Lexicon ·
Elo score
noun phrase, after the chess rating of Arpad Elo
- Stated meaning
- A rating Tinder kept of how desirable each user was, used to show people to others of similar standing.
- Operating meaning
- A private number kept on every user, computed from other users' swipes and shown to almost none of them, so that each was priced in a market they could not see.
- Origin
- Tinder's internal rating of its users, confirmed by its chief executive to Fast Company in January 2016 and named for the chess rating system devised by Arpad Elo. Tinder called it outdated in a post of March 2019.
- Synonyms
- desirability score
The rating is borrowed from chess. The Elo rating system (opens in a new window) calculates the relative skill levels of players and is named after its creator, Arpad Elo. In January 2016 Fast Company (opens in a new window) reported that every Tinder user had one. Referred to inside the company as an “Elo score,” it ranked “the most (and least) desirable people swiping on the service,” and the scores were “not available to the public.” Sean Rad, the chief executive, said his own was “above average,” and that the rating was technically a measure of “desirability.”
A data analyst at the company called it a “vast voting system,” in which each swipe says “This person is more desirable than this other person.” The reporter was shown his own figure. “It’s 946,” an engineer told him, and asked what that meant, added: “It’s on the upper end of average.” In March 2019 Tinder wrote it off (opens in a new window): “Elo is old news at Tinder. It’s an outdated measure and our cutting-edge technology no longer relies on it.” From the Likes and Nopes a profile received, “there was a ‘score’,” held “with a numeric value in our systems.”
Under load, the number did the work of a rejection without anyone having to deliver one. Each user was a rated asset and a rating agency at once, voting on others with every swipe and being voted on in the same motion, and the market cleared without either party seeing the price. The company retired the number and kept the votes. Its own notice of retirement allowed that the score was still a hot topic: “And sometimes, it still is.” That makes it the one figure in this file still trading after its issuer wrote it off.