litphoria

Under the settings for roleplay, there should be an option like

"Allow guests to post ooc messages"

This would subject people to a lot of trash if it wasn't guarded somehow. (Such as by getting those guests to sign in.)

I help moderate a small site on the Stack Exchange network. We see a lot of stuff nobody would be happy with in their roleplay:

• Spam! Lots of it. We have systems designed to catch and repel spammers, and only see the tip of the iceberg. Sometimes it comes in droves, and they're all very persistent.
• Absolute garbage. People typing "LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL" or insulting whoever they can or, sometimes, something strange enough I wonder if the person writing it is psychotic or drugged out of their brain.
• The people who don't get how things work and just write whatever. (In this case, that'd potentially be guests trying to join in on the roleplay.)

We don't have much moderation here. We probably don't have anti-spam mechanisms. Nobody can delete these posts except the poster (allowing that would be a start). A spammer who decides to bombard that one roleplay with 50 posts/day is just going to destroy it and that's it.

Given what it'd be inviting in, I recommend this may not be a good idea or work out as well as one might imagine.

For the record, everything fitting those 3 points is deleted rapidly, usually within minutes of being posted. Most users will barely ever glimpse any of it. I'm at a reputation tier on that site where I get to see a lot of the deleted posts, and I'm active enough to regularly participate in their removal. The automated systems that fend off what would be an endless stream of garbage and spam, and the moderation tools we use to catch what the systems let through, would need to exist here before we're ready for allowing public posting. (And we'd also have to ask why we'd have it, but Salem's already asking that, so let's see!)

I imagine guests here refers to people signed in who are not in the roleplay instead of people who are not signed in.

Right on that one. Also, the site needing more moderation tools is obvious, since at the moment I think it has...none.

Ok, cool. That makes things a lot simpler, and I like the sound of this.

I know this is old, but I still adore this idea - whether guests are posting in the roleplay itself, or off in a comment section, beneath or tucked away.

I like to wonder if something like this would encourage public roleplay a lot. I think of any art-sharing where people leave comments on other's works, and discussions can crop up. People love feedback. Could the same thing happen with roleplay?

I'm not sure if it'd encourage more public RP - we'd be talking about basically making an RP into a peanut gallery. I'm sure that's a good thing for some people, but surely no one who isn't already comfortable making an RP public.

However, I do see some interesting uses in this that won't be present on any other site, in a way that uniquely leverages some of this site's functionality. I can imagine a semi-IC channel with "endorsed contributors" which are allowed to participate in the channel's IC side, but guests and newcomers only mingle in the OOC section. Particularly with a split view, that could be interesting.

Yes yes yes. That is exactly what I want.

This + split view would also enable us to run those Quest things.

This is a really exciting idea, but it won't come around until the split view is implemented. But split view is decently high on the list of priorities, so shouldn't have to wait too long.