Tell HN: I'm giving 4 domains away to a good home
alek.posterous.com
You could also post your pitch as a comment here.
alek.posterous.com
(Update: Of course, if someone came to me and begged me for a domain I was just sitting on.. I'd probably be OK with giving it up!)
Failed for me too, as it happens - no one wanted anything I had to give away, and I had such specific target markets in mind that I just couldn't find one that I could use -- basically the same issue that meant I couldn't find a good unregistered domain in the first place
One big 72pt bold, binary question at the top (i.e. "Should the US healthcare reform bill have been passed?)
Two columns.
You can scroll down the page and read the top-rated arguments on both sides, then choose to type into either the "for" or "against" column field, and once you've made your argument, you can go back up the column (and into the "new arguments" view) and vote up and down only the side that you chose.
After a few days, the question rotates, and it starts all over again.
Basically he posts a daily comment through a backend forum, and then people can agree or disagree or talk smack or whatever. You don't have to be registered to post, but if you're registered under the forums and logged in and post, it'll show your username.
I do like the name massivedebate.com, I'll suggest it to him to see if he's interested in it.
As a reader, one problem is in getting an overall feel for the 'lean' of the conversation. There must be a way to incorporate this in large discussions, or to categorise posts by theme ('Thinks murder sentence given was too short', 'Thinks sentence given too long', 'Discussing increased police attention for bikie gangs', etc).
Or identify key contributors by post volume or karma within a thread.
Or provide ways for a reader to seek out arguments with people they disagree with, or to mostly see like-minded commentors (confirmation bias).
Another problem for readers is knowing where to start. Oldest topics first or newest? Randomised order? I've wondered (half-baked idea) about topics along a horizontal axis with responses hanging down the vertical axis from each parent topic. Might be something in that, or could just be a usability disaster. Or maybe the viewport is fixed (no horiz scrollbar) but you hit arrows to each side to browse top-level topics? Each sub-topic could have a header that included info about the originator, key contributors within, general lean of the contents ('Strongly favours those that think the sentence was too light.').
Another issue is in finding the most worthwhile comments (Slashdot has moderation and so on that can be helpful but I've only ever used it as a set-and-forget thing to browse at +2 with Funny discounted heavily). The biggest news network in Australia doesn't even have this (or threading, or anything useful) in its commenting system. It's flat, no notifications, no ownership of an alias, no prevention of people impersonating others, no up/down vote - and it's been like that for years!
As a contributor, a big problem is the perception and reality that a lot of comments are drive-bys. Forcing, encouraging or using a default setting of email notification could help there, but in a way that doesn't leave you diving for the off-switch once the replies start getting heavy. I think the PHP BB (or maybe it's a competing forum I'm thinking of) system of sending one alert only until you return to view the thread has merit. Providing quality tools/experience for regular contributors could encourage people to hang around and build up their karma within the system, etc.
How do you tackle a 500+-post conversation? Is it even possible?
Perhaps a site with some kind of personal Bayesian filtering to categorize posts - the sort of thing I do in my head when reading comments on the BBC site (where most posts fall into my "Foaming at mouth Daily Mail reader" and "Naive Socialist" categories).
When you visit the site, you see the current state, and you can look down the points and rebuttals on either side and contribute to those bits specifically and 'push' the center line one way or the other.
Tug-o-war style, not HN comment style.
Not sure how well it would work in reality - I'm guessing a bit tediously.
Upvotes should hopefully drag good comments to the top - then perhaps a "show of hands" to decide the issue
Fighting trolls would be hard.
For example:
* When you're drunk and think you got a cool new domain name on your mind -> Write it down on some note and only buy it the next morning
comment if you have any ideas for it, or shoot me an email m[]mikeyur[]com
Edit: If anyone has experience with OpenCYC or is interested in collaborating, please get in touch via srdjan@filmit.si
Lots of folks here on HN make phone apps. I've had onyourcell.com for 7+ yrs now and many of the things I originally wanted to do with it are being done by Google for free (restaurant listing, directions etc.) So if someone wants to do anything interesting with it, you are more than welcome to take it off my hands at no charge.