In my experience the money doesn't just come! If only...

I can't believe that HN is linking to the Daily Mail... I can guarantee that everything said in this article is completely or partly untrue.

It's part of the daily mail's online strategy I think, increase traffic by using overseas social media whose users may not be fully aware of how utterly horrible and untruthful the paper is.

You can't guarantee anything of the sort. Nobody with any sense uses the Daily Mail as a prime source of informed news because its role is entertainment mostly via hot gossip which people, though clearly not you, enjoy. Please list major news stories where the Mail as reported lies and include a comparison with the record of the broadsheets in the UK.

As to this particular new item, the Guardian doesn't take your view. “One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars, study finds” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-p... and can we see your authoritative links showing that these ships are fine examples of excellent emission control with regard to toxic gases.

Best not to be bigoted and simply remain wary regarding all news items wherever they’re to be found. And no, I don't work for the Daily Mail.

You can't take 50m modern cars with pollution control systems then say worldwide car pollution = ~#of cars in the world / that number. The worst cars running on the worst fuel create several times more pollution than a new modern car. And world wide there are a lot of old cars.

So, in this case yes, they are saying something that's wrong.

You're complaining that they should have compared to only shiny new cars, rather than actually existing cars, because then the comparison would have fared better for the cars?

A lot of people use the daily mail as their primary source of news (I'm not sure what informed news means).

Hacker news is a site full of smart coder/developer types, but I think most of them are not UK based so won't know what an unpleasant paper the Daily Mail is.

If an individual answer costs less than 50p - I lose money as the transaction costs are too high...

You can make the minimum deposit/withdrawal for your system 50p or higher, while still allowing smaller transaction amounts for questions and answers.

The language does seem a bit vague now you say that. Any ideas for a better 1. XXXX 2.XXXX 3.XXXX sequence on the homepage?

I'd suggest to have two sections.

One for 'Students/Users' who have questions 1. XXXX 2.XXXX 3.XXXX, and another for 'TUTORS' 1.XXXX 2.XXXX 3.XXXX

I hope this helps

Thanks.... If you were feeling really kind you could send a screenshot to info@studylance.com

Really useful feedback, thanks...

a) I think it differentiates itself by being a targeted vertical, a "destination" to go for homework answers from tutors who are rated and can provide full and in depth answers. Mahalo answers doesnt really focus on anything.

b) The assurance of getting paid is a potential problem, I dont think theres any way of giving that assurance...

c) The buttons problem is definitely something that needs changing.

d) About us - yes, doesn't look professional!

e) The last issue, allowing people to signup after theyve typed an answer is a really good idea... I think however that it's going to be much harder to get people to post questions than getting them to answer them. I've had lots of tutors sign up, just not that many students...

  b) The assurance of getting paid is a potential problem, I dont think 
  theres any way of giving that assurance...

Of course there is. It's called escrow. I pony up the money when I ask the question. You pay it to the answerer that I designate the winner. If I don't designate a winner, you pay the money to a random answerer, to keep me from never picking a winner, but benefitting from their answers. Finally, of course, if nobody answers, the money stays in the account to use for the next question.

The user can choose a "need answer by" date in the question posting process, there is no default timeout at the moment...

Paypal... Going to include Google Checkout soon too.

And what is the threshold? These are important things to add to your FAQ.

does the person paypal the tutor directly or do you guys act like the middle man?

It goes through studylance...

Thanks! Good to hear some positive feedback about the question posting process.

Users have to confirm their email before the question goes live, any opinions on whether that is necessary?

You are protecting against spam right? Or why would you want this? You might try testing alternative question posting options and see which gets a high follow through. Obviously you want some way to protect against spam but by adding as little overhead as possible. You also have captchas in the registration - maybe it's enough.

It was to protect against spam, ensure the user is a real person who can be contacted etc.

But I can see that a few people sign up, post a question, but never click the link so their question never goes live. I may try removing the requirement to confirm emails...

Or give them assurance in big bold letters that their email is safe with you, and won't be published, but is only used to forward answers to them.

Thanks, will be sure to change that...

I sure hope you aren't storing passwords in plaintext...

Rather than storing the actual passwords in the database, you'll want to only store a digest of each password.

For example, storing a keyed HMAC using SHA-2 is great. An easy similar method is to store the SHA(password + some server secret value + user's email address) In this case the user's email address serves as the salt. The server secret value prevents a database-only compromise from leading to locally brute-forced passwords. When the user logs in, on the server, re-compute the digest and see if it matches the stored digest.

I didn't notice any HTTPS -- you might want to use it for queries involving the password and any financial transactions.