Discussion
If there was a Fedi-Dating platform...
1. what features would you find most valuable?
2. what features do you like from existing dating sites?
3. and what features do you dislike from existing dating sites?
4. what safety features would you need in order to feel safe on the platform?
@alice Any updates on the fedi dating app idea?
I still think it’s a fabulous idea.
@alice ping @renatolond who was working on something in that area
@alice@lgbtqia.space I think @cubicgarden@mas.to was working on something like this as well. I believe he discussed it during an unconference.
@ozoned @alice
Indeed I am, happy to talk, share or collaborate.
I started the online dating manifesto - https://datingmanifesto.cc/
Very much looking to create a distributed matching system which support human values
@cubicgarden hi👋
Exciting! I'm catching up on a million messages since I've been gone a couple days, but I'd love to see what you've done so far, and potentially collaborate on something! 🩷
1.2. I think the questions system from OkC is great, you can set what's important for you and sort profiles based on that, allowing each instance to set their own questions and use questions from other instances would be nice
3. So many people ghosting and treating you like you're just a consumable :x
I think it's by design I'm a bit too tired to articulate why
3. Don't ever require a phone number or a phone at all.
4. Good moderation?
@alice I would love to see Mastodon-style prompts for alt text anywhere you can post images.
To be a Fedi dating app, it should include the best parts of Fedi.
@alice I talked with some people a couple of years ago about setting one up. One of the huge problems that I see is that the sort of governance and safety you really want on a dating site, especially one that deals with 2SLGBTQIA+ people, is not really compatible with a federated model.
I have given a few interviews where I say that I am expecting the concept of dating sites becoming past history, it's much easier these days to just start adding a way to identify that somebody posting to existing sites you use are willing and interested in being contacted for dating or friends purposes. Rather than answering 3000 binary questions with limited answers, people can see all you post and repost, and see for how long you have been around to give you credibility and substance. A summariser would be useful here.
You can see it happening on things like TikTok where people are hashtagging that they are available for dating. So say for example you are a Swiftie, it's immediatley obvious there that the person who is messaging you, who has been posting Swiftie posts for the last 5 years, is not some astroturfed predator profile.
It doesn't solve ALL the problems by any means... For example TikTok isn't going to remove a profile because you met in person and they assaulted you because that's not a thing that TikTok's safety teams deal with (sadly).
@alice I’m still quite proud of the research I did on tracking dating app users by inferring distance and getting some of the apps to fix it.
@alice I get the feeling that ActivityPub wouldn't support the kind of data privacy I'd need to feel comfortable using it for a dating app.
@kurau The jokes wrote themselves.
@alice i don't really need any features besides the common profile tags that are location and flirting (yes/no).
tho i can imagine some beings would prefer to hide one or the other from most users unless they match
or mayyybe a very simple first step to implement would be profile descriptions that change based on wether you're mutuals or not 
@alice the dating scene is a distant memory for me and I hope it remains that way for as long as possible. But since people are discussing more generalised meetups I may be entitled to an opinion here. Radius is a useless metric in my area and I'd guess many others. Within 7 miles can mean on the other side of town or the other side of the estuary. It's the difference between a cycle ride and a two hour train journey. The term I learned about when I complained about this to a developer in the family is isochrone. They allocate the "nearest" agent to a property based on upon estimated driving time. (Though equally possible to select public transport in the api) The boundaries created by a fixed travel time are called isocrones.
Re #1 & #2a I'd love to see an app with virtual cores, like Feeld has (had? I ditched it years back when TOS changed radically for the worse), where you have a virtual location and can connect with anyone who opts into that, too.
Re #3: Data harvesting and unencrypted messaging.
Re #4: @Em0nM4stodon wrote a brilliant article a while back about safety issues with dating apps. I have saved it in a million places and yet somehow can never find it. Em, could you add a link here? It really lays out the issues clearly and is worth consulting for anyone looking to build something new and non-abusive of users.
