Talk:Adult FriendFinder

Watch this article for spam and conflict of interest
The original article is very favorable to AFF -- maybe it was written by them? Someone should keep an eye on this article to make sure they don't delete the criticism.
 * I agree with your general sentiment, although I thought some of the links you added were of questionable value so I removed them. In general though this article has had a problem with people adding referal links, which should be watched closely for. Alex Krupp 01:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, years later there are still attempts both to skew the article by deleting the criticism, or by making it an entirely negative piece, and attempts to insert affiliate links into the prose. So, this article needs to be watched closely by a substantial number of users, continually. 68.35.36.43 (talk) 01:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I dispute the neutrality of this article
IMO phrases like "there are many fake profiles" and "the ratio of men to women is very high" greatly understate the extent of the problems with AFF's alleged service. If the site was free or ad-supported, it would not be a big deal. But the system is designed so that users are lured into upgrading to a paid account in order to respond to messages from interested "women". Only then does it become obvious that 100% of the messages are fakes. (Not an exaggeration -- I used their service for an entire month, and 11/11 of the messages I received were scams.) AFF has an obvious business interest in tolerating this situation (while insisting that they don't), and this is as close to being a scam as possible without being overtly illegal. In particular, critical content keeps dissappearing from this wikipedia article, and there is only one party who stands to benefit from the false impression that AFF has "some problems" but is otherwise legitimate. That party is AFF itself.


 * I agree with everything you say and have seen the same thing myself firsthand. The problem is that the situation is very hard to quantify and Wikipedia has a policy against original research. We need to find a way that we can emphasize these criticisms without being libelous. The problem is that as far as I know no one has ever done any scientific research on fake dating profiles. Alex Krupp 20:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

$5 says my posting mysteriously disappears.


 * Ain't happened yet. You owe wikipedia $5. Go donate.

View of someone who works for AFF
For the record, there are bot accounts created, and the people in the CS department disable them whenever they find them. There are usually a few fake accounts for testing purposes but they are deliberately kept unobtrusive (and usually have names rlike /^fftest.*/). Bot accounts come from outside sources, much like the infamous glut of Myspace whores. Some of the technology for screening against bots could be improved, but due to constantly working on existing portions of the site it's virtually impossible to get any development time for stuff like this.

Please keep in mind Wikipedia policy when stating 'facts' in the criticism page which are not only unverified but, in actuality, not true. Speculation and accusations from annoyed customers are better handled by calling the CS department.

Also, FFI's/Various, Inc's business interest in tolerating scam emails is mitigated by the fact that there are a number of ways for standard members to communicate with gold and silver members *when said paid members instantiate the communication*. In other words, a standard member is limited to winking at other members, but a paid member can communicate with anyone they start talking to, and if they get the 'standard contacts' package they can even get unsolicited emails from standard members.

You both seem to be looking for ways to do some sort of 'expose' on how corrupt the company is--in all honesty, a few minutes ago, standing outside the offices, I suggested we make build some sort of LWP script to find the affiliate referral codes added into the AFF wikipedia page's AFF link and, when found, freeze those accounts and send them a nasty email about their TOS violation (as well as some sort of 'watch my blog' page where people could list their blog URLs and get those watched for jerks pulling this crap, too). The suggestion was not met with disdain, but with 'That's a good idea... I just don't know if we'd have the development time.'


 * Someone please dig the attribution of that post back out of page history. It's important to note who wrote this, since it's an AFF employee, and if they edit the article, that's a probable WP:COI issue. Temp-DELETE-ME (talk) 01:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I am a standard (non-paying) member, and when paid members email me I cannot read the emails. Clicking to open such an email yields a blurred rendition of the content together with a link to the upgrade page. The claim above that paid members can communicate with unpaid members may have been true five years ago but it is not true now. The only way I can find to communicate is via the chat function (I can invite to chat five time per day), and that is limited to users running the Internet Messenger application (typically fewer than 20,000 versus many millions of members in the US). Lewis Goudy (talk) 23:04, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

