Clearly, the concepts of ‘fair comment’ and freedom of speech are alien to the owners of POF. One poster even talked about how online dating is ‘good for women but bad for men’. Many also noted how some POF users seemed to be able to post anything they liked, with no consequences. Some even intimated that POF moderators actually read the supposedly private e-mails that users send other users. Virtually all of them complained of arbitrary and heavy-handed moderators. The few that I checked out were almost overwhelmingly populated by cheesed-off men. Most of the sites I found offer comment forums where POF users can talk about the negative experiences they’ve had there. The excuse that they give you for not being accessible is that “(POF) has millions of users and we just don’t have the time to answer each and every e-mail.” But they seem to have no difficulty tracking down posts or users they feel are politically incorrect!Ī cursory search on the web using “plentyoffish sucks” as a search term yielded many hits. Among other things, one of the downsides of Plenty of Fish is that you can’t contact the moderators directly. I drew the conclusion that MsTaken is likely one of the site moderators. Funny how so few people could vote to remove the thread and have it removed in so little time. Then I got an e-mail at the POF site telling me the thread was deleted ‘by the POF community’. Seconds later the entire thread was deleted. I posted a reply to her reply to the thread. Then I was accused of being the one who was the ‘attention junkie.’Īttempts to locate MsTaken’s profile came to naught. Again, no real explanation was given for the removal of the thread. That got deleted too, and a nasty message from someone whose profile name was “MsTaken”. So I went back in and created a similar post, this time using much milder language. Users they don’t like or who they feel aren’t following the rules can be banned – for either a short period of time or an eternity. Then I discovered that Plenty Of Fish uses volunteer moderators to patrol comment forums and basically delete any posts they don’t like. So when I checked back later to see if anyone had responded, I discovered the thread had been deleted. But I felt that the ‘attention junkies’ portion of my comment was reasonable. My original post was filled with intemperate comments. While women who are teases have been around forever and are nothing new, they seem to be shockingly common on POF. I also noted that this is why I was taking down my profile and ceasing use of Plenty of Fish. I noted that it seemed that a lot of women on the site were attention junkies – basically people who put up profiles for the sake of seeing how much attention they can get from men and nothing else. There is an even darker side.Įarlier today started a thread in the dating experiences forum about how I was unhappy with my lack of success on the site. Sadly, even POF seems to have succumbed to this. The downside, of course is that ratings and favourites lists can quickly deteriorate into the juvenile, high-school kind of popularity contesting and exclusionism that underpins reality-TV shows like Survivor and infects North American culture generally these days. Things like comment forums, the ability to rate user photos, identify and comment about favourite users you’ve encountered on the site as well as maintain and publish a personal list of favourites.Īll that capability seems inviting. Plenty of Fish is interesting in that it offers users facilities other online dating sites (paid or otherwise) don’t. As usual they would just check out my profile and move on without comment. Or worse, to be put down for even having the temerity to show any interest at all.Īs if that weren’t enough, I found many women wouldn’t even look at my profile unless I had looked at theirs first or e-mailed them. Only to be ignored, have my e-mails read and deleted without so much as even a ‘thanks’ for showing some interest. Sent out more e-mails to women whose profiles looked interesting. I upgraded the photos and edited my profile in hopes of getting more dates. So I went back to the drawing board and e-mailed more women.Īll that I have had to show for my efforts despite dozens of e-mails is a whole lot of… nothing. Ended up getting one date with someone who turned out to be incompatible. I checked out the profiles of many interesting women. Being separated, I specified that I was only looking to date and make new friendships. My marriage had just ended and no prospect of reconciliation was on the horizon. A little more than four months ago, I joined (POF) in hopes of meeting someone new.

Official plenty of fish website