Thoughts on a Pro Bio

Sheena123

I just have a thought mulling around in my head. I see a lot of pros joining and have nothing in their About Me section. Like, zero words. Just a pic and the price. 🤔 is it just me or does that not seem professional? Or does it seem lazy? I feel like it takes away the professionalism the site could have when it comes to the business side of this site. Not having even one word written in your About Me just seems like they don’t care and that doesn’t look good for the site.

Obviously, I’m not saying for those that just signed up today, they have to have a fully written bio and whatnot, but I just think if you are on this site as a pro, shouldn’t you have something there to describe what a session is like with you and keep some professionalism as opposed to “here’s my photo. Here’s my price”

It’s a rule that a pro has to have a face picture. Are we able to make it a rule that you should have something in your About Me? I don’t care as much about the pro themselves shooting them self in the foot by not describing themselves. It’s more just wanting to keep a bit of professional decorum on the site. Maybe even making it a must-have will drive away the ones that don’t care enough to be bothered to write up something.

Thoughts?

I asked @Sheena123 to post this here. [-Sid]

cuddles_ndream

I really like to read ‘about me’ / bios … i like to get a sense of who the person is.

Any comment made about the “professionalism” of the typical “professional cuddler” on this site is likely to be seen as rude, or a personal attack.

Sheena123

@CharlesThePoet that’s definitely understandable. I simply want to find out what others feel about bios. I know a lot of people only look at pics and judge from there but I think from a professional standpoint, if you’re going to hire someone to cuddle you, I truly think having something else to go by, not just with pics, gives a better idea for clients and it helps the site have a better look from inside and from outsiders coming in.

CuddleDuncan

I have thought about this problem too, although I've never got to the point of posting because I don't know what the answer is.

I've just done a quick analysis of professional profiles in my area and reached the following conclusions. This is not at all scientific: it's my opinion based on a handful of profiles in one area.

I looked at about 16 professional profiles of women who cuddle men, the latest to logon within 100 miles of London. One was blank, and one I Reported for describing herself as 'sexy'.

There is a strong positive correlation between long profile text (>1,000 characters excluding spaces) and lots of Karma, including repeat clients.

The average word length for shorter profiles (<1,000) was a little over 4 characters. (For comparison, the average word length in this post is just under 5 characters.)

The three peaks were around:

• 20-80 characters - which in some cases felt less professional than blank
• 300-400 characters - the most common length of the short ones
• 700-800 characters - the absolute minimum required for anything that could be construed as approaching a professional standard

I have cuddled a few of the people with short profiles and in all cases they were satisfactory sessions. In other words, as we already know, a short profile does not necessarily imply anything problematic.

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PROPOSAL for discussion please, I'm thinking aloud here.

That the registration process for new professionals should be amended in the following ways:

1) A checkbox is added to the process along the following lines:

I have read, understood and agree to the conventions outlined in @respectful's posts at the top of the Frequently Asked Questions thread in the forum. [These could be dropped into a separate document.]

2) The photograph requirement is increased to

• one photo clearly showing the face of the member (as now)
• plus one other public photo

3) The profile text field has a required minimum of 400 characters excluding spaces; and a recommended minimum of 800 characters with a remark to the effect that "we find that profiles with longer text attract more clients". (We could even add a requirement that only profiles with more than 800 characters are eligible to shown on the homepage.)

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WORKLOAD: I'm no coder but it doesn't strike me as particularly hard to implement. It's not urgent and can be dropped into an appropriate place in the roadmap.

It might be worth running the profile text through a wordchecker to look for words we don't want to see in a profile, and automatically bouncing it back to the submitter to edit.

The effort on assessing new a new profile will barely change - the checkbox we'll just believe them, and the photo and character count will be automated.

IMPACT: I'm guessing here but I suspect the impact on revenue would be close to zero. A handful of prospective professionals would fail to make it over the slightly higher hurdle, but I suspect few of those produce meaningful revenue anyway. It would also slightly reduce the number of applications, but since the lost ones produce no meaningful revenue that just slightly reduces the workload.

To put it another way, most of the few accounts we would lose are ones we don't really want anyway.

The real benefit would be in making the whole site look and feel slightly more professional. This would nudge the whole cuddle world one tiny step in the right direction.

