this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy

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Basically title, every bit of online dating nowadays is either Match or Meta, and we're all about breaking corporate chains right?

So these are the thoughts I had:

  1. Matches based on simple user selection: age range, lifestyle, hobbies etc. None of that dumb algorithm stuff that makes you reset your profile every month.

  2. ActivityPub protocol so that anyone can run their own instance, but can also be blocked if anything heinous happens.

  3. E2EE for messaging (and anything else if it's possible).

  4. Someone wrote an open-source anti-CSAM script for Lemmy recently, I hope we could adapt that to our use.

  5. Just, like, everyone have a good time on this app, we're here for love lol

I am not a coder, so I would have no idea how to do this, but I wonder about the interest in such a creation. Maybe some of you out there could make something I could use to get a date (pls).

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[โ€“] foo@withachanceof.com 86 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

ActivityPub protocol so that anyone can run their own instance, but can also be blocked if anything heinous happens.

The overlap between the users who will run their own instance and the users you want for a dating app is the empty set.

(Speaking as someone that runs a personal Lemmy instance here)

[โ€“] Polar@lemmy.ca 76 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Neckbeards fighting about Linux. No girls in sight.

Like Lemmy.

[โ€“] Sabata11792@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago

Select your distro, sock color, and [top|bottom].

[โ€“] ebits21@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Sausages everywhere

[โ€“] mplewis@lemmy.globe.pub 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You need actual moderation to keep people safe.

[โ€“] ryannathans@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lmfao fuck no

All lack of moderation gets you is spam bots. Current platforms are unmoderated

[โ€“] Steak@lemmy.ca 49 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't think there's any chick's here dude. It's just us.

[โ€“] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can we please leave this awful mindset behind on reddit

[โ€“] krimsonbun@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's probably true though, and when talking about a dating site that's an important factor

[โ€“] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah there's no chicks here dude bro

I don't exist

the overwhelming majority are guys I mean

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[โ€“] ebits21@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[โ€“] SHamblingSHapes@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago

briefly forgot men have eyelashes too and got excited

[โ€“] Pixel@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do bats even have eyelashes ๐Ÿฆ‡

[โ€“] jabib 3 points 1 year ago

Wrong type of bat ๐Ÿ

[โ€“] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My wife is here, but for obvious reasons, her identify will remain hidden.

[โ€“] Tak@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone's identity should remain hidden, don't sell yourself short bud.

Jokes on my wife, I was still 3 cover names deep when she changed hers.

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[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 36 points 1 year ago (10 children)

In theory? Yes. In reality? No.

Besides all the practical reasons already mentioned, it's simply a question of marketing to get people into it. Which costs money noone wants to pay because it kills the principle of breaking free of corpo-hold. Without marketing you'll end up with the nerds that are already here (majority). And of those, the majority are probably also male.

And on top of that, you might find other people living in NYC but what about smaller cities or even foreign ones? With reddits userbase you probably could, but you don't reach them because they already prefer mainstream-stuff ๐Ÿ˜

[โ€“] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep. Dating services are hard mode for the network effect, because you need to find a bunch of users that are close to you.

[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aye. Would kinda defeat the purpose if there'd be noone near. And the chances that one person near you does also like you is.... Well... Let's say, it sucks for the majority of men.

[โ€“] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd actually guess the man would leave first most of the time. There's way too many dudes that rely on dragnet mass messaging to anyone they find attractive, to the point where they make it difficult for all the other men.

[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Aye. Pointless.

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[โ€“] squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think it federates, but there's Alovoa, an open source dating platform.

[โ€“] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You know, I am single and have been curious about dating apps for a while. But I never really got over the hurdle of making a profile because of how much of a hellscape it seems. I may be curious enough to make a profile in this website tonight (fully expecting 0 users in my entire country)

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[โ€“] swab148@startrek.website 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks! I'm almost wondering if a federated dating platform would even work, given the moderation challenges.

Edit: Also there were like, three women in my area, so that's problematic.

[โ€“] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

I tried it. Pretty cool, but the closest user to me was 270 km away. Maybe one day I'll meet her, but for now I guess it doesn't have critical mass for me.

[โ€“] SHamblingSHapes@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never understood reddit as a dating site. And the problems there are only amplified on Lemmy.

  1. user density in the geographic region I would date within. With reddit, at least I was quite sure there were other users within an hours drive of me

  2. it's not a dating site and not set up with the guardrails needed to make it even marginally safe. If a person on Bumble starts being scary, there are some ways to report then and they will possibly be removed or restricted from the platform. On reddit and Lemmy, the responses will be one of the following "free speech, get wrecked", "if you don't want to be abused/harassed, you shouldn't go into public spaces", or "you signed up for the site, you asked for it", or "give them a chance, they are probably just not good at dating skills" or even Andrew Tate acolyte bullshit that I don't want to think about.

  3. distribution of gender and of sexual orientation across the platform. I would be surprised if Lemmy userbase is less than 95% men. Unless those men are gay/bi at an improbably high rate, there aren't going to be many people available to match with.

  4. "everyone have a good time, we're here for love" says the hordes of people who are actually here to waste time with no intention to actually date, cruise for nudes, or to data mine peoples personal information.

Tl;Dr if actual dating apps are not bringing a person dating success, nothing about Lemmy will be any better.

[โ€“] serratur@lemmy.wtf 7 points 1 year ago

Gay nerd dating site

[โ€“] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Federated or not, dating sites don't work well

[โ€“] YourFavouriteNPC@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm getting married next week. Met her on Tinder. Sometimes they absolutely do work

[โ€“] Neve8028@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used some dating apps on and off for about 4 years and got probably a couple dozen or so genuine not bot matches. Most of which didn't last for more than a message or two. Even ran my profile by some of my women friends who I trust and they said it looked good. While obviously it works for some people, the experience for most people isn't that great. These apps make their money by keeping people on the platform so getting matches goes against their main profit motive. The traditional methods work a lot better.

[โ€“] Sabata11792@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I got ghosted by the only 2 bots that messaged me.

[โ€“] TrustingZebra@lemmy.one 7 points 1 year ago

Why would they work well? Their business model doesn't incentivize dating apps to work well. They sell subscriptions so they'd rather their users stay perpetually single and become increasingly desperate.

[โ€“] mojo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[โ€“] mojo@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[โ€“] swab148@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, as so many others have said.

[โ€“] shapesandstuff@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Somehow you'd want to continuously federate new instances to keep the userbase connected.

[โ€“] swab148@startrek.website 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Does Lemmy do this? Like I said, almost no coding experience here, I took a couple of years of AP Comp Sci (Java) in high school and it stuck like the couple of years of Spanish class in middle school (es un tigre in mis pantolones).

[โ€“] 520@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Does Lemmy do this?

Kinda. More accurately, it federates with any instance its users decide to follow (unless explicitly defederated by instance admins)

[โ€“] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Each person could keep a log of people they know who are single, and then when someone asks if they know anyone who might be interested in going on a date, they could instantly recall a suggestion from their cache! Distributed, peer reviewed recommendation, local. The best part is that it doesn't even require a computer!

if the list is supposed to be restricted to single people, how am I supposed to grow my gay polycule?

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[โ€“] Oka@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm a coder and I have no idea how to do this

Do you want it to show matches with people who are around your location, or anyone on the internet? If it's the latter, maybe try starting a dating community, if there isn't one already.

You could have people start a thread with the basic info: age, location, gender, sexuality, etc. Then what you're looking for: age range, hookup or long term, etc.

The comments could be general questions like an AMA to get a better idea.

If someone likes your style, they can send OP a DM

[โ€“] mojo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

You literally just described tinder