litphoria

I lean more to a basic simple look to it to avoid it being a spammable thing since no one want's that.

I'll try to summarise past talk on this, can't find the feedback right now.

Obstacles were mainly around reconciling Looking signals with the site's forum-like nature - it's not a chat service you join and leave like IRC. So if we put a Looking signal on our profile, it shouldn't disappear because we closed the page (in theory). So it ought to last a while, but how long? If it's perpetual, we just start building up old inactive characters who aren't looking so the signal becomes unreliable. If we add a time limit after which it invalidates, you gotta reset it periodically, and we didn't know what time would be short enough to ensure relevance but long enough to not be annoying for people who are still looking for roleplay.

Ok that's all I remember.

I know some people who've done forum roleplay across a number of sites. I'll ask them how forum-style sites tend to handle this, since that'd be the most relevant to us.

If we had a temporary looking signal, it could deactivate after you don't log in for X days, which lets active users just "keep it running" while users who haven't visited in a while get their light switched off.

I like the idea of attaching "actively looking" to ads, because it helps distinguish "this is just a general thing I could do whenever that I wrote to give people an idea of the kinds of stuff I like" ads from "I really want to do this! Someone please PM me!" ads.

I don't like the idea of making this an Ad/Idea tag. I want it to be highly visible IE a banner on the profile perhaps. I also want it to show up in chat. Perhaps a simple green dot next to the chat avatar, or filtering 'looking' profiled to the top of a user list in chat.

I think that if you set to 'looking' then it should stay set that way until you turn it off. Perhaps add a 4-7 day timer for profiles that go totally inactive. But I agree that it shouldn't immediately un-set itself after a single log off. I think that this time frame would be pretty well suited to the task at hand.

In theory, an active user would flag "looking" and so long as they log in once a week, they stay "looking" If they find an RP and are no longer looking they can turn it off, and if they leave and do not log in for a week then they are automatically removed from the 'looking' list. I week isn't that long of a time so I do not believe it would cause must overall 'clutter' for the list.

To clarify. I'm not against adding this

• "I like the idea of attaching "actively looking" to ads, because it helps distinguish "this is just a general thing I could do whenever that I wrote to give people an idea of the kinds of stuff I like" ads from "I really want to do this! Someone please PM me!" ads."

I just see it as a separate feature to propose.

Ok, got it, yeah, separate feature because it's not about the profile anymore.

I think it's a good idea though. Make the feedback and I'll certainly support it. More visibility for active users who are actively looking seems like a good thing.

Why would this be unrelated to the ad system?

Who said it should be?

Just seems like we already have a system to leverage here with the ad system. Adding some kind of indication to their profile would be a good way to encourage use of the ad system.

All I am asking for is a simple, visible way to let other users know you are looking for RP. The current ad system does not accomplish that. I just want a little green dot, or something similiar in chat channels and possibly a small banner for profiles.

Are you saying users will have ads for roleplay up but not be looking for roleplay?

I would definitely turn that little lamp on and off depending on mood ^^ There are times when I really want to play but nothing happens and when I am not in the mood certain people try to play with me and both sides getting annoyed... :/

That is not what this feedback is about, please do not try to hi-jack it. No, The ad system does not cover this, and yes people have ad's posted and might not be looking for RP 24/7.

I believe what Quenthell is trying to suggest is an implementation of a tool in the chats (mostly chats, not in RPs) that has a green dot by the character's icon or name, not too disimilar to how F-list has the status tools for you to write if you're AFK, DND, or looking for RP. I think adding this sort of thing to the site might be helpful - while the roleplay ideas tab on a profile sure does give people an offer to pursue a character for their suggested ideas, not everyone is actually looking for RP 24/7 (as Quenthell said in the post above). The purpose of this tool seems as much to just show other users in the chat that the player is in the mood to role-play, and is thus approachable to either do ideas / talk about their own roleplay ideas and for people to easily naviagate / approach other characters to do RP with, instead of the fumbling mess of how it's sometimes like.

Practically, it'd serve to show people at a glance if a character they want to approach is available / in the mood to do RP, instead of approaching them and getting rejected because they're not available or not in the mood to do something. I think an implementation of a small thing to show if a character is LFRP (looking for roleplay) is a good idea, so I'll toss 10 endorsement points for the thread!

I understand what's being suggested, I just don't understand why the ad system must be side-stepped to achieve it. Why would we tie it to some self-cancelling checkbox (or dropdown) on the profile somewhere instead of on if someone has, say, an active ad going? The notification on the profile could be the same, the indication in "chat" could be the same. Just it would use the system literally designed to tell you what someone was looking for in a roleplay with that profile.

I also don't understand the assertion that people who make ads aren't looking for roleplay "24/7". What else would they hope to achieve by making an ad? And, moreover, why would some checkbox or dropdown on the profile be different for "24/7"?

I think that if you set to 'looking' then it should stay set that way until you turn it off. Perhaps add a 4-7 day timer for profiles that go totally inactive. But I agree that it shouldn't immediately un-set itself after a single log off. I think that this time frame would be pretty well suited to the task at hand.

