A list of changes, improvements and random milestones.
2020/02/17
Allow logging in using email.
One can write email instead of username when
signing in.
2020/02/08
Fixed 500 error when seeing other profiles.
The bug was caused when "requests revocation" was added.
Basically profiles without any request couldn't be seen.
Sorry for the inconvenience caused.
Thank you for reporting!
2020/02/07
Allow revocating ("unaccepting") requests.
This effectively allows users to prevent other users, with
whom they chatted before, from sending messages and seeing
their profile. Unfortunately, this was actually requested
by a user, I really hope this won't be used much though.
2021/02/01
When updating optional profile, show stats.
Show percents of users having 5, 15 and more than the
current user filled in fields.
2021/01/31
On main page show map with all cities.
Previously it was top 100.
2021/01/30
On matching and outgoing request pages show "empty profile"
warning.
If user has filled in few profiles, show a warning that
this negatively affects their matching experience (others
just have no way to get to know them from their profile).
On voice recording page add a note with ideas for a recording.
2021/01/29
Rename optional fields page to "Tell about yourself".
There is a note on the page that the fields are optional.
Reorder "update profile" links.
Show added/all items count on "update profile" page.
On "update profile" page explain why it is important to fill
in one's profile.
On "Tell about yourself" page explain why it is important to
fill in one's profile.
2021/01/28
Create separate view for updating profile.
Previously this was a part of settings, which was
confusing. Also the goal is to make this more prominent.
2021/01/26
Add more stats to photos page.
Also show % of users with photos, number and % of users
who always show unblurred photos.
2021/01/25
Enabled new main page design for everyone.
On photos page, explain importance of photos and show number
of users with at least one photo.
The goal is to give users proper perspective to decide
whether they want to upload a photo.
Moved "Show my original photos to everyone" check box to
photos page.
It became too slow to be regenerated during request
response.
2020/12/27
Moved to a larger webserver and updated internal infrastructure in the process.
Previously it was 1GB RAM, 1 CPU virtual server for 5$/month.
Now it is 4GM RAM 2 CPU virtual server for 20$/month.
2020/12/23
Couple #8 reached out to me.
The guy said: "Without question the best dating site
I've ever used. Many good conversations and even found my gf here.
Would have gladly paid $100/m to use, but somehow it's free."
2020/12/18
In stats, show cumulative graph of number of users and
daily and weekly averages for resources graphs.
Fixed a bug when favourite quote was shown only when languages was filled in.
2020/12/17
Updated internal infrastructure.
Moved to newer Python version (programming language).
2020/12/16
Changed first test question to 'e' in FIRE.
Looks like there might be different interpretations of
the other letters and they are more likely to lead to a typo.
List-based pages also show gender, age and what other people look for (thank you for feedback).
2020/12/14
Started 1 week personal hackathon.
Previously it had constant height and some screen space was not used. This is my second attempt, last time I tried on 2020/12/02, but had to rollback, because it didn't work in Firefox (thank you for the quick bug report!).
Unfortunately it is very hard to check whether a person is into FIRE.
E.g. some questions also correlate with cultural background. I don't want
to exclude people, thus, I added an open question ("just tell more about your
FIRE plans and path"), so that one could pass the test after manual review
even without knowing all the answer.
Removed horizontal scrolling when reading messages (thank you for feedback!).
Now the text should fit on the screen.
Links in messages are now clickable.
2020/12/13
Increased "messages window" height to occupy 100% of free screen space.
Previously it had constant height and some screen space was not used. This is my second attempt, last time I tried on 2020/12/02, but had to rollback, because it didn't work in Firefox (thank you for the quick bug report!).
Added favourite quote profile field (thank you for the idea).
2020/12/12
Added audio recording to the profile.
One can record 30 seconds and people seeing the profile can listen to the result.
2020/12/06
Rephrased the second question in the test.
The current phrasing was confusing to many people.
2020/12/03
Rewrote matching logic to show new profiles even when the old ones were not seen yet.
