okcupid's revolting new approach.

[lucis]

I recently saw that someone posted a journal entry about getting an email from okcupid with the following content:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid's most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

How can we say this with confidence? We've tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people's reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.
. . .

Your new elite status comes with one important privilege:
You will now see more attractive people in your match results.

This new status won't affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match's answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You'll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.
. . .

Suddenly, the world is your oyster. Login now and reap the rewards. And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

I sent okcupid the following note:

How can you think this is a good idea? Dating is about attraction, yes, but your website claims to match people based on questions. You are instead implementing the display of users to one-another based on perceptions of the attractiveness of tiny images, and on the actions of users who, for whatever reason, record ratings of how attractive they find other people.

Furthermore, you're telling people they should be happy that they're part of an Attractive People Club, and that they'll have more-attractive people to look at. Your assumption that users want that kind of function is flawed. Also, suggesting that people who didn't get this kind of notification email may be ugly is just plain mean.

The change in the way you show users to other users, as well as your attitude in announcing the changes, is revolting. Your acts make me want to discourage anyone from using your site.

No word back yet. But, ew.

[Added: Still no word back, but they sent me a 'birthday message':

"Still single? Come check out your matches..."

Dude, not even my parents bug me about the fact that I'm "still single" - what the fuck? I seriously do not need that kind of abuse from a dating site.]

Comments

[darthbitsy]

I didn't get that email...

That aside, there is research that suggests that people tend to partner with, and indeed spend most of their time around, people of similar attractiveness levels.

[lucis]

I didn't get that email either, actually.

I'm aware of research on people partnering with folks whom they (the partners) perceive as being of similar attractiveness. But okcupid's premise (or should I say, okcupid's promise, in both senses - "Our advanced matching system is based on you, and what you find important.") is matching people on questions they answer. Each match question involves two or three variables: my answer, my preferred match's answer and importance of the question. Three variables times hundreds-to-thousands of questions gives me a fair bit of confidence that the matching is meaningful. Also, if other details are important to a user, like height or 'body type' or ethnicity or whatever, there are options to search on that, but (afaik) they only affect searches when you explicitly include them as factors.

Also, from what I recall of the studies I read about relative attractiveness between partners and in people's interest in dating others, it was about partnering with/dating people in person, and didn't involve collecting any data about online personas vs actual dating success. The perceived attractiveness of people by their partners/dates involves some things that are not factored in with okcupid's 'attractiveness' calculation: personal chemistry, charisma (whether in group or one-on-one situations) and personal preference for particular features, to name a few.

And, I think more importantly, okcupid's brand and identity (and part of its draw for me) was that it was about questions and answers. Adding an automatic 'attractiveness' component to the way users are displayed to one-another fundamentally changes something that I think was essential about the service they offered, and if they're going to change the way they work, they should change their description to reflect that.

[ciaan]

Speaking of which.... Happy birthday!