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?
Update: see https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/117152273187914760
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 havenβt 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 βno more candidatesβ than someone that doesnβt fit my preferences. Same thing in the other direction. I donβt want to see people who will never see me because I am a dealbreaker for them.
3. βpay to see who likes youβ is the absolute worst.
4. maybe some kind of karma system though I donβt 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 donβt 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 Iβm sick of it. There needs to be some kind of vouching system or a more bulletproof method of verification that doesnβt involve matching profile pictures to IDs. The scammers put their own image on a billboard behind the fake profile image. Iβve caught it happening on Tindr.
@alice Happily unpartnered here. My problem with dating apps is that it immediately launches you from chat to irl meet-up. There's no time to get to know someone organically and build some sort friendship. It's straight into interview mode, which puts a lot of pressure on meeting someone. Like buddy, who even are you.
In that way a fedi dating platform could be interesting, since you're sort of already building friendships here. Or at least have a sense about a person from their posts.
@alice I'm old enough to remember when OKCupid was Very Good Actually, and genuinely different from the others. And the things that made it good also made it a great way to meet friends even if you weren't interested in dating. The reasons (not numbered by your questions):
This is a great idea, I hope it will work and be safe.
Reuse the content they have boosted or marked, but only when the amount of profiles is beig enough. That way you can find people with interests as a basis.
Hide the fediverse account names until both agree to share it.
Save all higher tier security info on a separate service (your dating service).
I actually think you don't need separate moderation. If people are genuine creeps, mods and admins will not want them on their instance anyway.
@alice 4. End-to-end encrypted private messaging, ability to fully and permanently delete all content once forever love is found (or automatically after a period of inactivity), protections from scraping for profile information and pictures. No AI. No data collection and sharing with third parties. No AI. NO data collection. NO AI. NO DATA COLLECTION.
I did like the quizzes from OKCupid. I didn't find many dates from that platforms, but the ones I did find were all very interesting.
@alice
2. prompt questions to jog the writing imagination
3. βsend a message/like right now or never have another chanceβ β no I want to bookmark people to return to later with time to think
@alice Iβm not dating, but if there were a Fedi dating siteβ¦
@alice An algorithm tuned to make the people leave the platform because they found a match and no longer need it.
(not using dating apps myself but this is the thing that irks me about the hearsay)
@alice Saw this post this morning when I woke up, boosted it, and have been thinking about it ever since.
I've not met anyone through a dating site, so I can't say what would or wouldn't work or have a reasonable comparison, even if I could.
Since I tend to overshare, I'm big on putting myself out there and letting the other party decide if they want to pursue anything. I do think that hobby and activity matching would be important, since that's the bulk of our lives, but like, I don't have to have the *same* hobbies as the other person, just...the same flavor.
I hate that appearance is so important for me, but it is, and I don't want to be the asshole turning someone down after "finally" getting to see a picture of them.
I like the ideas of setting the goals up front - looking for friends? Casual sex? Polyamorous? Monogamous? And I would prefer those restrictions to be held to - don't hook me up with someone that matches every single one of my hobbies but wants a casual relationship if I'm looking for a serious one. That sort of thing.
I'm not officially on the market right now, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being interested in dipping my toe in the dating pool again.
@alice I've never used a dating app, I have met internet people IRL and dated them pre-smartphone, I wouldn't use a fedi dating app AS a dating app, I *would* use a fedi dating app as a "Finding out that some of the cool people in my phone could be met and havebeerwith'd along the route of this road trip" app
I want this, fedi, the way we show off our doodles and make each other laugh or play with words or whatever, with an optional Extra Layer On Top, a sort of Physicality Hat. If I liked someone's vibe I could hit a button that'd send them a key to some extra information about me (encryption details to be figured out by encryption people) like where I am, what I look like, what my schedule's like, whether I'm open to dating or just to meeting up for IRL bants or whatever, and nobody gets any notification about anything until both folk involved had hit that "Show this person another layer of me" button, and the intent of pressing the button could remain flirtily ambiguous given that this could also be used between dads borrowing jigsaws and pinball people who want to see each others' barns full of shite
This would mostly be useful for two people doing the upward head tilt with flirtily cocked eyebrow of "oh hey there" followed by the chuckling shrug of "Well I'm still glad I looked" as you find out that you're a thousand miles apart. And then you have the Friendship That Began With Mild Romantic Interest And Is Now Comfortably Platonic, which is a very nice friendship to have!
