OkCupid has less-than-OK policies. Especially if you're “ugly.”

I met my partner on OkCupid, and I couldn't be happier about that. However, I have several friends on the site. When one of them received the quoted email, she sent it to me right away. I found as offensive as you did.17

My husband got that same email. I can see if he's still got a copy.

Ok, this is where you're wrong. You aren't barred from seeing pretty people as matches just because you are on the bottom part of the scale. It says so in the email:
<blockquote> This new status won't affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match's answers.</blockquote>
Your match percentage is still the deciding factor in whether you're matched or not with someone, but now they're adding the pretty factor (what a thing to say about half your user base, amirite?) into the mix, which will bump some people out, but mostly, if you're a pretty, nerdy girl, you're still going to get ugly nerds in there with the hot ones based on your scores. If you're an ugly nerdy girl, you're going to see more ugly ones, I suppose, but over all, you're still going to get hot nerds mixed in, too.

I think this is just a silly gimmick and doesn't really affect any matching or give privileges. And, regardless of what matches they may send you, it doesn't prevent you from looking or searching or rearranging your matches. Sure, it's offensive in principle but all dating sites have some form of this. I like OKCupid and have met lots of interesting people on there - it's also the most progressive site out there, I think. Unlike eHarmony which consistently sent me "flexible matches" - mostly outside of my geographical requirements but also really, really incompatible people. When I complained they kept suggesting that I should change my profile to be more flexible, particularly around the option of having children. I don't want kids and say so - apparently this makes me unmatchable and I should "compromise".... I haven't heard back from them since my last complaint. I am trying to get my money back. I doubt they ever make those suggestions to men.

I agree this is a shitty, stupid thing for OKC to do, but I'm also not sweating it that much because it seems pretty damn arbitrary. I first heard about it from a beautiful, platinum blonde, size 2 friend of mine after she received an message identical to the one above. I totally sweated it for a few minutes, because I had not received any such message, and I mean, c'mon, who wants to feel ugly? But see, the thing is, I'm hot. Sure, I'm a size 14 with a partially-shaved head and facial piercings, but I have gotten very positive feedback about my physical appearance my entire life. So in my head I rationalized, "Okay, well OKC is rewarding people who are more traditionally attractive, who are doing a good job of keeping up the gender binary, yadda yadda."

To test my theory, I brought it up with the guy I'm dating right now (who I met on OKC). Now, this guy is really conventionally hot (tall, thin, white, dark hair, blue eyes, square jaw, full lips), to the point where I initially worried he would consider himself out of my league. But much to my amazement, he hasn't been deemed worth of OKC's "MORE ATTRACTIVE USERS" status, either. Do you know who has, though? A nerdy, socially awkward guy friend of mine with a receding hairline, unkempt mutton chops, long fingernails, and generally plain features. He showed me the message in his inbox, ferreals. So there goes my theory, right out the window.

So not only is OKC's new system of segregation totally offensive and dumb, it's also being executed in a pretty strange way. It's cool, though... I still see plenty of hotties in my "uggo user" world!

I agree that the way they present it is offensive, but the way that they came to have this feature is actually a reflection of the ways that they are more democratic than most dating sites. OKCupid spends a lot of time exploring the ways that their users use their service, and one of the things they investigated was the relative effectiveness of various types of profile pictures (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/01/20/the-4-big-myths-of-profile-...).
Yeah, it sucks to talk about, but it's a very real part of online dating. Participation in their "Your Best Face" experiment is voluntary, but I think that there's an argument to be made for doing it. The ostensible goal of participation in a dating site is getting dates, right? Setting aside all the emotional and social anxieties surrounding that, doesn't it make sense to take advantage of information about what works for attracting users on a particular site? I did it, and was surprised by which pictures were popular with other users. If your goal is to have people click through to your profile, there's definitely something to be gained from it.
Full disclosure, I also got one of those emails, and my hotter-than-me husband did not. He's an active user, I hadn't logged in in months. I think the email is just marketing, playing to a common desire to feel attractive. And even when they do things that seem skeevy, there are plenty of ways (covered by other commenters) that OKCupid is still miles ahead of other sites.

This is a pretty bullshit move by OKC, but your criticisms of it are bullshit too.

<em>1. The policy discriminates against those deemed less attractive for whatever reason (bad photo, profile misspelling, etc.). Those in the dreaded bottom 50% presumably do not have access to potential matches in the top 50%, even if they match up in other areas beyond the physical (which, let's remember, is rated based solely on online profile data). OkCupid is segregating the groups, which seems counter-productive to, you know, DATING.</em>

This is just plain incorrect - people in the bottom 50% will be matched up in the same way that they were previously. What has changed is that people in the top 50% will see less people (but not no people) from the bottom 50%.

<em>2. The policy reinforces the notion that hot people deserve love and happiness and "ugly" people should just get used to being alone. For evidence of this, just check out some of the offensive language in that email! For those who have been granted "attractive" status, "Suddenly, the world is your oyster." What the hell kind of world were they in before? Oh, I know, the one where ugly people are barred from seeing pretty people.</em>

Okay, I actually agree with this one. Regardless of the actual changes, their purported rationale for doing it and their way of expressing it to their userbase were both pretty terrible.

<em>3. The policy makes dating decisions on the users' behalf without considering personal preferences. Sure, I learned in my Sociology 101 class that people typically end up partnering with other similarly-attractive people; I'd bet many of you have read the same. However, we've all got different preferences when it comes to physical attractiveness, and just because someone hasn't gotten as many click-thrus as someone else doesn't mean that users won't find that person attractive. It's patronizing to think that OkCupid would decide who's hot and who's not, especially when hotness is completely subjective.</em>

I don't know if you can opt out of this. If you can't, that's a problem, but has anyone actually tried? Just wondering - I use the site, but didn't get the email, so I don't know whether it's an option somewhere in your account. (Perhaps more interestingly, what about people in the bottom 50% who want to opt in?)

