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From a pure scientific point of view, there are a number of challenges when matching people. The first challenge is that people don't always have a good insight
by oxfordmale 4y ago
From a pure scientific point of view, there are a number of challenges when matching people. The first challenge is that people don't always have a good insight in themselves, and fill in the matching questions wrongly (this ignores people lying on purpose). Secondly matching algorithms aren't always very good. Most match on similarity of interests and this isn't as important as people think. Good relationships are based on similarity of values, however that is harder to quantify. As matching algorithms aren't very good, this leaves rapid scanning of profile pictures. This is known to result in a high signal to noise ratio.
- pmoriarty 4y ago"Good relationships are based on similarity of values, however that is harder to quantify." At least on OkCupid there are lots of value questions. Still, one of the problems that I've run in to is that while I've answered thousands of questions, I'll get matched with someone who's only answered (say) 100 questions, and we're supposedly a 96% match. Most people just don't answer very many questions, so it's hard to gauge compatibility from such a poor sample.
- noisy_boy 4y agoMaybe they need to add a "minimum questions answered" threshold/filter.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoAs I recall OKC's own data suggested that as few as three questions were sufficient for finding a compatible partner.
- pmoriarty 4y agoThat's completely false, in my experience. Maybe if they're the right questions.. but when there are thousands or millions of questions to choose from, which three are the right ones? I'd rather err on the side of having more data to judge compatibility from than less. Anyway, in my experience the people who answer relatively few questions tend to be the less serious and more flaky types. I'm more interested in serious relationships, so only answering a few questions would be a red flag right there.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago> Maybe if they're the right questions They were specifically these three questions: Do you enjoy horror movies? Have you traveled alone in a foreign country for fun? Have you ever wanted to chuck it all and live on a sailboat? Which predicted long-term compatibility at nearly 4x the rate of coincidence.
- oxfordmale 4y agoThat is the OK Cupid trap. The more questions you answer, the more likely it is your filtering out suitable matches. The match percentage isn't a good indicator if you are a match in real life. However, you make a fair point that people answering only answering a few questions aren't too serious about dating.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]