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How do they not realize what an obvious shitstorm this will cause? And who is bothered by this, really? I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers callin

How do they not realize what an obvious shitstorm this will cause? And who is bothered by this, really? I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers calling themselves Dick Cummings out of immaturity. So what does it really matter what the customers call themselves?

jamestimmins 7y ago
From my experience building filters, this is one of the most frustrating tasks in software development, because getting it right is thankless and highly contextual, and if you get it wrong, the results are obvious. Edit: Actually, it's worse bc if you get it wrong you open up your employer to getting called out for cultural insensitivity.
- _wldu 7y ago
  You can never get this 'right' and trying to is a waste of time and money. Words are just words. Trying to police what words a person has in their name, username, email, etc. is wrong and has unintended consequences. What's inappropriate to these 'decision makers' is actually the given names of some of their users. You should never try to define 'appropriate language' and then impose your definition of that on to the world. Especially if you want to do business.
  - celticmusic 7y ago
    yep, this is why I'm a huge fan of the 80% solution. You'll never get it right, put a system in that flags problematic accounts. If it gets flagged, ask the user "are you SURE?", and if they say yes, put it up for human review, whether that be internal or social in some manner.
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers calling themselves Dick Cummings out of immaturity. So what does it really matter what the customers call themselves? That was my thought too. It's one thing if you're using obscenity in an anonymous online alias, as a great many Redditors seem to love doing, but I'm struggling to believe that it's something people do in signing up for real-life ride-sharing apps, either as a driver or rider. Obviously there must be some amount of people doing it, otherwise Lyft wouldn't bother with this at all, but it's just so... unexpected.
- manigandham 7y ago
  > "Obviously there must be some amount of people doing it" There's no data that this is true. It could simply be a project manager deciding that it's a good thing or the result of a tiny fraction of complaints.
  - vernie 7y ago
    Complaints about what
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

jamestimmins 7y ago

From my experience building filters, this is one of the most frustrating tasks in software development, because getting it right is thankless and highly contextual, and if you get it wrong, the results are obvious. Edit: Actually, it's worse bc if you get it wrong you open up your employer to getting called out for cultural insensitivity.

_wldu 7y ago
You can never get this 'right' and trying to is a waste of time and money. Words are just words. Trying to police what words a person has in their name, username, email, etc. is wrong and has unintended consequences. What's inappropriate to these 'decision makers' is actually the given names of some of their users. You should never try to define 'appropriate language' and then impose your definition of that on to the world. Especially if you want to do business.
- celticmusic 7y ago
  yep, this is why I'm a huge fan of the 80% solution. You'll never get it right, put a system in that flags problematic accounts. If it gets flagged, ask the user "are you SURE?", and if they say yes, put it up for human review, whether that be internal or social in some manner.

cmdshiftf4 7y ago

>I find it hard to imagine that it's the drivers calling themselves Dick Cummings out of immaturity. So what does it really matter what the customers call themselves? That was my thought too. It's one thing if you're using obscenity in an anonymous online alias, as a great many Redditors seem to love doing, but I'm struggling to believe that it's something people do in signing up for real-life ride-sharing apps, either as a driver or rider. Obviously there must be some amount of people doing it, otherwise Lyft wouldn't bother with this at all, but it's just so... unexpected.

manigandham 7y ago
> "Obviously there must be some amount of people doing it" There's no data that this is true. It could simply be a project manager deciding that it's a good thing or the result of a tiny fraction of complaints.
- vernie 7y ago
  Complaints about what
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]