So your newish neighber sleeps all day and makes noise at absurd hours in the am. Of course you have shared your frustration with your family and friends, but that still leaves you feeling frustrated and needing some kind of closure. A quick search reveals that there is a user-contributed content website (lets call it ucontrib for short) called rottenneighbor.com. So you create a free account and cyberslap your new neighbor. Only to find out that this sheriffs deputy works the graveyard shift.
This hypothetical illustrates just one of a plethora of scenarios that leap to mind in which this sort of ucontrib resource can be inappropriate and even dangerous. I am not saying that I think it is a bad or unworkable idea, but sites like this, like yelp, and a growing host of others need to be viewed with a jaundiced eye.
To me, ucontrib sites of this nature, where you report against something obviously beg a few questions. The anthropologist in me cannot help but be fascinated at the questions; watching the coalescence of an organic online better business bureau (think yelp) or in this case an organic HOA… and frightened by the potential for mischief. Big brother is shifting. It is mutating into ‘little brothers.’ The most intrusive among us ARE us. And are getting rewarded for that trait.
At a more practical level, I have to ask what this will mean for real estate? Will consumers start requiring their REALTORS® to patrol resources like this prior to buying? Will practitioners find themselves forced to do so proactively to limit their liability? Will I find myself someday having to engineer a content feed to a site of this nature so that neighborhood ucontrib can be molded around MLS content? Will I and others have to someday invest as much in protecting our ‘edentity’ as we currently do protecting our ‘identity?’ Maybe. It is an interesting thought. And as the phrase goes, it is a curse to live in interesting times.
FYI you may not be able to check the site at this time, because the links from the abc news story has apparently overwhelmed their infrastructure. Perhaps I should report them on badwebsites.com.
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