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Friend or Foe - Tool for finding pro-2A businesses

rpyne

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2007
Messages
1,072
Location
Provo, Utah, USA
imported post

This is a great application. I have added about 30 places so far.

It appears that once a business is listed, there is no way to update, add or subtract to the score, or add more comments. These would be valuable features as there are occasions where businesses change their stand or add to the bad experiences.

There is also a need to be able to add businesses and their addresses as not all of them are found in Google.
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
imported post

rpyne wrote:
This is a great application. I have added about 30 places so far.

It appears that once a business is listed, there is no way to update, add or subtract to the score, or add more comments. These would be valuable features as there are occasions where businesses change their stand or add to the bad experiences.

There is also a need to be able to add businesses and their addresses as not all of them are found in Google.

Thanks for using the site!

Currently, you can't edit a rating, but if you add a new rating to the same business, the overall score will be raised or lowered. I'm working on a method to let you edit your reviews, but I don't want to require user accounts, so it will be like craigslist where you enter your email and get a link to edit the review later.

If a business changes policy (like the Fuddruckers did in Richmond here for a few days), let me know and I can reset the counter manually as well.

I can manually add businesses for now if you want to email or PM me the info. That will be coming as well, but I don't want it to be overused, as the google database is generally accurate.
 

rmansu2

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Messages
325
Location
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
imported post

How would you add a rating to an already rated business. I don't see a readily available way to do this. Do you have to "Add a new buisness" and rate it that way or is there something I am missing?
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
imported post

Yes, it will append a rating if the business already exists, so just use the "Add New" link.

I'm working on getting rid of that add page entirely and just adding a rating from the main search page...but I've not had time to finish the updates yet.
 

rmansu2

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2009
Messages
325
Location
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
imported post

bnkrazy wrote:
Yes, it will append a rating if the business already exists, so just use the "Add New" link.

I'm working on getting rid of that add page entirely and just adding a rating from the main search page...but I've not had time to finish the updates yet.
Thanks
 

BJA

Campaign Veteran
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
503
Location
SOuth Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
imported post

Pretty cool will be sure to add roundy's superstores on there. We seem to have trouble with them changing their policy to NOT allow weapons in their store.... And to think I was once an employee of theres. :uhoh:



Ben
 

rpyne

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2007
Messages
1,072
Location
Provo, Utah, USA
imported post

Is there something wrong with friendorfoe.us? The past several additions I have submitted are not showing up. When I submit the rating it says it was successful but when I search on the locale, the new additions are not included.

It is a great tool, but I don't want to continue to promote it if it doesn't work.
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
imported post

rpyne wrote:
Is there something wrong with friendorfoe.us? The past several additions I have submitted are not showing up. When I submit the rating it says it was successful but when I search on the locale, the new additions are not included.

It is a great tool, but I don't want to continue to promote it if it doesn't work.
I moved the site to a new server and the add function was adding the new items to the old database. I've sync'd the two so everything should show up now. I'll do a nightly sync until I have a few minutes to point the add page to the new database.

You won't loose any additions, but they won't show up immediately until I make the change.

Thanks for the heads up.
 

MatieA

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2009
Messages
400
Location
Egbert, Wyoming, USA
imported post

I gave some businesses ratings, but also noticed then whenever I input Warren, Pa I got Warren, Oh. I was able to get around this but it was annoying.
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
imported post

MatieA wrote:
I gave some businesses ratings, but also noticed then whenever I input Warren, Pa I got Warren, Oh. I was able to get around this but it was annoying.

Yeah, sometimes the Google results come back a bit off, but you can use a ZIP code to center as well if you have to. Works the same way.

I'm going to eventually get around to letting you just drag and center the map and then save wherever you stop as the search area, but that's a bit more involved and I haven't had a chance to implement it yet.
 

Statesman

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
948
Location
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
imported post

Good idea.

I would suggest a few things.

1) First, add in a field describing the level of verification has been done to determine a business is OC/Pro 2-A friendly.

a1) Casual: Walked in OCing, but nobody seemed to care or notice.
b) Employee: Employees that worked there saw me OC, but had no issues.
c) Manager: Manager verified OC was ok with him.

Obviously, we all want #3, but knowing the reason how a user arrived at his or her conclusion for entering the business on the map would help people in determining if they want to OC there.

2) Also, how do you plan on dealing with the potential for sabotage of your data? What prevents anyone from changing a positive to a negative, or vice versa? What if someone lists a number of businesses that isn't 2A-friendly, as 2A-friendly, in order to make your data untrusted by those who use it?

Obviously, this is where logins, email registrations, and recording of IP addresses would be useful to counter abuse.

3) Classify the businesses under the related product or service market the customer is looking for, such as restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc.
 

bnkrazy

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
404
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
imported post

Statesman wrote:
Good idea.

I would suggest a few things.

1) First, add in a field describing the level of verification has been done to determine a business is OC/Pro 2-A friendly.

a1) Casual: Walked in OCing, but nobody seemed to care or notice.
b) Employee: Employees that worked there saw me OC, but had no issues.
c) Manager: Manager verified OC was ok with him.

Obviously, we all want #3, but knowing the reason how a user arrived at his or her conclusion for entering the business on the map would help people in determining if they want to OC there.

2) Also, how do you plan on dealing with the potential for sabotage of your data? What prevents anyone from changing a positive to a negative, or vice versa? What if someone lists a number of businesses that isn't 2A-friendly, as 2A-friendly, in order to make your data untrusted by those who use it?

Obviously, this is where logins, email registrations, and recording of IP addresses would be useful to counter abuse.

3) Classify the businesses under the related product or service market the customer is looking for, such as restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc.
Good points. I have plans to expand the feature set for those that feel like signing up or at least providing an email address, but I like the simplicity of not having to to post a review.

I do have methods of countering abuse, but so far it has not been an issue. The displayed rating is calculated based on the total reviews for a particular establishment (pos, neutral or neg). So, if a place gets three good reviews, one negative won't change the status. Negatives are weighted more for the time being, as I wanted anti-businesses to have to work a bit to get rid of their old rating, but that may be changed in the future.

I do want to classify the business types, and that will be in a future update.

Regarding the level of verification, I agree it would be nice to know. I don't however want to encourage folks to start asking the mgmt if OC is OK. While I would love to know for a surety if the mgmt supports OC, I don't want to cause them to be put on the spot to decide if they will allow OC and possibly ban it where they otherwise would not care about a handful of folks OCing from time to time. The only time this would be helpful is if an establishment already bans OC, and then they are talked into allowing it, or if the mgr mentions support for the 2A on their own volition.

I'm always open to ideas to make the site better, so I'll revisit these and others when I get some time for the next update.

Thanks!
 

BigJohnT

New member
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
1
Location
, ,
imported post

carry.on.org

?? Domain name ??
:)
Sort of a double meaning.
Anything like that would be easy to remember and pass on during regular conversation.
 
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