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Do people judge you based on your post count or your avatar?

Thanks, CharmSnake, if only there was a like button! You've saved me the trouble of trying to gathering my thoughts together and post them coherently to this thread.

All I need to say is 'ditto' to your reply, and add:

Judgements can only be made based on the information available to you at the time, and though neither Avatars and screen-names (with rare exceptions) are strict 'deal-breakers', they do influence my initial enthusiasm/interest in wanting to engage with someone. Low post counts are slightly different, and I don't take that much notice of it if the member has only been here a short time.

Saying that, if I'm contacted by someone with a low post count - particularly when they have no stories and/or no RT on the boards -, when it comes to being able to gauge if our preferences mesh, if our writing styles would work together and general compatibility, much depends on the effort they put into communicating that in our initial exchanges. If there's very little or no effort, then I'm not going to waste hours trying to extract information, only to end up feeling as if it'd be easier to get blood from a stone. That's happened too many times before, which is one of the very reasons I do factor in low post counts.
 
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Not on post count and a little on if it is a catrtoon/unrealistic avatar. Gender and gender assumption actually. If you don't show your gender on here and let people assume things based solely on your ava, the results are vastly different. People (in general) have an instinctual and purely subconscious gender bias without even realizing it.. When I put girl on here, the im box was flooded by guys for days. So I took away gender, showed off my veteran status, put up my dog (pitbull) pic and now I get a different reaction. ** Also, when I see a lot of homonym issues, (their, they're, there, were, where, we're) I have an aversion to the problem, tbh.
 
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A very interesting thread I must say. In the past my response would cater closer towards trivial things like whether or not I notice a Avatar that aligns to my taste or whether or not their post count was outstanding or nonexistent. Many impressions have been bestowed onto me for these 9 years...a few surprise me. We try not to let it out but we're all shallow creatures to some degree. Curiosity does spawn once I see a person with 1,000+ posts... either thinking they are those 3-5 sentence posters or over the span of time have produced countless works, conversations, etc.

I agree with Dogged on the gender bias, even the whole stripping away of one's gender. Personally I am infamous for lacking a request thread..haven't produced one for years yet maybe that from the culture of finding interesting people myself..striking gold for some, nothing for others. Staggering amount of people wanting PM or nowadays Discord rps muddles the waters until I get samples or just deem them my right kind of crazy to craft something together. Dealbreakers are the norm...purely leet speak and most first person...otherwise I like to think we all judge subconsciously based on the Avatars we chose and the amount of posting we done in public.
 
Sanoci said:
Personally I am infamous for lacking a request thread..haven't produced one for years yet maybe that from the culture of finding interesting people myself..striking gold for some, nothing for others.
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Another person without a request thread! I've not put one up either, so I find my writing partners by checking out their RTs. It's a hit or miss, of course.

I've learned to ignore the avatars, unless it's something blatantly offensive, and it would be hypocritical of me to judge others by post counts as I do most of my roleplay in PMs. I think we all have an inkling if our writing styles mesh by the messages we send back and forth when attempting to find a writing partner.
 
Like some of the more articulate members before me have said on the matter, yes, people do judge based on a variety of factors. Including, but not limited to, avatar, post count, join date, post history etc.
We're judgey creatures, we humans. It kept us alive before we could speak. It helps us decide what will be a wise decision over an impulsive one.
I know I am. I used to judge people who posted on the "post your face" thread. I thought, 'Thats insane! I dont want these weirdos knowing what I look like!'

For fear they'd hunt me down, take my skin, rape me or heaven knows what. It's silly, but it was the way I felt.
Now, after a very long stay at the airport and immense boredom, I am a current member of that group that's posted their faces. And even I still judge the rest of those people a little bit. It would be naive to think someone wouldn't judge another member on this website.

I also belong to the group of users who's post count is tragically small while my join date was many moons ^.^ ago.
What we do here is, in a way, secretive in nature. At least to most of us. So I think it's natural to want to protect your own identity. This doesn't stop us from judging everyone else. Be it from their specific kink, or their choice in avatar. It shouldn't affect how a potential new partner perceives us. But it may.

So, like most people have said: Do they judge? Probably. Should they? Probably. Will it affect who you partner up with? Maybe.
So what? If you care enough to change that perception, you'll hopefully find a way.

To quote a character played by what I'm told is a large penised actor,
"If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation.”
 
