Failin.gs • Hacker News Board

thorax wrote: post #20

In the old days of LiveJournal (decade ago) there was some brutal honesty meme which was supposed to be 100% anonymous. I made like 50 (exaggeration) different surveys and then made 50 different "private" posts of the link to each individual friend. Of course to everyone it looked just like a friends-only link and they assumed everybody was going to the same anonymous /aggregated survey. I told them all pretty quickl…

No sneakiness here! While we track visitors and users in order to look out for abuse, this data is not and will not be made available to profile users.

Re: Failin.gs

#25

Post by shawn7400 » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 1:52 AM UTC

This place is turning into Digg.

Re: Failin.gs

#26

Post by stephencelis » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 1:54 AM UTC

Batsu wrote: post #6

dwohlfahrt wrote: post #3

this site straight up weirds me out... that's all i got

Agreed. It's strange to try to put a positive spin on everyone's shortcomings.

Well, it's certainly not for everyone, but shortcomings are only shortcomings as long as you agree with them and don't care to work on them.

Re: Failin.gs

#27

Post by stephencelis » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 1:59 AM UTC

I helped co-create this site and was surprised to find it linked here. It started as a fun project with a friend: a humorous idea that, as the attention it's gotten has shown, is apparently controversial, as well.

I have to say, though, that what's surprised me most about its reception is that anonymity doesn't make users as vicious as many might think. I've been pleased with how many "failings" posted are sweet compliments; playful inside jokes; and well-worded, well-meaning suggestions.

If anyone would like to try it out, I've made a promo code, "HACKERNEWS". We'd love any suggestions and/or feedback.

Re: Failin.gs

#28

Post by euroclydon » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 2:01 AM UTC

Well, I guess it's official, people have lost the capacity for introspection.

Re: Failin.gs

#29

Post by stephencelis » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 2:02 AM UTC

lqdshadow wrote: post #4

transmit101 wrote: post #2

Many peoples' personal weakpoint: Listening too much to what other people think about them. This website has all the attributes to become a viral Facebook/Twitter hit, and it's clearly been designed to achieve this. But why not give it a miss, and focus on what you're doing in your life instead of on what other people think of you. Especially when they don't even have the courage to say it to your face.

If the general internet public liked amihotornot.com, they will probably like this site. On the other hand, I think its only flaws are the absence of pictures and easy buttons and the login requirement. Fewer people want to take the time to actually type something out, and it is as likely they have already posted their opinion of someone in twitter if they are going to type it at all. With the login requirement, it i…

The site is in very, very early beta. It's a side-project with a friend, but we're trying to work on features as we can. Facebook Connect and Twitter OAuth are high on the list, but so far, users have had enough of an attention span to meet our requirements :)

Re: Failin.gs

#30

Post by stephencelis » Fri, Feb 19, 2010, 2:03 AM UTC

tarouter wrote: post #9

I love the idea. It's very good for people who can take criticism. It's up to you after all which criticism to ignore and which to take seriously. It should be made easier for other to post opinions about you by integrating this into some famous application (e.g. facebook app, blog widget, etc).

There's JavaScript embed code for blogs, and links for tweeting and posting to Facebook, but we agree, and we'll be working (as we find time) on better integration with other services.