PersonRatings.com

March 29, 2009 6:28 PM

PersonRatings.com lets you rate and review millions of Americans. Anyone can post a profile and anyone can leave a comment. It's like Hot or Not for the new Web 2.0! Except, in what seems guaranteed to result in an eventual lawsuit, there is apparently no way to opt out. Here's the profile for PersonRatings CEO Jeremy Stamper. (via)
posted by 6550 (63 comments total)

This is hilarious, is what this is. I'm almost tempted to make a profile for myself.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:34 PM on March 29, 2009

This is the most instantly funny piece of satire I've seen in awhile. The dumb name alone is enough to make me smile.

It is satire, right?
posted by mr_roboto at 6:40 PM on March 29, 2009

what
posted by exlotuseater at 6:41 PM on March 29, 2009

Jeremy Stamper 02/12/2009 10:05 AM
Replying to:
> If you're trying to get people to let you live in their mansion, you might want to
> improve your "trustworthy" score. you can live in my soon-to-be-foreclosed ghetto
> shack.

How long 'til foreclosure

And a class act to boot. This will end well.
posted by ardgedee at 6:41 PM on March 29, 2009

Hah. This will definitely make the world a better place.
posted by delmoi at 6:42 PM on March 29, 2009

Apparently MensRoomWall.com was already taken. Too bad, since that's almost certainly what this will devolve into.

For a laugh, check out what mensroomwall.com redirects to (don't worry, it's completely SFW).
posted by jedicus at 6:43 PM on March 29, 2009

who would have guessed that hot or not was a high point?
posted by doobiedoo at 6:44 PM on March 29, 2009 [8 favorites]

Damn, there's no "rate all" function
posted by mattoxic at 6:49 PM on March 29, 2009 [10 favorites]

I like that one of their advertisers is datemate, which invites users to run background checks on prospective dating partners.
posted by delmoi at 6:57 PM on March 29, 2009

I can't wait till 4chan finds this
posted by einer at 6:57 PM on March 29, 2009 [8 favorites]

I wonder why Anonymous feels the need to ask the same first question in each profile?
posted by gman at 6:58 PM on March 29, 2009 [2 favorites]

This is hilarious, is what this is. I'm almost tempted to make a profile for myself.
Don't worry, I'll create your profile for you.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2009 [6 favorites]

God, I would honestly pay money for their VC powerpoint pitch, I bet it'd be comedy gold.
posted by amuseDetachment at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2009

Dear people who make bad websites: for image thumbnails, scale, then crop.
posted by tmcw at 6:59 PM on March 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

Dude's got a great moustache.
posted by gman at 7:01 PM on March 29, 2009

personratings.com: your favorite person sucks
posted by pyramid termite at 7:01 PM on March 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Interesting that all people in their list need to reside in a U.S. State. I just added Bilbo Baggins and put him in West Virginia because, well, why not?
posted by adamrice at 7:04 PM on March 29, 2009 [3 favorites]

Also interesting is the fact that through Bush's page, I can:

a) Run background check on George bush
b) Locate George bush
posted by gman at 7:05 PM on March 29, 2009

And a class act to boot. This will end well.

It gets even better:

Jeremy Stamper 03/29/2009 06:54 PM
Replying to:
>Oh god... wait till the 4chan btards find this... it's gonna be f'ing epic...

DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS

He really is a class act.
posted by 6550 at 7:07 PM on March 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

6550: "No Registration Required" means that there are no unique UserIDs. No unique user ids, means you can post as whomever you want, even though someone else may have used it in the past. Even the CEO.

Comedy gold. I've seen better websites shit out by high-schoolers.
posted by amuseDetachment at 7:09 PM on March 29, 2009

Anonymous 02/17/2009 05:09 AM
Anybody know anything about Balljuice McPeachy from Agawam MASSACHUSETTS ?

This is great.
posted by cj_ at 7:33 PM on March 29, 2009

This says a lot about Web 2.0
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 7:35 PM on March 29, 2009

I always thought that the Internet made it too difficult for people to get drunk and submit strongly worded reviews of their exes. At last, a Web 2.0 solution!
posted by Countess Elena at 7:45 PM on March 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

Who ever know there are so many Mike Hunts?
posted by overhauser at 7:48 PM on March 29, 2009

This says a lot about Web 2.0

No, this does.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 7:51 PM on March 29, 2009

I meant knew. Der.
posted by overhauser at 7:52 PM on March 29, 2009

> This says a lot about Web 2.0

This is an odd mix of Web 2.0 and earlier. It uses tables for layout and CSS for styling. Dreamweaver's shinkwrapped Javascripts, some dating back years, for presentation behaviors and jQuery for selected AJAX.

Web 2.0 is defined by AJAX, which among other things is a way for you to send a small amount of data to the server (in this case, a vote) and the server to update your page appropriately (in this case, the number of stars) without needing to reload the whole page (and the time and bandwidth wait that entails).

But a traditional form submission occurs with every vote, meaning the whole page has to be reloaded when you vote, requiring queries to the database to recall ten vote values, nine of which were exactly the same as before the form was submitted. Despite this it queries the server on the fly to determine whether you're qualified to vote. It's almost like it's optimized for the wrong efficiencies, and with no consideration for security aside from a trivial, handwavy concern with spoofing identities or votes.
posted by ardgedee at 7:59 PM on March 29, 2009 [4 favorites]

I thought Web 2.0 was defined by cutesy names with missing vowels.
posted by ryanrs at 8:03 PM on March 29, 2009

PersnRatngs.com is still available.
posted by erniepan at 8:07 PM on March 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

You know who else liked this site?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:22 PM on March 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think one of my nephews might be up there. No ratings yet.
posted by maxwelton at 8:26 PM on March 29, 2009

This makes me crave a Vorlon-like cleanse of every human who has ever been touched by the Internet.
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:18 PM on March 29, 2009

This is why the word "shenanigans" was invented. SHENANIGANS!
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:43 PM on March 29, 2009

This deserves to be consigned to the hellish existence of the facebook application.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 11:00 PM on March 29, 2009

You know who else liked this site?

