

Ask YC: What do you think of our site, bug.gd? - thorax

http://bug.gd<p>The idea is simple: you search for an error message on bug.gd. If the solution is there, you win. If not, then we'll ask you (48 hours later) how you figured it out. Your answer is saved to help the next lost soul.<p>Our latest news is our launch of a Firefox extension that lets you skip the email reminder aspect, saves some keystrokes (auto-paste), and tracks your unsolved errors.<p>The vision is to get to the point where silly things like computer errors and crashes never need to be solved twice. If someone solves a problem, everyone gets benefit of the answer. We've been asked why users would use the service over searching Google, but we see that as saying you prefer throwing things in the trash over recycling. Some people are like that, but there are many of us that don't want our work to be wasted. As a bonus, since all the solutions submitted are indexed by major search engines, you're helping even those who don't use the site.<p>Back in October we prepopulated the database with 65,000 Microsoft KB article error messages and it's been growing ever since. Let us know what you think, if you have a moment.<p>(And, yeah, the logo is intentionally and subtly buggy. We'll get over our silliness eventually.)
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webwright
Spend 1 full day researching SEO ranking factors and adjusting your site.
Unique titles, meta descrptions, and link names will multiply your organic
traffic dramatically. Hugely. If you want to make a business out of this, you
should really be SEO experts.

You should also have categories (even if they are derived by keywords in the
content), which you should display on your solved solutions page. This will
reduce the number of "clicks" a search engine spider has to do to get to the
full solution pages.

Bonus, have lateral linking to categories and other problems. So if I'm on a
bug for rails, you should have a "view all bugs about rails" link that goes to
a list view as well a few links to common rails bugs.

~~~
thorax
Well, we've studied a lot of SEO (for other sites) and didn't intend really
for bug.gd to be that kind of a "content" site initially. I think we need to
revisit this, though, so your pointers are quite valid. We got an incredible
amount of traffic last year when we were covered on TechCrunch and other
sites, but that settles-down after the initial fanfare.

We've prototyped some text classification mechanisms to try to pinpoint the
product/category from the error message, but I think we're going to wait until
we get more of our embeddable libraries released (that could be included in
specific products), our planned Dr. Watson replacement available, and maybe
some subsites for particular technologies (e.g. Ruby and Python error
messages).

We'll see what we can do, but high on the ROI list would be getting the
solution pages less 'deep' for search engine crawling-- thanks for the advice
there.

Keep in mind (or FYI), our revenue model is actually not focused on ads or
anything of that nature. We're looking to use bug.gd as an engine/toolset to
sell to corporations that want to have more a P2P tech support model to reduce
help desk costs. Lots of little ideas for this, but this project was really
driven by the need for this in a large enterprise I was formerly involved
with. The productivity gains can be impressive when your employees have a
collective wisdom when it comes to problems.

Due to this path for the company, the core bug.gd site is really intended just
to build up solutions to help everyone while remaining free and ad-free. We
think of it as a win-win situation and really want all of our new sites to
work that way.

Thanks again.

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marketer
I have nearly 100% success rate solving my problems by searching Google. And
if that fails, I usually end up in some IRC channel. What features will make
this site better? Maybe have an incentive system for people who solve
problems?

~~~
sspencer
I would be curious to know this as well. Any time I see a bug, I feed it (or a
search-friendly variation) to Google as well, and my success rate is equally
high. And while I enjoy making up fraudulent email addresses for sites that
have no business knowing my email, Google removes this step from the loop.

And I agree with everyone else: the design is wince-inducing.

~~~
thorax
Thanks for the feedback!

We discussed your question in the initial post up above at the top of the
page. It's similar to the analogy of throwing everything in the trash versus
recycling it.

Nowadays, there's not much incentive for you to recycle your cans beyond kinda
just wanting there to be a better tomorrow. Some people don't care at all
about doing the right thing and just toss everything into the trash and always
will. Others don't mind doing their part (especially if it's a small part).

It's also the argument some people make about Open Source. Why would I release
my not-currently-useful source code to others when I can hold onto it for some
endeavor in the future?

bug.gd is a lot like that sort of dilemma-- why are you doing all of that
error research and losing it to be reperformed by the next fellow? Why does
the guy behind you also have to come along, dig through unhelpful forum posts
of "solved it myself, thanks", experts exchange hidden pages, etc, etc? If you
take the split second to record a sentence or a link that solved your issue,
people don't have to repeat your work.

The long-term goal is that you'd find the solution quicker on bug.gd than
anywhere else because we specialize solely in error messages and the solutions
come with ratings from other visitors in the results.

Also, bug.gd allows you to search against the entire error message, multi-
lines and all (with no 32 word restriction like Google). You won't be able to
do that on Google, though we've all lived with having to sit there and
manually reconstruct our error message in a form Google likes. (Why do that,
though?)

In the end, the people who aren't interested in improving things for everyone
with a tad more work will stick with Google and be happy. More than a few of
them will be taking advantage of people who do want to do their part and use
bug.gd.

We're very much in favor of reducing the barriers that make this model less
comfortable (e.g. design and email request, see the Firefox extension above
that doesn't require that).

For example, we have a feature nearly ready to go live that allows you to
simultaneously search in Google and/or an appropriate KB site. The complicated
part is helping the user quickly rebuild the error in a form that those search
engines will handle properly, but we abolutely want to help them get the
solution to their problem however it may be.

In the end it helps everyone when someone uses bug.gd to solve a problem.

Thanks again for the feedback, and I hope I answered your question to some
degree.

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viergroupie
I wish I could search the database without having to give you my email
address.

also: I find the high contrast a little painful to look at.

