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Actually, I think OkCupid would be a good candidate for gradual engagement. Letting you browse profiles before creating an account could make it easier to see w

Actually, I think OkCupid would be a good candidate for gradual engagement. Letting you browse profiles before creating an account could make it easier to see what sort of people are on the site, what sort of work you'll have to do to write a profile, and generally set your expectations for what it's like to have an account there.

jmtame 13y ago
For this to work, you'd have to let your users opt-in to making their profiles public. Nothing stops a search engine crawler at this stage from caching everything, and most dating site users want their privacy. I don't think this would work.
- smtddr 13y ago
  Most(not all) search engine crawlers seem to obey robots.txt's "Disallow: /" in my experience. But beyond that, maybe the preview mode of the site should be done in a way to make crawlers/webscrapers return worthless results. Like make the no-sign-up site not work without javascript or constantly request captchas with annoying frequency. For a dating site, I'd assume no-sign-up mode shouldn't show any detail about the signed-up people beyond city/state, age & profile-picture.
  - darkstar999 13y ago
    > constantly request captchas with annoying frequency That's an anti-pattern that would annoy me more than the few minutes it would take to create an account.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jaredsohn 13y ago
Like this? http://www.okcupid.com/online-dating/san-francisco/california/ http://www.okcupid.com/online-dating/san-francisco/californi... I just don't see it linked to for people who visit the site without accounts. (A user has the option of making their profile public or private.) I've heard they are working on a site redesign, though, so maybe it will show up then.
crucialfelix 13y ago
Females do not want their dating profiles visible by anybody except genuinely intersted and verified visitors. A major part of ok cupids system is that it tracks views and informs the people WHO checked you out. The other dynamic is that people are shy and they need to be pushed to set up a visible profile quickly before they lose confidence. At that point they are contactable and datable. So no guest mode for OK Cupid.
- crucialfelix 13y ago
  in other words: no wallflowers

jmtame 13y ago

For this to work, you'd have to let your users opt-in to making their profiles public. Nothing stops a search engine crawler at this stage from caching everything, and most dating site users want their privacy. I don't think this would work.

smtddr 13y ago
Most(not all) search engine crawlers seem to obey robots.txt's "Disallow: /" in my experience. But beyond that, maybe the preview mode of the site should be done in a way to make crawlers/webscrapers return worthless results. Like make the no-sign-up site not work without javascript or constantly request captchas with annoying frequency. For a dating site, I'd assume no-sign-up mode shouldn't show any detail about the signed-up people beyond city/state, age & profile-picture.
- darkstar999 13y ago
  > constantly request captchas with annoying frequency That's an anti-pattern that would annoy me more than the few minutes it would take to create an account.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

jaredsohn 13y ago

Like this? http://www.okcupid.com/online-dating/san-francisco/california/ http://www.okcupid.com/online-dating/san-francisco/californi... I just don't see it linked to for people who visit the site without accounts. (A user has the option of making their profile public or private.) I've heard they are working on a site redesign, though, so maybe it will show up then.

crucialfelix 13y ago

Females do not want their dating profiles visible by anybody except genuinely intersted and verified visitors. A major part of ok cupids system is that it tracks views and informs the people WHO checked you out. The other dynamic is that people are shy and they need to be pushed to set up a visible profile quickly before they lose confidence. At that point they are contactable and datable. So no guest mode for OK Cupid.

crucialfelix 13y ago
in other words: no wallflowers