@AdaraAstin @alice I'm glad you liked the article! Thank you 💚 Here's the link to it: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/06/24/queer-dating-apps-beware-who-you-trust/
@alice 1. I think the most most most valuable feature would be if the app could filter based on your sexual preference and exclusion based on it.
If I say lesbian, it shouldn't recommend men, in fact, it should disallow men from seeing my profile. If I select bi/pan, both/all genders, and gay, just men.
That would prevent 90% of unsolicited requests (especially from the men->"every other gender and queer people"-side).
@alice Don't vibe code it. Maybe it makes sense to use ML-based tools for semantic understanding and matching, something like Word2Vec but for profiles, something that is well-contained, and not the core semantic of the site.
Maybe offer both an Images-forward and a Text-Forward experience? I suspect the latter will result in better matches... 7/
@alice I liked OKC back in the day, under its original owners. But after I answered a bunch of questions, it turned out that I knew everyone it wanted to match me with, because even my major metropolitan area still was a small town for my specific subculture. There's no clear fix here. 5/
@alice 1. I'd be most interested in a platform that allows me to meet new people based on mutual (niche) interests. Finding potentially compatible buddies to share time with, do something together, build trust and find out who they are before dating even starts. It would be nice to each specify a handful of topics to connect over.
2. Being able to somehow specify must-haves, what's important, "yellow flags" / maybes, deal breakers and then filter profiles based on those to narrow things down a bit more efficiently. Needs to be free text, no pre-selected answers.
3. Any platform that puts me under pressure to quickly decide whether I want to date a person or not doesn't work for me. I move like a glacier and am not usually attracted until I know people. Which can take months of talking online.
4. Any requirement to upload photos of my face or other identifiable parts means I'm out for privacy reasons. I'd like to visit profiles without those people seeing it, mistaking it for interest and pestering me.
@alice Good search queries. Maybe I'm looking for Gender P for romance and Gender Q for friendships. Can I search both at once? Maybe I want friendships and I want to search for others who are open to friendships vs only open to friendships? For things with standardized values, have both "I am" and "Looking for" fields. Some "Looking for" fields are Nice to Have, others are Must Have.
1/
@alice 1. No features.
2. Just the knowledge itself that people on the site are interested in dating.
3. All the automation and questions to preselect.
4. Fake profiles are easy to spot.
So, for me, a dating platform on the fediverse would come down to something simple like deciding on a small set of labels for people to use in profiles to signal that one is open for dating. Everything else is just the fediverse the way it is, really.
@alice real DMs. I like my semi anonymous internet profiles
@alice there has to be a kink selector. Wouldn't be interested in dating someone that hates people who wear leather motorcycle gear often.
@alice added context: when I was on dating apps, the vast, vast majority of the sexual harassment I received came from straight cis men who wanted hookups or casual sex and who ignored the multiple references on my profile to being demisexual and only wanting a LTR.
This is no way meant to be an offence to members of those groups who read profiles and do not send out abusive messages to people who don’t want hookups.
But strong filters are essential in this dating climate.
@alice 1. The ability to fully hide oneself from specific groups (e.g. straight cis men, people looking for hookups or FWB).
2. When I was dating, I liked how verbose you could be on OkCupid.
3. Silly questions. Whether or. Not someone likes grilled cheese sandwiches is irrelevant to whether I was compatible with them.
4. People shouldn’t be allowed to delete and create new profiles over and over again. Reports of sexual harassment should be taken seriously and a bannable offence.
1. A social feed of sorts. Seeing how people interact in community is a valuable barometer of their behaviour. E2E encrypted messaging too! Maybe a limited pool of matches each day that correspond to metrics rated on importance.
2. Lex's social feed, and the ability to create group chats with like minded folk.
3. Swiping, its designed for engagement farming.
4. Encryption!
@alice can't think of anything not already mentioned in this very thorough thread, but wanted to endorse the idea and add to the consensus that this should be a thing. Also, have to agree that for a long time pre-tinderized OKCupid was the benchmark for online dating, there's a lot to learn from their early days.