(I say again I have never used a dating app)
@alice Make it Fedi-Meeting-New-People, just dating is too narrow and that being the only focus probably leads to a great deal of creepy behaviour and dark patterns on the existing platforms.
@alice
I'm limitated to 500 chars. I build a short preview with my points. :)
The pages only illustrate. The site is complete without function.
A design that encourages, if not requires, a discussion-first photos-later interaction.
Basically the opposite of all of the most recent / modern dating platforms.
I'm *not* suggesting that looks aren't relevant and photos shouldn't be encouraged - but they should not be the focus.
I thought about this a bit. Wouldn't it be harder to take if you gel with someone based on hobbies or whatever, and then you exchange photos and they're like, "nah, not interested now"?
I can only speak for myself of course, and I know that looks aren't important to everyone, but I would *personally* prefer to be discarded based on my appearance than invest the time and energy into building a relationship with the person only to have them turn me down when they find out what I look like. I dunno...it seems like that would be more hurtful.
That makes sense. And I'm not suggesting photo exchange be delayed too long.
When I read someone's content online and have a positive response to it then later see a photo of them, I almost always have a positive response to the photo.
In contrast, when I see photos first (e.g., dating site) then try to interact with those I find attractive, I rarely have a positive response to their other content.
Looks are relevant to me, but I guess I'm also a far bit sapiosexual.
@jmcclure I can understand and agree with this...I just don't want to be the reason someone else decides not to try (or conversely, to come to that conclusion on my own after multiple near-hits)
I would rather have someone "turn me down" without investing in a relationship. I've been on both sides of that equation and it never feels good.
@alice just make it like OK Cupid back in about 2015. Right before it was bought by match.
@alice
3. tracking, invisible trackers unless you can detect them through your browser extensions or a network sniffer
Good question. Dating sites suck. If we were trying to plug one into Fedi I'd try a different way. Something that isn't a directory of single people, isn't a meat market or a meet market, but attaches naturally to the already-existing network. Just offering to try and pair people already here together.
Star with new User-profile checkboxes for:
I may be up for:
Group-Meetups
Meeting for fun with: {Guys/Girls}
Dating: {Guys/Girls/including-trans}
Within {X} Miles
I am a {Guy/Girl/None/Trans}
Living near: {location}
A handful of locations may be selected, people do move around, but not too many. Can't select everywhere.
Then the servers, if and only if you are already mutuals, AND you have the profile filled in, then when a like/reply/boost-request message is sent to a server your server attaches a 'Do We Match?' request with your profile options in it.
We don't even tell the liker the answer to that, just append a note about it in the interaction notification to the Original Poster.
EG: "alice liked your post. [AND they might be up for meeting for fun non-dates with people like you. Maybe DM them?]"
So the pair were interacting anyway, have a topic on which to begin a more intimate conversation, and mutual knowledge that they may want the same thing.
The intention here is there is no 'search for matches', procedure. No swiping. No extra scrolling.
I'm not trying to put people together who don't know each other, just match up those who already know each other but didn't know they might be up for a dinner date or to watch a football match or whatever.
We're only sending 'do I match you?' requests along with messages already passing between mutuals, and thus hopefully avoiding creating directories of single hot girls in your area for scammers to peruse.
And if you don't want any of all that you don't fill in the profile fields and then and no server evens sends you a match request.
Course, all this first requires sane private e2e encrypted DMs and presumably special moderation tools.
@alice Lemmy know if we are actually start building some open source software out of this. I have Claude Max and am allowed to use it for open source to burn the rest of my weekly limit.
I'm a professional developer, check my GitHub profile in bio.
@alice honestly I enjoyed Hinge when it was new on the market, the concept of having text prompts or photo prompts did give you at least *something* to start a conversation instead of just photos like on Tinder.
Also the wealth of info you could put in to filter potential partners like "(do not) want kids" is extremely useful so that the "big life goals" between you are aligned
@alice Want to also mention the old Okcupid questionnaire style matching, but it needs very strict limits on both changing your own answers and the ability to see what questions you match etc. I remember that it seemed very easy to "fit" your profile to someone. If your goal is to actually find a long term partner that's dumb of course, but for less honest uses there was a lot of potential for abuse that would need to be addressed.
