I Need Help Modifying Source Code of Open-Source Dating Site

[Deleted member 111282]

I recently got back into online dating because I recently encountered situations where I realized the women I've been talking to weren't for me. Sadly, the site I tried out (alovoa.com) sucks because of how limiting it is in terms of features, and most of the women are too far from me. Rather than just using a different dating site (most of which are (insert "Richard Stallman Absolutely Proprietary" meme) and steal your data), I want to improve this one instead. The problem is I have very little knowledge and experience in programming (I've been going through an HTML tutorial on Neocities.org to build my own personal website on there), so I was hoping someone more knowledgeable and experienced could guide me through the changes I want to make. Those changes include:

• Being able to delete your main picture after you save it (say if I want to choose a more up to date picture, I shouldn't have to be stuck with the one that was originally chosen)
• Removing the character limit for descriptions (I know no one wants to read a novel of text, but it's still nice to express yourself without needing to worry about how many characters you can use)
• Being able to add as many pictures as you like (they only limit you to 5 for some weird reason)
• Having a colored theme option for webpages, rather plain, eye-straining white
• Having an option to switch between kilometers and miles
• Better options for captchas
• Making it federated
• Having an "Activities" section where people list suggestions for various social events
• Having a "Success Stories" section where users can upload videos and written stories about finding their significant other

Once those improvements are made, how I'll solve the problem of getting more American women to use it is by getting an advertising company to create and distribute ads for it in the US (I'll use https://opencollective.com/ for the funding of that). In the meantime, I've asked my trainer at the gym (who's an older woman, btw) to be my wing girl and introduce me to any female clientele who'd be a good fit for me, and while I haven't any luck with that yet, I'm going to keep trying. I'm also thinking of getting out more and using my debonair charm to attract women's attention.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

What you request would deeply encourage nasty people. But you might already be aware of the dangers.

A picture of somebody in real life could be used by a mentally-unstable person in some social-networking site. If the picture is yours, it would be used without your consent or even without your knowing it. (I wanted to use another "insulting" word above.)

I do my own avatars with Windows Paint or with GIMP, never do I use somebody else's picture and even less would I photograph myself or anything alike. I have been called a "pig" online by somebody able to guess accurately things about my real-life self.

Miles into kilometers should be dead easy to compute: take miles and multiply by 1.609?

I suggest you take a short look at Discord or Reddit. That's why other sites have restrictions on "expression" which might not make sense to the beyonder.

Hmmm but this coding you want to do is HTML? Why is this under "Command Line" forum? It cannot be bettered by "bash" scripts ROFL, what if you need to use that program on Windows? (Just kidding, sheesh, some people take personally a rhetorical question like that.) Creating an "active" web page could take much more than modifying a few HTML files, might have to learn JavaScript and stuff like that which might put you off a lot unless you're really determined.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

What you request would deeply encourage nasty people. But you might already be aware of the dangers.

A picture of somebody in real life could be used by a mentally-unstable person in some social-networking site. If the picture is yours, it would be used without your consent or even without your knowing it. (I wanted to use another "insulting" word above.)

I do my own avatars with Windows Paint or with GIMP, never do I use somebody else's picture and even less would I photograph myself or anything alike. I have been called a "pig" online by somebody able to guess accurately things about my real-life self.

I'm already aware impersonation is a known problem (just look at Twitter handles post-Musk), but claiming making your own avatars solves that problem is misleading because if the person was a crazy ex, they could go to the site you're on, steal your avatar by right clicking and saving, and create a troll profile on a different site claiming to be you. That being said, I don't have this "everyone's out to get me!" kind of attitude you do.

I suggest you take a short look at Discord or Reddit. That's why other sites have restrictions on "expression" which might not make sense to the beyonder.

I've used both for a short period of time but I never encountered any freaks on there (then again, some people would think this one subreddit I joined would make me a freak, but I'm not going to judge them on their own interests)

Hmmm but this coding you want to do is HTML? Why is this under "Command Line" forum? It cannot be bettered by "bash" scripts ROFL, what if you need to use that program on Windows? (Just kidding, sheesh, some people take personally a rhetorical question like that.) Creating an "active" web page could take much more than modifying a few HTML files, might have to learn JavaScript and stuff like that which might put you off a lot unless you're really determined.

