WeekendHacker.net - A place for very small projects

http://www.weekendhacker.net

by ThomPete • 15 years ago

176 47 15 years ago

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

Less than 48 hours ago there was a discussion in #startups on irc about getting help for small projects. It often happens that someone needs help for something that might take a few days, hours or maybe even less. Often someone is helpful, I have done my share of quick design mockups for someone and been helped by others.

But I have also been involved in slightly bigger projects for instance BrainRacer where I helped getting a landing page up and running fairly quickly. In exchange mahipal will help med with coding a small iphone app I want to do.

It just comes up enough that it must mean that more people than me and a few other would like to participate in small projects like this. So in the spirit of the WeekendHacker ethos i quickly put together this service and hope that other people might find it interesting.

http://WeekendHacker.net is for those tiny projects or cries for help. You sign up, get one email a day curated with cool little projects that people will post. No spam, no BS. Just cool little projects you can join.

random42• 15 years ago

How about making the frequency once a week (every Thursday or Friday), and let the user specify his area of interest?

wccrawford3• 15 years ago

By Friday, I've already got plans for the weekend.

wccrawford3• 15 years ago

I just signed up, and this appears to be a mailing list rather than a website. You should probably tell people that.

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

It will be a website it's just that I post through the mailing list. I do write it in the FAQ but maybe I should be a little more specific. Let me know if you want to be taken of the list.

balu• 15 years ago

From the FAQ:

    Q: Is it just a mailing list?
    A: For now yes. But if people feel the need for something else to be added we will of course do that

stevelosh• 15 years ago

Small feature request: include a plain text version of the email for those of us still using clients like Mutt. This is what we see at the moment: http://d.pr/rj1F

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

I will change that right away.

uniclaude• 15 years ago

I also use Mutt, and just in case you don't know, you can use lynx or elinks to see html emails inside the client. It's very simple to setup [1]. Nevertheless, it would be nice if people could include plain text versions.

[1] http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-5.html#ss5.3

SeanDav• 15 years ago

I generally refuse to join or explore any further a site that requires me to enter my email before allowing further access.

From other comments I realise that this appears to be a mailing list, so an email is kind of the point, but still it could be made a lot more clear.

Just a bit of advice.

cake• 15 years ago

It's just like the websites that require you to login with Facebook first, I don't like that.

I think it's important to be able to gauge a website without giving out personal info.

PawelDecowski• 15 years ago

should be:

lfx• 15 years ago

You forgot email validation, 'signed in' with blank email.

timinman• 15 years ago

I did the same thing, actually, the value was pre-propagated with 'your@email.com', so that is the email we signed up with.

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

sorry it was done in a hurry. I am not a developer just a humble designer.

Is fixing things as we speak.

swanson• 15 years ago

So how do I add my project/idea? I didn't see a big flashing 'got a project?' button.

I really like the idea and can't wait to see how it plays out.

wccrawford3• 15 years ago

Once you get the email (he explains why you haven't gotten it yet in the comments here) it gives and email address to send the info to.

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

Argh. Lot's of signups. Dreamhost only allow for 100 mails an hour. Will work on expanding the quota and rest assured you will receive a signup mail soon.

TeMPOraL• 15 years ago

Thanks for sharing the problem here. I've just signed up and was wondering why I haven't received the e-mail.

nimrody2• 15 years ago

Dreamhost specifically has a "mailing list" feature (called "discussion lists"). These have no limit on the number of outgoing mails and give users the option to opt-out of the list.

You can create multiple such lists for different subjects (and there's an API for managing them in addition to the usual DH Panel controls)

johnsocs2• 15 years ago

If you are getting that many request today maybe a basic web interface should be on the top of the list of things to do. Besides it may be a better user interface to checkout project titles rather then read one gigantic email every day.

JulianMorrison2• 15 years ago

Why not just create it as a Google group?

Edit: seriously, unless you plan to somehow monetize it, having Google do your sysadmin work, pay for your hosting, and present a well tuned web/email interface at no cost is a no-brainer. It's early enough in the project you could ask people to switch over.

bxr• 15 years ago

At the same time though, if you host it yourself you can switch out the backend or interface whenever you want with no inconvenience to users unless going in to or out of a locked-in system like google.

Hosting is cheap, and someone running a "weekend hacker" group probably already has all the hosting worries taken care of for other projects. Besides, running things is fun.

pavel_lishin• 15 years ago

How would they curate it?

JulianMorrison2• 15 years ago

"Announcement only; Anyone can read the archives. Anyone can join, but only managers can post messages." -- from the create-a-new-group page.

djb_hackernews2• 15 years ago

or /r/forhire

djb_hackernews2• 15 years ago

done.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2564829

err

http://groups.google.com/group/weekendhacker

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

So far almost a thousand signups. Never would have thought so many people would be interested. I will send out a mail to kick it all off and once I have fixed the sendmail quota problem I have right now.

