humans are evil people

ghost · 10-07-2008, 08:34 PM

So my app was approved yesterday, and it is called Story Chain. basically it's a collaborative story-writing app. I decided to give it away free for the first two days. So today, the first full day, I look at the collaborative stories and see that they are all full of vulgar words a disgusting imagery (no story at all).
I've received ten reviews all basically saying "brilliant idea, but too many curse words!"
So I decided to take down the app, add a bit of word filtering, and reupload it (so its linked to a different server). It's a huge pain, all because humans are just mean people.
Any advice on how to avoid stuff like this?
My new version is also going to be $1.99. I think people downloaded it because it was free, submitted a single sentence of curse words (the first thing that comes to mind) and yah...

skinrock · 10-07-2008, 08:37 PM

An idea like that would benefit from the way wikipedia works, trusted collaboration among people that appreciate the resource. Allow them to approve submissions or edit them, or delete them, and they can enjoy it. Possibly a login system where you create an account after installing the app, and if you find abuse, delete their account...and they would have to resinstall it and create an account.

It sucks, but you hit the nail on the head, people suck.

cmezak · 10-07-2008, 08:46 PM

I have also had the idea to do something like this. I thought it might be cool to, instead of allowing users to choose whichever words they want, have users vote on what the next word should be. You could allow users to nominate words or you could have a pool of words automatically selected somehow. A new vote every hour would keep users glued to the app.

Damn. Maybe I should do this myself! Naw, I have no time as it is. My own app needs work!

Good luck!

- Charlie

nerdhappy · 10-07-2008, 08:51 PM

Quote:

I thought it might be cool to, instead of allowing users to choose whichever words they want, have users vote on what the next word should be. You could allow users to nominate words or you could have a pool of words automatically selected somehow. A new vote every hour would keep users glued to the app.

Or a new sentence every day, with a vote to decide. Cmon ghost! Update that app!

ghost · 10-07-2008, 09:01 PM

Thanks for your support

I like the user accounts idea...
Part of the problem was that I couldn't just update my app or change the price. If I did, those who downloaded it when it was free would still be able to post s*** (at least I star stuff out when I want to use an expletive

).
So I took down my app and submitted a whole new one. 7 days more of waiting

Oh and I didn't want Apple to get mad at me... I'm sure many people who got that app complained to Apple (it had come online last night at 9pm... yesterdays daily report showed 125 downloads... If I had left it online today I'm sure it would have been 1k+ people)

**Chris Stewart** · 10-07-2008, 09:33 PM

Really sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately these are things that developers will need to take into consideration when creating applications. It's unfortunate and it shouldn't happen, but it's the nature of the Internet I guess.

PhoneyDeveloper · 10-07-2008, 11:05 PM

HL Mencken said

Quote:

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002

Sounds like you might go broke overestimating the American people.

You should go with it. Have different stories: G, PG, R, X rated. Let people choose for themselves what they want to see.

Kenrik · 10-07-2008, 11:26 PM

^ haha I bet the X rated would be the most popular.

PhoneyDeveloper · 10-07-2008, 11:49 PM

Quote:

haha I bet the X rated would be the most popular.

Maybe at your house

I think that in many ways Apple is agnostic on this issue. They certainly don't want the reputation of the iPhone to be as a porn device or to have the scent of smut waft around their device. However, I don't think there's anything preventing you from watching porn on MobileSafari, or so I'm told

I've been thinking that PornoTube or iPorn would be the biggest selling app on the phone. 99 cents times a few million sounds pretty good to me. Except of course that Apple would never allow it to be sold on the appstore because it would be single purpose, as opposed to MobileSafari, which is multi-purpose. Some porno web site that wanted to have a viewer specifically for their site, only to be usable by registered users of the site most likely has no way of distributing their app. I suppose I don't really know that. Perhaps Apple could be convinced to have an adult section of the appstore. Nah, who am I kidding? It'll never happen.

Kenrik · 10-08-2008, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhoneyDeveloper

Maybe at your house

I think that in many ways Apple is agnostic on this issue. They certainly don't want the reputation of the iPhone to be as a porn device or to have the scent of smut waft around their device. However, I don't think there's anything preventing you from watching porn on MobileSafari, or so I'm told

I've been thinking that PornoTube or iPorn would be the biggest selling app on the phone. 99 cents times a few million sounds pretty good to me. Except of course that Apple would never allow it to be sold on the appstore because it would be single purpose, as opposed to MobileSafari, which is multi-purpose. Some porno web site that wanted to have a viewer specifically for their site, only to be usable by registered users of the site most likely has no way of distributing their app. I suppose I don't really know that. Perhaps Apple could be convinced to have an adult section of the appstore. Nah, who am I kidding? It'll never happen.

If they did we could make millions!