Just when you thought it was safe - OK CUPID PART 3: The Return of the WOO!

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There's a whole heap of new shit on OKC. Fuck it!

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:05 (nineteen years ago) link

Why do I have to be at work when there's a super cool "spot the virgin" game on there. fuck this.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:22 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh!! I'm on there now! starryvs is my user name! I've read none of the threads about this so GO GO GO, who are you all on there? Lets COMPARE!

Sarah (starry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:22 (nineteen years ago) link

So far I have been wooed by a punk fan at Goldsmiths and someone who wants to know where he can play online Scrabble.

Marvellous!

Sarah (starry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:25 (nineteen years ago) link

Starry I am crueller than you but you are more into drugs. Which sounds about right.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Liz how do I find YOU on it?! I don't know how this works!!

Sarah (starry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:58 (nineteen years ago) link

I am wintryme. There used to be a box down at the bottom of the page where you could search for people. I used the Compare Two Users thing.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 08:59 (nineteen years ago) link

Yes but what does "radcliffy" mean?

Sarah (starry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:07 (nineteen years ago) link

radcliffy = oxbridge

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:08 (nineteen years ago) link

I couldn't track down a definitive list of people, but I am akendoha.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:08 (nineteen years ago) link

Dunno. There's a glossary somewhere. Anyway, I'm more whatever it is than you.

xpost REALLY dl? Haha that's actually true as well.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:08 (nineteen years ago) link

liz - i think that's what it's supposed to mean anyway.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Dude. Btw I am crap at the virgin game, although I'm better at spotting virginal boys than girls.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:14 (nineteen years ago) link

bah! work stops me doing the virgin game.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 09:14 (nineteen years ago) link

I can't believe those bastards send you a mail about the new site changes. I THOUGHT IT WAS A WOO.

Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 22 July 2004 10:10 (nineteen years ago) link

At least they haven't ruined it a la allmusic

hmmm (hmmm), Thursday, 22 July 2004 10:25 (nineteen years ago) link

I really like the way that the "real life friends" button says "BECKON THEM"!!!

Sarah (starry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 10:41 (nineteen years ago) link

It won't let me add mine at the moment, so it says, rather hurtfully, that I have 'no real friends'.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 10:48 (nineteen years ago) link

My best score on the virgin test is 65%. I suck.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:15 (nineteen years ago) link

Wow. I got about 54%. It's not a skill that I am particularlt displeased not to have though. I rarely go hunting for virgins.

hmmm (hmmm), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:17 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm loving the Compare tool today. I am kinkier yet less indie than Carsmile.

Hey! I'm getting better at spotting virgins! 66%.

Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:37 (nineteen years ago) link

I am roxymuzak, obv.

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:21 (nineteen years ago) link

Friends networks! Virgin games! IT'S FULL OF STARS!

Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:36 (nineteen years ago) link

you'd think you'd get better at the virgin game but you don't.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:37 (nineteen years ago) link

So true.

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:39 (nineteen years ago) link

I did poorly on the virgin game, even though I thought all of the following would hold true:

girls with teeny-emo webcam shots = 14-year-old virgins
dorky girls with dorm-room pictures = college-freshman virgins
young boys trying hard to look "nice" = virgins
people with photos in apartments or bars = not virgins

My world is all topsy-turvy now.

nabiscothingy, Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:40 (nineteen years ago) link

How did I get 50% on a 21-question test?

Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:47 (nineteen years ago) link

One of them had had a blowjob.

Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:51 (nineteen years ago) link

magic.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:51 (nineteen years ago) link

how the fuck did it come up with the statistics at the end? how did it know who'd had sex within an hour of the test? Actually I don't ever remember it asking me if i was a virgin in the first place.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:53 (nineteen years ago) link

There's a "how many people have you, well, you know?" on the Type Test though, no?

Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:53 (nineteen years ago) link

oh. okay.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Isn't this frivolous application of collected responses against some kind of data protection act? Have these people agreed to have their profiles turned into a spot-the-virgin game?

Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:56 (nineteen years ago) link

You can opt out in your settings.

nabiscothingy, Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:57 (nineteen years ago) link

yes. it says it in the FAQ and sort of in a roundabout way on the front page. you can request it to be taken off if you so wish too.

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 22 July 2004 14:58 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh, fucking hell. I just did the whole thing and then got an error page at the end so I don't know what my score is.

Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 15:13 (nineteen years ago) link

Bah. So did I.

marvin wang (marvin wang), Thursday, 22 July 2004 15:31 (nineteen years ago) link

The relevant page, post email provision (http://www.okcupid.com/signup) is down. Maybe if they fix it I can refresh the page later.

Alba (Alba), Thursday, 22 July 2004 15:34 (nineteen years ago) link

Still don't know what I got the first time, but I did it again and only got 38% correct, which is appalling. So I did it again, trying to go more for the obvious choice this time, and got 71%.

It says: "In general, males are about as good as females at spotting virgins. But females almost always guess correctly with female pairs."

Unless my logic is skewy, surely this also implies that men alomst always guess correctly with male pairs, unless they instead make up all the ground by getting much better scores in the mixed pair ones, which would be very odd.

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 15:51 (nineteen years ago) link

(I think I fucked up the first time by assuming that dumpy, unattractive teenage girls were actually quite promiscuous, as a means of making themselves feel better about themselves, or as a product of sexual abuse. I now feel ashamed of this strategy.)

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 15:54 (nineteen years ago) link

Alba, your logic is wrong - all that tells us is that women must be rather less good at anything but female pairs, and it certainly doesn't imply what you infer.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:12 (nineteen years ago) link

But how do the two sexes end up being about as good as each other overall? There are only three sections to the test - m/m, f/f and f/m. They must be losing ground to the men on one of the sections other than f/f. If it's f/m, then as I said, that's weird. If it's m/m then then male contestants must be, as I said, as good at that as the female ones are at f/f.

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:09 (nineteen years ago) link

(I'm struggling to articulate why I can't countenance the possibilty that they would be better at f/m and the same as men at m/m. I guess that's where I'm stepping out of strict reason)

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:14 (nineteen years ago) link

Hang on, now I'm confused.

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:15 (nineteen years ago) link

you're not alone.

cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:16 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh. I confused myself by making a typo - in the post three above I mean "I can't countenance the possibility that they would be worse at f/m and the same as men at m/m."

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:17 (nineteen years ago) link

I've played around with some examples of possible averages and see my logic was indeed skewy. For a 70% overall score, it could be:

Women

f/f = 90
m/f = 75
m/m= 45


Men =

f/f = 68%
m/f = 75%
m/m = 67%


Which would be mean men are better at spotting m/f than either m/m or f/f. Hmm.. that would also be weird. Other combinations I've tried result in both sexes being bettter at spotting female virgins than male ones, which seem noteworthy enough for them to put up on the website.

Can you come up with a set of average scores that fits what we know without any interesting implications at all?

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 20:38 (nineteen years ago) link

I always spoil everything.

Alba (Alba), Saturday, 24 July 2004 21:21 (nineteen years ago) link

I can't stop looking at her:

ihttp://www.okcupid.com/profile?pic=0&tuid=8878330946154156249

cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:59 (nineteen years ago) link

Ew. I can.

roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 24 July 2004 23:07 (nineteen years ago) link

I mean I think I can understand reasons, but for you, why is it important for it to be semi-anonymous?

