
Former reporter creates ‘Rate my Professor’ for newsrooms - hhs
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/ratemystation-valeria-sistrunk.php
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noctrine
This seems more like 'Glassdoor' targeted at newsrooms more than 'Rate my
Professor'.

The reviews and blog content seem targeted more at career professionals in the
industry than people aiming to consume channel content.

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Veen
I'd like anyone who is tempted to launch a product like this to read a couple
of books on the subject of anonymous denunciations and their consequences
throughout history, or even just a couple of Wikipedia articles.

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treme
Any in particular? Thanks

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monksy
So you've been publically Shamed.

Trust Me I'm Lying - Ryan Holiday

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yitchelle
I really hate these types of sites. It is a platform that has plenty of room
for fake news and significant of damage for innocent. Unless the rating can be
verified and be trusting, please don't do this.

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magic_beans
Abusive newsrooms with no recourse aren't exactly innocent parties. There are
still thousands of people desperate to be reporters. The newsrooms certainly
aren't being damaged by this sort of site.

~~~
manfredo
I agree that abusive newsrooms are bad. But the question remains: how do you
discriminate between genuine anonymous allegations and false anonymous
allegations? People, regardless of their positions in society, can be shitty.
Heck, for all we know, the only people writing on this site are the abusive
newsrooms themselves trying to smear their competitors - thus funneling more
people _towards_ the abusive newsrooms.

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Fomite
Given RmP is largely regarded in the field as easy to manipulate garbage that
shouldn't be used in evaluation and is profoundly biased in it's ratings, I
don't think I'd be happy for my product to be called "RmP for X".

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teej
Rate my professor isn’t for people “in the field” though? The primary audience
is students, not other teachers. That’s kinda like saying folks in the movie
industry think Rotten Tomatoes is garbage. Who cares what they think?

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Fomite
Probably for the same reason that if my restaurant rating site kept spitting
up "Taco Bell" as the best mexican restaurant in town, I probably wouldn't be
pleased.

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Tycho
Someone should make a press transparency database/site. Keep it factual: list
of a reporter’s previous articles and institutions; other affiliations; topics
they have covered repeatedly; stakeholders/owners of the institutions; co-
occurrence of the same phrases in contemporary articles by other reporters;
timing of articles compared with others on the same story; etc.

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dopylitty
The problem is bootstrapping trust. Why would I trust this proposed site more
than any random journalist? In fact I might trust it less because of how easy
it is for any shady organization to set up a defamatory site masquerading as
trustworthy and impartial.

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Tycho
Because it will use the incredible technology known as hyperlinks.

The point is to collate publically available information into an accessible
single location that will allow easy discovery of hidden agendas and conflicts
of interest. You don’t have to trust the site for anything, it’s simply a
jumping off point.

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mises
Look at what happened with Rotten Tomatoes recently and Captain Marvel.
Depending on your perspective, the site either erased ratings to erase a
viewpoint or stopped a bunch of trolling brigaders. This happens over and
over. I don't trust the opinion of the mob any more than I trust the opinion
of a news outlet.

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SolaceQuantum
Actual question and not sarcasm: Where, in your opinion, should one acquire
knowledge of current events?

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ddingus
Robust and frequent conversation.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Again, actually serious here: With who? I cannot discuss politics in the
workplace, and my peer group is focused on interests where the general culture
is against discussing the gov't's current affairs or about other current
events due to "bringing politics into it" concerns. I am also highly
introverted and do not desire to take on more social circles, as this isn't an
actual intense interest of mine. I'd just like to be kept abreast of events
when they occur, within the context of their occurence.

Actually, edit: How is this different from 'mob' news?

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brighter2morrow
Why do you want to keep track of current affairs?

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manfredo
I'm pretty surprised at this question. Why woudn't people keep track of
current affairs? Failure to do so is to be ignorant of what is happening in
the world.

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0xffff2
I've long since stopped actively following current events. My only source of
news is what percolates through from other outlets (HN, things
important/culturally relevant enough to get mentioned in Youtube videos, etc).

I would flip the question. Why would I want to keep track of current affairs?
The vast majority of the things happening in the world have no impact on my
life whatsoever. Even really big things like the Mueller report really don't
have any impact on my day-to-day life (NB: I am a US citizen).

I do research on individual ballot propositions when it comes time to vote. I
