4 ms·

I am one of the (anonymous, though my phone number is unblocked) developers of http://www.dirtyphonebook.com http://www.dirtyphonebook.com and to me that's the

I am one of the (anonymous, though my phone number is unblocked) developers of http://www.dirtyphonebook.com http://www.dirtyphonebook.com and to me that's the closest thing to Juicy Campus. It's a better version, because it affects everybody. The site wasn't my idea, but I came up with the toolbar and some of the cool existing features and some of the features we're working on implementing right now. We are working on implementing pictures and other cool location and search-based features very soon. Even though the site is admittedly very sophomoric right now it's going to be one of the most useful resources for all types of personal information fairly soon. Think spokeo and wikipedia and facebook on steroids. To those that suggest this concept is evil, DirtyPhoneBook site has exposed cheaters, abusive people that go after people with guns, child-support deadbeats, drug-dealers that sell to kids, and other scum too. There needs to be methods of punishing mean and evil people. I was randomly punched in the face and beaten up in highschool. I've gotten fired from a job I loved before because somebody else screwed up and they had power to blame me. I think the DPB concept is incredibly underrated because it gives you a way to expose jerks with no way of tracing who said anything. The anonymity allows a lot to come out that otherwise wouldn't. Free Speech should always triumph over censorship. For the good of society, http://www.dirtyphonebook.com http://www.dirtyphonebook.com is the first place that let's anybody tell the truth about anybody without any censorship. We're working on some fabulous stuff that is going to entertain and amaze people. ;)

cloudkj 16y ago
I recently created http://feedbark.com http://feedbark.com with pretty much the same idea as this. You use the service and submit anonymous feedback against someone's identity. That portion just never seemed to gain traction, at least amongst the small number of users I had try it out. There was a restriction that feedback had to be approved before it's shown, which I suppose slightly detracted from the "instant gratification" of submitting unsolicited feedback to someone. Ultimately, I cut out that part of the service because in order to do it "right" (i.e. avoid slander and general hostility), the feature just doesn't have enough juice to get traction. After searching for a bit, it looks like Unvarnished has a similar idea. It's a Yelp for people. Not sure how much traction it's getting.
jackowayed 16y ago
Punishing bad people is great at all, but with no accountability you're going to punish a lot of nonbad people too. There's nothing stopping people that have your phone number from posting "He raped me" or "He beat me up" just because they don't like you or because they'll get your job when you get fired. And since it's usually really hard to prove that you have never ever done X, an innocent person basically has no better way to defend oneself than a guilty person.
- AnonPm42 16y ago
  * Besides voting and commenting, there is a feature that allows you to verify yourself as the owner of a phone number on DPB if you want to make a verified rebuttal against a comment.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    Sure, but if someone comments that I raped them, I'm going to post a verified rebuttal saying that it's an outright lie whether or not I actually raped them, which makes the rebuttal meaningless. There's tons of accusations people could make that are completely false yet almost impossible to actually disprove.
Goosey 16y ago
Philosophically I am with you, but the site design seems to make it feel 'dirty' to me. I really wish it broadcast the ideals your blog post is rather than broadcasting a cockroach and dirt. I am curious what kind of features exist to combat slander (and what features exist to keep those features in check against honest, but negative, feedback)?
- AnonPm42 16y ago
  * I'm not a fan of the roach either. It was a marketing decision made before I came onboard. There's some story about why our founder liked the roach and I'll try and find out about it from her tomorrow. * The name DirtyPhoneBook was chosen for marketing reasons. It's definitely a bit attention-getting. * Besides the ability to vote on and comment on posts you don't think are true, there's a feature that allows you to verify your number and post an authentic message as the owner of that number. But everybody has the same free speech rights to post on DPB.
drivingmenuts 16y ago
What's to stop the 4Chan army from coming in there demolish some relatively harmless person's reputation? Sure, maybe you can't get sued, but their life is ruined. Some accusations don't unstick.
- AnonPm42 16y ago
  Has 4chan ever targeted some innocent person? I don't think so, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If 4chan did use DPB, I'd think it would be to expose scientologists that control other peoples lives, animal abusers, etc
  - daychilde 16y ago
    I'm still wary of vigilante justice...
  - SHOwnsYou 16y ago
    Bristol Palin, Youtube porn uploading day, that guido that got killed racing his car... Even I would argue those things were ultimately pretty harmless, but 4chan is not the final arbiter of whats right and moral.
    - AnonPm42 16y ago
      Neither is DirtyPhoneBook the final arbiter of what's right and moral and nobody here ever claimed to be that. It's just a platform for free speech
SHOwnsYou 16y ago
I am not really into this idea because of the problems outlined already (innocent people being victimized, probably by those that SHOULD have dirt posted about them). But implement a some way to search by area code. Just plugging in random numbers hoping for a match seems pointless.
- AnonPm42 16y ago
  * If you don't like it, that's your decision. But I don't see good people getting harmed. If you're nice to your friends why would they believe something untrue posted about you? I think bad people are the only ones who have reason to fear this. Call me naive, but that's my honest opinion. * You can search the site and sort by phone number/area code. Not the same thing, but kind of what you want. I would push for a random button feature that works by area code but we're working on some other stuff to organize local information even better. :)
  - SHOwnsYou 16y ago
    I'm not concerned about my friends reading it and thinking less of me, I am concerned about my friends posting made up stuff about me. What if a potential employer read it. Totally plausible, totally harmful. Imagine if it happened and I had no idea about dirtyphonebook.com, I wouldn't know to protest anything. Then I am out of luck with the employer. There are many avenues of abuse. I don't want to search by terms, I want to search by my area and scan for people I may know based on the comments. It is like 3 word changes in an SQL query to add the ability to search by area code.
    - AnonPm42 16y ago
      * Forget DPB for a minute. Wouldn't employers be faced with discrimination suits if they tried to base hiring decisions on any random Internet post? * After photos are implemented, I am probably going to build the feature you suggest. It wasn't a priority on day 1 to have that until we started getting a lot of content to organize.
      - 16y ago
Anonymoose 16y ago
My suggestions . . . VOXopolis.com. It's anonymous, interactive, private, secure, one-to-one messaging. Pretty slick. Best part is that there is no public airing of anonymous feedback which I personally believe is not how we want to interact in our society.

