[HN Gopher] Show HN: I Made a Website for Problems
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Show HN: I Made a Website for Problems
Hey everyone! While searching for entrepreneurial ideas on various
sites, I noticed there wasn't a dedicated space for finding and
discussing real-world problems that need solving. That's why I
created the Problem Platform--a place where we can share, explore,
and tackle problems together. Check it out!
Author : hippough
Score : 91 points
Date : 2024-08-18 16:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theproblemplatform.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theproblemplatform.com)
| SoftMachine wrote:
| Requires google account, no thanks.
| greggsy wrote:
| Google accounts aren't exactly scarce commodities
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Regrettably so
| layer8 wrote:
| Google accounts are not a commodity.
| klyrs wrote:
| When people opt not to eat chicken, they aren't driven by the
| fear of extincting the bird
| layer8 wrote:
| Quite to the contrary, if everyone stopped eating chicken
| (and eggs), it would be much more likely to become extinct.
| ;)
| viewhub wrote:
| Shrink your market. "Problem" is too open-ended. You can't
| possibly make effective software for all things.
| flashgordon wrote:
| Also "tackle" is too wide. Is the goal to discuss it? Come up
| with schematics? A design doc? A poc?...
| serial_dev wrote:
| I dunno, I like the simplicity of it, if you have any problems,
| let's find a solution together.
|
| Compare that to stackoverflow, where you need to first spend 5
| minutes studying all the subsites and decide where you try and
| submit your question, and hope it won't be closed in 2 minutes
| saying not the right place to ask, not the right format, you
| asked too many questions too quickly, etc...
| spencerchubb wrote:
| I don't think the post or the landing page says anything about
| solving the problems with software. I interpreted it even more
| broadly: problems that can be solved by any method
| pluto_modadic wrote:
| good starter project Ethan :)
| hippough wrote:
| thanks
| mittermayr wrote:
| My only bit of advice would be: definitely give a preview of the
| content to be expected. I clicked around trying to find an
| example of the type of problem people would post, but all I could
| find was a sign-up button. This is like asking for money before
| showing me what I am actually paying for.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I agree. This is a very cool idea, but the landing page is a
| bit of a mess. It's reiterating the same thing multiple times
| in different ways, which is confusing and unnecessary. I assume
| the author did this to fill space. It's also broken on mobile.
| I would suggest:
|
| 1: Header with statement as you have it (Share your
| problems...)
|
| 2: Explore, interact section as you have it
|
| 3: Three to five of the most recently posted problems
|
| 4: Call to action (sign up)
|
| So you have what it is, how it works, an example, sign up.
|
| Also, are you monetizing this? If not, why require a sign up at
| all to view problems? Why is the only option to sign up/login
| with a Google account?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The landing page reimplements built-in browser features
| (<details> / <summary>) badly in JavaScript. This looks like a
| home-rolled forum system designed by somebody who _doesn 't_ know
| HTML. In my experience, this means there are enough accessibility
| issues to justify binning the _entire_ codebase and starting
| again from scratch.
|
| If you had an interesting way to organise, index and/or connect
| the problems, or something, I might look into this further. But
| judging by the landing page, there's not even an existing
| _community_. There 's no reason for me to participate, or invest
| time in trying to improve your system.
|
| Perhaps a minor thing, by comparison: I don't have, and will not
| create, a Google account. (I expect that I _cannot_ create a
| Google account that sticks around longer than a month.)
|
| (I appreciate you're trying to solve a collective action problem
| - perhaps _the_ collective action problem. Keep at it! The fifth
| or sixth time might work, if you learn from failure each time.)
|
| Unlike other commenters, I don't think "problem" is too broad. So
| long as you're prepared to delegate to other projects as
| appropriate, there is actually room for a large-scale,
| overarching project like this.
| hippough wrote:
| thank you for your suggestions
| bcjordan wrote:
| Curious was there a problem that inspired you to create the
| website? Could be inspiration to scope down the website focus
| some, or have an example problem/solution on the front page
| nextworddev wrote:
| He's probably just trying to source business ideas for free
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Sure, but assuming users can see the problems as well, it's a
| level playing field. On the other hand, if he's manually
| choosing which ones go public before anyone can see them,
| that's possibly not so great.
| hippough wrote:
| mainly that finding business ideas is hard
| bcjordan wrote:
| Ooh that is an interesting focus, I personally love sharing
| and reading about startup ideas and can't get enough of that
| content online.
