Ask HN: my website seemingly sucks, but I'm not sure why?

It seems to me that the problem is one of focus, and branding.

To put it bluntly: who in their right mind would want to read essays by undergrads? Even when I was an undergrad, that's not where my interest was. I wanted to read insightful, thought-provoking, well-researched articles. If those happened to be written by undergrads, well, that was incidental.

So, my suggestion: rename the Journal as "The New England Journal of International Relations" (or some such), and kill the "undergraduate" angle.

Clickable link: http://www.thesjia.net

A few months ago, a site called Feedback Roulette (http://feedbackroulette.com/) was discussed here. You may want to submit your site there for some additional feedback into what can be improved on your site.

From the front page, I clicked on "Discussion Points", then on the top speech bubble. I got the error message "error-id, yes."

The papers only being in PDF does not appeal to me, but you know your target market better than I.

It all starts with the heading:

The font makes it really hard to read. I actually have to concentrate to find out what is written in the heading.

And honestly, I wanted to stop reading after the first paragraph:

An ad hoc (ok?) perpetually (uhm...) published online journal of publication-worthy (oh dear...) essays written by a global community of (egotistical) (omg...) undergraduate International Relations students (wtf..) to act as a platform for the dissemination of and discourse on (what?!) ...

I mean, the writing is good. But not for web pages. And especially not for the first paragraph. There are so many foreign words in this, that it seems like you just tried to link as many words together as you can.

Simplify this first paragraph! Make it less "complex".

Also the paper listings all look the same. The image caught my attention at first, but then I realized that every paper has that image. Why is it so big, then, if I can't use it do distinguish the papers?

There is also nowhere mentioned what benefits I get when registering.

The site does look pretty simple, but I think this is too simple. There should be at least some structuring elements and something to make the papers more appealing.

Besides that it is an interesting idea though. After reading the topics they quite caught my attention :)

- The papers in PDF is an interaction killer (you are increasing friction)

- You have basically no content right now: 5 PDFs and the discussion is low quality.

Fix those two problems and you might get something. If the place feels empty (as it does now), people will never come back. There is no reason whatsoever for people to create an account right now.

As any teaching assistant could inform you, nobody wants to read essays by undergraduates. Nobody wants to read international relations essays by undergraduates. No undergraduates studying international relations want to spend their spare time writing essays that nobody will read. Nobody wants to write essays and then have them distributed as PDF files with little sense of ownership.

Let's look at what you see when visiting the site.

Abstract: "An analysis into the genesis and development of Cosmopolitan Thinking and to what degree it can cope with the realisation of its desired World Order as the very mechanisms it sought come to strangle its progress." Word Count: ...

And right from the opening copy (which you quoted) the site markets itself as a celebration of being long, verbose, and obscure.

If undergraduates want to egotistically talk about international relations they can go to the inevitable debate section of virtually any phpBB forum. They're bound to find more vibrant, better-written, and better-argued essaying there.

Well, the question I find myself asking about this is, "why do I want to read essays about international affairs"? The answers boil down to:

1. Author has a unique personal perspective (background knowledge, historical insight, whatever).

2. Essay has a striking thesis, and defends it well.

3. Author is a big shot, and it's useful to know what they think.

There's undergraduate work that meets criteria (1) and (2) --- but it's rare, and effectively lost amid the ton more than that that doesn't. To attract repeat business, you've got to attract the good stuff, and establish filters which separate it out. Around here, the problem of attracting the content is called the "chicken-and-egg problem", and Google will turn up some discussion.

Two further thoughts: First off, the pointers to the essays should state a thesis. As I write, the top one analyzes "the cause of piracy and the solutions available to the International Community ... using several concepts that are relevant to the failed state of Somalia ...". OK, fine (prolixity aside). He's talking about Somalian piracy. What does he have to say about it? If I don't know, I'm moving on.

Also, if you're trying to convince people your essayists' stuff is worth reading, there might be a better pitch than "undergraduate"; even "young" might work better.

According to your twitter account, you launched 5 days ago. What did you expect to happen in that timeframe? Did you set yourself any specific goals in terms of, e.g. submitted essays?

Regarding StumpleUpon and the likes: is this where you expect your targeted userbase to be? I'd guess that people on SU are their primarily for entertainment... Maybe it would be better to promote your site elsewhere. Have you thought about getting in touch with some of your university's professors, political debating clubs, Facebook groups etc.?

Before you do this, you should have more content, though. At the moment you only have five essays. As far as I understood, the site is run by you and another undergrad. Why don't you two put up more of your own essays on the site before you expect other people (friends of friends) to do so?

I hope this helps and did not come across too harsh. Good luck with your endeavour!

/edit: why do all the essays have the same icon? Moreover you should really work on your introduction. At the moment you seem to need content, so explain to your potential writers the benefits of putting up their essays on your site.

The titles on each item blend in too much, and my eye kept looking around for some idea of what I was looking at.

I'd also use alternating background colors for each item (like white and some light color) to help them stand out from each other. That's also helpful because people are used to alternating colors indicating a list of items (like in webmail and forums), so you can lean on user expectations a bit.

Other people have already commented on the copy.

I wouldn't have hopes that are too high for it. I attempted something similar with http://www.logilogi.org over the last few years, but for philosophy, and it was similarly successful (not :)

I tried most tricks in the book: fancy innovative hypertext features, badges for on ones blog, even got my GF to do a demo video, but I guess there is just no demand for such things (apart from the very few with too much time on their hands, whose work most people prefer not to read)...

(at some point there might be, but the feedback cycle of journals and tenure keeps academics out, while those that appreciate in-depth reading/conversation (on other things than news, which for a short wile gets the focused attention of a lot of people) either shift into academia (as I did for the last few years), or find other smart people to work with on a startup or something alike...)

Anyway, it is all (AGPL) Open Source, so if you want, feel free to check it out.

The reddit platform is (also) a good platform to consider, as the people at http://lesswrong.com seem to have got a community going (though their topic, singularity and such, is especially suited, as many tech-savvy people are into it, while at the same time it has not really taken off in most of the academic world yet...).