Ask HN: Hacker social network?

[friendlyhacker]

I've seen several posts with people looking for other hackers to collaborate with or looking for help. If I setup a hacker social network with the open source social network engine Elgg, would anyone here use it?

[apsurd]

HN has a social network. It's called this website and email. I don't want people "poking" me while I'm trying to GID. The quality of HN is a direct result of it not being like any other online environment, social networks especially.

Joking aside, emailing and calling and meeting people really is a great form of communication. The barrier in this sense is a TRULY GREAT thing.

Also: Github.com for me is the most direct network that aligns with HN. On github you are what you contribute. That's beautiful.

Many people seem to think its a good idea in the realm of idealand. I truly doubt HN can be ported to a social network. Anyone I'd be interested in social-networking-it-up with is too damn busy to dick around with me on some casual website.

[darklajid]

I have to second all the other answers. I guess the term "social network" carries a lot of (crappy) connotations with it, but if it lives up to the promise, connecting like-minded tech people to hang out and share knowledge: Sure.

I just have some difficulties to imagine what it would need to look like to a) don't end up copying FB and b) not copying HN itself

So I'm on the edge on this one. FB et all don't interest me, this is interesting because of the (controlled, on-topic, interesting) contributions. How are you planning to build a social network with the same merits? Are you going to build a new, different Identi.ca? (which, imo, is a failure in terms of adoption, and they mostly targeted the "tech" demographic)

[friendlyhacker]

I'm definitely going to put a lot of thought into it. "Connecting like-minded tech people to hang out and share knowledge," is the goal. I too am not at all interested in creating a FB clone. I think certain aspects taken from HN, FB, Twitter, GitHub, Stackoverflow and a few new ideas, if implemented the right way, would create a great place for hackers to meet other hackers.

I'm going to brainstorm the next few days and maybe create a poll or website asking for input from my fellow hackers.

[limist]

I'd certainly be interested in such a network, though some questions of intentions and differentiation arise quickly, e.g. How would it be different from existing sites, like, ummm, HN? or Forrst.com?

Presumably we'd also want some way to find people quickly - how to organize that? Some dimensions would include technology preferences, time/availability, stage of startup/work, one's One True Editor, etc.

Have you seen this spreadsheet of people looking for co-founders? http://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?key=t1_0CjyeF5QqMwgh6AFG...

[friendlyhacker]

I'd like to create a community like HN (intelligent like minded people), with more interaction and easier ways of communicating with your fellow hacker. Here on HN we can communicate through comments or email, but I think it would be a little more convenient to have a built in messaging system/forum/Q&A.

Also, I think it'd be cool to have something almost like eHarmony for hackers. Matching hackers up with other hackers interested in working on the same types of projects.

I hadn't heard of Forrst.com before, so I've applied so I can check it out. I hadn't heard of techcofounder.com either, but there's no built in messaging system and it seems a little unorganized.

[limist]

More follow-up: have you seen this site?

http://techcofounder.com

[jonafato]

I might, depending on the kind of place it turned out to be. If it was a constructive environment like this one, where I know the goal is not to become like facebook, I think I'd like the gaps it would fill in that I feel this site could use (private messages for example).

[mindcrime]

I probably would, yeah. Sign me up. :-)

Maybe incorporate some of the ideas from this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514803