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Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

chriszf.posterous.com

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Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#51

Post by timr »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #10
FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #7

> But here I was, helpless. The only thing I could do was direct her to BART and join the rest of the class inside ... or pull the class out and refuse to attend it out of principle?

Yelp wasn't gaining anything by people attending. The attendees were gaining by attending (I would love to hear how Pinterest scaled). Should the whole class be punished for Yelp's stupidity? Now, if Yelp gained anything other than "they gave us a spot to meet", I would agree with you 100%. I would give them no benefit for being moronic.

"Yelp wasn't gaining anything by people attending"

Yelp doesn't host these events purely out of the goodness of its heart -- these are recruiting events. They also give Yelp employees preferential access to the speakers.

If people don't go to events at Yelp, people don't host events at Yelp.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#52

Post by mnicole »

mbateman wrote: post #13
chriszf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had another 9 students inside, and the talk was worthwhile for them. Furthermore, the problem was not with the organizers (who were generous and accommodating) or the speakers (who were similarly generous), but with the venue. Nothing would have been solved by protesting: I'm not important enough that anyone would have noticed.

You would have demonstrated that moral authority is on the side of the student who was wronged. It doesn't matter whether or not they change their policy, what matters is that you went along with excluding a student for no reason. EDIT: Sorry, this came off a bit too personally. I'm a teacher too and I got angry when I read this story. I'll just say more generically that it is easily possible (and justifiable) for a…

I don't get the teacher-blaming here.

Imagine you're a student in that class; you're stoked to see this talk, but one of your classmates can't get in. You feel terrible but you've been looking forward to this. If the teacher decides to "stick it to the man", you and 8 other of your classmates miss out and possibly become bitter towards the excluded one because of Yelp's security measures.

His having to direct her to the nearest transit might seem cold, but he was responsible for all of those students, and he was trying to offer them an experience they would grow from. I would have been incredibly bummed if I were her, but it wasn't anyone in her group's fault and they shouldn't have missed an opportunity to learn because the teacher decided he wanted to take some sort of personal, "Yeah, well I'll show you!" stand.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#53

Post by huggyface »

dustingetz wrote: post #15

Standard practice in Manhattan and Philadelphia at most office high-end office buildings. this is the world Americans live in. Yelp isn't in the business of protecting civil liberties. edit: standard practice to deny entry to non-badged persons who aren't on a pre-submited event guestlist. i've seen this, for example, at every tech meetup held in a downtown office building i've ever been to in Manhattan and Philadelp…

Standard practice in Manhattan and Philadelphia at most office high-end office buildings

Which part is standard practice? Many take any form of ID and print a badge. I have been to none that do any sort of ID check. Have you been to some that Google you?

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#55

Post by timr »

agwa wrote: post #49

Interesting information about Yelp's building security from a Scala meetup group: http://www.meetup.com/Scala-for-Startups/events/71726662/ They actually require government ID, which is a step above most building security I've encountered. Also, it says that Yelp "shares offices... in a building with security" - perhaps these stupid policies are more the building's fault than Yelp's?

Yelp has its own security team, and they do the administration of the guest list.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#56

Post by danso »

dustingetz wrote: post #15

Standard practice in Manhattan and Philadelphia at most office high-end office buildings. this is the world Americans live in. Yelp isn't in the business of protecting civil liberties. edit: standard practice to deny entry to non-badged persons who aren't on a pre-submited event guestlist. i've seen this, for example, at every tech meetup held in a downtown office building i've ever been to in Manhattan and Philadelp…

My office is in the same building as the NYC's counter-terrorism command center and is well-patrolled by uniformed and plainclothes officers.

But the check-in process is not at all stringent in the way that the OP describes. So no, this is not "standard practice."

Edit: I see you meant that "standard practice" involved a check-in on a list to get a badge. OK, no disagreement there. We'd have to hear more from the OP about the list of names sent to Yelp before the event before saying more.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#57

Post by brigade »

dfxm12 wrote: post #41
chriszf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It had everything to do with her name: she was turned away by the person with the guest list, but not by the security guy checking for fake IDs. That was the only piece of information they had. And no, she's got a down-home 'good old American' type name, if I've ever heard one.

It didn't have to do with the name in and of itself, but the fact that it wasn't on the guest list. Did you ever get to the bottom of why it wasn't on the guest list? Did you ask the security guard (or did the guard offer) to get someone with authority to rectify the situation?

I'm curious, why is everyone in the comments assuming (contrary to the article and chriszf's comments) that this student wasn't on the guest list?

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#58

Post by killerswan »

cschmidt wrote: post #19
briandear wrote: post #3

Yelp reviews are a big point of anger from many business owners and there's some valid security risks. However a name based policy is rather dumb.

I guess that is the underlying issue. Yelp is fundamentally a protection racket. "Those are some real nice reviews you have there - it would be a real shame for something to happen to them." I imagine that there are lots of business owners that would be a security risk. I wonder if Yelp people ask themselves if they might be doing something bad if people want to do them bodily harm.

Anyone hated by lots of murderous psycho control-freak business owners is probably doing some good in the world.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#59

Post by thegranderson »

justincormack wrote: post #36
dustingetz wrote: post #15

Standard practice in Manhattan and Philadelphia at most office high-end office buildings. this is the world Americans live in. Yelp isn't in the business of protecting civil liberties. edit: standard practice to deny entry to non-badged persons who aren't on a pre-submited event guestlist. i've seen this, for example, at every tech meetup held in a downtown office building i've ever been to in Manhattan and Philadelp…

Standard practise to do what exactly? Which names are banned?

It's standard practice to deny anyone who is not on the guest list or an employee. Simple as that. In my experience it's pretty easy to add people to the guest list as an employee, and the event organizer should have made sure that anyone who was missed was added live.

Re: Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

#60

Post by pyoung »

briandear wrote: post #3

Yelp reviews are a big point of anger from many business owners and there's some valid security risks. However a name based policy is rather dumb.

Although if you really think about it, what other option does yelp have. It's not like yelp is going to get the NSA to do a bunch of wiretapping, or hire sleuths to dig up the social security numbers of the irate business owners. If they think there are serious security risks, then it is prudent for them to be extra cautious, and they have to work within the means that are available to them (i.e. no NSA type stuff, just probably collecting a random list of names based on threats that they received). It sucks that the student didn't get to attend the event, but it would suck way more (from yelp's perspective) if someone managed to sneak in and destroy a bunch of stuff (or worse). I am not a huge fan of the obsession with security that has overrun our country, but I don't begrudge people for taking precautions to protect themselves.
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