Previously one could see new profiles only after seeing all previous candidates. This was fixed. Now one will get new profiles even without ever opening any other profile.
2020/12/02
Increased height of "new messages input box" on desktop to 4 rows.
Previously it was 2.
2020/11/27
Officially announced my new goal to reach 10 thousand users.
Now all new users will have to pass a simple FIRE test during the registration. Otherwise they won't be able to use the site.
Added a way to ban an account.
This is not a ghost ban - a banned user gets redirected to a special page and they see the explanation and can contact the admin. I hope not to have any need to use this, but I want to have tools ready to handle cases like the recent 2 spammer accounts.
2020/11/02
Added support for more than one photo (thank you for your feedback).
One can now upload up to 5 photos at the same time. They
all handled the same way a profile photo previously was,
that is blurred by default.
2020/11/01
Added a way to submit a complaint (=report an account).
Some users have reported 2 suspicious accounts via chat, which used photos from the internet and tried to move conversation to WhatsApp. Looks like the site is growing and such stuff might happen again. I added "Report" button to user profile to make it easier to report suspicious accounts. Thank you for your help!
2020/10/05
Use small image thumbnails as previews (thank you for your feedback).
Previously large size images were used everywhere. Generate thumbnails and use them when the resulting image is small (e.g. in lists and profile photo). One can open original photo by clicking on profile photo when seeing 1 profile. The goal is to speed up page loading.
2020/10/04
By default don't show profiles which you've seen long time ago in the list of other profiles (thank you for your feedback).
Users with a lot of profiles in the list provided feedback that the page was too slow. This should speed it up. There is a link to a full list, so it can be seen if needed.
2020/10/03
Increase search radius (400 km and 245 miles instead of 300 km and 180 miles).
Fix bug breaking search parameters form when kilometers search radius was larger than allowed miles radius (180 miles).
Previously when a user set 300 km, this would break the search form and prevent all future changes to it. This has been fixed. I've added tests. Setting max allowed search radius now works as expected.
2020/09/20
2000 users
2020/09/07
Graduated from beta!
I've recently remember that the site was still considered to be in beta and this seemed wrong. Thus, remove all mentions of beta.
Old messages are not shown by default in a private discussion page.
Instead there is a link to show older messages. This should speed up page load.
When showing messages, also show time since it was sent (requested feature).
Unfortunately timezone support is a bit complicated, so I just show time since the message was sent (instead of when).
2020/09/01
Restructured feedback page.
I noticed that many people reported bugs via Google Form. This was definitely suboptimal. I made it more obvious which channels should be used for which kinds of feedback. Thank you a lot for your feedback!
Described in FAQ how matching / ranking algo works (thank you for your suggestion).
I think this may help you to choose your search parameters.
2020/08/28
When updating gender, make error message that it is required more prominent.
Multiple users reported having troubles filling in the first screen of their profile (gender & city). The gender is actually required, but this was not promiment. I added a border around the field and the error.
2020/08/27
When matching and there are no new profiles, show a warning message.
This way it is obvious that one has already seen all available profiles and it is not a technical bug that the list is not extended.
2020/08/26
Hide unread messages older than 14 days when showing all message threads.
There is a link to show them. This should speed up loading of the page.
2020/08/22
Fixed a bug when "Send private message" link was not show despite the accepted request (thank you for pointing this out).
There was a typo in the latest profile lists update. Added a test to avoid this in the future.
Fixed a bug when only blurred profile photos were shown in a list of incoming or outgoing requests (thank you for pointing this out).
Forgot to port this functionality when migrating to list-based views. Added a test.
2020/08/21
Show profile lists (instead of browsing through single profiles).
The site has grew, the old approach with scrolling through single profiles didn't work well anymore. Thus, I rewrote to show profile lists. This also make UI much more obvious, e.g. one can easily see which profiles they've already seen and which are new.
2020/08/20
Made colors of sent/received message more different (thank you for your feedback!).
Basically increased contrast between them.
2020/08/12
Increased number of interested requests from 2 to 3 per day as well as new profiles shown from 10 to 12.
