7 ms·

Peeple sites 'disappear' from web after backlash over app

49 points by Turukawa 11y ago

herbig 11y ago
They're doing some excellent marketing.
s_dev 11y ago
This app was a really really bad idea from the start. PG and YC often tell people to look for ideas that "seem bad" but this is a whole new league. Even if used properly by 100% of people 100% of the time it would still be a bad idea and fundamentally could never have worked. I"m just surprised someone ponied up the cash to see it realised - perhaps theres an ulterior motive. I don't know.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  > Even if used properly by 100% of people 100% of the time it would still be a bad idea and fundamentally could never have worked. Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? Or safeorscam, which was the same thing but for drug dealers? Or LinkedIn testimonials? Certainly there are a ton of challenges to coming up with a good implementation — business, social, epistemelogical, etc. But I think the possibility space is too large to rule out the possibility of a feasible implementation.
  - kawera 11y ago
    People != Corporations. Although I can see some similarities between Yelp and Peeple, they are for rating/reviewing two fundamentally different entities.
    - untothebreach 11y ago
      Though I agree with you, The SCOTUS would seem to disagree with you ;-)
      - kawera 11y ago
        Yes but fortunately the last two letters of SCOTUS means it doesn't apply to 96% of humans. Peeple is/was canadian.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Businesses aren't people. You can't bully a business into suicide, for example. > Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? On academic merits. And sure, there's social rating, but it's not a public Internet page saying "untrustworthy liar" that anyone can find. > Or safeorscam, which was the same thing but for drug dealers? See businesses. > Or LinkedIn testimonials? Perhaps a fair comparison, but that's not evaluating objective worth or something, it's evaluating employability and is as cordial as business tends to be.
    - ngoede 11y ago
      Also LinkedIn Testimonials are approved by the person being reviewed.
  - Kronopath 11y ago
    There is a significant difference between rating someone in a market context and rating someone in a social context. People hold different norms between the two, and what Peeple failed to realize is the reaction people have when those norms cross over and are violated. Imagine rating your friend's dinner party the same way you'd rate a restaurant on Yelp, and you can get a sense of the difference.
    - Alex3917 11y ago
      > There is a significant difference between rating someone in a market context and rating someone in a social context. And that's why I said that coming up with an implementation that accounts for these sorts of issues would obviously be challenging. These specific founders may or may not be smart enough to do it, but that doesn't say anything about the inherent possibility of doing so. I'm not saying I have a good solution, because I don't, but I'm also not willing to bet that there is no solution out of hand. And while I fully expect that this startup won't be successful, if only because of the difficulty of the problem, I also don't think it's fair to trash talk the founders without at least taking a look at the actual mechanics of their system.
  - x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
    > the success of Yelp Extorting businesses to suppress bad ratings, probably. > the school system Do you really think the quality of education is "successful" or something to be proud about? > LinkedIn testimonials That's a source for good reviews, not mixed reviews.
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    People are extremely sensitive about being judged. If someone had posted something ruinous for someone else's reputation, which also happened to be false, there's always libel lawsuits. Beyond that, to quote Mrs. Feynman's question to her famous husband, "what do you care what other people think?"
    - silverbax88 11y ago
      It's a whole lot more than 'sensitivity'. It's an anonymous abuse engine which holds no merit to begin with. What, exactly, would be the benefit of such an app? "Hey, I just met this great girl and she seems nice - oh, here on Peeple I see that 27 people in high school said she smells funny and one person says she murdered a baby." With no verification or checks, what exactly is the point of this app, other than to be used to abuse people to suicide, ruin marriages, get people fired or other similar nefarious tactics? Are people really going to be all that interested in using an app to say 'hey this dude seems swell'. What's going to prevent people from accusing random men of pedophilia, or random women of cheating on their husbands, or saying some person uses cocaine all of the time at their employer, without proof of any of these things or even a real connection to someone?
      - krapp 11y ago
        >What, exactly, would be the benefit of such an app? Extortion, blackmail, peer pressure and public humiliation come to mind. I don't know what the benefit of honest reviews would be for anyone, though. This certainly seems like an idea better suited for the black market, however, since all the ways I can think of to make money at it are bound to be illegal somewhere, if not everywhere.
  - anotherhostname 11y ago
    you cannot compare the success of Yelp, that is for services, people are not services! and do you really assume school rating system is a correct method?
  - klodolph 11y ago
    > Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Yelp is successful as a business, but I consider its impact on businesses to be negative, because Yelp has a perverse incentive to let businesses influence Yelp reviews. Naturally, businesses complain about Yelp, even though consumers like it. For the same reason, people would complain about a rating system for people. > Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? This is perhaps the most toxic and least successful part of the modern education system.