Yep. They judge me for not having a k-list too. I am a PM roleplayer and I have my reasons.
 
People probably do judge my post count but hey that's fine if they want to doesn't make a difference to me either way.
 
I don't rp in threads, never have never will when it comes to one on one RP, I don't want other people to read my private RP's neither do I have any interest in reading other peoples RP. Like looking others up beyond their RT is not something I do, post count? Don't matter. Avatar? It's just an image. Does it matter how long they have been on the site? Nope.

I judge them by how much they help plotting, how much input they give on my ideas, what they would like to include, what they would like to change. Do they like world building? Also very important for me I don't want people to 'play' themselves in RP. We play with characters and I do not want much RL injected into those. I also look at their F-list I like to have more in common than not. I judge how their initial contact with me was, did they write just one line? Or two? Or did they actually give me a little information what are they looking for? etc etc.

Post count, length of their stay here and avatar as absolutely of no importance to me.
 
I judge people from a writing point of view as well.

if the avatar is straight up porn/hentai then I ignore them cause in my experiences with writers that use them. It usually means they only have smut on their mind and that makes writing a story difficult and boring for me. Same thing with thread titles in requests. Stuff like "looking for a cocksleeve for my huge dong" or looking for lewd and [insert other fetish based stuff].... then I skip right over them cause again, most likely it's just gonna be another porn story. And i agree with the names that have fetish links to them master/slave/pet/blabla...Not even the name inspires me to write with the person but most likely will make me wonder if they write for the story or if they're secretly getting their rocks off...it just makes me uncomfortable :/

Writing porn is BORING!
I write to escape reality. i want adventures, alien worlds, new cultures, heroes and monsters, gods and magic, etc...

I want to tell a story. not rub one out.
 
I honestly don't care about post count (if it's super low I'll probably be nice and welcome you to the forums*). I don't think I've ever passed on an avatar, but I can imagine a couple that would cause me to. I pretty much just go by the words you type in my direction.

*- Actually my first RP here was with someone else who was also brand new at the time, and we still keep in touch.
 
Your avatar, screen-name and post count all say something about you, both as a person and a writer.

So, yes, I'm going to judge a little based on those things - although not so much by post-count. The quality of your request thread also says a lot about you as a writer, and I'm going to judge based on that as well.

Gender has been brought up - I don't judge on that, because I'm writing to your character, not to you. As the same time, I do advertise mine, because although I can write as both male and female characters, I know there are writers out there who aren't comfortable with a male writing a female role - so I'm up-front about it to save any hassle.

I did have a request thread - but it got archived in the move to the new site, and I haven't bothered bringing it back (nor am I inclined to do so).
 
The Avatar is an interesting one.

I had one of my partners over on Elliquiy hesitate to approach me because of mine; the same one that I have here; which I didn't find out until we were well into our story and I offhandedly mentioned my struggle to find partners

To which she replied;

"I found you intimidating at first, but you know why. The one thing that comes to mind is your avatar. It looks like Jack the Ripper, which just reinforces the impression that you write non-romance, psycho killer horror stories. (Despite the content of my thread saying I write both!) Nothing wrong with that, but you need to lure your next victim, er, writer in by seeming normal."

And went on to say that it'd almost been enough for her to not contact me at all.

So, regardless of if people think it should, an Avatar can - and does - affect others perceptions and make it more difficult to attract partners. After enlisting her help in deciding on a new profile image to use over there, interest and the number of approaches immediately picked up. I still use him on here because, well, Jack and I have been friends for so long now that he's part of my BMR persona, and I don't want to let go of him completely.
 
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I actually am turned off by anime avatars. Irl faceclaims work better for me. I just find it difficult most of the time to get into a drawing. Most of the time. Not all of the time. Ironically signatures with motion them to annoy me as well. I find it difficult to focus on the text in their messages if my eyes are being drawn to their signature. As for post count, yes. I do judge that as well. If someone approaches me with a low post count, or even someone that is fairly new to the site, red flags go up. I try to check into a possible partner anyway before saying yes. Even a person username is something I look at. I've chosen partners based on their username before. It worked out great a couple of times. The name drew in my attention. I looked at their RT, and that was it. I guess I judge on a lot of things. Even if I see them reply to a post I made in another thread can help me decide if I like them or not. lol. There are people on this site that I don't like, and I've never really even spoken to them. Silly I know, but hey.
 
