We seem to be on the same wavelength. I might be giving up a viable idea here, but for a while I've been thinking about a sort of hybrid between Meetup and online multiplayer matchmaking where groups of people can meet up and do stuff without the need for an actual organizer.
Here's how I envision it:
- A user joins and provides a materials used to perform a background check.
- People with accounts sign in and are automatically grouped based on distance, interests, etc.
- Users cannot see who is in groups until they join one. This should help prevent people from backing out of matching because being lazy and skip over lots of people they don't like for minor superficial reasons. In other words, if you don't like fat people, guys who aren't cute, women who aren't hot, etc., you can't game the system without being punished. If a person really doesn't like someone they've met, they can set it to never put them in a group with that person again.
- Once a sufficiently-sized group has been formed(let's say between 6 and 8 people), they are given a time-limited choice between a list of activities. These activities can be autogenerated and evergreen(e.g. go see a movie, bowling, eat dinner, etc.) or be brought in from a list of actual events happening in the area(e.g. comedy shows, local bands, group painting classes, etc.). If consensus is not reached in 10 minutes, a random activity is picked.
- Once a group has formed, you can still back out but it will drastically deprioritize you in future meetups until you have actually attended enough of them that you appear reliable.
- When a group meets up, the app pops up with a unique QR code for the user. Each person in the group should scan each other's QR codes to verify that not only they showed up but that others showed up. This can be cross-checked with GPS proximity and motion, in case a user ever claims that the QR scan "doesn't work". By having your QR code scanned, you make yourself more likely to be grouped faster in the future, be given more interesting events, and be grouped with fewer flaky individuals.
I feel like there must be a reason why nobody has done something like this yet, especially since there's already an algorithmic model for this in games like Halo. Maybe autogeneration of meetups exposes a company to liability?
One thing I want to avoid, which is a part of your idea, is the notion of having users rate each other. I think that can lead to a lot of abuse and isn't really fair. I can only picture people downrating others because they are Jews or "she wasn't that hot". It would be much better to have a system where people are only judged on whether they show up(people are flakes) and if they have been reported for being creepy or worse.