Comment by wsdrdsw
4 years ago
With real names, faces are just one google search away for most people (and we could debate further what would it mean if a face wasn't found).
Functionally the website would be a wasteland of white sameness without portraits, no way around that I think.
I'm not entirely convinced this service solves the linkedin pitfall of mingling jumphoppers racking up impressive paper stats and polluting the signal.
You can’t really stop people from finding your face online if it’s on social media, but you can present the information so that you’d first read the text and then see a photo.
Move the photo on the profile to the bottom of it, and make it optional.
> With real names, faces are just one google search away for most people
> You can’t really stop people from finding your face online if it’s on social media
Hey, some of us worked pretty hard for this to not be true, so at the very least the photo should be optional. I’m blessed with a common first and last name and outside of my HN username I am pretty un-Googlable. Someone very motivated could probably find an old photo of me or two but it’s not universally true that everyone’s photo is a simple search away.
Others aren't exactly common, but I spent a good bit of time a while back removing my own information from the public internet. It's not easy removing yourself from all the Spokeo clones, but most of them have some way to do so, or at least remove the information from the public.
I agree - like only show a persons face AFTER you’ve connected somehow (I agree we’re hardwired to recognize faces - but I don’t want to try to recognize all the people as I’m browsing etc. - but when they become part of my Rolodex, then I wanna recognize their faces)
> With real names, faces are just one google search away for most people (and we could debate further what would it mean if a face wasn't found).
But it becomes an added hassle for those people, thus making it UX hostile for stalkers. Who is actually going to Google each and every other name on somebody else's collaborator list? Some determined stalkers I guess, but they are not going to be deterred anyways.
On the point of faces not being found, as a counterexample, some of my former MDs did not put pics in their LinkedIn. Yet people in the industry knew them by name, even if they weren't rockstar investors or something. Having heard someone's name from other sources such as word of mouth or from newspaper articles is a much better signal than using names to recognize them.
> With real names
Most people reviewing CVs don't need to see the real names. It'd be great to have a CV service that could render the CV either with or with out them.
Also, maybe I'm the only one, but I'm starting to experience a bit of 'mindfulness' fatigue. Seems like it's mindlessly being added to everything regardless of whether it makes any sense or not, so I dislike 'Mindful professional profiles' as a subhead.
Wasteland of white sameness? That's a funny way of saying simple and uncluttered.
> mingling jumphoppers racking up impressive paper stats
What does this mean?
Social media obsessed people who are great at clicking buttons and getting followers but add no value to the network. They only fill up a feed with noise.
what did I just read
mask the photo and the name. use regional locale detection and user choice to make fake names for everyone, use GAN to create fake profile pictures.
> regional locale detection and user choice to make fake names
Presumably you're talking about locale detection of the hiring company/reviewer rather than locale detection of the CV submitter.
I really like the idea, although practically it's probably not a good one in small companies where people are likely to actually work with the person whose CV they're reviewing.
I would say stick to placeholders that are obviously placeholders in order to avoid confusion. And obviously there are some people who do need to see the real names, so give them a clear deanonymise step.