Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion?

Posted by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @11:43AM
from the self-post dept.

I've moved completely away from Reddit now and have Hacker News as my homepage. Great articles and obviously some great people.

What interests me is what forums / sites people on here use to discuss startups? I've always got questions - either of a technical or a business nature and after being in business myself now for around 14 years I've also a lot to offer (though I say so myself!) with various topics. There is a lot of talk on here about physical meet-ups, which is great, but we're all online so my interest is where we can meet up to help each other online. Where do you do this now?

( 27 comments | 25 points | on HN )

Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by tlrobinson on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:04PM (#82046)

- here

- http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/ (programming languages)

- http://joel.reddit.com/ (software in general)

I once asked a similar question, and someone recommended dreamincode.net ... don't bother... most of the questions are like "what is a boolean?"

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by SamanthaG on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @03:04PM (#82553)

Crikey what is "boolean"? I thought my law books were complicated!

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by justtease on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:09PM (#82002)

We should create one off this site. I'd definitely use it

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by edu on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @07:42PM (#82246)

my proposal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=82245

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by edu on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @07:40PM (#82245)

Some time ago I tried to start a mailing list* with colleagues from the university, but after 9 messages on June the list died.

Maybe now it can reborn from its ashes!

The list is available at http://groups.google.com/group/eucaliptus and [email protected] and no, it is not a misspell but Eucalyptus in Catalan. (Note: someday to be migrated to eucaliptus.org)

So, feel free to subscribe and lets see if it gains enough momentum.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by marcus on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:03PM (#82045)

If you have any question then asking it here is usually good enough, I asked a question a few days ago and got some great ideas.

The only feature here that is sorely missing for this to be a kick-ass forum is that it doesn't accumulate knowledge.

If it only had a decent search feature, it would have an excellent forum.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by axod on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:16PM (#82056)

I like forums, but for some things they are a bit stale. It's like having a pen pal as opposed to going down the pub with some friends. Some great ideas are born from discussions at the pub over a drink.

I created #startups on irc.freenode.net so feel free to come and chat/hang out there.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by marcus on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:33PM (#82069)

The problem I have with IRC is that there is no decent search/logging option (and please don't mention bots). And I hate having to nag everybody with a question that was asked a few days ago or answering a question that was already asked unless there is some new twist.

How about setting up a 37sigs campfile account? The only problem is that I'm not sure that we'll fit in there (the premium account only supports 60 users simultaneously chatting)

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by axod on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @04:07PM (#82143)

Yeah I agree. For question/answers a forum is probably better suited. Chat is good for brainstorming and socializing/networking though.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by jgamman on Thursday November 22, 2007 @05:50AM (#82715)

ahem i believe 'hacker' is an attitude - not a statement that the site/forum is only about programming and web start-ups (just a comment from your friendly neighbourhood energy R&D chemist)

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by prakash on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @08:43AM (#82438)

Joel on software's, Business of software: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by oditogre on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @03:39AM (#82395)

Depends on what you're discussing.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by edw519 on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:44PM (#82028)

I thought that THIS forum was what you're talking about. What am I missing?

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by ericb on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:13PM (#82053)

Hi edw519, Mainly that Hacker News isn't a forum. The format makes discussions here ephemeral. Hacker news is a niche site for posts of general-interest to that niche.

A forum is topical, so narrow interest posts are channeled into topic areas. In a forum you might have a topic "Co-Founders Wanted" but only people interested in being/finding co-founders at a given time would read and post in that topic. If Hacker news was mainly narrow-interest postings (ever seen this bug?, co-founder wanted) the signal to noise ratio would degrade.

A Hacker News Forum would be great because 1-this community is great and 2-I could browse topics I'm interested in at the point in time they're of interest to me.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @03:04PM (#82101)

Much more eloquently said than me, but thats what I was getting at. If some kind of forum mechanism was added to Hacker News I'd use it straight away

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:46PM (#82030)

This is a great site - don't get me wrong. For news its wonderful and its great to see what other people are doing. However, for general advice type questions (more suitable for a forum) the site isn't designed for that and I was wondering where people tend to go other than this site to interact with likeminded people

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by edw519 on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:55PM (#82036)

OK, I think that this site is both. I have posted my problems here and gotten excellent responses. I have learned quite a bit on others' postings. Also, I like to think I've contributed, too. Give it a try - you may be pleasantly surprised by the response.

(Most of my concerns are NOT technical. I can go to Webmonkey or Barnes & Noble for that. I'm more interested in how others like myself handle similar situations, technical or business. So far, I haven't found anyplace better, but if anyone does, I'm all ears.)

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by cellis on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:08PM (#82001)

its not obvious huh?

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:20PM (#82009)

not to me :) This site is obviously filled with people who are passionate. Some of the startup sites are terrible and not focused on web/online startups. Programming forums are generally that but a fusion site, mixing programming, design and business would be great.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by transburgh on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @01:34PM (#82020)

Good idea inovica. That would be a great mix for a forum.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by cellis on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @02:24PM (#82061)

and what makes you think that there are no biz dev, designers, and programmers here?

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @03:03PM (#82098)

You've completely missed the point. I'm saying that the people who post and read here ARE these people, but that its not always the best mechanism for all meeting up or getting advice from one another.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by cellis on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @03:07PM (#82106)

No, I think you've completely missed the point. Anytime I've had a question, I've posted here. Sure, there are other forums, boards, groups, etc that you can go to, but if you tried to bring them all together, it would get muddled and all the good hackers would leave. Kind of like digg, reddit.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by inovica on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @03:28PM (#82119)

The question was "What interests me is what forums / sites people on here use to discuss startups?" as I'm curious at what other mechanisms (other than this site) people use in their daily routine. It would be interesting to see if there are certain sites which stand out. For me posting too much on this site - if everyone did it - would seriously increase the noise ratio when this is primarily a.... news site

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by cellis on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @04:52PM (#82169)

I do see your point in that regard. The key is, if you just want to discuss a startup, you need only ask the question ("is my idea good..."), etc. If you are looking for partners, just post "looking for cofounder..". What else about startups is there to discuss, besides what is posted here and what you would talk to your cofounder(s) about? Am I missing something?

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by cellis on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @03:14PM (#82111)

http://forums.techcrunch.com/forums/category.jspa?categoryID...

Check that out if you are really interested. Thats what I assume you're thinking of.

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Re:Ask YC: Where's the best place for online discussion? by yubrew on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @12:35AM (#82360)

signal to noise ratio seems extremely low.

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