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Are you available next week ? i'm a bit busy this week ^^
I like this idea a lot. I'm just not sure how to implement it without massive code changes.
Any suggestions?
Could we have a "guest" user type that only allows commenting/reacting?
Could have separate (stripped down) interface on separate domain that posts comments to primary
Maybe I'm not sure what your database schema is set up as but perhaps dividing this in two would be a good idea.
Make the invite list backlog a separate dedicated page (as Omar McPizza suggested) in your leaderboard style. This makes even the applicants list work in the open.
Perhaps you can create a new class of comment for non-members that is delete-able by members (hopefully self moderating for non-community fitting comments). These comments could also maybe be limited to a sub-section of the WIP.co site. (e.g. only in in the "Questions" section). This could lead to more "ask the crowd" type value.
@floriang @McPizza These are the type of massive code changes I'd like to avoid 😅
Anything requiring separating the website into two parts, or adding a separate user type with different privileges would complicated a lot of the code.
I don't mind adding some complexity in a specific area, but if it's something so fundamental, it tends to slow down all product development going forward.
I prefer a solution that's more isolated.
Maybe one of the application questions could be "pick a question from the forum and answer it in a helpful way". And we'd save that answer not as a regular answer, but simply as part of the application. We'd then also link it to the original question and notify the author of that and get their vote on whether the answer was helpful or not.
Something like this would still allow applicants to demonstrate their value-add, without requiring structural changes throughout the code.
I'm curious if we can come up with more ideas like this or fine-tune the one I mentioned?
I've gone back and forth on this, but I think I agree we should add it. The goal of the streak isn't to literally never miss a single day. It's to keep you motivated and develop a shipping habit.
I fully understand, maybe I am the only one that has this problem so feel free to ignore it. But with becoming a dad I do have days that I simply can't complete a todo
Once I lose a streak I feel sad (as I should, the system works!) but getting motivated to build that up again can become demotivating
Maybe wip can punish me in a fun way, or just make it a microtransaction hehe
(I know I could write a quick script to cheat the system but meh)
A lot of great ideas here. Thanks!
I agree on the magic of WIP. That's why I've always kept its growth relatively slow by either having the paywall or it being invite-only.
I do think it would be beneifical to everybody to get more makers onboard, but we need to do it in a slow and thoughtful way. Perhaps someday we'll have sub-wips like on Reddit, or the Twitter-like following/follower model becomes more prominent. We'll see. But it's definitely top of mind for me.
Any concrete suggestions on how we can make the forum more active?
As for the invites, you can go to wip.co/applicants and give your invite to anyone who applied.
There's a lot of people there and the UX for reviewing them isn't great right now. I'll work on that. Perhaps it should be more of a voting system where you can give your thumbs up on anyone you think is a good fit, and once they hit a certain threshold they automatically get invited. That might be a bit easier than having to make a clear yes/no decision on whether to give your invite to someone.
Yeah it's a very fine line between quality/user size
To make the forum more active you would want some sort of reward, this is hard of course because you don't want it to become Quora/Reddit shill show. A Karma score? Do upvotes/likes go to your karma? But what would that karma do, wip is not really an acquisition channel for any of us and more a networking platform
Maybe the more active and helpful you are the higher your project ranks. A little like Producthunt but instead of upvotes the maker gets rewarded for being helpful.
As someone who loved those old school forums I think there are a lot of directions you can take this, nothing wrong with only having a hundred people writing the content and the rest just lurking
I like the idea of sub/groups, there are a few real estate projects and I would love to team up with them (big markets so a lot of room for partnerships/sharing stuff etc) which can be a big power for indiehackers
"As for the invites, you can go to wip.co/applicants and give your invite to anyone who applied." - As a true developer, I did not read the manual. Just send my first invite
What would you like to see in the recap? What format would you prefer?
I emphasize with your frustration, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about people not using WIP. It might just not be for them and they wouldn't really know until they give it a try.
Here's what I'll do:
- Give out more invites. Then it should be okay if not everybody uses their account.
- Improve onboarding of new members. For example, by giving you, the inviter, more tools to help these new people get the most out of WIP.
But agree on removing the old inactive users.
An email notice and bye.That could help them to engage, even like something can make them active
I'm a new member, and I agree with improving onboarding!
There's a 5-step checklist, which is great, but I'd love to see a more in-depth one about creating and logging in project progress. I like your idea about the inviter helping their invitees too. I definitely feel like I've just been thrown in the deep end haha.
I think the best way is actually to dive in and see how others are using it.
Perhaps we should have a better way of finding makers to follow (based on your personal interests, time zone, etc). So you get better examples.
I’ll also give some thought to your idea of having more of a guide. If you any suggestions or questions you’d like to see answered, please let me know!
Making it easy to find other similar (active) makers is a great idea!
I've noticed I've naturally just found people I vibe with over the last few days, but I've made an intentional effort to be part of the community instead of just passively sharing updates.
Are there any specific “filters” you’d like to see to find relevant members?
Anything you’d like to know about them, that’s not currently visible in the profiles, before reaching out?
And finally, how do you prefer to reach out? I’ve been considering adding a direct message system to WIP
There's a general trend to share fewer metrics because of copycats, etc. But I agree it's always super interesting to see, especially when paired with the work that it took to get there.
I'll poll the community to see if there's enough appetite to share these kind of numbers.
@floriang @McPizza These are the type of massive code changes I'd like to avoid 😅
Anything requiring separating the website into two parts, or adding a separate user type with different privileges would complicated a lot of the code.
I don't mind adding some complexity in a specific area, but if it's something so fundamental, it tends to slow down all product development going forward.
I prefer a solution that's more isolated.
Maybe one of the application questions could be "pick a question from the forum and answer it in a helpful way". And we'd save that answer not as a regular answer, but simply as part of the application. We'd then also link it to the original question and notify the author of that and get their vote on whether the answer was helpful or not.
Something like this would still allow applicants to demonstrate their value-add, without requiring structural changes throughout the code.
I'm curious if we can come up with more ideas like this or fine-tune the one I mentioned?