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OKTrends went dormant when OKCupid was sold to the company that operates match.com. I don't know what Rudder's involvement with OKCupid was after that, but he

by beloch 12y ago

OKTrends went dormant when OKCupid was sold to the company that operates match.com. I don't know what Rudder's involvement with OKCupid was after that, but he was no longer one of the owners. He might have still worked there, but kept his blog silent under pressure from management.

nether 12y ago
Pressure from management? Sam Yagan is still the site's CEO. Also the pressure must have failed because he's releasing a whole book about his findings now, not just blog posts. You people are ridiculous.
- Natsu 12y ago
  Most of us have not forgotten the "why you should never pay for a dating site" analysis that vanished, nor will we any time soon. EDIT: Might as well link to it while I am at it - http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl... Also, I know the explanation they gave. I don't give a damn whether anyone was pressured into taking it down and they never bothered to actually explain what was wrong with the original analysis, identify the 'public sources' used, or to do anything but try to bury the story with a cheap excuse and hope we'd all forget.
  - purerandomness 12y ago
    Wikipedia has a link to a copy at archive.org, for anyone who missed it in 2010: http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupi...
  - com2kid 12y ago
    OKC staff have publicly, repeatedly, that the reason the article was taken down was that after their acquisition by Match, the OK Trends staff had access to new data which showed that their original conclusion was wrong. Example of such an explanation: http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/pr2wo/dyk_that_okcupid_used_to_have_many_articles/c3rtzwg http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/pr2wo/dyk_that_okcu...
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Well, I'm afraid I didn't see that Reddit discussion from 2 years ago, but quoting from it: > Basically the breakdown was that rather than 93%+ of the people you are shown being "dead profiles" the actual number is more like 10-20%. > But if you take these into consideration, our conclusion would say, "Match.com users get married at about the same rate or higher as people not using Match.com!" That's not really a ringing endorsement here, at best it shows that if we change our estimates a little we can reverse our conclusions. That to me says that they were never able to come to very reliable conclusions in the first place on this issue.
      - com2kid 12y ago
        > That's not really a ringing endorsement here, at best it shows that if we change our estimates a little we can reverse our conclusions. That to me says that they were never able to come to very reliable conclusions in the first place on this issue. And if you read the entire comment thread, you'll see that they removed the article precisely because they were unable to come to any real conclusions. The original blog post stated that paid dating sites made one's odds worse. Real numbers demonstrated that paid sites were, at worst, a wash.
        mietek 12y ago
        If this was indeed the case, then instead of removing the article, they could have published an amendment, avoiding the entire sell-out/censorship angle.
        Natsu 12y ago
        > And if you read the entire comment thread, you'll see that they removed the article precisely because they were unable to come to any real conclusions. The thing is, access to private data didn't change the fact that they were using a self-reported stat to begin with. Given that OKC's data was self-reported to a significant degree, it's hard to see why this wasn't taken into account. And then they go on to cite how they already knew it could be 10x higher (or more) by citing OKC data. This leads to the (paraphrased) conclusion that they can't be total frauds because they're still in business.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
shawndrost 12y ago
The blog went silent b/c Christian was put in charge of everydamnthing at the OKC office as Sam (the old CEO) moved up after the acquisition. I don't think there was any pressure from management, which would have been dumb -- the blog was a great asset to OKC/Match aside from that one post that they deleted for obvious reasons. (Source: I used to work at OkCupid Labs, one of the things that Sam went on to do under Match, where he is now CEO.)
- tgb 12y ago
  What was the subject of the post that was deleted? (Is there an archive of it?) Edit: from other comments: http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...
  - CDRdude 12y ago
    The title of the post was: "Why you should never pay for online dating". This appears to be a rehosted version of it: http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating.html http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dat...
blumentopf 12y ago
"Rudder's blog went on hiatus between April 2011 and July 2014 while he wrote Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking), a book based on the same ideas that inspired the blog." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rudder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rudder
chimeracoder 12y ago
I used to work at OkCupid, on OkTrends. You're not the first person to propose this question - there's a comment like this almost every time OkCupid makes the front page - and here's what I wrote the last time[0], which I think explains it well: There were a number of factors. A bit part is that, in 2010, there were 2.5 people working full-time[1] on doing research for OkTrends, which allowed us to research, write, and publish posts much more often. The blog posts took a lot of work. "The Real Stuff White People Like"[2] took almost two months of my time, plus some from Max and Christian as well. (Much like the product design process, since we didn't start each post off with a clear end result in mind, not all the work was visible in the final product). I left to go back to school. Max ended up taking on more responsibility for other data/stats work, which slowed the pace a bit, and he left at the beginning of 2012 to do his own stuff. And Christian became in charge of running OkCupid after the acquisition, which meant he had even less time then he did before Max and I joined. People asked me for the last three years whether the reason OkTrends hadn't posted since 2011 was because of the Match.com acquisition and whether Match shut them down and I had to tell everyone "No, trust me, they're still around! It's just a coincidence!". Thankfully I no longer have to. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097780 [1] 2.5 full-time means: Two of us full-time, as well as Christian, though he split his work time between OkTrends (the blog) and other stuff. [2] http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-peopl...
- xcubed 12y ago
  Christian had time to write a book, but did not have time to update the blog. I would suggest that in the interests of the OKCupid business, updating the blog would have been a better thing to do than write a book. The blog drew many users to OK Cupid. It's possible that writing a book was in Christian's interest. If Christian was no longer working at OK Cupid while he wrote the book, then I understand. In that case the error is on the part of the New York Times for describing him as currently in that role.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Perhaps Christian took his own time to do what was in his own best interest (and also beneficial to the company).

by beloch 12y ago

nether 12y ago

Pressure from management? Sam Yagan is still the site's CEO. Also the pressure must have failed because he's releasing a whole book about his findings now, not just blog posts. You people are ridiculous.