Based on this, it would be roughly as accurate in telling you if someone was looking for play as if they had an active ad going, since it's not like they're updating it every waking second they're online (and they shouldn't, since that would be annoying and counter to the rest of the site's messaging).

Some people are looking for "live" RP not forum style RP with days between posts. That is the assertion. I have several ad's, and no, I do not want to be approached about them all all the time. Adding a way to "tag" an ad when you set a LRFP status is fine, but it's not necessary. I cannot stress enough that just because I have an Ad posted does not mean I'm interested in that add 24/7. Sometimes I just want a short term, one off 'live' RP. which is one thing that adding a LFRP status would help with. Several others have expressed the same desire.

I'm not entirely sure or coherent what you're saying, but I am admittedly a bit bleary. So instead of a feature that when on the chat has a green light or whatever for other characters to look at the people in the chat to show that X or Y is interested in doing role-play right now, instead we should use the ad system (aka the roleplay ideas as they seem intertwined) as a means to show people we're looking for roleplay?

As far as I understood it, I always took them as suggestions for other role-players to take and use whenever they did approach other people, instead of actual advertisements that say "hey, I'm looking for RP at this instant, approach me!" and more of a "here's a few suggestions as to what we could do together" or "I'm looking to do this sort of thing with someone, so approach me whenever". I think that's a great idea and all, but this sorta suggsetion, imho, isn't entirely side-stepping the ad system at all. It's notion and purpose is to simply tell other people in chats if another person is looking to do role play (or one of their roleplay ideas) now, as they're in the mood/have the availability for it. Basically, instead of navigating from the chat channel they're in to a character's profile to look at their ads, it's just genuinely a big marker under their name that says "hey, I'm online, and I am in the mood/have the time to do RP right now, so it's okay to approach me!", not too disimilar to how F-List uses the drop-down tool to say the same thing. I don't think it'd side-step the ad system at all - like I said earlier, the ad system is entwined with the roleplay ideas drop-down on profiles as it is - so I'm sure people see the ad system more as something people would like to do.

The whole point of it would be a quick and easy way to tell other people that they can do the role plays they might suggest in the ad system now (b/c they're in the mood/have time) without having to either PM to ask them if they want to do it, navigate to their profile to check their ads. i.e., I have an alt who has an ad up, but I've never taken that as saying "I am looking for RP right now!" but rather "this is something I am interested in doing with someone, please approach me about it!". It'd factor in on the ad system and also role play that can be hashed out in PMs through the participants.

Y'dig?

A "LFRP" badge would be a current indicator as to whether or not a person is looking for RP at that time When someone joins chat to just hang out and lurk they can set LFRP to 'off' and when they're looking for a partner, or in the mood to RP they can turn it on, once they find a partner they can turn it off again. Very similar to how f-list's status works. The proposed problem with that is how to treat the status if that person logs off the site. I suggest that the LFRP status persists for around 1-3 hours. If they log back it keep it persisting, if they do not log back in within 3 hours they have it switch off.

I think one hour should be the maximum amount of time that the flag is up after someone goes offline. I understand that people using mobile will disconnect from their browsers once the phone's screen turns off. But realistically they won't come back that much later in the same mood as they were two or three hours ago.

Exactly Sasha.

From reading the above and something Quen has mentioned in chat, I think the suggestion can be broken down like this in terms of what the problem is and the proposed resolution to it...

There's two kinds of LFRP:

• Long-term expression of interest: "I am generally interested in roleplaying sometime, and here's the kind of thing I want to do"
• Short-term urgent want: "I am free for the next few of hours and want to roleplay right now so if you want to roleplay please do PM me if you like the kind of stuff I do.

Ads can do the former and suit well anyone who's happy to just set a fishing line out and wait a while for someone to bite.

They don't do the short-term thing well though. If I create a new ad... it doesn't necessarily get me any immediate attention. If Ayla creates an ad, I still have no idea whether she's keen to roleplay right now or off busy playing Overwatch.

Some kind of short-term signal saying "rp now please!" does meet the latter need.

With that in mind we don't need to worry about a long-term signal, so the LFPR signal could work something like this:

• While in a chat or RP you can switch on a LFRP signal for your character.
• This is visible beside your name in chat and RP. (It could also give your ad a special appearance.)
• It deactivates when you tell it to.
• There's also a time limit: a short one if you've disconnected, a longer one for idling.
  • If you spend a full hour disconnected from any chat or RP, your looking light will be off when you re-enter.
  • If you spend X hours in chat without saying anything, it switches off anyway. (Three or five hours seem appropriate for X.)
• LFRP for one character won't apply to all characters, so as to maintain separation of identity between them.

That sounds perfect to me!

That's exactly what I want out of it.

Okay, but, I wasn't asking "why do this at all?", I was asking "why add this to profiles instead of adding this to ads?".

Does no one in this thread see any value in associating a bit of text and interests with what you want right now? Because if the "looking" has interests and ad text associated with it, we could do interesting things like show it on mouse over, or highlight it if the profile wasn't marked as "not interested" and had interests in your core/mandatory/yes.

