litphoria

Characters that might use Mandatory would be tightly focused ones that want the same thing, the same kink or whatever, every single day. Otherwise, the Mandatory category is simply better suited at the Roleplay level. And at the Roleplay level it still serves the purpose of the single-interest character.

This is not an issue of "it works fine at the Profile level so why move it." It doesn't work at all at the Profile level for me and many other characters who have a wide range of RP stories. And my stories are not set in stone, so when other characters have proposed alterations, and they were interesting to me, then I did an altered RP that would have contradicted any Mandatory interests I would have put down. In other words, I'm not sure Mandatory is all that great a category at the RP level, but as long as the RP has two categories, Mandatory and Yes / Desired Interests, then a user can always leave Mandatory empty.

However, it's not good enough to just leave Mandatory empty in the Profile. My argument is, even with Mandatory in the profile, Litphoria is MORE ambiguous than FList. Here, all the profiles I've looked at tend to have a lot of interest in Yes, and a lot in No. None in Mandatory and few or none in Maybe. Out of all the Yes Interests, which are "Core" or "Favorite", and which are merely nice to have in an RP? On FList, that distiction is made and can be searched for and compared against. Not so, here. I'm considering editing this Feedback, because I don't care whether you keep Mandatory in Profile, I just think it is not the best place for it. I can leave mine empty for all my characters, and be happy. But, I really do want to see the Core or Favorite Interests of a character, and be able to indicate mine. Call it "Core" if you like. That's synonymous with "Favorite" in this context. I want people with the same "Core" interests as me to be able to find me in a search, or vice versa.

And conversely, even if you keep Mandatory in the Profile, I could still see people wanting it in the Roleplay, so that a given idea can be specified with Mandatory interests that a Character profile does not have.

I also noticed a lot of profiles are overusing yes and underusing will try, like Anne mentioned!

Perhaps yes and will try are too similar? If yes were instead something like loved, people might be more selective for it, making it more clear what their interests really are. Then their will try list might fill up. Just a quickie thought, anyway!

For me, Will Try is synonymous with Maybe, so I have some things there. There is also the factor that there is not the full range of interests yet. As more are being added over time, I expect mine and others' Will Try sections to get more Interests in them. I'm currently at 0:27:12:13 on my Interests counts, so I am using the Will Try column.

It might also be possible to mark Yes Interests as Core, and they are then sorted to the top and highlighted in some fashion to make it easy to see quickly what a person's Core Interests are at a glance. Seems to be just as useful as a column of its own. (But really, when rendering the page, Mandatory should have so few interests that is shouldn't be a column and could be a row of interests above the others, that would render in a straight vertical list on small screens or windows, as it does now. That could get rid of the I have a big empty column, something must be wrong feeling.)

I think there's some room to argue against the mandatory, but the will try I think is definitely staying. Keep in mind that a lot of people aren't using mandatory or will try because the new profile creator has neither of these dimensions.

Hmm, by comparison, my profile on Flist, not counting Custom Kinks, is 30 Faves, 93 Yes, and 59 Maybe. Translating to Litphoria, that would be 123 items in Yes. So that is what I'm getting at with the potential ambiguity in the Yes column. Granted, FList is a bit of a mess on Interests, and I probably need to uncheck some, so they don't appear in any column, but aren't strictly 'No'.

So that is what I'm getting at with the potential ambiguity in the Yes column

For the sake of completeness, let us compare the two lists of lists:

• Mandatory: interests that are required for enjoying a roleplay
• Yes: interests which can be used in a roleplay without question
• Will Try: interests which can be used in a roleplay, but there is a lack of experience to indicate whether this is a like or dislike
• No: interests which cannot be used in a roleplay

This is effectively three levels of "yes" and one level of "no". You have certainty that if an interest is in any of the three columns it can be used in a play.

Compared to F-list:

• Favorite: ??? Kinks you really like ???
• Yes: Kinks you will use
• Maybe: ??? Kinks you maybe like ???
• No: Kinks you won't use

This is either three or two levels of "yes" and either one or two levels of "no". Every single person treats "maybe" differently. Sometimes favorites are required, sometimes a profile only has favorites. Sometimes maybes require convincing, sometimes they're like will try here. You have no way to know without reading the whole dang thing and asking them if it doesn't specify.

This is what I mean by "ambiguous". It does not make your lists more ambiguous to have everything in yes, it just makes the distinctions less useful. Everyone reading your profile still knows exactly what to expect when reading your profile: there is no ambiguity of meaning. They recognize immediately that you don't require any interests. It forces you to be completely clear about your interests.

This is why I am against a pure "favorites". It ruins this distinction. It is no longer immediately obvious if this is required or not, or if it belongs in this list or not. You have to think about every addition to the list, and everyone who views your list has to process that distinction. This is in fact why I changed "core" to mandatory. The intent was to have very few in mandatory, just like you would have very few in "core". It was things that were absolutely critical to plays and profiles.

