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darkangel76

darkangel76

.:The Vampiric Fae:.
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So...since the site is growing—a wonderful thing to see—and because it's been noted that threads like 'Uncommon/Difficult Kinks' and 'Difficult Plots/Fandoms' have taken off and brought up some wonderful points...

We've taken up discussing a topic of important relevance to the site and its members. This is in hopes to increase our chances of engaging in RPs we crave to write and might have trouble finding given the way we're currently set up along with finding those golden writing partners. What do I mean by this? Well, as we are, we have THREE main 1x1 request sections and there are complaints that people don't label their titles and/or sometimes don't make the content within their thread overly clear. Therefore, it can be difficult to find who writes what pairings along with genre and fandom cravings or who is more story driven or prefers a one-shot or smutty story, the list goes on.

One way we think might remedy this completely—and in a relatively easy way—is by adding a tagging system to the 1x1 request threads and RP sections. This would help our member base see, without a doubt, who is looking for what pairing, story type, you name it. And if you browse the RP section, a cursory glance will let you see what writers are writing what specifically and if it's something you happen to be interested in or not.

For request threads, so far, we are thinking to implement the following tags:

[MxF] [MxM] [FxF] [FxMxM+] [MxFxF+] [MxO] [FxO] [MxFuta] [FxFuta]

For RPs, so far, we are thinking to implement the following tags:

[BDSM] [Non-con] [Master x slave] [Bestiality] [Furries] [Vampires] [Vanilla] [Incest] [Age Play] [Gore & Vore] [The Squicky] [Harem] [Extreme Violence] [Character Death] [Blood] [Sci-fi] [Fantasy] [Horror] [Modern] [Supernatural] [Historical] [Steampunk] [Cyberpunk] [Apoc/PostApoc] [Dystopian] [Slice Of Life] [Romance] [Smut] [Story Driven] [Smut Driven] [One Shot] [NPRP] - non-pairing roleplay

And lastly, for Fandoms:

[ECOS] - established character, original setting
[OCES] - original character, established setting
[CCOS] - canon character, original setting
[CCES] - canon character, established setting

Now, I ask the members if there are any other tags that they might like to see included or even instead of some of what we're already considering.

Thanks for reading and for your input. It's greatly appreciated.

DA.
 
That's the hope. That it will make things easier, more searchable, etc. It will hopefully take a lot of guess work out of the request threads and RPs we see out there and allow us all to have our cravings satisfied and hopefully with people who mesh well with our own writing style. So, you see a tag(s) of interest...do a quick glance at some RPs under said tag and check out who the writers are...peruse their request thread, etc etc.

That said, are there any other tags people would like to see??? I'm opening the floor for suggestions.
 
Does 'Dark Romance' fit in any of the above categories? Twisted romances, love stories with darker elements (which can be BDSM, but also includes love-hate relationships, drug/alcohol use, abusive relationships, codependency, etc.)

I'm not sure many people are even interested in that, but I use it quite a bit to describe my own roleplays that are 'love stories' but not in the conventional way. Feel free to totally ignore it if it's not that popular of a tag to be used.

But in any case, I love the tagging idea! It'll definitely help with organization, and I'm all about that xD.
 
Thinking ahead, a consistent tag system would make a clickable advanced search possible like this one (click the advanced link.)

Which I think would be wildly awesome.

One question... does the tag describe the writer or a particular request? If it tags a request, then the daily limit on req threads might need to be upped.
 
Is this going to be a new system, where we assign 'tags' to our threads in a new field, or will we be adding these tags in the title and using the existing search system to browse? I assume the latter, but I didn't see a for-sure indicator.

If it is the latter, what's the current title character limit? That may have to be expanded. Also, it may be worthwhile to make the forum auto-truncate long titles to improve readability.
 
Would these tags sorta be similar to Deviantart when you upload something?
Or am I way the fuck off? >>;;;
 
I'm curious about where these tags will be displayed. If it's in the title, then some of these titles could be very large. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of the threads here are very general, and most of those tags will relate to any one thread. If it's in a thread description that pops up UNDER the title, then it would make more sense. Placing like 10+ tags in any thread title will look horrendous and make the forums look like a mess. It will go from there not being "enough" information to there being a cluster-fuck of too much information.
 
This is a very nice idea!

I think a couple of you have in mind for the RP section would also be useful in the 1x1 section. Specifically the ones pertaining to RP...focus? As in Story Driven and Smut Driven. OR, perhaps better, pertaining to RP length, as in one-shot/short-term or long term and what not. I think it's as basic yet as important as type of pairing (MxF MxM etc...) to justify the tag in those sections.

