Greetings Washington Post readers. Google News lists a weekend op-ed piece titled, “The Disastrous Effects of Match.Com and What Women Can Do About It.â€? I was quoted in another weekend Wash Post article, Dinner, Movie and a Background Check(reg req’d).
DontDateHimGirl is mentioned as being sued for defamation of character based on people leaving negative feedback on people they have dated and reported on the site.
Why is it called that? What about all of the treacherous women out there? I like the women’s t-shirts that says Don’t Date Him Girl. I bet they will sell a lot of those. Funny how they advertise True predominantly.
A question to ponder. How is complaining about an appliance on Epinions different that warning people that your last date was a convicted felon or simply a gold digger?
As much as I see the value of third-party reporting sites launching if dating sites aren’t going to take the initiative, I can’t see sites like this staying operational for long without clear legal guidelines in place to drive the functionality of the site. The legal fees are going to crush them over time. Too many problems with self-reporting, perceptions and personal issues.
If she doesn’t put out on third date, is she an ice queen? If he doesn’t answer his cell phone during dinner hours, is he married? There are too many points of interpretation for many of these sites to be considered valuable in their current incarnation. Any system that can be foiled by changing usernames in 20 seconds has a certain amount of functionality that needs to be integrated before it can be truly considered useful. DDHG uses the person’s first and last name. There are 26 David Evans in MA, I can’t imagine how bad it would be to be to get mixed up with them.
My new Match friend Sara and I are working at her place today. She just walked by and saw the DDHG site and casually said, “you’re not on there, I checked.â€? She also admitted a general Google search of my name before out first date. I’ve got nothing to hide, but that still gave me goosebumps to think of her red-lighting me after mistaking me with the other Dave Evans, you know, the Duke lacrosse player?
Poor Scott Sparr of Council Blufffs, IA. DDHG says he’s extremely temperamental and abuses himself when he’s not cheating. How can he fight this? There are conversations between people suing or being sued in the DDHG Forums.
I would like to see a 1-10 rating system or at least a keywords field with common terms like cheating, abusive or even cheap. If you’re going to create the site, at least make the search engine work like it should and get additional dimensions of data on people. Reading painful rants from recently hurt women which often expose their own character flaws in addition to the supposed flaws of their dates may be fun to read for some, but useful? Not quite.
I can’t believe I didn’t have to sign in to view the negative testimonials. Troubling, this information should be at least behind a signup shield. Why should I be able to browse people as an unannounced visitor. Wait, thousands of people read the reviews every day, many of them just for kicks. Signing = less visitors = less ad revenue. Remember, nobody is doing these sites for love, it’s all about profit.