virtually always vote for third party candidates or no-one at all, but if a
political party I actually support ever gains enough prominence to have a
chance of winning I'll do my due diligence on their individual candidates too.
Aside from that, who cares?

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SolaceQuantum
I offer a few use cases:

1) If I am a person that is capable of getting pregnant and wishes to have the
option to terminate my pregnancy, it would be prudent to keep up to date on
the legislation involving that.

2) If I am a trans person or a person of LGBTQ status, it would be prudent to
keep up to date on legislation involving my healthcare needs and whether or
not I am a protected class in my state and whether or not killing me because
of my demographic is considered acceptable in certain circumstances ('gay
panic' defense).

3) If I am a police officer or related to police offers, it would be prudent
to keep up to date on legislation involving my employment or the employment
applied to others. This applies also to civil servants in general, I would
suspect, such as preparing for an upcoming gov't shutdown.

4) If I care about guns and my participation in guns or hunting, it would be
prudent to keep up to date on legislation regarding my allowance, status, and
licensing needs in accordance. This also applies if I happen to inherit a
weapon from a grandparent or similar.

5) If I care about the tax structure of my country, it would be prudent to
keep up to date on legislation regarding tax decisions, especially to keep
track of which legislative big spending budget cuts or allowances are being
made that will affect my taxes, for example the big tax return changes in
america of 2019.

6) If I am related to, depended on by, or use Schedule I or otherwise
restricted drugs legally or illegally for my medical need(pain, seizures,
anxiety, chronic illness, cancer, etc), it would be prduent to keep up to date
on legislation to understand how futures decisions will affect my access to my
medical care of choice.

7) If I use or am related to someone who uses veterans benefits, SNAP,
disability benefits, social security, medicare/medicaid, etc. it would be
prudent to keep up to date to understand legislation on how future decisions
would affect my/people I know's quality of life.

8) If I am an immigrant or am applying for legal immigrant status of any kind,
it would be important for me to keep up to date with current legislation or
direction of parties regarding my status as an immigrant and my children.

9) If I care about any of the above, say, I have relatives or friends that are
affected by any of the above and wish to support them by voting, donating, or
otherwise advocating in alliance with them, it would be important for me to
keep up to date with any of the above in order to participate demographically
in a system.

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0xffff2
As someone potentially affected by government shutdowns, my employer is
planning well in advance of it making the news.

I care about guns, but not enough to actively try to influence gun
legislation. Historically, as long as my purchases are legal at the time of
purchase, I'm almost certainly fine.

I care about taxes insofar as I pay them, but outside of when I'm actually
doing my taxes I don't really care. I do check current rates periodically when
updating my budget, but that's not a "current events" thing, it's a "make sure
my budget is accurate" thing.

I am related to someone who uses SNAP. I assume that if their benefits change
meaningfully they'll hear about it from the government agency managing those
benefits and I'll hear about it from them.

Unless I'm going to go out and try to influence legislation about any of the
above before it's passed (which I'm not), I utterly do not care about them
until they affect me, and I'm likely to find out when they do without
following the news. As I said above, I do vote and I do research the things I
vote on, but I do that right before I vote. I would never remember the odd
related news story I read 6 months prior the relates to a particular ballot
proposition anyway.

(The rest of the points you mentioned don't apply to me at all so I don't have
any opinion on whether I would feel differently about keeping up with current
events if they did.)

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SolaceQuantum
_" As I said above, I do vote and I do research the things I vote on, but I do
that right before I vote."_

This does not allow you to investigate if the people you vote for follow
through with anything you cared to vote for them for.

~~~
0xffff2
Well, the aside from one Democratic candidate for California Governor that I
voted for because the Republican candidate seemed uncommonly dangerous, the
people I vote for pretty much never get elected so that's not an issue for me.
If it was, then I don't see why I wouldn't be able to look up the voting
records of candidates before I vote for them a second time.

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tptacek
_The woman Sistrunk had come to interview was immobile, and could only
intervene by shouting at the cat: “Pickles, now, we don’t bite!” Sistrunk got
the interview, then got tested for rabies._

Can you test a living person for rabies?

~~~
noctrine
Apparently, there are several tests that can be used but no single test is
sufficient.

Source: CDC - [https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/diagnosis/animals-
humans.html](https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/diagnosis/animals-humans.html)

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mola
There's an actual solution, it's called a workers union

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rendall
I was excited when I thought this was an opportunity to rate news sources.

The site's methods for preserving anonymity while ensuring first-hand
knowledge could be useful in other similar sites.

