"Hot or Not" made (less) simple

In previous articles, I mentioned the use of the website hotornot.com, in order to get a rough idea of how your eHarmony photos look.

It's not a great measure. Most of the people who will be rating you will be men (those who really wanted to see women, and homosexuals), and they aren't your target audience. Also, the site seems to reward the skanky. Let's just say that photos with your shirt off will do well on Hot or Not, but, even if you're in great physical shape, showing your bare, chiseled chest will probably hurt your results on eHarmony.

But, in my experience, if you've got 100 people ranking a photo, and you get a rating of 7 or above, it's not going to hurt your results. But photos below 6 will. 6 photos are iffy.

And, so far, I've only got two photos that got in the 8's. So I can't speak from experience about how 9s and 10s do.

And that was my advice on how to use Hot or Not. Pretty simple. (Especially considering, if you read my original article... there are better methods to use.)

Some people, however, need a more complex explanation. For example, how a photo can be rated a 7, when very few people rated it above a 6. These people ask, "How the heck does that work?"

Well, if you dig into their website a little bit, they explain.

The Hot or Not scale, theoretically, should represent a bell curve, with it's peak at 5, and "tails" at 1 and 10.

Unfortunately, most people don't actually rank that way. Some are "easy". Some are "hard".

For example, when I make my rankings, I almost never give anyone a 1, 2, or 10.

So, they have to compensate for that. And their computer calculates that a 9 (from me) is probably someone else's 10.

And, according their FAQs, the final ranking represents an average calibrated score.

Furthermore, some adjustment DOES seem necessary.

For example, let's suppose a supermodel puts up one of her best photos. And she's what most men would consider a legitimate 10.

Just by human nature, not everyone's going to rate her a 10. Some jealous women will rate her a 1. Some chubby-chasers might think she's too skinny, and rate her a 5. Some picky folks might say, "Nice photo, but I'm not sure she's THAT hot", and rate her a 8. Or only like blondes. Or don't like that particular dress. You get the idea.

And, if that keep up... no one earns a 10. In fact, I doubt that 9's would be possible.

So, that's why the scores seem strange. But, if you get 100 rankings, they're usually repeatable within less than one point.

And the data can still be useful. Just follow the guidelines, and don't overthink it.