Talk:OkCupid/Archive 1

Google results? Really?
"In February 2012 Google returns ca. 38,900 hits when searching for (OKCupid, "technical difficulties")"

This is meaningless and ridiculous. Google search results are not a valid metric for anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.253.54.31 (talk) 22:42, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

comment
Changed Chris Coyne link so that it no longer goes to the article about the footballer with the same name. 13:15, 28 January 2007

I just saw that this is up for deletion...I'm one of the founders of OkCupid. Can I get some clarification?

Samyagan 23:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

List of social networking websites on AfD
List of social networking websites is currently an AfD candidate. You are invited to partake in this discussion. Czj 19:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The list of social networking sites is no longer up for deletion. shijeru 17:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Things that could be improved
I think that this article reads like an advertisement. I like OkCupid as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean articles should try to "sell" readers on the site. Also, I think that the phrase "finding compatible people becomes very straightforward" is not neutral, in that it is unnecessarily accepting of the matching process that OkCupid uses (why are there still so many single people on the website if it's so straigtforward to find compatible people?).Ehb 19:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Problems section deleted
I'm a user of OKCupid and I added in factual information pertaining to problems with OKCupid, reverted by LizardWizard and described by him as an "unsourced rant".

Everything that I wrote is factual and can be checked by anyone who cares to. rrcatto 08:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richard Catto (talk • contribs) 07:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Your contributions failed to satisfy the policies of WP:No Original Research, WP:Reliable sources, and WP:Verifiability. While this is (unfortunately) common in articles on websites, we must take care to avoid it, particularly when libelling the website (and two of its administrators).  You claim that all these things can be checked by anyone who cares to, but I don't see how.  If you have a source for the criticisms, then we're getting somewhere.


 * Furthermore, most of the criticisms are petty. They could be levelled against many websites the size of OKC.  In my opinion they don't warrant a "problems" section.  It may be worth briefly noting that their communication with users is sometimes lacking and that their software is unreliable, but I don't think there's more to say than that.  I've edited the article to bring it more in line with what I think we should say - what do you think? LW izard  @ 09:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

prod
I reverted my own prod nomination--I had forgotten about the AfD. DGG 05:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Business model
It would be interesting if the page mentioned what business model OKC uses. It claims it is free and will always be, and doesn't use online ads, nor is it kept by any major company that I know of, so the question becomes particularly interesting. Rodrigo de Salvo Braz 07:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It does use online ads. I believe that the way it works is that you don't see any in the first 30 days, and then you see relatively fewer if your activity level is high (so they are not throwing too many ads at any small pool of people). But, yes, I would love to see more on their business model if anyone can find anything citable. - 207.246.150.86 (talk) 18:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "and doesn't use online ads" I think the relevant FAQ entry means that they don't advertise themselves, e.g. in television. --JensMueller (talk) 21:18, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Privacy Policy
It may be interesting to comment on the privacy policy the site uses. The privacy policy on this site, possibly opposite to those seen on many other sites, say that OkCupid can give your information on to anyone. On the site: "We may share your information with third parties, including companies with which we have a relationship. For example and without limitation...". See section 4 of the OkCupid Privacy Policy redn 13:35, 11 Feb 2008 (UTC)
 * Their policy was either recently updated to say or always did say something close, but importantly different from the above:
 * "We may share demographic information with third parties, including companies with which we have a relationship." (emphasis added)
 * It also specifically says below this portion that "We will not sell contact information to third parties.". As it is now, it's very similar to other privacy policies. SpoomTalk 00:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Serious privacy concerns have arisen with regards to the site's flag moderation system as it is currently in place. For instance, it allows other users (designated flag moderators) who are not staff to read private email on the site that has received a flag from any other user, regardless of what the other user's reason for flagging the message may have been. The topic is currently under discussion on the site in its forum: http://www.okcupid.com/forum?low=1&tid=2886790489560276841 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.19.14.160 (talk) 14:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

OkCupid and spyware
Twice my computer has become infected with spyware/adware/whatever it is after visiting OkCupid. I wasn't sure the first time, but the second time confirmed in. Is this a common problem? If so, it should be mentioned in the article. Josh (talk) 07:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Pls help them
If anyone is watching, tell these guys to put up a simple html page that says something like "Sorry! Be back in 5!  Stay tuned." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.49.171.243 (talk) 04:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Information on OkCupid security problems?
There are outstanding security problems on OkCupid, and it may be worthwhile mentioning them in the article. However, I have just removed the one item on the page which attempted to do so. This was an "External link" added at 14:03 on 2009-10-17, by an anonymous user (208.74.121.102). The line removed was: "* OkCupid.com – notOKsecurity - http://joshbusby.com/okcupid/ (Outstanding security issues)".

Reasons for removal (all are based on the content of the page that was linked to, as that page exists today, 2009-12-17):

[1] The linked page does refer to a real OkCupid security issue, but does not describe it in a way which, IMIHO, could be understood by anyone not familiar with the issue. I have written about the same issue here: A Security Hole on OkCupid. I'm not arrogant enough to link my own work in the article, but it may help interested parties to understand the issue.

