Show HN: I made a community-based writing application | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I made a community-based writing application

writerstavern.io

5 pointskondov2 comments

Hi HN! Writing has been a big part of my life for the last few years. It's helped me make sense of the world around me through journaling, and my blog and technical books have made wonders for my career as an engineer. Something I've always been missing is an online community where I can practice my skills and learn from other aspiring writers.

I built Tavern, hoping to solve my own problem. Its main concept is that every Monday everyone in the app gets asked the same writing prompt and you have seven days to submit your answer. You can look at what others have posted, but only after you've submitted your answer. My hope is that this way I will reduce lurking and encourage more people to actually write rather than think about it.

There is a concept of giving likes (ales, since the whole app is tavern-themed), but I've given it a twist by not showing the number of likes an answer has until you like it. Also, answers are always sorted by date, with the latest ones on top. This way if you open Tavern three times this week you'll be able to scroll until the last answers you've read and leave, they won't get shuffled.

Tavern's not a technical wonder by no means - you can probably put it together in a hackathon. But I put a lot of effort into the design and its simplicity, so people can focus on the content. I have more plans for it in terms of features but I wanted to launch the bare-bones build as soon as possible.

Hope you like it!

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I like the idea. I actually set up something kinda similar to this at work, a sort of bookclub where once a week somebody posts a short video/blog/article for the group to consume and discuss, with the hidden goal of getting at least myself to churn out a blog post each week based on the discussion. We are currently in the third week but first post still because despite getting a dozen or so sign-ups, the follow-through has been low and feedback has been that more time is needed.

I think once a week for Tavern should be suitable - you aren't trying to compete with Twitter or other social media sites for volume of content. I haven't signed up yet, but you might need to use email nudges to remind people to post. A streak count might be a good way to gamify persistence. Could you provide some examples on the main page of the kinds of prompts you'll be using, so I know whether I'm likely to be able to go through with it before giving up my email address? And finally, my concern with content reset at the end of each week is that if I am late to post I might only get a really small window to read other posts. Similarly, everybody else will have a small window to read _my_ post, and they might not even check the website during that time. Perhaps a couple of days grace period into the next week to read but not to post?

Edit: I just signed up, and it's awkward that you can't easily navigate back to the landing page when signed in, to remind myself of the rules.

I would change seven days to thirty minutes because nobody needs seven days to write 200 words, and taking seven days to write 200 words is being too precious about one's writing -- at least ordinarily, a legal context might be different.

Once-a-week is also a poor formula for engagement in a social media app...imagine if Twitter or Facebook rate limited?

Good luck.

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