That said, I would honestly hope not to see too many tag types in the RP search sections. People's tastes are too particular and if you go trying to categorize too much there's just no end to the rabbit hole. o.o

As for the tags for RPs, those look pretty good! I can't think of any others at the moment. All that's come to mind so far seems covered by one tag or another that you already have.
 
To clarify, when I mentioned RP....I'm referring to ALL 1x1s. So the General, Taboo, Fandom and Semiprivate. : )

Also, we want suggestions on if we're missing anything that should be added to the above list. [DarkRom] can be one, as can [Long-term] and [Short-term]. I've even thought of others...[Satire], [ActionThriller] and [Comedy].
 
Oh my gosh this is a brilliant idea! just perfect! this would make searching for particular request threads so much easier.

personally, i think there should be tags for preferred post lengths. a lot of people tend to get frustrated on both ends, when one person posts a few sentences and the other ten paragraphs. it can be hard to match skill/style when you can't be sure what the other person writes and there can be misunderstandings. not sure how you'd arrange that but it's an idea. ^^
 
FoxWriter said:
Oh my gosh this is a brilliant idea! just perfect! this would make searching for particular request threads so much easier.

personally, i think there should be tags for preferred post lengths. a lot of people tend to get frustrated on both ends, when one person posts a few sentences and the other ten paragraphs. it can be hard to match skill/style when you can't be sure what the other person writes and there can be misunderstandings. not sure how you'd arrange that but it's an idea. ^^
Click to expand...

See, this came to mind to me too. But, honestly, I feel it's one of those things that's hard to work out? I've seen many places and many ways to do this - the ol' "one-liner, semi-para, para, multi-para", going with word counts, number of paragraphs, number of lines... but in the end nobody's really very happy with it.
At the end of the day you get people who think it's best done another way ("what does para mean?!", "word counts vary too much!", "a paragraph in my monitor looks like a line in another!") , people who just don't like getting into a category or don't feel there's one that reflects their style, people who actually write an amount that would go in a certain category but are intimidated by it, people who DON'T write enough to go into a category but say they do...

I know it'd be an optional thing that no one would be policing, also since you could use more than one it wouldn't be too bad, so I guess I'm not 100% against...Though, from previous experience, it seems a little pointless.
 
You might be right, (Para means Paragraph i'm assuming) it could likely just be something along the lines of Under a Paragraph. two to three paragraphs, four to eight paragraphs and 8+ or something like that. something a bit loose maybe? i don't know, your right it would be hard to monitor especially as a lot of people alter how much they post according to who they are posting with/for.

still, that's what ideas are for, find out what would work and what wouldn't and all that. it's good to see people all working together and no one being jerks. even after all this time on BMR it still boggles my mind how someone can turn down an idea without being insulting. This is the first site i've ever been on where that happens so that's really cool.

I do agree with you though, that tagging paragraph amounts could be really confusing, or even insulting to someone. granted, just because someone only posts a few sentences doesn't mean they're a bad writer/roleplayer just like it doesn't men that someone who writes 10+ Para's doesn't make them the worlds greatest Roleplayer but i can see how people could think that.
 
* Will we still have three request sections or will they be merged into one? Things will get messy judging by the number of bumps per day..

* I play against any gender. Will I have to place [FxM] [FxF] [FxO] on my thread, or will there be a tag that says [FxA], as in Female x Anything?
 
I'm not sure if I like the ideas of tags in thread titles.

But if you're going to go ahead and implement it anyway, there should be tags for the medium people want to use for roleplays, such as threads, IMs or PMs.

Also for someone who likes playing Canon and OC....I'd have to list both OCES and CCES...
 
There are two sorts of tags. DA mixed it up a bit in her post.

The less relevant set for our immediate needs are open-ended tags like genres, fetish lists, and so on. We could discuss these but they're only relevant after the move.

'Closed tags' can cover every conceivable situation. There needs to be less than 64 possible tags for that category in total, though there may be multiple categories. The purpose of these will be to let users rapidly filter boards based on broad categories of what they are looking for.


Desired post length is a perfect example of a 'closed' concept. There are only so many 'desirable post lengths' - however you wish to describe this. If you manage to come up with more than 64 terms for various lengths you are doing it wrong. Very wrong.

- Note that you might worry about 'well I want to have a range' - yes. That is the idea. Imagine the terms are defined from Level0 to Level9 (presumably single-sentence, single-para, multi-para would be in there somewheres, but on the server these will be bit masks).

You, searching for partners, are looking for someone in the 3-7 range, say.

The request threads have people of varying types

The Sesquipedalian sets themselves as 8-9, and wanting same.
Miss Writestoomuch sets themselves as 2-8 - she may be fine with people writing less than her, for example.
Sir Simpleton has a difficult time putting more than one phrase into a sentence, much less stringing multiple sentences together. They set their thread at 0.
Average Jane sets herself as 2-4.

