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Friendster Fights Fakesters
jerkface writes "Matchmaking/personal networking site Friendster is experiencing a 'problem'. Unruly individuals like John Locke, Socrates, Alf, and many incarnations of Jesus Christ are trying to take over the site, according to SFWeekly.com. For a few months, the 'fakesters' were mostly tolerated, so long as they didn't offend anyone with the images they posted. Fakester profiles exist claiming to be famous people (alive and dead), cities, buildings, abstract concepts, and - increasingly - Friendster CEO Jon Abrams. Abrams is now saying they're all going to be deleted because they ruin the site. Fakesters argue he's stifling the full potential of the site, and many people report that 100% genuine profiles have been deleted in the recent campaigns against fakesters."
Someone pretending to be someone they are not on the interweb????!!!! Say it ain't so!! This can't be true!!
This is slashdot. People here are not interested in dating because they met a beautiful +3 half-elf on everquest. Please move to the next story.
Surely Slashdot (karma whoring, karma whoring) has shown that a self-moderating system can tolerate huge amounts of noise and still turn up valuable content.
There are several rules that a site like Friendsters has to follow to allow value to emerge and be protected:
1. No democracy: status depends on time spent in the system and behaviour, and high status gives more power. (Basically like Karma).
2. Reputation: aliases, so if you troll, people know who you are.
3. Tools for promoting good and punishing bad behaviour (like moderation).
4. Design around the social aspects of the groups, i.e. if people want to use the system a certain way, let them.
The last is a bummer when people don't do what you expect them to. But if ten million fakesters create a happy community, why not?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The next person that puts a product with a stolen naming gimmik is getting an iBullet in the Headster
Friendster is in beta right now, and in several months anyone wishing to browse profiles or send messages will have to pay $8 a month. It will still be free to make a profile for others to browse. The fee is why I'm not taking the site seriously. Friendster will end up just another dating site. I expect free open source versions to appear in its place though that could be worthwhile if they reach a level of popularity similar to Kazaa.
There's a feature on the same topic at salon
generic
I am not really an 18 year old cheerleader desperate for sex, especially with older men and particularly when my girlfriends can join in.
I am in fact a brussel sprout with time traveling capabilities.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
no wait, i guess that's all the fun.
No, you were right. It is half the fun. The other half is realizing that the "lady" is actually a 350 pound smelly Linux hippy in his mom's basement.
Then, of course, if you are Fyodor, you double your fun by hacking teh guy.
Before that happened, someone tried to post a picture of a Cardassian from Star Trek. Turned out the guy was an extra on Deep Space 9, but they still wouldn't let him post the picture in his profile.
The point being, there always has to be some regulation at a site like Friendster, otherwise it can't be used for its original purpose. I'm not going to waste time trying to track down old friends or expand my circle of friends just to get an email saying "The Brooklyn Bridge wants to meet you".
if you don't accomodate people's preferred social models, they will go somewhere else.
I think that's exactly what the Friendster people would like to happen. I've never been on Friendster, but I can respect what type of site they'ld like to run. The net is full of Anonymous Cowards. So here's a site that wants to build a community of genuine real people. For the internet, I think it's about time.
Deleting fake profiles may be more drastic of a solution, but I think the post indicating the use of a "karma" system is the best solution. Basically have a system where people can rate each other. Act like an ass, and you get an ass profile. As far as "fake" profiles go....hell, you'll never get rid of those. The internet is inherantly a place where people live an althernate/fake life. A karma system is just a means to put a value on that fake identity. Whether you're a fake or not, most people's true personalities will show through in a well implemented karma system.....but of course, this isn't always the case.
In retrospect, freedom allows one to choose their own friends. So if the Friendster people don't want fakes, then bye bye they go. Those fakes can then join Fakester and be happy there.
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When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
So what's the difference between friendster "fakesters" and real life fakesters? Think about it. In a bar there are always a few guys in there who are working it hard to be someone they're not, sometimes not even using their real names, they're often the ones surrounded by the simple-minded blondes who are attracted to their feaux persona. Same goes for friendster. Moving on, imagine if someone walked into a bar wearing a giant Oscar Meyer Weiner costume, immediately he would become the topic of conversation and a good number of people would approach him and become his "friend". This is the same thing that happens on friendster.
