litphoria

True, true! But it does work for the 'multiple genders' deal, where as interests could change!

If it's something minor about the character you could have it integrated into traits? Something that refelcts that a character can be Male OR Female, or Anthro OR Human, or something?

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, having a character which can be either male, female, or whatever, or sit in any setting with no issue, is a more generic and therefore less useful character to have on the site. On the other hand, it could just be that this one particular thing is adjustable while everything else about the profile is solid. Maybe they have a really rich setting with very well thought-out arches and know exactly what they want, they just don't particularly care what gender they happen to play as.

This might be solved with Saemus' idea, but I'm weary of allowing multiple categories per trait.

Yes, multiple categories per traits would be userful and actually solve the issue. There is also the case of those who are actively shapeshifters. Like most Kitsune having human and fox form, or Werewolves having Wolf and Human forms. So, being able to have a trait that can be Wolf, Human, and Werewolf for traits would be useful, for a Werewolf character is playable as a wolf, as a human, and as a werewolf. (Its quite easy in most plots to forget about the 'shifting' aspect if it still fits the story!

So, Seamus' idea would allow to implement such. However, there is also the case where it actually ... lowers the accuracy of the site praised by Wrecked Avent, so we should discuss of a way to implement that without actually making it that people can be 'as elusive as they want' about their character...

I just had an idea. What about a 'Shapeshifter' trait, that allows to carry multiple categories. 'Shapeshifter' could then have 'Werewolf, Wolf, Human' underneath it. So the search engine could then add a specification: Do you want the species search to include shapeshifters or not? If yes, it will return Werewolf, Wolf, human when searching for human, if Not, it will ignore all Shapeshifter entries, and only go after the Category wanted (Human in this case)

I'm suggesting Shapeshifter and not Werewolf, because Shapeshifter could be used for Kitsune, Dragons, Werewolf, Werecat, Werewhateverelse or anything that we can think of that can change forms. In that case, should Gendershifting be included under Shapeshifter as well, or be its own trait? Though, the later is more rare... I've seen it happen. Characters that can change genders In-Play.

I presume people to want to specify "alternates" for more than just species.

Alternate traits could be useful, though seriously ... hinder the accuracy on the site. On another note, we might also not want people to create whole different profiles for each "verson" of a character they have. That would add unnecessary clutter to the character lists, like we see on F-list with some people having 5-6 profiles for the same character.

Again, we don't want to see 'character hubs' either, as that would kill the point of the site. So... we need to find a way to have a comfortable compromise. Right?

So, we could have traits to be alternable, but the Interests to remain Fixed. Besides, there are <Neutral Interests> too, so that pretty much removes the need for multiple entries in one interest. What changes are character traits. Allowing them to be 'flexible' would allow people also more flexibility in the creation of characters for those who can transform In Play, as well as those who can play their characters as different species. I'm just repeating myself over and over am I not? meh. This'll be my last post in the topic. I'll wait for other opinions on the matter at this point...

I feel alternate "versions" get a bad rap because so many people don't put any substance into them. For some, a well fleshed-out alternate is just as good as a single-idea character. People will make alternate character profiles as they wish anyway (to get fair search visibility), and I actually figure that some idea like tabs may help reduce the clutter they cause, and improve searching. I like the idea of tabs, because:

• It forces people to choose a "Main" version.
• It encourages people to fully flesh out their alternates. New pictures, new description, and new ads.
• Searches can return only one version from a single profile, keeping results compact (and can return the Main version if it fits the search)
• Searches can now tell you which results are alternate versions (for those who would rather skip them)

As for "flexible traits," the Additional-info boxes serve well enough for a non-searchable explanation of flexible traits - and it seems to me this is good enough, because if you make a searchable "Male OR Female", you could search for Females and wind up with a bunch of pictures of guys.

That all said - the very option of "alternate tabs" almost encourages that course of action, and that's the one thing I'm somewhat uncomfortable with. I'm not sure how to get around that.

Another complication to this would be how it might affect "active chosen character" on the site.

There are two parts to this I think are worth keeping, moving forward:

• Being able to import a given profile (that you own) into another profile
• Being able to have tabs on the profile description

The ability to specify "alternates" for traits and categories is imo too much pain for too little gain. This would either significantly increase searching so you can filter out people who could play as something from people who are playing as something. An exception to this might be "writer profiles" which are intentionally not specific and just represent what you can do and are willing to do, for people who think more with scenes and ideas than characters.