Apparently Yelp has a no-fly list

If they had the guest list beforehand, they had a responsibility to inform you of this issue before the trip. Putting you on the spot forced you into making a crappy decision either way you went with it.<p>I personally would have yanked all the students out and explained why and exactly why you were all leaving to someone in authority if this couldn't be cleared up, further that it was going to go up on the Internet, but my personal bias stems from years of being excluded from things for no obvious reason as a kid.

Hey guys! I am the student in question. As someone else said, we are all adults (in our 20's and 30's) and I wasn't hurt/isolated/crushed/etc. when our teacher didn't come with me. In fact he's a wonderful teacher and person, and instead of protesting against security (who doesn't care), he posted this, which gained a lot more attention.<p>It turns out someone causing problems at numerous Yelp events has the same name as myself and they were on the "no-fly" list. I'd say the security needs some improvement, as they couldn't tell the difference between us after checking my government-issued ID.<p>Thanks for all the discussion.

&#62; <i>But here I was, helpless. The only thing I could do was direct her to BART and join the rest of the class inside</i><p>... or pull the class out and refuse to attend it out of principle?

Why go on with the field trip at all? For all the talk about "you feel the pressure to be that authority", wouldn't the best move have been to abandon the trip and side with the student?

Yelp reviews are a big point of anger from many business owners and there's some valid security risks. However a name based policy is rather dumb.

I attended a meetup that was held at Yelp and I can confirm that entrance to the building is weirdly extra secured compared to meetups at other SF companies I've attended.

I wonder if you can pay them a fee to hide the negative security reviews of your name.

I don't understand this point:<p>"I don't hold it against the security guy, he was just following instructions."<p>Why does everybody assume that while what he's doing is awful, he's just following instructions and that he wouldn't do anything truly f'ed up.<p>I would assume that a guy who is willing to take a job that involves excluding a kid from their class field trip based wholly on that kid's name being on some magic list is the sort to be willing to do all sorts of evil stuff if ordered to.<p>I'm not saying he IS the type to do evil things if ordered, but that is the safer assumption.

Important edit to the article: <i>My students are adults, which wasn't really the point of the article (and wasn't clear). Their ridiculous exclusion policy is. As smart as kids are these days, I'm not sure a "Pinterest scaling talk" is something I'd take kids to.</i><p>A lot of people here are making some assumptions based on the idea that these were children, which is pretty interesting in itself.

I work for Yelp, and it sounds like we screwed up. Apologies that we weren't able to get this woman into the MySQL event. We're obviously reviewing our security procedures to make sure they are more sane and sensitive for next time.

I'm confused - they had a guestlist and everyone else in the class but her was on it, or none of your students were on it and they decided to exclude her personally?

Interesting information about Yelp's building security from a Scala meetup group:<p><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Scala-for-Startups/events/71726662/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/Scala-for-Startups/events/71726662/</a><p>They actually require government ID, which is a step above most building security I've encountered. Also, it says that Yelp "shares offices... in a building with security" - perhaps these stupid policies are more the building's fault than Yelp's?

this is extremely common in a lot of meetups in SF - really the only reason they want your name on the list is so if you are a crazy homeless person looking for free booze and free food with a lot of expensive ass computer shit laying around you can't just waltz in<p>also, I am in that meetup group and yesterday was <i>insane</i> email traffic w/the amount of people that couldn't follow the most simplest of advice -- "we need your name"

Go give yelp a bad review on yelp.

"But here I was, helpless. The only thing I could do was direct her to BART and join the rest of the class inside. "<p>I'm a teacher, and if this happened to one of my students on an <i>official</i> College trip (which, in the UK, would have been documented and approved in advance with a risk analysis &#38;c, and yes even for adult students) I would probably be on the phone to the principal.<p>Given they way things sound in this case, I would have had to consider options. I'm assuming the teacher in this case was also driving the transport.

Standard practice in Manhattan and Philadelphia at most office high-end office buildings. this is the world Americans live in. Yelp isn't in the business of protecting civil liberties.<p>edit: standard practice to deny entry to non-badged persons who aren't on a pre-submited event guestlist. i've seen this, for example, at every tech meetup held in a downtown office building i've ever been to in Manhattan and Philadelphia.<p>edit2: i've never actually challenged this, but i've been told that i would be denied entry if name not on list.

I don't see the issue with businesses having a list of people who should not be admitted to a building no matter who guests them in. Certainly, fires were on a list of "do not enter" in a call center I worked at years ago, to avoid reprisal. My local Yelp seems to attract a different sort of troll considering the large amount of in-person interactions of its members and the psychopathic small-business owners who can't tolerate a bad review, or a series of bad reviews that reflect their attitude. This situation seems to have worked out poorly for all involved, but the policy of exclusion isn't necessarily the problem.<p>I don't understand why they couldn't have the desk find someone in HR or other related department (whoever issues the order) to confer with regarding this particular guest.

So the teacher decided it was the best overall to let the students in, abandon the one student, it's best for him to listen to the talk (!) and go with the policy. I know it might just be me, but with this behavior I have the feeling he is supporting this policy.

I realize these decisions are hard to make on the spot, but it's important to grab everybody and pull them out on the spot. As a teacher (or me in a previous life, as a manager --- also of adults), when you disagree very strongly with the ethics of actions of others, I found it both personally and team-wise rewarding to react decisively in front of my team so they'd get the message.<p>This applies to not only strange security, but harassment, unethical behavior, and other inappropriate actions.<p>Trust me from personal experience, you'll never regret it, and as you get older, the retelling will only get _more_ enjoyable, both for you and those who were there to see you blow up. On both sides, so long as you keep it professional.

This sounds like a lazy (likely contracted) security "officer". Call the company he works for and relay this story. There simply cannot be a policy that does not account for people sharing the same name.<p>If so, then THAT'S the story here...

Ultimately, a private company should be able to ask anybody to leave their property for any reason.<p>The checks and balances against abuse of this power are basically that, if Yelp's a jerk, they get bad PR, as is happening in this case.

I hate Yelp and the Security there, worst place to organize any meetup events!

I think there is only one thing you can do: Leave a negative review about the place on Yelp.<p><a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco" rel="nofollow">http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco</a>

<i>I pressed further, and they informed me that she could not be let in because she was an "undisclosed security risk."</i><p>Y'know, it might just be some poorly-paid security drone reading blindly from some poorly articulated status message on some crappy security desk app.<p>So instead of something tactful and polite like "Not on the guest list", the applicable field got set to NULL, which bubbled up as "Reason: Unknown".

Yelp.com is blocked from my home Comcast connection in San Francisco (76.126.140.7). I just get "403 Forbidden". I assume somebody else in my neighborhood on Comcast tried to crawl the site and they denied access for the entire IP block.<p>I tried e-mailing them, no response.

You seem to think it had something to do with her name? Was it a Middle Eastern name?

As far as I can see, the problem is with the Yelp organizers, not the security. I have attended quite a few tech talks by banking and finance firms in Chicago. Quite often they're also in some of the most high-profile buildings in the United States. On the listing of their events they always say in massive font at the bottom: IF YOU'RE NOT REGISTERED YOU WON'T GET IN.<p>There's nothing wrong with this policy. The problem is that the Yelp event organizers didn't sufficiently <i>publicize</i> this policy.<p>Edit: Apparently there was a guest list, everyone's name was on it, and hers was marked as not allowed for some unknown reason? This is not clear from the article, but I gather from the comments.

"Wait here. After I get in I'll find the event organizer and clear this up."<p>Am I missing something? Why did you not do this?

tear her for her bad homework!