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Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

ringerhq.com

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Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#31

Post by mintone »

smashah wrote: post #30

Cool project. I signed up to be an expert on my repos however I think I don't show up to potential clients until I add my stripe details. I've tried platforms like this and have secured basically zero revenue from any of them so I'm hesitant to go through the whole stripe setup process unless I get some confirmed work out of it. So my suggestion is to allow maintainers/dev to show up to potential clients before havin…

Hmm on this [1] page there is a link which should allow you to appear as an expert without completing the Stripe process. I think we might not be routing everyone through that page though!

You can stay that way until you receive a request, which you cannot accept until you have set up payments.

[1] https://www.ringerhq.com/u/become-a-ringer

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#32

Post by bragr »

How do you ensure that people aren't asking bad/sub-expert questions and burning out your experts? From the perspective of being an expert, I'm not sure how many basic introductions to docker compose [1] I'd want to do without any advanced questions before it would get tedious. Or worse, the questions boil down to "I'm struggling to install docker on my laptop" or "help me complete my homework exercises". You almost might need some level of expert level routing of people's questions, e.g. "this seems less like a problem with docker compose than a problem with your app so go talk to the gin experts"

>We process payments to over 100 different countries via Stripe

You'll want to make an PO process + credits model for big companies ASAP. That's where the money is.

[1] https://www.ringerhq.com/i/docker/compose

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#33

Post by pessimizer »

bragr wrote: post #32

How do you ensure that people aren't asking bad/sub-expert questions and burning out your experts? From the perspective of being an expert, I'm not sure how many basic introductions to docker compose [1] I'd want to do without any advanced questions before it would get tedious. Or worse, the questions boil down to "I'm struggling to install docker on my laptop" or "help me complete my homework exercises". You almost…

> How do you ensure that people aren't asking bad/sub-expert questions and burning out your experts?

These are people who are being paid, right? I mean, I'm sure that plenty of adults get sick of hearing questions about subtraction and multiplication from 6 year olds, but as teachers it's their job and pays the rent. A platform facilitating paying for expert help seems like the ideal place for shitty questions to be asked, rather than cluttering up forums begging for charity.

edit: Assuming no cheating is involved, what's wrong with paying an expert to help you with your homework? I think that a marketplace for expert help is flawed if you can't use it to find tutors.

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#34

Post by mxuribe »

mintone wrote: post #8
foxhop wrote: post #7

I recently moved my open source projects from github to a self hosted gitlab server. Would I need to make a github mirror to take advantage of ringer?

Hi foxhop - at the moment, yes. We've had conversations with people about GitLab, Gitea, BitBucket, SourceHut and others and we'd like to support them, and self hosted, in time. For now we're constrained by resources though so I can't put a timeline on other services!

> ...We've had conversations with people about GitLab, Gitea, BitBucket, SourceHut and others and we'd like to support them, and self hosted, in time...

I would guess that *when* you achieve support for those other (and especially self-hosted), then you'd up your game massively in the eyes of the open source software community. Of course....i acknowledge that this is not a small nor easy nor fast thing to achieve. ;-) Best of luck, and i really love this idea that you have! (I'll be joining soon)

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#35

Post by FiberBundle »

Love the idea.

How exactly do you validate experts? Are you just going by merged PRs (this might be somewhat exploitable though minor PRs, if you're successful I'd assume)? I imagine checking for the quality of PRs would be way too time-consuming to do manually... Do you consult the maintainers of a repo?

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#36

Post by pessimizer »

mintone wrote: post #27
djbusby wrote: post #12

What about FOSS one knows well and can support but hasn't coded for? Like, I'm real good at Samba and GlusterFS and Hylafax - and/or they may not even be on GitHub? Excellent work here, going in the right direction.

Hey! So this is something that we are really interested in, and want to support. I've had about a dozen conversations about this, especially where someone has created packages for a larger piece of software which necessitates a deep knowledge of the core project. I want to allow it, but I need to work out a way to do so whilst making sure that we don't end up with a free for all - that means manual review perhaps, bu…

As you've built a contracting platform targeting the best contributors to open source projects, you're collecting a group of people who are looking for work and are most fit to judge the abilities of others in the software they're expert at. Why not dogfood?

I would say to maybe allow verified contributors/experts to invite others in under their account, and let them work from that context until they have enough feedback that they should be invited to join independently of their previous sponsor. My only real doubt is that even being a known contributor is going to be gamed unless there are clear processes for vetting and distinguishing between even the people who are verified contributors to a project, because some will be experts and some will not be.

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#37

Post by mintone »

FiberBundle wrote: post #35

Love the idea. How exactly do you validate experts? Are you just going by merged PRs (this might be somewhat exploitable though minor PRs, if you're successful I'd assume)? I imagine checking for the quality of PRs would be way too time-consuming to do manually... Do you consult the maintainers of a repo?

We check contributions, but have a slightly more nuanced system planned and in testing. It's a difficult problem, but we do have thoughts on ways to ensure quality of experts remains high.

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#38

Post by mintone »

ddown24 wrote: post #22

Congrats on what you've built so far. I'm curious if you have ideas or plans on how to gauge and communicate demand for experts for an open source project you don't have listed yet. It would be cool as a project contributor to know where unmet expert needs are in the community.

So we are logging requests and will reach out manually. Not today, given the Hacker News traffic load! But we are intending to put in a more scalable solution - what we don't want to do is spam people, which would be the result if it were fully automated.

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#39

Post by verdverm »

mintone wrote: post #29
elefantastisch wrote: post #28

Is this right? Experts in software like Jest and Storybook think an hour of specialized consulting in the software is worth only $116? There's definitely a market opportunity if this is true, but it seems too good. I do think there's a challenge in that... as a developer, paying $58 for half an hour that may save me 8 hours is a no-brainer, but this feels like a difficult thing to ask "the boss" to pay for. It gives…

OK - this is something that I am going to work on. Traditionally marketplaces have been a race to the bottom, and I think (in fact know, through conversations) that many developers don't necessarily know the market rate for their skills. Some absolutely do (Shout out to KrauseFx https://www.ringerhq.com/i/fastlane/fastlane ). I do think there is a balance, especially when the request comes from an individual vs a bus…

While TopTal shot themselves in the foot, they did have a good model.

Basically, they curated both sides of the market and it worked really well and removed them from the bottom feeders race

Re: Show HN: Ringer – Get and provide expert help on Open Source Software

#40

Post by mintone »

pessimizer wrote: post #36
mintone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! So this is something that we are really interested in, and want to support. I've had about a dozen conversations about this, especially where someone has created packages for a larger piece of software which necessitates a deep knowledge of the core project. I want to allow it, but I need to work out a way to do so whilst making sure that we don't end up with a free for all - that means manual review perhaps, bu…

As you've built a contracting platform targeting the best contributors to open source projects, you're collecting a group of people who are looking for work and are most fit to judge the abilities of others in the software they're expert at. Why not dogfood? I would say to maybe allow verified contributors/experts to invite others in under their account, and let them work from that context until they have enough feed…

Yeah - it's all in the vetting. I will dogfood a solution shortly!
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