Create a site where you can upload your characteristics including a recent picture and wait for a reaction. If someone think's 'Hey, that's me, that's my double!' , he or she should upload his or her charactersictics too. Than the site visitor must judge whether or not it's the real double.
[This all caused by this annoying reaction anyone has had from a friend at least once, something like: 'Hey, I've just seen your double!' , but never actually meet this person]-- Buzz, Jul 31 2001 communal people search tree http://www.smalltime.com/dictator.htmlGuess the Dictator and/or Television Sit-Com Character [jutta, Jul 31 2001] (?) FindMyTwin http://findmytwin.idavista.comThis is a site where you can find others with similar physical characteristics as you. You should be able to find your doppelganger or 'long lost twin'. [biglass, Aug 25 2005] https://twinstrangers.net A doppelganger database that launched in 2015, with some example matches [caspian, Mar 17 2020] Where I think you found that site, [caspian] https://www.reddit....have_never/fkqc9tu/I happened to see it too. Didn't click the link yet, though. [notexactly, Mar 20 2020] I was thinking about something like this, too, prompted by a version of the game of "animal" that I ran into again recently.
(A popular pastime for wannabe expert system builders, "animal" played on a computer presents the user with a sequence of yes-or-no questions that navigate you through a tree whose leaf nodes are labelled with names of animals. If the animal on your final leaf node isn't the one you guessed, you are asked to contribute a question that distinguishes your animal from the one the database suggested.)
World-writeable games of animal are inevitably abused for things other than originally intended. One, labelled "Guess the Dictator and/or Sitcom Character", has become a repository for people's own characterizations; rather than answering the questions for a dictator and/or sitcom character, some users answer for themselves, adding themselves, making the final distinction between them and, say, Lisa Simpson.
One problem with doing this on purpose is that I do know how to distinguish myself from Lisa Simpson, but not from Lisa Smith who I don't know anything about other than that she's like me in some respects. So, in order to add yourself, you'd have to provide the game with advance detail that isn't revealed unless someone hits that node and requires a way of telling you apart. As more people like yourself add themselves, your cache of original traits would shrivel, until you and someone else can't find anything different, and have to get together and talk to figure out the differences.
(The biggest unrelated problem is that it's awfully hard to organize and maintain a good thesaurus; if you look at the existing game, you'll see plenty of entries that are factually wrong or misspelled.)
[Buzz: I don't understand your annotation. More detail?]-- jutta, Jul 31 2001 [jutta] Maybe it should be turned around, start with asking for differences, describe it and try to match... should shorten the tree...-- Buzz, Jul 31 2001 Yeah, Rods, you could enter "Britney" and "sex," and the list wouldn't even be that big. You could probably save the resulting list and have a decent favorites file.-- beauxeault, Jul 31 2001 I once saw a comparison of the number of possible genetic permutations to the total number of humans who have ever lived on earth. It implied that we have many more years yet to go before it's statistically likely that any two people have been truly genetically identical. Of course, this was based on at least two flawed assumptions: 1) that all permutations are equally likely, and 2) it was before the genome was mapped and we discovered that humans have only about half the number of unique genes that we thought we had. But I wonder if anyone has done a more realistic study of this, to determine what the real chances are. And would we have to discount identical twins, triplets, etc.? Are they *really* identical?-- beauxeault, Aug 01 2001 I am Spartacus.Sorry.-- lewisgirl, Aug 01 2001 People identical by coincidence wouldn't either. Identical ("monozygotic") twins really are genetically identical.-- Monkfish, Aug 01 2001 Perfect for gay narcissists! bun++-- futurebird, Aug 01 2001 There WAS a website just like this many years ago. I remember my dad uploading his picture to it. I cant find it anymore, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there. I just can't remember what it was called and searching for it just brough me to THIS site.-- tikifish, Feb 18 2002 advice - get out while you can!-- po, Feb 18 2002 That's a great invention for people that want to steal someone's identity. First they find their doppelganger (e.g. you). Then they find out enough data to get a credit card in your name. When you complain about the purchase, even the store security camera _proves_ it's you.
This is the first (and only) good reason I've seen to gough out an eye, replace all one's teeth with a musical keyboard and dye one's hair green.-- FloridaManatee, Jan 03 2003 Use face recognition software to analyse pictures uploaded and grade them. Then a person could ask to see others that look a little like them or a lot or identical. I am sure Saddam and Osama would love to use this system.-- xint, Aug 13 2003 You'd probably still need a human to narrow it down - biometrics and face recognition still produce a lot of false matches.-- Detly, Aug 13 2003 [aphidman]--the pet store does that. Just bring in your pet, sling 'em up on the counter--"Gimme another one o' them!" Or not..."But not so big, we're downsizin'!"-- Eugene, Aug 13 2003 lovely - arewehotornot.com is sure to follow.-- neilp, May 30 2004 //face recognition still produce a lot of false matches// "So, you're saying it wasn't your real doppelganger?"-- ldischler, May 31 2004 if you found eleven people who looked exactly like you you could start a football team.-- benfrost, Aug 27 2005 random, halfbakery