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[ptarmigan]

Advisors are in positions of power over us. Think about it. An advisor having a problem with a student and a student having a problem with an advisor are not equivalent situations.

No doubt true.

However, what the OP is advocating is using a grad student/adviser version of ratemyprofessor. Rather than going to the trouble of creating a Web site and adding some fake posts, I suggest a better route is to address the differences directly with the adviser, even if this creates some risk for the advisee.

And for the record, if a grad student asked me what it was like to work with my adviser, I would give him or her an honest assessment based on my experience, as I would hope my grad students would do about working with me.

Oh, I totally agree about the OP, and argued against it already.  I would tell someone else in my program what it was like to work with my advisor, but I wouldn't put it in writing, and I would have to have a little bit of trust in the person to go beyond generalities (for instance, I might say, "It's extremely important to him that you meet deadlines," but I wouldn't say, "He goes absolutely bats*** if any single thing doesn't go according to plan even in the slightest way" unless I trusted the person very much).

(Please note that, as I do not have an advisor, all examples are hypothetical, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.)

[lyndonparker]

Eventually someone is going to post something extremely negative, possibly defamatory about a faculty member who is going to come after you with a pitbull lawyer.  Is this really how you want to spend your energy and time during your graduate studies?   But perhaps you've already done your research about how your own anonymity could never possibly be exposed as the creator of that website and how you will never be legally liable for what has been posted.  Good luck with that.

OP, there is a reason why RMP is a site for undergraduates.  This is a very "undergraduate" way of responding to a very common experience in academia.  Guess what?  You're going to meet people in your field who don't like you or respect your work or don't treat you fairly -- in your view.  Get over it.  The fact that you have spent any time at all on this enterprise does not bode well for your future in this profession.

See, I think this gets it right. Some advisors are wrong for some students. If it happens that you are not getting what you need from your advisor, then it is time to switch.

[sheepdog_working]

There already is a web database that provides accurate and reliable information about advisors.  It's called Dissertation Abstracts.  You can search Dissertation Abstracts by advisor and get a complete list of the dissertations that person directed.  Then you can google the names and see exactly who got tenure-track jobs, and where.  That's what grad students most need to know.

[advunc]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have a question for you guys:

I am thinking of changing the website to instead of asking to write a post, to basically asking to answer simple questions with "yes" or "no" answers, rating your advisor from 1 to 10 in some qualities and maybe even choosing some adjectives that describe you advisor from checkboxes. Do you think you would be more inclined to rate your advisor?

Thanks a lot for all the feedback

[laurel_knx]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have a question for you guys:

I am thinking of changing the website to instead of asking to write a post, to basically asking to answer simple questions with "yes" or "no" answers, rating your advisor from 1 to 10 in some qualities and maybe even choosing some adjectives that describe you advisor from checkboxes. Do you think you would be more inclined to rate your advisor?

Thanks a lot for all the feedback

Rating scales might be better, especially if they focused on working/advising styles rather than whether you like the person or not. Then you could assess fit for yourself.

But you still run into a serious issue of anonymity. Most faculty in my grad department only had a few students each, so the timing of your ratings would make it fairly easy to identify a few suspects. However, if the students were rating mostly on objective dimensions and not free to personally attack the profs and describe bad interactions, it would be less obvious who was writing it.

[msparticularity]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have a question for you guys:

I am thinking of changing the website to instead of asking to write a post, to basically asking to answer simple questions with "yes" or "no" answers, rating your advisor from 1 to 10 in some qualities and maybe even choosing some adjectives that describe you advisor from checkboxes. Do you think you would be more inclined to rate your advisor?

Thanks a lot for all the feedback

Rating scales might be better, especially if they focused on working/advising styles rather than whether you like the person or not. Then you could assess fit for yourself.

But you still run into a serious issue of anonymity. Most faculty in my grad department only had a few students each, so the timing of your ratings would make it fairly easy to identify a few suspects. However, if the students were rating mostly on objective dimensions and not free to personally attack the profs and describe bad interactions, it would be less obvious who was writing it.

A more neutral but potentially quite informative approach would be to collect data about: numbers of advisees, number of graduate degrees completed (and which degrees), time to degree for those people, and placements.

I mention time to degree because there was someone in my old master's department who was absolutely notorious as an advisor because very often his incredibly well-prepared grad students just never quite seemed to be able to finish. He always had just a few more books they really needed to take a quick look at before they took comps/finished and defended the prospectus/finished and defended the thesis or dissertation. He is a fabulous and well-respected scholar and an outstanding human being, but the independence and drive required to actually finish a degree under him is considerable.

Stuff like this is important to know, but without the appearance of nastiness or dismissal of scholarly capabilities and overall mentoring abilities.

[tuxedo_cat]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually have a question for you guys:

I am thinking of changing the website to instead of asking to write a post, to basically asking to answer simple questions with "yes" or "no" answers, rating your advisor from 1 to 10 in some qualities and maybe even choosing some adjectives that describe you advisor from checkboxes. Do you think you would be more inclined to rate your advisor?

Thanks a lot for all the feedback

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a Big Meanie, I'm going to say it (partly because there are actually fora rules against simply posting here to promote a website, commercial or not):

I'm not convinced that you actually are a grad student.  You seem entirely uninterested in getting advice about how to develop your graduate career, and interested solely in getting feedback about designing your horse-hockey website.  Your latest new brilliant idea about how to make this website "useful" counts as further evidence of this in my book.

I'm saying this partly because many people here are spending time trying to offer you genuine advice about what you *should* be concerned about, if indeed you are a graduate student:  how to build a productive relationship with key mentors in your field.  So if you're not, scram and stop wasting everybody's time.

[imawakenow]

Ok, at the risk of sounding like a Big Meanie, I'm going to say it (partly because there are actually fora rules against simply posting here to promote a website, commercial or not):

I'm not convinced that you actually are a grad student.  You seem entirely uninterested in getting advice about how to develop your graduate career, and interested solely in getting feedback about designing your horse-hockey website.  Your latest new brilliant idea about how to make this website "useful" counts as further evidence of this in my book.

I'm saying this partly because many people here are spending time trying to offer you genuine advice about what you *should* be concerned about, if indeed you are a graduate student:  how to build a productive relationship with key mentors in your field.  So if you're not, scram and stop wasting everybody's time.

This.

OP: If you want advice on how to find a good adviser, how to switch advisers, how to recognize a "bad" adviser, etc., I suggest starting a new thread.

If you want help designing your Web site, pay a group of graduate students to be your focus group.