- listic 11y ago
  How was Peeple supposed to be used?
  - msbarnett 11y ago
    Essentially, anyone could create a page about anyone else, and leave any kind of feedback they wanted on it. Kind of a combination of involuntary facebook account and unselective LinkedIn testimonials.
mmosta 11y ago
Great way to (in)validate an idea before wasting any time on development
- omouse 11y ago
  Yeah I guess so if you're a person with zero skills whatsoever. It would have been easier just to ask five people what they think of the idea.
- theklub 11y ago
  There's no way this idea was completely new. I think anyone who mulled this over would have realized all of the legal implications as well as how pissed off most people would be. However you could probably make a similar app where its all good things only. "Compliments.com check and see if anyone has complimented you!"
jakejake 11y ago
From what I read, they are building this app with the intention of it being like LinkedIn where the hope is for positive referrals. But of course we know there will be negative reviews. You can't leave anonymous reviews, which could be some incentive for most people to be decent. Of course there's a million things that could go wrong. And, if nobody pays attention to the site then it won't work anyway. This isn't even a new idea. There's apps to rate ex-boyfriends and such that are obviously focused on being negative. Just for example http://www.ratedexes.com/add-person/john-carreiro-251332-victoria http://www.ratedexes.com/add-person/john-carreiro-251332-vic...
hardwaresofton 11y ago
Why do people seem to overwhelmingly consider this such a bad/despicable idea? Doesn't it seem like it would prevent some motivation for people not to be assholes? Are people worried about inevitable misuse (bullying?)? We all do this rating in real life. Sometimes people talk about their ratings of other people with each other ("yeah, I know john, he's really annoying"). You know which of your friends are good and which are not... Why not make this open knowledge?
- hasenj 11y ago
  People are more likely to be assholes behind the veil of anonymity.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    Anonymous people can't leave bad reviews was their plan to curtail that. Also, anonymity means people are less likely to self-censor. So you get more honesty. Sometimes honesty isn't nice. If you want statements that are only ever nice things to say, you'll have to accept that many of them are lies.
  - haswell 11y ago
    From what I understand, you can't rate people anonymously. Of course, this probably doesn't prevent someone from going to the effort of creating a fake profile, but I don't think anonymity is the primary factor here.
  - hasenj 11y ago
    My bad, I thought the service allowed anonymous reviews!
- 4lejandrito 11y ago
  Because it is not knowledge, it is mostly opinions.
- klodolph 11y ago
  > Why not make this open knowledge? Suppose Alice tells me that Bob is flaky and can't be relied on. I need a lot of information in order to be able to evaluate that claim. * Maybe Alice and Bob were in a relationship a few months ago, and there was a bad breakup. Alice's experience of Bob would probably be different from my experience of Bob. * Maybe Alice also told me bad things about Carol and Dan, so I think that Alice just has a dim view of people in general, and isn't willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. * Maybe Alice heard everything from Eve, so I need to consider whether I trust Eve. * Maybe Bob got chosen over Alice for a promotion at work, even though Alice has seniority. So Alice might have an axe to grind. * Maybe Alice hangs out with Frank and Grace, who bully Bob. So Bob naturally wouldn't want to be friends with people who bully him, even though Alice isn't doing anything wrong. When I get this information from Alice in person, I can ask questions or just listen to Alice's tone of voice to figure out the kind of things I want to know about Bob. Putting the information in text form in an application makes it much harder to evaluate Alice's claims, because it only make's Alice's opinion open knowledge.
brianbreslin 11y ago
Some friends in Miami built this same concept 8 years ago. It was called TheGorb.com (Good or Bad). They hired PHDs to come up with algorithms for ranking, and all sorts of complex variables to factor. In the end no one cared or wanted to rate others enough to make it stick.
rickdale 11y ago
John Oliver talked about this site last night on his show. What caught my attention is that it seemed like the founders were clueless, but I only know it from the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZa18F8QW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZa18F8QW4 submitted here:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331184
- jobu 11y ago
  Awesome that they actually put up the "Scream into the void" site: http://screamintothevoid.com/ http://screamintothevoid.com/
  - ColinCochrane 11y ago
    Also see http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/ http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/
thieving_magpie 11y ago
Was it ever real? Starting to think the answer is 'no'.
venomsnake 11y ago
Teacup meet storm ... Edit: That is about the whole peeple outrage.
addandsubtract 11y ago
MeowMeowBeenz. Community s05e08, "App Development and Condiments" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Development_and_Condiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Development_and_Condiments
talles 11y ago
On LinkedIn[1]: "Peeple is a POSITIVE ONLY APP. We want to bring positivity and kindness to the world." On video[2]: "I wouldn't want this app to just be positive (...) we don't live in a fairtale land (...) it would be pointless if it was all positive." [1]: https://linkedin.com/pulse/julia-cordray-ceo-peeple-creating-worlds-largest-app-julia-cordray https://linkedin.com/pulse/julia-cordray-ceo-peeple-creating... [2]: https://vid.me/ukIW https://vid.me/ukIW

