Ask HN: Rate my site (DebateZone) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Rate my site (DebateZone)

rails.flubba.webfactional.com

I like the concept.

You should categorize because someone people wouldn't care about certain issues but will fight tooth and nail for others.

Like us being entrepreneurs, we would have an opinion on "fast fail", so we would want to get to these topics more quicker than something related to politics or sport.

Categorising allows you to focus resources on which categories drive the most traffic to the site.

Also, try to be more specific in seed content. Having broad topics thesis doesn't make for good arguments. For instance "which team is better Lakers or Celtics", may become "which team would win 2010 champion-Lakers or Celtics". It's narrower and more focus which makes for an easier argument. Broad categories require much wider and deeper knowledge to begin to address the debate.

Thanks, I already have categories (called "zones" to fit the name), but do you mean add tags or something similar in addition to the broad zones?

Nice, then make it more promient and maybe even call it categories.

People have a scanning behavior when they are looking on sites so they are looking for certain keywords and "zone" might not be apart of it http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Thanks for that link, very interesting stuff. I increased the font size of sidebar lists, and I might change the word to categories eventually.

With the up vote and down vote arrows, have one or the other light up when you mouse over a specific one, instead of having both light up. It will make it clearer which arrow you are about to click.

I like the layout of the two sided debates over the debates with more than two sides. The two sided debates have the sides and results right in the middle at the top of the page. On debates with more than two sides, having the sides and results off to the right makes them easy to miss at first. The first debate I looked at was a more than two sided debate and because of the layout, I was a bit confused on what the sides of the debate were. It seemed like the comments were the sides because of their placement and the up/down vote arrows.

Thanks for the input, I just made the quick css change. You're right about the multi-side layout, but I couldn't really think of any other way to do it. Actually, I think if I put all the sides above the arguments horizontally they would be easier to compare and more visible. I'll test something like that out.

My friends started a debate site a while ago, and I'll tell you what I told them.

For an part-time and fun project this is a very cool web app. I like the simplicity and it seems like a fun way to talk about various issues.

As a startup idea, you would do better finding an idea that doesn't revolve strictly on creating a web community from scratch.

I agree, and it is a part-time project I made for fun. Now I just want to get some users, and eventually make a few cents off of ads.

Oh yea have anonymous posting.

People would like to post stuff quickly without having to signup. Eventually, they will realize that "hey I want to track what i posted", so they sign up.

Good idea, I'll probably add it some time this week.

anonymous posts can very quickly change the atmosphere from thoughtful to spiteful, and it makes spamming/trolling much more difficult to stop. So you have to weigh those costs w/ the benefit of one fewer barrier to posting.

True, they're great for a site like 4chan. I think I'll just keep arguing for users only for now.

I'd argue for the opposite, allow anonymous in the beginning (during "bootstrap mode"), to minimize hurdles for new users, and switch to users only when anonymous users become a nuisance.

Just want to let you know, that I've implemented this.

Allow pictures to be uploaded with your debate thesis. Sometimes a picture or video can say more than words can.

Good idea, do you mean like a picture for each side of a debate?

An optional picture so users can see what the division is about.

I like the logo.

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