The site has grown substantially and, while the limits have
positive benefits, the previous values were unnecessarily strict taking into
account number of users. Happy dating!
Changed when users can send more requests.
Previously the refresh was done on UTC midnight, which was
confusing to people from other timezones. Now a running window approach is
used, e.g. if you send two requests at 9am, your requests will be "refreshed"
next day on 9am.
2020/08/09
Improved site page load speed.
I noticed that blurred photo generation was happening more often than it was required. I fixed this (it happens exactly once now) as a result the site should load much faster now.
2020/08/06
Fixed a bug when blurred photo was missing.
Around 400 profiles were in this state. I fixed the culrprit (race condition when saving blured image) and regenerated missing images.
2020/08/01
Fully rewrote search & matching.
One can look for friendships and romantic partner at the same time with different preferences. Location matching is much more flexible now - one can choose city, state, country, anywhere or up to specific distance away (as well as any combination of these). Offline and online preferences are gone (replaced with location preferences).
2020/07/14
Fixed a bug related to requests from deleted accounts.
Previously one couldn't respond to such a request, as a result it was always shown as new. Now one can respond, moreover when a user deleted their account, all their non-answered requests are denied automatically.
2020/07/08
Added city geocoding.
This is not used anywhere yet, just happens in the background. I am working on showing profiles at X miles away from your city, this is the first step. First, I check in a local database, which is provided by http://www.maxmind.com/. Attribution: "This product includes data created by MaxMind, available from http://www.maxmind.com/". If the city is not there, I query https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/. I am grateful to both services! If Nominatim does not have it, I have manual moderation (me).
2020/06/28
There was another account deleted, because they've "found someone". Thus, I extended "delete profile" form to explicitly ask whether the user found someone and whether I could reach to them.
Number of such deleted profiles now becomes a success metric. Also I would love to know when site really works well (e.g. people stay together for a long time or even marry), that's why I would love to send an email after some time. Imagine someone getting married, because they met here - this would help to popularize the site a lot.
The goal is to give more info to prospective, new and existing users as well as improve discoverability of the site. If you would like to do a guest post, please reach to me.
2020/06/23
Milestone: One user deleted their account, because they've "met someone on the app".
This is the first case I am aware of people succesfully meeting romantially via the website. I wish them all the best and please tell when you get married :)
2020/06/16
Truncated message texts (at most 10 words now) when showing all threads (thank you for the suggestion via feature board).
Previously entire message was shown, which might have been inconvenient.
Added archiving message threads.
There is "archive" button when viewing the thread. A new message in the thread will unarchive it.
Basically there are quite a few users already and my "anecdotal" approach does not work well anymore - thus, let's just vote for ways to improve the site.
2020/06/11
Usernames are now case insensitive (thank you for the idea).
When you register as "User", you can login using "user", "USER", "uSeR", "useR" etc.
2020/06/07
In settings moved "unblur photo" prefence right after the photo is chosen (thank you for feedback).
Previously it was on a separate page.
Allow resending validation emails.
Looks like occasionally they are not delivered.
2020/06/06
I have created a Google Form (only for registered users) for more structured feedback.
The development was already feedback driven, but it was very anecdotal (people suggested ideas to me, I tried to assess impact). I hope to get more quantative data from the form. I plan to add possible features to the form and let people vote.
Added optional "languages" field to the profile (thank you for the idea!).
2020/06/03
Message threads with new messages are now shown on top.
Previously they were sorted by when the last message was sent. As a result one could have missed some thread with a new message (especially if it was off the screen).
2020/06/02
Pages to change profile have been "unbundled".
Previously to update matching preferences one had to go through 2 other pages before getting there. Now there are separate links from "settings" page.
2020/06/01
Linebreaks in profile fields are now preserved (thank you for the suggestion).
Ctrl+Enter now creates new line when typing a message (thank you for the idea).
Same as before Enter alone sends the message.
When sending a message in Firefox, the text does not stay behind anymore (thank you for reporting).