@alice
All I need is a safe little ace playpen where no one makes overly sexual commentary. However, I've always thought it would be cool for a dating site to have an option to link accounts for polyamorous people so they could basically have a polycule page where you can meet everyone if your interests match.
That way, everyone could have their own account as well as a shared page, letting them date within or outside the polycule as they wished. I know that's pretty much just what inviting someone to a group chat is, but it would be nice to have without giving out any emails, social media or personal info.
@alice you mean it's not already a dating platform???
@alice a huge problem with any dating service is catfishing and romance scams.
Given how hard it is for any amount of community moderation to scale, and the difficulty you'd have attesting peoples' IRL identities, it might be a good idea for there to be eBay/trustpilot style ratings & feedback that both parties can give each other.
It's not a perfect system, but people with a longer-lived profile and higher star ratings would be the most trustworthy. It would be understood that if you interacted with a fairly new account or one with not that many reviews you may want to take more precautions before emotionally investing in that potential relationship.
1. The ability to temporarily turn my profile invisible. If I find someone very interesting, I'd like to focus on that person and not keep beeing flooded with messages, either having to deny people or engage with 5 people at once.
2&3. Haven't been to many, so can't comment.
4. An optional (!) ID check with a mark on a profile. I get some people want to stay anonymous. But when it comes to IRL meetings, knowing someone is known by ID would make me feel safer.
@alice since "every queer nerd wants to do this", here is a jumble of ideas from various conversations:
1)
* decisive privacy strategy
* non-clique matching
* interaction form diversity
* matching diversity
2)
* community-rooted ones are the ones that detract me least
3)
* fixed formats
* wrong dating culture
* clique matching
* pretend privacy
4)
* "informed to consent" perspective
* knowing nerds, dating explainers help more than people think sometimes
@alice I kinda miss the old okcupid style online dating site where you just have whole conversations based on profile interests that may or may not lead to actual real life dates.
I never ended up in anything (romance, hookups, fwb) off of that site but I made a bunch of friends over time and met people who led some really interesting lives/lifestyles. Not sure why they succeeded in having actual 'something for everyone' where other sites seem to fail.
@alice No freemium stuff at all. Either free with the possibility of tipping or paid for everyone.
Disable geopositioning after matching, ideally don't rely on it at all. When I was online dating if I opened a profile after matching, their position would update. This can be used for stalking, at best that's creepy and at worst it can cause real safety concerns.
Possibility to enter words or hashtags in a filter bar to prioritize or exclude profiles with them in their description. To make it easier to find profiles with similar interests or values.
No AI text generation, image filter or profile suggestion whatsoever. It goes without saying.
@alice itβs a great idea.
1. Maybe a way to signify that you have a chronic illness or low energy.
As others have said, it would be good to be able to meet friends too.
@alice
I think in the default view of ones profile or even profile picture, it should be very clear what they are looking for and who they are, to avoid the RSD of later discovering a misalignment on expectations.
Finding friends should be a first class feature and maybe also support the travel use case, without having to change one's home base location.
@alice
Maybe one could even think of it as a "Fedi People Finder" that can help finding friends, tour guides, D&D/larp groups, dates, hookups, body doubles and such.
@sa7dse @alice It would have to have a veil of pseudonymity, allowing you to advertise your interests/what youβre looking for discreetly and only reveal your identity/pictures selectively, as an open directory of online handles with relationship status and what theyβre looking for in varying detail might not have many takers.
Also, a many-to-one mapping of ads to users, so you can keep your d&d campaign plans, your band looking for a bassist and your love/sex life from colliding messily.
@alice
I like filtering with sexual orientation, gender, relationship types, smoking, trinking and eating habits, kink orientation and of corse distance.
I despise the looks voting.
I love profiles that describe what's important to you.
1. matching based on advanced search criteria, filters to include/exclude profiles, for dating but also for meeting people w/ similar interests
2. can't tell, don't use
3. monetization probably (including selling data, feeding algorithms) - that's exploiting peoples desire for a bit of love, tenderness, and happiness
(1/2)
@alice okay I'm loving all these replies, when are we building this, y'all?
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