This article has been scamming our readers with affiliate links
- Gl e n T C 13:12, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I have removed "There are many other websites, such as Private's Jocpoc that operate using a similar model." - I cannot find ANY connection between a site called jocpoc and Private - in fact, this looks to be a scam pulled by AFF themselves. Take a look here and click on "jocpoc" - where does it take you? AFF site made to look like it's a Private site! Is almost worth mentioning under the "scams" section!
 * 2) the original external link to their site had a commission pay per click revenue code attached (I have removed) so whomever placed it was getting kickbacks from this article!
 * Re: "In December, 2005 Alexa ranked the Adult Friend Finder website as the 43rd most visited website on the internet based on the previous three month's usage." I think given the above that a citation be required before including, I'm fed up, this article is a scam!
 * Thanks Glen, good edits. The Alexa thing is actually true though. In fact I think it used to be even higher, like the 25th most popular site on Alexa. Anyway you can see my comments above about the systemic problems with fixing this article. Alex Krupp 19:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep it's rating 47th right now... no wonder too if they own their "competition" :) - Gl e n T C 20:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I just removed another referralID from the adultfriendfinder.com links on the article page. If regular readers of this article could keep an eye out for this type of abuse, we can get it reverted quickly. --Versageek 19:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I estimate that the first two hundred (!) "results" when you Google Adultfriendfinder are fakes, obtained by diligent search engine optimization and the creation of many, many fake commentaries, studies, etc. all linking to each other to improve Google rank. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.107.204 (talk) 15:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I have tried to NPOV the article...
And thus removed the tag, however none of the claims; most popular site/ten million members/use of spam/spyware/ratio m:f etc are cited. Does the article feel more NPOV now? - Gl e n T C 07:54, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Added criticism of suspect advertising methods
Although I wasn't logged in. I'll be watching to see if the notes disappear in an unwarranted manner. Centrepull 23:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Why I deleted the criticism.
 * Hi, I am new user of this wiki things. I deleted the criticism as someone delete my creation of internet discrimination. The criticism has no difference to ripoff report, do you guys really have any true statistics? I have true statistics to prove how many people have been hurted by internet discrimination. Yes, I do this for attention of you guys on internet discrimination.

This site is linked to many porn sites and sex sites. They make a few dollars off of posting the links all over. It is a scam site

Criticism section removed
While I suspect that what was written in the Criticism section is partly or completely true, as it stands it was clearly original rsearch, since it had no sources to support it. A criticism section is appropriate and valuable for this article but only if it has proper citations for the claims made. Gwernol 06:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Guys, I really don't see a problem here... as in the case of any article vandalized too often, one could disable edits from unregistered/new users. That will keep at least some edit warriors away. As for 216.111.97.126 and Pihanki, I wouldn't take them too seriously... a website with such policies can go as far as paying employees to haunt even the last website where criticism about AFF is posted :D Yes, it takes countless gullible & desperate users to make AFF's existence possible, but IMHO they (AFF, not the users) should either all go to jail or be forced to advertise what they really offer... or was it the other way around? Obviously, there is a larger interest to keep thins the way they are ;) 81.96.125.240 (talk) 02:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I am/was 216.111.97.126, and I am not (nor have I ever been) employed by AFF. As I said, I been a member since about 2003, and only paid for one month. It is true that there are bots in the chat rooms, most of them are obviously not related to AFF, but are regular cam whores trolling business, usually by trying to get guys to connect to a bot on MSN Messenger or (less frequently) Yahoo Messenger. When it comes to email, I been getting my fair share of scams or obvious fake profiles, but I have also been approached by several real women through mail. Not many, that is true, since few women pay for memberships. The guys contact them instead. The best way to meet people is in the chat rooms. Just don't come in and act like an idiot, I seen too many 20-something guys come in and ask the first girl they see if she want to get laid, then get all pissy for getting turned down. As I said, I met probably in the range of 300 people from the site at different parties/meet-and-greets, and hooked up with about 30 over the years. I talked to several more on the phone. All dating sites, AFF as well as PlentyOfFish, HotOrNot, Match and Yahoo Personals have fake profiles and cam whores on the sites. I don't think they are employed by the sites, but just using the infrastructure to troll for customers. Yes, AFF is using IP location software to make the ads look like the girls are local. I don't like it, makes it look cheap, but honestly, I seen other sites doing the same. I have a feeling that most of the people calling it a scam have gone on the site, created aprofile, blasted out email for a few weeks and not been getting any responses. It takes time to build a good profile, some trial and error might be needed. In addition, a good way to get exposure is to visit the chats, which is free. I have spent the enormous amount of $19.99 on AFF in 5 years. $4/year is not bad, and that is about $0.75 per girl I scored with from there. :-) None of them were "pros", by the way. :-) Some I took out for dinner, so perhaps $35 for a date, but most just came to my place or invited me to their place. 216.111.97.126 (talk) 19:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I reinstated the 'wrong names' and 'racially surprising galleries for certain locations' criticisms, on a number of grounds:


 * It is not original research, but simple observation
 * It is true
 * It is not libellous as Gwernol has claimed in hidden text on the edit page
 * It is important to retain as useful and relevant information for the reader

For similar reasons, I also restated this hidden statement: This is aimed at inflating membership numbers on the main site as well as the mirror sites to induce more people to subscribe to the service. as:

