Ask HN: Please review my new site - greaterdebater.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=950591

by imgabe • 17 years ago

5 3 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi everyone, I've been working on a new social news and discussion site - http://greaterdebater.com - for the past few months. In addition to the usual features like posting links to stories, self topics, and comments, users can also challenge each other to one-on-one debates.

If a challenge is accepted a special thread is created in which only the original commenter and the challenger can post. Other users can view the argument and vote for the side they feel most compellingly proves their point. Arguments stay open for seven days, and voters can change their vote at any time until the end.

I'd appreciate any feedback on the site design, functionality, usefulness or anything else you think of. Thanks for taking the time to check out my site.

imgabe2• 17 years ago

Clickable link: http://greaterdebater.com

jackman002• 17 years ago

I looked at making a site similar to this about 15 months ago. I found the market to be saturated and hard to differentiate in. There are currently sites that allow both users and experts to post video responses to each other, I find this much more interested then reading a threaded response.

That said, it looks like the threads could be improved with some added functionality such as integration with facebook--a picture or two would make the debate seem a little more interesting. Also, how does one "win" and argument, I did not see a ranking system.

Final take aways: -How do you differentiate the site from a news aggregater with comments? -UI needs a little more color? -Maybe a a sidebar that explains the premise of the site.

imgabe2• 17 years ago

Thanks for your feedback.

I think the differentiating factor with other news aggregators is the argument feature. Lots of times an interesting discussion on reddit or hacker news will get lost somewhere at the bottom of the comment page. By breaking it out to an argument thread it can get more exposure, and be available for other users to read who might have otherwise missed it. I often find the comments sections of sites like this to be more interesting than the articles themselves, I'm hoping this makes comments more readable and usable.

Arguments are decided by votes. The argument is active for 7 days or until the participants decide to call a draw or one concedes. At the end of the 7 days, the argument is ended and the user with the most votes is the winner.

A leaderboard or ranking system is definitely in the works. Right now it would just show all users at 0 though. Scores at this point are just the total number of arguments won. I'm still evaluating if that's the best way to go, but I think it will work well enough to start. Something like the Elo rating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system) used for chess ratings might be better, but time will tell.

UI design is definitely not my strong suit, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible. Your suggestion is appreciated, though.

I've been tweaking the copy at the top of the home page for a while to try to explain the site as succinctly as possible to leave more room for topics and arguments. A sidebar might be a better way to make it stand out.

Facebook integration is definitely on my long list of improvements to make. I think the site would really benefit from integration with a Facebook app. You're not the first person to ask for pics / avatars either. I'll have to see how I can fit that into the layout.

Thanks again!

Ask HN: Please review my new site - greaterdebater.com

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