nospam99 Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 This post is informational, but mostly just a rant (I don't rant much, do I?). People who recognize me will remember that I've been trying to get valuable use from a number of OLD web sites for a couple of years. This post is to report that the 'value' is now mostly gone because of changes to the User Interface (UI) on those site. The timing of those changes makes it suspicious that they having something to do with the societal reaction to the virus. match.com - Within the last couple of months, match.com removed the information from the UI that showed what the other person (women for me) was looking for. It's difficult enough to get someone else to agree to meet when i can't tell ahead of time whether or not I'm an instant dealbreaker for them because of such obvious factors as age, height, location, education, substance habits (tobacco, alcohol, weed), religion, etc PoF - YESTERDAY PoF changed the UI so it's no longer possible to set parameters (age range, location, distance from location) on the list of matches. The other change is that the location parameter on the search tool doesn't work any more. There are lots of other changes to the UI. But the two I mentioned are the value killers. OKCupid - OKC changed their message processing in Dec '17 to make it difficult to tell if someone sent you a message. YESTERDAY they changed the UI to make it more difficult. Now you have to individually scroll through hundreds of profiles checking each one to see if they had sent you a message. On top of that, within the last two months, they stopped sending email notifications when someone sent you a message or when you matched with someone. Example, the day before yesterday (before the latest change), I noticed that an interesting woman had 'liked' me. So I sent her a message. That 'used to' qualify as a 'match' on OKC and they'd send an email notification to both people. I didn't get an email. Did she? How would she know that I responded to her 'like'? .... crickets I've been an enthusiastic OLD 'poster boy' here on LS. But I'm now getting VERY close to losing patience. Link to post Share on other sites
Art_Critic Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 (edited) No Spam, I can see they are changing with the times, the covid times have changed human interaction so it would make sense they would change their own human interaction as well.. As far as the OKCupid issue.. I've not done OLD since about 2006-07 but in that time if I messaged a person I could remove them from my search so they no longer showed up, that way I didn't have to waste time on someone I took time on and they never replied, I also got in the habit of blocking people that I didn't want to interact with or if we talked a little and it didn't work out, that way 3 months later I didn't make the mistake of contacting them again. I used the block tool like a champ, it helped keep my searches cleaner and kept out the rif raf I didn't want to see or interact with, like when I figured out a profile was an escort they got blocked.. You need to figure out how to make the webpage work for you. Edited April 21, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator spelling Link to post Share on other sites
max3732 Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 I noticed the same thing on Match. It's extremely frustrating for me as I always check what they're looking for before messaging them. To me it's extremely frustrating and a waste of time to get matches that aren't in your criteria. How is preventing you from searching for the kind of woman you want changing with the times? On Tinder I'm getting matches from other continents even though I set a specific number of miles from me. Link to post Share on other sites
Ellener Posted April 22, 2020 Share Posted April 22, 2020 16 hours ago, Art_Critic said: I used the block tool like a champ, me too. Once I used that I had no problems, I think it's the match.com website, it keeps sending the same matches over and over otherwise! I haven't used it, too much else going on, except I did get it to email me the profiles of ten guys I like the look of, I just thought it might be a good time to consider what I'm looking for. Otherwise my profile isn't switched on, or viewable unless I message someone from the list. I might! once I solve the home issue. I'll check out what you guys report too. Link to post Share on other sites
Cookiesandough Posted April 26, 2020 Share Posted April 26, 2020 (edited) hmm I used to be on okcupid up until a couple months ago. I never experienced having to scroll through to see if someone messaged you??? Actually, I like their messaging system because on some other sites you get messages from everyone and you can't necessarily read them all, but with Okcupid you have to 'match' (both have to be interested) for you to get their message. Then it pops up in your inbox. Did they change that? Oh I should clarify I have the app only Edited April 26, 2020 by Cookiesandough clarity Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted April 27, 2020 Author Share Posted April 27, 2020 (edited) @cookies. You are an attractive young woman so you get lots of messages. I'm a 'questionable', 'chronologically mature' male. I can easily handle the small volume (2-4/month) of messages I receive from the three OLD sites where my profiles are active. On OKC if there is no 'match' because I haven't noticed a woman who has 'liked' me, the match NEVER happens. Without the match, her message never makes it to my inbox. If they Like me AND send me a message (explicitly requested in my profile that they also send a message), I used to get an email from the system telling me that I had a message AND their photo had a blue border in search. With the recent changes, I don't get the email from the system AND no more blue border. The only way I can tell now is if I scroll through the hundreds of profiles in Double Take, page by page, and stay alert enough to notice the small font copy of the message they sent. I don't have the patience for that. BTW, most of the profiles in Double Take are either geographically undesirable (GUD) or apparent zombies i.e. haven't logged on in months. Also BTW, the profile sitting at the top of my Double Take is a 60 y/o, 5'1'' (passing two frequent dealbreakers, age and height) super hottie with a 90% match based on 89 of the OKC survey questions. However, ''No Trumpers!!'' Curses, foiled again! I use the web site only. Edited April 27, 2020 by nospam99 1 Link to post Share on other sites
