@alice What I think is particularly interesting about a fediverse approach to dating is that I've never seen a dating site use the existing social connections between people to help. For example, I want to write public recommendations for other people ("hey, I think this person is cool and here's why you should date them"). Horrifyingly, I think the easiest way to describe what I mean is "LinkedIn for dating". (Maybe Fedi-Dating and Fedi-Hiring should be the same protocol, but with different profiles?) I think it's often easier for people who know you to talk you up than it is to promote yourself.

That said, safety is already difficult in both social networks and dating sites, so identifying the right safety features for a combination of both is particularly intimidating.

@alice

a #FediDating platform would be awesome!

Features I would love include the basic intro to feel how we can thrive together and give back to the world. Maybe ability to post a few pictures of what we like, such as a shot of our open source laptop, pets, bicycling, hiking, etc...

What features do I not want? Identity scraping sold to lists and billionaires that attempt to capture our basic freedoms and exploit our mere existence. What safety features do I need to feel safe? The ability to avoid having my identity included in a list sold to billionaire think tanks used to control my future.

That's about it

@alice

Once upon a time, OkCupid had this feature where you could add texts to your profile in multiple languages. I think this was a neat feature.

@alice 1. Ability to look for friends not just romance or sex
2. I like the personality questions on OK Cupid, they’re v helpful for screening
3. I dislike ones that do creepy scan shit w your photos like saying they didn’t detect a face or it needs to be a close up or whatev. Both for privacy & also creative photos.
4. Awareness & design for rural. Option to use imprecise location, name your loc however you want (not requiring a specific city it knows of), and set a search & a discovery range

@alice can't we (anyone) date here on #Mastodon? 😅 Any rules or restrictions?

@alice I think LEX is a good starting point for mastodon but dating.. a fedi dating app kinda by default needs some kind of geo location cus like.. its sorta the entire point.. I am not entirely sure how to do that federated and safe..

@alice

Things I hate as a millennial man (41):

1. I often have to pay to even be "competitive" (and I fucking hate using this term, but they've turned these apps into fucking gamified pieces of shit and it enrages me)
1a. I need to pay money to MESSAGE someone? The fuck is this? The whole point is to begin communication.

2. Zero effort to curb fake profiles, scams, and other miscellaneous fucking heinousness.

3. I know for a fact that there are intentionally fake profiles on their platforms to boost their numbers and these aren't real people and they know it. I bet they've even made them themselves. I wish I had a way to scrape their shit and prove it.

@alice

Oooh this is a good idea.

1. If I stress an age/gender/sexuality/distance range, don't show me people outside of that. Also the ability to see likes and message people without paying.

2. I like the optional questions on okcupid to build percentages, with the ability to add more details to the questions.

3. swipe left/right. Paywalls. Minimum characters in bios. I hate writing bios and would rather match based on a few criteria and chat with them a while to get to know them.

4. Being able to block people based on their profile.

@alice
If I can add (as not in the Dating Pool):

4: Photos only sendable with a kind "invite only", so when the other side explicitly gives the permission to send photos.
I've heard so much of female friends who got unsolitcide Pics, maybe this would help

@alice I think https://github.com/Alovoa/alovoa has an open issue to make it possible for Fediverse / ActivityPub

@alice I would appreciate events as a main feature. Like, a calendar thing, and heavy on the events ideas, planning and promotion. You could have a private calendar of one-on-one dates, and also (the main thing I'd want) a public calendar of group events for people looking to make friends and meet partners, which could easily be added to your private calendar.

@alice Thr biggest one for me: Don't make it only about dating but also allow a mode for finding new friends with aligned interests in your area!

@alice Possibility to safe someone to maybe match later, or at least revert rejections. It happened far to often that I accidentally swiped the wrong way.

Also no paywalls pls.

@alice A very easy and clear way for one to say 'I do romance but not sex' is something I remember noticing just not existing the few times I poked dating apps. Granted I also got the impression most people on dating apps were looking for sex more than romance.

No offense intended toward allosexuals, just not what I'm looking for ^^;

@alice 1. Absolutely the most valuable feature would be lack of algorithms. A clear view of people, with no addiction driven structures.

2. Only very basic features: they exist, they have users with pictures...

3. Datafarming, algorithms, bots, but also culture. Addiction based structures have built a single served dating culture, where people are used, not interacted with.

4. Possibility of being invisible to non-signed in users, moderation. Maybe a link to other fedi to facilitate trust.

@alice not really using dating. So my mentions are maybe completely out of reality.

1. Safety: your data stays your data, no AI training, Building up Data to get stolen, e.t.c.

2. No profile picture: text, match, vibe, after that there is a option to defog your Profile picture or Pictures

3. Bullet points: Something to look at and Match before going deeper. But the points are also clickable to show an Explanation what the Individual understands under the bullet points. (bioware)

@alice
Solve the devilish problem of privacy versus assurance that people are real. My biggest issue with other sites is that im glad to share private details with other honest real folk on the site, but existing services are greedy evilcorps, harvesting and selling intimate details, while allowing oceans of scammers from all corners of the earth who pretend to be in my postal code.

Its a tall order.... But I'd gladly pay a non profit for the service.

@alice
1. Sufficient space to talk about myself and my interests.

3. Not being able to contact people without paying.

4. The ability to block arseholes - from their profile, not just if they message me.

@alice I guess fedi should stop copying and come up with new solutions for our digital needs. So much of social media now

1. search and filtering based on self-ranked categories/labels, with more info revealed to better matches

2. accessible interfaces and ease of use

3. looks-first matching and engagement farming

4. a trust network and good moderation tools

@alice
E2E encryption, but that goes for pretty much everything.
Maybe some kind of attestation from other users/mutuals, just something to say that hey this person is a genuine human/not a scammer/not a rapist etc?

@alice My wife and I met via OkCupid fifteen years ago. We both answered around 300 questions in their questionnaire and were matched above 99%.

What I like about their questionnaire was if you had possible answers A, B, C, and D, you could say "I choose B, but for a potential match A and B would both be acceptable. D would be a dealbreaker."

For safety features, a system to report unsafe dudes could save lives.

@alice Dating apps have a lot of fake profiles. If that’s out of the way I would like to know if there are people in my city/town or somewhere around me without having to match in the first place. I don’t want to use the app if there are no people around me who use it.

@alice @alice hmmmm 🤔🤔🤔

1. If they're already on fedi then they're probably my kind of weird

2. Questions and Answers with the ability to rank how important the subject is to you

3. Everything is tinder now and you can't message anyone anymore if you don't match in less than 2 seconds off a profile photo only

4. I've seen some sites with validation in the form of uploading a short video of you reading a script to match against your photos.

@alice E2E transmission of personal info to matches. I don't mind telling folk about myself, but the app corpos are too nosey

@alice I do not have much input as I am happily married and do not intent to date but just want to say this is a genius idea.