What tools can we give our users to help curb using the platform for dating?

Yes, it is indeed like this. In technical terms this is called “positive language” and is proven to be more effective at making others do what one wants to achieve. It is proven to be a very effective communication technique.

After previous interactions here (bc of @Aleja response) I had the idea to “Stop it”. Its for the messages within couchers.

So if someone sends you a message that you dont like (pick up lines, Hi baby, a personal attack, maybe even a low effort request, a person you dont want to be contacted from… )
you can answer with a Stop it icon.
The person recieving it can than decide to stop the interaction or still answer nevertheless.
ONLY if the person still answers (and you still dont like the answer) you can block this person and this also leads to a loss of a community standing point. If you might like the answer, you can also take back the stop it.
So you cant block people without previous interaction. On the other hand its might educational: if you only recieve stop it, you should think about your messages.

What you think? Can you make this?

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That could be made. As one of several tools one can choose from. Although just ignoring stays the best, I think.

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When one person takes offence to remarks, what would stop someone sending inappropriate messages to the next person?
If a Stop It icon can be seen by the safety team, then that would be OK and a few Stop Its attached to one person could see a ban.
I see no point in being lenient on creeps. Tell them to go back to CS!

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Ofc i can ignore the “hi Baby messages”, but that is mansplaining to me…

I was thinking about giving away burden from the savety Team and give power to the people… i dont want to be lenient on creeps no way!

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I think that’s a great idea!

Not sure about this aspect. The central idea for any safety & trust feature should be how it improves the experience of users that face harassment or bullying. They should be empowered. This can be educational on the other end, but the educational aspect should not be a design feature as such.

I guess implementing such a feature would be low-priority on the app right now though. First all the messaging has to be in place, then there need to be the numbers to make it necessary. I also wonder if it makes sense as an automated feature, or rather connected to support.

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We should not have too many tools. If all victims choose a different way to respond, how can the safety team know what is going on?

I was thinking about those stopits too. U user can send it to the other person if he wants. If the victim wants he can also send it to the safety team. For safety reasons a victim can also choose to only automatically use the stopit once some other victims used or intent to use it against the same person too. Then those stopits can also arrive anomymously at the attacker.

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I’ve always found that it’s easy to ignore overt creepers who expose themselves early on (“Hey there beautiful” - BLOCK), but the real discomfort comes when someone is a totally nice person in the forums, messages etc and then puts on the pressure or creeper vibes once I’m already surfing.

Then there’s the second guessing afterwards, like ‘oh, he had a crack but was totally cool when I said no, so it’s not too bad’ or ‘I got the vibe that he probably would have preferred sex and it got awkward but not dangerous afterwards.’

To assume that just because someone isn’t dumb enough to overtly flirt or try to pick up in the messaging section of the app that everyone is safe possibly over-simplifies things.

I prefer my creepers where I can see them - it’s a great way to filter them out from the safety of behind my screen.

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Typically the dodgy situations occur when someone doesn’t have the money for a contingency plan, so they’re desperate for a host and may go for the easiest/last minute one (possibly a creeper).

This is probably another topic though - budget travellers who can’t or won’t pay for accommodation if they can’t find a good host or their host has to cancel last minute

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I totally agree with you. I have heard many stories like ’ I stayed with him because I didnt have the money for a hostel’. I have always wondered then why do these people travel if they absolutely cannot afford a bed in a hostel. I am not justifying the creepy behavior. I liked the ‘stop it’ option where the person cannot send you a message. It should be like a block. However when a profile gets 3 or 4 ‘stop it’ messages, this should be flagged to the support team.

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I just re-read this whole thread and I think mods should separate the discussion in several threads, because there is a big spectrum of behaviors that have been mentioned or implied, ranging from sending “hey baby” messages, making a guest uncomfortable or feel unsafe, to being a ‘creeper’ or even a sexual predator (reference to the emergency couch situation) and from the perspective of the platform, the response has to be different.

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We did that once before to seperate the discussions on tools and on messaging. Then it was just all mixed up in two topics… I think with this issue we just have to recognize the wide spectrum and welcome all feedback in this topic. We can have new dedicated topics, when we are actually working on specific features or responses for the platform.

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