Create a specialised ad creation page.

Feedback · Create a specialised ad creation page. (accepted)

When I go to roleplay ideas and hit create new, I'm taken to the generic 'create roleplay' page. This is a bit of a confusing experience, because it doesn't reinforce what I'm really meant to do with this screen (it's set up to be clear to someone making a roleplay, not an ad), it's not the screen I expected to land on (I thought I was creating an ad?), and it's got a couple of big breaking problems for people who think they're making an ad:

The "allow anyone to view this roleplay without an invitation" is off by default meaning your idea won't be a public ad at all. (That default is good for roleplays, though.)
Roleplays have two description inputs when you're editing them: an ad field and a setting field. The ad field's content is what shows up on the ideas page and the front page. But roleplay creation hides that and only shows the setting field.

I think we should create a dedicated "create roleplay ad" screen, and we should handle its content differently. It'll make the creation experience a whole lot more pleasant. (I've been here for a year and I'd call myself a power user of the site, and I still find the experience confusing and a bit intimidating.)

Here's what I think it should contain:

Name can stay as it is. Show the Ad field instead of Setting, or just make them one and the same, and call it Ad description. Roleplay owner should instead be called Ad owner or Who's this ad for?.

Settings get a change, and should directly follow these inputs. There will only be two settings, and they should be obvious and seen, so there's no reason to put them in a collapse section:

Whether people can reply. Choose one of these two options: "Allow replies to this as a roleplay," or "Disable replies, requiring interested parties to PM you." (It should actually call out the PM thing.)
Whether it's sexual or not.

These settings get removed, because they're basically "don't actually create an ad" options:

The public visibility settings should be completely hidden. Ads should be public by default, because non-public ads aren't ads.
- Alternately, rename it to clarify something like: "Enable this ad, show it in public listings" vs "Make this ad private, keep it hidden for later". I think we had a discussion about this around the time it became that you can only show one ad at a time.
The chat vs roleplay toggle. As far as I can see, chats can't be ads; they'll never show up in the ads section on the front page or in the roleplay ideas list.

The post order settings will only actually show up if you want to allow replies.

As in feature creation, there should be a sidebar telling them what the ad can be like (for their character or a roleplay scenario, for instance), that if you enable replies you're basically just creating the starting seed of a roleplay for others to come and join, and also what to do with interests and the various settings.

meta info

endorsement points: 0

created: 16 January 16 at 06:58 AM (build: 10/1/2015 4:20 PM beta)

Wrecked Avent Site Administrator

There was a suggestion somewhere to have a more clear experience when creating RPs. At some point, I want to give it the same treatment as creating suggestions, where you have a more wizard-like walkthrough that guides you.

However, you will still be taken to "create roleplay" because a roleplay idea is a roleplay. That's a pretty important part of them; they're just new roleplays that aren't in progress and have an ad associated with them.

Velus

However, you will still be taken to "create roleplay" because a roleplay idea is a roleplay. That's a pretty important part of them; they're just new roleplays that aren't in progress and have an ad associated with them.

That's fine, but like I'm saying, so much of the stuff in the roleplay creation interface isn't appropriate for ads. The setting defaults need to be different, and certain settings shouldn't even show up. It shouldn't be the same interface at all.

And if I'm creating an ad, you should take me to a screen that acknowledges that I'm doing that, rather than something that isn't what I asked to do. Having roleplays be ads is fine, but it isn't the time for communicating that to me yet.

Velus

So, given ad creation needs different handling and messaging to the user, it should not reuse the 'create roleplay' screen, and if it's not using that, and it's a new screen, it might as well be called 'create ad'.

Wrecked Avent Site Administrator

If you imagine the create new feedback page, it'll likely be something similar only the first choices would be something like "New group RP", "New private RP", "New Chat Channel", "New Idea". Clicking one of these would allow the system to better understand what parts of the RP are relevant and only show those, e.g "new private RP" likely does not need to be bothered with a new post order right then and there, but it could be important for the "new group RP".

Velus

I could dig that, that'd be cool. It'd help if the Ideas page's Create New link pointed to the "New Idea" section immediately.

Velus

Whether they're "ads" or "ideas" isn't important. The point of this is the editor we're taken to when trying to create them doesn't help people create what they think they're creating. If you want to comment on the impacts of naming, check out rename ideas to ads (litphoria.com).

The other night, a newbie created his first ad. It didn't even have a description attached in the Ideas list. I didn't know why until half an hour after initially posting this feedback and updating it. And, we had to warn him to turn a particular option - hidden by default - on.

Velus

Okay, so we're disagreeing over whether the 'create new' link should do anything like take you to an editor at all. Got it.

These things have to get created somehow though (I know there's a thing on the profile page, but there's a thing here too). Whatever editor we have shouldn't suck. I think we agree on this at least?

Velus

So look, I get that ideas also are "a roleplay that hasn't been started yet".

However, they are also literally our advertising mechanism for the site. That's not just me. Ideas are straightforwardly just called "ads" on the front page, and they're called out unambiguously as doing both roles in the help center:

At this point, our idea functions well as an advertisement for roleplay. Other users can view our profile and see what we want to play with using this character.

It's not "idea that also happens to have an ad also as well", it's an idea that is also an ad.

This is why I'm treating them like ads: they are. They're our way of advertising on here. (And if they're not our ads on here, we have no ads at all.)

Velus

(That quote's from the "What are roleplay ads and ideas?" page, forgot to link it)

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