

Ask HN: Help in handling dangerous users who report fake data? - cryptoz

We have a feature in PressureNet that lets users self-report the weather conditions. This will send a notification to all the nearby users telling them what that weather is like. This is pretty neat when you get a notification that says &quot;Thunderstorm 2k East&quot; and then a few minutes later you get a thunderstorm.<p>However, we have some users who are reporting Tornados, Wildfires and Floods in downtown Vancouver. This means that all our Vancouver users get notified of a Tornado nearby.<p>We&#x27;re going to eventually build a reputation system so that these won&#x27;t be trusted and notifications won&#x27;t be delivered. But that&#x27;s going to be a fair bit of work and we won&#x27;t be ready to ship that for months.<p>In the mean time, we have a situation where lots of people are being notified of fake dangerous weather through our app - is this a legal problem for us? Or just a trust problem? What&#x27;s the best mechanism to deal with this in the short-term?<p>I think a Confirm&#x2F;Deny button on each weather condition would help (if 2+ people Deny then it goes away). But that still doesn&#x27;t stop the initial notification from going out (and it clutters the UI).<p>Have you solved similar problems? Any ideas on how we can best deal with this? Thanks!<p>Here&#x27;s the app: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork
======
edoceo
In a similar situation with user data. I wait for three user reports for the
same thing in a limited time. Three reports from the same area in 10min =
condition is real. Adjust as necessary

