?ADJUSTING FORUM PROFILES?

[Bees]

I'm in a bit o' a rush, so allow me to type this in a rush:

THE ISSUES; I find the required character profiles on the forum to be slightly clunky in design, and more importantly, lacking. 

While another member might direct me towards the wiki for more customizable character profiles, I might in return point out that the SA requires a total of 600 words on the forum profile, not the wiki, showing which matters more.

Also, the forum profiles are, plain and simple, easier to access from the, well, forum.

( Now here I perform a well-known practice. )

 

THE SUGGESTIONS

• Making the NPCs and Relations fields next to each other, the way Appearance and Personality are.
  
• Adding an "Other" or "Trivia" section.
  
• Adding a "Pack History" section.
  
• Introducing "Intersex" as a Sex option.
  
• Introducing a "Gender & Pronouns" section
  
• Requiring(or not) a character's adult height somewhere on the profile.
  
• Requiring(or not) a character's name pronunciation somewhere on the profile.
  

Examples from other sites;

Wolf RPG

Canis Major

[Hydra Triangle]

I definitely 100% support these suggestions:

• Making the NPCs and Relations fields next to each other, the way Appearance and Personality are.
  
• Introducing "Intersex" as a Sex option.
  
• Introducing a "Gender & Pronouns" section
  

They would be useful to me and I would use them on every character when applicable.

Note that I'm pretty sure Intersex characters still need to be requested so that sex option probably wouldn't get a ton of use? But, for those that are requested, it would still be nice to be able to see a character is intersex just by looking at their profile. Kind of like how characters with Immunity have it added to the non-Luperci/Luperci icon.

The others I personally don't need, but I wouldn't mind them if they were there.
However, I would like for height and pronunciation to remain optional, mostly because I will sometimes join with a character without figuring those things out - even name pronunciation. (I struggle with pronunciation in general a lot, maybe because I am dyslexic but who knows?)

[Lorraine]

Just an old member coming back for some inconsequential input, don't mind me.

None of these strike me as absolutely necessary for character interaction save for the addition of intersex as an option (although this by itself doesn't indicate if they identify as male or female, but I digress). Build and height can just as easily be added to your appearance section, for example, and the rest is readily available on most wikis. Which... the wiki has (to my limited knowledge) always been the place for a deep dive on characters.

re: relations and NPCs being listed side-by-side, I can take or leave it. Aesthetically it'd be pleasing, but not much else.

[Songbird]

Note, this is my opinion as a player.

Things I'd be FOR changing:

• Placement of the Relations and NPC sections
  
  As most players use these in a list format, it really makes no sense, to me, to have them stretch the entire profile when most things end up on the left-hand side anyways.
  
  
• Addition of a Gender/Pronouns field
  
  In recent years, 'Souls has seen a rise of characters who identify differently than their assigned sex. So, it only makes sense to have a place where it's more obvious that they identify as XYZ and go by XYZ pronouns. Presently, you have to hunt for that kind of info on the profile or on their wiki.

====

Things I'd be AGAINST changing: (and why for understanding)

• "Other/Triva" sections, "Pack History" section, "Name pronunciation" field
  
  The forum profiles are meant to give you everything that is necessary to roleplay with and are essential to that character. Like how filled out wiki pages are optional, so are things like these, in my opinion. I'd rather keep the forum profiles pretty basic, and, if a player wants to have more info on their character, they can create a wiki to off-load that added information.
  
  
• Adult Height field
  
  Not all players like to play in absolutes, so, I don't think an entire section dedicated to this is super important, especially when most players who DO mention height/weight already, do so in their character's Appearance section.
  
  
• Adding "Intersex" as a Sex option
  
  The Sex field is to notate your character's biological sex at birth. At 'Souls, characters were either one or the other. Characters are more than welcome to identify or look differently than that, however. 'Souls has never stomped on that creative liberty.
  
  This field is a control field for consistency. It is to ensure players don't magically come back and say their character is now biologically "female" when it was biologically "male" previously or vise versa. Think of it as being no different than if a player returned to the game and tried to change their character's age because they didn't like it, or drastically changed their character's appearance because the old one was not to their current standards. That's the only purpose of this field; it's a control purpose.
  
