Ideas and concepts for dating sites
From Internet Personals
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[edit] Problems - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_dating
The main problem with most online dating services is that many profiles are not actually real persons. It has become a habit of some companies to plant "fake" profiles that are in reality advertisements to other sites or...in some cases a lure to get the person to continue the service after he has cancelled by receiving a message from a supposedly interested person. There are however, free dating sites that users do not have to pay for to use and reply to messages. While it does not stop persons from posting "fake or ad" profiles it at least ensures that all contacts will be free to message and reply.
In addition, many services contain quantitative profile options that engender misrepresentations. Members of online dating sites are not trusting the descriptions of their fellow members. There have been numerous studies on customer satisfaction with online dating sites and the lack of trust with other members is the most overwhelming concern. According to Keynote, 61% of customers are concerned that members are misrepresenting themselves. Unfortunately, the members of online dating sites have little control with the way they are represented due to the limited options offered through descriptions and characteristics. [[1]]
[edit] Problems - Discussion
Dating websites have a number of general design problems:
- Any website which charges a fee for use gives the general impression that anyone on it would be sub-par, insofar as they must pay in order to find a date.
- Actuallly the conventional wisdom is that fees provide a way to ensure that members are serious. Nyarlathotep
- But in the same argumentation this conventional wisdom doesn't apply for female entries. On the most sites, female members dont must pay money or show there id cards, so that there is no "female control". This is why much of the female entries in comercial and free sites are unfortunately fakes (mostly bad jokes from males for other males).Ingmar
- In the conventional wisdom are people without money not contained, also seniors and handicapped people - but all the people are a part of our society and have the same longing for love as young, ealthy, well-to-do people.Ingmar
- The singles are everywhere and widely scattered on hundreds or thausands of commercial and free dating sites. To view all the singles in a region, maybe a town, a single would have to get a membership on each of this many websites all over the world. This is why widely scattered singles on many websites are not efficient for serarching singles. (Note for this: "The seek to amalgamate the free dating sites in europe is unfortunately miserably failed" wrote me a dating sites expert.) Ingmar
- Today singles have only a off chance to improve the software and features of commercial and free dating sites according to there wishes.Ingmar
- Any website which attempts to incorporate quircky features such as social networking (ie. friendster.com) or quizes (ie. okcupid.com) while attracting a higher 'quantity' of users will often attract users of an overall lower 'quality', because many may be on the site drawn by the extra features with no intention to actually engage in dating.
[edit] Asymetric heterosexual site
Men and women don't think the same about relationships, so a heterosexual dating site shouldn't treat them the same. Instead, one should use our understanding of male and female behavior to optimise the sites success rate.
Why not have a dating sight where all communication had to be initiated by women? Some data shows that female initiated contact on dating sites has a much higher success rate. I'd expect this to generalize to any metric of success.
For males, it solves the traditional problems of women just looking for attention online, or getting so much attention that they become unrealistically picky. Plus, males are more likely to be objective and acurate about physical requirements, and to value such requirments highly, i.e. the site does not need men to continually email every girl, it can just assume he would give any match a try.
For females, the specific males she chooses must take her more seriously, and gains her more acurate information. Normal male strategy consists of writing mails to every girl the site says lives in his postcode, trying his best to taylor each mail to her interests. But now he has only one letter, his ad plus various quiz respionces, which is seen by every girl. Women can likely glean more information when males put more work into such things.
One could also provide a forum where women can discuss the males placing ads.
-- Nyarlathotep 21:20, 26 Aug 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Userbox dating system
What if Wikipedia userboxes were to be used as profile tools? People could profile almost every aspect of themselves via userboxes, as I've done on Wikipedia:User:Seahen. They'd still be permitted and encouraged to put paragraph-form text and photos on their user pages, but userboxes would become the main focus. Why? Because they'd be machine-readable. Yes, with some programmers' help, we could actually turn this into a free, open-source automated matchmaking service!
First, someone would have to batch-copy over all boxes, their icons, associated category pages and the userbox directory pages. Then, we could build userbase if we could post to Wikipedia's discussion fora and encourage Wikipedians to create twin accounts and copy over their user pages. If they did so, they would be building userbase real fast.
When a user was searching for matches, they would run an open-source script that someone would put up on a Web page for the purpose. Because of the scripting involved, this would probably have to be either a special page or non-wiki. To run the script and be considered by it, they would have to have a minimal basic set of userboxes specifying: gender, age, sexual orientation, city or region of residence and type of relationship sought. Also, the script must ensure that userboxes did not contradict one another, particularly in these basic areas.
If they had all the requisite userboxes, they could enter their search criteria (e.g. date must identify as heterosexual, must be between 25 and 30 years old, must be en-3 or higher, must live in Ontario, must not be blocked, must not be an Aspie, must have made 50 or more edits in English main namespace). They would also have options about what general characteristics to consider (astrological sign? favourite colour? food preferences?). Then, the script would search eligible User pages (whose wikicode it would have downloaded, and converted into a more usable database form, earlier that day) and generate a compatibility score for each result. Then, it would output a ranked list of links, with the most likely matches at the top. It would also display a thumbnail of the first non-userbox image on each page listed, if there was one. (This would be where users would put their main photo; due to the limited resolution on a results list, head-to-toes would be discouraged.) The open-source nature would mean that those dissatisfied with their results could make or request improvements.
Finally, the searcher would follow these links, read the user pages, and decide whether each one was interesting. He or she would then post to the user talk page of the object of his or her affections, then add it to his or her watchlist. If no reply was forthcoming, he or she could use Special:Emailuser. Boilerplate greetings would be available for this purpose, as would boilerplate replies of both yes and no, but many users would choose to write their own messages. If the person accepted, the two could continue talking on the user talk pages, use the e-mail form to start a conversation that way, or use instant messaging. And they would live happily ever after. The end. :-) Seahen 01:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
- Although I don't understand the technical aspects, the general idea is great. And presumably it could also be combined with a text search, to increase flexibility.
- One good thing is that it allows people to create their own criteria. E.g. I've noticed that I get along well with people who love India. So I could create a userbox like Template:Tl, and other people might also take it up. In the meantime, I could also do a combination search, for people who have a location userbox compatible to me, and who also mention "India" in their profile.
- I'd also like to be able to search for people who speak more than one language - could a search figure that out automatically, or would the user need to have a special user like "This user speaks 2 languages," "This user speaks 3 languages," etc? --Singkong2005 04:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Seahen, Hi Singkong! The problem is, we need a new wikimedia - dating - software. With the actual wikimedia software such a website is unfortunately not possible. I wrote Jimmy, but he have not so much time. We will see what comes with the next weeks... "Ingmar 18:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)"
