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Seems like a cool idea on the surface, but a few minutes of browsing make it look like a jobs board for non-profits/startups instead of solving what I might con

Seems like a cool idea on the surface, but a few minutes of browsing make it look like a jobs board for non-profits/startups instead of solving what I might consider "real" problems. In other words, I'd rather see something much more specific than what I'm seeing here. Something like: > Hi, we're FarmBot. We're building drones to help farmers farm better. Here are a list of problems we need to solve: UI for farmers to designate pathways, machine learning tools to identify crop quality, (insert more). What I'm seeing now looks more like job descriptions. > We need someone to build us an app to find bodies after the Haiti earthquake. That's not really a problem to solve -- that's a position that's open. I feel like I didn't explain that very well... Edit: To summarize, what I really want is a list of problems to solve. I want to know "Here's something that is stumping us. Got any ideas?" I don't need a new job. I just want to help change the world. I don't know the specifics of why providing clean water to rural areas is such a challenge. But if I did know the specific problems, maybe I could help. What I don't have time for is to take on the entire scope of that challenge. In other words, give me something specific to solve. I hope that makes more sense.

Blahah 13y ago
Thanks for this feedback. I agree with you. At the moment a lot of the projects are looking for open-source contributors. In fact, the first 'problem' posted was also the first thing to be solved: a charity's website was running really slow and they needed help fixing it. That got fixed in 24 hours. We're aware of this and recently added 'tasks' to projects so that specific problems can be solved, and solvers get credit for them. We'd love suggestions for other ways to encourage people to post smaller chunks that are more like specific problems.
- gavinpc 13y ago
  There's this website called solvers.io that is trying to solve problems, but it looks like it's down.
  - Blahah 13y ago
    Thanks for the heads up, I've spun up a few more servos.
    - gavinpc 13y ago
      My bad anyway, it's just (yet) another one of those sites that looks like it's completely hung if you happen to have cookies blocked. Is this even considered a bug anymore?
      - Blahah 13y ago
        Definitely a bug! We use cookies only for GA and for login sessions. It shouldn't affect a pageview that isn't logged in. We'll sort it out :)
  - davedx 13y ago
    Yes, the site is creaking under that lovely HN traffic. Props to our wonderful hosts http://modulus.io http://modulus.io for the dynamic servo scaling and all the other good stuff they provide.
- thaumaturgy 13y ago
  > In fact, the first 'problem' posted was also the first thing to be solved: a charity's website was running really slow and they needed help fixing it. That got fixed in 24 hours. That was also the first item I looked at and thought, "Oh, I could do that, it should only take a couple hours tops." Everything else requires significantly more time investment -- which narrows your field of helpers down to, "smart and helpful people who have lots of free time". Those people exist, but they're a much smaller population than, "smart and helpful people who can come up with a couple of hours for an interesting project while procrastinating on something else." I think your website copy is very strongly commitment-oriented. From https://www.solvers.io/ https://www.solvers.io/: -> "Get involved in a project below"; what about, "Solve a problem for a project" instead? -> "Got an idea? Post it and recruit solvers"; I dunno what to suggest here, but "idea" is really broad and "recruit" is a loaded term. From https://www.solvers.io/projects/new https://www.solvers.io/projects/new: -> "Project name" and "Role": I think these are definitely sending the wrong message. "Role" might by itself by the source for a lot of the confusion. You're not looking for a role to be filled -- a position -- you're looking for a specific thing to get done. (It can also cause people to ask for the wrong thing, e.g. a website developer when they need a graphic artist or something.) -> "Describe the project, including its expected duration and required skillset." I think "duration" sends the wrong message, i.e., "if you're looking for help for the next six months, that's OK, just say so". If that's what you intend, cool, otherwise, that spot might be a great time to tell project managers to keep it short for best results: "Describe your project and what kind of help it needs. Try to ask for specific tasks instead of ongoing commitments." HTH. It's a really cool site, I hope I can do a thing or two there in the future.
  - davedx 13y ago
    Thanks for the feedback! We're going to move towards a more task-oriented system. The tasks were only implemented last week, so none of the current projects are using them, but we'll try to make sure projects are more broken down in future postings so people with limited time can help out more.
chadkruse 13y ago
What you describe reminds me of a weekend project I threw together to check out meteor.js: http://inception.getkyn.com/ http://inception.getkyn.com/ The few submissions I got aren't earth shattering, but gave me a few new ideas for side projects. I'll have to dig up the links, but I believe Caravan Studios has a site more closely related to what you describe.

