eHarmony Blog.comWe’ve been hearing more and more members say nowadays, “My matches are not at all compatible with me.” While that may be true, eHarmony’s solution is a match rating feature that is over time supposedly used by the system to send the member better matches.
The big question is, does it work? Let’s find out with a poll.
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Tip: If your matches are really awful, you can retake the test.
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EHB, on your side — October 2010 issue 57 seconds agoI am looking over the official description of the Match Rating feature
“Match rating is a way for eHarmony to bring you even more compatible matches.“By rating your matches you are helping us to better understand the unique qualities in partners that attract you most. Over time, our patented matching algorithms will use these ratings to find the you the compatible singles that fit you best.”
and I can’t help interpret the “you” as a “royal you.” In other words, it really means “Your rating will help us improve the algorithm for the next version for everybody,” not personalizing it or anything like that. What do you say about that?
I’d like to know what exactly we are supposed to be rating matches on and how it is supposed to help find more compatible matches. I’ve been doing it fairly steadily with the same criteria and I don’t see ANY improvement. If they aren’t giving us a “user’s guide” in terms of what criteria to rate matches, I don’t see how it can actually be helpful. I haven’t been using physical appearance as a criteria because I know that isn’t a factor in the matching algorithm.
Maybe I really need to rate more matches lower on the scale than I’ve done in the past.
SingleGuyInNC, what I do is answer the question, “Are you interested in this match?” Matches whose responses freak me out get a low rating. Matches with whom there’s a click get the highest. Matches who close me with “I don’t feel chemistry” get the lowest. As expected, my interest level with a match changes along the way, so I remember to change the rating, too.
The time I spend rating matches is enormous, you can say. What I aim to find from this poll is the collective opinion whether ratings help. Pyke’s point troubles me. He may be right. The improvement may not be as instant as we think.
Chemistry.com has a rating system, too, and it is definitely personalised. If I remember correctly, eHarmony rolled out match ratings shortly after Chemistry rolled out theirs.
Well, I’m just wondering if changing the rating as you go along actually does anything. That’s something I haven’t been doing.
I guess what I’d like to know is what exactly the rating does “behind the scenes” but I doubt they will ever tell us that.
The fact that one can change the ratings as one goes along is further proof that Match Ratings is simply customer feedback, not match personalization. I’m sorry to say that, looking at the site’s numerous design flaws and inconveniences, I seriously doubt that anyone in their R&D team is smart enough to design and implement dynamically-adjusting personalization calculations into their production algorithm.
But go ask them, why not?
Okay, Pyke, I went ahead and asked them, “When I give match ratings, how long does it take before the ratings take effect (i.e., you send me better matches)? A week, a month, a year?”
They answered, “Match Ratings will take effect immediately after you have rate your match.”
I didn’t rate my matches, because it wasn’t so much that I disliked who they were on paper, but that I wasn’t attracted to them in the least. eHarmony doesn’t take looks into consideration, so therefore, didn’t want to rate, because that’s what was drawing me away from the matches. Plus, I’m still a little weary of exactly how much personality matching is really going on.
Maxi, how are you weary? You say you weren’t rating because appearance draws you away more than personality. Would I assume then that on personality your matches were okay?
I guess you’re right. I did sort of contradict myself there. I guess the personality aspect (which eHarmony does pride themselves on) was working okay. I’m still pretty new though too, so we’ll see what happens as time goes by.
I guess you’re right, I did contradict myself there. I think that the matching must be okay, I just wasn’t attracted to them, and that’s not really something you can rate on there. Plus, I know it’s what’s inside that counts. So, I think that maybe I will start rating, maybe starting with the ones that I like, and see what happens there.
What I really want to know is: have the designers of this alogorhythm put the same factors into their calculations as I’m putting into mine?
If they’re only looking at the “radio button” answers that the people have clicked, and ignoring the “essay” portions of the profile, than my ratings must appear to be all over the map.
Knowing that someone self-identifies as Christian (or Muslim, or Jewish, or Other) doesn’t tell me much. How that person expresses that faith tells me volumes.
There’s a world of difference between a Christian whose “greatest passion” is:
“Designing and building houses so that everyone can afford to have an environmentally ethical and dignified place to live.”
and a Christian whose passion is:
“PRAYING AND STUDING THE BIBBLE EVRYDY”
So one Christian will get a rating of “6″, and the next, a “1″
But if eHarmony’s alogorhythm doesn’t even check for capslock and spelling, they won’t learn a thing from my ratings (and so far, they haven’t… But it’s only been a couple of weeks)
eHarmony’s designers had to choose between a multi-factor rating (like that in the occasional popup survey we get) and a one-factor rating (i.e., “Are you interested in this match?”). In the second one, I’d imagine that the software will need you to post a lot of ratings before it can figure out and adjust reliably to what you want. For example, send no more Type-A personalities to Ron after he clicks “not interested” to eight of them.
Unless/until they tell us what exactly what rating a match does to the match selection algorithm for your account, I’m treating it as a magic 8-ball / oujia board.
I’m with Pyke on this, until there is some real solid proof that the “wires are connected to something” and I’m not sure how we can determine that. There is a real potential that it is a “dummy” function that doesn’t actually do anything and it may just be for research and does nothing to the matching algorithm.
Regarding my earlier comment about “dissing” someone because of appearance: in the grand scheme of things, perhaps appearance correlates somehow with some dimension that they are measuring so it may actually work…by accident.
Personally, I did not see any instant improvement in the past.
New ranking strategy:
I’ve started to rank matches more unfavorably and I don’t rank them until we hit OC or I close them. My rationale for waiting until I close: it is a relative scale of how bad, hopeful that if I rank the “slackers” that won’t respond or subscribe, that maybe I won’t get matches with such a personality and end up with more communicators.
Anyone want to poke holes in that scheme? 
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