I didn't know where to place this thread at the time, so "Command Line" seemed like the closest thing (the mods can always move it to a more appropriate subforum). I'll admit it will be a challenge to learn how to make these improvements, but after managing to do so, I can pay it forward by providing other people with a better experience.

Lastly, its fine that you don't see this working, but you could at least have the courtesy to be polite and civil about it, rather than mocking and rude. Take it from someone who also has struggled with being polite and civil, and is now making a more conscious effort to make that less of a problem.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

Lastly, its fine that you don't see this working, but you could at least have the courtesy to be polite and civil about it, rather than mocking and rude. Take it from someone who also has struggled with being polite and civil, and is now making a more conscious effort to make that less of a problem.

Where was I being rude? Where did I mock you?

I was trying to help. You said you want to program something to change its behavior. All the best with that. I wrote things but it might have been better not to make the post I made before, because of the way you have answered.

Also I don't care which wacko steals my avatars because it could be done with any picture. At least it won't have anything to do with my life because I dislike social networking and therefore I don't make a point to become deeply involved online.

I was trying to warn that the project might not be easy, in particular if you or your cohorts in programming have to learn JavaScript or some other scripting language. Because it caused somebody to quit, which had to do with a project that I like, which I'm not going to mention here because other people on this forum are beginning to think I'm advertising for it. I'm not. I'm a member of the forum of the other project and like the project, that's all.

Somebody else should answer here. I should have written only the last paragraph.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

Where was I being rude? Where did I mock you?

You were rude by saying

What you request would deeply encourage nasty people. But you might already be aware of the dangers.

A picture of somebody in real life could be used by a mentally-unstable person in some social-networking site. If the picture is yours, it would be used without your consent or even without your knowing it. (I wanted to use another "insulting" word above.)

I do my own avatars with Windows Paint or with GIMP, never do I use somebody else's picture and even less would I photograph myself or anything alike. I have been called a "pig" online by somebody able to guess accurately things about my real-life self.

To immediately mention nasty people coming out of the woodwork, and how they'd do so, isn't talking very positively about what I'm trying to accomplish. While you aren't wrong about saying that, the fact you mentioned it is unnecessary, considering I'm aware of that happening, and therefore rude.

You were mocking me by saying

Hmmm but this coding you want to do is HTML? Why is this under "Command Line" forum? It cannot be bettered by "bash" scripts ROFL

By including ROFL, you give the impression of thinking I'm not very intelligent just because I lack the skills needed to program or I didn't know where to properly post this thread

 

[wendy-lebaron]

It was a programmer's joke. Otherwise I'm sorry that it offended you. I don't feel I was being rude or mocking anyone, but my words are being taken on this whole site in the wrong way. I won't post in this topic any longer. Carry on.

 

[dangarbri]

It's nice that you have a list of specific things you want to update on the site. Most of what you want is CRUD related (Referring to databases, it stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete). So you'll want to check what kind of database its using and learn how to perform CRUD actions.

You'll need to figure understand the back end its using. Nodejs, Python, PHP? And then see how its interacting with the database to get profile data.

And then finally is the HTML part where it takes the data from the database, that was processed by the back end, and renders it in the browser. Theming will be done with CSS, so you'll have to check that out too.

I can help give you some pointers along the way. The only thing I wouldn't know how to do is make it federated. I think that would be a pretty difficult effort since the application is most likely written to interact with only its own dedicated database, and not sharing data with other servers.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

It was a programmer's joke. Otherwise I'm sorry that it offended you. I don't feel I was being rude or mocking anyone, but my words are being taken on this whole site in the wrong way. I won't post in this topic any longer. Carry on.

I accept your apology. You just need to work on how you're saying something as opposed to what you're saying.

 

[sphen]

I saw the original post and originally decided not to respond because I saw two very different and separate issues blended into one thread. I did not know what to advise on the personal issues, and the programming issues are too extensive for me to help. Here I am anyway.

There were personal issues related to online dating and relationships. Linux.org is the wrong place to seek help there, and I would not have posted the personal information, which is a distraction from the main topic.

