Ask HN: How'd you feel if you posted an idea & someone else excecuted?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2034954

by anon1001 • 16 years ago

2 5 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've seen a few ideas posted recently (with actual links wo websites in progress) that I really liked so I started working on them. Would it be considered bad form if I posted the link for similar feedback?

AlexBlom• 16 years ago

I think a little more context is required (hobby vs company), but I'd hate for people to not post feedback requests here due to community members 'borrowing' each-others ideas.

At the very least, a courtesy e-mail might be nice?

anon1001• 16 years ago

It's edging towards a company; I'll be looking to make money from it.

aintahacker• 16 years ago

This is a similar fear that I discussed in the thread of my post on "Where to find a good hacker?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033726

I am not a programmer (as of now), and as I explore how to execute an idea, I am reluctant to share a full-scale plan and specs of the site I wish to create. Hence, the ambiguity in my original post.

I would love to share a detailed plan of my idea with the community, to garnish feedback and establish credibility. However, there is nothing to stop someone from taking the plan that I have spent hours developing (which I consider intellectual property, equal to the actual programming), and improving upon the idea and writing the actual code to make it happen. I understand that "ideas" are merely just that, and that executing an idea is where it counts.

How much disclosure can you provide about a project to solicit feedback, without having your idea "borrowed" for development?

johnny22• 16 years ago

everybody is always implementing my ideas without me even telling anybody. :)

It would be nice to have the text edited as per aintahacker's post to make it more clear.

alan-crowe• 16 years ago

I posted my big idea, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=920110, a while a go, in the hope that someone else would execute it. I now see that I should have made that explicit by saying "I think this is an important idea, but poor health prevents me moving forward with it, so I'm posting it in the hope that others will pick it up and run with it."

It never occurred to me that anyone would be shy of "stealing" an idea off a public forum. The expected value of a raw idea is negative. One invests time and money in execution only to discover that the idea is not viable. One ends up regretting ever having heard of it.

Ask HN: How'd you feel if you posted an idea & someone else excecuted?

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