Natsu 12y ago
Most of us have not forgotten the "why you should never pay for a dating site" analysis that vanished, nor will we any time soon. EDIT: Might as well link to it while I am at it - http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl... Also, I know the explanation they gave. I don't give a damn whether anyone was pressured into taking it down and they never bothered to actually explain what was wrong with the original analysis, identify the 'public sources' used, or to do anything but try to bury the story with a cheap excuse and hope we'd all forget.
- purerandomness 12y ago
  Wikipedia has a link to a copy at archive.org, for anyone who missed it in 2010: http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupi...
- com2kid 12y ago
  OKC staff have publicly, repeatedly, that the reason the article was taken down was that after their acquisition by Match, the OK Trends staff had access to new data which showed that their original conclusion was wrong. Example of such an explanation: http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/pr2wo/dyk_that_okcupid_used_to_have_many_articles/c3rtzwg http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/pr2wo/dyk_that_okcu...
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Well, I'm afraid I didn't see that Reddit discussion from 2 years ago, but quoting from it: > Basically the breakdown was that rather than 93%+ of the people you are shown being "dead profiles" the actual number is more like 10-20%. > But if you take these into consideration, our conclusion would say, "Match.com users get married at about the same rate or higher as people not using Match.com!" That's not really a ringing endorsement here, at best it shows that if we change our estimates a little we can reverse our conclusions. That to me says that they were never able to come to very reliable conclusions in the first place on this issue.
    - com2kid 12y ago
      > That's not really a ringing endorsement here, at best it shows that if we change our estimates a little we can reverse our conclusions. That to me says that they were never able to come to very reliable conclusions in the first place on this issue. And if you read the entire comment thread, you'll see that they removed the article precisely because they were unable to come to any real conclusions. The original blog post stated that paid dating sites made one's odds worse. Real numbers demonstrated that paid sites were, at worst, a wash.
      - mietek 12y ago
        If this was indeed the case, then instead of removing the article, they could have published an amendment, avoiding the entire sell-out/censorship angle.
      - Natsu 12y ago
        > And if you read the entire comment thread, you'll see that they removed the article precisely because they were unable to come to any real conclusions. The thing is, access to private data didn't change the fact that they were using a self-reported stat to begin with. Given that OKC's data was self-reported to a significant degree, it's hard to see why this wasn't taken into account. And then they go on to cite how they already knew it could be 10x higher (or more) by citing OKC data. This leads to the (paraphrased) conclusion that they can't be total frauds because they're still in business.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

shawndrost 12y ago

The blog went silent b/c Christian was put in charge of everydamnthing at the OKC office as Sam (the old CEO) moved up after the acquisition. I don't think there was any pressure from management, which would have been dumb -- the blog was a great asset to OKC/Match aside from that one post that they deleted for obvious reasons. (Source: I used to work at OkCupid Labs, one of the things that Sam went on to do under Match, where he is now CEO.)

tgb 12y ago
What was the subject of the post that was deleted? (Is there an archive of it?) Edit: from other comments: http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...
- CDRdude 12y ago
  The title of the post was: "Why you should never pay for online dating". This appears to be a rehosted version of it: http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating.html http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dat...

blumentopf 12y ago

"Rudder's blog went on hiatus between April 2011 and July 2014 while he wrote Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking), a book based on the same ideas that inspired the blog." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rudder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rudder

chimeracoder 12y ago

I used to work at OkCupid, on OkTrends. You're not the first person to propose this question - there's a comment like this almost every time OkCupid makes the front page - and here's what I wrote the last time[0], which I think explains it well: There were a number of factors. A bit part is that, in 2010, there were 2.5 people working full-time[1] on doing research for OkTrends, which allowed us to research, write, and publish posts much more often. The blog posts took a lot of work. "The Real Stuff White People Like"[2] took almost two months of my time, plus some from Max and Christian as well. (Much like the product design process, since we didn't start each post off with a clear end result in mind, not all the work was visible in the final product). I left to go back to school. Max ended up taking on more responsibility for other data/stats work, which slowed the pace a bit, and he left at the beginning of 2012 to do his own stuff. And Christian became in charge of running OkCupid after the acquisition, which meant he had even less time then he did before Max and I joined. People asked me for the last three years whether the reason OkTrends hadn't posted since 2011 was because of the Match.com acquisition and whether Match shut them down and I had to tell everyone "No, trust me, they're still around! It's just a coincidence!". Thankfully I no longer have to. :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097780 [1] 2.5 full-time means: Two of us full-time, as well as Christian, though he split his work time between OkTrends (the blog) and other stuff. [2] http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-peopl...

xcubed 12y ago
Christian had time to write a book, but did not have time to update the blog. I would suggest that in the interests of the OKCupid business, updating the blog would have been a better thing to do than write a book. The blog drew many users to OK Cupid. It's possible that writing a book was in Christian's interest. If Christian was no longer working at OK Cupid while he wrote the book, then I understand. In that case the error is on the part of the New York Times for describing him as currently in that role.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  Perhaps Christian took his own time to do what was in his own best interest (and also beneficial to the company).