Awesome. There's a link named "Wrong Adolph Hitler?", in case the one from Berlin, Georgia isn't him; and then Adolf Hitler (you know, the bad one) currently isn't defined.
posted by kurumi at 11:14 PM on March 29, 2009

AAA+ Human, Would Converse With Again!!!1
posted by Cosmic at 11:24 PM on March 29, 2009

This could either turn into a brilliant thing or total poop. Can we set up a profile for the site itself?
posted by From Bklyn at 12:28 AM on March 30, 2009

There, done.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:30 AM on March 30, 2009

This guy Matthew Haughey has some good ratings.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:09 AM on March 30, 2009

So when my teacher said, 'This will be a black mark on your personal record...'
posted by jfrancis at 2:52 AM on March 30, 2009

Wanna see what this is about...? look to the left, find "remove web results".... there's the money...
posted by HuronBob at 3:18 AM on March 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

well spotted, HuronBob.

it also helped me put two & two together on something unrelated that i was researching for fun.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:45 AM on March 30, 2009

I've seen impressive websites and stupid websites. This is an impressively stupid website.
posted by jamstigator at 4:16 AM on March 30, 2009

@HuronBob's find -

That's pretty despicable. Not just lame, but shitty.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:30 AM on March 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Reputation Defender, when googled, has as the third link a post about them which is not flattering. Interesting.
posted by Lemurrhea at 4:41 AM on March 30, 2009

In the interest of not giving these jerks anymore traffic, I'm going to just spell out HuronBob's discovery a little more explicitly:

When you look at an individual's profile on the site, there's a link that says "remove web results". Clicking on that link takes you to ReputationDefender.com.
posted by CRM114 at 5:32 AM on March 30, 2009

I mis-read this post scrolling by and thought it was about something called PrisonRatings.com. That would be much more interesting. And, apparently, far less larcenous.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:52 AM on March 30, 2009

And when you go to ReputationDefender.com, there's a link that says "Destroy someone's reputation."
posted by box at 6:10 AM on March 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

That's what you get, Americans and your silly meritocracy.

I keed I keed
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:19 AM on March 30, 2009

Hey guys, I think we should give up on civilization now and quit while we're ahead. This can only lead to tears.
posted by The Whelk at 6:26 AM on March 30, 2009

I'm almost tempted to make a profile for myself.

I could not resist that temptation. Gave myself a five star sexy rating.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:41 AM on March 30, 2009

That's all it is? A crummy commercial?!
Sonofabitch!
posted by Spatch at 6:56 AM on March 30, 2009

I thought Web 2.0 was defined by cutesy names with missing vowels.

You forgot Glossy surfaces, flash objects, excessive use of gradients, cliche minimalism, rounded corners and alpha levels on everything set to about 80 percent.

So yeah. Everything thats not metafilter.
posted by 5imian at 7:18 AM on March 30, 2009

Mtfltr 2.0
posted by notswedish at 7:48 AM on March 30, 2009

Wow, this ReputationDefender link is pretty insidious. Seems like it warrants a noisebomb of some sort to render this thing harmless. I'm gonna post it in /b/ when I get home and it's safe to go to that sort of place. I suspect the SA goons might be interestarded in this kinda thing as well.
posted by butterstick at 8:00 AM on March 30, 2009

Reputation Defender, when googled, has as the third link a post about them which is not flattering. Interesting.

Yeah, it's pretty well established that Reputation Defender is a scam. I think there was a MeFi discussion about it awhille ago.

So, is Person Ratings officially connected to Reputation Defender, or is it just using a referral code to get money? Either way, annoying.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:00 AM on March 30, 2009

UbuRoivas: "This guy Matthew Haughey has some good ratings."

From the page:

Matthew Haughey is known as a fearless leader among Mefites. He has admitted under pressure that he has had to purchase specialty lenses for his glasses to protect the world at large from the devastating power of his one perfect eye (known as Eye Prime)

Oh God, that last part always cracks me up. It's from the wiki, btw, originally added by schmegegge.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:12 AM on March 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

The only known picture of Mefi Citadel
posted by lukemeister at 11:07 AM on March 30, 2009

shmegegge, rather
posted by Rhaomi at 11:36 AM on March 30, 2009

Once you get past the microcelebrities and the wrong Hitlers, most of PersonRatings's profile appear to be random teenagers that haven't been rated yet. It's like they built their database by lifting profiles from another, teen-oriented, site. So either they're data-scrapers, or they have a side-deal with some third-rate social networking site.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to play "follow the money" today. Maybe somebody else can figure it out.
posted by faster than a speeding bulette at 12:36 PM on March 30, 2009

Harvey Pitnik.
posted by jeremy b at 12:53 PM on March 30, 2009

Once you get past the microcelebrities and the wrong Hitlers

That's screaming out for "Metafilter:" treatment.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:13 PM on March 30, 2009

The globe and mail gets it pretty much right on the nose regarding this site, although they don't examine the ReputationDefender stuff.
posted by Lemurrhea at 2:58 PM on April 3, 2009