cloudkj 16y ago

I recently created http://feedbark.com http://feedbark.com with pretty much the same idea as this. You use the service and submit anonymous feedback against someone's identity. That portion just never seemed to gain traction, at least amongst the small number of users I had try it out. There was a restriction that feedback had to be approved before it's shown, which I suppose slightly detracted from the "instant gratification" of submitting unsolicited feedback to someone. Ultimately, I cut out that part of the service because in order to do it "right" (i.e. avoid slander and general hostility), the feature just doesn't have enough juice to get traction. After searching for a bit, it looks like Unvarnished has a similar idea. It's a Yelp for people. Not sure how much traction it's getting.

jackowayed 16y ago

Punishing bad people is great at all, but with no accountability you're going to punish a lot of nonbad people too. There's nothing stopping people that have your phone number from posting "He raped me" or "He beat me up" just because they don't like you or because they'll get your job when you get fired. And since it's usually really hard to prove that you have never ever done X, an innocent person basically has no better way to defend oneself than a guilty person.

AnonPm42 16y ago
* Besides voting and commenting, there is a feature that allows you to verify yourself as the owner of a phone number on DPB if you want to make a verified rebuttal against a comment.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  Sure, but if someone comments that I raped them, I'm going to post a verified rebuttal saying that it's an outright lie whether or not I actually raped them, which makes the rebuttal meaningless. There's tons of accusations people could make that are completely false yet almost impossible to actually disprove.

Goosey 16y ago

Philosophically I am with you, but the site design seems to make it feel 'dirty' to me. I really wish it broadcast the ideals your blog post is rather than broadcasting a cockroach and dirt. I am curious what kind of features exist to combat slander (and what features exist to keep those features in check against honest, but negative, feedback)?

AnonPm42 16y ago
* I'm not a fan of the roach either. It was a marketing decision made before I came onboard. There's some story about why our founder liked the roach and I'll try and find out about it from her tomorrow. * The name DirtyPhoneBook was chosen for marketing reasons. It's definitely a bit attention-getting. * Besides the ability to vote on and comment on posts you don't think are true, there's a feature that allows you to verify your number and post an authentic message as the owner of that number. But everybody has the same free speech rights to post on DPB.

drivingmenuts 16y ago

What's to stop the 4Chan army from coming in there demolish some relatively harmless person's reputation? Sure, maybe you can't get sued, but their life is ruined. Some accusations don't unstick.

AnonPm42 16y ago
Has 4chan ever targeted some innocent person? I don't think so, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If 4chan did use DPB, I'd think it would be to expose scientologists that control other peoples lives, animal abusers, etc
- daychilde 16y ago
  I'm still wary of vigilante justice...
- SHOwnsYou 16y ago
  Bristol Palin, Youtube porn uploading day, that guido that got killed racing his car... Even I would argue those things were ultimately pretty harmless, but 4chan is not the final arbiter of whats right and moral.
  - AnonPm42 16y ago
    Neither is DirtyPhoneBook the final arbiter of what's right and moral and nobody here ever claimed to be that. It's just a platform for free speech

SHOwnsYou 16y ago

I am not really into this idea because of the problems outlined already (innocent people being victimized, probably by those that SHOULD have dirt posted about them). But implement a some way to search by area code. Just plugging in random numbers hoping for a match seems pointless.

AnonPm42 16y ago
* If you don't like it, that's your decision. But I don't see good people getting harmed. If you're nice to your friends why would they believe something untrue posted about you? I think bad people are the only ones who have reason to fear this. Call me naive, but that's my honest opinion. * You can search the site and sort by phone number/area code. Not the same thing, but kind of what you want. I would push for a random button feature that works by area code but we're working on some other stuff to organize local information even better. :)
- SHOwnsYou 16y ago
  I'm not concerned about my friends reading it and thinking less of me, I am concerned about my friends posting made up stuff about me. What if a potential employer read it. Totally plausible, totally harmful. Imagine if it happened and I had no idea about dirtyphonebook.com, I wouldn't know to protest anything. Then I am out of luck with the employer. There are many avenues of abuse. I don't want to search by terms, I want to search by my area and scan for people I may know based on the comments. It is like 3 word changes in an SQL query to add the ability to search by area code.
  - AnonPm42 16y ago
    * Forget DPB for a minute. Wouldn't employers be faced with discrimination suits if they tried to base hiring decisions on any random Internet post? * After photos are implemented, I am probably going to build the feature you suggest. It wasn't a priority on day 1 to have that until we started getting a lot of content to organize.
    - 16y ago

Anonymoose 16y ago

My suggestions . . . VOXopolis.com. It's anonymous, interactive, private, secure, one-to-one messaging. Pretty slick. Best part is that there is no public airing of anonymous feedback which I personally believe is not how we want to interact in our society.