GitHelp – Ask the authors

by ahmdrefat • 11 years ago

31 30 11 years ago

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

Hey there, Thanks for checking us out :)

We have multiple goals we want to achieve with GitHelp, the first one is helping busy open source maintainers to manage all the questions and support requests that comes to them from different sources like GitHub issues, Twitter, Mailing lists, StackOverflow, forums, or even requests for audio and video conversation in one place. You can think of it as ZenDesk for open source projects.

The other side of that is for the benefit of developers, by matching them with the best experts and increase their chance of getting the best answers they need as fast as possible. But we don't just depend on matching developers requests with experts. We think there's enough content on the internet from resources like Documentation, Tutorial sites, StackOverflow questions, and blogs that we can match your request with a content/link that can help you without nagging someone.

This beta version of GitHelp have the core of the product. Developers can create help requests and we match them with the open source maintainers and maintainers/hackers can reply.

What's next for GitHelp is the dashboard for maintainers to manage the all requests and collaborate on that, the matching with content, also the payment is coming up very soon. We focused on the Ruby community right now, but we'll expand to other communities soon like JavaScript. Please let us know what you think!

mintplant• 11 years ago

Hey there Product Hunt!

Wrong site! This might be why you're being downvoted.

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

Sorry about that!

jarofgreen3• 11 years ago

You seem to setting up for every project on Github. Can I as a project owner opt my project out of this?

I've just had bad experiences before with companies that tried to lever off existing communities that didn't want them.

If your product really is great, then you shouldn't have any worries about offering an opt-out because very few people will use it.

ReaperOfCode• 11 years ago

"...before grating us any access..." *granting

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

Yeah, thank you :)

raverbashing• 11 years ago

Since it was mentioned on the title, here's a tip

Don't sign up for the ZenDesk trial, unless you are sure of what is it about and that you want it.

You'll spend 10% of your time evaluating their product and 90% of the time dealing with their aggressive sales team and tactics

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

We've compared GitHelp to ZenDesk in the since that can help people serve their customers in a better way. The people here are the open source maintainers and the customers are the developers who are using their projects.

erikb• 11 years ago

What's the difference to Stackoverflow? Code oriented help platform for developers sounds like Stackoverflow.

Edit: Finished googling ZenDesk. If I understand correctly then what you are doing is a platform independent ticket system for open-source developers? Then that's not what the title says.

dm2• 11 years ago

It seems like your goal is to be a better search engine than Google, and focusing primarily on the command line.

What is the reason for a developer not wanting to type into a normal search engine a few keywords about a coding issue?

This concept just doesn't make sense to me: "Describe your problem in details with markdown supported. GitHelp will use your description to find you the most relevant content and resources to help you solve your problem instead of Googling."

Here is a suggestion, show us an example (with screenshots or a video) of a query or question using Google search and using GitHelp, then we can properly see the value of the service.

The "getting stuck" part is the most fun for me personally. It means I've hit a challenge that I've not faced before and have to do something thinking and research to solve it.

kaolinite3• 11 years ago

This service has been spamming developers, harvesting emails from open source repos and then emailing them, advertising the service. Really not cool.

Even though it looks like quite a cool service, honestly I wouldn't use them on principle.

Here's the email I received: http://i.imgur.com/Kf9Nv3F.png

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

We were not advertising, we're inviting the hackers to join if they are interested to send they help requests from their communities based on their contributions.

We understand that it's not acceptable by some people and that's why we're going to change that.

kaolinite3• 11 years ago

Well that is advertising. You run the service, you're emailing people to tell them about the service. You phrased it in a way that implied it was doing the developers a favour (and I'm sure that you feel that you are - your software looks good) but nevertheless, it's advertising.

It's also spamming. Harvesting email addresses from people contributing to open-source isn't cool. I'm glad to hear you'll be changing that.

I know it's competitive out there but your app looks good, let it speak for itself. You don't need to stoop this low.

goatforce5• 11 years ago

we're inviting the hackers to join

I invite you to look at my widget!

I invite you to look at my viagra pills!

I invite you to take this unclaimed money in Nigeria!

umanwizard• 11 years ago

What is the definition of advertising according to you?

jarofgreen3• 11 years ago

A lot of the SEO spam I get says "This is not spam" in the footer. I'm this close to just setting up a filtering rule that moves all such mail straight to the trash.

Serious question: are you going to stop this or just change it? Some of your other messages are unclear on this point.

yareally2• 11 years ago

Was there an unsubscribe link in the email? I've had other annoying services claim they didn't need it, but they were making money off their service, soliciting developers and were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act.

kaolinite3• 11 years ago

Nope, that's the full email in that screenshot. No unsubscribe link.

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

We've have stopped that once we knew how annoying it was for some people, and that it was agents the law.

And BTW the percentage of the people who replied with "unsubscribe" was very very small compared with the people who signed up and responded with thank you emails.

Anyway I happy you think the service is cool, and we've apologised and multiple times for these emails already, so I'm not sure what we can do more?

jarofgreen3• 11 years ago

And BTW the percentage of the people who replied with "unsubscribe"

I may be able to help explain this - I didn't get your email, but I get a lot like it for SEO, off-shore freelancing and Android services. I don't bother to reply or click the link because I figure if they do this kind of spam advertising the unsubscribe won't mean anything. I just hit "spam" and let my mail program remove them.

Well done for stopping.

marvel_boy• 11 years ago

Summing up: you are harvesting identities and then spam them. It is not just unethical, is ilegal under the CAN-SPAM act.

rip747• 11 years ago

Questions:

1) Why would I want people submitting a request through this application rather than just using Github issues tracking? Using them would create an additional channel of communication that I now have to not only check but sync. Rather have one channel of communication for my projects

2) I don't see anywhere that the questions and answer will be share with the community like they are with StackOverflow. Why would I want to hide valuable information behind a curtain that no one can see unless they sign up?

3) I personally see no benefit for a CLI interface. I don't see the value in learning a non-standard interface just to get help with something. Yea I can see the "look this is cool" factor, but honestly, I think that's all it is.

I can't even count how many of these startups have come and gone since the time I've been on Hacker News. They never seem to be around long and, quite honestly, I don't think the creators get that they are fixing something that isn't broken.

tvvocold• 11 years ago

`solve your problem instead of Googling.`

Better to google first then ask, or it could be a spam platform.

davidglauber• 11 years ago

What is it different form AirPair besides the Git pedigree & GitHub integration?

ahmdrefat10• 11 years ago

It's different in multiple ways, but some of the features that distinguish us from others is under development. But with the current features we different with things like GitHub integration, and also and that's the big difference is the Expert criteria on GitHelp is that you have to be an open source hackers, someone have contributed to open source project, but not any project. We match your request with the people who contributed to the projects that your using in your decencies.

GitHelp – Ask the authors

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