The main topic is getting help to modify open source software for a future website. You presented a list of changes and new features and admitted that you do not have the technical experience to make the changes yourself. You asked the members here to guide you to make those changes. Based on the fact that you are taking an HTML course, you have much more to learn, and that is the real issue.

In my opinion, you may not understand what you are asking. You seem to lack some very basic skills and have much to learn. The person coaching you through these modifications would require much more time to teach you what you need to know than if they did the open source modifications themselves, which is extensive.

My advice: Look at the open source code. Learn how to build it, install it, and run it without modification. That may take a lot of your time and effort to figure out on its own, but you should start there.

Once you understand what it takes to make it work in its basic form, start looking at the source code and figure out what you need to know to understand it. Join those communities that like to work in those areas. Make simple modifications and see what happens. Try implementing a few of the easy requirements. This is going to be a "bootstrap" process.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

 

[JasKinasis]

I recently got back into online dating because I recently encountered situations where I realized the women I've been talking to weren't for me. Sadly, the site I tried out (alovoa.com) sucks because of how limiting it is in terms of features, and most of the women are too far from me. Rather than just using a different dating site (most of which are (insert "Richard Stallman Absolutely Proprietary" meme) and steal your data), I want to improve this one instead. The problem is I have very little knowledge and experience in programming (I've been going through an HTML tutorial on Neocities.org to build my own personal website on there), so I was hoping someone more knowledgeable and experienced could guide me through the changes I want to make. Those changes include:

• Being able to delete your main picture after you save it (say if I want to choose a more up to date picture, I shouldn't have to be stuck with the one that was originally chosen)
• Removing the character limit for descriptions (I know no one wants to read a novel of text, but it's still nice to express yourself without needing to worry about how many characters you can use)
• Being able to add as many pictures as you like (they only limit you to 5 for some weird reason)
• Having a colored theme option for webpages, rather plain, eye-straining white
• Having an option to switch between kilometers and miles
• Better options for captchas
• Making it federated
• Having an "Activities" section where people list suggestions for various social events
• Having a "Success Stories" section where users can upload videos and written stories about finding their significant other

Once those improvements are made, how I'll solve the problem of getting more American women to use it is by getting an advertising company to create and distribute ads for it in the US (I'll use https://opencollective.com/ for the funding of that). In the meantime, I've asked my trainer at the gym (who's an older woman, btw) to be my wing girl and introduce me to any female clientele who'd be a good fit for me, and while I haven't any luck with that yet, I'm going to keep trying. I'm also thinking of getting out more and using my debonair charm to attract women's attention.

From taking a quick look at the GitHub page for the site, it looks like the changes you want to make will involve changes to code in Java, Javascript, html, css and possibly also some changes to the database structure too.

The html/JavaScript/css is just the front-end, the bit that gets presented to the user. But the bulk of the application is server side and written in Java. So the things you want to do will require a mixture of changes to the front end and the back end.
Some of the changes probably won’t be trivial. But most should be possible.

Also, as you don’t have much programming experience, I’d suggest raising some of your ideas with the developers who are already working on Alovoa. Just add some issues in their GitHub, or in their mailing list.

FYI - It’s probably better to raise each improvement/suggestion as a separate issue, rather than raising them all in a single issue.

They may decide to implement some of them. Making the app federated, or peer-to-peer, rather than centralised would be a pretty huge change and probably wouldn’t be particularly simple. I’m not sure they’d go for that.

Alovoa looks like an interesting project though. A dating site that is completely free to use AND free/libre open source software.
Definitely filling a gap in the market there.

And I’m not surprised the features are somewhat limited. As it’s a free service, they probably have limited infrastructure/resources that they’re running it on.

Limiting users to 5 pictures is probably just to reduce the size of their database.

I’d assume that if you want to upload new pictures to your profile, you’d need to delete some existing pics before uploading new ones. That doesn’t seem too unreasonable to me.

Also, when on a dating site, you don’t want to be looking at thousands of pictures per person. You only need to see a few. So again, 5 seems like a pretty reasonable limit.

Back when I was doing the "online dating thing", a few years ago - if I saw a dating profile with a huge number of pictures - it was a huge red-flag for me. That just cried out utter desperation, or more likely that the user was a self-obsessed, narcissistic, bunny-boiling psychopath.