~~~
thorax
Yeah, but it's kinda part of the game. Installing the FFE allows you to use
the site with an anonymous address.

You can also lie about the email used if you so desire. It's really just there
as part of the social contract for using the site.

Any thoughts on a better way to handle that? The whole point of the free/ad-
free site is the later reminder to come back and "do the right thing" and help
future searchers.

~~~
slim
IMHO there is no "it's kinda part of the game". there is good design and there
is better design. no opt-in for search should be a no-brainer. remember that
this is where you deliver value to the user.

your slogan should be "got error? paste it here."

~~~
kingnothing
If they went that route, they would probably lose out on a bunch of answers
that people figured out on their own, which is kind of the whole point of the
site. Otherwise you have a ton of error messages and problems, and no way to
fix them.

~~~
slim
hey, what do you think about this story :

1 - the user pastes his error message 2 - he gets a list of possible answers 3
- if he finds a suitable answer, he clicks on it 4 - if he does not find an
answer, you ask him to give his email adress so that you notify him when an
answer is found 5 - if an answer is found you notify him 6 - after 48hours you
send him a message with the subject line "nobody found and answer to your
question. did you find one?"

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carpal
The requirement of an email address makes this a non-starter for me. I think
you should be able to search and add without an email address. The reminder
feature should be optional.

An OS X dashboard widget would be very useful, as well.

~~~
thorax
Yeah, we get that a good bit about the email. That's what we use the Firefox
extension for, but a dashboard widget would have the same freedom.

The problem is (a) the site is free/ad-free and intends to remain as such, and
(b) it's difficult to make that optional because it's really the only reason
the site exists. To have some mechanism to remind users to provide solutions
(in the timeframe that they remember them) is essential.

That's why the widget/extension model is going to be a big part of our plan,
because those can allow the user to get subtle reminders/counts without having
to have any email address involved.

Still, we'll continue to brainstorm. Any other suggestions would be very
welcome. Thanks a lot for the feedback.

------
thorax
Quick links to save some pasting:

* Site: <http://bug.gd>

* FireFox extension: <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6138>

Thanks again for any feedback you guys have.

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eusman
The problem with bugs is that the most common ones are already answered and
exist decentralized on forums, newsgroups etc, thus making it quite trivial
for a centralized placed to take form thus needing a search engine to find the
answers.

The other problem is that sometimes people after taking some serious time
solving a bug, they are not so willing if not to share without a reward, then
comeback to the site and write an answer.

Maybe the colors should be a lot more calming and cheerful.

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mannylee1
Nice idea, but to be brutally honest the design is web 2.0 on steriods. How
about a small elegent image for your logo and then the form input elements and
thats it.

~~~
dmoney
I agree. In addition to making my teeth hurt, the design wastes a lot of
space. Also, it's annoying having to click each heading just to see "link to
microsoft KB article"

But it is a good idea. Maybe I'll give a real e-mail address next time.

~~~
thorax
Yeah, we should include at least some text in the initial solution summaries.
I'll see what we can do to get that resolved.

We kinda wanted initially wanted the design to "stand out" and be memorable
(i.e. we took a risk) since the most important thing by far, when people
stumble upon bug.gd, is that they remember it when they next run into an error
message.

Burning our site into your retina was kinda part of that plan, but I think
we're over that experiment and will likely move to something that's gentler
and similar to my favorite minimalist sites (like YC/reddit/Google).

