

GitHelp – Ask the authors - ahmdrefat
https://githelp.io/?ref=hackernews

======
kaolinite
This service has been spamming developers, harvesting emails from open source
repos and then emailing them, advertising the service. Really not cool.

Even though it looks like quite a cool service, honestly I wouldn't use them
on principle.

Here's the email I received:
[http://i.imgur.com/Kf9Nv3F.png](http://i.imgur.com/Kf9Nv3F.png)

~~~
ahmdrefat
We were not advertising, we're inviting the hackers to join if they are
interested to send they help requests from their communities based on their
contributions.

We understand that it's not acceptable by some people and that's why we're
going to change that.

~~~
kaolinite
Well that is advertising. You run the service, you're emailing people to tell
them about the service. You phrased it in a way that implied it was doing the
developers a favour (and I'm sure that you feel that you are - your software
looks good) but nevertheless, it's advertising.

It's also spamming. Harvesting email addresses from people contributing to
open-source isn't cool. I'm glad to hear you'll be changing that.

I know it's competitive out there but your app looks good, let it speak for
itself. You don't need to stoop this low.

~~~
ahmdrefat
Thank you for your feedback, and I hope we see you on GitHelp someday :)

------
rip747
Questions:

1) Why would I want people submitting a request through this application
rather than just using Github issues tracking? Using them would create an
additional channel of communication that I now have to not only check but
sync. Rather have one channel of communication for my projects

2) I don't see anywhere that the questions and answer will be share with the
community like they are with StackOverflow. Why would I want to hide valuable
information behind a curtain that no one can see unless they sign up?

3) I personally see no benefit for a CLI interface. I don't see the value in
learning a non-standard interface just to get help with something. Yea I can
see the "look this is cool" factor, but honestly, I think that's all it is.

I can't even count how many of these startups have come and gone since the
time I've been on Hacker News. They never seem to be around long and, quite
honestly, I don't think the creators get that they are fixing something that
isn't broken.

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raverbashing
Since it was mentioned on the title, here's a tip

Don't sign up for the ZenDesk trial, unless you are sure of what is it about
and that you want it.

You'll spend 10% of your time evaluating their product and 90% of the time
dealing with their aggressive sales team and tactics

~~~
ahmdrefat
We've compared GitHelp to ZenDesk in the since that can help people serve
their customers in a better way. The people here are the open source
maintainers and the customers are the developers who are using their projects.

------
dm2
It seems like your goal is to be a better search engine than Google, and
focusing primarily on the command line.

What is the reason for a developer not wanting to type into a normal search
engine a few keywords about a coding issue?

This concept just doesn't make sense to me: "Describe your problem in details
with markdown supported. GitHelp will use your description to find you the
most relevant content and resources to help you solve your problem instead of
Googling."

Here is a suggestion, show us an example (with screenshots or a video) of a
query or question using Google search and using GitHelp, then we can properly
see the value of the service.

The "getting stuck" part is the most fun for me personally. It means I've hit
a challenge that I've not faced before and have to do something thinking and
research to solve it.

------
marvel_boy
Summing up: you are harvesting identities and then spam them. It is not just
unethical, is ilegal under the CAN-SPAM act.

------
ahmdrefat
Hey there, Thanks for checking us out :)

We have multiple goals we want to achieve with GitHelp, the first one is
helping busy open source maintainers to manage all the questions and support
requests that comes to them from different sources like GitHub issues,
Twitter, Mailing lists, StackOverflow, forums, or even requests for audio and
video conversation in one place. You can think of it as ZenDesk for open
source projects.

The other side of that is for the benefit of developers, by matching them with
the best experts and increase their chance of getting the best answers they
need as fast as possible. But we don't just depend on matching developers
requests with experts. We think there's enough content on the internet from
resources like Documentation, Tutorial sites, StackOverflow questions, and
blogs that we can match your request with a content/link that can help you
without nagging someone.

This beta version of GitHelp have the core of the product. Developers can
create help requests and we match them with the open source maintainers and
maintainers/hackers can reply.

What's next for GitHelp is the dashboard for maintainers to manage the all
requests and collaborate on that, the matching with content, also the payment
is coming up very soon. We focused on the Ruby community right now, but we'll
expand to other communities soon like JavaScript. Please let us know what you
think!

~~~
mintplant
> Hey there Product Hunt!

Wrong site! This might be why you're being downvoted.

~~~
ahmdrefat
Sorry about that!

------
erikb
What's the difference to Stackoverflow? Code oriented help platform for
developers sounds like Stackoverflow.

Edit: Finished googling ZenDesk. If I understand correctly then what you are
doing is a platform independent ticket system for open-source developers? Then
that's not what the title says.

------
tvvocold
`solve your problem instead of Googling.`

Better to google first then ask, or it could be a spam platform.

------
ReaperOfCode
"...before grating us any access..." *granting

~~~
ahmdrefat
Yeah, thank you :)

------
davidglauber
What is it different form AirPair besides the Git pedigree & GitHub
integration?

~~~
ahmdrefat
It's different in multiple ways, but some of the features that distinguish us
from others is under development. But with the current features we different
with things like GitHub integration, and also and that's the big difference is
the Expert criteria on GitHelp is that you have to be an open source hackers,
someone have contributed to open source project, but not any project. We match
your request with the people who contributed to the projects that your using
in your decencies.

