Where the fuck is this

by albertzeyer • 15 years ago

111 63 15 years ago

lpolovets3• 15 years ago

Domain names with curse words in them are a big turn off for me. I'm not going to share this on Facebook, forward this to my friends, etc... even though it's a pretty cool idea.

Other than the domain name, it seems like there's an incentive to post if you want a place identified, but little incentive to identify places. Something like badges ("world traveler", "Canada expert", etc.) or a wall-of-fame could be good incentives.

breckinloggins• 15 years ago

Agreed, though I like the humor.

How about having a domain alias that's a bit more polite and, when the site detects that you've come via that domain, tones down the language on the site?

Also, could it use something like TinEye to try and find probable matches with geotags?

18pfsmt9• 15 years ago

Being offended by words deemed arbitrarily offensive by society doesn't seem logical to me. I realize that within professional circles this might be an issue, but I can't find a reason within personal circles unless we are talking about when interacting with children. I apologize, but your comment comes off as quite prudish, and I think getting hung up on a name is shortsighted.

shin_lao• 15 years ago

I also dislike the use of curse words in some contexts, and that is a context where I find it inappropriate.

Sorry if it sounds illogical to you, but you must accept people's sensitivity might be different from yours.

Aloisius• 15 years ago

I'm not offended, but I do find it crude and unprofessional.

And it really doesn't matter if it is logical. It is reality and if you want users, you have to work the existing system.

yock• 15 years ago

There are generally legitimate reasons for various words to be regarded as crude or offensive. Often enough that is the very intention behind a word. Not being offended by them, or at least claiming so, is not a mark of enlightenment. Nor is being offended by them something for which to be shamed.

I'm with the OP, domains with foul language don't hit my sharing feeds and I'm not likely to make it a habit of frequenting the site.

xiaoma• 15 years ago

From a logical standpoint it still doesn't make any sense. Do the pictures have anything to do with fucking? No, they don't. Is there anything particularly curse-worthy or even startling about them? Nope. They're a bunch of random boring places.

Putting "fuck" in the domain name adds nothing and it makes me less likely to share links with some people who's sensibilities matter to me. My grandmother is one such person. She's one of the few people I'm close to that would really appreciate the functionality of this site, but it's just not the kind of domain name she'd be comfortable going to.

lpolovets3• 15 years ago

My comment does say something about me, but part of the problem is not just what I think, but what I predict my friends would think. I would not share something on Facebook if I expected it to offend 20-30% of my friends.

There are plenty of uses of the f-word that I find funny, witty, or appropriate, but this is simply not one of them. (NSFW humor: http://justin.justnet.com.au/rudestuff/uses-of-the-word-fuck...)

scott_s2• 15 years ago

Logic has nothing to do with it. People have emotional responses to certain words. Arguing that it's not a "logical" reaction misses the point.

mtogo2• 15 years ago

Domain names with curse words in them are a big turn off for me.

I think that's more of an issue with yourself than it is with the domain name. I would venture to guess that most people on HN are not offended by arbitrary words and would be fine sharing this with their friends.

There's no problem with being offended by swear words, but it's not a problem with the app either.

waterlesscloud2• 15 years ago

It's going to limit its spread. I personally don't have a problem with it (though I think it's somewhat immature in this context), but I'm also not going to share it on social networks as I might have otherwise done.

synnik• 15 years ago

But who are you targeting as your audience? Just HN? Really??

The comments clearly show that even a portion of HN is offended. And doesn't every single startup want the largest audience possible?

It seems horribly short-sighted to make decisions based on what HN thinks.

scott_s2• 15 years ago

I think it's naive to claim "fuck" is an arbitrary word.

mikhael• 15 years ago

The problem is that the "fuck" here really has nothing to do with the app. It would add some amount of shock and emphasis to the question ("where is this?") but there is nothing shocking or surprising about the images, so it's just oddly out of place.

RobAtticus• 15 years ago

I think it's to convey exasperation. Like somebody has been looking all over for info but cant find it, so they finally get fed up and decide to crowd source the answer.

rdl• 15 years ago

I don't generally (fucking :) care about curse words, but I agree it could limit adoption.

They should at least have a secondary url like "wheretfisthis.com" (available; almost grabbed it for them) or wherethefsckisthis.com and censor the titles; same userbase, same pics, just a different presentation.

Also probably would help if they want to do an iOS app.

Edgy is useful too, so they should keep the current branding too.

rkalla• 15 years ago

I registered "upmyownass.com" years ago for a comedy writing site.

Everyone I told about it assumed it was hardcore gay porn.

  Mom: "What... what kinds of things do you put on that site?"
  Me: "Funny stuff"
  Mom: "Oh... like gross-funny?"
  Me: "Oh god, no no... funny articles, I write sarcastic articles."
  Mom: "We love you no matter what"
  Me: <appropriate meme-face here>

Finbarr• 15 years ago

Really like the concept, but I think the name will definitely hinder growth. There are plenty of .coms available that perfectly describe the purpose of the app without profanity.