Thanks very much for taking the time to provide feedback. If you don't want to
provide an email, the FFE allows you to search without requiring that-- it's
an important part of our "try not to scare people away with email requests"
strategy and still keep the site working.

~~~
dmoney
I understand wanting to prevent freeloaders, but it seems to me that most
users initially will be freeloaders. They'll want to see that they are getting
consistently good info from your site before they start contributing (even so
much as contributing their e-mail address or downloading the FFE. And by
"most" I mean this is me and I'm assuming I'm relatively normal). Especially
when you're competing against every other site full of error messages that
shows up in their search results.

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tx
It will be very, very, very hard for you to compete with google. If there is a
problem, and it is more or less common, there are going to be message boards,
IRC logs and various blog entries talking about it. Google finds them all.
You, on the other end, rely only on your own DB. Sounds like "one man vs army"
kind of deal to me.

Sorry. You asked what I think and this is it.

~~~
SwellJoe
Google could be their best source of incoming traffic. The various answers
sites seem to make a living that way.

~~~
ericb
Agreed--google will likely provide a bunch of traffic. Also, google is not
specialized to this niche. Here's an example from 3 weeks ago where google
failed to provide answers that a centralized error lookup site might. Google
had little that was relevant for the first several weeks this problem was out
and only showed results for an ancient cause of a similar error message.
Eventually it picked up a blog post, but 3 weeks is a long time.

[http://blog.ra66i.org/archives/informatics/2007/12/23/a-quic...](http://blog.ra66i.org/archives/informatics/2007/12/23/a-quick-
gem-101-faq-gemrunner-name-error/)

Quote from the person who "fixed" the google bug with a popular blog post:

There's a "problem" with the current version of rubygems that's causing
somewhat of a FAQ, that as far as I can see, Google doesn't index too well...

~~~
SwellJoe
Yes, I Google for this kind of thing all the time...and quite frequently don't
get good answers. I'm a rare bird, I guess, in the sense that I'm usually
looking for answers about other people's systems, and so I'm dealing with
hundreds of hardware, OS, version, etc. differences. Most folks only ever deal
with a few such variants at any given time. Nonetheless, I can see this being
a very useful service...not a terribly profitable one (at least in its early
stages), but extremely useful. Assuming people use it, of course.

------
ericb
You beat me to it. This was on my "write this for myself or the good of
mankind list." The reason it was on that list was I wasn't sure how to make
money with it (programmers aren't known for clicking ads). I wish you the best
with it and it sounds like you've got an approach for getting money.

I think you're solving a real problem. Google has gotten clumsier about search
results, and frequently my searching yields only people with the same
question, not an answer. I frequently have to use the cached search result to
get google to highlight where, in the mile-long forum page, my keywords
appear.

One thing I'd suggest--why use so much screen real estate for each result, but
not show an excerpt in that spot? The expandable plus signs being collapsed
initially are a negative for me as a user.

Good luck!

------
ryanjg27
I think this is an excellent idea. I like how you prepopulated your DB with
msft KB articles.

Like the comments before, let me search and read without giving an email
address.

Also, the design is horrible.

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mattmaroon
Love your domain name.

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chaostheory
awesome idea - I've always wanted this site I just wish I could see a list of
current and solved bugs (like stories) on the front page instead of having to
click, and I'd rather see more content - less logo too

btw how do you solve other people's problems? Your site is essentially a
programmer/sysadmin centric version of yahoo answers right? why not organize
it that way?

~~~
thorax
Well, it's a bit different than that. It's really a search engine. People
don't (really) solve other people's error messages here. The process is
typically (1) search for an error you have and get immediate results, or (2)
search for an error you have, don't see an answer, and then come back and let
us know later how you got past it so the next guy doesn't have that sort of
problem. I.e. stop the cycle of searching once someone has solved a problem.

There is a link in the bottom for reviewing solved bugs, but we didn't expect
a lot of interest in that. We may open it up such that others can provide
answers for your unsolved errors, but it wasn't really planned to do that.

It's less like a forum and more like a search engine (of search requests).

We'll work on that more content, less logo part. Thanks much for the comments
there.

~~~
waleedka
I like the concept, but I'd recommend that you allow people to browse all
submitted errors and provide solutions. And, you'll need to give an incentive
for people to help. For example, have a list of "Top Problem Solves" or karma
points.

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tocomment
The bug in the logo is the reflection?

~~~
thorax
Technically I guess there's a "bug" in the word "bug.gd", but, yeah, I'm
referring to the flipped reflection.

Which has been an interesting dynamic to watch-- there are some people that
are immediately hung up on the mixed-up reflection right away and then there
are others who think that it's a proper mirror reflection somehow. The
comments on our (interesting? bad?) look-and-feel have gotten us at least 10%
of our blog references-- we just want people to remember the site and it's
been an unexpected way to gain a little extra attention.

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curi
change the auto generated user names so people can't tell how many users you
have.