Screen names and avatars that re pure porn usually make me pass them by. You can be a great writer but if that is how you want to advertise yourself.... <shrug> I'll look at post count but also look for any samples of your writing with stories/etc. I love seeing what a person can do.

My screen name is generic and I like it that because I'm...well...generic. :) I finally put up an avatar and it has nothing to do with anime. A very long time ago, I had a screen name I used with that image. The name is long retired but the image brings back good memories. <shrugs> Just me I guess.
 
I don't judge people base on their avatar or post count. However I will say this, I am less likely to get heavily invested in an rp with someone who is new. I will usually feel it out, you never know if they are just testing the waters or super serious. Especially during breaks for college students. I often find that during Christmas and summer break rps are more active because college students are home for break and have less to do. So when the school year starts they often disappear.

I do understand why people are hesitant though, you can only be burned by a new comer so many times before some people are like no more.

That being said, I still give new rpers a chance. I don't think you should hold back based on post count, just talk with them and make sure that you both are on the same page. If your just looking for someone for the summer or winter break say it, if your looking for someone all year long say it to. Just be honest with what your looking for and how committed you are and things will usually work out. Especially those who prefer to rp in pms and offsite like on discord or skype. Another thing to check out is their join date and how often they bump their request thread or when the time between their last couple post, want to make sure they haven't disappeared for years over and over again.
 
I 100% judge potential writers based on all the information that is available to me at the time, which does include avatars and post count. Although with post count, it's not so much the number of posts, but rather that I'm able to see something besides bumping. It gives me mild suspicion to have someone contact me for a roleplay and I can't see what any of their writing looks like. That post history usually saves me from starting roleplays with people whose writing style doesn't mesh with mine, or that I just don't prefer.

As far as avatars, I tend to stay away from males with anime avatars. More often than not, when I'm approached by them, I'm usually asked to do include "anime" tropes. Bukkake, abnormally large body parts (typically breasts), completely unrealistic levels of semen, ahego, overly shy bitches; pretty much all the shit one would find in the typical hentai, most of which I'm not really down to write. I've never had the same experience with women who have anime avatars, but keep in mind that this is just that: my experiences, which have shaped how I personally interact with people on BMR.

Interestingly, I find over the years, people treat me differently based on the kind of avatars I have. Back in 2013-2016 (when I had an account under a different name), I would use very feminine avatars usually with pink in them. On both the chat and the forum proper, I would get extremely flirty responses and offers. People never doubted that I was a woman. When I made this account and started using more neutral avatars, the responses I got were more neutral as well (and in some cases, more respectful). In fact I had an avatar of Drake (the rapper) not too long ago, and I had a couple people asking me if I was actually a male pretending that I was a woman. I think avatars definitely shape the way we interact with people on a forum, regardless of whether we're aware of it or not.
 
To be honest I don't even know what kind of avatar to get. Anywher else on the web I get a fairly silly thing, but that doesn't seem very appropriat eif I'm trying to be appealing to RP with.
 
I hate to admit it but yes I have used names and avatars to guess about possible writing partners. And in turn used them to filter out would be partners.

If the username is almost generic or could be replaced by numbers at the end sorta tells me they just renewed accounts very fast. So that says "I got kicked out of here" prone to drama and starting trouble etc. Or they are those who bemoan about quieting to get attention only to come back again to do the same thing later. A big red flag for me. I want to write not hear about in fighting. Most people, I assume, put a lot of thought and effort into usernames. Even use a personal tag or name through out their online life.

Avatars I tend to keep darker theme ones. Like Chai had said people tend to treat you base on your avatar. I rather keep people guessing or keep them on their best behavior at least. Seems silly but it could mean a lot in weeding some future problems down the line. I'm not one to start a fight if someone is rude. I rather just avoid trouble makers where I can.

So far Blue Moon has been the best experience I had so far. Of course I am still new. But that says a lot already.
 
Mela said:
Like looking others up beyond their RT is not something I do, post count? Don't matter. Avatar? It's just an image. Does it matter how long they have been on the site? Nope.

I judge them by how much they help plotting, how much input they give on my ideas, what they would like to include, what they would like to change. Do they like world building?
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I have had COUNTLESS people score incredibly highly in the plotting category only to bail in the first 6 posts. I can think of three partners on this site alone just of the top of my head that plotted magnificently in PMs only to never give me a single reply. I'm glad your system works for you, never worked for me, but then again, nothing has ever worked for me.
 
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