it might be the case that the community selection will be too narrow, but we figured almost any programmer knows something of HTML or CSS or JavaScript, so that seemed like a good lowest common denominator for a minimal standard of contribution.
      - pekk 13y ago
        Real contribution to a Node project requires more than passing familiarity with HTML, CSS or Javascript. If you just want a site for primarily Node developers, that's fine, just admit it straight up
        jpatokal 13y ago
        They're not asking for a "real" contribution, just a pull request. Two people have already gotten in by tweaking the 404 page: https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/commits/master/views/404.jade https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/commits/master/views/404...
      - krapp 13y ago
        It might run counter to your goals but wouldn't it accomplish more or less the same thing to require an approved pull request for any open source project? A similar amount of overhead would still be required, but you would wind up with a much more diverse population. You could even showcase the repos being worked on.

sneak 13y ago

I'd have sent a PR except who the fuck writes serverside web apps in javascript?

sehr 13y ago
People. But seriously, it's 2014. node.js is a thing, has been for a while.
rschmitty 13y ago
Perhaps it will be a site focused on Nodejs news as only Nodejs developers will contribute in which case you wouldn't be interested anyways? No need for the negativity! I could easily say who the f* writes web apps in ___ and get much praise/hate.
- pekk 13y ago
  Sure you could, but the point is rather to require this specific language. No option is totally without controversy, but this choice ensures a very specific audience (not just programmers/technical people, but ones who are into node) and anyone outside the audience is implicitly not welcome at all.
- al2o3cr 13y ago
  "Perhaps it will be a site focused on Nodejs news" They could call it "Hacker News".... ;)
- xerophtye 13y ago
  hmmm maybe you can make SEVERAL of these sites each in a specific tech so each person can get into their niche of interest
  - vvvVVVvvv 13y ago
    or different implementations all linked to the same DB ? Although it seems a bit of a waste of time.
    - 13y ago

1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago

Neat, I added bender (robots.txt). Enjoy!

wnissen 13y ago

Whoa. Sort of like how you have to pay $5 to join Metafilter. That seems neat.

theatgrex 13y ago

also interesting because presumably... as more of the low hanging fruit get fixed or added...it will take more effort to become a member

matt2000 13y ago
Op here: yeah, exactly - that's part of the thinking. Or maybe the feature surface area will expand enough that there's always low hanging fruit somewhere. I'm not really sure.
- tg3 13y ago
  Or perhaps it will be a sparkling clean codebase, as I'm sure a lot of the low-hanging fruit will be re-factoring existing stuff and improving clarity/readability.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

neoveller 13y ago

The step of just adding yourself to the userlist seems ill-conceived. Automatic merges are just going to overwrite the last person added unless manually merged. Can I propose this just use github for authentication, and only allow those on the contributors list (http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-contributors http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-contributors) to successfully log in?

infogulch 13y ago
Make a pull request! Also change the readme, faq etc. I like this better also because you can update the list without restarting the server.
- neoveller 13y ago
  Still waiting on my first pull request to get merged (msied).
  - matt2000 13y ago
    Op here: sorry, we got a little back logged processing the PRs when we hit the front page, and also because of exactly this username merge problem (whoops).
    - neoveller 13y ago
      Added the proposed auth method. Still awaiting merge for previous pull request: https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11 https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11
      - matt2000 13y ago
        Awesome, thanks. We're going to go through most of this in detail in the morning, getting late here for us but this looks awesome.

viclou 13y ago

Done! https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/14 https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/14

Killswitch 13y ago

> So far it's just a terrible and featureless clone of Hacker News I don't have to waste my time adding features to HN to be a user here. I think I'll stay here.

nilved 13y ago

What if you don't have a GitHub account?

andrewflnr 13y ago
Get one :). You're not selling your soul. They don't require much beyond an email, IIRC.
- chriswarbo 13y ago
  Selling one's personal data and selling one's 'soul' (principles) are two different things. Just because GitHub only requires an email address to join, doesn't mean they're not incentivised to replace a decentralised Free Software system (git) with a centralised proprietary alternative (git+github). I'm a massive fan of git, which is precisely why I do not, and never will, use github.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    Hmm. I wasn't thinking about it from that perspective. Still, I don't see github as a replacement, but simply an optional nice UI for git collaboration. It's easy to set yourself up so that if Github went down or you wanted to move off it, you could. The only tricky part would be not investing too deeply in the issue tracker, but that's not a replacement for git anyway. I'm not sure they can be said to be incentivized to do something that's nearly impossible.
- nilved 13y ago
  GitHub is shady in its tracking and data gathering and is opposite the decentralized nature of git, so signing up would indeed be selling out on my principles for the ability to use this website. Truthfully, I've forgone things much more convenient or interesting for far less important matters (which is not to say this site is uninteresting.)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago

It's amusing because I've seen so many people mad at HN's lack of features, and spend so much noise demanding pg add this or that, or creating bookmarklets to "fix" it, or even forking the entire site just to try to modify a part of its functionality. But when offered the chance to collaboratively control the whole thing, on github, now it's "meh? why would anyone want that".

krapp 13y ago
People seem to be questioning the validity of having domain knowledge in node/heroku/mongodb and an approved pull request be a prerequisite for joining a site not obviously about node development, not to the idea of an open source site in and of itself. If people had to learn Arc and have a pull request approved just to join HN, there would be maybe two or three people here.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
  Ah, you're right.
- coolsunglasses 13y ago
  Node, Arc, MongoDB, and Heroku are not difficult to learn at all. All are borderline facile. I don't think it's an unreasonable boundary at all and I strongly dislike those specific technologies. If you don't have the willpower or gumption to contribute to the community, then I don't really care to read what you have to say at all. tl;dr lazybones need not apply
  - krapp 13y ago
    Well, I managed to get a local instance running, poke around then hack together something. I would by no means call it 'borderline facile' though, just a set of annoying dependencies to install and hoops to jump through. That said, getting it set up was easier than I anticipated. (though granted, nobody has to do any of that to submit a pull request...)
- hayksaakian 13y ago

tlack 13y ago

I had never thought about using the git push/pull model for anything but code and data. Could git, tunneled over ssh, build the decentralized web that we're all bandying about?

fibbery 13y ago

OK which of you broke it? The site is currently down.