Anonymous discussion forum

• US 9,584,526 B2
• Filed: 11/13/2015
• Issued: 02/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Glassdoor, Inc. (Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: BetterCompany, Inc. (Daily Muse, Inc.)
• Inventors: Williams, Thomas Joseph Lloyd, Putney, Colin Walpole, Lukins, Caroline, Amin, Omar
• Primary Examiner(s): Chai, Longbit
• Application Number:
  US14/941,117
• Publication Number:
  US 20160294836A1
• Time in Patent Office: 473 Days
• Field of Search: 726/4
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for enabling anonymous posting of content, e.g., over a network (e.g., the internet). In some instances, users may inform a system of various attributes of the user, for example, job title, skills, and/or interests. The system may group similar users together. In some cases, users grouped together can see messages posted by the other users in the group in an anonymous discussion forum. In other cases, users grouped together can have other users in the group presented to them as potential options of users to follow, e.g., as part of an anonymous social media platform. In some implementations, users can identify particular user subsets to view posted content.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

performing by one or more computers;

identifying a first group of users of a plurality of users wherein each of the users in the first group has a respective likeness score in relation to a first user that satisfies a threshold, and wherein each user of the first group is permitted to send anonymous messages through a respective account to the first user;

identifying a plurality of anonymous messages received in an account of the first user, each anonymous message having been authored by a respective user of the first group and, via a user interface, including a selectable icon for the first user to provide a positive response to the anonymous message and a different selectable icon for the first user to provide a negative response to the anonymous message; and

in response to receiving a user input of the first user with a selection of the icon indicating the negative response to a particular anonymous message, removing an author of the particular anonymous message from the first group such that the author is no longer permitted to send anonymous messages to the first user through the account of the author.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after removal of the author from the first group, determining respective likeness scores of one or more particular users in relation to the first user and, based thereon, adding the particular users to the first group or removing the particular users from the first group.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein removing the particular users from the first group further comprises:

determining that respective likeness scores of the particular users no longer satisfy the threshold and, based thereon, removing the particular users from the first group such that the removed particular users are no longer permitted to send messages to the first user through their respective accounts.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein adding the particular users to the first group further comprises:

determining that a second group of one or more of the plurality of users have respective likeness scores that satisfy the threshold after removal of the author from the first group; and

adding the second group of users to the first group of users such that each user of the second group is permitted to send anonymous messages through a respective account to the first user.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the respective likeness scores of the particular users in relation to the first user, comprises:

identifying one or more discriminating attributes;

obtaining a weighted vector of attributes for the first user and for each of the particular users;

adjusting a respective weight of the discriminating attributes in each of the vectors; and

calculating the respective likeness score of each of the particular users as a difference between the weighted vector of attributes of the particular user and the weighted vector of attributes of the first user.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein identifying one or more discriminating attributes comprises identifying one or more discriminating attributes of the author.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein identifying the discriminating attribute comprises clustering the plurality of users based on respective attributes of the users to identify the discriminating attributes that influence cluster membership.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein clustering comprises:

for different pairs of users of the plurality of users, calculating a respective distance between the users of the pair based on the respective attributes of the users in the pair; and

clustering users based on the distances.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein a particular attribute comprises one or more respective anonymous answers, submitted through respective accounts of the particular users to one or more questions submitted through the account of the first user.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein a particular attribute comprises a profession, a company, time of employment, location of employment, or an attribute that is unrelated to employment.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein a particular attribute comprises a respective positive response to an anonymous message through an account of a user.

12. A system comprising:

one or more computers programmed to perform operations comprising;

identifying a first group of users of a plurality of users wherein each of the users in the first group has a respective likeness score in relation to a first user that satisfies a threshold, and wherein each user of the first group is permitted to send anonymous messages through a respective account to the first user;

identifying a plurality of anonymous messages received in an account of the first user, each anonymous message having been authored by a respective user of the first group and, via a user interface, including a selectable icon for the first user to provide a positive response to the anonymous message and a different selectable icon for the first user to provide a negative response to the anonymous message; and

in response to receiving a user input of the first user with a selection of the icon indicating the negative response to a particular anonymous message, removing an author of the particular anonymous message from the first group such that the author is no longer permitted to send anonymous messages to the first user through the account of the author.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise:

after removal of the author from the first group, determining respective likeness scores of one or more particular users in relation to the first user and, based thereon, adding the particular users to the first group or removing the particular users from the first group.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein removing the particular users from the first group further comprises:

determining that respective likeness scores of the particular users no longer satisfy the threshold and, based thereon, removing the particular users from the first group such that the removed particular users are no longer permitted to send messages to the first user through their respective accounts.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein adding the particular users to the first group further comprises:

determining that a second group of one or more of the plurality of users have respective likeness scores that satisfy the threshold after removal of the author from the first group; and

adding the second group of users to the first group of users such that each user of the second group is permitted to send anonymous messages through a respective account to the first user.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein determining the respective likeness scores of the particular users in relation to the first user, comprises:

identifying one or more discriminating attributes;

obtaining a weighted vector of attributes for the first user and for each of the particular users;

adjusting a respective weight of the discriminating attributes in each of the vectors; and

calculating the respective likeness score of each of the particular users as a difference between the weighted vector of attributes of the particular user and the weighted vector of attributes of the first user.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein identifying one or more discriminating attributes comprises identifying one or more discriminating attributes of the author.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein identifying the discriminating attribute comprises clustering the plurality of users based on respective attributes of the users to identify the discriminating attributes that influence cluster membership.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein clustering comprises:

for different pairs of users of the plurality of users, calculating a respective distance between the users of the pair based on the respective attributes of the users in the pair; and

clustering users based on the distances.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein a particular attribute comprises one or more respective anonymous answers, submitted through respective accounts of the particular users to one or more questions submitted through the account the first user.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein a particular attribute comprises a profession, a company, time of employment, location of employment, or an attribute that is unrelated to employment.

22. The system of claim 16, wherein a particular attribute comprises respective positive response to an anonymous message through an account of a user.