So maybe this phenomenon is a little more rampant because the anonymity of the internet allows people to drop a few inhibitions, but the concept is the same. Randomly deleting fakesters is a bad idea. The concept of charging for the service seems to be somewhat of a better idea. I know most of the /.ers will complain "it should be free" yadda yadda yadda, heard it all before. It would be nice if it were free, but I'm sure the folks who work for friendster would like a paycheck. Now, $8 a month seems a little high for friendster, if it were like $2, or even $5 I might consider paying for the service. Regardless, $8 a month is pretty good way to ensure the friendsters and fakesters who really serve some sort of purpose.
And just to piss of the Friendster folks...http://www.friendster.com/user.jsp?id=2339 91 last name, McGuire :).
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
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it could even be taken farther: have the software keep track of how many people have rejected your link. if it's more than 10, that's a pretty good bet that you're a fakester that can be modded down. or maybe you're just an asshole that no one likes, which is still a good reason to be modded to oblivion.
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
You have a point, but you're also missing the point just a little bit..
It's more than just people not posting their real name, it's people who aren't even TRYING to be "people"... Instead it's people who (literally) use an abstract idea and then add lists of thousands of people to their friend lists.
The problem is that this completley opposes the entire purpose of the website. The point of friendster is that if you find someone who is linked to one of your friends, and you think that you might want to meet them, you can be sure that they're a real person.. But, now, all these Fakesters come along and suddenly you have no idea who is a real person or not; all these 'people' that you're connected are in fact just random people who probably have no idea who they are anymore. Now all of a sudden the promise of knowing that you might be able to meet these real people is gone, and at that point why would you even bother going to the site, much less pay money for it?
If these fakesters are allowed to spread, friendster will end up being full of 'networks' of completely artificial individuals, and all the real people will leave because they can't FIND any real people. Eventually these fakesters will get bored; there's only so long that you can be "Pure Evil", and everyone disappears, and the site collapses.
Reading through the article I realize that these fakesters are making a huge fuss bout 'free speech' and 'censorship', using all the latest buzzwords and ideas, when in fact they are BREAKING THE RULES of the website. Friendster and it's ceo are COMPLETLEY justfied in what they are doing; they are trying to protect Friendster for the "real" people, and they are simply enforcing the rules which these fakesters are not exempt from. While I admit that they're being a bit heavy-handed about it, I see NO legitimate reason AT ALL for these fakesters to be pissed off because someone called them on the fact that they are *breaking the rules* and completely destroying the purpose of the website, which WILL eventually bring about it's destruction (who's gonna pay to add a bunch of 'jesus' and 'evil' and 'death' figured to their list?!). It's NOT a free speech issue; it's an issue of people breaking the rules in a way which they find amusing but will eventually destroy the entire system.
The fakester interviewed in the article also mentions how they're "honest about being fake", as compared to these "really fake" people who like Adam Sandler. This argument is also complete bullshit; Plenty of people in real life are 'fake' and try to be something they're not; their lifestyle is to conform, and they end up dating and finding other people who follow the same conformity lifestyle... These are *REAL* people, following a specific lifestyle. These fakesters who are admitting flouting the rules have no right at all to make judgements about people whom they consider "fake"; they are the ones who are being honest, not the fakesters.
So, to summarize; these fakesters are breaking the rules of the WEB SITE (not newspaper, not media outlet, not government agency, merely a dating website), and are using all the latest loaded terms to try and get people outraged about the fact that the website is merely enforcing it's rules. Friendster is there so you can meet people, not find nouns linked to thousands of other nouns. No one's gonna pay to link to nouns. Frienster is merely protecting itself, and looking out for the interests of it's target REAL audience, albiet in a fairly heavy handed way.
I guess it just goes to show you how screaming 'free speech' is all that it takes to get a crowd of people to ignore blatant violations of policy and actions which will result in the destruction of the entire medium anyway.
ìì!
Just like the Internet, the Free & Open Source Software community, Slashdot, Sharereactor or your average MMOG.
And like in any social network, you have the "mainstream" and the "fringe" folks.
Call them "Fakesters", "Trolls", "Leeches", "Role Players" or "PKers", the "fringe" always has a different set of values and beliefs (v&bs). Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing as they can often be very entertaining/interesting/though provoking.
However problems may arise when the v&bs of the fringe come in direct conflict with the v&bs of the community at large while, at the same time, the "mainstream" doesn't have the means to isolate itself from the behavior of the "fringe".
Friendster-the-company should have designed a way for the "Friendsters" to isolate the behavior of "Fakesters" without having to delete them. Something like the moderation system on slashdot. Maybe it's still possible to modify the social rules of this particular network and maybe it's too late and any deep change would kill it.
In any case, what this story illustrates once again is that designing software for social networks is hard.
As hard as dealing with humans can be...