Show HN: Twitter for Debates

by diesellaws • 15 years ago

18 24 15 years ago

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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!

coryl• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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 :)

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

Thank you for your great feedback. Glad you like the design/functionality - we knew that had to be top notch.

Your Threading Replies idea is one that has been requested many times and will be implemented soon - actually we just wrote a post about it http://barklesapp.tumblr.com

To go into more depth here: Threaded replies will allow both sides to interact - so if you are on the Bark side you can still reply to a response on the Bite side - vice versa.

leftnode• 15 years ago

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.

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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!

johnhok• 15 years ago

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!

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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

porterhaney• 15 years ago

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

lpnotes• 15 years ago

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.

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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.

drewblaisdell• 15 years ago

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

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

Cheers, I will look into that soon.

justin• 15 years ago

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.

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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

edwardy20• 15 years ago

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

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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).

jjacobson2• 15 years ago

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?

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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!

artursapek• 15 years ago

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.

diesellaws12• 15 years ago

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

Show HN: Twitter for Debates

Related Stories