Show HN: Skillswap, a tiny site to help people help each other

[eksith]

This is a brilliant! Excellent execution as well and it brings people together to form connections that can last longer than the current exchange.

This is what we should be seeing more of on HN.

[jackfranklin]

Thank you :)

[Argorak]

Nice idea, simple and helpful, especially as there are quite a number of interesting offers with different skill groups like "need help with coding, can offer help in writing" already.

[jackfranklin]

Thanks! The idea was to keep it stupidly simple, and not limit what people could ask for / search for. Had a couple of people ask if non web dev topics were allowed - to which my reply was "of course!"

[jscore]

This one is the best:

_vojto is looking for help with Data analytics.

In return, they can offer their help with Relationship advice.

[DjangoReinhardt]

Good one, beautifully done. Just signed up. :)

Request: Provide an option to delete swaps. Once I've found someone willing to exchange help, maybe I wouldn't want to continue advertising the swap?

Just a thought... :-)

[jackfranklin]

Thanks - that one is absolutely on our list.

[danielrmay]

Great idea, novel execution.

However - you might want to stick some validation or a moderation step in: the first in the list is currently "necenzurat is looking for help with getting laid. In return, they can offer their help with massage.".

Unless, of course, that is the real underlying intention of the app...

EDIT: After a short think, I think it would be nice to use a similar auto-complete "tag" entry system a la Stack Overflow. This would make entering any number of skills a great deal easier than just a text field.

[jackfranklin]

Yup - spotted and deleted that one.

I think we need some form of being able to flag an entry as spam, and it going into moderation when that happens.

[enrmarc]

Fantastic idea! Just out of curiosity, what hosting service are you using?

[jackfranklin]

Currently it's on Heroku, using the free instance and the MongoHQ addon. Find it perfect for little side projects like this, especially when launching at first to see if the idea is any good or not.

[afandian]

I know I'm a bit old fashioned about correct use of TLDs. But. Is this for Indians to swap their skills or not? If not, the domain is very misleading.

[dbaupp]

"skill swappin'", perhaps?

[grumps]

I like this... I was just thinking about last night how it would be nice if I could just swap with someone.

I would note you might want to protect against things like "help me get laid" I see it it on the homepage just a moment ago. while a legit request, you'll likely lose users over it. I can imagine there will be other crazy and illegal requests too.

[jackfranklin]

Agreed - going to add some system to enable people to flag entries as spam, at which point they will be removed and undergo moderation.

[anuragramdasan]

This is amazing. Actually anything that allows people to ask help without being treated badly by other users or mods is something i find amazing.

It would have been much better if there were any way to ask for help without twitter. A simple PM system maybe.

[bjourne]

Awesome. It's a site-idea I have myself been toying with but never gone with. Maybe you can extend the scope of your site beyond programming-related topics? For example, I'd be interested in exchanging driving lessons for programming tutoring.

[realrocker]

Good Idea. Well executed. Edit: Hide "Offer My Help" on my own swap(when logged in)

[jackfranklin]

Good spot, thank you. Will add it to the list.

[nimrody]

How about letting people add some more information besides 'skill'. I.e., what sort of project they need help with or what is the scope of the help needed?

[teh_klev]

Nice one. Would be better if folks asking for help could be made to (or optionally) be a bit more specific about the sort of help they're after.

[joshcrowder]

Great idea! I'm going to sign up

[Nicholas_C]

I love this. This is the type of idea/site I aspire to create. Simple, easy, useful.

[realrocker]

Already connected to 2 people. You might onto something grand here!

[scirahul]

Awesome job, bang on target, no bullshit, good luck!

[shloime]

Brilliant. I'm loving this.

[gp-]

phpmentoring.org

[chrismorgan]

Something I would really like to see here is use of gender-specific pronoun "he" or "she" instead of "they". Yes, the language has changed so that "they" is acceptable as gender-neutral singular, but it's still regularly jarring, and when the information is or can conveniently be there (you can very easily collect it—male, female or unspecified) it makes it much more pleasant to read.

[cac04]

The language has changed? Singular "they" has been used in English since at least the 15th century.

[kivikakk]

It's probably just be the circles you travel in, but to me it wasn't jarring whatsoever. (I use the singular they in any case when I'm referring to someone whose gender I don't know/a hypothetical person where gender doesn't come into it, or if that's what they want me to use!)

[jackfranklin]

Do you know how we would go about doing it? (That's not a snarky Q - I genuinely don't know!). I too would love to but I'm unsure as to how to reliably do it - and in the mean time gender-neutral was a safer bet.