SumGuy Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 On 4/21/2020 at 9:27 PM, max3732 said: I noticed the same thing on Match. It's extremely frustrating for me as I always check what they're looking for before messaging them. Odd I clicked on a few photos in the daily matches they send me and can still get to the full profile. And my profile has been off for a long time. I do note the lead woman on my daily matches has been the same for some time. The others seem to change regularly still. Link to post Share on other sites
Cookiesandough Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 (edited) @nospam99 No more blue border! Oh no. I liked that. Although I see how it was a bit of a 'cheat' for non-subscribers, because you could see the person was already interested and messaged before even matching. I still wish it wasn't removed. Haha no way, but thank you for taking the time to explain and for the sweet words. It's true that being a woman on a dating app is a vastly different experience than being a man. I just feel guilty for leaving one mail without responding, even if it was an afterthought for the person, because they took the time to reach out. I didn't need to worry about it with okcupid, because chances are I just hadn't seen their match and message. Thx again Edited April 27, 2020 by Cookiesandough Link to post Share on other sites
Envy123 Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 On 4/21/2020 at 12:43 PM, nospam99 said: OKCupid - OKC changed their message processing in Dec '17 to make it difficult to tell if someone sent you a message. YESTERDAY they changed the UI to make it more difficult. Now you have to individually scroll through hundreds of profiles checking each one to see if they had sent you a message. What, really? I thought I had no success at all on OKCupid the last time I was there. Maybe the UI hid the true numbers and I did have interest? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
max3732 Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 4 hours ago, SumGuy said: Odd I clicked on a few photos in the daily matches they send me and can still get to the full profile. And my profile has been off for a long time. I do note the lead woman on my daily matches has been the same for some time. The others seem to change regularly still. You can see the full profile if you click on one of the daily matches, but it no longer shows you what they're searching for. Before it would show common areas (ex men with 50 miles of whatever city, height within her range, never married, etc). Now it doesn't show you any of that Link to post Share on other sites
SumGuy Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 40 minutes ago, max3732 said: You can see the full profile if you click on one of the daily matches, but it no longer shows you what they're searching for. Before it would show common areas (ex men with 50 miles of whatever city, height within her range, never married, etc). Now it doesn't show you any of that Hmm checked it out, see what you mean. I still see the never married/divorced/widowed info and if she has kids and how she feels about having kids info..also smoking...all pretty big things. But you are right the what see is looking for section, which would tell you about height she wants appears to be gone. Have you contacted Match about it and seen what is going on? Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted April 27, 2020 Author Share Posted April 27, 2020 @sumguy. I chatted with the match CSRs about the information removed from the UI several times. They are not technical people and have been trained to answer subscribers' questions with the line of bull that management wants communicated. Corporate lies of the form of 'we already screened your matches and you are what they're looking for' are easily contradicted (at least for me) by having seen the women's profiles before the change and recognizing several for whom I was not tall or young enough. Link to post Share on other sites
Shining One Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 Wow, this has removed one of the main reasons for me to use Match. As an Indian man, the majority of the women in this area do not want to date me. Match used to allow me to find the women who were open to it (at least on paper) and focus on them. During my last search (years ago), over 65% of the women's profiles I viewed indicated they were not interested in Indian men. I suppose I shall have to look at alternative sites... Link to post Share on other sites
max3732 Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 42 minutes ago, Shining One said: Wow, this has removed one of the main reasons for me to use Match. As an Indian man, the majority of the women in this area do not want to date me. Match used to allow me to find the women who were open to it (at least on paper) and focus on them. During my last search (years ago), over 65% of the women's profiles I viewed indicated they were not interested in Indian men. I suppose I shall have to look at alternative sites... Exactly right. I always used to check what they were looking for to see if we were match on certain characteristics. I'm also very specific about the background of those I want to date and noticed I'm getting messages and likes from women outside of that. If they had the preferences still shown it would save everyone's time. Another big one for women seems to be height. I know a lot of women won't date you unless you're taller than them by a certain amount so I'd image they're upset with the change as well. I may contact them to ask about the change. Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted April 30, 2020 Author Share Posted April 30, 2020 Strange update for match.com changing their interface again. And with a potentially positive result. I keep checking to see if they replace the information about what other people are looking for. They didn't. But in the last couple of days I've seen popups that say there is FREE messaging. I opened a chat window with a CSR to ask WTF and was given some brief instructions. The instructions don't appear on any Help page. So if I hadn't asked, I've had had no clue. There is a new concept on match.com called Top Picks. You can message one of your Top Picks for free. (I have no clue what the site's revenue model is now. Maybe free messages to Top Picks is a temporary thing.) There are various ways to figure out who is a Top Pick, all undocumented. I don't want to write a Wall 'o Text at the moment, but I will if someone asks. I have no idea how match.com selects Top Picks. But it 'smells' like the way eharmony and elite have always picked matches for users rather than letting the users find their own matches. Anyway, I identified ONE and ONLY one woman as a Top Pick. She's attractive enough to pass my looks filter. She's old enough, short enough, and lives close enough to me that, even without the ''what she's looking for'' information, I was willing to assume that I passed the usual dealbreaking age, height, and location filters that women have. Her essay is both reasonable and humorous. And we have a couple of key common interests as well as other less key common interests. So I sent her a VERY brief message which I don't mind sharing for reference: ''Dancing and Hiking sound like 'a good start'. Care to discuss meeting?'' And, admittedly surprising, she responded. I wrote back and, of course, the interaction is now at the ''let's see where this goes'' stage. I'm surprised but not complaining. For comparison, over a little more than two years as a match.com paid subscriber, I had more than 70 exchanges with women that reached the 'she responded' stage. Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted May 9, 2020 Author Share Posted May 9, 2020 Latest Top Pick foolishness from Match. I've had a number of chats with Match CSRs ever since the change to the UI that removed the information about what other people were looking for ..... dealbreakers! As almost certainly instructed by their management, the CSRs assured me that Match is screening Top Picks to make sure there are no dealbreakers. I sent a message to my Top Pick today. She responded. We bounced messages back and forth a bit only to discover that she, age 57, has a top seeking age range of 60, to my 66. I have no complaint about a 57 y/o woman not wanting to date men older than 60. What I do have is no appreciation for the site to present that woman as a Top Pick when there is a totally obvious dealbreaker. Just bad service and bad value. I may be a glutton for punishment. But on Monday when chat is available again, I'll talk to yet another CSR and ask what can I/do I have to do so that I never again receive a Top Pick for whom I am a dealbreaker. Link to post Share on other sites
Art_Critic Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 Hey nospam, why would you start a conversation with someone who is obviously a deal breaker even if they did send her your way thru "top pick" ? did you not read her profile and see her top seeking age ? Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 seems like a complete waste of time if you're staying on something that doesn't even allow you to filter their location! I would just get off of that one. I mean that's the bare minimum they should be providing. To be real though, you can see just from being on Love shack that there are plenty of people who don't care where they are because they probably don't have the nuts to go meet them anyway and just want a bunch of validation. But I still wouldn't stay on that website. We've it for the ones who aren't serious about meeting and dating. For complaints I would use Twitter and tag their Twitter handle. because it goes out so many people it tends to get attention from the company I've noticed and I do that a lot and often get a response. I think they do pay attention to what's trending on Twitter if it's complaints about them. Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted May 9, 2020 Author Share Posted May 9, 2020 @art-critic. I read her profile. Her top seeking age is not visible to anyone other than her. The reason I started this topic was, along with other 'bad' changes on other sites, Match has made people's top seeking age invisible to other users. Prior to that change I didn't send messages to women for whom I was so obviously a dealbreaker. Link to post Share on other sites
Art_Critic Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 oh... that sucks the info isn't available to help you make your own determination on match without engaging them only to waste some time Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted May 9, 2020 Author Share Posted May 9, 2020 @preraph. I can filter HER location, her age, height, body type, etc. The change to the UI is that I can't filter HER FILTERS which would apply to me. The situation I'm reporting this morning is a specific instance of ''Match's New Regime'' which they call Top Picks that failed in a way that the Old Regime had covered. Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 I see. Well I haven't been on there so I don't know how that exactly works. but it seems crazy that it would match anyone to you whose parameters didn't fit within your parameters and that if it's a good online dating site, that it would do so without you even having to go manually look at it. Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted May 9, 2020 Author Share Posted May 9, 2020 @preraph. FWIW I WANT to go manually look at it. The other site model is eharmony and elite where the site staff does the matching and, in my experience, do a terrible job at it. I want to be empowered to select the OLD women I wish to contact and let the success or failure of my 'picker' rest on me. Link to post Share on other sites
elaine567 Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 My guess. They don't have any candidates that exactly meet Nospam's requirements so I guess this woman is the closest match they have available 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author nospam99 Posted May 9, 2020 Author Share Posted May 9, 2020 @elaine. FWIW it has always been fine with me to get NO 'Daily Matches', 'Recommendations', 'Top Picks', label du jour. If the site's management's idea is to provide 'value' to the users with dealbreaking matches when there are no 'good' matches, I disagree. NOT the first time I march to the beat of my own drummer :p Link to post Share on other sites
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