@alice mentioning just because it seems to not be a feature on any dating site or app I've ever seen: The ability to restrict matches by country, not just distance. For example, I live close to the Canada-US border but will never ever visit the US ever again (The last thing I need is my disabled ass to be disappeared into a concentration camp). So matches 30 km away in the US might as well be 3,000 km. I would like to restrict matches to within Canada only in addition to whatever distance radius I set.
1 + 4) a verification and reputaion system (to prevent scammers and honeypots better)
2) simple filtering systems to target search
3) Paywalls and persons who either just RP or have no serious intent to join.
@alice For me at least, I think it would have to be on a separate Fedi profile. Because any dating thingy is going to need me to disclose some info that I might not otherwise want to disclose. Eg, my real age (within a ballpark at least), my real physical location (again, roughly), my sexuality, and probably eventually a real photo of me. Most of those can probably be easily obtained with a few minutes' well-intentioned doxxing, but I still don't want to permanently pin them to my profile.
@alice@lgbtqia.space I've been on dating apps for a long time, and am prone to strong opinions:
I think that's it, but we'll see what comes to me after I hit reply
@alice I mean I guess the obvious would be a link to their Fedi profile, right?
@alice https://uwu.dating might be a nice inspiration. It's for in-person events, so everything is a bit different (more geared towards getting you to meet up quickly, existing safety nets and awareness structures, ...) but I like the general UX.
Having gender be a multi-select with lots of fun options is neat and also kinda hilarious.
1) already included. This platform is by far the best I've found for finding who people really are and...it still sucks at that. It's easy to lie over the internet. Lying fups relationships.
2) I'd like them to not be monitored and monetized by Big Data. I want a dating site built around anonymity. Lacking that, I just Bartleby all those sites. The world doesn't need to know my peccadillos.
3) I dunno. I don't use them. Is "all" an acceptable answer here?
4) Not to repeat myself, but actual privacy is the only feature that matters here.
@alice something to prevent fake profiles and location faking - okc is not usuable anymore as it's swamped with profiles from East Asia, pretending to sit in Europe.
@alice 1. features I would find most valuable in a Fedi dating platform:
- be able to chat for free
- not more than $20cad ($14usd)/month for all features
- optional ID verification if someone feels the need to have that for safety reasons before meeting in person, but not mandatory
- a way to sift out people looking primarily for sex and/or threesomes, etc.
- a way to prioritize people who need connection/friendship with the people they date even if not looking for long-term/marriage-like relationships.
Some multiple choice answers (as well as room to elaborate) to quality of life questions that are optional to answer:
- are you career-focused
- do you need your partner to be career-focused
- do you need your partner to be financially independent
- how many dogs do you live with
- how many cats do you live with
- are you ok living with dogs
- are you ok living with cats
- are you ok living with other animals
- do you have children living at home
- are you ok with a partner who has children living at home
- do you live with roommates/family
- are you ok with a partner who lives with roommates/family
- are you ok changing habits to accommodate allergies and/or disabilities
- do you need your partner to be physically active
- do you need your partner to be social with your friends
- do you need quiet space to yourself
- do you like to be social at home
- do you need to talk about issues right away or can you wait
- do you need time to reflect and be calm before discussing issues
(and lots more questions like these)
2. Features I like from existing dating sites:
I haven’t used a dating site in over 10 years but questions to match compatibility was useful.
3. Features I dislike from existing dating sites:
- The high cost
- prioritizing people who pay the premium features
- fake accounts / scammers
- very hetero
- too corporate
- have to give ID and personal details
4. safety features I would need in order to feel safe on the platform:
- Strong moderation
- quick response when reporting a safety issue
- blocking bots
- not have to divulge exact location
@alice I think having some hidden tags that only become visible if both people have them would be useful. Like if you tag your location as Europe, Western Europe, France, and Paris: if a potential match was also in Europe you'd see that, if a match was in France you'd see that, and if a match was in Paris you'd both already know! It gives a good indicator of proximity without screaming "Hello, this is my location!" to everyone on the app.
