[HN Gopher] Show HN: Sortabase, a collaborative, visual database...
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Show HN: Sortabase, a collaborative, visual database builder for
communities
We built Sortabase to let communities collaborate on visual
databases of the things they know and care about. The fields of
each database are defined by its moderators using a no-code drag-n-
drop interface, and the resulting database is easy to search,
filter, sort, and contribute to. The platform is 100% free to use
- take a look, and feedback is appreciated!
Author : Trayja-Peter
Score : 93 points
Date : 2023-05-15 16:53 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sortabase.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sortabase.com)
| skybrian wrote:
| This is pretty cool, except that every database looks like a
| commerce site. It might be good to have some different layouts
| available that look less commercial?
|
| There are some databases that have entries with a long text
| description. Putting a snippet of that up front would make that
| clearer. Also, a single-column layout would look more like a
| blog.
|
| Compare with an archive page on Substack.
| tikkun wrote:
| Smart, seems like a great way to make some money on affiliate
| commissions and provide a useful product to the creators and the
| end users at the same time. Nice!
| gorkemcetin wrote:
| Is there a way to view each group of cards as a list? Just like
| what Airtable or Retable has for example?
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| Not at the moment, but I'm very open to adding new views to the
| UI!
| marwis wrote:
| What's the license on the data? Needs grid view and export/api.
| sl-dolt wrote:
| We're doing something a bit similar at DoltHub, where databases
| are managed with a GitHub like workflow, and where you get the
| pros and cons of that kind of system. Our hospital price database
| (work ongoing daily) is community built:
| https://www.dolthub.com/repositories/dolthub/transparency-in...
| (context:
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NifwgKHBCeF35ZRZsfpgg4bE...)
| replwoacause wrote:
| What's up with the name? A 'dolt' is a stupid person, at least
| in the English language.
| esafak wrote:
| edit: Dumb question. deleted
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| Do you mind elaborating? I don't get how they're comparable.
| Vetted.ai uses AI to rank products based on user reviews and
| check prices across retailers. OP's project is a community-
| based, collaborative database (almost a fusion of Reddit and
| Airtable) where anyone can contribute to a database, which also
| isn't limited to products.
| [deleted]
| monlockandkey wrote:
| The website looks really good!
|
| For the search criteria filters, are you using a library or did
| you make that yourself?
|
| The closest thing I can think of is
|
| https://react-select.com/home
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| We're using Ant Design
|
| https://ant.design/
| nitish1998 wrote:
| Looks super cool. I am working on something similar.
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| Thanks :) Care to share your project?
| pbronez wrote:
| very cool. UI to compare items is a little clunky. Would like to
| select multiple items to compare from the main grid view. Right
| now it jumps me to the dedicated compare screen as soon as I
| select one item, and then I have to search to add new ones. I
| want to filter a list through facets and select a subset of the
| items on that list for detailed comparison.
| taw1516 wrote:
| wow this looks amazing. Do you mind shedding some light on how
| you built this? especially how you organize taxonomy and product
| metadata for each category
|
| I am working on an e-commerce platform that would benefits a lot
| from your experience here
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| The taxonomy and metadata, as you put it, is defined by the
| moderators/community of each database. We just give them drag-
| and-drop tools to do so :)
| taw1516 wrote:
| ah i meant to ask how it was designed in the backend
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| I won't get too deep into our architecture, but needless to
| say letting users dynamically edit/add/remove fields in
| their databases is not easy. We use Postgres + Prisma as
| our ORM, and I'm fairly happy with its DX re: handling this
| level of complexity
| melx wrote:
| I would put everything in JSON(b) column since you're
| using Postgres anyway....
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| This feels like a combination of Airtable (before the push to be
| a no-code app platform) and Reddit. This seems way better than
| the public Google Sheets that make their way around the latter
| site.
|
| I'm curious though. How do you plan to make money from this
| project (premium subscription option, affiliate links for
| product-focused databases, etc.)? Will it remain free to use?
|
| Regardless, it seems like an interesting project!
| koboll wrote:
| This is the thing that reddit should have done years ago. Great
| product.
| omgmajk wrote:
| Finally, a good source of penguin repellent. Now I can get rid of
| the penguins in my basement and get my herring back!
|
| [*] https://www.sortabase.com/PenguinRepellent
| koboll wrote:
| This is so beautiful. Lost it at Marv
| refulgentis wrote:
| This is really cool
| LunarAurora wrote:
| On HN months ago, I made a list [1] on publishing small
| databases, and I remember that I could not find a good service
| under "List sharing" (maybe one). Yours fills that slot
| perfectly.
|
| I have some suggestions: For initiating the DB, offering import
| (csv/sheets...) would help creators jump in. Then, for
| collaboration, you could offer the option to add without any
| account at all (just send the "under review" form to the
| moderators), or maybe also add more signup alternatives.
|
| As for monetization, I suggest in the future you limit only
| "private" DBs (= me and other moderators) , so people can still
| create unlimited public ones (good for spreading the word).
|
| Good luck!
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34561292
| bcjordan wrote:
| Right, maybe Airtable is to Slack as Sortabase is to Discord
| Trayja-Peter wrote:
| I remember that post! I had commented on it, back when this
| project was still very early and using a different name.
|
| I agree with all your suggestions, and we've considered most of
| them. Importing CSVs presents some challenges, particularly
| with trying to infer the type and valid values of each column.
| ObscureScience wrote:
| Since you did not address the monetization suggestion; I hope
| that there will be some mechanism to prevent open DBs to just
| become closed/paywalled over night. If such a premium content
| is implemented, similar to free software there should be
| clear limits to how an initiator can take the work of
| volunteer collaborators and privatize it.
|
| Not sure if viable, but I would much rather prefer a kind of
| donation system with some kickback to valued collaborations.
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