[2] I believe that the linked page violates the privacy of various OkCupid users.

Madisoncnc (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Does that outstanding security issue still exist? (The one referenced on http://joshbusby.com/okcupid/) There doesn't seem to really be any information there other then "I logged into this other guys account and he doesn't respond to all the women who send him messages." 66.108.79.107 (talk) 04:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

This is still an issue. There's a forum thread on OKCupid discussing it here.

http://www.okcupid.com/forum?low=1&tid=12102350586133709019

The fact that OKcupid sends emails with login instantly links is probably unusual enough that it should be mentioned in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.220.69 (talk) 04:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Recent Changes to OKCupid Renders this Invalid
IAC has made major changes to the functionality of the website in the last week that renders much of this article, except history, invalid. The match interface has changed (degraded), albums have been a feature for all users (not just A-List) for a while, and the overall usability of the site has been rapidly declining as features have been removed. Currently the site is nothing like the original site and most of this article is no longer valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.240.166.61 (talk) 11:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

The forum system and various web browsers
The entire OkCupid forum system and its contents seem to have disappeared off the Internet. What happened? The article should be updated to explain. TealHill (talk) 07:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It appears a lot of features have been removed, such as awards, winks, subject lines in messages. Even the OK trends blog hasnt been updated in a year.  I think a section on "removed features" would not only highlght these but spur inquiry into why they disappeared, making for a fuller article.  I'll shoot an email to the admins to find out myself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.99.31.153 (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * There was a forum? —Tamfang (talk) 22:49, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. If you do a Google search for [  ] you can see hints that it used to exist, including links to the no-longer-extant forum.  TealHill (talk) 03:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Are they back now? I just clicked the forum link and they seem to be there. 03:20, 13 June 2012 (PST)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.34.134 (talk)


 * I tried clicking through to www.okcupid.com/forum again and it still doesn't work. It redirects me to http://www.okcupid.com/home.  If you've found a link that works, please let us know the link's address.  TealHill (talk) 18:14, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The forum still doesn't work for me on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:10.0.4) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.4 Iceweasel/10.0.4. When I try to visit the forum, I get immediately redirected, using HTTP/1.0 302 Moved Temporarily, to www.okcupid.com/home. But I discovered today that the forum works fine on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.3 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/6.0.472.63 Safari/534.3. What does this mean for you? Basically that the forum may not work for you on Mozilla Firefox, but it should work for you on Google Chrome. Please, if you have a blog outside Wikipedia and you have various web browsers installed, try all your browsers, blog your results, and post a link here. Then maybe we can cite your blog on Wikipedia. TealHill (talk) 05:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The forum only redirects if you're logged in. While logged out the Google links work, but read only. Also, if you've been given mod privileges you can use the forum (and post) although the link is still hidden. (I think non mod users can use it after 60 (or 90) days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.240.166.61 (talk) 11:48, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Removal of "Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating" blog entry
After Match.com acquisition, OkCupid removed "Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating" blog entry that highly criticizes paying for online dating with supportive statistics and graphs. Still available on Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.106.248.65 (talk) 21:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The link above no longer works, but numerous other sites have cached the blog entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.240.166.61 (talk) 11:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Criticism regarding flagmods
The criticism section seems to be written by someone who is closely involved with flagmodding, or who is being very specific for any other reason while using weasel words and not providing any references. The section needs to be reviewed, cleaned up, or removed altogether. --87.212.167.60 (talk) 04:50, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Removed. That much content needs much better referencing. Blackguard  20:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Removed uncited material
I've removed the following from the article as uncited:

 Common complaints One major common complaint by users of the site is being deleted with no apparent reason. When users tried to sign back into their account a fake message saying "We sorry, we're having technical difficulties, please try later". When in fact their account has been deleted and their IP address blocked. Many users reach out to the company through emails and get no response and no reason why their account has been deleted. 

-- The Anome (talk) 15:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

This is actually true. The deletions do appear to be random. (The majority of deletions stem from forum "feuds.") There are literally hundreds of complaints on Reddit and other websites about this. I'd add it back and cite it, but I'm not sure if Reddit constitutes a good source for Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.240.166.61 (talk) 11:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Ugh yes, zero response from emailing them. Hopefully more light will shed upon this feature. It's a sly ban if you can login. Its a generic misleading message if you cant login in. The sly ban appears to be a normal login. Messages go out but the receiver never gets them. Really frustrating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.61.6 (talk) 20:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The deletions are not random. OkCupid has a relatively large 24/7 admin team which reviews flags, and a number of automated systems that remove spam/scam accounts. If a non spammy user is banned then it if for a reason however, their communications are obviously covered by confidentiality so OkCupid can't publicly say why. Since abusive people tend to send the customer support people abusive messages there has always been a general policy of not getting into discussions about why somebody was banned - In the vast majority of cases they know full well why they just want to blame a website rather than themselves. For examples of why these people are banned simply search online for people posting examples of abusive messages they have received as users on OkCupid and then assume that there are a few thousand of these every day. Admittedly the message isn't helpful and this doesn't cover what the Internet calls "Shadowbanning" where a user is basically put into a sandbox of their own. There are different messages for some types of ban, for example, underage users. Lawrie (talk) 01:10, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Removal of Dating Persona Test???
I was just trying to find the dating persona test, and the url https://www.okcupid.com/the-dating-persona-test leads to a "oops... not found" page. Has this really been removed from the website??? If you can find the test, please feel free to delete this section, but otherwhise the deletion of the test would merit an entry in the wikipedia page imao.Michi zh (talk) 11:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

