Show HN: Yelp for Cops | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Yelp for Cops

copscore.org

20 pointsarionhardison17 comments

Love this idea. I think it should be able to do three things, and have a map interface to navigate those things. 1: u should be able to tell who are bad cops and who are the best cops in a given department 2: u should be able to tell which are the best/ most highly rated police depts and which are the worst 3: u should be able to analyze this by race, gender and maybe age of the reviewer. That way we can answer the question: which are the best/model police depts from the perspective of black youth. That would be invaluable to the current movement.

Love to talk more abt these of ur interested. @samswey

1: working on map now, should be done by Tues.

2: this will be the key for color coding the map.

3: doing this next week.

I like the idea, but not the execution. I'd like to be able to just browse by state, etc... without having to know so many details to look up reviews. Kind of like when I go look on yelp for restaurants I don't need to know the cooks name at the restaurant to be able to find it.

Also, I have the feeling that if this ever gained any traction it would be abused with fake reviews, both positive and negative.

> Also, I have the feeling that if this ever gained any traction it would be abused with fake reviews, both positive and negative.

This is why I require badge number to rate an officer and also why I don't just let people browse by state etc...

But then it won't get any traction, kind of a catch 22.

It could be that ppl submit a picture of the officer and the police dept, civilian review board or the developer tries to match to a namebadge number. In NYC, the civilian review board almost always identifies the officer involved in a complaint even when no name or badge number is provided.

Requiring a valid badge number might encourage only negative posts. I personally haven't demanded a badge number unless I'm displeased.

I think there may be many instances where someone has something to say and do not know this piece of information.

Maybe you can accept different details if this number is not known?

Example profile: http://billings-police-dept.copscore.org/police_officers/gra...

I have made some updates

- Added a 5 stars page to highlight the good cops

- Added a high profile page to show the high profile cops

- Adding a community organizer user type

- Added login for police departments

- Redid post verification process

- Completed API for iOS app

I am pushing more updates tonight and tomorrow.

This is certainly illegal here in Brazil. And if it isn't right now it will be right after someone launches a tool like that.

Why is it illegal? All of the information is public.

see: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

I hope this attracts both positive and negative reviews of police officers.

Given the nature of the example profile, which lists nothing but stories about an alleged killing by the officer profiled, and the option on the submit form calling the post title and url 'evidence' (suggesting the user is reporting a crime) and a badge number (also suggesting the user is reporting a crime, because no one asks for a badge number if they're happy about the way the cops have treated them) I would assume this site is not intended to present cops in an impartial light, or at least, that it's intended to favor negative reviews over positive ones.

Which could still be a valuable service either way. I hope it does get both positive and negative reviews. I see the tragedy of the commons dragging it down into the mire pretty quick, though.

I put the badge number there because I did not want people posting fake reviews, I wanted only people that had actual interaction with the Cop to be able to vote.

As for the word "evidence" I did not see that as having a negative connotation; which is why the example tag is 'awesome' and not something bad.

Also, currently there are more positive cop reviews on the site than negative.

>Also, currently there are more positive cop reviews on the site than negative.

Fair enough. Where can we see a more typical example? Because the one you posted was pretty unfavorable.

I'm not sure that would stop fake reviews though unless somehow you're validating these badge numbers somehow to make sure they match the name posted, etc...

Im validating badge numbers to make sure they match the name and police department listed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com