if it’s a particular proclivity or fetish or w/e no need to answer, I’m just curious if “exists on a meet-up/dating site” is professionally detrimental. I’ve seen a few coworkers on there, assume they saw me, but I guess that puts you on even ground

mh, Friday, 22 December 2017 23:22 (six years ago) link

Being in academia and searchable by sexual interests is a different situation to seeing ppl in similar business fields to you looking for dates

shackling the masses with plastic-wrapped snack picks (sic), Saturday, 23 December 2017 00:07 (six years ago) link

yes. and okc's whole thing is built around giving answers to questions about pretty personal things, some of which are job-ending etc. could make those all private and take out all revealing info from the profile - but then might as well not have an okc profile. more generally being stalked/doxxed is generally not an appealing prospect. and a lot of groups/communities have gravitated to okc and deliberately NOT to first-name sites/apps, in order to maintain their personal safety or the experience of being able to define yourself. okc blog's babbling about how the names your parents gave you are sooo much better than the ones you'd choose for yourself is stunningly tone-deaf for a notionally 'hip' site, in 2017.

Newb Sybok (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 23 December 2017 00:53 (six years ago) link

but yeah no, not gonna go into detail on my reasons for being anonymous, on a site where i am not anonymous. (no offense taken just sayin, my D.C. identity has always been pretty well tagged to my IRL one for better or worse)

Newb Sybok (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 23 December 2017 00:57 (six years ago) link

that all makes a lot of sense and I appreciate your discretion!

but yeah, people are judgmental about the wrong things and everyone deserves some discretion, for sure

mh, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:03 (six years ago) link

if you google me you mostly get a lead character from a popular video games series I’ve never played, so... thank you, video game industry

mh, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:04 (six years ago) link

imo their fumbling is partially an inability to let the site exist and grow with the same demographic it’s had. I get the impression their clientele is both aging and shrinking, and owning multiple dating sites means they’re trying to constantly figure out how to capture users without cannibalizing their other sites

I don’t think the aesthetic of Tinder with the transparency of match.com is what anyone wants — okcupid was the site where you created a story of yourself that’s less straightforward and more nuanced.

mh, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:50 (six years ago) link

the conspiracy theory, as with many of their other bad changes, is that they want okc to die so they can focus on those other sites. but that's a silly theory - it's an established brand, you'd want to parlay it into SOMEthing.

Newb Sybok (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 23 December 2017 02:50 (six years ago) link

I'd hate for there to be no dating site like OkC, that's free and open to all kinds of people and that encourages people to say a lot about themselves. But at this point I'd be cool with something else coming along to replace OkC, since they seem intent on chasing off users with solutions to non-existent problems.

JRN, Saturday, 23 December 2017 03:02 (six years ago) link

Unfortunately, I doubt a site like that could take off from scratch at this point. OkC being a holdover from a previous era of online dating might be the only reason it's still going.

JRN, Saturday, 23 December 2017 03:03 (six years ago) link

so afaict the app is now only showing me ppl who've logged in and chosen new names (and/or "names"). desktop match search still shows everybody in my area tho.

Newb Sybok (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 23 December 2017 17:45 (six years ago) link

I opened the app and several people have "No" as their first name :)

mh, Saturday, 23 December 2017 17:47 (six years ago) link

'woman'

j., Saturday, 23 December 2017 17:52 (six years ago) link

"cry"

nickn, Sunday, 24 December 2017 05:25 (six years ago) link

no

infinity (∞), Sunday, 24 December 2017 05:34 (six years ago) link

I haven't used OKC in years but tbh I always enjoyed the ritual of eventually learning someone's real name when the appropriate moment came

Simon H., Sunday, 24 December 2017 05:48 (six years ago) link

one month passes...

Sweet, they totally broke messages.

Now when someone messages you, if you don't like them, the messages show up on their profile. For some reason. And they message you "hey someone sent you a message! It'll be on their profile! Which you can find by going into Double Take (ugh) or matches and they'll appear near the top! Probably!"

I mean... wtf is this shit. Makes no sense at all, at all.

my dreams in the hell-pits (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Friday, 26 January 2018 08:34 (six years ago) link

it is the weirdest and most convoluted system. wanting to cut down harassment is one thing but was this really the best fix they could come up with?