It has been removed (as have all of the tests) - It looks like it wasn't announced which is unusual. Lawrie (talk) 02:17, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Launch Date
Oddly there's very little documentation from the early days so I had to dig deep into the user database to try and find the launch date. In case anyone is interested: The first user is dated the 5th of October, 2003. Chris Coyne is user 2 (22nd of October) - Then a steady stream of what looks like test users over the next few weeks. It looks like there was a semi-open registration from about the 17th of Feb, 2004 but the first user I can see who isn't connected with the original authors is on the 19th, and there were 11 signups that day. So I am picking that as the first open signup day. Lawrie (talk) 00:50, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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2019 alleged credential stuffing incident
I am not sure where this comes from. 2018/2019 is the year of account takeovers using hacked-site passwords, and every site on the Internet is a victim of this. So why is OkCupid singled out here? 134.41.167.84 (talk) 04:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

2020 required phone numbers and blocking accounts
In February or March 2020 they started to require users to provide phone numbers for 2FA. There was no way to not agree to it and deactivate the account. They seemed to give up on it in April 2020. Reliable sources are needed to update the article with this info.

Zezen (talk) 19:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Sapiosexual Does Not Belong as a Redirect to This Article
The term sapiosexual, for those who apparently are unfamiliar with its use and do not know of its fairly widespread use over the last 15-20 years or so, should not be solely identified with this article. Certainly, it does not belong as a redirect to this website/company, since OkCupid did not invent the term. They merely have capitalized on its use on their website - not as an identifier, but merely to apply its use as the vocabulary word that it was deemed to be used for people that have an affinity with its description. It does not belong here as a redirect. They are umpteen number of places where the term is described outside of OKCupid and their dating website. That has been the case for years. So the redirect needs to be removed from here, since it is highly inappropriate and irresponsible for it to redirect here. Several times in the past, editors on Wikipedia have attempted to start an article under that rubric, only to see their efforts rebuffed when the article was deleted by editors who may have been a bit overzealous. There are after all, at least 20 references on different websites throughout the Internet where they could have found this word and its definition. It is not at all specific to OKCupid (but that application could have been included as a pointer to another article to substantiate the use of the term and its article development). If I have time, I will restart the article with enough references to satiate the deletionists that saturate Wikipedia's attempts at being a viable encyclopedia (which while it is a resource, it clearly is not at this juncture in its lifetime). If anyone else cares to start it before me, please do, and simply let me know of your efforts so I may join in and help in your efforts before the article is once again deleted. With as many totally obscure and meaningless articles on Wikipedia as there are, and all of the erroneous and unsubstantiated information in so many articles, it is still surprising to me that intelligent people (editors and admins) would want this word suppressed from the dialectic of discourse that surrounds human identity, where it actually adds significant substance and enlightenment. I don't know if it is already included in Wiktionary but if it is not, it ought to be there, as well. Regards... Stevenmitchell (talk) 12:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * This is all new to me: I wasn't aware this had been the subject of discussion or debate. However, I agree with with Stevenmitchell: sapiosexuality is a sufficiently notable topic for an article (ideally with properly cited references to the question of whether it is or isn't a real thing); and if an article doesn't exist (as it currently doesn't), then redirecting to OkCupid is absolutely not the appropriate alternative. For the record, the term does feature on wiktionary (both "sapiosexual" and "sapiosexuality"): the earliest quotations given there are from 2005 ("sapiosexual", from a forum) and 2008 ("sapiosexuality", from the Calcutta Telegraph) – so it easily passes the 10 year test. I'm not volunteering to do any extensive work on such an article, but I'd support it in principle. GrindtXX (talk) 13:29, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Since somebody just removed my edit that said OkCupid had removed Sapiosexual: "After some high-profile negativity to the term Sapiosexual (for example, this article from Vice) OkCupid removed the identity on February 11th 2019." I am just popping that here until I find a reference. I mean Sapiosexual is removed, I removed it, so I guess I'll write a reference! Lawrie (talk) 03:00, 23 December 2020 (UTC) -- Re-added with a link to the OkC Gender and Orientation help pages. 134.41.189.214 (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Also I note that Sapiosexual is no longer a link to this article. Lawrie (talk) 06:49, 24 December 2020 (UTC)