so actually i imagined it as being available to people who wanted to do 1-off office hours, "I will be available tomorrow from 5-7 CST."
theli0nhearted and i had a short discussion on IRC where I think we've concluded that it makes sense to have a "Currently available/unavailable" flag anyways even for people who do have regular office hours, so I think you'll be pleased with the plan.
Basically even if I have office hours, I need to be able to mark that I'm currently occupied with someone, so I'll turn off my "available" indicator.
That could work for you as well. Basically you're usually just unavailable. If you feel like talking you can be available.
The optimum MVP for me would just be a website that displays a list of HN users who are currently online in Skype along with a link to their HN profile. I don't even have to change any behavior to become "available" or not on your service.
Office hours as such are a non-feature for me. I will never set any, and I won't look at anyone's unless I'm actually trying to contact them (in which case I would probably write them an e-mail over trying to schedule an appointment).
so actually i imagined it as being available to people who wanted to do 1-off office hours, "I will be available tomorrow from 5-7 CST."
theli0nhearted and i had a short discussion on IRC where I think we've concluded that it makes sense to have a "Currently available/unavailable" flag anyways even for people who do have regular office hours, so I think you'll be pleased with the plan.
Basically even if I have office hours, I need to be able to mark that I'm currently occupied with someone, so I'll turn off my "available" indicator.
That could work for you as well. Basically you're usually just unavailable. If you feel like talking you can be available.