Righteous wax chaperone, rotating Wingdings (Doctor Casino), Friday, 26 January 2018 16:16 (six years ago) link

i saw a woman from ok cupid at the grocery store! she was buying tea, which is apropros given that her screen name used to be something about tea

j., Friday, 2 February 2018 02:42 (six years ago) link

three weeks pass...

So I liked someone
They liked me back
I don't know who it is
Or how to find them
This is an awesome website

my dreams in the hell-pits (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 25 February 2018 08:41 (six years ago) link

one month passes...

https://zdware.com/2018/okcupid_removed_visitor_api/

Here’s a quick rundown about some of the less obvious data points:

birthdate - Exact birthdate of the person. Birthdate is considered PII (personally identifiable information) by many agencies in the US and EU.
stalk_time - The time the user visited your profile.
userid - ID of the user, could be used within another attack vector/API.
realname - This is usually the first name provided by the user, especially since the username deprecation by OkCupid
last_received_message - Timestamp of when the user last received a message.
last_sent_message - Timestamp of when the user last sent a message.
location_detail - This is where things get a little creepy, and complicated.
This is an unnecessarily large amount of data for OKCupid’s old visitor feature. The only data you would need for this feature is the username, the time they visited you, a thumbnail, their city/state, and match percentage.

j., Monday, 9 April 2018 18:31 (six years ago) link

sounds like their internal api (programs inside the site using data that are only on their network) and external apis (available from the web) were the same? uuuuungh

alvin noto (mh), Monday, 9 April 2018 21:44 (six years ago) link

yup dumb dumb dumb

j., Monday, 9 April 2018 21:46 (six years ago) link

Always amazes me how much easier it would be to not be a scumbag company

my dreams in the hell-pits (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 11 April 2018 01:29 (six years ago) link

One of the dating apps I used to use, can't remember which one, used to have an "xx miles away" feature when you looked at a match's profile, accurate down to like a tenth of a mile. After messaging with one match a bunch I could tell whether she was at home or at work based on the distance away. Super creepy; it was essentially a GPS tracker. Nobody needs that information.

Evan R, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 14:53 (six years ago) link

but you need to know she's thirsty @ work

Nhex, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:26 (six years ago) link

They're showing an instant replay, and the one announcer is citing a Cardinal fan in the stands claiming it was a homer as proof it was a homer

Evan R, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:57 (six years ago) link

ooops, wrong thread

Evan R, Wednesday, 11 April 2018 19:57 (six years ago) link

four weeks pass...

https://i.imgur.com/E2QUKJS.png

mick signals, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 13:30 (five years ago) link

three months pass...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-your-child-is-a-psychopath/524502/

After talking with Carl, I begin to see him as a remarkable success story. “Without [ Mendota] and Jesus,” he tells me, “I would have been a Manson-, Bundy-, Dahmer-, or Berkowitz-type of criminal.” Sure, his fascination with the morbid is a little creepy. Yet here he is, now remarried, the father of a 1-year-old son he adores, with a flourishing business. After our phone interview, I decide to meet him in person. I want to witness his redemption for myself.

The night before I’m scheduled to fly to Los Angeles, I receive a frantic email from Carl’s wife. Carl is in police custody. His wife tells me that Carl considers himself polyamorous, and had invited one of his girlfriends over to their apartment. (This woman denies ever being romantically involved with Carl.)* They were playing with the baby when his wife returned. She was furious, and grabbed their son. Carl responded by pulling her hair, snatching the baby out of her arms, and taking her phone to prevent her from calling the police. She called from a neighbor’s house instead. (Carl says he grabbed the baby to protect him.) Three misdemeanor charges—spousal battery, abandonment and neglect of a child, and intimidation of a witness—and the psychopath who made good is now in jail.

I go to Los Angeles anyway, in the naive hope that Carl will be released on bail at his hearing the next day. A few minutes before 8:30 a.m., his wife and I meet at the courthouse and begin the long wait. She is 12 years Carl’s junior, a compact woman with long black hair and a weariness that ebbs only when she gazes at her son. She met Carl on OkCupid two years ago while visiting L.A. and—after a romance of just a few months—moved to California to marry him. Now she sits outside the courtroom, one eye on her son, fielding calls from clients of the funeral home and wondering whether she can make bail.