49 points by Turukawa 11y ago

They're doing some excellent marketing.

s_dev 11y ago

This app was a really really bad idea from the start. PG and YC often tell people to look for ideas that "seem bad" but this is a whole new league. Even if used properly by 100% of people 100% of the time it would still be a bad idea and fundamentally could never have worked. I"m just surprised someone ponied up the cash to see it realised - perhaps theres an ulterior motive. I don't know.

Alex3917 11y ago
> Even if used properly by 100% of people 100% of the time it would still be a bad idea and fundamentally could never have worked. Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? Or safeorscam, which was the same thing but for drug dealers? Or LinkedIn testimonials? Certainly there are a ton of challenges to coming up with a good implementation — business, social, epistemelogical, etc. But I think the possibility space is too large to rule out the possibility of a feasible implementation.
- kawera 11y ago
  People != Corporations. Although I can see some similarities between Yelp and Peeple, they are for rating/reviewing two fundamentally different entities.
  - untothebreach 11y ago
    Though I agree with you, The SCOTUS would seem to disagree with you ;-)
    - kawera 11y ago
      Yes but fortunately the last two letters of SCOTUS means it doesn't apply to 96% of humans. Peeple is/was canadian.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Businesses aren't people. You can't bully a business into suicide, for example. > Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? On academic merits. And sure, there's social rating, but it's not a public Internet page saying "untrustworthy liar" that anyone can find. > Or safeorscam, which was the same thing but for drug dealers? See businesses. > Or LinkedIn testimonials? Perhaps a fair comparison, but that's not evaluating objective worth or something, it's evaluating employability and is as cordial as business tends to be.
  - ngoede 11y ago
    Also LinkedIn Testimonials are approved by the person being reviewed.
- Kronopath 11y ago
  There is a significant difference between rating someone in a market context and rating someone in a social context. People hold different norms between the two, and what Peeple failed to realize is the reaction people have when those norms cross over and are violated. Imagine rating your friend's dinner party the same way you'd rate a restaurant on Yelp, and you can get a sense of the difference.
  - Alex3917 11y ago
    > There is a significant difference between rating someone in a market context and rating someone in a social context. And that's why I said that coming up with an implementation that accounts for these sorts of issues would obviously be challenging. These specific founders may or may not be smart enough to do it, but that doesn't say anything about the inherent possibility of doing so. I'm not saying I have a good solution, because I don't, but I'm also not willing to bet that there is no solution out of hand. And while I fully expect that this startup won't be successful, if only because of the difficulty of the problem, I also don't think it's fair to trash talk the founders without at least taking a look at the actual mechanics of their system.
- x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
  > the success of Yelp Extorting businesses to suppress bad ratings, probably. > the school system Do you really think the quality of education is "successful" or something to be proud about? > LinkedIn testimonials That's a source for good reviews, not mixed reviews.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  People are extremely sensitive about being judged. If someone had posted something ruinous for someone else's reputation, which also happened to be false, there's always libel lawsuits. Beyond that, to quote Mrs. Feynman's question to her famous husband, "what do you care what other people think?"
