

Show HN: Search HN Users By Interest - vargas84
https://findhn.firebaseapp.com

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vargas84
Hi HN, OP here. This was a small side-project I built recently with the
intention of fostering more collaboration across HN. Hopefully this can help
connect people with similar interests.

I'm pretty green so I would appreciate any feedback. My primary goal with this
is to build something that can actually be useful to people - is there
anything I can do to better achieve that goal? I'm also planning to add
features over time so if there are any requests please let me know.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Hm, well, I can't figure out what it is. There's no explanation on how to use
it. I tried entering "tptacek" for an HN user name, saw that it turned green,
tried pressing enter, and nothing happened. Maybe some kind of helptext would
be good?

~~~
vargas84
I guess I have to work on my UX design :)

The first step is to enter in your username. If the username exists, you'll be
able to add interests to that username by clicking on the plus button next to
the interest field. Once you do that, you will immediately become searchable
and should see the search results updated. You can modify interests by simply
editing the input fields and delete an interest by removing all of the text in
that input field.

I'm taking the site down until I have time to add a proper authentication
system though. I realize now that is probably an essential feature, even in an
mvp. I will also make sure that the next iteration of this is a lot more
clear.

I really appreciate your feedback!

EDIT: I want to apologize to users of the site. In my excitement to release
something, I underestimated the likelihood of people trolling and importance
of a proper authentication system. Not to mention, my lack of clarity probably
led to well-intentioned users interacting with the site in ways I did not
intend. I promise a better experience in the next iteration.

EDIT 2: I decided to leave the site up (so anyone that ends up reading this
has context) but have disabled it until I can fix.

------
bramm
Please let us know when it is back up.

~~~
vargas84
Will do, likely by the end of this weekend!

