Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 193 posts

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#71

Post by kazagistar »

asnyder wrote: post #38
girvo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's online dating. It means nothing until you're in the room with the other person. I don't see where your anger at this is coming from...

I agree, but it's nice to have something real to filter on to save yourself from having to be in the room with the other person in the first place. I don't know if I'm angry, so much as concerned that tactics like these will spread and further erode the OkCupid data set essentially making it less useful for everybody.

There is nothing particularly deep about the OkCupid data set. It is a representation of one slice, one instance, of culture. At most, it shows how a certain subset of people represent themselves to potential dates.

And, on that note, exploiting the game has a strong tradition elsewhere too. Expecting that the data set is not already corrupted beyond recognition by people trying to manipulate their data to get ahead is silly.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#72

Post by kazagistar »

programminggeek wrote: post #64

I think the most interesting part of this is that an algorithm told people they are 99% compatible and that changed their behavior enough to make it easy for them to go on a date. Funny that an artificially high number on a computer screen completely changed people's behavior and perception of the world.

See things like fashion, subcultures, etc.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#73

Post by [deleted] »

com2kid wrote: post #66
DannyBee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just bullshit. It's what guys tell themselves because they can't write reasonable profiles or write non-creepy messages to women. I've read what most guys send my female friends on okcupid. Not just the random idiots, but what i would think would be otherwise intelligent people. It often comes off as desperate or creepy. It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive. But I'm an average looking…

> I've summarized the average guy profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/RegularOKCGuy?disable_mobile=... . Annoyingly enough very similar to my profile! :P But yeah. I have a good job, I go to the gym and workout, what the heck else am I expected to do? I'm working my ass off to make a positive impact on the world. Fuck if I am going to drop that so I can be a narcissistic asshole, quit my job, and fly around…

[deleted]

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#74

Post by hkmurakami »

keerthiko wrote: post #61
crazygringo wrote: post #28

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second d…

I spent about one year on OkC @ approx 40minutes/day on the site, and got about 20 first dates, 10 second dates, 2 third dates, and 2 fourth dates. They were almost all 85+% matches, and weren't that hard to find. However, I would say that my manual filtering probably took way less time than he spent implementing his models. He probably learned more engineering and advanced math while I learned how to read subtle mes…

One thing his hacking did accomplish was to generate leads/dates without him having to concoct tailored messages manually. I can see how that could be too much of a burden for many. OP managed to replace that psychological barrier with numbers and algorithm (with which he was much more comfortable) and got to the same end result.

IMO that's something worth pondering. We're all good/bad at different things, while the world typically sets us up with one "standard" way of going about things. Establishing secondary, albeit less efficient routes, may be a lifesaver for many.

(apologies for the rather abstract writeup)

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#75

Post by mjmahone17 »

com2kid wrote: post #66
DannyBee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just bullshit. It's what guys tell themselves because they can't write reasonable profiles or write non-creepy messages to women. I've read what most guys send my female friends on okcupid. Not just the random idiots, but what i would think would be otherwise intelligent people. It often comes off as desperate or creepy. It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive. But I'm an average looking…

> I've summarized the average guy profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/RegularOKCGuy?disable_mobile=... . Annoyingly enough very similar to my profile! :P But yeah. I have a good job, I go to the gym and workout, what the heck else am I expected to do? I'm working my ass off to make a positive impact on the world. Fuck if I am going to drop that so I can be a narcissistic asshole, quit my job, and fly around…

Your messages sound really stilted and like you're really nervous. They jump from one random topic to the next, without actually showing anything uniquely you.

> But, well, I own a 5 foot long remote controlled floating dolphin. I gave up on being 100% sane long ago. Technically I am sane, but I do enjoy having fun toying around with things. I also drive a bright orange car!

What this says: I own toys, you should know about them! Also, I think I'm "crazy!" And I have an awesome car, look at my success!

It makes you sound kind of like you're filling your life with things because you've been socially rejected. If that whole block of indented text was your entire first message, then it's incredibly rambly and full of similar flags.

One of my most successful stream of messages went something like this: noticing that my potential date lived in Cambridge, I asked if they had explored the area (they said they were adventurous in their profile). When they responded with "Yeah, I've found some cool stuff", I then asked if they'd found the secret staircase that led to the lair of angry geese on the river?

