We finally launched Zombal, your thoughts?

by eam • 16 years ago

24 31 16 years ago

wccrawford• 16 years ago

The hand-drawn graphic at the top makes it look like a joke website.

And the first item actually BEING a joke makes it look even more so.

Your policies on how to deal with contested results need some work. 'Until both parties are satisfied' doesn't work very well when someone does a lot of work and the client denies that it matches what they asked for. And it could go either way at that point, too.

eam3• 16 years ago

We will take this into consideration. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

tren5• 16 years ago

Thanks for the feedback, I'm the owner of the site.

Regarding the payment system, I agree it’s not clear at the moment. Currently, the way it works is that when there is a dispute between the two parties, they can file for mediation. They will be charged a small fee and their case will be reviewed by an arbitrator whose decision is final and will award between 0-100% of the agreed upon price.

We will also consider revising the design.

drKarl2• 16 years ago

Many options in the top menu should be hidden unless you are registered and login (Inbox, My Zombs, My Nets...).

tren5• 16 years ago

This is a good point. Judging from several of the posts, the front page needs a major rethink.

agravier• 16 years ago

The name is a little unfortunate, I think. I immediately thought "Zombal = Zombie + Paypal", so expected an online payment solution (for funny necromancers?) or a parody of Paypal.

drKarl2• 16 years ago

Funny, I associated the name with Zombies, but not with Paypal. I thought it would be a Social Network for Zombies.

jpcosta• 16 years ago

It really does sound a lot like Zombies (My Zombs?).. I thought it would be a game.

newt• 16 years ago

Agreed about the name. my first thought was http://www.zombo.com/

slouch• 16 years ago

i expected a zombie choir.

emeltzer• 16 years ago

top of my head stuff:

1. there is beginning to be a serious proliferation of DIY science centers at least in the field of synthetic biology (those guys are capable of doing anything from biochem to cell bio, so they could work on these jobs.) you guys are in a good spot to take advantage of this growing network!

2. the name is just not going to fly. period. change it.

3. my first thought is "bullshit" when i read this, so your first page should basically be a testmonial: the most legit sounding scientist you can find saying how awesome his experience with your thing was. i know you're in beta and you can't do this yet, but remember you will be battling for legitimacy in a notoriously conservative community.

4. a question: what kind of thing do you see people getting done on this site? a certain category of experiments in my field (sequencing, synthesis, etc.) are already commoditized. are you aiming for somewhat more complicated stuff? make it clear.

tren5• 16 years ago

1. Thanks for the recommendation, duly noted

2. Yes, seems to be the most common recommendation

3. Any ideas how you'd get this to happen?

4. I thought it would be used by primarily by college students wanting to make some cash and by companies seeking to outsource extra/menial work

abhikshah• 16 years ago

"Scientific Outsourcing" does not say "college students" or "extra/menial work to me". Based on the tagline, I would expect something more like consultants with MS or PhD who do freelance research projects.

Jabbles• 16 years ago

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revorad3• 16 years ago

Very interesting idea. Congrats on the launch.

Usually I'd say names don't matter much, but in this case not only is your name terrible, you are taking it too far by using words like Zombs, launcher, catcher. The whole concept is novel enough, you don't want people to learn a whole new Zombie lexicon just to understand what the heck your site is about.

I'd rather just borrow terminology from elance, odesk, etc.

Other available names: ososci.com, outsosci.com, researchoid.com, fineeinstein.com...

binarymax• 16 years ago

Along the same lines, I had to search for a minute just to figure out how much a 'Quan' is. Why not just make it USD or Euros?

tren5• 16 years ago

These questions about terminology have been contentious issue since the beginning. I agree quan is the furthest from what it actually represents and needs to be changed. The others, launcher, catcher are a small leap, but not too far from what they represent. At the moment, nothing is set in stone and on the other side of the coin, if the terminology is one the greatest detractions, it is one of the easiest things to change.

Thanks for the other name suggestions

revorad3• 16 years ago

The question is why do you want people to take leaps, small or big, in things which don't matter? Outsourcing research is a pretty big leap of faith, better focus on convincing people on that one.

Do you have an email address I can write to you at? I'd like to discuss some collaboration options if you are interested.

acangiano• 16 years ago

Interesting idea. Are you going to give us some invites?

eam3• 16 years ago

Yep, just go here and request it: http://zombal.com/get-invite

crocowhile• 16 years ago

I was thinking of doing something similar yesterday! Talk about coincidence. However, my idea was to have something completely non for profit in which there is no money exchange.

After seeing the kind of noise you find on places like rent-a-coder, I don't think I would use a paid service myself (as a scientist, I mean). I remember someone on one of those rent-a-coder like website asking for a solution to P=NP and a huge number of bids all saying "WE CAN DO THIS IN FEW HOURS!"

qtrng• 16 years ago

I got hired for one of the tasks, but I'm not sure how to proceed with it. There's nowhere on the task to type a response, and the email I got about being hired just links to the task.

Strunk• 16 years ago

I think it's a great idea(!!), but as emeltzer says, you should get some legit scientist to give you thumbs up, before anyone wanna use the site. The second thing is your name - zombal!? Come on. I was thinking exactly the same thing as everybody else: A Socialsite for Zombies? Like: Zombiebook, zombiespace etc.

cubicle67• 16 years ago

At the risk of getting all meta, what's happening to HN?

Why has this already disappeared of the front page in just over 3 hours, garnering only 17 points (including mine)? To me, this is what HN was all about; seeing the great stuff people had been working on, reading many (often hundreds) of encouraging/helpful comments.

Here's a guy who's been an active member of HN for well over a year, busted his gut creating something, and it's met with a collective "meh".

Eminence2• 16 years ago

-- Looks like there will be a fair amount of flak! Smile nicely, reply soothingly, and just keep going along the path. In six month's time, it will all settle in. Remember how it took you the 3 months away for it all to coalesce? D.

strayer• 16 years ago

You could bootstrap Zombal as a "payment system" for scientific reviews.

Get in touch with the organisers of a national-level scientific conference. They could offer reviewers the option of getting Zombal credits for their (currently unpaid) work. Reviews are automatically meta-reviewed (by the acceptance), you could use that information.

If you do so, please make it fully automatic: conference review websites are already painful to use.

You could also use the information that the reviewers provide about themselves.

There you have lots of people who might be keen on getting some sort of recognition for their currently unpaid work.

egor83• 16 years ago

"Learn more on Labels" doesn't do anything for me - tested in FF and Chrome.

eam3• 16 years ago

Oops, we still have to link it. Thanks.

Eminence2• 16 years ago

I was going to suggest changing the name Zombal to Google, but then thought "Google"??? what is this, to do with Gooey Goggles or something? With a name like that, the site would never get off the ground. D.

We finally launched Zombal, your thoughts?

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