Comment by leeb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by leeb | Hacker News Reader

> You see real names

This would be a complete dealbreaker for me, even without all the other things that this service would share from my profile. I would never want there to be an easy way for people from the dating site to be able to find me on another site - you can shut down a dating profile or discontinuing using the service if someone's bothering you, but with this it sounds like complete strangers would be able to find/message me on Facebook outside of the site's control, and I wouldn't want to stop using Facebook because of some creeper. And if it's using publicly available Facebook data, it means I need to make a ton of my information public and accessible for the service to be useful.

That's not really worth the risk of using the service to me, and is probably why you don't frequently see dating sites that reveal full names/near-exact locations as you're suggesting. If you can find a way to display Facebook profile details without revealing the person's full name, you'd probably have more luck recruiting people.

Essentially, the only data available given the "basic" settings on Facebook is name and friends.

Your name is already out there all over Facebook - friends of friends, random people in groups you're part of, people going to your events - they can all see it... why is it different to give your real name to a (real) person who matches very specific criteria that you set yourself, and which basically just signifies "I'm Single, and you may be a match" ?

> Your name is already out there all over Facebook - friends of friends, random people in groups you're part of

Yeah, and even that exposure can be a pile of hurt when it comes to stalkers, creeps and weirdos. I have to say I don't see the value in real names being visible to people on the dating site unless I choose to share that. The site should let you choose a pseudonym, full stop.

This said, I don't rule out the idea of signing up for this site. But I'm a male, so I don't have nearly the level of concern as women do, and rightfully so. There are creeps who devote way too much effort to tracking down chicks and harassing them--or worse. It's sickening.

I guess I see a few major differences between this and friend-of-friends. Most important is accountability - a friend-of-a-friend isn't likely to send me a creepy/sexual messages, since there would probably be social consequences for them from mutual friends. There's no such social barrier for people I don't know at all, so the only consequence would be me blocking/reporting them (and you can easily make a new Facebook account if that happens).

For members of groups who I might not know - yes, people in groups I'm in know my full name, but probably don't know enough about my life to make it worth behaving creepily towards me - and if they did, any actions would likely remain virtual. However, your service is telling people my full name, and states that it will "sort by location" - so now someone knows my name, knows around where I live, AND knows that I am single (so it's more likely that I'm not living with a male)? That's not information that I'd feel comfortable broadcasting to people who have no accountability.

I know I'm focusing on the creeper/stalking issue, and I'm sure that's frustrating feedback when the majority of your users will be using this service with honorable intentions. I'm just trying to explain why I and most of my female friends would be instantly turned off by a service that shares this information - and from what I've read, attracting female members is a huge issue in the online dating space. It's really something you should try talking to female friends/family members/a focus group of potential online daters, because I don't think it would be an uncommon point of view and you don't want it to keep people from joining your site.

it is a valid point, thanks

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