
Show HN: Fantasy stock market (w/shorting!) of 2020 Democratic candidates - kofman
https://2020madness.com/
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luckylion
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haha, what new drug is circulating in SF right now?

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lennysan
(Lenny here, one of the people behind this) Excellent point. Very much not
intentional. Scrappy mode of using a ToS generator maybe wasn't the best idea.
Fixing now. Thank you for pointing this out.

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codingdave
I'm wary of this as a way to raise funds for a candidate. It feels like "Trust
us, we'll totally give the money to someone, someday." Even if that is true,
there are presumably costs to build and run the site, so less than 100% of you
money will get to the candidate.

It seems like there would be more value in making this free to play, and using
any popularity to get a message out.

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kofman
The donations are handled 100% by ActBlue which is the non-profit site (run on
tips) that handles donations for all the democratic candidates. They raised
>$1B for the Democrats in the last cycle.

We are self-funding our minimal infra costs and the work is being done by
volunteers on a part-time basis.

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codingdave
OK, Cool - I did not know who ActBlue was. I know there is a link to them, but
it might be worth surfacing some info about them on your page to avoid similar
initial reactions.

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ac4tw
I was looking at the website and trying to connect the dots--the thing I'm
wondering is how 2020 madness knows about a donation.

Is 2020 madness a wrapper to a candidate's ActBlue landing page / site,
collecting form data for it's purposes and re-transmitting it to ActBlue or is
there a tie to the receipt or some other mechanism?

Interesting gamification idea btw.

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ac4tw
nvm--I signed up to see and was able to see that it's getting raised by 2020
madness' ActBlue
([https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2020madness](https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2020madness)),
not a specific candidate and probably uses the refcode query of AB's db to
make the connection.

Cool idea!

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kofman
Exactly! The only downside is that ActBlue sometimes takes a little while to
confirm the transaction. But usually only 2-3 minutes.

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kofman
Built with GraphQL/Apollo, React, Node, Material-UI in a few weeks by some ex-
Dropbox, ex-Airbnb and current Slack folks. Designed to raise money for the
eventual candidate, whoever it ends up being. Ask us anything and let us know
any ideas for making it more fun!

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qiqing
Any plans for a behind-the-app / how-it-works sort of blog post?

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kofman
Perhaps! Currently focused on refining the gameplay, but let us know if you
have any specific questions and we'll make sure to address here or in such a
post!

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kofman
If anyone wants a few free coins to play around with, reply with your twitter
handle (that you used to sign in to the site) and we'll credit you! (But
really you should donate because climate change!)

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DoubleMalt
I think as a non US citizen, I'm banned from donating money (and the candidate
would not be allowed to accept my donation).

Do you have some other cause for us evil aliens? (Would donate for NASA or
ACLU eg.)

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kofman
Great idea - we'll look into it!

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bretthellman
Nice work @kofman and team!

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bjpyuio
Love this idea

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consuelacactus
Shorting Bernie. Sorry ya'll. Riding Warren/Buttegig to the top :D

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atmosx
I assure you that the DNC prefers Trump to Bernie, by far.

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danhilltech
Cool idea

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kofman
Thanks! Let us know if you have any feedback as you play with it!

