I will definitely use this over ProductHunt. I mean, for crying out loud, I signed up for PH just now to leave a comment and the first thing you get is "commenting is restricted to those users invited by others in the community". Yeah, so I have to supplicate myself to some random Internet stranger and beg permission just to comment on your site? Not happening...
I signed up for Product Hunt more than a year ago and still do not have commenting access. My product was submitted by someone and featured even! And I wasn't able to respond or interact with the "community" in any way.
I plan to use this too. It's weirdly inspiring to see how quickly this came together, how much support its getting, and how the bitter HN community energy can be harnessed towards a constructive solution to a problem.
I share the exact same feeling. Signed on PH months ago to drop a comment and never got "approved". I wish comments were public on OpenHunt.co so I can take part in the conversation.
I love these threads thrashing Product Hunt, it is an abortion of nature, elitist, suffocating echo chamber, and a place that clashes with the basics principles of Internet. Sites that started elitist, like Facebook at Harvard, opened to the world audience to empower the platform.
A game I had helped develop made #1 a few weeks back. I wanted to comment on it and say thanks but ran into the same error message. Kind of strange that you have to request permission to comment, even if you have an account.
I've been a Product Hunt user from their initial HN launch and am still a big fan. They've made a very important impact in the tech scene. Open Hunt is an honest attempt at a community run alternative, tailored to giving / getting feedback, and finding very early stage stuff.
The idea is nice, but cynical me can't escape the idea that Product Hunt is successful in part because it is a mirror of reality, where capital and connections are the reigning currency. If you create a platform where capital and connections are deprioritized, you will not attract the people who have that in real life, making it less useful as a promotion venue.
And maybe it is the cynical contrarian in me, but I think the "real world" aspect of Product Hunt it what turned me off of the site before these issues even came to the forefront. It always seemed like an echo chamber were everyone was putting up a facade. Users seemed more concerned with the people behind products and networking with them than actually offering opinions of what was posted.
I find the more internet-like communities more natural. Sure, the top comment on a Show HN is often a critique. However I find that more interesting than the usual "Wow, another great product from John Developer. Signing up now." or the "Wow, great product. Here is why you should use the competing product that I work on." that you usually see on Product Hunt.
I'm a paying customer of about a dozen SaaS services. I'm also working on my own service. I'd use this before ProductHunt if and only if, it had better products on the homepage.
Basically, if the curation is good, I'll be there looking for improvements to my "stack".
I'd be inclined to constantly reevaluate - if not outright resist - this impulse if I were you, lest you inadvertently allow huge opportunities to pass you by because they didn't have the cachet to signal "capital and connections".
This is a very good (and interesting) point. I'm looking forward to seeing the differences in the quality and type of content between open/product hunt.
That's pretty much it. Product Hunt is not a very good idea but it sort of works because there's some juice behind it. This open thing obviously won't go anywhere because it's doing pretty much the opposite of what goes into successful offerings.
I love this! "Login unsuccessful. Something went wrong: Error: api_calls exceeding plan authorized calls" when I went to log in with Twitter. Good problem for you to have, I look forward to you working this out so I can participate.
Honestly, I only signed up for Twitter to join Product Hunt. That was a huge disappointment when I found out that having an account didn't mean anything. This will be a pleasant change, it's about time.
Please, consider adding more options, or explaining how you use those permissions. (For example, you can do what you like to my facebook wall.)
EDIT: Lack of public posting is an interesting choice. It doesn't feel like much of a community. I can see that public comments risks undue negativity or aggressive feedback.
FYI, if you, like me, quickly hit the "accept" button without reading the permissions, here's how you see and remove twitter app permissions: https://twitter.com/settings/applications
You should take a look at lobsters. They solve a lot of the transparency issues that some have with HN and ProductHunt.
"Some other link aggregation sites are operated by corporate entities which may have significant financial incentive to censor or artificially promote the links and discussion that relate to those entities, their investments, or their competitors. Some of these sites have had moderators of popular sub-forums banned after it became known that they were being paid by 3rd party companies seeking special treatment of their submitted stories.
All moderator actions on this site are visible to everyone and the identities of those moderators are made public. While the individual actions of a moderator may cause debate, there should be no question about which moderator it was or whether they had an ulterior motive for those actions.
All user voting and story ranking on this site uses a universal algorithm and does not artificially penalize or prioritize users or domains. Per-tag hotness modifiers do affect all stories with those tags, but these modifiers are made public and usually used to shorten the life of meta-discussions. If certain domains have to be banned from being submitted due to spam, the list will be made publicly available.
