litphoria

Oh I did not mean as a replacement for traits, but rather in addition to them. I just know that there are not yet traits for hair color, eye color, skin color, fur color, etc, because of the wide variety of options in each of these. My thought was that rather than trying to make something which is searchable, and therefore limited to a certain number of options, these particular types of traits could be almost like the section to write comments about traits without a main trait.

My thought was that rather than trying to make something which is searchable, and therefore limited to a certain number of options, these particular types of traits could be almost like the section to write comments about traits without a main trait.

Yes, but limiting selection to a few categories has all of the benefits I've just laid out, and doesn't require anyone to sacrifice personality, as they can fill in the details more exactly. Traits can have arbitrary text describing them in addition to the searchable category.

Then I suppose my question is why we do not yet have these traits? THey really seem like standard traits. I mean, we are text based, but the image of the character is fairly important. We have height and weight, certainly, but nothing to do with color as of yet. I rather figured the reason that we did not yet have those traits came down to a lack of agreement on standard sets of colors, and that having a place to fill in personal options would resolve this.

Then I suppose my question is why we do not yet have these traits?

All traits are user-suggested, and evidently, no one out of some thousand users cares that much about things like eye color. One of the things that this site is toying with is the idea that nothing is "standard", people suggest what they use, and if it isn't suggested, no one cares, so it's only noise on the profile.

There is a suggestion for hair color still being discussed as to how it can have effective categories, but that's not looking like it will be rejected (we'll just have categories like red, brown, black, blonde, then dyed/unnatural and some other catch-alls). I suspect other 'color' traits would follow simillarly, where we can have specific categories for common/natural values, and more vague categories otherwise.

We care, but there is a "Is this needed for search, otherwise it is clutter" bias against things like eye color and hair color. I think we either need to scrap that mode of thought and add everything, or maybe this suggestion has merit, and there is a Trait section that is made by WA for filling in, optionally, all the basic traits of a profile, and then the other section of Traits is the searchable stuff.

Presumably, eye color, hair color, nipple appearance, and maybe a few others that are in the suggestion stage.

On the "pick traits they want" there's favorite important traits (litphoria.com) and dismiss a trait interest (litphoria.com).

Oh, I agree with Captain Jack. People often think of things 'they' would never search on, and then call that 'clutter', even though it has use as just a descriptive thing even if most will never search on it, but I know some people will. Before I answered above, I went through the whole current list of traits, and frankly, I could see someone wanting to search on each and every one of the traits (judging by my past experiences of RPing with people), including all the ones Jack listed, and the ones I listed above. (Which is why I put 'Presumably,' since I don't share the opinion that things like Eye Color will never be searched on.)

Jack, I hear where you are coming from, but there has been significant push back on traits like hair and eye color, from people says that it just adds another 'pointless' trait that no one wants to search for. This would allow a clean, standard place to put traits that may be interesting, without having to prove that it will be searched for.

Yes, I agree. I think that while the current version of Lit profiles feels more cluttered each month, there are ideas for dealing with that, and it is an ongoing process that will handle the 'clutter' in a number of ways, both in the default display of profiles, and the creation and editing of them. It's easy for me to point out lots of traits that I will never search on, but thinking from the point of view of people I have RPed with or tried to set up scenes with, I'm starting to think that someone will want to search on every conceivable trait.

I understand wanting to have the best possible searchability. My concern is that, while 'white female wolf' is easy to imagine with profile inspirations, the character with one green eye and one blue, or the character with calico markings in orange and purple will not fit as easily into those limitations. That and we already have issues with hair and eye color about how many we are going to include. I know that red hair with golden streaks can just be written in under context, but what about my character with natural blue hair, or one who has some other exotic color? How many get included or cut off? The balance between enough for everyone and too much, between easy search functions and 'extra, unnecessary' traits is a fine one and I'd prefer a route that is more inclusive.

That and we already have issues with hair and eye color about how many we are going to include. I know that red hair with golden streaks can just be written in under context, but what about my character with natural blue hair, or one who has some other exotic color? How many get included or cut off?

This is the point of categorization. Instead of having a category for red hair with golden streaks we have red then you can write with golden streaks in the context. instead of writing natural blue, we have exotic (maybe dyed) then mention blue in context.

With categories, we have to think about what is meaningful for people to search for and set preferences on. While we certainly could try and add a category for every color, we get the greatest utility out of having some broad categories and then specifying the more specific details in context. This is why an exotic category is OK with me for hair/eye color, we don't need to have a category for every possible non-natural color, as if you're okay with blue hair, you're not likely to gauk at purple or pink. Whereas we know very clearly that some people have built strong preferences on e.g blonde hair to the exclusion of others.

Also, you mention natural blue, and that leads to another important part of categories: they are agnostic about your character's canon and are what a neutral, 3rd party observer would say about your profile. Since blue is not a natural hair color for humanoids, a 3rd party user would declare your hair as exotic. In this sense, categories are more for other people than they are for you. This is what makes traits so useful, and is what makes categories meaningful. Instead of representing every possible weird value, we have categories that split up these values into meaningful buckets, then elaborate what that bucket represents for our profile in context.

I'm perfectly fine with having Hair color as a Trait, having Red as a category, and writing in any minor details to add to that. I'm certainly not opposed to popular choices, like if a lot of people want Blue or Pink as a hair option. Even if that means we end up with three times the total Category choices than we now have.

I'm perfectly fine with having Hair color as a Trait, having Red as a category, and writing in any minor details to add to that. I'm certainly not opposed to popular choices, like if a lot of people want Blue or Pink as a hair option. Even if that means we end up with three times the total Category choices than we now have.

I wish that were commonly the case, unfortunately as you can see from what wrecked, and many of the other users have said, they do not want tons of options, they do not want to bog it down with so many. They would rather (you can see this argument in hair color) have a select few "normal" hair colors for searching potential, but exclude those that are not common place, not kinks someone might search for like redheads or blondes.

I already have issues with the whole concept of 'normal humanoid standards' that is being pushed because... for parts of our world only black hair is normal. There is no such thing as naturally born people without that color hair. For some parts of the world, the average adult height of a man is 4'6" and for others it is as high as 6'2". Those are averages, with variances around that. If I wanted to create a character who was from this world, from a country that does not follow what the majority of users consider average, then I have to call my character what he or she is not, to stick to the law of easiest searchable averages. The same goes for the hair. You may be okay with dozens of colors, but most users are not, so getting those colors will be a fight. I do not was extraordinary hair. I do not want my Heterochromia eyes to be considered not worth note, because they are outside the average.

(an off-topic aside: if you're quoting someone, use > instead of `, as it'll give you a nice quote box and will wrap correctly)

eh I realized that after the fact, but I can't edit the post.

See Hair Color and Eye Color for some of the common arguements. Hair color has already self limited, effectively becoming useless for my character because of the statement that only set colors would be accepted and eyecolor had people instantly against it because there would be too many categories.

Adding in extra detail is what adding context is for. Profiles will be getting several improvements down the line, but this would clutter up profile creation and get in the way for users not interested in that level of detail.