As I’ve been exploring community solutions on Exercism, I’ve noticed a user who writes code exceptionally well. I’ve actually learned some new approaches just by observing her work. Because of this, I would like to be notified whenever she publishes a new solution or begins a new track. Although I’m new to Exercism, I’m sure I’ll want to follow more people as I spend more time on the platform.
It would also be nice if there were a way to request contact with other users.
I’m not generally a fan of turning everything into a social network, but I do find the requested feature(s) to be very useful.
I totally get following people and it’s something I’ve wanted us to do for a while. But I’m less sure about being able to contact someone. What’s your usecase there?
Great! The ability to follow other users is more important and will be used more frequently than the ability to contact them.
Regarding potential use cases for the contact feature, I would like to be able to propose collaboration on a learning project. Someone else might want to discuss this user joining their team at work, which could potentially generate income for Exercism and help it survive.
If no other use cases exist, perhaps the “Message” feature could be renamed to “Suggest collaboration”.
Thanks for expanding The tradeoff for me would be abuse vs value. The abuse risk is very high (even in the chat on interviews, our female members have had people asking if they can DM them etc) so the value would need to be higher than that to make it worthwhile.
I think I’d rather encourage that people have links to their LinkedIn etc on their Exercism profiles and that if people want to contact them then they go through that route, where people can then easily control their own contactable preferences etc. That also keeps us away from the social network thing, which as you allude to in your OP is probably wise!
I understand what you’re saying. Do you think users would behave the same way even if they had to pay for the contact feature? My thought was to maybe offer credits in exchange for a donation. For instance, if someone donates $20, they would receive five contact credits.
I think LinkedIn is a great idea, and I’ve already filled out my profile for that. I also have a GitHub account, but unfortunately, both are not visible on my public profile. It would be awesome if they were, though. Also, adding a personal website, like yours ihid.info, could be useful.
I do have the same thing. In certain languages, I have my got-to-solution specialist, and I search for their solution as soon as I get one myself. I would love to mark these people as my favourites, so when they have a solution, it would be pushed to the very top of the pile.
I don’t see a use in messaging them though. You can already comment under the solution to ask questions about the code.
The tradeoff for me would be abuse vs value. The abuse risk is very high (even in the chat on interviews, our female members have had people asking if they can DM them etc) so the value would need to be higher than that to make it worthwhile.