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DR. MATCHER
USER INSTRUCTIONS
1/31/89
Dr. Matcher is an all purpose questionnaire matching system. Its uses
are limited only by the questionnaire provided, and could be used to meet
people with your interests, find potential employers/employees, or even
computer dating.
There are two main things you can do in Dr. Matcher. First, you fill
out Dr. Matcher's questionnaire. This questionnaire will be put on file so
that when other users invoke the matchmaking function your questionnaire will
be included in the list. The second thing you can do is tell Dr. Matcher
what your preferences are and Dr. Matcher will find questionnaires that match
your criteria. You can change your questionnaire answers or default
preferences at any time. (Notice: depending on how the sysop sets it up,
you may be required to fill out your questionnaire before invoking the
matcher function.)
In many cases you can stack responses with semicolons or spaces. For
example, if you want to clear the questionnaire without being prompted, you
can type C;Q;Y at the main prompt. Questionnaire answers or preferences can
be stacked as well.
The default response, if any, is marked off by square brackets in the
list of available commands.
The first prompt you'll get is the Dr. Matcher command prompt. You can
type a question mark (?) at any prompt for a list of the valid commands.
Here's the valid commands for the main prompt:
C - Clear Questionnaire and/or Preferences
E - Enter or Edit your Questionnaire answers
I - Shows these instructions
M - View matching questionnaires (Matchmaker Function)
P - Set or Change your Default Preferences
Q - Quit and return to BBS
S - Scan Matching Users (Matchmaker Function)
T - Toggle Questionnaire On/Off (not available if questionnaire is
required).
CLEAR QUESTIONNAIRE AND/OR PREFERENCES
This command lets you erase all the answers to your questionnaire or
preferences so you can start them from scratch. You'll be asked to select
Questionnaire, Preferences, or Both. Then you'll be asked "Are you sure?"
Answer Y to clear the requested items.
ENTER OR EDIT YOUR QUESTIONNAIRE ANSWERS
If your questionnaire is empty, you'll be given the first question and
the choices for answers. If it is not empty, you'll be shown the first
question and its answer in a brief form. The following subcommands are
available:
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? - Help
FO - Skip ahead to next question (default)
BA - Skip back to previous question
BR - Brief mode - display only the question and answer; no editing
available.
CL - Clear all answers to the question being displayed. Only available
in editing (detail) mode.
QU - Quit - return to main prompt
ED - Display question for editing. Only available from brief mode.
LI - List all answers to the questionnaire. Only available from brief
mode.
RE - Redisplay question and choices. Only available from editing mode.
If you are in editing mode, the question and all answer choices are
displayed. You can enter a command above, or you can choose answer(s) to the
question by selecting a letter from the multiple-choice menu. If the
question allows more than one answer, they can be entered separately or
stacked. IT IS NOT REQUIRED TO ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE,
BUT THE MORE QUESTIONS YOU ANSWER, THE BETTER THE MATCHES WILL BE.
If you want to change the answer of a question, use the CL command to
clear out the answer, then select the new answer. This may be stacked with
spaces or semicolons; e.g. to change a question's answer from B to D, type
CL;D.
If the questionnaire was unanswered when you started, Dr. Matcher will
take you to the next question after all available answers to the current
question have been used up. Simply press Enter to get to the next question
otherwise.
Selected answers are marked with an asterisk.
SET/CHANGE YOUR PREFERENCES
Your preferences are questionnaire answers that the matchmaker will be
looking for when making a match. For example, if you're male and using Dr.
Matcher for computer dating, your questionnaire would say you are male but
you'd probably want Dr. Matcher to match on females, so your preferences
would say female.
Creating and editing preferences is similar to editing or creating your
questionnaire answers. See the section above on editing your questionnaire
for details. There is one important difference: MUST-MATCH preferences.
Normally, all active questionnaires on file (except yours) is matched
against your preferences and are listed by percentage. However, you may want
only people with a certain answer in their questionnaire to be listed. For
example, a male looking for a date may want to make his female preference a
MUST-MATCH so that only females are listed.
To set a preference as a MUST-MATCH, precede the choice with a slash.
For example, to make answer C a MUST-MATCH, type /C. This will make all
preferences for this question MUST-MATCH. To remove the MUST-MATCH while
leaving the preferences unchanged, precede a preference with a period, such
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as .C.
VIEW MATCHING QUESTIONNAIRES
The M command invokes the matchmaker. Your preferences are compared
against all active questionnaires on file and are sorted by descending
percentage, so the highest matches show first.
If you have no default preferences set when you invoke Matchmaker,
you'll be taken into the Set/Change Preference mode where you can set your
preferences. When you type QU to quit, the match making will proceed.
You'll be asked whether to use your default preferences, if they are
set. If you choose Yes (the default), the matchmaking will proceed using
your default preferences. If you choose No, you'll be taken to the
preference editing mode where you can enter a temporary preference for this
time only.
You can select a minimum percentage to show. Any percentage matches
less than the percentage given will not be shown. Typing 0 at this prompt
will abort the matchmaking process.
You'll be shown the first matching person, his or her percentage match,
and a list of his or her questionnaire answers. A prompt follows where these
subcommands can be entered:
B - Switch to brief scan mode (lists 24 users at a time)
D - Switch to detail mode (shows answers, 1 user at a time)
N - Show next match (or 24 matches in scan mode) [default]
P - Show previous match (or 24 matches in scan mode)
Q - Quit matchmaking and return to main menu
At any time, you can type the match number to display a user's
questionnaire in detail. For example, if you're scanning matches using the
brief scan mode, and find one where you want to see the detail, type the
number shown (1 = best match, 2 = second best, etc.) and Dr. Matchmaker will
switch to detail mode and display that user.
SCAN MATCHING QUESTIONNAIRES
This command works exactly like the Matchmaker command above, except
that it starts out in Brief Scan mode, displaying 24 matches at a time.
TOGGLE QUESTIONNAIRE ON/OFF
If you have an active questionnaire and you want to temporarily suspend
it from the matchmaker (so that users making matches won't see your
questionnaire) without clearing it, use the T command. This command will
toggle the questionnaire off, and then back on when it is invoked again.
Note that if the sysop specified that the questionnaire must be active, this
command will not be available.
MATCHMAKING BASICS
The basic formula that Dr. Matcher uses to determine the percentage
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match is as follows:
Questions Matched
Percent = ----------------- x 100
Questions Checked
Any question where you specified a preference is included in "questions
checked." A question matches if any preference you specified in that
question matches any answer to the question in the user being matched. For
example, if question #1 had three answer choices: red, green, and blue, and
you specified red and blue for preferences, the question would match if the
user answered red, blue, or both in his or her questionnaire. Questions that
are unanswered in a users' questionnaire count against the percentage if a
preference is specified for that question.
All users with active questionnaires are scanned when matchmaking. The
list is presented in descending order of percentage matched.
If you specify preferences to only one question, the only percentage
matches would be 0% or 100%. Only the 100% matches will be listed, since 0%
matches are automatically excluded from the list. The more preferences you
specify, the more accurate the matches will be.
Happy Matching!
---KJP
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