MostAwesomeDude• 15 years ago

As somebody that routinely carries around a netbook with a big "FREE SOFTWARE FUCK YEAH" sticker on it, I feel obligated to say: I completely and totally understand your sentiment but must respectfully disagree with your opinion in an explicit but reasonable fashion.

gnoupi• 15 years ago

Besides, my company for example filters such words in URLs (and logs any such attempt), so I wouldn't be able to see this site from there with such a name.

pavel_lishin• 15 years ago

What does it take to change a status? http://wherethefuckisthis.com/wtf_main/view/687/ has apparently been identified, but it's still listed as "Not yet located".

tingletech2• 15 years ago

It takes for them to manually verify that it has been located

"We check every comment and do research on the suggested places. If your suggestion or pin is correct we'll mark the spot as located! Remember: We are a small team, it could take some time to check all your comments and pins. Please be patient :)" http://wherethefuckisthis.com/wtf_main/faq

sjs• 15 years ago

That is just amazing. Location is everything.

infinity2• 15 years ago

It would be a very good idea to specify the width and height attributes of the image elements in the markup of the overview pages. All the cropped images have the same dimensions, but width and height have not been set. Some pictures take a lot of time to load right now or are unavailable. The browser does not know the size of the image in advance, so the layout looks somewhat broken and keeps moving when new pictures are finally downloaded. Maybe there are many visitors on this site at the moment, I have seen some "Service is unavailable" errors.

athst• 15 years ago

Really cool - for some reason attaching geolocation to abstract pictures make them seem so much more real and interesting. Seems to be cracking a little under HN traffic?

infinity2• 15 years ago

But not having some form of geolocation can also add some mystery to a picture, making it more interesting in another way. But I like the idea to ask people via the internet where a certain photo was made. I have sometimes wondered where some interesting looking location, that I have seen on a photo, can be found. One problem with an internet community based solution could be copyright, if people are allowed to submit arbitrary scans of copyrighted material for identification.

Some pages were unavailable for me, server timeout error.

18pfsmt9• 15 years ago

I've had quite a good time browsing Google Maps with the photo layer turned on, while looking at remote places with which I am familiar (mostly the Colorado River and Rio Grande, but also Caribbean islands). But it would be nice to be able to pull in more 3rd party data like these photos within the maps interface.

aw3c2• 15 years ago

I have a hard time understanding its purpose. I am guessing that it is meant for people to upload pictures for which they want to find out the location?

tingletech2• 15 years ago

yes, that is basically what their FAQ says http://wherethefuckisthis.com/wtf_main/faq

ent• 15 years ago

Probably more for people who find pictures of cool places online without info of where it was taken.

melvinng• 15 years ago

lol, how ironic: "Service is unavailable"

WherethefuckisthisWEBSITE?

apu• 15 years ago

One of the recent "hot" topics in computer vision is solving this problem automatically. It was started, I think, by the IM2GPS [1] paper, and has since been taken up by many different groups.

As you might imagine, it's a very challenging problem, and at very best people seem to be getting around 30% accuracy, on easier-than-normal datasets.

[1] http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/im2gps/

albertzeyer2• 15 years ago

Automatization was the first thing I thought about when I saw this site.

Good to have some reference about some research about exactly this topic.

I also thought about http://images.google.com/ (where you can also search by image now). Some people told in some of the comments that they had success by just using that.

psb• 15 years ago

Interesting expansion of the "view from your window" series that Andrew Sullivan does. I think it would be cool to see where previous users have guessed on a google map.

spot• 15 years ago

yea they should have given credit, it's pretty much a knockoff.

liedra• 15 years ago

This looks absolutely terrible in Firefox on Bodhi (Ubuntu) Linux. I like the concept though!

slowcpu• 15 years ago

The domain name is more appropriate for a pornographic site than for a serious application.

minikomi• 15 years ago

I thought it would be crowd sourced suggestions for when you lose your keys...

45% found them on top of their toilet

20% under the bed etc.

Mz• 15 years ago

I have to agree with the criticisms of the gratuitous swearing. I swear like a sailor in person (and keep trying to tell my foul-mouthed younger son to get a better roll model than me) but I try hard most of the time to keep my online stuff "PG 13-ish". In my mind, the F word doesn't meet that standard.

HN_Addict• 15 years ago

The copyright notice blocks the links to the rest of the site for me (Latest Chrome, Mac 10.6): http://i.imgur.com/XU41V.png I'm surprised no one else reported this, so it might be a trickier bug.

joekarma• 15 years ago

I might as well point out that whether because of "fuck" or in spite of it, this website has made it to the front page.

I'd wager the commenters lobbing posts at this page in defense of their dainty sensibilities are representatives of the vocal minority. Also, they are probably advocates of profanity filters and, given free reign in a community, will murder natural discourse.

bb1990• 15 years ago

hey guys, they just launched where-is-this.com

Where the fuck is this

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