6 ms·

1) The former. 2) Not easily. The biggest problem is that the people who most need help finding friends are the ones you least want to find on a friend-finding

1) The former. 2) Not easily. The biggest problem is that the people who most need help finding friends are the ones you least want to find on a friend-finding site. Every dating site seems to be drowning in this problem, which means they have to resort to scam techniques and exploiting new, naive users as much as possible. OkCupid is the only exception that I've seen. Hard to say whether you can replicate what they're doing (that is, not sucking) in the Platonic realm.

rjett 16y ago
OkCupid gives 3 ratings: a Match percentage, a Friends percentage, and an Enemy percentage. Isn't the op's idea already rolled into this?
- Scriptor 16y ago
  It'd just mean using the matcher on people you wouldn't romantically pursue. I think there's too much of a stigma of okc being a dating site, so that people think using it as a friend finder would be weird.
  - jw84 16y ago
    People use okc to make friends all the time. This problem is pretty much solved for the 18-30 set. Now, how do you make friends in your 40's 50's or 60's is another problem.
    - MC27 16y ago
      They should re-brand it or do a spin-off if that's the case. OK Cupid, just sounds like a dating website, and I'd assume someone with a profile on that site is merely looking for a partner.
      - jw84 16y ago
        Why rebrand? Guys and gals you don't have sex with are friend zoned.
- philwelch 16y ago
  OkCupid sets all of those up with match questions: you answer a given question, and mark what acceptable answers your "ideal match" would choose. The match percentage is calculated by comparing your answers to the other person's "ideal match" acceptable answers, and vice versa. The friend percentage is only calculated by comparing your answers to the other person's answers. But the set of questions themselves is the same, which means your "friend percentage" with someone can go up if you both like to be tied down during sex, or want to have babies, when these issues are clearly more relevant for matches than for friends.
Jun8 16y ago
I disagree. There's a big difference between finding a date and finding a friend (in the sense that the OP uses, i.e. not in the friend with benefit sense). As you point out (unfortunately, but it's a fact of life) objectively beautiful/attractive people are rare in the population and they are even more rare on dating sites. However, social interests, may be rare locally but on a national scale can be quite easy to match up. For example I like to play Go but it's rather hard to find players in my immediate friend circle and I cannot go around asking people. Book clubs, chess clubs, etc. have operated in this manner for a long time, the only difference is that they substitute a physical space for a web site. The real problem here is that it would be hard to create a comprehensive questionnaire that covers, say, 90% of interests and it would be even harder to find users patient enough to fill such a monstrosity. The only way to go is for them to fill out a small questionnaire and try to rapidly learn their preferences by asking them questions, 20 questions style, I think.
- sendos 16y ago
  I'm not sure focusing solely on interests is the way to go because, if I think of the people I consider my best friends, what amazes me is that we don't really share that many common interests or hobbies. What bonds us seems to be that when we talk, we feel free to discuss and explore any topic, we have a curiosity about the world, etc. I don't really know why I click with those particular people versus others who might share similar interests. In fact, if you look at my best friends from different friend groups, they don't really have that much in common with each other (one is heavily into sports, one is heavily into classical music, etc), so that's why I'm a bit unsure as to whether it is feasible to create an algorithm to find whom you will click with. For finding people you share interests with, today there is meetup.com. You may not click with them, but it is one place to start looking if you're in a new city. What I am asking about in the OP though is different (although I can see that any algorithm that tries to find people you click with will look at, among other things, your interests and hobbies)
  - Jun8 16y ago
    You have a point. But look at the example you provide: meetup.com. It is hopelessly crude. The bad part is that it lets you connect with groups of people (clubs, etc.) rather than actual people. For example, when I enter Go, I get (among tons of unrelated content brought up by uninformed text matching) the Chicago Board Games Club. Cool, but I could have found this using Google (in fact searching for "Chicago go game" in Google turns up many better matches). This is definitely now what I need. As for your main point: My guess is that you are bonding with these people because you are sharing a common outlook to life, a common way of thinking. This would be hard or impossible to discern automatically using algorithms.
lsc 16y ago
the interesting thing I saw when I was looking a few years back was that OkCupid was full of people in open relationships- it seems those people would be easier to successfully serve, simply because coming back to the site after finding someone doesn't indicate failure in an open relationship. I guess the same is true for casual dating where neither party is looking for a long term commitment.

rjett 16y ago

OkCupid gives 3 ratings: a Match percentage, a Friends percentage, and an Enemy percentage. Isn't the op's idea already rolled into this?

