Now don’t get me wrong, I am very much in favour of completely open social networks, with the ability to connect with strangers, meet new people and make new friends. But I don’t like the idea of this new social site called Unvarnished. The site is still in beta but is already very controversial and many people see trouble ahead. Unvarnished allows employees to rate co-workers and professionals in the workplace – for better or for worse.
You can be reviewed anonymously and it cannot be removed. Suppose you had a gripe with a co-worker, you can login using your facebook account, create a profile for your co-worker, add comments, give them a rating and generally give vent to your feelings. Your name is kept anonymous and the site aggregates reviews resulting in a star rating. Now if you always see the best in people, you could say the better people will gain an enhanced reputation and the bad people a poor reputation. But not everybody reveals their better nature.
What if your co-worker is spiteful, vindictive, nasty or just hates you for no good reason? I’m afraid there are people like that. Or what if they decide to play a prank or practical joke. Only it’s not so funny if a potential employer sees it and decides they don’t want to offer you a job after all. I think this site can have the potential to be unpleasant. And I agree with the many people who have commented saying they can see trouble ahead.
The site owners say unvarnished has controls in the system to prevent people from simply trashing their co-workers. All users must login through their facebook account, abusive comments are likely to be removed and the site is closed to anyone under the age of 21. But they cannot distinguish between a bad review because they are doing a bad job and an unpleasant or upsetting comment, which may be unwarranted or unfair.
Used responsibly, it could be a useful site, but not everyone behaves responsibly.
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I think unvarnished is more about professional reviews and they review anything mean-spirited. http://www.dirtyphonebook.com is the one thats more about joking with people about mean-spirited stuff, it looks like.
I think it could be useful though.