I am making usernames case insensitive.
Username existance check during registration is already case insensitive. There are usernames in DB, which differ only by case, so I will reach to their owners before making login case-insensitive too.
2020/05/06
One can quote messages when replying.
To do so, click on "<" or ">" in front of the message to quote. I will think how to spread the news better, so far no good idea.
2020/05/03
Send message field and button is now blocked during sending.
Otherwise one could send the same message by mistake previously (I did this multiple times).
2020/05/02
Email notifications for messages are now sent for each unread thread separately.
Previously one could get at most one such email per day. This meant that all following messages in the same day triggered no email. In the new system, there is no "1 email per day" limitation and one can get more than one email notification per day if they receive more messages after the first email and don't read them.
2020/04/26
I finally implemented proper account deletion.
Very occasionaly some users asked me to delete their accounts. Just deleting all their data would create bad experience for people they interacted with. The new approach preserves e.g. the fact that there was a request and shows that account was deleted (i.e. one can't see anything about the account, but it is obvious that there was a requests).
Stats page now shows top 10 cities and countries.
2020/04/21
I finally finished approving cities! Yay!
Stats page now shows counts for users with pictures (also always unblurred) and empty profiles.
2020/04/19
Empty profiles (i.e. only having mandatory fields) are now deprioritized during matching.
In other words profiles with more information will be shown first.
Enlarged new message textarea on mobile (thank you for your feedback).
Previously one could see only ~20 characters, now at least 5 lines.
2020/04/17
I am still manually approving existing cities (I think I've done 130 out of ~400).
When updating manually profile, cities to pick from are now sorted.
Previously locations were stored just as strings. This had drawbacks. I rewrote this completely. Now I can approve some cities and new users will be able to choose them or to add new ones. I haven't started approving existing cities yet.
2020/04/12
Still investigating email deliveries.
I've added a mechanism to get email delivery confirmations from Amazon. Hopefully this will allow pinpointing the issue better (and actually checking how bad it is).
2020/04/11
Added an option to unblur your photo for everyone (thank you for the idea).
Normally other people see only your blured photo (unless you approve them). Now you can disable this and everyone will be able to see your original photo.
2020/04/10
I've removed "'" from email subjects.
I've got an impression that these emails are not delivered more often, so I decided to try my luck. Unfortunately, from the website perspective everything works well and it looks like later in the email service something breaks. As a result, it is super hard to investigate.
I've added better internal error logging.
Some people reported that they don't receive some emails, I am investigating and this error logging should help.
2020/04/07
We are more than 500 already! Yay! Please consider spreading the word, the more - the merrier.
I've added ability to select ages to be matched with.
To be honest this one is a bit controversial. First, many people don't want provide their ages, so I had to add a special option to be matched with people "with no age". Second, age is a weird thing. At least I had experiences in my life, which according to society views would be impossible due to age difference, but they were amazing. So, please, when you have some strict age preferences consider at least making the window quite broad.
2020/04/04
Now new responses to outgoing requests are marked as "new" (including "new" label on the button on the main page).
"Contact details" are now gone forever.
I've deleted them from database and cleaned up the code.
2020/04/02
Added settings section to control email notifications. Also rephrased emails to avoid disabling notifications by accident (thank you for feedback!).
Fixed a bug when denied outgoing requests were not shown as such on outgoing requests page (thank you for feedback!).
If you were wondering why your request has no response, it is a good time to have another look, perhaps it had been denied.
2020/04/01
External contact details are not shown in your profile anymore.
The new messaging system is much better - safer (you decide who sees what) and more convenient (you can agree on some mean of communication if you want to move somewhere). I will soon delete all the contact details data and remove all the remaining UI (e.g. edit forms) related to it.
Incoming requests page now has "new" label when there are unresolved requests.
This way you can quickly see whether there is something new, just by visiting the main page (similarly to "new" marker on all messages page). Please accept or deny incoming requests to resolve them.
Show interested requests (sent & accepted) and messages counts (sent & read) on public stats page.
