4 ms·

I thought this was a cool idea, and so I just signed up, but I was so alarmed by the process that I made an HN account to address this here. Please correct me

I thought this was a cool idea, and so I just signed up, but I was so alarmed by the process that I made an HN account to address this here. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you drop people into randomly assigned groups of people who live within a certain distance without giving the user a chance to screen that group for people they already may know and need to avoid? This is such an obvious potential problem that it didn't occur to me that your service wouldn't account for it. In my case it's at least not a dangerous situation, although I'm betting the other person in my new group is really not going to be pleased to get this particular notification email. But I imagine overlap will be a problem, particularly when your userbase is still small. I have to ask--are there any women working at your company? Anyone over 25? This may seem like a nuisance question to you, but for many women I know (and for myself), the inability to screen potential groups is an immediate dealbreaker. It's a safety issue at it's most extreme, but it's also just common sense. For many women this is an absolute dealbreaker in a way men might not understand.

baron816 10y ago
Thank you for very much for your feedback. I really appreciate it. Yes, Krewe does drop you into a group as soon as you sign up and you don't get to see who's in it. Keep in mind that we never give ANYONE your location or email address. You also have the choice to leave the group right away and join a new group and you have the ability to vote people out of a group. But I strongly believe the platform simply won't work if people are able to pick and choose who they want to be in a group with. It's not hard to imagine that men will only want to be in a group with attractive women. If people can choose, then they'll only choose "the best." I believe that the issues you raised apply to essentially anything in life. Every time you go to the grocery story, you run the risk of bumping into someone you don't like. If you go on Tinder, you can come across your ex. If you join a recreational kickball league, you could be put on a team with your arch nemesis. Krewe doesn't make you interact with anyone, it just give you the opportunity to do so. You should always meet up with new people in a safe, public space. With that said, I will be making some small changes that I hope will help address your concerns.
- stegosaurus 10y ago
  I'm struggling to figure out OP's context (not sure why they're not just saying it) but one thing I can come up with is restraining orders. It doesn't seem too outrageous to me that the use case of 'have been in a neighbourhood for a while and already have enemies' is just outside of the scope of the program, though. It has far more utility for people who have just moved to a new town and have no contacts at all.
  - stonecraftwolf 10y ago
    I witnessed an incident of domestic violence involving the other person in my group. I don't want to go into more detail than that for reasons that should be obvious. I disagree with your limited use case. IME there are many stages of life where you might need to refresh or replenish your friend group. Aside from moving to a new place, people complain about the difficulty of making friends after college, when their friends get married or have kids, if they're stuck in a job without peers, after a divorce, etc etc etc.
- stonecraftwolf 10y ago
  "Picking and choosing" is not remotely the same thing as "screening," and that you conflate the two indicates that you either didn't read my comment in good faith or you missed the point by an almost insurmountable margin. I'd urge you to listen to the needs of your users. You managed to dismiss this out of hand in a way that implies you haven't thought much about women at all. Obviously you don't have to, and you wouldn't be alone there. But this is quite literally a case of a woman giving you feedback about something that many (if not most, by another large margin) women consider vitally important. (The response amongst my group of friends have so far ranged from "unbelievable" to "Jesus Christ.") Do what you want with that information, but don't dismiss it as "wrong" or irrelevant because you believe it applies to all areas of life. You don't have to care about female users, but know that it's obviously a choice. ETA: in response to the comments below: 1. No one suggested that risk should be completely eliminated, or indeed that this was possible. You're responding to a straw man argument. Which...also doesn't seem in good faith. 2. If you don't understand that someone may screen a group for potential danger without applying further filters ("picking and choosing"), I'm...not sure what else to say except that you obviously have never found yourself in such a position. It seems trivially obvious to me that a user who has already self selected as someone who is looking for a service to match them up with new people would be perfectly capable of deciding to continue in a group after they'd screened it for potential dangers, since that's what they signed up for. People are capable of moderation. In this case, I don't want to be in a group with someone I've seen in a violent situation, and I would rather they hadn't gotten that automatic notification email, either. This is really very basic stuff.

baron816 10y ago

Thank you for very much for your feedback. I really appreciate it. Yes, Krewe does drop you into a group as soon as you sign up and you don't get to see who's in it. Keep in mind that we never give ANYONE your location or email address. You also have the choice to leave the group right away and join a new group and you have the ability to vote people out of a group. But I strongly believe the platform simply won't work if people are able to pick and choose who they want to be in a group with. It's not hard to imagine that men will only want to be in a group with attractive women. If people can choose, then they'll only choose "the best." I believe that the issues you raised apply to essentially anything in life. Every time you go to the grocery story, you run the risk of bumping into someone you don't like. If you go on Tinder, you can come across your ex. If you join a recreational kickball league, you could be put on a team with your arch nemesis. Krewe doesn't make you interact with anyone, it just give you the opportunity to do so. You should always meet up with new people in a safe, public space. With that said, I will be making some small changes that I hope will help address your concerns.

stegosaurus 10y ago
I'm struggling to figure out OP's context (not sure why they're not just saying it) but one thing I can come up with is restraining orders. It doesn't seem too outrageous to me that the use case of 'have been in a neighbourhood for a while and already have enemies' is just outside of the scope of the program, though. It has far more utility for people who have just moved to a new town and have no contacts at all.
- stonecraftwolf 10y ago
  I witnessed an incident of domestic violence involving the other person in my group. I don't want to go into more detail than that for reasons that should be obvious. I disagree with your limited use case. IME there are many stages of life where you might need to refresh or replenish your friend group. Aside from moving to a new place, people complain about the difficulty of making friends after college, when their friends get married or have kids, if they're stuck in a job without peers, after a divorce, etc etc etc.
stonecraftwolf 10y ago
"Picking and choosing" is not remotely the same thing as "screening," and that you conflate the two indicates that you either didn't read my comment in good faith or you missed the point by an almost insurmountable margin. I'd urge you to listen to the needs of your users. You managed to dismiss this out of hand in a way that implies you haven't thought much about women at all. Obviously you don't have to, and you wouldn't be alone there. But this is quite literally a case of a woman giving you feedback about something that many (if not most, by another large margin) women consider vitally important. (The response amongst my group of friends have so far ranged from "unbelievable" to "Jesus Christ.") Do what you want with that information, but don't dismiss it as "wrong" or irrelevant because you believe it applies to all areas of life. You don't have to care about female users, but know that it's obviously a choice. ETA: in response to the comments below: 1. No one suggested that risk should be completely eliminated, or indeed that this was possible. You're responding to a straw man argument. Which...also doesn't seem in good faith. 2. If you don't understand that someone may screen a group for potential danger without applying further filters ("picking and choosing"), I'm...not sure what else to say except that you obviously have never found yourself in such a position. It seems trivially obvious to me that a user who has already self selected as someone who is looking for a service to match them up with new people would be perfectly capable of deciding to continue in a group after they'd screened it for potential dangers, since that's what they signed up for. People are capable of moderation. In this case, I don't want to be in a group with someone I've seen in a violent situation, and I would rather they hadn't gotten that automatic notification email, either. This is really very basic stuff.