The difference between ads and looking beacons would be the fact that ads are usually more thought out and much more specific of a thing that someone has a craving for over a long period of time, but having the LFRP flag in chats and RPs would allow people to see you're looking for something right then and there that might be different than what your ad portrays.

I want to avoid putting text on it to keep it from being a spammable thing like status's are on f-list. Sure linking them with as ad is fine as I've said twice but part of why I'm ok with them being separate it i'd rather have this LFRP feature sooner, then a total overhaul of ad's (later.* Setting LFRP with an option to link it to one of your ad's is fine. No one is arguing against that. Most of us however would like this feature sooner rather then later and so we're trying to keep it as simple as possible.

I see no problem with associating text and/or an ad with a looking status. "I want to do THIS THING please pm" whether that thing has an ad or not is fine.

Just that, ads themselves aren't the approach through which is gonna satisfy that need for "LFRP pl0x". So the primary thing is setting up a short-term signal in chats, the secondary feature would be being able to associate an ad with it.

... associate an ad or text with it.* in that last sentence

That said some caveats: any sort of association with an ad, and any associated text, should be optional. And this should not be done through an ad, nor should it require that I have an ad already.

I agree. The linking to an add should 100% be optional and not a requirement.

If quickest implementation is a priority, then tie it to overall profile activity instead of anything at all to do with chat activity. Profile activity is bumped by chat activity (including idling in chats), but chat activity per se is not recorded anywhere.

What does Profile Activity measure? What counts as profile activity?

It's not about chat activity, it just needs to be visible in chat's.

Just because I log in to a profile doesn't mean I want RP that's the whole point of this. To be able to toggle it.

Editing that profile, derping around the site with that profile selected, making posts (to feedback, to roleplays), idling in chat. Idling in chat or derping around the site updates the status about every 15 minutes, the others update it immediately.

The cheapest thing would be:

• There's a button the profile that says "Start LFRP" or similar (don't care verbiage)
• This button adds you an internal list
• Every so often (an hour, 3 hours, 5 hours, whatever) the list is pruned from people who haven't been active in that time period
• After adding that profile to that list, the button changes to "Stop LFRP" or similar
• When connecting to an RP, this list is used to determine whether or not you get a "LFRP" flair

This would be able to be done pretty quickly and has natural jumping off points for futher improvements, such as:

• Sending out a live update to immediately indicate you're LFRP in channels instead of reconnecting
• Being able to "point" it towards an ad (not sure about free text, seems like people would just put junk in there like youtube urls)
• Potentially a toggle somewhere on the RP interface? Not sure where you'd fit it tho
• Ability to search this list, or show people on this list differently on search results

I agree with pretty much all of that. That's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. A fairly simple, highly visible, searchable flag for "I'm available for RP now" With the option to point it at an existing ad eventually.

WA, sounds great.

The toggle could sit in the character selection dropdown at either the top of the page or the in-chat character picker.

I think your "LFRP" indicator should show up:

• in the user list
• beside your name in your messages
• on your profile itself
• on the ad you've indicated, if you've indicated one, on the front page and in the Ideas list and on your profile (semi redundant but might as well)

Agreed. The more visible it is, in more places the better. Maybe even have it show up in the search. "Search profiles currently LFRP"

Oh, and on your profile entry wherever it appears (profile list, search, perhaps even a little symbol & special border where my avatar appears on the front page under the chats I'm in, etc etc).

Doesn't need to do all these things in the first iteration, it can roll out from things like the chat to other places iteratively.

Agreed. Anything would be better then nothing, and there's the ability to add more to it later.

So we can all visualize this, I've gotten a proof of concept on the testing server. The flow is like I described above, but not quite finalized yet. You should still be able to enable LFRP and and see how it looks in a chat, though.

As part of the initial implementation there might also be a toggle to not show it next to your messages, since it's ... kinda loud. I might also tone down the badge somehow.

Can we eventually get an indicator on the character avatar on the channel user list as well?

This is just a proof of concept right now to visualize how this will work and such. I'll be tweaking where and how it appears.

I like it. Clear, direct and easily visible.

After discussion in chat the options we came up with were this

• the current 'neon' background to the LFRP icon is too garish (I personally disagree as the whole point is to be highly visible Alternate suggestions are to put the LFRP text in the same format as the character's name and drop the neon background.

• The icon should show up in user list as well as chat

• users should be able to toggle on/off the icon's ability to appear in chat/user list. Some prefer user list only, others want both.

The LFRP badge has become a smaller, less offensive light. The guts of the mechanics should now all be working correctly, I'm just going to be adding the LFRP light to a few more places (such as user lists and the switcher) before this will be good to go.

OK, pretty much all of that is on the testing server now. The little icon appears

• Next to messages (can be toggled off)
• On the avatars in userlists (can be toggled off)
• On your switcher

There's also new syntax for searching for these profiles: find profiles online and lfrp. This has been added to the search helper for convenience.

If you've been on the testing server recently, you might have to refresh the RP page when you visit it to see the changes.