So, you'll see Writetoomuch and Jane, but not the other two.


In Forbidden Fruit's example, F4A would be an alias for all of the other F4s. F4F, F4M, F4Robot, etc. Would probably include non-pairing too.

The key here is that we want to fill out and close these sets, and find other closed sets, and to have a clear terminology so I am not trying to make manual adjustments for people getting 'creative' when I run the conversion.



Whether or not these become mandatory before this gets implemented in code is up to DA and staff. The idea is that this is something I can convert things to after the move to Elkarte (and writing the filtering code needed for this), that this sort of filtering is extremely fast, and it's a concept that I can bring with us into the next format.
 
I'd be interested in seeing tags for where we wish to write. For instance, if we prefer [Threads], [PM], or [IM]. I've had people respond to my request thread and overlook the line where I state that I RP in threads only, then have a potentially good RP be shelved because she only RPs in PMs.

Instead of putting all the tags in the title, what if there was a format that was recommended for titles and the first paragraph of the request? For instance, the title could have the main gender pairing requests but the first paragraph could include:

  • Pairings desired
  • RP location (threads, PMs, IM)
  • Kinks
  • story/smut level
  • Post longevity desired (one shot, long term)
  • etc.

It's just a brainstorming idea and I haven't thought it completely through, but for me the most important thing I look for first is gender pairings and then I want to make sure that they'll write in threads. Everything else is negotiable.
 
Magic Breeze said:
FoxWriter said:
Oh my gosh this is a brilliant idea! just perfect! this would make searching for particular request threads so much easier.

personally, i think there should be tags for preferred post lengths. a lot of people tend to get frustrated on both ends, when one person posts a few sentences and the other ten paragraphs. it can be hard to match skill/style when you can't be sure what the other person writes and there can be misunderstandings. not sure how you'd arrange that but it's an idea. ^^
Click to expand...

See, this came to mind to me too. But, honestly, I feel it's one of those things that's hard to work out? I've seen many places and many ways to do this - the ol' "one-liner, semi-para, para, multi-para", going with word counts, number of paragraphs, number of lines... but in the end nobody's really very happy with it.
At the end of the day you get people who think it's best done another way ("what does para mean?!", "word counts vary too much!", "a paragraph in my monitor looks like a line in another!") , people who just don't like getting into a category or don't feel there's one that reflects their style, people who actually write an amount that would go in a certain category but are intimidated by it, people who DON'T write enough to go into a category but say they do...

I know it'd be an optional thing that no one would be policing, also since you could use more than one it wouldn't be too bad, so I guess I'm not 100% against...Though, from previous experience, it seems a little pointless.
Click to expand...

I've seen this happen too. Word counts are a bit esier to work with, because it's an actual count that can't be mistaken for anything else. Sometimes paragraphs need to be 10+ sentences, and sometimes they only need to be 3 sentences. And that's perfectly okay.

I've also seen some forums group it based on effort, development, and grammar level rather than writing length: Free, Casual, and Advanced.

The three levels are more about how much detail is put into each post, how detailed and developed you like your roleplays to be, and how much you care about proper grammar. I think the reason most people set paragrgaph limits or "literacy" standards is because what they're actually looking for are people who are detailed and well-developed in their ideas and writing. And to ensure that, they set these totally arbitrary paragraph limits that their partner must fulfill every post, regardless of whether that length is necessary or not. I've seen that system work pretty well, mostly because people already know how much effort they're willing to put in a roleplay regardless of how much or little they write.


I guess this is another question I have: how many tags would a person be able to place on their request thread? A lot of them (like mine) include general genres and fandom lists, so aside from the [F4M], [Threads], and [PostLengthHere] tags, I could easily be racking up to 10 tags with all the available genres I'm interested in writing.

Also for clarification, are we tagging the actual roleplays as well?



And I guess for right now, is the main goal to come up with closed sets? The ones I can think of now would be post length, roleplay duration (long/short term), gender pairings (like f4f, f4futa, etc), and roleplay medium (threads, IMs, PMs, Email, other offsite options)... I'm sure there are others.
 
I wish I better understood the technical aspects. So, I apologize if I come off as either confusing or...confused. LOL!

In my own head, I'm seeing both request threads AND RP threads as being tagged. I'm assuming closed sets equates to tags that are pre-determined and set? Meaning, they exist and you either choose them or not? And, does this mean that open sets are ones you create as you go and they somehow get added into a jumbled slurry of 'whatever'? I just want to know for my own sanity. <.<

I think I like the idea of closed better if this is how it is only because open would make my head spin and you'd end up with possibly multiple tags describing the same thing, etc. This is why I'd like us to come up with a running list for EVERYTHING and then we can kind of separate out what goes where. That is, what can be go with pairings vs wtfever. Make sense? But all of it will eventually go for either and/or your request threads and RP threads.