  - silverbax88 11y ago
    It's a whole lot more than 'sensitivity'. It's an anonymous abuse engine which holds no merit to begin with. What, exactly, would be the benefit of such an app? "Hey, I just met this great girl and she seems nice - oh, here on Peeple I see that 27 people in high school said she smells funny and one person says she murdered a baby." With no verification or checks, what exactly is the point of this app, other than to be used to abuse people to suicide, ruin marriages, get people fired or other similar nefarious tactics? Are people really going to be all that interested in using an app to say 'hey this dude seems swell'. What's going to prevent people from accusing random men of pedophilia, or random women of cheating on their husbands, or saying some person uses cocaine all of the time at their employer, without proof of any of these things or even a real connection to someone?
    - krapp 11y ago
      >What, exactly, would be the benefit of such an app? Extortion, blackmail, peer pressure and public humiliation come to mind. I don't know what the benefit of honest reviews would be for anyone, though. This certainly seems like an idea better suited for the black market, however, since all the ways I can think of to make money at it are bound to be illegal somewhere, if not everywhere.
- anotherhostname 11y ago
  you cannot compare the success of Yelp, that is for services, people are not services! and do you really assume school rating system is a correct method?
- klodolph 11y ago
  > Then how do you explain the success of Yelp, which is basically the same thing but for businesses? Yelp is successful as a business, but I consider its impact on businesses to be negative, because Yelp has a perverse incentive to let businesses influence Yelp reviews. Naturally, businesses complain about Yelp, even though consumers like it. For the same reason, people would complain about a rating system for people. > Or the school system, which is already designed around rating people? This is perhaps the most toxic and least successful part of the modern education system.
listic 11y ago
How was Peeple supposed to be used?
- msbarnett 11y ago
  Essentially, anyone could create a page about anyone else, and leave any kind of feedback they wanted on it. Kind of a combination of involuntary facebook account and unselective LinkedIn testimonials.

mmosta 11y ago

Great way to (in)validate an idea before wasting any time on development

omouse 11y ago
Yeah I guess so if you're a person with zero skills whatsoever. It would have been easier just to ask five people what they think of the idea.
theklub 11y ago
There's no way this idea was completely new. I think anyone who mulled this over would have realized all of the legal implications as well as how pissed off most people would be. However you could probably make a similar app where its all good things only. "Compliments.com check and see if anyone has complimented you!"

jakejake 11y ago

From what I read, they are building this app with the intention of it being like LinkedIn where the hope is for positive referrals. But of course we know there will be negative reviews. You can't leave anonymous reviews, which could be some incentive for most people to be decent. Of course there's a million things that could go wrong. And, if nobody pays attention to the site then it won't work anyway. This isn't even a new idea. There's apps to rate ex-boyfriends and such that are obviously focused on being negative. Just for example http://www.ratedexes.com/add-person/john-carreiro-251332-victoria http://www.ratedexes.com/add-person/john-carreiro-251332-vic...