Add manually updated values to public stats, e.g. time and money spent.
2020/03/31
Added "username reminder".
Usernames are case sensitive and this is a source of confusion. Now "reset password" email contains your username explicitly. You don't have to reset your password though, you can just delete the email.
Presumably fixed wrong orientation in photos.
Previously some photos were shown sideways. I've added code to handle "orientation" tag of the file. Please reupload your photo if it is currently sideways. If it is still sideways after you reupload, please report.
This was main communication mechanism before built-in messaging was implemented. It is not needed anymore, but users who registered earlier might still rely on it. As of now, users who don't have any contact details won't be able to add them. Users who have something still can edit.
2020/03/28
User gender is shown in their profile.
Profile has been extended (thank you for the idea).
Now it includes height, current relationship status and views on children, religion. All are optional.
Added a way to preview your own profile (see settings).
2020/03/25
Added email notifications when one receives a message.
Unsubcription is only 1 click, you don't even need to sign in. Only people whose request you accepted or whom you sent a request can send you message, so this should be low traffic. Moreover, currently I send at most 1 such email per day (because I couldn't figure a good way to prevent sending emails for messages which you will read in a moment e.g. because you chatting right now - I am working on a better solution).
2020/03/24
Added page with all message threads.
The design is suboptimal, but I want to bring to you something usable as fast as I can.
2020/03/23
Added private messages (thank you all for convincing me to finally implement this).
This is very early stage, I am already working on couple improvements (e.g. page with all threads).
2020/03/19
Added a way to reset forgotten password via email.
2020/03/16
Added favicon.
2020/03/15
Designed incoming and outgoing requests pages to look better on mobile.
At this point all critical pages are usable on mobile.
2020/03/14
Designed profile update pages to look better on mobile.
2020/03/13
Designed login and signup pages to look better on mobile.
2020/03/11
Designed main landing page (non signed in) to look much better on mobile.
2020/03/10
I improved showing other profiles on mobile.
To be honest I designed everything only for desktop originally. Thus, it looked terribly on mobile. Now it should be much more readable.
Uploaded pictures are now automatically resized to be at most 1000px in any dimension.
Larger pictures take too much time to load (especially on mobile).
2020/03/09
Now one can choose to ignore partner gender completely (thank you for the suggestion).
Both female and male partner genders can be selected at the same time. This is especially handy when looking for friendship.
2020/03/07
Made all pages a bit more readable on mobile.
All the text now is at least of appropriate size. Positioning may still be weird.
Properly designed main menu page for mobile.
Now everything should be well clickable on mobile.
2020/03/06
Added "friendship" mode (thank you for the idea!).
Each profile now have "relationship type", which can be "romantic" or "friendship". All existing profiles automaticaly get assigned "romantic". You will matched only with people, who look for the same relationship type and fullfil all other already existing criteria.
2020/03/05
Added country picker and unified countries in the database.
I noticed that people write country names differently, so now there is a predefined set to choose from (this makes the matching process much better).
2020/03/04
Improved text contrast on many pages (like signup and login) by wrapping it into white background block. Thank you for the idea!
2020/03/03
We reached 100 profiles. Thank you all!
2020/03/02
Added FIRE type (lean/fat) to profiles (thanks, Reddit, for the idea)
2020/03/01
Added email notifications when one's "interested" request gets approved.
Unsubcription is only 1 click, you don't even need to sign in.
Presumably fixed a bug when some photos were returning 403.
For some of them file permissions disallowed the webserver to serve them. I now set proper file permissions when uploaded + fixed existing cases manually. Sorry for the inconvinience!
2020/02/29
Added telegram to contact details (thank you for the idea)
2020/02/28
Added email notifications when one receives "interested" request.
I definitely don't want to bother you with emails, each email contains link to unsubscribe (only 1 click is needed, no sign-in, nothing else).
2020/02/24
Added optional age field (thank you for the idea)
Added mandatory country field (thank you for the idea).
If there are no matches from your city, people from your country will be shown as well.