This establishes both that 1. I've actually read their profile, and 2. I have some knowledge they would be interested in, and that they can share in.

Here's how I'd rephrase your second message:

I noticed from your profile that you enjoy a good cup of tea. Do you make your own, or have you visited a lot of different tea houses?

You're not overwhelming the other person with information, just asking a question that, if they've shown an interest, they're generally really happy to expand on. Don't treat your messages like emails or letters, but more like instant messages. Keep them short and easy to respond to, and let the other person tell you some of their story.

Edit: Also, don't ask so many things! It's hard enough for someone to want to answer a single question you ask them. Answering 3 or more is too much effort: if they wanted to start answering your first one, but kept reading instead, you've failed to convert, and by the third one they've likely skipped on to someone else's message.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#77

Post by frandroid »

jcc80 wrote: post #42
asnyder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not completely true. You can find someone you're interested in and then click on "She cares about" and that will list all her public questions that she cares about, he can then answer those. My general concern is that manipulating of the data in this way essentially lowers the value of the data in general and thus becomes a cycle resulting in the actual features of the site being no longer useful.

Oh, my take was that he exposed how the data keeps people apart. The number of matches is greatly determined by which questions you answer instead of the actual content of the responses. I suppose I understand why they do it though, since the system would feel useless if you had hundreds of people (in a big city) that were a 99% match. It provides people with a sort of false selectivity.

That's the part that burns me. There could be people you have matching answers for 1000 of the 3000 questions, but the way OKC sets its system up, the system would never surface them. Considering that this is a site conceived by mathematicians, I think that they have set this system to provide people with a false sense of fine-tuning but in reality, it keeps most of the matches you could find away from you. Sounds like a scheme to keep people use your dating site rather than helping people actually find a date.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#78

Post by 70forty »

Paul12345534 wrote: post #63

Once upon a time, I was seeking a Filipina gf. At the time, DateInAsia didn't have any good search interface but it was a good place to meet people if you weeded out the scammers. I was looking for very specific things (Catholic, educated, no kids, 25 or older, etc). I scrapped (slowly) the site content and threw all the fields in a database so I could query it locally :) I filled out my profile as complete as possib…

My current girlfriend is Cambodian, and we met via OkCupid. I noticed that of the ~1000 Cambodian girls using the site, none of them matched above 80% with me. I disregarded this and I'm really glad I did. Personally, I was searching for someone who seemed sweet, adventurous, and spoke English well.

I think I read through just about every one of those 1000 profiles, but my girlfriend's stood out... in a way that I could not have discerned computationally. Our match percentage was around 60%, for instance. She was the first/only girl I messaged. Things are still going great!

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#79

Post by socrates1998 »

I applaud his effort, but that is not a very good % of second dates. I say his problem wasn't his process, it was his ability to get/want a second date.

I am glad it worked out for him, but I would recommend people to just focus on connecting with people when they are on a first date rather than worry about if they are a "match".

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#80

Post by mjmahone17 »

com2kid wrote: post #65
scarmig wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The generally accepted rule is 1) Be attractive and 2) Don't be unattractive. That's more than a bit reductionist, of course, but tweaking your profile text or message texts only helps at the margins, assuming you don't have deal breakers. com2kid isn't going to be getting dozens of inbound messages a month just by revising his profile (sorry, com2kid). (On the other hand, updating your pictures genuinely can give yo…

I don't think I'm ugly[0], but it is hard to be sure! ;) I have a friend of mine who is short (generally considered a disadvantage) and who has one miserable picture, but his messages are good enough that he has a good success rate on OKC. (His messages also violate every guideline, they are at least 5 paragraphs long and very in depth!) The problem is, it is disheartening in the extreme. Spending years going to the…

Join a dance program. Your issue seems to be lack of confidence around women in general, not specifically in a dating environment. Get comfortable with your body in an environment where a lot of women are. And don't try to date the women you dance with, at least not initially.

Dance is just an easy thing to join: you could also go to underground music venues, join a co-ed softball/volleyball/tae kwon do team, take arts classes at a community college or join a book club at your library.

Post reply on HN