Agnostic.com

10 9

We want to write an intro message for new members and want to get your feedback as all of you have recently been "new" members. It looks like about 70% of new members are open to use the site for dating so we're thinking to have a slightly different message for those open for dating and those here solely for community. While on the thread, feel free to give any feedback as we'll read closely. Thanks!

Admin 9 Oct 20
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10 comments

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1

Community first!
Dating as a not-very-likely possibility...

0

I didn't even know this site was used for dating when I signed up - I'll ask the wife what she thinks and get back to you 😉

1

I think this is a very good idea so people know where each stands on this issue.. be it for dating or just community connection.

1

Is it just me, or isn't geographic proximity also an important factor for dating considerations to be practical? I know our locations are indicated under our names, but something I noticed (and don't like) on an actual dating site I'm trying out is that it matches me to a lot of people hundreds of miles (or more) away. Distance is a main reason I'm not holding my breath about dating chances on this site. I'm meeting some cool people here well worth chatting with, but it is hard to expect more on a personal connection level when we are so far apart. Sorry,I'm not sure my comment is at all helpful for site administration planning, but it's been on my mind. Along with age range and sexual preference, I'd love to see some alert distinction for people within, say, 100 miles of each other. ...After looking at the "Nearby" tab, I realize there's just no one near me. (sigh) Even Houston is a good 4 hour drive. I'm living in the armpit of 'Murika, apparently.

0

As an atheist who is not looking, I don't mind some kind of code as long as it could be changed if my circumstances change. I like the community of this site and the opportunity to learn from other's experiences. I hope that doesn't change.

0

We may be great now, but we do need to consider trolls and trolls in the dating/meeting pool are much more troublesome than trolls in general.

First of all, I think it is incredibly important to acknowledge and cater to the fact that there are 2 separate but related demographics in the audience (people in closed, committed relationships/not looking and people who are looking). I think the overall audience is too small to perform a hard split, but I think both demographics are best served by a soft division between them. By this, I mean that just as important to me when I am searching, that I know other people are open and interested in finding that connection, but when I am not, I’d rather not even bother with that stuff. When I am in a committed closed relationship I’d rather not even see that information for anyone and I think most people seeking that connection would be happy if the sexual orientation and preferences of people who aren’t looking aren’t even visible, because they should not be relevant to rational discussion. Although at the current scale, it may be viable to use human capital to police interactions, I think this is a more scalable barrier that eliminates some potential problems.

Secondly, I am a huge fan of the “levels” and I’d like to see that be a primary factor for people interested in entering the dating pool on this site. It is a hard thing for me to rationalize saying only people who are level 3 and above should be able to turn on dating features, but I’d love to see that when someone attempts to turn on those feature and is level 2 or below, a notice that other users must explicitly include levels 1-2 in their dating search pools, if they are interested. Also, if you had these dating features turned on and are less than level 3, a notice somewhere in the template informing you that you are “in the shallow end” of the dating pool.

Lastly, as far as a “compatibility code” or something like that, I think simple icons under people’s pictures that show a “fuzzy” score are better than an algorithm that tries to indicate a percentage. Something like a heart icon that is either empty, ¼, ½, ¾ or completely full for romance and a hand shake icon that just indicates people amenable to starting friendships (social networking/real life meeting?). As far as the scale for romantic compatibility, I think it could be as simple as 1 point if you are searching for their gender, 1 if they are searching yours, 1 point if you click like on their profile and 2-3 points if they click like on yours(opting in to someone else's compatibility should count more).

I am a DBA/developer and happy to have “offline”/email based discussions regarding these ideas.

The "Preferred match kids?" question says "select all" but only allows one.

Also, combining the dating questions is mildly frustrating. Would be great to see a division, or at least all dating questions moved to end of profile.

4

I like the idea of a code. I certainly enjoy posting back and forth with everyone, but it would save time having to read whole profiles to see if the person is available. I would like to know their availability for a relationship and their sexual orientation.

5

For what it's worth, the thing we all have in common is that we are critical thinkers. Do we really need machine assistance for dating? How about the Agnostic Lounge as a chat room or something like that?

Yes, it does appear that we're an interesting bunch here. I'm really happy to see that overall there is is a lot of comradery. The only AI I'm thinking is to make it easier to identify people who are capable while you're just browsing around. The search form is for power dating users. I like the idea of chat rooms but have found that they are really hard to maintain. Perhaps could try it during a specific time and see how it goes.

3

I think ProudHeathen's thought were good, perhaps even a little more differentiation like sexual preferences, type of relation ship sought etc included.

Yep, went live today.

8

Well, I'm looking and I want the fact that I'm looking to be advertised with some type of indicator. I think Looking could be a green dot, open to looking yellow dot and not looking red dot next to the picture. Just an idea.

We're currently working on code to put a little heart and compatibility score on usernames of people who are good matches for you.

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