

I've created a community and learning platform for math, physics and CS lovers - aditgupta
http://functionspace.org/

======
SeanDav
Very polished site from the little I saw of it - and there lies the rub - I
saw so little of it.

Why don't you allow browsing without registration? I am sure you will miss out
on a lot of traffic and future sign-ups because the initial experience is
opaque.

~~~
alexholehouse
Registration is literally no more than the three boxes on the signup page,
which was a pleasant surprise.

~~~
ed209
I think people are starting to suffer from signup fatigue (even with just 3
boxes). Wherever possible, services should get right into the kernel of the
experience and ask for registration later.

~~~
npsimons
Seconded; it may be "only" three boxes, but I can browse SO or SE by filling
in zero boxes. This reminded me of a site (can't remember which) that comes up
in Google results for some UNIX CLI searches I've done and requires sign-in or
payment(!) to view community contributed answers. Bugger that for a lark.

~~~
npongratz
Experts-Exchange[0], perhaps? There were (are?) some workarounds for getting
E-E's full results, but SO/SE is so much better, it doesn't matter what's on
E-E anymore.

[0] Don't look here for a link from me, I'd rather not encourage them by
sending traffic their way.

~~~
npsimons
I hate to be a citation dodger, but partly due to laziness, and partly due to
not wanting to send any traffic their way, I didn't bother digging up what
site it was. I'm all for paying for expert opinion when a) it's better than I
could do and b) the people providing the expertise get the majority of the
money. Charging money for unverified, uncompensated answers? Too lame. I am
one of those people who used SO/SE for quite some time and finally signed up
for an account when I stumbled upon a question I had an answer for. I don't
mind giving back, much as I didn't mind contributing to CDDB until Gracenote
ruined it. Whatever other gripes I might have with SO/SE, I think it's so
successful because of its model.

------
mike_ivanov
Look, the thing is, the only reason why you are asking for registration is
building an email database. If you stated that clearly like "please provide
your email so we'd contact you later" or whatever -- that would be perfectly
acceptable. However, by forcing me into surrending you my email address you
make me wonder _what else_ I'm going to be forced into down the road. So,
thanks, but no, thanks.

~~~
CamperBob2
True. He's more than welcome to email asfasdfasdf@asfasdfasdjfasdfjs.com with
whatever further information he would like to release.

------
mrgoldenbrown
Why can't I see anything without signing in? Do I need to pay?

~~~
aditgupta
No need to pay. You can sign up within a few seconds and you're in! :)

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
So is it a policy decision to not allow browsing unless you're signed in? Or
just a beta thing? Saying it's easy to register doesn't address the question
of why it's necessary :)

~~~
aditgupta
I just launched it a week ago. So, things will surely change with time. How
about something like StackOverflow? You can view everything, but to vote or
answer you have to login. All this feedback is really going to help a lot! :)

~~~
joey2714
I think that is a good idea, or something along those lines. I too clicked the
link to the site, but when I noticed I had to register first, I came back here
to check the comments rather than continuing. Showing more content before
forcing a signup should gather a lot more interest. Looks nice though, and you
seem very receptive to feedback, so I guess I will go sign up anyway! Good
luck!

~~~
aditgupta
Thank you!! I would also like to add that the content would NOT be greyed out
for non-registered users and it would be licensed under creative commons :)

------
det23x
So what do you want to achieve here, because such a platform is just useful if
you find either people that are willing to answer specific questions - such as
in mathoverflow - or if you want to read something up (and then you probably
go to wikipedia or grap another introduction to a topic). Anyway, it is nicely
done, but I wonder if there was another intention than "because we can". I
have read the "How Function Space is different?" section, but it is not that
convincing.

~~~
alexholehouse
I actually think that for a lot of maths/CS/Physics issues, wikipedia is a
_horrible_ introduction to people unfamiliar with the topic. A site which
curates explanations in normalspeak with some form of interaction (i.e. "Can
you explain why...") would actually be a very useful resource for a lot of
people, myself included.

~~~
jonahx
khan academy, among others, already addresses this

~~~
kyzyl
Khan academy is nice for the material it covers, but anybody going beyond high
school will find it rapidly becomes obsolete (according to the content ca. the
last time I checked). The treatments are simply too elementary and the topics
too low level.

I would think a site where people can ask anything, ala stackoverflow, would
yield more useful results for many physics/math/cs students.

~~~
bradddd
That may have been true a couple years ago, but they are rapidly expanding.
They now include calculus and diff eq with plans to go beyond. They're even
researching med school related content for the future.