I'm probably repeating myself a little. But I want to make sure I'm covering things and understanding things.
 
On the post length thing:
As Ariamella points out, word counts are probably the easier ones to work with. As I pointed out earlier, going by "paragraph" or "line" then leaves people arguing over what constitutes a line or a paragraph, on one hand for the reason Ariamella says - paragraphs vary in length, and also because we all RP on different mediums AND people have different monitors - which means the same amount of writing will just be displayed differently.
Then there are the people who are happy writing from incredibly small amounts to amazingly large ones, ones who like all adapt to their partner's preference. Do they put in ALL the tags? When people look at their thread, it's likely a lot of them who want large posts will see the [one line/small word count/whatever we go with] and think "I don't want to RP with someone who might give me a one-liner, and that people who are fans of fast paces and small posts will see the [500 words/8 para +/again, whatever] and think the thread owner is not what they're looking for.

I honestly think writing is too fluid a thing and there are too many factors to make tags to quantify it in a way that everyone's happy. It'll end up either sounding too vague (and possibly confusing) or too strict.

But, I'll admit, this is likely my personal opinion clouding my judgement. So I'll stop ranting about it.


I also like the idea of closed tags better. o.o Otherwise it's likely things may get confusing, and they won't be as helpful in sorting out specific threads? Exactly as DA says, you'd end up with possibly multiple tags describing the same thing and such. @.@

Tagging RP threads seems great! I hope that's what happens. Then you can look at the tags and see if it's something that seems interesting to you. ^^ Or NOT click on things that end up including stuff that you're squeamish about.



Lastly, I stand by my opinion that the request thread sections shouldn't have too many types of tags. Pairings (FxM, MxM, etc), Roleplay Duration, Roleplay Medium (Google Docs is also kind of popular, I think?), heck, the post length ones, but...not much else? Maybe "Fandom" (or go further with the fandom tags suggested in the first post in these sections too, that seems ok) and "Original" tags. But...I don't think we should get into specific genres? I don't know where the tags would go but that might be a lot for some people.

Besides, you want to make it easy for people to find threads of those compatible with them, but you still want them to read the threads. xD Not have so much stuff in the tags they skip the actual thread and possibly miss important info in there. (Again though, I guess it's my personal opinion and (some bad) experiences coloring my thoughts on this last little bit.)
 
darkangel76 said:
I wish I better understood the technical aspects. So, I apologize if I come off as either confusing or...confused. LOL!

In my own head, I'm seeing both request threads AND RP threads as being tagged. I'm assuming closed sets equates to tags that are pre-determined and set? Meaning, they exist and you either choose them or not? And, does this mean that open sets are ones you create as you go and they somehow get added into a jumbled slurry of 'whatever'? I just want to know for my own sanity. <.<
Click to expand...

Closed sets are things that apply to every single thread (for the forum in question).

* Pairings for RP threads and who is being sought for request threads.
* Estimated wordcounts.
* Original vs Established
* Where to roleplay (Forum/PM/IM/Mumble/whatever)
* Consent ranges (asexual, consensual, quasi-con, non-con) - This would probably be something for E

I'd probably want to keep it to at most five items.

I think I like the idea of closed better if this is how it is only because open would make my head spin and you'd end up with possibly multiple tags describing the same thing, etc. This is why I'd like us to come up with a running list for EVERYTHING and then we can kind of separate out what goes where. That is, what can be go with pairings vs wtfever. Make sense? But all of it will eventually go for either and/or your request threads and RP threads.

I'm probably repeating myself a little. But I want to make sure I'm covering things and understanding things.
Click to expand...

Open tags will probably be free entry. So there's little point in coming up with a list for that.
 
Ok. Then, if I'm now starting to picture it correctly, is there a way to have closed sets that apply ONLY to request threads and then another ONLY to RP threads? I know some sets might cross-over to a degree. But this would allow for RP threads to not have as many tags. Plus, some people like to have two request threads in a particular section (the most common split being one general and one for fandom).

If this is possible (or even if it's not), how many sets are manageable. Then, within a set, how many tags are manageable. Again, this is assuming a closed set and not an open one. For now.
 
Another question....is it possible, when using closed tags, to choose more than one for a given set. Say you have a set that has 6 options and 3 apply. Is it possible to have it where you could choose all three and disregard the others. Then, of course, you could do the same or not with the other sets as well.

Sorry for the potentially strange questions. >.<
 
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