“I’m so sick of the drama,” she says, as the phone rings again.

Carl is a tough man to be married to. His wife says he’s funny and charming and a good listener, but he sometimes loses interest in the funeral business, leaving most of the work to her. He brings other women home for sex, even when she’s there. And while he’s never seriously beaten her up, he has slapped her.

j., Monday, 3 September 2018 18:53 (five years ago) link

that's a lot of article for one keyword

Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Monday, 3 September 2018 21:53 (five years ago) link

Was thinking the exact thing

Like uh why this thread again?

F# A# (∞), Monday, 3 September 2018 23:50 (five years ago) link

quintessence of ok cupid

j., Tuesday, 4 September 2018 00:14 (five years ago) link

Lol dawg

F# A# (∞), Tuesday, 4 September 2018 03:09 (five years ago) link

ok dude

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 4 September 2018 16:07 (five years ago) link

ah, the innocent days when OkCupid ruled the online dating landscape.

homosexual II, Tuesday, 4 September 2018 17:26 (five years ago) link

five months pass...

sigh

incredibly beautiful person who messaged me first and then abruptly stopped replying when i asked you out, what’s on ur mind

the late great, Thursday, 21 February 2019 00:14 (five years ago) link

turns out i was buried under a pile of weirdos, but now i got the digits and a date :-D

the late great, Monday, 25 February 2019 12:45 (five years ago) link

ten months pass...

tried to log in to this for the first time in three years and my profile was deleted

that's reasonable, but it's unlikely i'll ever have the energy to make a new one

mookieproof, Friday, 17 January 2020 21:09 (four years ago) link

Probably not worth said energy, tbh.

may the force leave us alone (zchyrs), Friday, 17 January 2020 21:13 (four years ago) link

diminishing returns

Suggest Banshee (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 17 January 2020 22:10 (four years ago) link

six months pass...

We’ve introduced a dating forum at https://t.co/rVJHNl5voI, so singles who feel the same way about the virus can meet and not have to worry about differing attitudes to social distancing. https://t.co/haGHFYuzuy

— Toby Young (@toadmeister) August 9, 2020

mookieproof, Monday, 10 August 2020 15:08 (three years ago) link

Is there any reason currently to use this over the apps?

lukas, Monday, 10 August 2020 16:48 (three years ago) link

iirc there is no reason whatsoever to use a dating forum based around being a "lockdown sceptic"

Doctor Casino, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:00 (three years ago) link

or did you mean OKC? it has an app!

Doctor Casino, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:00 (three years ago) link

Is there any reason currently to use an app promoted by someone who calls himself toadmeister?

nickn, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:06 (three years ago) link

I meant OKC, and yeah I guess now that it has/is an app it seems to have sanded away all the weird bits that maybe made it unique and useful?

lukas, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:07 (three years ago) link

let alone one promoted by someone featured in a thread like this

Most Hilarious Way for Toby Young to Die Although God Forbid It Should Ever Happen

mookieproof, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:08 (three years ago) link

the gradual sanding-down of OKC was one of those long slow bummer demises of the Old Internet, or in this case the Internet of the Mid-00s. gradually the site became incredibly square in tone, policing out a lot of weirdies/kink profiles etc., the clampdown on usernames in favor of real names, and with the interface meanwhile becoming so simplified and tinder-like that having more than a few sentences in your profile came to look absurd. i'm sure they culled a lot of the questions and quizzes and stuff too. it basically just got a lot more generic, slowly.

Doctor Casino, Monday, 10 August 2020 17:17 (three years ago) link

Every 6 months they get rid of another feature people liked, people complain, life goes on. As with all sites, doing what your userbase wants or retracting a bad change is completely off the menu.


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