If users are disruptive enough to warrant banning, they will be banned absolutely, given notice of their banning, and their disabled user profile will indicate which moderator banned them and why. There will be no hidden or childish "shadow banning" or "hellbanning" of users popular on some other sites.
The source code to this site is made available under a 3-clause BSD license for viewing, auditing, forking, or contributing to. This code is always up to date with what is running in production on this website.
Public stats are available for site requests, comments submitted, stories submitted, and users created."
Granted, the "sign up by invitation" policy also is the primary reason why Product Hunt has become such an elitist club. Using an invite-system to counteract that would be self-defeating.
It's ridiculous the way they hand out the ability to make comments. These days, the comments are so watered down many of them are mostly useless. "Tell us about your process"..."tell us more about onboarding". Comments are filled with marketers and friend of friends egging things along without substance. It's hurting the site - if they don't see this they are really missing the boat.
That being said, it's sad to see people rip on others sites/ideas blatantly. OpenHunt should quickly come up with an original design and find something unique in their approach.
The democratic element is the unique thing about their approach, isn't it? Their view is that by giving the community control, the site will be more interesting than something that is tightly controlled.
Love the idea. But a positive part abut PH is that I can view the discussion on the product by people (sometimes) more experienced than me, and then decide if it is worth my time to install/test out the product. If feedback on OH is private that angle is removed.
But definitely back the idea - PH has become too undemocratic, and its obvious that if you don't have the right connections your product will never surface. I know people who've reached out to "influencers" on PH to have their product hunted by them.
You're #1 on Hacker News and Product Hunt today with an app whose repo was created 12 days ago and your server is not down. That's commendable in itself.
I'm really happy to see this. As the solo-founder of a bootstrapped start up nowhere near Silicone Valley, things like Product Hunt can make me feel like a complete outsider.
Quick question: PH wants people to sign up with their personal Twitter account, rather than a company one, is that the case here? I never use my personal account, so would prefer to be able to sign up using @bug_muncher
Also, I love the "You reached the beginning!" message at the bottom, not sure why, but it really made me smile :)
I also signed up for Product Hunt 1+ years ago and don't have the ability to comment even though I regularly share things on Twitter, purchase products, curate lists and interact as much as possible.
This is pretty cool - I notice you're building on top of Rails. Do consider using the source code of lobste.rs (which is like HN but open source). It has quite a bit if community development behind it and I daresay can be quickly adapted into the product hunt model.
I'm trying to build in elasticsearch support in lobsters for a personal project - it currently uses sphinx. But it could be pretty cool if you can use that as a starting point.
I will be using this because I think Product Hunt can't manage their waiting lists. I mean I've been waiting for a long time to be removed from the waiting list. I've also been doing their "suggestions" to get a full membership. But, I get nothing. Hopefully Open Hunt gets a stronger community.
Great idea and execution; already discovered a super-useful service, Bulk Resize Photos.
Not sure if this is a feature or a bug: when one clicks on the "comments" line, it opens a right-side panel for the current item; if one clicks another comments line, the right-side panel is updated with the new item => so far so good.
BUT, when one clicks on another item while the right-side panel is open, it doesn't update said panel; it opens a new tab to the item's website, but the panel doesn't change, so that when one comes back to OH, the panel doesn't match the last consulted item.
It's probably not an easy fix, because, what should happen when one opens more than one item?
However, since the comments pane is super simple, maybe it would make sense to open it under the corresponding item instead of to the side, so that it's visually related to the correct item instead of being in a generic location?
[+] [-] mindcrime|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinbartlett|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jflatow|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] korzun|10 years ago|reply
Then (correct me if I'm wrong) they also got funding so... things do not really seem kosher to me.
[+] [-] http-teapot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wslh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davegonzalez|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betadreamer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askafriend|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesc|10 years ago|reply
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10739875
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10741827
I've been a Product Hunt user from their initial HN launch and am still a big fan. They've made a very important impact in the tech scene. Open Hunt is an honest attempt at a community run alternative, tailored to giving / getting feedback, and finding very early stage stuff.
Would love your feedback!
[+] [-] msvan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slg|10 years ago|reply
I find the more internet-like communities more natural. Sure, the top comment on a Show HN is often a critique. However I find that more interesting than the usual "Wow, another great product from John Developer. Signing up now." or the "Wow, great product. Here is why you should use the competing product that I work on." that you usually see on Product Hunt.
