Roleplaying Profile Link

[zae]

I have an idea, if it wouldn't be too difficult/time-consuming to implement.

Every now and then I dip my toe in roleplaying again, but often when I look at the first post in a recruitment thread, they have some ideas, but not crucial information such as the role they wish to play. So they might post a great idea about a crocodile that leaps out of the river to spank the nature documentary crew, and I think "That's perfect! I've always wanted to be a crocodile!", message them, and it turns out they wanted to be the crocodile. Or whatever.

(Take a moment to go search the threads and see if anyone actually posted that idea.)

Now obviously people can just "provide more information" in their posts, but seriously, it's a good day if they even put a title better than "I have an idea".

Here's my idea: everyone has a "Roleplaying Profile" page, and there's a link to it right under their name when they post. There can then be a few fields where you can type stuff. I suppose checkboxes could also work, but letting people type into a field would allow:

Plays characters: "female spankers, any adult spankees, gorillas (any role)"
Likes to play with characters: "teenage or adult male spankees, adult female spankers or spankees, mountain goats (any role)"
Likes implements: (list of implements, including some you wouldn't think to list options for in checkboxes)
Series and Settings: "Noorootoo, anything by Orwell, Teen Titans, Tookiehammer, Ranma 1/2, anything pre-apocalyptic, apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic"
Additional info: "types thirty paragraphs per post, prefers players who write like Charles Dickens"

That would mean people needn't post the basic "what I like, what roles I want to play" for every single thread, and others will still have an idea what they're after and less time will be wasted going "Hi, so I hear you want a crocodile to spank you?"

(Elliquiy, in my sig, uses a similar thing. It just has a specific board where everyone can post their "Ons & Offs" as a regular post, then link to that in their profile and it's right under their name for easy access. It also recently added something else where you tick a whole bunch of categories and sub-categories.)

[RobM]

What you're describing sounds a helluva lot more complicated than I think you let on. In terms of the creation and integration of them - especially for the coding to create an editing interface that allows people to write a profile properly.

We've already got the next best thing;
http://animeotk.com/forum/forumdispl...sumes-183.html
This was introduced for just what you describe, except marketed to the roleplayers in an existing format we can safely assume they know how to use; A forum.
The idea was a resume that was updated whever the person felt like it could be created and the link to it put in their sig.

Its an opt-in and like your suggestion would I'm certain, died the death. I was suprised as hell that none of the resume, introduction and persistant world stuff took off (some of the rest of it was a punt no-one knew if it would work or not, but I'd have bet - and lost - money that the resume page would be used frequently and by a lot more people than it ever has been).
There's just never been the groundswell of interest and I don't currently believe a new feature will be any different.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea, just that it creates a medium for displaying much the same information - but in a harder to use format - which is already withered unwanted on the vine.
How would the page be most commonly advertised... with a sticky in the RP forum that you hope people will read... as opposed to an actual forum category.

Besides, creating a page that will be blank for 50,000+ members of the site doesn't sound like an ideal if you understand what I mean?

My preferance - and this isn't because I want to force an idea of mine that hasn't come out right - would be to improve the existing forum categories and enhance what the provide first. If a userbase can be shown to exist that require the additional functionality then it'd be time to start thinking of custom coding like this. Otherwise, this is a opt-in feature praying for someone to care for it, rather than a must-need feature users are crying out for.

[Stoner]

actually, its not that hard to code in a couple of extra fields into the user profile page to add a few details to, tho such things would have to be kept short so that the pages arent too bulky.

[zae]

Ah, I wasn't aware such a thing had existed before. In that case, yeah, I understand that its inclusion basically wouldn't see any use.

Also, I dabble in basic scripting with a number of things, but when it comes to proper web design and such, I'm essentially clueless - I don't know what kind of effort it takes to do those things, and frankly I'm amazed and delighted that the text boxes here show font changes as you type it rather than just showing the html code.

Edit: I suppose the reason why it is almost universally used on Elliquiy is necessity: this site focuses on spanking and anime (or in the roleplaying section, spanking with an optional side dish of anime). E is a very broad "adult roleplaying" thing, which means you really need to specify which kinks (out of hundreds) you like and do not like. When you come here, there is at least some common ground that can be assumed.