johnnyodonnell

I will check that out! We are always looking at add new courses

That's true, it doesn't match location at the moment, but we may add something like that in the future if that's what people want.

Hopefully as more people sign up, our algorithm will be able to make better study buddy suggestions. Although this isn't a guarantee and is somewhat part of the experiment in launching this site. If our algorithm can't make quality suggestions, then we may have to rethink our strategy.

Studying online is intentionally meant to cover a very broad spectrum of possibilities. It could mean meeting up in person or online to study. It could mean asking and answering questions from time to time in the chat. It could also mean just staying up-to-date with what courses your buddies are taking to help each other stay motivated.

Your list of buddies will show up in notifications, but your full list of buddies will show up on your profile under the Following/Followers section.

You shouldn't feel like a dick lol. All of these concerns and suggestions have been awesome! And they are things that are great for me to be thinking about! I very much appreciate you checking out the project :)

Very good question. I would recommend doing both I suppose. On Stacks, we match you up with buddies based on all of the courses you are interested in rather than just one. So our algorithm may recommend that you match up with someone who is interested in Computer Science, Literature, and Psychology; rather than just matching you up with someone in your Computer Science class.

I'll take a look at this and see what we can do. If you email me at admin@stacks.courses, I can make sure we reach out to you when/if we add fast.ai

The gray overlay is supposed to highlight the search bar. It's supposed to make everything on the site gray except for the search bar. Is that not the case for you? Is the search bar also graying out? If so, that's a bug I need to fix. So far I haven't been able to reproduce it on my end, but doesn't mean there isn't a bug.

Stacks isn't promising the ability to study over the Internet necessarily; however, you could if you wanted. For example, you could ask questions via chat. On the other hand, you could meet on Stacks and then move to Skype to study. Or even more, you could potentially meet up in person if you have gotten to know your buddy well enough.

Think of it like how you might think of Tinder. Tinder is called online dating, but you wouldn't necessarily have a date on Tinder.

The feedback here is good! It is appreciated!

Thanks Aaron! I enjoyed speaking with you as well. Nice seeing you in the comments!

You don't have to share your actual last name. Pseudonyms are fine. I didn't think about the case where someone doesn't have a last name. I might need to do something about that.

That's a good idea. I was planning on sending this out to r/learnprogramming on Monday. I'll have to make sure this makes it to r/cscareerquestions as well

Ahh yes, very true :) A lot of good points. Thank you for the feedback!

I think this is a good idea. I've thought about doing something like this for books as well. I haven't yet thought about doing this for programming languages or frameworks, but maybe I should.

I like that copy as well.

Having class sizes is a great idea. I'll have to look into adding that.

I like that. I think I may have to use that.

Thank you!

Thank you!

That might be true. I think it might be bordering out of scope for the "Find Study Buddies" feature, but I've thought about potentially adding a Q&A feature to the site in the future, which might be more in scope with the site in general and also address the "Plus/Minus" component.

Our algorithm starts working as soon as you enable the "Find Study Buddies" feature. Also, it starts working anytime you add a new course.

At the moment, it takes about 10 seconds to complete. So if you haven't gotten any suggestions within 1-3 minutes, then there may not be anyone else looking for a study buddy for those courses, yet.

I just launched this feature today, so the number of potential suggestions will be as low as it will ever be. I plan on getting the word out on several different sites, which will increase the number of potential suggestions.

We'll send you an email when you have new suggestions, so you don't need to continuously check back in with the site.

Also, for which courses are you looking for a study buddy? I can make sure I spread the word to people and communities who have similar interests.

Are they on Coursera or edX? Or are they on they're own platform?

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Ahh! Looks like are hosted own their own sites. I will take a look at adding these. If you want, you can email me (admin@stacks.courses) a way to contact you and I can give you an update when I have added these.

Thanks for checking us out!

Cool! I hope both approaches work out!

Haha that's cool. I had a friend help design my landing page. He mentioned that he used a generic graphic to make that bookshelf. It's cool to see it elsewhere in the wild

I will take a look at this. Thanks for the heads up!

We're always looking for suggestions for new courses to add! I will take a look at this and see what we can do!

If you want, you can email me a way to contact to you at admin@stacks.courses and I can give you an update when we add this course!

That helps a lot. This is something that I haven't been keeping in mind. Great suggestions for what to do with the landing page and also some of the best advice for framing how I should think about how a user will see that first page. Much appreciated!

This is something I can add. Our catalog currently consists of all courses from Coursera, edX, Udacity, Udemy, and The Great Courses! Maybe I should also fix that wording as well.

I hope this can be a valuable a resource as well! Thanks for giving this a look!

I have not heard of this concept, but I think that's a great model for learning!

Our algorithm favors matches for people that are both currently taking a course - so you are correct in that the "Equal" is the most important component that our system tackles. However, it also does suggest matches for people that are in different stages of the course. It might make a suggestion for someone who is taking a course with someone who has completed it - and vice versa.

In the future, I've thought about adding a Q&A component to the site. And I think that would that could help with the "Plus/Minus" aspect of learning.

Maybe it might also be helpful to have a feature where you could ask to have the algorithm favor "Plus/Minus" matches?

This is something I can work on. Screenshots are something I could easily add. Would it help if I put some screenshots on the home page?

Guest access would be a bit hard, but definitely doable as well.

This is one of the primary reasons I built this! I hope you like it!

Thanks for the response!

Yes. Still a valid point though. Mobile should have a description as well.