You can also log into these sites using your Adultfriendfinder login and password. This means that you are also a member of these sites, a situation that means that Adultfriendfinder may count your membership separately for each of these websites, thus boosting claimed membership numbers. Centrepull (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It is original research, though. It would be verifiable if you could cite some news article on the subject, but if you personally have concluded that the names are "racially surprising" (presumably based on your expert knowledge of racial naming patterns), that's original research. The same could be said of about 75% of this article, really, both the "pro" and the "anti" sections. --Delirium (talk) 18:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Simple observation viz: If one logs onto AFF, or sees one of their ads while browsing the net from an obscure part of Western Nigeria, it is a common observation that there are a very surprising number of 'blondencute' members within a small radius of your location. This is readily verifiable (with some knowledge) by anyone with the ability to spoof an IP address from a small town in Western Nigeria, and it can be verified by anyone who lives in, or visits such locations - such as myself. Apomu, in Osun State would count as pretty obscure. More seriously, I'm not sure why simply being reported in any newspaper counts as verification (newspapers are generally accurate?!?), when simple observation by any and everyone interested is not. I live in the UK, and the supposed local AFF membernames here are fake, again by simple observation. We don't have frats here, so 'fratgirl' is not a likely genuine nickname.

Finally, I would respectfully draw the reader's attention to the fact that this article has been stripped of most detail of the activities of AFF, I suspect on the premise that most of these activities happen to reflect badly on AFF. This vandalism appears systematic and long-term in purpose. Revert, revert, revert. Centrepull (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You don't appear to understand how encyclopedias, including Wikiepdia, work. I suggest you read our core policy on verifiability again, as it has a good description on why we verify from independent, published sources. Please don't "revert, revert, revert" unless you have reliable sources to back up the criticism section. Gwernol 11:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC


 * Why would someone defend AFF with such fury unless they where hired by them?

As an aside to this now-stale flamewar, I have to note that the suggestion above, in the thick of this thread, that the article be semi-protected so that only logged-in users can edit it, it not going to happen. The vandalism and other abuse isn't severe and continual enough to warrant that, and way more importantly, a large number of legit Wikipedians, myself included, would not edit an article like this except anonymously, even to fix obvious policy violations, because it implies a personal interest in the subject matter, and we all know by now that potential employers have started digging around in people's online histories, including MySpace, Facebook and, yes, even Wikipedia. Temp-DELETE-ME (talk) 01:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Translation
Italian translation of the Adult FriendFinder website is very bad, probably obatained by using an automatic translator, this happen also in other no-english languages? If yes it may be good to write about this problem in the article, maybe under the section "criticism". Sorry for my english. --Italian Viper (talk) 10:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of criticism
I'll admit I'm sort of going on a gut feeling here, but based on the diction and generally un-wikipedia-esque approach of some of those removing criticism sections, does anyone else have a suspicion that AFF may have its hands in the editing of this page? Miles Livingston (talk) 17:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I too strongly suspect that supporters of AFF are involved in editing this page, for the purpose of removing criticism. Centrepull (talk) 17:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * They sure are, they have too much to lose if they do nothing. Incredible... hope they lose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.48.112.44 (talk) 20:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you please explain why the link to the only neutral study of AFF-the velocitypress.com study--was cut out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.107.204 (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, since there appears to be no reason, I'll put it back in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.107.204 (talk) 12:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks to be self published, with no evidence of editorial fact checking or peer review. See policy on verifiability and identifying reliable sources for details. - MrOllie (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems fair, I came here via VelocityPress' Irvine/Mallory article, and whilst you can't fault them for enthusiasm, they make way too many assumptions and deal in factoids, not facts. 62.255.248.225 (talk) 13:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems that the NPOV effort has been lost in this article. In the years since I last read this article, the whole of the comments indicating widespread poor user experience have disappeared. Does anyone have good cites to add back in? There should be some reputable (e.g. not self-published) ones available online by now - the general complaints about this website by users are just as prevalent as they have always been, and cover many of the same grounds (e.g. fake profiles used to entice users to pay, accounts terminated without notice and with no remedy, gender ratio mainly single men, no responses to complaints to customer service...).

AFF continues to have a notable number of complaints lodged against it on well-known reputational organisations (Better Business Bureau, Consumer Reports, Web of Truth), many of these complaints are about fake profiles, this is an important informational issue that should be mentioned in the controversies section. There are also complaints about misleading websites like |this that claim to offer |independent advice, but are in fact under the control of Adult FriendFinder (Various, Inc.), and act to funnel unwitting readers to their sites (and only their sites). I am not suggesting that every complaint about AFF needs to be mentioned, but that it would be NPOV and fair to point out that this organisation has ongoing ethical issues, and it undermines the accuracy of the article to omit this information. Centrepull (talk) 20:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

This is a joke. This site is filled with your usual not overly bright, very needy dimwits and whores looking for money or greasy men and teenage boys that will take anything

Inappropriate Citation
The inline citation to Reference 18 in the section "Fraudulent Billing Practices" references a report concerning adware which has nothing to do with the claim it purports to support. Lewis Goudy (talk) 23:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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