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Sounds like that would devolve into a situation where people are trying to exploit others for free work. There are plenty of places on the Internet where you c

by pmorici 11y ago

Sounds like that would devolve into a situation where people are trying to exploit others for free work. There are plenty of places on the Internet where you can go to find people asking others to write software for them for little or no money. Should this really be one of them?

synthmeat 11y ago
I believe the same trend like in any (most) other non-news submissions will follow - intellectually stimulating tasks get upvoted.
philippnagel 11y ago
Upvoting/downvoting should, at least in theory, prevent that from happening.
- brudgers 11y ago
  The best form of moderation is not encouraging behavior that requires moderation. Downvotes are a form of community feedback but not really a moderation tool. For example, in cases where I am in doubt about the benefit of something to HN, my threshold for downvoting is much larger than my threshold for upvoting: I am more likely to upvote when "it might be useful" than to downvote a "might not be useful" because there is a person's karma at the other end of the arrow.
- ed_blackburn 11y ago
  Absolutely. Apply judgement.
- aw3c2 11y ago
  There is no downvoting at HN
kryptiskt 11y ago
If the result is open source I don't see that as a huge problem.
- pmorici 11y ago
  The majority of top open source contributors are working in some kind of paid position. The idea that "open source = cost free labor" is not beneficial to the OS community or to software engineers in general.
tomjen3 11y ago
No. As you say there are enough places where that shit happens. Should hacker news be the place where interesting suggestions for stimulating open source tasks were shared? I think yes, more so than all the politics that creeps up here. And if the requirement is that it must be open source and not directly something the asker will make money of then it stands very little chance of being abused and if it does, is it any worse than all the other spam we downvote/report?
jnbiche 11y ago
>Sounds like that would devolve into a situation where people are trying to exploit others for free work. And it sounds like this is one of them. The OP is "trying to come up with an idea that will make an income when I'm not doing my day job to pay the bills": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833548 If you can't pay someone to do it, even at some of the low rates I see on elance, then learn to do it yourself. It would be a different matter if this were someone asking for input on the code he had written, but just asking someone to do it for him is unseemly. I'm 100% in favor of a feature on HN where existing open source projects ask for help and/or contributions, but someone who's starting up a for-profit business and asking for free labor leaves a very bad taste. I've had would-be clients like this, who ask me to do work for free or at a significant discount since "it's related to your open source work, anyway, and you could even use it in your project". Made the mistake of accepting work from a client like that once, but never again.
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grandalf 11y ago
why be cynical? If I were a c expert and had some time to kill (perhaps between jobs) I'd happily jump at the chance to advertise my skills and help someone out.
tuyguntn 11y ago
Agree, maybe doing "Help FOSS" could be more relevant just posting any task, Open source contributor might ask for help, for some of their specific fields, HN has plenty of excellent developers
- brudgers 11y ago
  Excellent developers (and even non-excellent developers) have an abundance of opportunities to contribute to open source projects. I think that "Show HN" provides a reasonable exposure mechanism for a project to reach HN's audience and one with a roadmap has the chance to highlight areas where people might lend their expertise.
austenallred 11y ago
There's a difference between "Write my code for me plz?" and "Many people like myself would love to use x, but it's not ported over. Can anyone help?" I believe this is the latter.

by pmorici 11y ago

synthmeat 11y ago

I believe the same trend like in any (most) other non-news submissions will follow - intellectually stimulating tasks get upvoted.

philippnagel 11y ago

Upvoting/downvoting should, at least in theory, prevent that from happening.

brudgers 11y ago
The best form of moderation is not encouraging behavior that requires moderation. Downvotes are a form of community feedback but not really a moderation tool. For example, in cases where I am in doubt about the benefit of something to HN, my threshold for downvoting is much larger than my threshold for upvoting: I am more likely to upvote when "it might be useful" than to downvote a "might not be useful" because there is a person's karma at the other end of the arrow.
ed_blackburn 11y ago
Absolutely. Apply judgement.
aw3c2 11y ago
There is no downvoting at HN

kryptiskt 11y ago

If the result is open source I don't see that as a huge problem.

pmorici 11y ago
The majority of top open source contributors are working in some kind of paid position. The idea that "open source = cost free labor" is not beneficial to the OS community or to software engineers in general.

tomjen3 11y ago

No. As you say there are enough places where that shit happens. Should hacker news be the place where interesting suggestions for stimulating open source tasks were shared? I think yes, more so than all the politics that creeps up here. And if the requirement is that it must be open source and not directly something the asker will make money of then it stands very little chance of being abused and if it does, is it any worse than all the other spam we downvote/report?

jnbiche 11y ago

>Sounds like that would devolve into a situation where people are trying to exploit others for free work. And it sounds like this is one of them. The OP is "trying to come up with an idea that will make an income when I'm not doing my day job to pay the bills": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9833548 If you can't pay someone to do it, even at some of the low rates I see on elance, then learn to do it yourself. It would be a different matter if this were someone asking for input on the code he had written, but just asking someone to do it for him is unseemly. I'm 100% in favor of a feature on HN where existing open source projects ask for help and/or contributions, but someone who's starting up a for-profit business and asking for free labor leaves a very bad taste. I've had would-be clients like this, who ask me to do work for free or at a significant discount since "it's related to your open source work, anyway, and you could even use it in your project". Made the mistake of accepting work from a client like that once, but never again.

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grandalf 11y ago

why be cynical? If I were a c expert and had some time to kill (perhaps between jobs) I'd happily jump at the chance to advertise my skills and help someone out.

tuyguntn 11y ago

Agree, maybe doing "Help FOSS" could be more relevant just posting any task, Open source contributor might ask for help, for some of their specific fields, HN has plenty of excellent developers

brudgers 11y ago
Excellent developers (and even non-excellent developers) have an abundance of opportunities to contribute to open source projects. I think that "Show HN" provides a reasonable exposure mechanism for a project to reach HN's audience and one with a roadmap has the chance to highlight areas where people might lend their expertise.

austenallred 11y ago

There's a difference between "Write my code for me plz?" and "Many people like myself would love to use x, but it's not ported over. Can anyone help?" I believe this is the latter.