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Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

code4cheap.com

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Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#31

Post by true_religion »

misterbwong wrote: post #12
blake8086 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic dishonesty comes from academically dishonest students. Instead of policing each question and guessing if it's homework or not, I'm simply allowing any question.

Then you should say you are allowing any question (or don't say anything at all). By addressing it in the FAQ and explicitly saying you allow it, you are implying that you condone academic dishonesty. edited for clarity

What if the schools' homework policy is to allow collaboration between the student and any sources (including just looking stuff up on Wikipedia)?

That was the defacto policy in my school. Homework was 5% of your grade, and was expected to just be a learning experience. The real trials were the labs and the projects.

You could theoretically cheat by copying project code from somewhere, but without the explanation report you'd still get a 0.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#32

Post by AlexC04 »

TuaAmin13 wrote: post #15

I like the idea, I'm unsure of the pricing strategy. "How much do I get paid? code4cheap.com keeps 30% of the question's price. For example, with a $10 question, the best answer will receive $7." What if you changed that around, with something like a question posting fee. When I go to the site as a coder, I want to get the $50 I see, not $35 after you take your cut. It's inflating the payment that I would actually ge…

I just logged in to say the same thing. You should be charging the asker 30% more - so the answerer might "see" get $35 but the asker is actually paying $50.

Subtle difference ... but it's how I feel about it.

EDIT I've also got a real worry about the "Fuck You, Pay Me" aspect of this project (reference: http://vimeo.com/22053820)

What happens if I post a correct answer, this person tries it and decides "that's not really what I wanted", "I've decided to get out of that line of business" etc...

Or just figures he can back out since I've given the product (the answer) and all they've got to do to keep their money, is keep their money.

Maybe it's another 'elance', 'craigslist' or whatever ... but I don't know that it stands up to the FUPM test.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#33

Post by slay2k »

blake8086 wrote: post #21
TuaAmin13 wrote: post #15

I like the idea, I'm unsure of the pricing strategy. "How much do I get paid? code4cheap.com keeps 30% of the question's price. For example, with a $10 question, the best answer will receive $7." What if you changed that around, with something like a question posting fee. When I go to the site as a coder, I want to get the $50 I see, not $35 after you take your cut. It's inflating the payment that I would actually ge…

My feeling was that as a questioner, I don't want to pay $50 to have the number "35" show up. I think people will get comfortable with the pricing scheme over time.

Two things. One, I think 30% is a very high percentage to be charging for a fee, which inevitably will affect how questioners feel about paying it and the growth of your site. Second, if you don't actually charge until the transaction is ready, then few should object to paying say, $60 for a $50 question (20% fee) for an answer ready to be read.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#34

Post by rgarcia »

biot wrote: post #14

The problem with these types of sites is that it favors the buyer. A quick browse of the questions posted shows one awarding a whopping $10 for some status screen thing. Sorry, but $10 barely compensates me for the time involved to even consider the question. I'm guessing that this is like any other Q&A site where the answers are effectively on spec. So you can't claim the question as being one you and you alone will…

But for someone else who knows GNU screen really well, the $10 could easily be worth the short amount of time it would take to provide an answer.

I could see this being a good way to go deeper than the regular Q&A site format by offering monetary incentives to participate.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#35

Post by biot »

rgarcia wrote: post #34
biot wrote: post #14

The problem with these types of sites is that it favors the buyer. A quick browse of the questions posted shows one awarding a whopping $10 for some status screen thing. Sorry, but $10 barely compensates me for the time involved to even consider the question. I'm guessing that this is like any other Q&A site where the answers are effectively on spec. So you can't claim the question as being one you and you alone will…

But for someone else who knows GNU screen really well, the $10 could easily be worth the short amount of time it would take to provide an answer. I could see this being a good way to go deeper than the regular Q&A site format by offering monetary incentives to participate.

And questions which really are easy pickings will get 10 people answering them if the site becomes popular. So that $10 reward -- actually $7 after the 30% fee -- would have a 10% probability to win, assuming equal strength of answers for the really easy ones. I don't know many people who'd care about 70 cents.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#36

Post by petercooper »

njl wrote: post #18
blake8086 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose I may have to change the name at some point down the line. It is quite difficult to find good names. In my search, I sat down with instantdomainsearch and said "ok, I'm going to come up with at least 100 acceptable domain names", this was the favorite out of everyone I polled. I like the idea of implying "speed" instead.

Somebody on here built http://impossibility.org/ , which I've found to be fantastic. You give it a word, it sticks other words around it. I found about half a dozen better names in just a few seconds worth of work.

http://www.bustaname.com/ is also good. You provide the words but it does all the combos (even beyond two words).

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#37

Post by qeorge »

blake8086 wrote: post #20
njl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody on here built http://impossibility.org/ , which I've found to be fantastic. You give it a word, it sticks other words around it. I found about half a dozen better names in just a few seconds worth of work.

Well that's definitely worth a look.

Love impossibility.org. Wonderful tool.

Does FinishedCode.com do anything for you? Its available, and I think it has a nicer ring to it.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#38

Post by blake8086 »

biot wrote: post #35
rgarcia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for someone else who knows GNU screen really well, the $10 could easily be worth the short amount of time it would take to provide an answer. I could see this being a good way to go deeper than the regular Q&A site format by offering monetary incentives to participate.

And questions which really are easy pickings will get 10 people answering them if the site becomes popular. So that $10 reward -- actually $7 after the 30% fee -- would have a 10% probability to win, assuming equal strength of answers for the really easy ones. I don't know many people who'd care about 70 cents.

It sounds like 10 people would care about it in that example you gave.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#39

Post by ChuckMcM »

Its an interesting concept, but basically mechanical turk for code eh?

One way to incentivize it a bit more would be offering to sell a previous answer for half of the original cost. So buyer A pays $10 for an answer, if someone else wants it they can buy the same solution for $5. That creates a long tail effect and keeps people motivated to answer questions.

Re: Show HN: My startup: code4cheap.com, a code marketplace

#40

Post by drallison »

I think there are significant problems with this approach which you have not thought through.

First, I believe this kind of market devalues programmers and programs. It takes a whole lot of small transactions for a programmer to make a living in this kind of market.

Second, it's not really useful for anything other than trivial programs. Getting agreement on a reasonable specification for anything at all complicated takes time, and for the programmer in this space, time is money.

Third, What happens when there are multiple responses to a question--does only one responder get paid, or do all get paid.

Fourth, there is no effective mechanism for quality control. Who has the liability about quality? How is testing conducted?

Fifth, who owns the code? who owns the copyright on the code? Can the code be redistributed to others?

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