Blahah 13y ago

Thanks for this feedback. I agree with you. At the moment a lot of the projects are looking for open-source contributors. In fact, the first 'problem' posted was also the first thing to be solved: a charity's website was running really slow and they needed help fixing it. That got fixed in 24 hours. We're aware of this and recently added 'tasks' to projects so that specific problems can be solved, and solvers get credit for them. We'd love suggestions for other ways to encourage people to post smaller chunks that are more like specific problems.

gavinpc 13y ago
There's this website called solvers.io that is trying to solve problems, but it looks like it's down.
- Blahah 13y ago
  Thanks for the heads up, I've spun up a few more servos.
  - gavinpc 13y ago
    My bad anyway, it's just (yet) another one of those sites that looks like it's completely hung if you happen to have cookies blocked. Is this even considered a bug anymore?
    - Blahah 13y ago
      Definitely a bug! We use cookies only for GA and for login sessions. It shouldn't affect a pageview that isn't logged in. We'll sort it out :)
- davedx 13y ago
  Yes, the site is creaking under that lovely HN traffic. Props to our wonderful hosts http://modulus.io http://modulus.io for the dynamic servo scaling and all the other good stuff they provide.
thaumaturgy 13y ago
> In fact, the first 'problem' posted was also the first thing to be solved: a charity's website was running really slow and they needed help fixing it. That got fixed in 24 hours. That was also the first item I looked at and thought, "Oh, I could do that, it should only take a couple hours tops." Everything else requires significantly more time investment -- which narrows your field of helpers down to, "smart and helpful people who have lots of free time". Those people exist, but they're a much smaller population than, "smart and helpful people who can come up with a couple of hours for an interesting project while procrastinating on something else." I think your website copy is very strongly commitment-oriented. From https://www.solvers.io/ https://www.solvers.io/: -> "Get involved in a project below"; what about, "Solve a problem for a project" instead? -> "Got an idea? Post it and recruit solvers"; I dunno what to suggest here, but "idea" is really broad and "recruit" is a loaded term. From https://www.solvers.io/projects/new https://www.solvers.io/projects/new: -> "Project name" and "Role": I think these are definitely sending the wrong message. "Role" might by itself by the source for a lot of the confusion. You're not looking for a role to be filled -- a position -- you're looking for a specific thing to get done. (It can also cause people to ask for the wrong thing, e.g. a website developer when they need a graphic artist or something.) -> "Describe the project, including its expected duration and required skillset." I think "duration" sends the wrong message, i.e., "if you're looking for help for the next six months, that's OK, just say so". If that's what you intend, cool, otherwise, that spot might be a great time to tell project managers to keep it short for best results: "Describe your project and what kind of help it needs. Try to ask for specific tasks instead of ongoing commitments." HTH. It's a really cool site, I hope I can do a thing or two there in the future.
- davedx 13y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! We're going to move towards a more task-oriented system. The tasks were only implemented last week, so none of the current projects are using them, but we'll try to make sure projects are more broken down in future postings so people with limited time can help out more.

chadkruse 13y ago

What you describe reminds me of a weekend project I threw together to check out meteor.js: http://inception.getkyn.com/ http://inception.getkyn.com/ The few submissions I got aren't earth shattering, but gave me a few new ideas for side projects. I'll have to dig up the links, but I believe Caravan Studios has a site more closely related to what you describe.