

HN Time Bartering  - istari

Thought of this when I saw the HN Office Hour project.<p>It'd be cool to have a barter board where people can trade time/tasks in their own area of expertise for an area of expertise that they need but would rather not pay for.<p>It might be too clunky to be practical, but in building web apps, where many tasks have a clearly defined "delivery" and there is a history of entrusting tasks to hired developers, it could work.<p>Another thing it'd be good for is seeking very  personalized advice in a specific niche. Maybe that's an even better use? For people to list their areas of expertise that they're willing to advise others on, along with qualifications?<p>For me, it'd probably be something like:<p>HAVE: 
-real estate investment experience, especially pertaining to foreclosures(2 years experience, 20 properties bought at auction, 12 sold, 2 rentals)<p>NEED: 
-legal advice on offering seller financing
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lsc
So, the first problem is that of the taxman. barter networks have a long
history, and courts have consistently ruled that barter doesn't excuse you
from paying taxes. If you get big, they /will/ come after you.

I'm not a lawyer, and you'd need to talk to one. But my belief is that if it
operated like the current systems, where helping people got you an informal
'reputation boost' and people with good reputations are more likely to get
help when they ask for it, the irs wouldn't come after you, because it looks
very different from any kind of economic exchange.

Now, I don't know how far you could take the reputation points. could you make
actual tradeable carma? would the irs come then? I'm not a lawyer, I don't
know. But I'm pretty sure that if you stick to the existing carma/reputation
type systems where you get points, formally or informally for helping people,
they won't come after you.

eh, I think building cultural norms (and a way of 'keeping score' without
being so formal as to arouse the ire of the IRS.) is more important than the
technical problem of matching claimed skills.

I think the problem is partially solved by public mailing lists, or things
like stackoverflow... people gain a certain reputation. and when someone with
a good reputation asks for help, they're more likely to get it.

The problem with all current systems is that they are very focused on one
niche. you have your SysAdmin lists, your programmer lists, your designer
lists, etc... and a good reputation on one does not always carry to others,
which is what needs to happen. I want to, say, give some SysAdmin advice/help
and get some design advice/help.

So how would we start an 'open help community' for a wider audience? a
community with both SysAdmins and Designers, for instance?

at that point, you have a bigger problem with reputation. Lots of people will
give you advice outside of their area of expertise. For instance, I'm a pretty
good sysadmin, at least when you care about money. But I'm happy to also ladle
out business advice, an area where I have a pretty trivial amount of
experience, and not very much success. And look at this post! I'm handing out
legal advice, even though I'm wholly unqualified to do that.

Your reputation system needs to be able to deal with that. Another
complication is that informal reputations work really well on narrow focus
lists. usually 'it takes one to known one.' - I don't know a good design when
I see it. The vary thing that makes me bad at design makes it impossible for
me to recognize a good designer. But I can spot a good sysadmin from a mile
out. It's easy for me to tell between good sysadmin advice and bad sysadmin
advice, even if the advice is somewhat above my level. I can tell if it
"sounds right" and I know how to verify.

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AlexMuir
I've been thinking about this too - some sort of site that allows high-
reputation users from trusted communities access to other highly rated people
from other areas of expertise. Eg. if you've got great rep on Stack Overflow,
you can join and ask for help from someone with a huge Twitter following.
Users with high rep automatically have a lot of credit for getting favours,
while new users need to earn credits by doing favours before they can ask for
much. Very basic - but still maybe too complicated.

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mr_twj
I started a project to find me relevant resources while I'm in college. So far
it has worked well among friends, even for it being a prototype. My project is
a match engine, not a board, and you could say both have their weaknesses and
advantages. Whatever HN does, I think the OP is along the right track.

Here it is: <http://pickupon.com/>

(Also, if anyone does see this, let me know if it is "Ask HN" quality.)

~~~
jonafato
You'd really benefit by letting people know what this site does. It isn't
immediately obvious, and it usually doesn't make sense to have the user
presented with a login without any content (if ever). The docs also seem
pretty long at first glance. Just a paragraph or so about the goal of the site
right on the landing page would help a lot I think.

~~~
mr_twj
Thanks for the thoughts. The reason for its lack of sensational front page
glamour and glitter is that there has been no reason for it so far (academic
endeavors hardly do; we have only provided an RTFD link sadly).

It's simply a resource exchange tool where you input haves and wants and we
output a set of matches of mutual relevancy, where each user "picks" from
predefined item/skill options users set.

The types of uses are many but for clarity's sake: barter, share, product
testing, borrow, and various types of skill exchange.

I apologize for my glaring lack of bravado or salesmanship. However, on the
other hand, the service is free.