And don’t get me started on the women who had a large number of pictures of themselves with stupid cat/dog filters on them.
They just confused me. I didn’t know if they wanted to be taken out on a date, or out for walkies, ha ha! It also made me wonder what they were trying to hide with the filters…

So limiting the number of pictures makes sense to me. I’d be more inclined to take a dating profile seriously with 5 good pictures, rather than one with lots of pictures (especially if they have stupid filters on them). But maybe that’s just me?!

Your dating profile only needs to be like a basic CV:
This is me, this is what I like, this is what I don’t like, this is what I’m looking for in a relationship. Here are a handful of good pictures of me. Pick me!

You don’t need to document your entire life on it, or use it as a blogging platform, or anything like that.

Going off on a bit of a tangent - I’ve always wanted to try to make something like this:

Nemester

The new way to make enemies™

zapatopi.net

I’ve loved Lyle Zapato’s concept for this ever since I saw it many years ago. Nemester. An anti-social networking site for making enemies/nemeses (plural of nemesis) and conspiring with the enemies of your enemies. Ha ha.
(I’d also highly recommend browsing through the rest of zapatopi.net, it’s a bit surreal/weird, but it’s absolutely hilarious!)

Maybe I should fork an open-source social networking app/site like Diaspora, Mastodon, or Alovoa and turn it into an anti-social networking site like Nemester? Ha Ha! (Obviously I’ll credit Lyle Zapato for the original idea).

 

[KGIII]

Also, as you don’t have much programming experience, I’d suggest raising some of your ideas with the developers who are already working on Alovoa.

I like this idea - and use this idea. My clear and concise requests have resulted in many software changes over the years. If I use a piece of software and find a bug, I report it (usually, unless it's a pain in the butt). If I find a reasonable feature missing, I point it out and make suggestions in a civil manner - often taking a moment to explain the benefit for the end users.

Just 'cause I'm not actively programming doesn't mean I'm not helping FOSS applications improve. It's just like even though I'm not actively programming I make Lubuntu a better distribution. It takes more than just programmers to make the ecosystem work. If we so choose, we all have a role to play.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

I’d suggest raising some of your ideas with the developers who are already working on Alovoa. Just add some issues in their GitHub, or in their mailing list.

FYI - It’s probably better to raise each improvement/suggestion as a separate issue, rather than raising them all in a single issue.

I'm not fluent in using Github, and because Microsoft owns it, I have concerns over data mining and privacy. I did start typing up an email mentioning my suggestions to them, but I'm not finished with it yet. What do you mean by raising them as separate issues?

Making the app federated, or peer-to-peer, rather than centralised would be a pretty huge change and probably wouldn’t be particularly simple.

I can always fork it

 

[JasKinasis]

I'm not fluent in using Github, and because Microsoft owns it, I have concerns over data mining and privacy. I did start typing up an email mentioning my suggestions to them, but I'm not finished with it yet. What do you mean by raising them as separate issues?



I can always fork it

There’s no point forking it right now though. For starters, you don’t have much in the way of programming experience.

GitHub projects usually have an issue tracker, where you can file bug reports and request missing features.

The Alovoa issue tracker is here:

Issues · Alovoa/alovoa

Free and open-source dating platform that respects your privacy - Issues · Alovoa/alovoa

github.com

Use their issue tracking system to post your suggestions for improvements.

And by "raising them as separate issues" - I mean putting your improvements /suggestions into separate posts with a request for each feature/improvement, rather than one monolithic post with a huge number of suggestions.

If you put all of your suggestions into a single thread, they might just ignore it altogether. Or they might implement some features and ignore others. But it will be harder for you and for them to keep track of.
But if you put each improvement into its own separate thread, they’re more atomic and achievable - the developers may still refuse, or ignore some of them, but having them as separate requests makes them easier to keep track of, easier to discuss and easier to actually implement if they are accepted.

Obviously, use a little sense. Some of your requests might be directly connected/related, in which case, you may want to group some of them together. Also bear in mind that the devs probably wouldn’t be too happy with somebody adding lots of issues suggesting features.

The best bet would be to take a look at the issue tracker first and see what posts are already in there. You never know, other people may already have added issues requesting similar improvements.