CuddlesByGracie

runs away to count own profile characters

Edited to add: Phew, 738! See that Mum, I'm the bare minimum 😁

Sheena123

😂😂😂😂

Sheena123

I don’t think every bio should have a specific amount of characters. I would just like to see pros that put even just a small finite amount of effort into it. A few sentences to say what a session with you is like. Just having one pic and your price seems so impersonal 😓 that doesn’t mean that the pro is t a good pro but for the overlook of the site, I just don’t think it looks good. If a rule is that you have to have one face photo, I just think a rule should apply to continuing the professionalism and just show you are putting some care into your craft. 🤷🏼‍♀️

CuddlesByGracie

All joking aside I think you're totally right @Sheena123 (as I always do!) and I'd find it frustrating as a client to click on multiple professional profiles only to find no information to give me a sense of who they were.

If the site had minimum "standards", beyond what is already in place through the Terms and Conditions, it would very quickly take a substantial financial hit.

And, frankly, imposing "standards" (again beyond the Terms and Conditions) on "Professional" accounts, but not on "Enthusiast" accounts is a bad plan, bound to cause even more friction between the two types of site user.

And, sun and stars, the very idea of imposing minimums on "Enthusiast" users simply means the client base for the "Professionals" here would dry up to a trickle almost immediately.

Human nature being what it is, trying to force people to "better" than they are never works. And certainly never in any voluntary situation.

They must desire to do that themselves.

Letsholdeachoth

People don't read the Terms and Conditions completely as it is, never mind if we make them longer. How many times do moderators see posts asking how to get started as a new pro when they haven't even applied or been approved and think just because they clicked a button, they can start charging money? One moderator said daily.

Sheena123

That’s why we as a community make reports and try to help as much as we can.

nurturingman

Do a lot of female pros put up profiles with little to no bio? I thought it was just male pros doing that. I don’t look at many female pros’ bios, but from the ones I’ve seen, I get the sense that the women try much harder than the men. I’ve seen several male pros’ profiles with one photo the guy took of himself by holding up his phone in front of a mirror in a public restroom, with a short bio that says something along the lines of “I’m a good listener and you’ll feel safe in my strong arms.” I’ve even seen some with no bio and just a photo someone took of a guy who wasn’t looking; in fact, one male pro has one photo, and it’s of a guy looking at his phone in a public square (come to think of it, maybe that was just one pro’s profile, and I’m not sure whether I reported it but I will if I see it again— if he’s still around). I’ve never seen a female pro’s profile like that; have you?

Sheena123

Oh, I see dozens every single day of female pros that don’t even one word in their profile. And usually they’ll have one photo that’s blurry or sometimes sexual. Other times, it can be a very nice photo but still, not one word describing themselves. No effort put into it at all. So many… and a lot of them have been here long enough to have time to work on their profile, they just don’t care to. Take a look.

CuddleDuncan

@nurturingman there are indeed large numbers of women professionals with very short or no bio.

nurturingman

@Sheena123 & @CuddleDuncan I’ve viewed more female pros’ profiles, and I see that now! 😃

Babichev

Any “pro” who puts up a bio with little to no information is sabotaging their ability to get good clients. Both men and women do it.

I think one of the ways to quickly distinguish between a serious pro and someone who thinks they can simply put up a profile and rake in $$$ is the quality of their bio.

Sideon

Reminder. This site started as a nexus for enthusiasts. The addition and inclusion of Pros came later. Does this, in any way, take from the fact that so many Pros AND enthusiasts don't read the TOS and forum rules? Nope.

I'm being Dr. Obvious here and hoping folks understand and have some context that potential "financial hits" are not the main points and purpose of this site. Platonic cuddling is the name of the game. If Pros nor enthusiasts can't understand this basis, that is a separate and greater issue, IMHO.

cuddleversed

Did captain obvious go to medical school and became dr obvious? or is he his evil, more educated twin 😁

ubergigglefritz

I agree with @CharlesThePoet . Much better to implement policies that encourage what you want and discourage what you don't want, than to try to force people. Forcing change tends to not actually see the change you want, or if it does, it also shows unintended negative consequences. Better to let things flow more naturally in the direction you want. But I'm a libertarian. 😇

I also agree with @Babichev . If I were seeking a pro, the more ways I have to make it obvious to discern between a "real" pro and a lazy opportunistic one (sorry, no offense intended, ha, it takes all kinds, but if I saw a pro, it would be one that is more serious about their work), the better imo. Also, as a pro, I'm happy for there to be profiles to attract the type of client unlikely to be a good fit for me... 🤷‍♀️

cuddlerforu24

An easy way to comply with a character requirement is to type a lot of flotsam and jetsam of how cuddling starts up oxytocin’s etc . There’s a lot of that on pro bios.

A client can also check other websites to see if the CC pro is featured and what they have wrote about them selves.