Being a graduate student, I suppose it's not surprising that I'm not sure where I stand in relation to ratemyprofessors.  I think that the tenure system and the lack of emphasis that most school put on teaching (as opposed to bringing in grant money through research) has led us to a situation where there are a lot of really bad professors out there, and so I can definitely sympathize with the desire to hold profs accountable in some way (even if it's only through anonymous reviews on a website).  Having read the reviews, I would say that the wisdom of the crowds seems to work fairly well - I find that most of the comments are fair and those that aren't tend to balance each other out.

That said, I'm sure I will be horrified when I finally end up getting my own review on the site (probably inevitable, since I hope to be teaching a class or two by next year).  The credibility of the site is definitely lowered by the "hotness" rating - and the picture posting function strikes me as extremely questionable as well.  While I can sympathize with the desire to put a face to a name, it seems to me that the potential for abuse is far too ripe.

I'm not sure things will be that different with this.

For one thing, I don't know  how many people really use ratemyprofessor before picking a class, for example.  I think it's more a catharsis thing if one ends up with a lousy professor (but maybe that's just me).

For my part, at least, I can't imagine taking the time to do this.  I did take some pictures of my contracts professor last summer when he put on a cape and became Promissory Estoppel Man and put them on facebook, but that's not quite the same thing (and was less so before facebook opened itself to non-academic e-mail addresses...fuckers).

Another thing: how many professors have their pictures on their school's website?  I know most of them do at mine, at least in arts & sciences and the law school, so again, how's this different?

The YouTube phenomenon is an interesting one.  I thought seriously about doing video recordings of lectures so I could replay parts later (my MacBook has a camera built-in, so this wouldn't be hard).  I haven't talked to any of my professors about it; one last summer prohibited it because he said it would make students less likely to talk/ask questions, which I can see as legitimate.

I have to wonder, though, what the issue is with that.  I mean, if someone sees a video like that of a professor they'll never meet and has a laugh, so what?  And it's not like professors aren't talked about among their students anyway, so I'm not sure it changes that part either.

Q: What do you think of western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.