|
| In case it's interesting, along this direction there's
| halfbakery, pg's essay on how to find startup ideas, YC's RFS
| posts, and more recently the Startup Ideas podcast/youtube
| channel which features guests sharing ideas they've been
| thinking about.
|
| Edit: I see you updated the site with example problems, those
| are great. I could see this being a great structure for
| collective solution ideation.
| mikerg87 wrote:
| Feels like stackoverflow on day 0. At very least make the
| problems discoverable via Google/bing to grow. Login to comment.
| Don't need thr draconian moderation and if done right could be a
| breath of fresh air.
| greggsy wrote:
| You should put some boundaries around the types of problems you
| want people to solve. 'World hunger' and 'peace in the middle
| east' are obviously out of scope of a site like this, but you'll
| get others that will fall into the 'wicked problem' category.
|
| Problems that relate to social issues for example. Or even
| technological problems that cause or stem from social issues.
|
| I don't recall who came up with it but there's a social theorist
| who stated that anyone trying to 'solve' wicked problems is
| either ill-informed about the nature of the problem, or has other
| motives. The best outcome is to _improve_ the situation for those
| affected by it.
|
| It's kinda hand wavy pop psychology sometimes, but it's important
| to understand the concept before wading knee deep into something
| and making the problem worse for all involved.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| Why are world hunger and peace in the middle east obviously out
| of scope for this site?
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I'm reminded a bit of http://halfbakery.com
| axegon_ wrote:
| In principle this is a good idea but it's definitely a double
| edged knife for the users. From what I understand, your idea is
| to rely on some level of anonymity. Let's assume your security is
| 11/10 and nothing gets leaked - great. But people are very bad
| when it comes to this though: they assume that a semi-random
| username somewhere will shield them, which couldn't be further
| from the truth. You need to share 3 seemingly trivial facts about
| you, and people with good experience will be able to sift through
| that and figure out your identity. I have a case from about 2
| years ago: a guy shared the country where he studied and a place
| where he worked. A few people instantly connected the dots and
| figured out who he was. Those of us that did just laughed about
| it and moved on with our lives(his existence really couldn't
| possibly be any more sad than it was). However eventually others
| figured out who he was and the fact that he attacked homosexuals
| constantly, while complaining about his diarrhea and describing
| in detail his wife's pregnancy (and being the son of a media
| oligarch)... You can imagine how that all blew up in his face.
| While he can only blame himself for this, there could likely be
| cases when you might also be held responsible. What I'm trying to
| say is, be careful. Good luck.
| layer8 wrote:
| How would this be different from, say,
| https://www.reddit.com/r/problemsolving/, or
| https://www.reddit.com/r/problemhunt/?
| mym1990 wrote:
| Neither of these seem to be very active at all, so for starters
| I hope this site would have more interaction going on. I
| imagine the community aspect of the "problem statement/problem
| solution" is key in actually reaching any kind of velocity.
| With a site, there is also much more flexibility to (a)
| advertise the brand and (b) build a better experience.
| -mlv wrote:
| Those subreddits look dead.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| I attended executive training for a couple of years. The members
| were all CEOs and would come to the group in monthly meetings
| with a very wide range of problems from: 'my VP Finance does not
| complete his work on time and offers an endless stream of
| excuses. I need to exit him. What's the best approach?' To 'My
| unionized interior finishers are abusing their time clock, how
| should I approach the union to correct this?'
|
| The coach used an effective 5-step approach to the resolution
| process:
|
| 1. Present: The presenter makes a clear, one-sentence statement
| of the problem.
|
| 2. Clarify: The sounding team asks clarifying questions: 'How
| long has the VP been behaving this way?', 'How well do you know
| the local union leadership?' Only clarification at this step. No
| suggestions yet.
|
| 3. Suggestions/Recommendations: 'Conduct a confidential search,
| negotiate an exit package and move on. Be sure to keep the BoD up
| to date on this.'
|
| 4. Reaction: Presenter indicates the suggestion they believe is
| most likely best for them.
|
| 5. Accountability: Next meeting, the presenter reports whether
| they took action, and whether the results benefited from the
| discussion.
|
| Phases 2 & 3 were conducted in round-table style, with each team
| member interracting one at at time.
