

Review our new social game, theWorldChat: Chat using your FB pic.  - rebelvc
http://theworldchat.com

======
sync
Too bad it's not actually anonymous at all.

You can easily identify anyone by viewing the source of their FB pic. For
example:

    
    
      http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs444.snc4/48985_665523839_4409_q.jpg
    

profile ID is 665523839, which you can plug in to see all their details:
<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665523839>

~~~
rebelvc
Haha yep. Anyone know of a way to hide that? We might have to save the pic
from fb. That would be a pain though.

~~~
blhack
It shouldn't be too much of a pain to do. I do something like this on
<http://thingist.com> (Not caching facebook photos, caching the randomly
generated 3x3 pictures that it gives you if you don't connect with facebook
[the script to generate the pictures is expensive])

The python to do it would look something like this:

def cache_fb_photo(fb_uid,cache_name):

    
    
         import urllib
         import time
    
         request = urllib.urlopen("https://graph.facebook.com/%s/picture" % (fb_uid))
    
         photo = request.read()
    
         photo_location = "/path/to/photo/cache/cache_name"
         cached_photo = open(photo_location, "w")
         cached_photo.write(photo)
         cached_photo.close()
    
    

This may or may not violate facebook's ToS. Obviously it would take more than
this to actually put it into production, but this would kindof work.

------
mdolon
While the site itself is interesting, I don't like that it posted a message to
my Facebook wall without asking or telling me. (I know I gave it permission to
but still, I'd like to be notified before that occurs)

~~~
MeProtozoan
This is against the API rules of Facebook, remove it asap.

~~~
blhack
What part of the Tos? The app is explicitly asking you for permission to post
things to your wall.

------
f1gm3nt
This isn't a game, there are no game mechanics built into this. All you do is
click the 'Next' or 'Accept' buttons. People will obviously only accept chats
with people with an interesting or attractive profile image.

Another issue I find is that I am unable to 'chat' with anyone. It makes me
feel like you site is padding with bots that don't speak back to you. They
just sit there.

I don't see this site 'blowing' up or even becoming that cool. My
recommendation is not to quit your day job. Use your skills on another web
site.

~~~
f1gm3nt
Really? What separates you from chat roulette besides one is video and one is
text? What is suppose to keep my coming back to your app? There is no value to
this IMHO, others may fell different, but don't ask for a review and then down
vote the honest ones. After all, I didn't make another account to post a
comment and upvote comments that benefit this post.

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ig1
Flagged, given it posts on your wall without permission and is misleading
about anonymity, I think this post should be removed to stop other HNers using
it until those issues are fixed.

------
bonzhai
The site will be great once it reaches critical mass traffic!

~~~
blhack
This account was registered two hours ago and has never made a submission or a
comment other than this one.

Charles (person that submitted this), if you want people to check out your
app, fine, awesome. They're doing that right now. I think people are offering
constructive criticism about it.

Blatantly registering puppet accounts to try and get your site onto the front-
page is just bad form.

~~~
bonzhai
Charles didn't create the bonzhai account. My name is Alan! This is my
account.

------
rebelvc
Do you think this has potential? It just launched so the number of people
chatting is not quite there yet.

~~~
sespindola
I think this has more potential than chatroulette due to its lack of
anonymity.

The fact that users can be (at least partially) identified by their facebook
profiles, should prevent predatorial behaviour.

I would include a three strike policy where your users could denounce rude and
abusive behaviour, and after 3 complaints, the accused could be banned from
using the application.

~~~
kin
Be careful and smart about that 3 strike policy. Remember the ability to
"warn" back on AIM? It got really annoying. How are you going to keep people
from abusing this 3 strike system?

Also, identification of a Facebook profile does not necessarily prevent
predatorial behavior. It doesn't promote it, sure, but anyone can make a
believable fake profile.

More potential than chatroulette is a bold claim considering they came first.
Despite that, your app does have potential, and personally, I would use it, at
least the concept of it. Right now it's not very usable. It rotates through
like 5 people and they're not necessarily 'there'.