As for it supposedly being patronizing that OKCupid decides hotness... you realize that <em>users</em> of OKCupid decide the hotness measures they're using, right? Employees aren't tossing you into one half or the other based on what they personally feel about your profile. Their users more or less agree about what's hot and what's not, and the real problem isn't that they're offering a "collective wisdom" assessment of attractiveness but that they're doing it in the wrong way.

Let me point out that there are profile questions that are effectively math or logic tests. Where's the post arguing that this discriminates against people with learning disorders? What about the ability to search by race, or whether someone lists that they're looking for casual sex on their profile, or whether they use drugs or alcohol?

(All of this before you actually look at their profile, or even a link to their profile!)

If you want to let people express their horrible, awful preferences in partners then - what a surprise - this ends up requiring horrible, awful filtering options. But <em>people have those preferences</em>, and trying to act like online dating was in any way egalitarian before this move ignores that totally.

<em>4. The policy is kept secret (unless you're attractive!). When you sign up for an OkCupid account, you are not tipped off to this segregating policy in any way, shape, or form. Here is what they DO tell people about their matching process:

OkCupid is the fastest growing FREE online dating site. Our advanced matching system is based on you, and what you find important.</em>

Did you think about the implications of what you cited? It's based on you - your opinions, your beliefs, whatever. But that applies to <em>everyone else</em> on the site, too. Depending on what you consider part of the "matching system", it also was based on how often you responded to people or how often people contacted you - that's someone's "you" interacting with your "you". Now it's based on your appearance, too, which is the same: a large amount of other "you"s rating your "you". This doesn't conflict with their promotional materials or TOS at all.

<em>Why limit the number of potential matches people can get? Because pretty people can't have their pretty eyes scarred by regular people?</em>

It actually doesn't limit the number of potential matches. It just makes it more likely that, if you're rated as attractive, you'll run across other people rated as attractive. (But you'll still run across people rated as unattractive, and given enough time, you'll still eventually run across everyone on the site.)

So in closing I think the way you're framing this is really silly. This move is problematic, but not at all for some of the reasons you're claiming it is.

To be honest, though? I have a strong suspicion that this email wasn't actually sent to 50% of their userbase, but to a much more limited subset as a form of social experiment or test. (Maybe a test of broader "automatic" nudging/filtering - right now, you have to explicitly say "I want other white people". Maybe they want to know if people can get over the "evilness" factor of making that automatic, if it helps them find better matches.) I'm kind of expecting them to reveal it some time in the next few months, actually.

I use OKC and have always loved it. I met the woman of my dreams there and we've been together happily for 4 years.

I got this email to and have to say I don't consider myself the most attractive guy (although I wouldn't go so far as putting myself in the bottom 50%). But I instantly felt like it was a marketing gimmick to get my to log on and browse my matches more, especially since it had been a few days since I'd last logged in. This seems totally reasonable because the way they make money is off of ads. Also, just like others have noted, I never saw any change to the actual matches I saw.

Is it stupid and offensive? Yes.
Is it for real? I think not.

"2. The policy reinforces the notion that hot people deserve love and happiness and "ugly" people should just get used to being alone."

It seems your implying that "love and happiness" is equivalent to your significant other being hot. Do explain.

"It's patronizing to think that OkCupid would decide who's hot and who's not, especially when hotness is completely subjective."

I've seen this feature at work. OK Cupid is not deciding--users are deciding. Users who opt-in have their photos shown side-by-side with other OK Cupid users. Those users choose which they prefer. After a enough people answer, OK Cupid draws a conclusion based on that. Also, which photo the user chooses may not just be based on physical attractiveness--a user might choose your photo if you're playing a guitar or they like your taste in eyewear.

The email is real. I got one. I've been trying to figure out WTF this could even really mean since I got it. Also I do think this is a horrible idea from which they are going to catch a bunch of flack.

However, I also have to say that I haven't actually noticed ANY difference in terms of what they are showing me on my home page (which is what this would affect. It won't change match searches) AND one big mistake I think people are making is to assume that it is about PHYSICAL attractiveness. If they are using Quiver and Quickmatch to make these determinations then it isn't just a matter of what you look like. It is also what you say in your profile. So you could be ugly as Cyrano, but if you also wrote like him you might well still be in the top half. What this really means is they are encouraging you to create a profile good enough to get lots of clicks and then you will be shown more to the other hot people. That isn't really egalitarian and I don't really like it, but I can see why they are doing it. It is a pity they aren't as good at PR as they are at math.

I have to say, I just received this email and I've been a member for about 4 or 5 years. I had no idea I was being filtered differently than others. And what changed? Could be that it's completely arbitrary like others have suggested. Or maybe as my friend suggested, it's just a matter of how many people rate you with 4 or 5 stars in quickmatch or profile views only. However, that being said, I looked at my matches and very similar people (if not the same) were showing up, so I don't see the difference.

I found the email incredibly offensive and said repeatedly 'wtf' over and over as I read it. Really, OKC? For being progressive, you're sure fostering stupid stereotypes.

I tend to like geeky, dorky boys, so my idea of 'hot' is not your idea of hot. I'm pretty sure of it. I'm of the opinion that we should be able to pick our own levels of hotness (ie, how much we find someone attractive) of our potential dates ourselves..... but I Guess when advertising dollars are the key driving force, anything made 'easier' is likely a bad thing. I guess we'll see if "different" people contact me than have before.

Guh, just guh!