hardwaresofton 11y ago

Why do people seem to overwhelmingly consider this such a bad/despicable idea? Doesn't it seem like it would prevent some motivation for people not to be assholes? Are people worried about inevitable misuse (bullying?)? We all do this rating in real life. Sometimes people talk about their ratings of other people with each other ("yeah, I know john, he's really annoying"). You know which of your friends are good and which are not... Why not make this open knowledge?

hasenj 11y ago
People are more likely to be assholes behind the veil of anonymity.
- Nadya 11y ago
  Anonymous people can't leave bad reviews was their plan to curtail that. Also, anonymity means people are less likely to self-censor. So you get more honesty. Sometimes honesty isn't nice. If you want statements that are only ever nice things to say, you'll have to accept that many of them are lies.
- haswell 11y ago
  From what I understand, you can't rate people anonymously. Of course, this probably doesn't prevent someone from going to the effort of creating a fake profile, but I don't think anonymity is the primary factor here.
- hasenj 11y ago
  My bad, I thought the service allowed anonymous reviews!
4lejandrito 11y ago
Because it is not knowledge, it is mostly opinions.
klodolph 11y ago
> Why not make this open knowledge? Suppose Alice tells me that Bob is flaky and can't be relied on. I need a lot of information in order to be able to evaluate that claim. * Maybe Alice and Bob were in a relationship a few months ago, and there was a bad breakup. Alice's experience of Bob would probably be different from my experience of Bob. * Maybe Alice also told me bad things about Carol and Dan, so I think that Alice just has a dim view of people in general, and isn't willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. * Maybe Alice heard everything from Eve, so I need to consider whether I trust Eve. * Maybe Bob got chosen over Alice for a promotion at work, even though Alice has seniority. So Alice might have an axe to grind. * Maybe Alice hangs out with Frank and Grace, who bully Bob. So Bob naturally wouldn't want to be friends with people who bully him, even though Alice isn't doing anything wrong. When I get this information from Alice in person, I can ask questions or just listen to Alice's tone of voice to figure out the kind of things I want to know about Bob. Putting the information in text form in an application makes it much harder to evaluate Alice's claims, because it only make's Alice's opinion open knowledge.

brianbreslin 11y ago

Some friends in Miami built this same concept 8 years ago. It was called TheGorb.com (Good or Bad). They hired PHDs to come up with algorithms for ranking, and all sorts of complex variables to factor. In the end no one cared or wanted to rate others enough to make it stick.

rickdale 11y ago

John Oliver talked about this site last night on his show. What caught my attention is that it seemed like the founders were clueless, but I only know it from the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZa18F8QW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnZa18F8QW4 submitted here:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331184

jobu 11y ago
Awesome that they actually put up the "Scream into the void" site: http://screamintothevoid.com/ http://screamintothevoid.com/
- ColinCochrane 11y ago
  Also see http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/ http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/

thieving_magpie 11y ago

Was it ever real? Starting to think the answer is 'no'.

venomsnake 11y ago

Teacup meet storm ... Edit: That is about the whole peeple outrage.

addandsubtract 11y ago

MeowMeowBeenz. Community s05e08, "App Development and Condiments" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Development_and_Condiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Development_and_Condiments

talles 11y ago

On LinkedIn[1]: "Peeple is a POSITIVE ONLY APP. We want to bring positivity and kindness to the world." On video[2]: "I wouldn't want this app to just be positive (...) we don't live in a fairtale land (...) it would be pointless if it was all positive." [1]: https://linkedin.com/pulse/julia-cordray-ceo-peeple-creating-worlds-largest-app-julia-cordray https://linkedin.com/pulse/julia-cordray-ceo-peeple-creating... [2]: https://vid.me/ukIW https://vid.me/ukIW