

Show HN: Twitter for Debates - diesellaws
http://barkles.com

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coryl
Beautiful design and functionality.

As for the actual debating though, there leaves much to be desired.

When people argue, they simply do not put their statement out there to take
its stand. They interact with the opposing arguments, and pick their points
apart. What you have is simply an aggregate of a bunch of individual opinions,
with no real debate going on. Responding to someone in this interface is
extremely difficult, so no discussion is going to happen.

Maybe take a look into threading replies?

~~~
mrleinad
_Maybe take a look into threading replies?_

My thought exactly. Integrate better with twitter. You're hopeless trying to
build a platform of your own.

~~~
diesellaws
Thanks! We will be integrating with Twitter as we grow (We launched Thursday).

When we first started working on this we considered an "add-on" platform to
the likes of Twitter/Facebook - but decided we wanted our own system from the
get-go. There was no real data-set to explain why, only the fact that we can
control every part of the User Experience that way.

The obvious downfall to creating another Social Network is the challenge of
building a userbase - but with the natural virality of debating we feel we
have a strong chance to bring friends of friends into Barkles.

Thanks for your honesty :)

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artursapek
The layout is dull. I can see the two-column view as logical, but you could
use that to some sort of advantage, such as having people directly talking to
eachother on both sides. So you might have one argument under a column and
beside it all the retorts to it.

Also, look into some sort of comment sanitization technique, the very first
argument I saw come up was "penis penis penis" and not far below it simply
"wtf".

This is a website that relies on user participation and right now you're not
offering too much to your users.

~~~
diesellaws
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I have seen many layouts of the same/similar concept and this is one that
worked well for us. I think the layout closest to what you refer to is
represented very well by Twosides.co (please correct me if I am wrong).

The comment sanitization is always going to be a hot topic as any opinion is
valid - and if we start removing that opinion it could cause problems
(moderation is something we are still considering).

Although "penis, penis, penis" has little to do with Coffee
(<http://barkl.es/uJaCAk>) they may or may not be making a valid opinion
(depending on your opinion of their opinion).

But in all seriousness, we will work out ways over time to combat
irrelevant/improper Responses/Dogfights the right way without limiting open
opinion from users.

"This is a website that relies on user participation and right now you're not
offering too much to your users." - I'm not really sure I feel your sentiment
on this as by 'currently' allowing ANY opinions aren't we offering more?

\- Diesel

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jjacobson
An empty "friends" page is the most depressing part of any new social
platform. (screenshot <http://cl.ly/3K0s0k3s2Y332H3X0U0E>)

For a new user, why not start with the popular tab as the default on the
stream page until they get followers/follow people?

~~~
diesellaws
Thanks for signing up and sharing your feedback.

This comes up a often and there are a lot of for and against opinions for both
scenarios. The main reason we have chosen to keep the Dogfights tab first is
due to the long term value of that tab itself - based on our minimal, but
varied research.

If we were to show the Popular/Active tabs first many users may fail to see
the value/point in connecting with their friends and chasing other users.

It's probably a hot topic ripe for debate (lol) but just to get the point
across - imagine if Twitter/Facebook were to show the "Active" tab first from
people who aren't your friends. For me and many others it would be a constant
stream of noise from people you may not know nor be interested in following -
which would then force a user to keep switching tabs back to the people I
follow.

We have chosen to set a user up for the future, rather than appeal to their
instant gratification of a stream of active noise. We will be reworking the
model in future to connect users to friends initially and also showing
Dogfights on the front page without being logged in - hopefully this will help
that 'empty' feeling.

This is purely the decision we have come to and is not the only way to go
about it. It's just what we feel works best for our long term users.

Thanks for asking!

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lpnotes
Neat idea. I believe this is the second site I stumbled upon that has the
pro/con threads laid side by side.

Once the traffic gets going, it might be nice to see some of the featured
dogfights. Would be interesting to see whether a good percentage of the
"dogfights" could be nonpolitical as well as political.

~~~
diesellaws
Thank you for your comment. We are planning on showing some of the featured
Dogfights on the home page (without needing to be logged in).

I'm actually suprised so far that of the 100+ Dogfights created, very few have
been about politics.

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leftnode
This is neat. Coincidentally, I helped build a site a while ago with much less
design polish, but essentially the same idea.

<http://nooges.com>

Essentially a daily topic was posted, and people could disagree or agree.

Hope your site does well.

~~~
diesellaws
Thank you. Good work on that site, the concept is the most important element
to keep it going. Due to the amount of websites that could easily tackle this
market (side by side) we needed the design to really step up the mark (that's
what we felt was lacking in some of our competitors).

Due to posing a question on Nooges first you still have a strong model and all
you really need is a design lift - keep going with it too!

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drewblaisdell
You should preload the rollover image for "Sign Up" so that it doesn't
disappear on the first mouseover.

~~~
diesellaws
Cheers, I will look into that soon.

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justin
Just signed up. You should have FB connect so that it can find my friends and
let me see their debates, ala Quora. You should also have a publicly directory
of debates so I can see what is going on.

~~~
diesellaws
Thanks for signing up Justin! We just launched on Thursday so we have quite a
few things on the roadmap - really appreciate the feedback!

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diesellaws
We launched Barkles.com last Thursday and have had some incredible "Dogfights"
and feedback already. We would love to hear the Hacker News community opinions
- tell us what you think!

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johnhok
I like the interface. Really simple and it presents the content nicely. I
found myself browsing quite a few of the dogfights on the homepage. Great work
on it!

~~~
diesellaws
Thank you John! Simplicity and sexy design was our focus (based on the simple
concept). Really looking forward to your Dogfights :)

~~~
porterhaney
I specifically like how your "team" page links back to your Dogfights.

~~~
diesellaws
Thanks, glad you like that! It always annoys me about how static team pages
usually are on various websites.

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edwardy20
It looks amazing. 200 characters is a really short amount of space to post an
argument; why did you choose this number?

~~~
diesellaws
Thank you so much! We chose it based on a variety of small internal tests -
starting from 140 on Twitter - pushing to 160 and then deciding on 200 to
allow for a little bit more discussion. 200 also displayed better as a "meaty"
debate where-as 160 just didn't reach the look we were going for (design
played a huge part).