I had prototyped some different ways to view the list of interests, such as yes having a flat horizontal list for "mandatory". Adding a "core" and then making mandatory bigger and sit ontop of the list might work.

You mentioned that the new profile creator doesn't add things to Mandatory or Will Try - I didn't think of that! With that in mind, I take back my thought earlier that yes and will try might be too similar for some people.

I will admit though, I do find it handy to know which interests someone adores hard, versus things they simply accept. Faves were nice for that, but there might be another way, too -

On another profile site, people sometimes like to sort & highlight their interests. Favorites come first, and stand out in some way. Another way to accomplish the same thing - though I don't know exactly what Litphoria's implementation of it would look like exactly. Or if such a thing would be applicable in each interests list.

Is it to keep from overcrowding the "yes" column?

Some people feel it is not correctly attributing their interests unless they can express how much they like something, even if this is literally only useful to them (and no one else). Litphoria's lists are designed wise-round; they place what is important for other people over what is important for you personally.

This alone will bother some people, but then others are going to say that they don't really have anything that they would consider mandatory. This then leaves the left-most part of the screen mostly vacant with a very long "yes" list, which "feels" wrong to some people. So yes, it's about over-crowding the "yes" column.

Adding a "core" and then making mandatory bigger and sit ontop of the list might work. I think I really like that idea.

It would be interesting to know how many people make tightly focused characters that want a character-level mandatory interest. I can't see using that, personally. Or only per RP, not at a character level. I mean even if someone is really into pregnancy, they aren't necessarily interested in having every single RP being about conceiving. Maybe a small percentage will be. And as it has been mentioned, it would only be a few interests at most. Again, the concept of a mandatory interest is best expressed at the RP level, IMO.

However, I don't agree with your characterization of Litphoria vs. FList at all. To the degree that Maybe is not the same as Will Try, then BOTH sites are less than fully defined, because you would need both Will Try and Maybe to remove ambiguities and fully cover the range of possibilities. If anything FList Maybe encompasses Will Try, whereas a person's "Maybes" are uncategorized on Litphoria. Or else, Will Try is really a tepid Yes. But again, "Maybes" are still not encompassed on Litphoria.

And most importantly, FList Favorites are the same as the Core concept being discussed. The fact that Litphoria just piles everything into Yes means that Litphoria is actually more ambiguous than FList. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but at least 75-85% of my attention is paid to the Favorites column. If something important isn't there/doesn't match up, I look in the Yes column for it. If it's there, then I consider our interests to be aligned closely enough. But then in an actual RP, I'm back at the Favorites column, mostly, purposely checking for things and incorporating what I can into the RP. The result is a tighter coupling between "Core" Interests of two RPers. (fuming I am losing entire PARAGRAPHS with this recent change on quotes, asterisks, and parenthesis. Rewriting yet again. )

This is why I say it is more ambiguous on Litphoria than it is on FList. I think it's pretty self-evident. Certainly, creating a "Mandatory category does nothing to reduce ambiguity if there's nothing that I feel should go there. And even if I do put two or three things there, FList still comes out ahead because the "Core" interests are that important of a category for better aligning the most important Interests of RPers.

My preference: Since "Mandatory" should only have a few items in it, make it an horizontally-aligned section above the other Interest columns, and optionally, make it not render if it is empty. When the screen is narrow, all Interest sections render in one vertical stack, so it looks the same as it does now when the window is narrow. With the Core Interests, either add a new column, or else permit Yes Interest to be flagged as Core (essentially creating a Core column as far as seaching/comparing is concerned), with these Core Interests sorted to the top and highlighted in some fashion. (Could do something similar with a Maybe flag in the Will Try column, that sorts those to the bottom.)

Wrecked Avent: Some people feel it is not correctly attributing their interests unless they can express how much they like something, even if this is literally only useful to them (and no one else). Litphoria's lists are designed wise-round; they place what is important for other people over what is important for you personally.

I'd like to hear your explanation on that in more depth.

Correct me if I'm wrong. There are two forms of clarity: what is required / acceptable and how much something is enjoyed. Litphoria is crystal clear in the former, and mildly hazy in the latter. And I think that's awesome, but like Forren and Anne (and maybe Loki?), I also find it very useful to know how much someone else likes something. Long, unorganized yes lists feel... Unideal. Should litphoria have the best of both worlds?

Anne: a person's "Maybes" are uncategorized on Litphoria.

One might argue that if you don't see an interest on any list, that's probably a "Maybe". I personally feel that works - but maybe there's some good reason to have an actual "Maybe" list?

Anne: the concept of a mandatory interest is best expressed at the RP level

I've been spending a lot of time mulling over this - it's complex, to me.

• Adding mandatory option for ad-interests could be good! I definitely see where you're coming from, as long as presentation & searching aren't made too complex. I like the simplicity it has right now, but this could be an improvement.
• I'm against removing Mandatory from character profiles. I use it myself, and even if someone has only 1 Mandatory interest, I still find that very good to know.

I'm going to make a concrete suggestion based on the discussion here.