|
| The results were typically effective. The presenter didn't always
| take the advice, but always reported that the process had
| provided insight.
|
| FWIW.
| kfarr wrote:
| I wish I could favorite this, great process and summary!
| keiferski wrote:
| If you click on the "x hours ago" link, you actually can
| favorite it :)
| tchock23 wrote:
| TIL! I've been on HN for 14 years and had no idea you could
| do this. Thanks!
| juliushuijnk wrote:
| I have a free Android app IdeaGrowr that has quite a lot of
| users, and have tried some things that resemble this concept
| somewhat.
|
| I don't have the time right now to delve in all the aspects of
| it, but I have many thoughts about it. The main thing is that you
| need to come up with a very concrete example scenario where you
| know that this platform would be amazing. Use this to guide your
| first iteration and marketing.
|
| Now since presumably your platform is all user generated content
| (or is it AI?), then how are you going to kick-start the content
| generation?
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| This reminds me of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human
| Potential:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_World_Problems...
| 6510 wrote:
| http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en
| Madmallard wrote:
| >sign in with google
|
| Great now my problems are in Google's data stores for
| advertisement and any number of other uses.
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Yeah I'm open to the idea of a site like this, but I have a
| major concern that this is like the gold mine of data for
| product designers and marketing people to help sell you
| something that dosnt really help.
| panarky wrote:
| Using Google to authenticate with a site does not share the
| site's data with Google.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| Not directly, anyways. Google still gets to track which pages
| you visited and what you searched while trying to answer
| questions you interact with on the site.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| I had been thinking of this and am glad someone built this (and
| much nicer then something I'd throw together). Just the act of
| cataloging the things that are anxiety causing can help a lot to
| quell the unease, even if they're problems completely outside
| your control.
|
| One idea I had was use an algorithm similar to Twitter's
| community notes to curate and rank both problems and solutions.
| Sort of a community-moderated Wikipedia of the most agreed on
| problems and their solutions.
| rainysun1369 wrote:
| Mobile version just doesn't work well, everything is smothered
| nullorempty wrote:
| ... hm
|
| 1. allow donations to the solution of the problem
|
| 2. allow people to claim funds when the problem is solved ( they
| have to be specific about the way they solved it to claim funds )
| wavemode wrote:
| Nice idea in theory, but needing to sign up to even read any
| content is a non-starter. How would someone googling about a
| particular problem even come across your site?
| drpixie wrote:
| Could be interesting, but I'm not going to bother signing-up just
| to see more than a very slim homepage. That's a fail from me :(
| Bharathkumar12 wrote:
| Interesting
| piyushtechsavy wrote:
| I think it would be more useful if you could create a sort of
| framework for creating a problem and finding a solution for that.
| May be something like breaking down the problem in small pieces ,
| doing market and competitive analysis, is this idea worth trying.
| Usually the problem lies less with ideas and more with execution.
| If the platform can help in executing, it would be priceless.
| joeyagreco wrote:
| I think I would use this if it followed the pattern of anyone can
| view posts and comments but only users with accounts can
| comment/vote.
|
| I heavily dislike having to create an account just to see the
| product :/
| kiezmolle wrote:
| So why then have you registered with HN? ;) Even with
| registration, the biggest task remains to moderate all user-
| generated content. Hence, imo, a bit of a barrier in first
| place is justified.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Barrier for write, but no barrier for read.
| diegolas wrote:
| HN does exactly what OP wants tho? view as guest
| view/comment/vote as registered user
| iAMkenough wrote:
| After viewing content and comments on HN without a required
| registration, they developed a habit of visiting and
| eventually found value in participating and created an
| account to do so.
|
| With the current approach for the Problem Platform nobody can
| view the content or comments without a required registration,
| so prospective viewers don't see value demonstrated and will
| never convince themselves that adding yet another account to
| their digital footprint is worthwhile.
| blakeburch wrote:
| Great idea! Are there any other sites that do something similar,
| allowing you to share problems or unformed business ideas?
| chambored wrote:
| This is only tangentially related, but I've seen a handful of
| projects with this same front end design. Does anyone have any
| insight or resources regarding this design system?
| Stiopa wrote:
| One suggestion: often people read others' problems and realize
| they can be distilled down to a more concrete problem. Maybe
| those kinds of comments can themselves be a new post, sort of
| like linked problems?
|
| Agree this is refreshing!
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