Failin.gs

by ams1 • 16 years ago

74 46 16 years ago

Many peoples' personal weakpoint: Listening too much to what other people think about them.

This website has all the attributes to become a viral Facebook/Twitter hit, and it's clearly been designed to achieve this.

But why not give it a miss, and focus on what you're doing in your life instead of on what other people think of you. Especially when they don't even have the courage to say it to your face.

lqdshadow• 16 years ago

If the general internet public liked amihotornot.com, they will probably like this site.

On the other hand, I think its only flaws are the absence of pictures and easy buttons and the login requirement. Fewer people want to take the time to actually type something out, and it is as likely they have already posted their opinion of someone in twitter if they are going to type it at all. With the login requirement, it is a lot less accessible for the critic and the critiqued.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

The site is in very, very early beta. It's a side-project with a friend, but we're trying to work on features as we can. Facebook Connect and Twitter OAuth are high on the list, but so far, users have had enough of an attention span to meet our requirements :)

orblivion• 16 years ago

Well, sometimes there is something that only other people can see. I think there are some opinions about my traits that I happily ignore, I know what's best for me, but certain things about me bother me, not just others. Particularly, being somewhat anxiety prone, things like, "am I worrying about this too much or not enough?".

I'm actually quite glad this is up, I'd considered that something like it would be useful.

EDIT: Oh wait I got it all wrong. This is asking your friends for anonymous feedback? Yikes, no, I don't want to hear what they have to say. I thought this was an anonymous Q/A thing. Like Vark for personality flaws.

houseabsolute• 16 years ago

There is a saying that every man is a coin viewed from a fixed position. The face of himself that he sees no one else can see, likewise, he sees the face of everyone else that they cannot see. And thus, no man knows another as that other believes himself to be.

rthomas6• 16 years ago

You should write that on the creator's failin.gs.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Creators'. And noted ;)

dwohlfahrt• 16 years ago

this site straight up weirds me out... that's all i got

Batsu• 16 years ago

Agreed. It's strange to try to put a positive spin on everyone's shortcomings.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Well, it's certainly not for everyone, but shortcomings are only shortcomings as long as you agree with them and don't care to work on them.

johnfn• 16 years ago

I remember how reading that Facebook was engineered to give you the most positive experience. This feels like the total opposite sort of thing.

I don't think it will be a huge success, though, because as much people say that they want constructive criticism, what they really want to hear is how great they are. Going to this site would just be disappointing and frustrating for most people.

yashodhan• 16 years ago

Do you remember where you read that? I've heard about the positive experience of facebook from somebody else and I'd really to read the source. A URL or title/keywords would be helpful.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

My friend (and the co-creator of the site) likes to point out that Facebook, Twitter, et al., are ego-strokers, and he wanted to make an ego-buster.

I don't think either of us expected it to become as successful as it has already. It's all just been a bonus.

tarouter• 16 years ago

I love the idea. It's very good for people who can take criticism. It's up to you after all which criticism to ignore and which to take seriously. It should be made easier for other to post opinions about you by integrating this into some famous application (e.g. facebook app, blog widget, etc).

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

There's JavaScript embed code for blogs, and links for tweeting and posting to Facebook, but we agree, and we'll be working (as we find time) on better integration with other services.

kellishaver• 16 years ago

This seems like it would be an all too entirely unpleasant experience. :( The thing is, the way I see it, for me, the friends whose opinions I really trust and value are the same friends who are going to straight-up tell me to my face if I have some flaw that needs addressing, whether I want to hear it or not, because they have my best interests at heart. As for everyone else's opinions, or the nit-picky little things that we all tend to overlook in each other, anyway, then I just don't see those as needing to be brought to the surface, because it serves no good.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

> the friends whose opinions I really trust and value are the same friends who are going to straight-up tell me to my face if I have some flaw that needs addressing, whether I want to hear it or not

This has been one of the biggest "why?"s we've gotten. I don't think it's that simple, though. Telling a person their flaws requires timing, braveness, and an open mind on the part of the listener.

In an ideal world, people would be receptive to honest criticism, and people would be honest in what they feel is worth criticizing.

The site, though, provides a platform where the profile user is requesting feedback that a good friend may not have thought worth bringing up, had never had the right moment to bring up, or may have been afraid to bring up and hurt the person's feelings (and their friendship). When the platform is there, it's easier to break the ice.

samwithans2• 16 years ago

What's stopping a person from creating a profile for someone (maybe someone who's "unpopular")??

Seems like it could devolve into juicycampus.com for... everyone.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

This is definitely a concern. We're working on a lot of anti-abuse features that will roll out, though, before it leaves private beta.

philwelch• 16 years ago

This reminds me of the old Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin is selling "a swift kick in the butt" for $1.00. Business is slow and Calvin says, "I don't understand it, everybody I know needs what I'm selling!"

samwithans2• 16 years ago

Good call - http://bit.ly/9BYtb9

pclark• 16 years ago

love to try this. codes?

