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In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

washingtonpost.com

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Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#31

Post by ameister14 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #19
linkingday wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, a state where the police/government has a monopoly on violence is the dystopia. and we already live in it. giving citizens a way to speak up about potential abuses is in no way harmful

> a state where the police/government has a monopoly on violence is the dystopia “State“ or “government“ is just whoever, taken together, has a monopoly on legitimate violence in a particular (usually geographically bounded) context. So, apparently, dystopia is universal.

> "Whoever, taken together, has a monopoly on legitimate violence in a particular context"

Are you sure that's the definition of "state" or "government?" I don't think it is.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#32

Post by daenz »

not2b wrote: post #28
daenz wrote: post #12

I think their heart is in the right place (officers should have direct and transparent reputations to people). But in order to implement this "correctly", you need to go one step further into a dangerous territory: the ratings that an officer receives should be weighted by the rating of the person who rated them. Absolute scumbags shouldn't be able to hurt reputations in quite the same way as upstanding people. If yo…

Who is a scumbag? Some police officers decide that some people are reputable citizens and others are scumbags based on prejudice, and arguments like yours are a great way to dismiss any criticism of them.

The very same argument could be made about rating police officers. Also, we shouldn't pretend that scumbags don't exist, they do, as both citizens and police. If you're going to cast doubt on the existence of scumbags in citizens, but not police, you're showing your own prejudice.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#33

Post by aksss »

jandrese wrote: post #5
cato_the_elder wrote: post #2

It's Black Mirror already.

I'm not sure I agree. If they are rating these public servants on their service to the public that would be within the scope of a job review. Or think of it as one of those "how was your service today" questionnaires you get sometimes. This isn't about policing someone's personal life. But on the other hand, Yelp reviews are already problematic and extending them to civil servants probably doesn't help the situation.

I think the down-board view is that Uber’s rating works because the drivers also review the riders. Are police able to rate the people (I hate saying citizens because police are “just” citizens too.)? Will this still work “like Uber” with only one side of the transaction doing the rating? What happens when police rate people? Who views this score? Is it a precursor to dating someone? Hiring someone? This is where it starts to resemble black mirror.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#34

Post by Teever »

daenz wrote: post #12

I think their heart is in the right place (officers should have direct and transparent reputations to people). But in order to implement this "correctly", you need to go one step further into a dangerous territory: the ratings that an officer receives should be weighted by the rating of the person who rated them. Absolute scumbags shouldn't be able to hurt reputations in quite the same way as upstanding people. If yo…

I think that is definitely something that we could look to address in the future but I think that the priority right now should be to crack down on police malfeasance.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#35

Post by adventured »

not2b wrote: post #28
daenz wrote: post #12

I think their heart is in the right place (officers should have direct and transparent reputations to people). But in order to implement this "correctly", you need to go one step further into a dangerous territory: the ratings that an officer receives should be weighted by the rating of the person who rated them. Absolute scumbags shouldn't be able to hurt reputations in quite the same way as upstanding people. If yo…

Who is a scumbag? Some police officers decide that some people are reputable citizens and others are scumbags based on prejudice, and arguments like yours are a great way to dismiss any criticism of them.

> Who is a scumbag?

And that's why these systems will never work very well.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#37

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

jandrese wrote: post #5
cato_the_elder wrote: post #2

It's Black Mirror already.

I'm not sure I agree. If they are rating these public servants on their service to the public that would be within the scope of a job review. Or think of it as one of those "how was your service today" questionnaires you get sometimes. This isn't about policing someone's personal life. But on the other hand, Yelp reviews are already problematic and extending them to civil servants probably doesn't help the situation.

An interaction with police is usually an inherently negative experience.

There are plenty of people that would rate an officer 0/5 for giving them a speeding ticket regardless of how pleasant and polite they were. In fact, a police officer giving a speeding ticket with a smile on their face would come off as extremely condescending and feel like they're doing it as a power move asserting their authority.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#39

Post by throwntoday »

I used to live in Warrenton, the police there and in all of Virginia are absolute bottom of the barrel trash. I have never come across a more hostile, self-involved, power tripping force anywhere in the world with the exception of China. Virginia's police departments make California look good.

Re: In a small Virginia town, citizens review police like Uber drivers

#40

Post by e40 »

daenz wrote: post #12

I think their heart is in the right place (officers should have direct and transparent reputations to people). But in order to implement this "correctly", you need to go one step further into a dangerous territory: the ratings that an officer receives should be weighted by the rating of the person who rated them. Absolute scumbags shouldn't be able to hurt reputations in quite the same way as upstanding people. If yo…

I agree, in larger populations there will be trolls that just hate all cops.
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