Ask HN: Review my website, TalkFest
mytalkfest.com
mytalkfest.com
I see a lot of people ask questions on Twitter, but how can you fit a decent answer, or a decent question, in 140 characters? TalkFest is an experiment to see if there's a room for longer conversations in between the short-form that is happening on Facebook and Twitter.
Let me know if that helps, I know the advantage is not instantly obvious.
Two more questions then:
How will moderation be handled? Public discussion that are open to join will encounter this problem at some point. Will the person who opened the discussion have carte blanche powers to delete replies? If so, does this limit the use of the platform for honest discussions if one side of the conversation can censor the other? Or will you simply trust that the user will apply his best judgment? If the moderation isn't handled by the discussion starter, then what?
What's the plan to distinguish yourself from competitors? Assuming the concept takes off, it doesn't look as if the site functionality itself is too challenging to duplicate. What'll be your advantage?
(edit: I hope you find these questions useful, rather than annoying.)
For moderation, I implemented a point system, just like Hacker News. Users can vote replies and topics up and down by one point. Once a reply goes below -5, it gets collapsed (like Digg). If a user has a lot of negative points, they get warned or banned.
I also thought about giving the topic creator extra tools to moderate but I see that as an "I'll fix it when I have it" problem right now. A similar solution could give users with (for example) 5000+ total points moderation power.
The point system has a lot of potential as an incentive system. For example, would be great to gives users an "on-fire" badge if they have been very active over the last few days and their content has been highly rated.
If the unthinkable happens and this takes off, I'd see my advantages two-fold. I'd be the first person in that space and I put a lot of focus on simplicity and execution. It's very easy to copy things, especially simple concepts like a public message board. It's very hard to create a engaging user experience, even if you copy. Not sure if that helps if somebody decides to get in this space with millions of dollars in their pockets, but that's probably always the case, no matter what you do.