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Try "HACKERNEWS".

charlesju• 16 years ago

Great idea. I think I'm still too self-absorbed to actively ask for critiques on my personal character though. Maybe I'll be mature (brave) enough to do this in a couple more years.

stanleydrew• 16 years ago

But this is perfect for the self-absorbed! It gets everyone thinking and talking about you and your imperfections.

brandnewlow• 16 years ago

Post up your worst enemies.

thorax3• 16 years ago

In the old days of LiveJournal (decade ago) there was some brutal honesty meme which was supposed to be 100% anonymous. I made like 50 (exaggeration) different surveys and then made 50 different "private" posts of the link to each individual friend. Of course to everyone it looked just like a friends-only link and they assumed everybody was going to the same anonymous /aggregated survey.

I told them all pretty quickly afterwards about my silliness and put only mildly incriminating questions in the survey, just enough to make them worry about the other memes they'd been filling out.

Of course I also confirmed that one friend was head over heels in love with me. I so happen to be married to that darling girl nowadays.

Moral: If you're filling these out, don't assume it's 100% anonymous to the person you're writing about. They could be sneaky.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

No sneakiness here! While we track visitors and users in order to look out for abuse, this data is not and will not be made available to profile users.

thorax3• 16 years ago

I think you misunderstood the exploit for identifying the anonymous comments. It works with pretty much any survey where you can individualize communications:

I create 20 accounts on your service. I put my picture on all of them. I send out a different link/profile to each one of my 20 friends and track which one went to which person.

I then compare notes to see who said what.

Note that it's also really easy to do this using a URL shortener service that keeps track of times clicked, user agents, referrers, and IP addresses:

http://➨.ws/anonymous_survey

By using the timestamps you provide for the comments, I can tell which of my friends most likely made each comment.

neilk• 16 years ago

Does this darling girl know that you did this?

And was it an issue?

thorax3• 16 years ago

Yep. They all knew I did it because I told them a breakdown of what I discovered the next day.

As I said, there was nothing sinister in the questions, and they all knew me well enough not to be surprised by a little surprise sneakiness.

jonathandeamer• 16 years ago

Formspring, but in a different context. And that's no bad thing.

csomar• 16 years ago

I think I'll recognize all of my friends with their writing styles and ideas...

shawn7400• 16 years ago

This place is turning into Digg.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

I helped co-create this site and was surprised to find it linked here. It started as a fun project with a friend: a humorous idea that, as the attention it's gotten has shown, is apparently controversial, as well.

I have to say, though, that what's surprised me most about its reception is that anonymity doesn't make users as vicious as many might think. I've been pleased with how many "failings" posted are sweet compliments; playful inside jokes; and well-worded, well-meaning suggestions.

If anyone would like to try it out, I've made a promo code, "HACKERNEWS". We'd love any suggestions and/or feedback.

jaxn• 16 years ago

I got an invite today. At first I thought "Oh crap, someone has something they want to post about me!!!"

Then I remembered I requested an account last week :)

That initial invitation email kinda weirded me out. However, as someone who has had a blog for going on 9 years, this is an interesting new way to play with personal transparency.

Feel free to tell me I suck at leaving comments on HN, just post it here: http://failin.gs/profile/jaxn

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Thanks for joining! Please let us know what you think after using it a little while. We'll leave you a note for your profile if we don't hear from you ;)

euroclydon• 16 years ago

Well, I guess it's official, people have lost the capacity for introspection.

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Not a substitute, but a complement.

xpaulbettsx• 16 years ago

Small bug, times appear in GMT, not my local TZ...

stephencelis13• 16 years ago

Haven't had time to finish the JavaScript component to this. Working on it!

bdr• 16 years ago

A startup that tried something like this: http://hikkup.com/

mikeyur• 16 years ago

Sounds like a personal single-purpose version of Rypple (http://rypple.com/)

lucraft• 16 years ago

Signed up to have a play around, and was happy because for once I managed to get the "dan" username. Hooray!

Then I realized my profile was at failin.gs/profile/dan. And they automatically picked up my gravatar. Yikes.

Deleted the account and rejoined with something more obscure....

justdep• 16 years ago

Your gravatar is tied to your email address.

timinman• 16 years ago

Possibly the unhealthy thing about this is the anonymity, and it might not be very successful either, because of human nature.

I think most people are subject to being categorised one of two ways.

CATEGORY 1 (Confident Achievers): Largely oblivious to their own flaws (This won't easily help them because they'll challenge the answers). If the truth does break in it can be very painful for this type of person.

CATEGORY 2 (Reflective Thinkers): All too aware of their own flaws (And this won't help them; it will only make them feel more insecure).

I'd have to admit to being in the second category, and wouldn't for a second believe it's superior to the first (just different).

Which category are you, or are there more categories?

Failin.gs

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