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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 asshol

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.
- saint_fiasco 11y ago
  Suppose the app was smart enough to do some clever analysis. For example, if all the people who leave bad reviews of Bob are all friends with each other, it should count as a single bad review (so as to not double-count the evidence), and if Alice left bad reviews of several of your friends, it should know that you will probably find Alice untrustworthy, because she dislikes the people you like. Not that we can trust Peeple or any other app to get that right, but it sounds like it should be possible.
  - klodolph 11y ago
    > Suppose the app was smart enough to do some clever analysis. When Alice gives a bad review of Bob, I think to myself, "Why is Alice giving a bad review of Bob?" I'm putting myself in Alice's shoes. There is absolutely no hope that a computer program would be sophisticated enough to do that, not yet, not for at least a decade (translation: possibly not in my lifetime). Computers can't even solve the "simple" problem of matching people in romantic relationships. When we throw computers at the more general problem of human interactions and trust, we should naturally expect them to completely botch it.
dynomight 11y ago
I see this as a bad idea because it is personal and it is in print. When people have a bad experience with each other, time tends to heal the situation and many learn from the experience and most move on. Perhaps many situations could be chalked up to personality chemistry or bad timing or health issues. When the experiences are put in print and published, they drudge up the past and make a dynamic thing a static thing. The printed version of a bad experience won't heal and forgive as people do and the rating won't reinvent itself as people do. Even credit history is not kept for more than seven years if I'm not mistaken. People do change.
verisimilidude 11y ago
Because: (1) People ratings are far too subjective to be considered "knowledge". We have none of the context needed to evaluate the validity of these ratings—the kind of thing you can suss out when gossiping in person. (2) People can and do change, but these ratings would persist. It makes fresh starts and self-improvement that much more difficult. (3) People can and do forgive, but these ratings would serve as permanent reminders of bad deeds. (4) What problem do these ratings solve? I see many problems created, but with no real benefit.
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  Criminal records have (almost) the same problems; what makes them superior? Incidentally, you could solve (2) by "dimming" the relevance of a review as time goes on, eventually clearing it altogether. You could also have a "faster dimming speed" for younger people than for older ones, on the grounds that the young are stupid and the old are probably harder to change.
  - verisimilidude 11y ago
    Criminal records are presumably based upon written laws, public evaluation of collected evidence, trial, and conviction. That process doesn't always arrive at the right outcome, but at least it strives to be correct. And later, you can find those records and make up your own mind about the person with the rap sheet, if needed. That can't be the case with personal ratings, because there's no public evaluation or context or validation of each rating. You talk about "dimming" as if it solves a problem, but what overall problem do personal ratings solve, really? "Dimming" is a solution patched on top of a non-problem. I don't get it.
1ris 11y ago
>Why not make this open knowledge? To quote John Oliver: "Have you ever been on the Internet?" Because people are vile and and love whitchhuts. They love destroing social reputation and status, witch is you litteraly need to survive.

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.

saint_fiasco 11y ago
Suppose the app was smart enough to do some clever analysis. For example, if all the people who leave bad reviews of Bob are all friends with each other, it should count as a single bad review (so as to not double-count the evidence), and if Alice left bad reviews of several of your friends, it should know that you will probably find Alice untrustworthy, because she dislikes the people you like. Not that we can trust Peeple or any other app to get that right, but it sounds like it should be possible.
- klodolph 11y ago
  > Suppose the app was smart enough to do some clever analysis. When Alice gives a bad review of Bob, I think to myself, "Why is Alice giving a bad review of Bob?" I'm putting myself in Alice's shoes. There is absolutely no hope that a computer program would be sophisticated enough to do that, not yet, not for at least a decade (translation: possibly not in my lifetime). Computers can't even solve the "simple" problem of matching people in romantic relationships. When we throw computers at the more general problem of human interactions and trust, we should naturally expect them to completely botch it.

dynomight 11y ago

I see this as a bad idea because it is personal and it is in print. When people have a bad experience with each other, time tends to heal the situation and many learn from the experience and most move on. Perhaps many situations could be chalked up to personality chemistry or bad timing or health issues. When the experiences are put in print and published, they drudge up the past and make a dynamic thing a static thing. The printed version of a bad experience won't heal and forgive as people do and the rating won't reinvent itself as people do. Even credit history is not kept for more than seven years if I'm not mistaken. People do change.

verisimilidude 11y ago

Because: (1) People ratings are far too subjective to be considered "knowledge". We have none of the context needed to evaluate the validity of these ratings—the kind of thing you can suss out when gossiping in person. (2) People can and do change, but these ratings would persist. It makes fresh starts and self-improvement that much more difficult. (3) People can and do forgive, but these ratings would serve as permanent reminders of bad deeds. (4) What problem do these ratings solve? I see many problems created, but with no real benefit.

mdpopescu 11y ago
Criminal records have (almost) the same problems; what makes them superior? Incidentally, you could solve (2) by "dimming" the relevance of a review as time goes on, eventually clearing it altogether. You could also have a "faster dimming speed" for younger people than for older ones, on the grounds that the young are stupid and the old are probably harder to change.
- verisimilidude 11y ago
  Criminal records are presumably based upon written laws, public evaluation of collected evidence, trial, and conviction. That process doesn't always arrive at the right outcome, but at least it strives to be correct. And later, you can find those records and make up your own mind about the person with the rap sheet, if needed. That can't be the case with personal ratings, because there's no public evaluation or context or validation of each rating. You talk about "dimming" as if it solves a problem, but what overall problem do personal ratings solve, really? "Dimming" is a solution patched on top of a non-problem. I don't get it.

1ris 11y ago

>Why not make this open knowledge? To quote John Oliver: "Have you ever been on the Internet?" Because people are vile and and love whitchhuts. They love destroing social reputation and status, witch is you litteraly need to survive.