Collection of stories about useful scraper robots

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This community collects stories about robots harvesting data from the net (typically the web) and performing a beneficial service.

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evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org

Woman rejects dating sites UIs and writes a program to find her husband (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org to c/beneficial_bots@lemmy.sdf.org

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I recall an inspirational story where a woman tried many dating sites and they all lacked the filters and features she needed to find the right guy. So she wrote a scraper bot to harvest profiles and wrote software that narrowed down the selection and propose a candidate. She ended up marrying him.

It’s a great story. I have no link ATM, and search came up dry but I found this story:

https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating/transcript?subtitle=en

I can’t watch videos right now. It could even be the right story but I can’t verify.

I wonder if she made a version 2.0 which would periodically scrape new profiles and check whether her husband re-appears on a dating site, which could then alert her about the anomaly.

Anyway, the point in this new community is to showcase beneficial bots and demonstrate that there is a need to get people off the flawed idea that all bots are malicious. We need more advocacy for beneficial bots.

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[–] sxan@midwest.social 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wonder if she made a version 2.0 which would periodically scrape new profiles and check whether her husband re-appears on a dating site, which could then alert her about the anomaly.

God, I hope not. How horrible would it be to be in a marriage where you distrusted your spouse that much?

I mean, if there's behavior that's making you suspicious, that's one thing. But pro-actively monitoring your spouse? Christ. Just get divorced already.

[–] evenwicht@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah I’m with you.. it was more of an attempt at humor. Although if you search around it’s actually common for people to ask how to check if their spouse is on dating sites.. which may be inspired by the whole Ashley Madison databreach.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, the last time marriage meant more than a tax break was probably back when it was more like legal slavery, and even then it was expected that the commitment was more for the wife than the husband.

The whole thing is absurd. My mom divorced and remarried four times, so I decided I'd only be married once. When my wife and I married, we'd already been together for a decade. But I know that's not common, and I don't begrudge people getting married for tax perks. Which is why anyone should be able to marry whomever they choose.