
Ask HN: What about Think HN? - netgusto
Often times when I have an idea about something I dare not submit it on &quot;Ask HN&quot;.<p>The reason for that is that I noticed that the tone of answers on Ask HN is mainly affirmative and definitive for the person writing an answer.<p>Which makes it up for good debates about stuff, but not so much for constructive exchanges about burgeoning ideas.<p>Wouldn&#x27;t it be a good idea then to normalize some &quot;Think HN&quot; side channel, where ideas would be constructed together rather than assessed and answered ?
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gtirloni
It can be frustrating if you're trying to have a conversation in a relaxed
way, not so much proving your idea's worth (or yourself). That will invite
thoughtful commenters but also haters and very critical people that aren't
trying to contribute to your success... But that's life.

Just post as "Ask HN" and clarify you haven't finalized your ideas and that
you're looking for constructive feedback.

Using prefix "Think HN" Looks like a good idea as a way to signal that but I'm
afraid it would lose its appeal quickly.

IMHO, it's better to carefully craft your "Ask HN" submission in a way that
invites the most useful feedback... And just ignore the rest.

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ploggingdev
I don't think that's a good fit for HN. A chat room format might make more
sense and I'm actually trying to build something similar to what you described
: a chat room to discuss anything related to tech and startups. It's
appropriately called Hackers Chat [0]. It's currently a single chat room, but
I'll be adding support for user created chat rooms and try to become "Discord
for cryptocurrencies".

[0] [https://www.hackerschat.net/](https://www.hackerschat.net/)

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rapnie
given your interest for cryptocurrencies, shouldn't you make this a
decentralized app.. or is it?

but then it would be like Mastodon and already exists :)

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ploggingdev
It's not decentralized, just a simple website built using Django. The idea is
to host chat rooms for people (including non-technical folks) who are
interested in cryptocurrencies. I'm still figuring out how to differentiate my
website from Discord/Gitter.im and one of the ideas I'm considering is to have
widgets that display the prices for btc, eth etc.

> but then it would be like Mastodon and already exists :)

Yup, IRC and Mastadon and a whole lot of other services exist but they are not
easy to use for non-technical people. Web based chat is much easier to use.

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jdowner
Good idea!

Sorry, couldn't resist :)

Something similar to
[https://www.kialo.com/tour/](https://www.kialo.com/tour/) for instance?

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rayalez
Could you just write and submit a short blog post? If people are interested
they'll discuss and contribute.

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rocky1138
I started KW Hackers for this reason and also as a springboard for
Kitchener/Waterloo Canada hackers to share neat new stuff that they've built.
You are more then welcome to join. It's a GNU Social instance, so it's part of
the fediverse.

[https://kwat.chat](https://kwat.chat)

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matte_black
IMO this is hacker _news_ , not hackerchat. If you want a place where people
can discuss something that is not anchored around some kind of news, then you
need to find another platform. I don’t even like AskHN for this reason.

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ju-st
i think a HN Discord server would be cool for stuff like this

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zer0th
I've been thinking about something like this years ago. Basically I wanted to
implement de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats" as a website that would assist an
individual to work through a problem with the help of a community. So a user
would not state his problem to wait for complete solutions suggested by
others. Instead, s/he'd, for example, try to explain what s/he wants to
achieve and ask for strategies. The community would then suggest some options
("yellow hat thinking"). Next, the community could weed out bad options
("black hat thinking"). If there were any ideas left one could ask how
everyone feels emotionally about the remaining options ("red hat thinking")
and then pick the most popular one. In a next step, they could brainstorm
creative ideas to mitigate possible problems with the chosen option ("green
hat thinking"). Afterwards the OP could summarize the outcome and state what
s/he is going to do. If after a while some more thinking turns out to be
required one could continue the process again. For instance, you could discuss
how to deal with unforeseen challenges or - if the chosen option turns out to
be futile - investigate one of the other suggestions in more detail And so on
and so forth ...

However, I worried that most people would not have the time/patience to really
get involved with a problem. Furthermore, the process might be to cumbersome
and rational for real world problems.

