Talk:The League (app)

Proposed edits

I declared my COI above, and would like to propose the following edits so the advertising flags can be removed. This is mostly me condensing the sections so they don't read like advertising.--Bernie44 (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

 Declined Your request is not properly formatted. Several of the references using the shared reference name parameter include the name itself (i.e., <ref name="mgraham"/>) but omit the actual reference.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  05:31, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I formatted it that way because those shared references are elsewhere in the article. I thought that would make it easier.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ , can you please take another look? I have revised the text on this page to include the shared references. Thank you.--Bernie44 (talk) 14:26, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

After the proposed edits were declined for technical reasons, I fixed the issue, made a couple other tweaks and am requesting edits again. Thanks.--Bernie44 (talk) 21:30, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

History

In the History section, tighten the first paragraph to read:

The League App was founded in 2014 by Amanda Bradford, who also serves as its CEO. She conceived of the app after growing frustrated with her own online dating experience.

In the Operation section:

Features

Users connect their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and then select their preferences for matches, with criteria including gender, age, height, distance, education, religion and ethnicity. Each user is assigned a representative who can answer app-related questions. As with Tinder, users swipe right to indicate interest in a potential match, or swipe left to pass. The League shows users only five potential matches per day. In April 2016, the app released a second version, with members now able to organize events and create groups. In June 2016, the app added a feature for women interested in freezing their eggs.

Selection process

Each member receives one ticket to bring in a friend, allowing that friend to bypass the application process. Without a ticket, a potential user can sign up for the waiting list. The League scans an applicant's Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to analyze alma maters, degrees, professions, industries, social influence, neighborhood and age. Diversity of applicants is also considered.

As of August 2016, the median age of the users was 28. They are 95% straight, and 99% have a college degree. As of 2017, The League was accepting approximately 10-20% of users who sign up. In May 2016, the app began allowing people older than 40 to sign up.

Paid membership

The League offers a paid membership that grants access to additional features, including profile customization and feedback from The League, additional daily matches, read receipts, and invitations to live events.

References

Partially implemented  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  23:05, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Racism: "modern dating app algorithms"

Being closed-source proprietary algorithms, there is no guarantee that all "modern dating app algorithms" work that way, simply because you can't read the algorithm itself. What are your sources? Adrin10 (talk) 16:02, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Without any sources, shouldn't this section be removed? It's just an independent analysis without sources.--Bernie44 (talk) 16:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it should be removed, but I didn't remove it again not to start a boring edit war. However, the section is still unsourced, because his new "sources" don't mention algorithms at all. The whole paragraph is made up of disputable conjectures. Adrin10 (talk) 23:04, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

She and other dating app founders have discussed this issue publicly many times... https://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/the-league-dating-race-elites.html

I asked Bradford why the League elected to make race a mandatory field. She told me it's what her users wanted. "We did a ton of testing on this screen and these preferences were the most highly requested," she said, via email. She added that while users can select a preference for the race of partners they'd like to meet, it's not a hard filter. The League shows each user five potential matches each day, and if a user has set his preferences too narrowly, he may be shown matches that don't conform to them, racially or otherwise.

OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder has written extensively about race bias in online dating, drawing from his company's data to show that black users, and especially black women, are at a distinct disadvantage compared with users of other races.

Bradford insists that the League's policies are meant to make the service more egalitarian, not less -- at least when it comes to race. "The ethnicity data helps us maintain a diverse and balanced community that reflects that of the city (in our case, the San Francisco Bay Area)," she says.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.107.97 (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Note that blockquote cites https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-107dcbb4f060 which literally has a data dump describing the effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.107.97 (talk) 21:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

I added citations and Adrin10 (talk) removed them... stop edit-warring and stop promoting racist bigotry falsely disguised as progressivism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.107.97 (talk) 14:04, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Disputed content

The page was recently locked, with the version containing original research in the controversy section. Several have removed this unsourced, opinionated content, but an IP address keeps adding it back in. Below is the content I feel should be removed, as this whole explanation is overly long and general, not really about The League. There are references to an OK Cupid blog and articles in Complex and Sydney Morning Herald, but none of them even mention The League. It doesn't make sense to include all this content on this page:

"We did a ton of testing on this screen and these preferences were the most highly requested," she said ... while users can select a preference for the race of partners they'd like to meet, it's not a hard filter. The League shows each user five potential matches each day, and if a user has set his preferences too narrowly, he may be shown matches that don't conform to them, racially or otherwise. ... Bradford insists that the League's policies are meant to make the service more egalitarian, not less -- at least when it comes to race. "The ethnicity data helps us maintain a diverse and balanced community that reflects that of the city (in our case, the San Francisco Bay Area)," she says.

This is because rankings from upvotes and downvotes are used to prioritize people in swipe queues and search results, or even cordon off low ranking members from interacting with high ranking members. Even in millennials (the most accepting generation of interracial couples), less than 15% engage in interracial dating at all, and that is largely within specific races, not indiscriminately across all races (e.g. Asians date whites with much higher frequency than blacks, and "white women think white men are 17% more attractive than the average guy", while the data on multiple dating sites shows "black people and Asian men get short shrift"). Without racial filters for the 95%+ of people who do not date indiscriminately across all races, minorities get massively and unfairly downranked, showing up with artificially low priority in all queues, instead of fair priority in the queues of people who are open to dating them. In effect, not having racial filters systematically discriminates against minorities while racial filters drastically improve minorities' priority in swipe queues, and ultimately match volume. The League reduces these problems for minorities by including racial filters.

--Bernie44 (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

References

At first glance, half the article devoted to apologetics appear WP:UNDUE. —PaleoNeonate – 13:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)