If your argument is that there are better 'rating' algorithms than ELO which can be used. Sure, go ahead and use them. I wasn't championing ELO specifically. I

If your argument is that there are better 'rating' algorithms than ELO which can be used. Sure, go ahead and use them. I wasn't championing ELO specifically. I meant any rating algorithm which can theoretically rank individuals. Obviously, no solution of ranking individuals on the concept of wins/losses is going to be perfect. Btw, I had the luck of implementing the bayesian Trueskill system you mentioned in some product I worked on. > Do you still feel sure whether this seems like an appropriate class of algorithms to leverage for dating? Assuming of course that users want to find partners, as opposed to good opponents. Imagine there being `n` heterosexual males and `n` heterosexual females on a dating platform. If all have to be paired as couples and if we can rank them by their 'popularity'. Don't you think most at the first glance would be more comfortable picking someone about their rating or higher? Just look at the skew of likes people get depending on their attractiveness from old OkCupid blogs. In dating apps, the rating most likely comes from the person's looks. Does that mean they are good matches? No way of knowing this. But does that mean they are more likely to swipe on each other? Probably yes. We can show them people at random but that doesn't mean that they will swipe on someone whom they don't consider to be at least in the same ballpark as them on attractiveness. The only way we can get better potential partners is if we have a lot of potential data about every user not limited to just looks. Also, even in that case if the other person is not on the same scale on attractiveness, the other person will have to take a leap of faith on whatever matching system they have.(which if you go by social experiments, people don't do) Considering how much data FB has about users through their platforms, they are the ones who truly can come close to matching people on common interests but I am not sure how successful even their dating venture has been.