Scriptor 16y ago
It'd just mean using the matcher on people you wouldn't romantically pursue. I think there's too much of a stigma of okc being a dating site, so that people think using it as a friend finder would be weird.
- jw84 16y ago
  People use okc to make friends all the time. This problem is pretty much solved for the 18-30 set. Now, how do you make friends in your 40's 50's or 60's is another problem.
  - MC27 16y ago
    They should re-brand it or do a spin-off if that's the case. OK Cupid, just sounds like a dating website, and I'd assume someone with a profile on that site is merely looking for a partner.
    - jw84 16y ago
      Why rebrand? Guys and gals you don't have sex with are friend zoned.
philwelch 16y ago
OkCupid sets all of those up with match questions: you answer a given question, and mark what acceptable answers your "ideal match" would choose. The match percentage is calculated by comparing your answers to the other person's "ideal match" acceptable answers, and vice versa. The friend percentage is only calculated by comparing your answers to the other person's answers. But the set of questions themselves is the same, which means your "friend percentage" with someone can go up if you both like to be tied down during sex, or want to have babies, when these issues are clearly more relevant for matches than for friends.

Jun8 16y ago

I disagree. There's a big difference between finding a date and finding a friend (in the sense that the OP uses, i.e. not in the friend with benefit sense). As you point out (unfortunately, but it's a fact of life) objectively beautiful/attractive people are rare in the population and they are even more rare on dating sites. However, social interests, may be rare locally but on a national scale can be quite easy to match up. For example I like to play Go but it's rather hard to find players in my immediate friend circle and I cannot go around asking people. Book clubs, chess clubs, etc. have operated in this manner for a long time, the only difference is that they substitute a physical space for a web site. The real problem here is that it would be hard to create a comprehensive questionnaire that covers, say, 90% of interests and it would be even harder to find users patient enough to fill such a monstrosity. The only way to go is for them to fill out a small questionnaire and try to rapidly learn their preferences by asking them questions, 20 questions style, I think.

sendos 16y ago
I'm not sure focusing solely on interests is the way to go because, if I think of the people I consider my best friends, what amazes me is that we don't really share that many common interests or hobbies. What bonds us seems to be that when we talk, we feel free to discuss and explore any topic, we have a curiosity about the world, etc. I don't really know why I click with those particular people versus others who might share similar interests. In fact, if you look at my best friends from different friend groups, they don't really have that much in common with each other (one is heavily into sports, one is heavily into classical music, etc), so that's why I'm a bit unsure as to whether it is feasible to create an algorithm to find whom you will click with. For finding people you share interests with, today there is meetup.com. You may not click with them, but it is one place to start looking if you're in a new city. What I am asking about in the OP though is different (although I can see that any algorithm that tries to find people you click with will look at, among other things, your interests and hobbies)
- Jun8 16y ago
  You have a point. But look at the example you provide: meetup.com. It is hopelessly crude. The bad part is that it lets you connect with groups of people (clubs, etc.) rather than actual people. For example, when I enter Go, I get (among tons of unrelated content brought up by uninformed text matching) the Chicago Board Games Club. Cool, but I could have found this using Google (in fact searching for "Chicago go game" in Google turns up many better matches). This is definitely now what I need. As for your main point: My guess is that you are bonding with these people because you are sharing a common outlook to life, a common way of thinking. This would be hard or impossible to discern automatically using algorithms.

lsc 16y ago

the interesting thing I saw when I was looking a few years back was that OkCupid was full of people in open relationships- it seems those people would be easier to successfully serve, simply because coming back to the site after finding someone doesn't indicate failure in an open relationship. I guess the same is true for casual dating where neither party is looking for a long term commitment.