  Why does it matter that that's filled out? Personally, I think it's important because various realism standpoints and limitations stemmed from those realism points. I see little issue in throwing down a character's biological sex, especially when I can put things elsewhere that clearly state that they identify otherwise.
  
  As a separate note, I'd also rather not have this option added because it may be confused with a hermaphrodite character, which is an extremely rare phenomenon, and not something I'd want to promote as a result.

[Bees]

Just a quick question @Songbird, I might be misunderstanding, was this written with the awareness that Intersex is a sex identifier in its own right, and not a "Neutral" sex? Intersex persons IRL are infertile, with the ones capable of reproducing are a rarity ( but do exist! ). I imagine that if the Intersex option were to be implemented, it would be with the assumption that the players would be aware of and respectful to the condition of Intersexuality and its accurate portrayal.

[Songbird]

Just a quick question @Songbird, I might be misunderstanding, was this written with the awareness that Intersex is a sex identifier in its own right, and not a "Neutral" sex? Intersex persons IRL are infertile, with the ones capable of reproducing are a rarity ( but do exist! ). I imagine that if the Intersex option were to be implemented, it would be with the assumption that the players would be aware of and respectful to the condition of Intersexuality and its accurate portrayal.

No, it was not written with that knowledge, so, thank you for informing me and making me aware of exactly what this term means <333

If it is a rare phenomenon though, my stance still stands that I don't think that that's an option that should be readily available (thus, encouraged to become "commonplace"). If that's something that is discussed with 'SA and is approved of prior to the character joining and being accepted onto the forum, I'd rather it be a field that 'SA manually edits in, or, change the field so it's a fill-in vs. a drop down to allow that instead so that this can be more easily notated.

[Bees]

Ah wait another thing-

I still lobby for adding an "Other/Trivia/OOC" section to the profiles, as to allow for easy relay of OOC information pertaining to the character. My goals as an example, I would use it to list the sorts of things I'd be alright with being done with my characters, or the topics I'd be against participating in with the same. Ex. listing that a character can participate in plots ranging from romance to assault, or denoting that I'm uncomfortable having threads with that character go in a sexual direction without my explicit permission.

However I have to admit, my own biggest gripe has always been with the dang NPCs/Relations fields and I am so glad others are likewise peeved~

Edit @Songbird: What you suggest I completely agree with! It is moreso that I want making intersex characters to be an option rather than commonplace. This suggestion was sparked by never having seen an intersex character played on board or referenced in the wiki.

[Lorraine]

I still lobby for adding an "Other/Trivia/OOC" section [...] to list the sorts of things I'd be alright with being done with my characters, or the topics I'd be against participating in with the same. Ex. listing that a character can participate in plots ranging from romance to assault, or denoting that I'm uncomfortable having threads with that character go in a sexual direction without my explicit permission.

Frankly, this should never happen to begin with, and many people do currently use their player wikis to denote their preferences regarding things like mature content (such as utilizing fade-to-black, not wanting to write sexual assault plots, etc.). Having said that, it's probably something that could go in your OOC account versus a character account. There's an 'about' field that doesn't often see much utilization, after all.

[Gen]

While I know a lot of people love the wiki, others don't and struggle with it. That's valid! That being said, though, there are a lot of those people who do know the world of the wiki who are happy to help anyone else. Therefore, some of these "fun" sorts of categories should really go to the wiki since that's the entire point of the wiki. Your wiki profile can go into crazy detail as you see fit so there shouldn't be a reason why that sort of information couldn't end up there.

There is also something to be said of expressly discussing with players you are playing with that you do not want sexual encounters with that character in case it heads in that direction. Open communication with your RP partners is also important to a good gaming experience! (though having that info readily available on a wiki for people to know ahead of time is also helpful lmao)

[Mandi]

I'm not opposed to some of these smaller and aesthetic changes (adding a Gender/Pronouns field, altering the placement of the Relations and NPCs sections), although I don't think that having a Pack History section or Name Pronunciation field is pertinent enough for game play to have these things added.