For example, from a quick look, there’s already something that mentions the miles/kilometres thing you were talking about.

In which case, you might just want to post something in the discussions for any existing issues, to advocate for those particular changes. If nothing else, that will show the developers that there is a demand for those improvements. It also prevents you from unnecessarily adding duplicate issues.

If somebody else has already requested it, there’s no point adding another issue with the same request. It’s better to join the existing conversation about the issue and to try to get your voice heard.

If you try participating in their issue tracker and you feel that your suggestions are falling on deaf ears - that’s when you consider forking it.

 

[Deleted member 111282]

There’s no point forking it right now though. For starters, you don’t have much in the way of programming experience.

GitHub projects usually have an issue tracker, where you can file bug reports and request missing features.

The Alovoa issue tracker is here:

Issues · Alovoa/alovoa

Free and open-source dating platform that respects your privacy - Issues · Alovoa/alovoa

github.com

Use their issue tracking system to post your suggestions for improvements.

And by "raising them as separate issues" - I mean putting your improvements /suggestions into separate posts with a request for each feature/improvement, rather than one monolithic post with a huge number of suggestions.

If you put all of your suggestions into a single thread, they might just ignore it altogether. Or they might implement some features and ignore others. But it will be harder for you and for them to keep track of.
But if you put each improvement into its own separate thread, they’re more atomic and achievable - the developers may still refuse, or ignore some of them, but having them as separate requests makes them easier to keep track of, easier to discuss and easier to actually implement if they are accepted.

Obviously, use a little sense. Some of your requests might be directly connected/related, in which case, you may want to group some of them together. Also bear in mind that the devs probably wouldn’t be too happy with somebody adding lots of issues suggesting features.

The best bet would be to take a look at the issue tracker first and see what posts are already in there. You never know, other people may already have added issues requesting similar improvements.

For example, from a quick look, there’s already something that mentions the miles/kilometres thing you were talking about.

In which case, you might just want to post something in the discussions for any existing issues, to advocate for those particular changes. If nothing else, that will show the developers that there is a demand for those improvements. It also prevents you from unnecessarily adding duplicate issues.

If somebody else has already requested it, there’s no point adding another issue with the same request. It’s better to join the existing conversation about the issue and to try to get your voice heard.

If you try participating in their issue tracker and you feel that your suggestions are falling on deaf ears - that’s when you consider forking it.

That makes more sense. I'll scrap the email then, but (and forgive me for sounding a bit paranoid) I still have concerns over Github being a Microsoft product now. There's no backdoors on there, right?

 

[sphen]

That makes more sense. I'll scrap the email then, but (and forgive me for sounding a bit paranoid) I still have concerns over Github being a Microsoft product now. There's no backdoors on there, right?

Speaking for myself, I am NOT concerned that Microsoft might try to attack a system through malware from the Github website. You could reasonably say that about any website owned by large companies, Microsoft or not. Considering the value of Microsoft's brand and reputation, I think it is unlikely that Microsoft would attack Github website visitors and users. The benefits are not worth the risks.

The greater danger comes from the shared files that you download from repositories. Most of them do not come from Microsoft but from others all over the world. You must decide for yourself whether to trust the people behind the files you download, and whether you trust them to keep their Github credentials secure.

That can be a problem if Github is hacked and the attackers modify many repositories, which has happened in the past. Hopefully Github has learned lessons and improved their security.

It could also be a problem if a Github user's computer is hacked and the attackers modify files on Github through the compromised personal computer. The damage would be limited to Github projects where they have access, plus those people who download the hacked files until the issue is found.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Going off on a bit of a tangent - I’ve always wanted to try to make something like this:

Nemester

The new way to make enemies™

zapatopi.net

I’ve loved Lyle Zapato’s concept for this ever since I saw it many years ago. Nemester. An anti-social networking site for making enemies/nemeses (plural of nemesis) and conspiring with the enemies of your enemies. Ha ha.
(I’d also highly recommend browsing through the rest of zapatopi.net, it’s a bit surreal/weird, but it’s absolutely hilarious!)

O-kay. Hmm....

....weird!! Yup, weird indeed.....but t'internet encourages this kinda thing, of course!



After 30 years of messing around online, I've seen some VERY strange stuff indeed...


Mike.