That being said, I wouldn't take that as a reason to not pursue this.

~~~
kyzyl
Looking at what's on there, I'm really not convinced. You could not get
through an physics, engineering or math program on the material that is there,
not even close. If I search for, say, complex analysis, all of the material I
get is about complex _arithmetic_. No multivalued functions, branch cuts, p.v.
integrals, harmonic functions, DEs, nothing. It's all what they expect you to
know going INTO the course, or that they cover in the first two days.

Similarly, if I go into the physics topics, they are all <= intro courses, at
best. Optics? Doesn't talk about fourier optics, lasers, etc. E&M? Doesn't
seem to mention Maxwell's Equations anywhere... enough said. Quantum mech?
Nothing. Statistical mech? Nothing.

Okay, how about math? Take a look at the differential equations stuff. No
higher order, no series methods, no numerical methods, no coupled systems, no
non-linear. Probability? No markov chains, MCMC methods, or anything except
basic RVs and statistics (which is not the same thing as probability). Same
for linear algebra: no fitting methods, no matrix decomposition, no graph
theory.

I could go on. The point is that they cover the most basic elements of each
subject, and they miss a hell of a lot of important subjects. That's okay, but
don't claim that they're anywhere close to being able to educate you at a
university level.

------
strangestchild
Looks good - I've signed up :)

I would say though that I think your articles and lectures could do with a bit
more organisation. In both cases, the user would benefit from posts having
tags denoting subject content, and from a search facility so that I can find
things that specifically interest me. If you have five hundred videos about
mathematics, finding one on Analytic Topology, say, by scrolling through them
would be a bit painful. I also think it would be good if the lectures had some
way of tying subsequent videos together - it seems a tiny bit messy to have
'Cosmology - Lecture 1', and 'Cosmology - Lecture 2' as separate entries. I'm
also not certain that you want to limit lectures to being videos. A well-
written explanation of a broad subject is sometimes better than a video that I
can't search or skim through - and I think it serves a different purpose from
the articles. It's also easier for your community to add written content than
videos.

Hope that was useful to you - but obviously take it all with a pinch of salt.
You know your strategy better than some guy off the internet who's only spent
ten minutes on your site :)

~~~
aditgupta
Thanks for signing up! And thanks a lot for positive criticism. I have noted
your feedback regarding Lectures and Articles. Will surely implement it within
few days! :)

------
mdkess
Really like the idea of this, and especially enjoyed that you took the time to
make the 2 minute video walkthrough (it made it easy for me to say "ok, I'll
give you 2 minutes, let's hear your pitch"). I think the idea of having a
focused community will work quite well.

A suggestion: Redis has a very cool documentation system, where the
documentation is "live" - for example, <http://redis.io/commands/set> (scroll
down to the example, you can type in the box). It'd be really neat to have
something like that integrated with the code side of things.

------
dusklight
Clicked on link -- I am interested in learning about math, physics and CS.

Saw registration screen. Closed window.

------
vitno
Have you considered integrating something like Persona? While I have never
like FB sign up, this is the exact situation where I would be tempted to use
it. Possible interest, but I don't really wanna go through the sign-up. I keep
hoping to find a site in the wild using Persona.

of course... in the time I typed this I could have just signed up. :P

------
MartinMcGirk
Looks good, I look forward to exploring the site properly after work. One
small niggle for you to address though. Log out and go to your home page.
Navigate to the About page. Now try and get back to the home page without
using your browsers back button.

I would expect your site logo in the top left to take me to your home page,
especially as it appears clickable, but it doesn't. It puts a # at the end of
the url and that's it.

~~~
aditgupta
Thanks!! Fixing it now! :)

------
prezjordan
Interesting. LaTeX support?

~~~
aditgupta
yes, LateX support is there! Inbuilt visual equation editor coming in a week
or so! :)

~~~
prezjordan
Excellent, site looks great :) I'd love the ability to edit/delete my
"opinions" though.

------
cing
Cool site. I think you should include a citation importer and exporter for
people referencing published articles in their posts.

~~~
aditgupta
Thanks!! Point noted! :)

------
_chrismccreadie
I love the look and feel of the site, well done. I understand some of the
frustration in the discussion about required registration but the site is
still definitely worth a look. The half alive/half dead cat icon for quantum
mechanics made me laugh, kudos to whoever designed it.

------
Splendor
Home page tells me nothing, just wants me to sign up for something I don't
understand yet. That's when I closed the tab. If you want idiots like me to
signup you'll need to sell me before you ask me to type.

~~~
aditgupta
There's a video on the home page :)

~~~
Splendor
Ain't nobody got time for that.

------
Wonderdonkey
aditgupta, What I saw of this was pretty neat. Have you considered adding
Common Core alignment for high school students/teachers who would benefit from
it?

Heads up: I left the site, and it didn't remember me when I came back. I
forgot my random password and requested a password reset. Got a confirmation
that an e-mail had been sent, but that hasn't arrived after a good 30 minutes
so far.

~~~
aditgupta
Thanks! I am considering some kind of tie-up with schools and colleges. I see
that a mail has been sent to some emails. If you can send me your email id, I
will cross-check it for you.

------
aditgupta
Thank you all for such an overwhelming response! I will deal with the sign-up
issue ASAP. All other suggestions would also be implemented soon. :)

------
jsanders128
Great idea! How did you make the website? Ie, did you contract out or make it
yourself? And if so, how were you able to do it? Thanks.

~~~
aditgupta
Thanks! It took me about 2 weeks to design and a month to develop. I left my
full-time job for Function Space. My wife also helped me out with some ideas.
The biggest motivating factor was my love for these 3 subjects. :)

~~~
nilkn
How do you plan on monetizing Function Space?

~~~
solistice
On this tangent, I wouldn't suggest premium features, unless they're minor
because they tend to tear apart communities (look at all the games). I'd
suggest nonintrusive ads and/or affiliate links to books, which would fit this
site nicely. You could also put a store in there selling things relating to
these topics, either setting that up yourself, or again going the affiliate
route. Honestly, you could just look into how similar sites are doing their
financing, and see what you can copy from their methods.

------
andreros
The favicon is slightly unreadable, and could easily be improved.

~~~
solistice
A FAQ would also be nice/neccesairy. If it's allready there, put it somewhere
where people can find it.

------
findomia
Great site your created. Thanks!

