

Ask HN: What sites do you contribute to the most, besides HN/Twitter/FB? - mercurialshark

We are almost finished building a tool (Thoughtly) that quantifies people&#x27;s written contributions online, so people can display their life experience in a broader context. We want to make sure our first version accounts for platforms and data sources that users find the most valuable. Do you publish academic papers to sites like Mendeley? Are you an active Redditor? Stackoverflow? What are your go to sites to engage in intellectual dialogue, besides HN (and social platforms like Twitter&#x2F;FB)? With so many data sources and API&#x27;s to choose from, we want to make sure we  account for what people care most about! Thanks. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thoughtly.co
======
brianchu
I contribute a bit to Quora. Despite the bad rap that Quora has on HN, Quora
does a really good job of curating posts, and there are a lot of extremely
high quality posts related to software and startups. It's a lot less nitpicky
than HN because anecdotes and opinions are perfectly fine on Quora.

~~~
mercurialshark
That's interesting. While it may be slightly less particular it allows for
more organic conversation. I appreciate your insight.

------
mountainair
I do a lot of very informal writing online, mostly in Subreddits related to my
field, but also in comments on news articles at places like Wired and Ars. I
find that you learn almost as much from the (non-insane) comments as you do
from the articles themselves. This is probably the same reason I use/read
Reddit. I do have some more academic writing published on Academia.edu and
SSRN, but I don't engage in discussion there. Best of luck!

~~~
mercurialshark
Awesome, thanks! Published work is - whether the author thinks about it this
way or not - now considered just a foundation/framework for ongoing
discussions. If you can filter the batty (which I hope we can help with), then
the comments are really an addendum to the original article.

------
infinitebattery
I am an occasional Yahoo answers user. However recently, it has been Hacker
News and Facebook for me.

~~~
mercurialshark
Do you have a history with Yahoo answers? How do you compare it with other Q&A
sites? Also, the vicious HN-FB cycle, we all empathize with. Thanks.

~~~
infinitebattery
Hey!

Yahoo Answers is pretty interesting and it works on a point based system.
Basically, the more questions you answer, the more points you gain. You also
get points for "voting" on the best answer to each question (not as many as
answering though). If the most people vote for your answer as "best answer"
then you get 10 points.

That may have been a confusing explanation, but I definitely like the system
(which keeps users engaged). And Hacker News does this as well with its karma
system, although it works in a different way. Some of my friends are hooked on
to this one chatting website (www.zobe.com), and it has a karma system as
well. Basically, all the sites i've seen that have a point based/karma system
are quite "vicious" as you put it (they have very consistent users).

I also forgot to mention- I also began recently using Quora, and i've liked it
so far! Reminds me of Yahoo Answers but it definitely seems newer and fancier.

I'm interested in hearing more about the project you're working on! Please
elaborate on what you're trying to do :)

~~~
mercurialshark
No, that's a great answer. Contribution based karma system seem more value-
driven than a popularity based (or only) upvote platform. That's really what
we are trying to address.

We see the problem as social media visibility is based on popularity - despite
the fact that the popularity doesn't ensure quality. Afterall group think
isn't necessarily a good thing...

Emerging social media and news platforms try to identify quality content but
their quality metrics are based on popularity.

Thoughtly approaches the problem by accounting for users written contributions
online. By quantifying users' personal data - from sites like Stackexchange
and Quora we display an individual's involvement in a field. This allows you
to objectively compare perspectives from different kinds of people. Think,
"actions speak louder than words." Well, we finally for the first time in
human history have enough data from disparate sources that we can rely on
actionable data and not just resumes and mildly subjective about me sites.

I'd be happy to discuss it further and thanks for your interest. I hope you
check us out. We are launching to iOS soon - the app is approved, now we are
polishing the backend data sources.

------
jackgolding
Stackexchange (and to a lesser extent Quora and LinkedIn) are the obvious
answers

~~~
mercurialshark
Nice, we are currently implementing the rest of the Stackexchange sites, as we
started with just Stackoverflow. The caliber of content on the stackexchange
network is phenomenal. Is there a specific stackexchange site that you would
be proud to display your credentials from? Thanks!

