No it totally wasn't a fucked up admission, it was actually a useful and pro-user measure (all this good stuff was before the 2011 acquisition).
Christian Rudder's OKTrends blog (and Sam Yagan's presentation at their acquisition celebration) even spelled out the reason why: some women on OKC (or, more rarely, men) would acquire the "Replies rarely"/red color on their profile, for almost never (<10%) replying to initial messages, which was generally considered to be undesirable behavior, even in the negative (there is value in a negative message: "Thanks but I'm not interested due to age/location/other factor". And also OKC could then measure whether users' stated preferences mismatched preferences inferred from which set of users they message e.g. people who say they're looking for 30-55 for LTR but tend to message people 21-35 for short-term). And before anyone points out that younger more attractive female profiles would get more initial messages than males (up to 200:1 more), OKC used to allow you to set filters on the other user's age/distance/other criteria, so you could automatically filter those out. Also, factor in the usual caveats that many users on dating sites tend to lie about their age/weight/height/location/status/etc.
Anyway, to avoid getting labeled the dread "Replies rarely", some (mostly female) users got in the habit of sending one-liner responses that were ambiguous/non-committal/cryptic/negging. And then not responding further (but without unmatching, which only took a single click). This was making their profile look less undesirable but generating pointless message traffic and reducing the overall utility of the platform at actually attempting to match people (for compatibility, not just initial attraction). Hence, OKC tried to actually measure initial exchanges to figure out which ones led to genuine back-and-forth conversations of 3+ messages (which is an ok proxy for inferring a match, certainly a better proxy than just counting initial messages/likes/votes on photos). Yagan jokingly referred to this as "Every Monday morning, we ask 'How many three-ways did we set up over the weekend?'").
(PS, Rudder and Yagan both stressed that users' names/identities/ identifying characteristics were kept out of the analysis.)
After the 2011 IAC acquisition, most of this platform quality control (and looking for constructive insights) went out the window pretty quickly and the three cofounders moved to OKCupid Labs. But it was good for the brief while it lasted. By 2013 a chainsaw had been taken to most of OKC's unique features, esp. for free users.
Hey, my point is that it's fucked up that I went on a date with someone who admitted their job was to read other people's messages. If you don't think that's fucked up, then we simply have a difference in opinion. I don't know what the rest of your post is about.
OKC analyzed message traffic in an anonymized way to infer when matching was/wasn't working, and what insights that revealed about people's inferred vs stated preferences.
As such it wasn't "reading other people's messages". That's according to the OKC founders description of what they did, pre-acquisition. Since they were reasonably upfront about what they did, and since that functionality worked even for free users and they didn't aggressively push premium or gate the features, I believe they were being truthful. Furthermore, after the 2011 acquisition and when they stopped being active on OKC itself, there was a palpable degradation in site quality. (And post-2014, IAC went on to sell personal information about users' substance use etc. to insurers, to which users had never given informed consent).
So I think your date explained things badly and you picked up the wrong end of the stick. It's trivially easy to write a script that strips usernames and identifying information. And it's not too hard to distinguish "Hey baby" or "DTF?" from more meaningful messages. For the platform to do that with an intent to improving matches was strongly positive, not negative.
We're talking past each other. You think the ends justify the means and I don't. Like, if there's a "Read" marker for a person viewing my messages, then I should have the same for analysts reading my messages, too. Like, when someone is running grep over everyone's messages, they're not just viewing that in isolation -- the context is what's important, and that requires actually reading the messages and their outcomes.
> For the platform to do that with an intent to improving matches was strongly positive, not negative.
Do you realize how much work that OkCupid has put into their product to make matching intentionally worse (through analysis!)? Take off your rose-tinted glasses!!
Edit: aaaand there's a new article about OkCupid giving facial recognition data to 3rd parties.
The UK proposed only to supply free or discounted excess wind power to nearby homes, on windy days (not all the time, and not predictable). And that only because "Sometimes there is too much wind for our outdated grid to handle, especially in Scotland and the East of England."
“Rather than paying wind farms to switch off we’re trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper - or even free - electricity.”
So, not applicable to the other 90+% of homes, or for the other 90+% of the year.
On the study of management in the military, what does West Point think of HBS, and v.v.? (for example, were the fictitious body counts in the Vietnam War comparable/earlier/later than civilian management doing dubious things with metrics/OKRs?)
Alternatively, what is the most heterodox institute studying management, esp. in the military?
Any of us can help log the changes by submitting revisions of the article to web.archive.org
With a fast-changing news story where vague/incomplete/conflicting details emerge in the first few hours it's not unreasonable for the first few revisions to be like that, and eventually gets fixed hours or a day later.
I think that’s what’s critical here. Post details and their sources to show that they are in flux. Don't write them as fact and then make secret edits.
Well my problem isn't with the writing in its original form, it's with the downvoting in response to it. I am fine with someone bringing bad news if it's helpful info.
Christian Rudder's OKTrends blog (and Sam Yagan's presentation at their acquisition celebration) even spelled out the reason why: some women on OKC (or, more rarely, men) would acquire the "Replies rarely"/red color on their profile, for almost never (<10%) replying to initial messages, which was generally considered to be undesirable behavior, even in the negative (there is value in a negative message: "Thanks but I'm not interested due to age/location/other factor". And also OKC could then measure whether users' stated preferences mismatched preferences inferred from which set of users they message e.g. people who say they're looking for 30-55 for LTR but tend to message people 21-35 for short-term). And before anyone points out that younger more attractive female profiles would get more initial messages than males (up to 200:1 more), OKC used to allow you to set filters on the other user's age/distance/other criteria, so you could automatically filter those out. Also, factor in the usual caveats that many users on dating sites tend to lie about their age/weight/height/location/status/etc.
Anyway, to avoid getting labeled the dread "Replies rarely", some (mostly female) users got in the habit of sending one-liner responses that were ambiguous/non-committal/cryptic/negging. And then not responding further (but without unmatching, which only took a single click). This was making their profile look less undesirable but generating pointless message traffic and reducing the overall utility of the platform at actually attempting to match people (for compatibility, not just initial attraction). Hence, OKC tried to actually measure initial exchanges to figure out which ones led to genuine back-and-forth conversations of 3+ messages (which is an ok proxy for inferring a match, certainly a better proxy than just counting initial messages/likes/votes on photos). Yagan jokingly referred to this as "Every Monday morning, we ask 'How many three-ways did we set up over the weekend?'"). (PS, Rudder and Yagan both stressed that users' names/identities/ identifying characteristics were kept out of the analysis.)
After the 2011 IAC acquisition, most of this platform quality control (and looking for constructive insights) went out the window pretty quickly and the three cofounders moved to OKCupid Labs. But it was good for the brief while it lasted. By 2013 a chainsaw had been taken to most of OKC's unique features, esp. for free users.
reply