Alternative Dispute Resolution By Frat Stud?
SideTaker.com might be the best example of schadenfreude ever created.
It is ostensibly a form of alternative dispute resolution for divorcing or generally unhappy couples. The concept is pretty simple. A disgruntled lover pays a $12 fee and posts his or her grievance on the website. Then he/she invites their partner to do the same. Once the two sides are online, random strangers weigh in on the dispute and vote over a 60 day period for who should prevail.
Obviously the results are not legally binding in any way (not unlike the modern day marriage certificate).
Legal Blog Watch reports that the site’s creators think they are doing some sort of service for the benefit of these couples:
Some are just, but far too many divorces, break ups, and separations happen over non-critical disputes. Over 50% of American marriages end in divorce. In a fight, each person has their side and are usually backed by their friends (on either side). When you can create a jury of anonymous peers to decide who is right or wrong in an argument, then the bias is gone and the person at fault will just have to suck it up.
I can’t imagine hating a woman enough to subject our relationship to the scathing critique of anonymous commenters. I think it’d be more humane just to throw some arsenic in the morning coffee and be done with it.
Wisdom from Side Taker’s “jury” after the jump.
Not surprisingly, marriage mediators do not immediately see the site’s value:
Mediation works not by telling one party or the other to “suck it up,” but by helping both parties find common ground.
But why strive (and pay) for common ground when any old person can clearly see obvious points like the ones already available on Side Taker:
Forget that stupid woman. She must have some serious mental issues. It sounds like she gets around a lot.Or:
She has every right to hate you for what you did…but that doesn’t make her right for it. Things happen for a reason.
O brave new world, that has such people in’t.
With the Web, Who Needs Mediation? [Legal Blog Watch]
She Destroyed Me After 3 Years Together [Side Taker]
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Comments
First!
Wow, what a horrible idea.
Hahahahaha. I will be frequenting this site.
Guys at my high school posted on sidetaker.com and they sucked, and so does EVERY OTHER FRAT STUD POSTING EVER.
Should be called sideofbeeftaker so Judge Halverson could resolve her marital cooking issues.
Guys in my high school used to viciously mediate each other's disputes in public all the time. It was such a big deal that this one girl ate a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
The problem with this is that the side who best articulates their grievance will get a huge advantage. Thus rather than make their case on their own, each party should hire a lawyer to write their side of the story. For that reason the service is far more expensive than $12, or not very useful.
Isn't this basically blogging? In which case, 12 bucks for an audience ain't a bad deal.
This isn't a bad idea. Anonymous commentators are likely to be more neutral and their comments will allow the couples to see themselves more clearly.
I didn't think the concept _could_ exist, but this is a poor man's Jerry Springer. New. Low.
Yet another failure of a post from the esteemed EIC here.
Arsenic in the coffee...thats the best you can come up with? FOR SHAME.
This will just suck money out of people's pockets without providing a valuable service. So it'll probably be a winner.
Elie,
You earn your living by surfing the web and this is the *best* that you can give me mid-afternoon on a Monday in the first full week of September?
Suck.
This site will definitely prove the old internet adage:
normal person + anonymity + audience => total fuckwad
14, that's not an "old internet adage." That's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Credit where credit is due.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
uh, 14, i think ATL has proven that adage. see, eg, anything to do with halverson or TTT schools
Elie to first degree murder!
"his or her" is bullshit Elie. If you want to take a stand against sexist pronouns do it in a non-sexist way, otherwise just use "his." The default ordering principal is alphabetical, so a non-sexist phrasing would be "her or his." Putting the male pronoun first is considered sexism, not just habitual. It's also more cumbersome. But you would know that; you're a writer.
Dude, 18, I don't know what default rule you go by, I just order them whichever way sounds the best. Often it seems to flow in reverse alphabetical order, if anything. "Tom and Jerry", for instance, sounds better than "Jerry and Tom", while "Alicia and Mariah" sounds better than "Mariah and Alicia", though "Whitney and Cher" sounds better than "Cher and Whitney".
18: are you serious? You have beef with "his" appearing before "hers"? If so, I am in utter shock that I even have to tell you what a total asshole you are.
Wow, these "correcting grammar and typo" losers were annoying, but 18 is in a new league of her/his own.
Wow, if the front lines of feminism have now advanced to the ordering of pronouns, we as a society must be near the promised land of total equality!!!! Because it does not get much more meaningless than that. It is not even symbolic, it is just totally and completely worthless.
“I can't imagine hating a woman enough to subject our relationship to the scathing critique of anonymous commenters.”—maybe. But remember this Your Tube video where a VERY angry wife trashed her soon to be ex in this YouTube video. (By the way we never had sex……)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_WKxqQF2o
Best website ever.
Seems like a lame-ripoff of www.whoiswrong.com which has been out for years
18, you're retarded, right? His and her, objectively, is easier to say. the hard "s"and "d" allow an easy transition between "I" and "a" and between "n" and "e." "Her and his" requires the awkward "r" to "a" transition.
I hope you're just a troll and aren't really this angry/retarded.
This post should have had 100 comments easily. I feel cheated. What gives?
Sidetaker is the best website ever made, ever!