I'm largely ambivalent to requiring information about heights & weights. It's nice to know how my character sizes up compared to others, but I'm also cool checking in with my thread partner(s) about this if its relevant to the thread, otherwise I tend towards keeping that aspect of things super vague.

In regards to having an Other/Trivia/OOC: This may be useful if it was used for something like OOC Assumptions because, again, those are more pertinent to game play than trivia about the character. Otherwise, this kind of information is better utilized on the wiki or maybe the Catacombs section of both IC and OOC profiles?

[Raze]

Agree with NPCs & Relations being side-by-side (if just for aesthetics), and the added Gender/Pronouns section to be able to more clearly denote trans characters.

I agree with Songbird's suggestion of the "sex" field either being manually edited by admins to include intersex characters or... well. Allowing it to be "filled in" is also an option, though that might mess with game stats if players fill it out incorrectly with a typo or something (though game stats don't reflect actual genders of characters as it is currently). I've seen more than one profile with the incorrect sex denoted, too, perhaps overlooked when the drop-down became the default -- e.g., at least one cis female who accidentally picked the "male" option on drop-down or never bothered to change it. I don't know if requiring players to type this in would help prevent that, or if it's an uncommon occurence.

A field on the OOC account for RP information such as preferences could be welcome so that people don't need to click on the wiki for that. I do want to point out that the signature icons exist (which include mature content preferences, reply speed, and other things), and could be easily placed into a profile where bbcode is allowed. This allows for a quick overview, at least, while in-depth info can go on the wiki.

That all said, though, all of this stuff is a "bonus" that could go on the wiki or be added into the About or other fields (like pack history in history, height in appearance). While I do like the recent requirement that basic information is kept on the profile itself, I believe the profile should be basic as to not overwhelm with information. Back in the day, people had in-depth profiles also written out in the Post Logs before wiki use became commonplace.

[Kiri]

The forum profile, while required, is still intended to provide basic information about a character. We don't want to make the profile intimidating to fill out or to look at.

Different players will have different ideas of what sort of additional information is relevant or worth noting, and there's no way we'd be able to satisfy everyone's wants for increasingly specific fields. Pack History isn't relevant to loners. Not everyone plays with defined heights. The Wiki exists for players to go wild with all the info they could ever want to note or document, and I think the diversity in character pages there proves that everyone has a different idea of how they might want pages to look.

It's also pretty difficult to make a profile look good visually when there are lots of options, many of which may not be filled out as a default. Profiles with sections that may or may not be there are hard to design around.

The reason Relations and NPCs were on different rows? Table-style layout formatting necessitates defined widths. Neither field is required, so one field appearing without the other at 50% width is a waste of space. Thankfully, we've been able to slowly convert a lot of table-style formatting into flexbox formatting, which is a lot more flexible, so I've gone ahead and updated this.

Also added an IC pronoun field (only shows when filled, a hard refresh may be needed for the formatting/spacing to be correct), but on the topic of intersex characters:

Intersex characters were not allowed historically to prevent "shock value" hermaphrodite characters. This was a defined rule from nearly the beginning, but a lot has changed in 20 years.

There is better public education and acceptance of different sexual and gender realities now, which is why intersex characters are now allowed -- but with permission, mostly because this is still a pretty new allowance and we want some measure of assurance that players will indeed be respectful, but also because we do not intend for Intersex to ever be a default, selectable option. It is, however, possible to manually enter values into the Sex field other than the listed options via the database.

It is also worth noting that there is not a universally accepted definition for what qualifies as "intersex," and "ambiguous" or "atypical" external characteristics can be very subjective. A lot of genetic conditions involving sex chromosomes are subtle and/or still result in individuals that appear physically binary.

'Souls has never been a game of precise genetics; it is not possible for Luperci to determine whether they are genetically intersex, and the number of individuals with indeterminate physical sex characteristics should be very low.

[Hydra Triangle]

I'm really happy that IC Pronouns were added, and that Relations and NPCs are now next to each other.

I'm also, personally, OK with Intersex being added by admins as a manual thing - similar to Immunity.

Thanks Kiri!

[Bees]

THANK YOU KIRI!!<333 

WE GOT THE PRONOUNS UPDATE!!