Show HN: Pairagraph – our attempt to build a new high-quality discussion forum
Hey HN! I’m Jonathan, co-founder of Pairagraph.<p>Pairagraph is a platform for written dialogue between pairs of notable individuals—politicians, CEOs, philosophers, novelists, technologists, religious leaders, and more.<p>We love Twitter, but it can be annoying. It’s loud and noisy, it’s replete with echo chambers, and 280 characters is not enough to make a real argument. Pairagraph is our attempt to push back on these trends and build a proper town square for the digital age.<p>We’re still fairly new but already have hosted 60+ dialogues, with contributors like Niall Ferguson, Joe Lonsdale, Balaji Srinivasan, Francis Fukuyama, Martin Gurri, and Om Malik.<p>In the short run we’ve decided to keep our community closed—only certain people are able to participate in dialogues. The idea here is not to exclude anyone but to establish a track record of quality discussion before opening it up. We think that if we start with quality and move gradually to quantity, we’ll have a better shot in the long run of preserving both.<p>The good news is that we are discussing opening it up, so there is some chance we will do so soon. We&#x27;re also contemplating allowing dialogues with &gt;2 participants.<p>To recap: For now, Pairagraph is gated, but we’re wary of elitism and committed to including as many people (and perspectives) as possible. This is also why we have a ‘Suggest’ page on the website for readers who are interested in recommending future authors&#x2F;topics.<p>If you’ve read this far, here are a few of our favorite exchanges:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;354c72095d2f42dab92bf42726d785ff" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;354c72095d2f42dab92bf427...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;77d7e5451ea3467eaed19686cf7fce19" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;77d7e5451ea3467eaed19686...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;5e569e6fbc944e998c79502820c3b0c9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pairagraph.com&#x2F;dialogue&#x2F;5e569e6fbc944e998c795028...</a><p>Along with adding more content, we’re focused on three things:<p>(1) Improving retention and expanding reach<p>(2) Polishing the site’s design&#x2F;UI. Neither Carter (my co-founder) nor I are expert designers, we’ve done almost all of it ourselves, recognize that it needs help, and are working every day to add polish and professionalism<p>(3) Eventually turning enough of a profit to make Pairagraph sustainable<p>That’s our grand vision, but ultimately we’re just two friends from college working on a project that we think matters. What do you think?