[+] [-] auston|10 years ago|reply
Basically, if the curation is good, I'll be there looking for improvements to my "stack".
[+] [-] increment_i|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbrempel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frogpelt|10 years ago|reply
I guess the opposite of a curated list is a list that can be spammed by anyone.
[+] [-] pbreit|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardbrevig|10 years ago|reply
Honestly, I only signed up for Twitter to join Product Hunt. That was a huge disappointment when I found out that having an account didn't mean anything. This will be a pleasant change, it's about time.
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
It's asking for scary permissions:
> Read Tweets from your timeline.
> See who you follow, and follow new people.
> Update your profile.
> Post Tweets for you.
Please, consider adding more options, or explaining how you use those permissions. (For example, you can do what you like to my facebook wall.)
EDIT: Lack of public posting is an interesting choice. It doesn't feel like much of a community. I can see that public comments risks undue negativity or aggressive feedback.
[+] [-] jacquesc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phogster|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacurtis|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmohebbi|10 years ago|reply
"Some other link aggregation sites are operated by corporate entities which may have significant financial incentive to censor or artificially promote the links and discussion that relate to those entities, their investments, or their competitors. Some of these sites have had moderators of popular sub-forums banned after it became known that they were being paid by 3rd party companies seeking special treatment of their submitted stories.
All moderator actions on this site are visible to everyone and the identities of those moderators are made public. While the individual actions of a moderator may cause debate, there should be no question about which moderator it was or whether they had an ulterior motive for those actions.
All user voting and story ranking on this site uses a universal algorithm and does not artificially penalize or prioritize users or domains. Per-tag hotness modifiers do affect all stories with those tags, but these modifiers are made public and usually used to shorten the life of meta-discussions. If certain domains have to be banned from being submitted due to spam, the list will be made publicly available.
If users are disruptive enough to warrant banning, they will be banned absolutely, given notice of their banning, and their disabled user profile will indicate which moderator banned them and why. There will be no hidden or childish "shadow banning" or "hellbanning" of users popular on some other sites.
The source code to this site is made available under a 3-clause BSD license for viewing, auditing, forking, or contributing to. This code is always up to date with what is running in production on this website.
Public stats are available for site requests, comments submitted, stories submitted, and users created."
https://lobste.rs/about
https://lobste.rs/moderations
[+] [-] minimaxir|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielrakh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donfrancisco|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephenboyd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vaskerville|10 years ago|reply
That being said, it's sad to see people rip on others sites/ideas blatantly. OpenHunt should quickly come up with an original design and find something unique in their approach.
[+] [-] jfoster|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markdown|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mythun|10 years ago|reply
But definitely back the idea - PH has become too undemocratic, and its obvious that if you don't have the right connections your product will never surface. I know people who've reached out to "influencers" on PH to have their product hunted by them.
[+] [-] tedmiston|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tarr11|10 years ago|reply
Login unsuccessful. Something went wrong: Error: api_calls exceeding plan authorized calls
[+] [-] tshtf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cyberdog|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattBearman|10 years ago|reply
Quick question: PH wants people to sign up with their personal Twitter account, rather than a company one, is that the case here? I never use my personal account, so would prefer to be able to sign up using @bug_muncher
Also, I love the "You reached the beginning!" message at the bottom, not sure why, but it really made me smile :)
[+] [-] BorisMelnik|10 years ago|reply
+1 for any alternative system.
[+] [-] goodJobWalrus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giarc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandGorgon|10 years ago|reply
https://github.com/jcs/lobsters
I'm trying to build in elasticsearch support in lobsters for a personal project - it currently uses sphinx. But it could be pretty cool if you can use that as a starting point.
[+] [-] sycren|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eecks|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevindeasis|10 years ago|reply
BTW: your api calls for registration has exceeded
[+] [-] bambax|10 years ago|reply
Not sure if this is a feature or a bug: when one clicks on the "comments" line, it opens a right-side panel for the current item; if one clicks another comments line, the right-side panel is updated with the new item => so far so good.
BUT, when one clicks on another item while the right-side panel is open, it doesn't update said panel; it opens a new tab to the item's website, but the panel doesn't change, so that when one comes back to OH, the panel doesn't match the last consulted item.
It's probably not an easy fix, because, what should happen when one opens more than one item?
However, since the comments pane is super simple, maybe it would make sense to open it under the corresponding item instead of to the side, so that it's visually related to the correct item instead of being in a generic location?
My 2 cents. Very cool initiative anyways.