For location, you could maybe have a series of like cascading recommended tags? Like you could be presented with continent > country within continent > province within country, and also have the ability for some free tags where you could put your city if you wished. And obviously you could stop at continent or nothing at all.
"Only show if we both have" tags could also be useful for kinks and fetishes that would be great to share but aren't a dealbreaker.
I also think there should be a way to hide profiles that don't match certain specifications, like "only show profiles containing tags transgender, transfem, transmasc, nonbinary" for a quick broad t4t filter, or "only show profiles willing to have online/long distance relationship", or "only show profiles with tag "polyamorous".
I also think there should be different types of matches: maybe like a heart match for "I would like to match romantically/sexually", a star for "I would like to match platonically" (and maybe also like a hobby match, like "I would like to play video games/geek out about music/go to hobby conventions with you). A feature I think would be cool would be a thumbs up for "I'm alright with matching if you see something in me", where two thumbs up would result in a failed match and anything else would be a success. I also think you should be able to pick multiple types of matches for one match interaction: maybe you can set your default match type in user settings for quick tap/swipe likes, then have a long press or menu for multiple choice.
So: if Alice chooses to Star and Heart match, and Bob only chooses a Star match, they both Star match! If Alice and Bob both choose Heart match and Star match, they match (either as Heart which is pretty amatonormative or as like a sparkly heart? lol), the app tells them, and they can talk about it. But if Alice only picks a Heart match and Bob only picks a Star match, they clearly have different expectations and the match fails...? I think. (Or Bob is presented with a "hey, this person that you Star matched Heart matched you. Do you want to reexamine their profile and add a heart match, or would you like to turn the match down?")
I don't think that the public profile should necessarily have to include an irl picture, because I don't want unvetted strangers seeing my face. I think that maybe after a match a profile should show an irl picture, with a small set of 2-3 pics unlocked after a match.
And other people have already said this, but lots of q+a type prompts. Also, ability to create own fields for like "operating system" or "class I play in XYZ game" or "preferred role in XYZ sexual activity". Easy settings for users to pause (no longer show profile and freeze matches) and completely nuke (delete everything) their profiles. Competent blocking, whatever that ends up looking like with the final set of features. Good reporting for both images and profiles, maybe where if something receives multiple reports from different people (to avoid abuse?) the app automatically hides/mutes the images or user until a mod can delete or unhide them.
Final thoughts: Cool idea! Long post over. Fish 
@alice 1. filters that actually work. If I set something as a dealbreaker, I would rather see „no more candidates“ than someone that doesn’t fit my preferences. Same thing in the other direction. I don’t want to see people who will never see me because I am a dealbreaker for them.
3. „pay to see who likes you“ is the absolute worst.
4. maybe some kind of karma system though I don’t know how to prevent this from being abused for bullying
@alice I've never used a dating site, and I'm happily married and monogamous, but creating a good, safe dating site seems like an interesting problem. It might make sense if there was a mechanism for users to create and share surveys and rubrics. Users could then set criteria to limit who can find or contact them based on their scores. It would be fun, engaging, and in keeping with the spirit of decentralization.
@alice
It should be free. Voluntary donations would be okay, though.
@alice 1. Wizard to get that first date on the books and avoid the logistics hem-hawing. It could suggest good places based on each daters preferences and find a mutually good time based on dating hours settings.
2. You don’t have to swipe anyone to see the next suggestion on Feeld, and you can easily go back to previous discoveries. This eliminates the anxiety of choosing wrong at first sight.
3. Having to redo my profile on every dating app, and having them own that data. I should be able to self-host my own profile and proclivities.
4. I get hit up every day by obviously fake too-good-to-be-true profiles and I’m sick of it. There needs to be some kind of vouching system or a more bulletproof method of verification that doesn’t involve matching profile pictures to IDs. The scammers put their own image on a billboard behind the fake profile image. I’ve caught it happening on Tindr.
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