Stuk• 15 years ago

What's the ratio of coders to designers?

nimrody2• 15 years ago

Probably 1 coder : 10 designers -- at the very least.

Off topic: Would be a great idea to have a "design school for hackers" with some assignments/critique!

johnsocs2• 15 years ago

Sounds like you need a developer to help you scale :P

The real question is you have a pool of developers and designers, but how many of those are looking for work vs those looking for help ?

MatthewPhillips• 15 years ago

I like this idea. I currently have a full-time job and am doing 15-20 hours of consulting a week so my projects are more like "late at night and weekend nights" projects. This appeals to me.

I would like to see some type of standard agreement around this along the longs of "I spent 2 hours contributing code that you're using, I get 1% stake if this thing every gets sold / gets funded".

omouse2• 15 years ago

I would prefer it if the agreement were "the code will be released under the GPL or BSD or MIT licenses and the art will be released under a Creative Commons license". That way there's no arguments later on about commercialization of it because the licenses would allow anyone to commercialize it. So your work helps the world, helps the other person and it helps you if you want to start selling it.

snsr• 15 years ago

Signed up. Quick observation; your landing page call to action is below the fold on sub-27" displays.

omouse2• 15 years ago

Following up on someone's suggestion to make a Google Group, why not make it a group on RiseUp? https://we.riseup.net/

Yes yes I know, it's an activist social network, but the software that runs it is pretty cool. It's called Crabgrass, http://crabgrass.riseuplabs.org/

and it's a nifty social networking tool. The thing that might be useful for your site is that it has wikis and discussion forums and task-lists built-in. Another nifty thing is that you can have networks of groups. So you can organize projects based on things like whether it was for a CodeJam or a weekend Hackathon or whatever.

bricestacey• 15 years ago

Your signup form is way at the bottom of the page when I load it in Chrome. http://i.imgur.com/C70La.png

chriswoodford• 15 years ago

based on all of the feedback here and some of the good ideas that people have come up with, maybe one of the first projects sent out should be to help you build out some of the smaller/more simple features. contributing to weekend hacker will, in theory, benefit everyone involved.

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

1500 signups. Projects are beginning to come in. The confirmation mail is an issue that I am working on solving. So please be patient working in a car on my way to Berlin. Gotta love technology.

orenmazor• 15 years ago

I can't get over what a great name choice this is.

can we ask for other kinds of favours? I could use a copywriter with some design skills…

hrabago• 15 years ago

A potential issue here is agreeing on value. Coding tasks can look really easy when in fact they can be incredibly complex. I'm not sure a design for a landing page is the market equivalent of an entire iPhone app.

Edit: typo

mixmax• 15 years ago

Design tasks can look really easy too. It cuts both ways.

yangez• 15 years ago

I made an account just to post this. Hi everyone!

First, I think this is a fantastic idea and I signed up instantly, privacy issues notwithstanding. Not only can you exchange coding favors and build a reputation, you can also practice your design and development skills in a variety of projects, which might be an additional major draw. I can't wait for this to get underway. This is one of those ideas that I wish I thought of.

That being said, I really think you should explore this idea further and create a dedicated website for it. A mailing list is great and easy to maintain and all, but a reputation-based service has to have the appropriate mechanisms to work well. It wouldn't take that long either.

Envision a site where jobs are listed as they're approved and removed as soon as they're completed or claimed, with discussion and advice flowing freely between parties. The site would keep track of projects both requested and completed by each member, and award appropriate kudos within the community to encourage and reward participation. People would be able to link to their profiles, which would display which projects they completed for which sites, on their resumes or facebooks or whatever. You could make a leaderboard of top contributors, and perhaps a provider request system that may eventually involve money. It would be like Elance except eroding the barrier between "service providers" and "employers" - instead, everyone would be both.

There's tons of potential here. Once you get critical mass, monetization could go far beyond ads: off the top of my head, you could skim paid projects, offer premium filtering capabilities and other services to paid premium users, or even get paid by companies that come knocking on your door wanting to hire some of your more skilled members. You could maybe even provide a service for members to tutor other members (serving those who go to your site for practice) and take a % of that $ too.

I realize this goes far beyond a simple "scratch my back and i'll scratch yours" paradigm, but I really think you might have something. The cherry on the top is that some of the smaller features that you might want to add to the site can actually be crowdsourced to your community :)

So yeah, great idea. A community of developers that interact with and work for other developers in exchange for the same being done for you? Sign me up.

ThomPete8• 15 years ago

Over 2000 signups!

Lots of ideas under way. Will tell more when I send out the first mail.

(Confirmation mails slowly getting out)

orblivion• 15 years ago

I will sign up, but here's a problem I forsee: How many here are hoping for help with your project? (I raise my hand here) Now, how many of us have free time to spend on other people's ideas? Maybe I'm projecting, and I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that things will be stacked in the first category.

WeekendHacker.net - A place for very small projects

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