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Comment by dustingetz | Hacker News Reader

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 Philadelphia.

edit2: i've never actually challenged this, but i've been told that i would be denied entry if name not on list.

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That's kind of a silly comment. Obviously entering a building is not a civil liberty; private buildings have the right to enforce security policies. That doesn't mean Yelp shouldn't be held accountable when their security policies are really, really dumb.

I've never been denied entry to buildings in NY & Philly. In this situation, the front desk has always called the people I was visiting to confirm that I was a guest.

I've never been turned away without recourse...

What makes you think her name wasn't on the list?

All three office buildings I've working in during the past 5 years would not let you leave the lobby unless you are escorted by a person from the company you are going to visit. The escort also has to have escort rights.

That is different than an escort coming down to the lobby and saying, "ok you, you and you can come up. You over there have to leave the building". That is something I have never seen happen.

Edit: all three have had metal detectors and airport style scanners, really annoying getting stuck in the security line if you forgot your badge and were running late.

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.

The person banned was on the guest list.

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.

> Yelp isn't in the business of protecting civil liberties.

Why yes! Why would a company built on freedom of expression, freedom of association, and net neutrality care about civil liberties?

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?

It's a private office, they can exclude whoever the fuck they want for any reason they want. They can also use any criteria they want.

Don't like it ? Too fucking bad.

What a useless comment. Beside having nothing to do with the comment it is in response to, it completely misses the point that while what they did is of course legal, we can still find it inappropriate and complain about it.

I believe that we're also free to publicly shame them for having and enforcing idiotic policies.

The only reason that your statement makes sense is if you disagree with me on that. Otherwise, your comment just amounts to "they don't have to listen to you," which should be implicit to everyone here.

If you do feel that we aren't allowed to publicly shame them, then I'd invite you to expand on that idea.

The unnecessary, inflammatory coarseness of your language hasn't helped you present this alternative point of view.

This is really not normal.

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