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Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

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131–140 of 307 posts

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#132
A few years back, Facebook and others were banning People with the name Isis. Anyone with more than two brain cells who had spent some time studying the humanities would not have made that mistake. I'd think that people who write code and design algorithms would at least be aware of the concept of overloading, too.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#133
post #16

Besides the humor of how Lyft's filter flagged traditionally Caucasian names like "Cummings" – in addition to the usual issues with non-Western names, e.g. Pimpong and Poon – I'm fascinated/confused how this made it into production? The user database already exists and was currently being used by the live application. Before deploying this new filter onto the production database, wouldn't you do a dry run to get not…

https://deadspin.com/life-aint-easy-for-a-basketball-player-...

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#134
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this directly relate to “Christian” values? Could “Islamic” values be applied? Afterall, the Prophet Mohammed made his opposition to crude language clear in the Hadith. Follow up: Also appears there are some misgiving regarding crude language within the Hindu religion as well. [0] [0]: https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?...

Ok, let's call that puritan values of abrahamic religions.

>> Also appears there are some misgiving regarding crude language within the Hindu religion as well.

> Ok, let's call that puritan values of abrahamic religions.

Opposition to bad language is a feature of every society with more than one social class, which is all civilized societies and a lot of uncivilized ones.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#136
What about the Wangs, Coxes and Butts of the world. That's a significant portion of the population Lyft is shutting out.

Also, is it really "the algorithm" or does Lyft just maintain a list of entries of banned names? I know "the algorithm" is the hip new thing, but I have my suspicion it's the latter.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#137
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're just words. You can always turn the TV off. See also: https://youtu.be/78OevDyH7-Y?t=187

I'm not offended by words. I was just talking about other people. Some people are offended by words, some are apparently offended by others being offended.

> I'm not offended by words

Then why defend people who are offended by words? That's their problem, not yours.

> some are apparently offended by others being offended.

O_o

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#138
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polite language is secular. Where do you get this religious connotation from?

Forbidding a name like Cummings because it is not "polite" is neither secular or logical. Also in non-Catholic Christian countries sex and nudity are not a big deal (example: Germany), so you are partially right: not a Christian connotation, just particular forms of it.

> Also in non-Catholic Christian countries sex and nudity are not a big deal (example: Germany)

Example: the United States.

Oh wait, that one goes the other way.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the major card networks except for American Express validate cardholder name. The Address Verification Service (AVS) also only validates numeric values (so if your address is 123 Main Street, 123 Maple Ave will return a matching response)

Having worked around payments, I can guarantee you that card networks do check the Card Holder name. Better yet, they can match against first name, last name and middle name to adjust the risk rating of individual transactions. Albeit, this is rarely used to block payments, because if they stopped payments when customers didn't put their middle name the exact way it's written on their card, nobody would be able to pa…

There is no error code that denotes invalid name. Sure the banks gateway fraud detection can decline auth(most don’t), but there would be no way to communicate back to the merchant that the customers needs to check the spelling of the name. I’ve also never seen it when I ran technology at a e-commerce startup that did millions of transactions of month.

Re: Lyft’s algorithm is trying to block people with names like ‘Dick’ and ‘Cummings’

#140
post #135

Not being from the US originally, I always found it very strange that someone would name their child Dick... what's the reasoning? Not a good reason to block them though...

That would be rare; the child would usually be named Richard and nicknamed Dick.

It's not clear to me why Dick is the standard nickname for Richard.

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