Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Input needed: categorizing/organizing characters

As you may know, one of my goals for the year is to add a system for users with lots of characters to be able to categorize and organize them.

Before I start coding things we'll be stuck with for a long while, I want to make sure I actually speak to those of you with tons and tons of characters: How would you want such a system to work?

Would it be folders, where you can create and name folders and then each character can be dragged into the one folder it best matches?

Would it be a tagging system, where you could tag a character with multiple different tags?

How would you want those folders and/or tags to appear on your profile?

If you have roughly 20+ characters, please tell me the problems you run into and the solutions you'd like to see.

Hmm. Well, I think I like the idea of folders for best matched things. But I also have a few that cross over settings. Like on my profile I have them listed and linked at the moment so that they're in genre groups. But some of them are my Hell setting but also Modern setting. So the tags might work out better?

I like the folders idea. And maybe it could appear like the usual icon-and-name-beside-it. Well, depends on the others' suggestions. I'd go with anything.

I think tags or flags would work great, depending on how they are used. A lot of the time I'll have certain characters that I'm currently using often, while others don't get as much love. Then I have my favorites, the ones I'm always up for playing.
I think folders could be a potential, but my only concern is that people would only look in one colder and not bother to check the others.
I would love to be able to organize my characters into a section of 'I really want to get an rp with these guys!', however that may be done!

Personally I really like the idea of tags or the folders. So lets say I have 10 modern fantasy 3 scifi and 4 medieval fantasy. Where my character list on my profile have have each folder/tag specified and when a specific folder/tag is clicked on those characters who have been classified as that will show up.

But we have the issues of flexibility or genre cross overs, sometimes a character is this but the can be this. Would there be an option to tag a character with multiple genres?

Sorry if that seems scatter brained, just woke up as I got the pm.


Edit

Also I like the idea of active or inactive tags too. Just like celestina said I have characters who get more love than others. Id love to be able to tag those who need rp.

Ooooh yes. This. All of this.

The major problem that I run into with having so many characters is that other players are daunted by the idea of scrolling through all of them. Which is completely understandable, if I was looking for something specific, I wouldn’t want to waste my time digging through a mountain of profiles.

So my perfect solution would be a combination of tagging and folders. Tagging for the general community, to make it easier to find specific genre characters and custom titled folders for players to organize their characters in. Which would also make it easier to navigate for the random profile-wandering player.

Tags Example:

If you have a medieval wizard, you could select the tags:
◙ Historical
◙ Fantasy
◙ Magic

Anyone who would search for one of those keywords, through the site’s search engine, would be provided with a list of those specific profiles.

Folders Example:

I already do this on my own. It takes up a character slot, but I’m happy to do it if it means I can break down my characters into more manageable, less scary lists. It would be awesome though, if we could have it in both the Dashboard where the drop down box for ‘Your Characters’ appears. It also would be extra awesome, if possible, your characters could still show up alphabetically along the side of your profile, but could be rearranged by categories, with a heading/title bar above each new list.

Like

Sci-Fi
◙ Character
◙ Character
◙ Character
Fantasy
◙ Character
◙ Character
◙ Character
Horror
◙ Character
◙ Character
◙ Character
Fandom
◙ Character
◙ Character
◙ Character

I think a tagging system would be neat. The way I figure it working would be like..





So on and so forth. It could work like a drop down menu. The tagging can have multiple tags put into it and would be custom to each person, maybe?

So I could tag.. Humans, but also hunters with that and it would sort out my characters who are both humans and hunters, or w/e. I think a dropdown menu for it is the best way to go about the folders, cause it's nice and clean.

Didn't see the post above mine. I totally 100% agree with her method, as mine is the same lmao.

I would definitely be interested in some sort of folder system to keep track of which characters had completed profiles, which ones needed work, which ones were active/inactive, etc. That is my biggest issue with all of my characters - keeping track of which profiles I've finished, etc. xD

What I usually do with that is maybe add some sort of marking to profiles that are done and are not done, like.. On mine I have REWORKING next to the name, since that really doesn't matter much to me, but I mean you could put D or a 1 at the ones who are done and a U or a 2 at the ends of the ones that are not.

I would like a folder option to sort my characters in - both for personal and public profile use - but also include a tagging system to help increase search capabilities, such as we currently have with groups.

I have most of mine set to anonymous now, which means a folder option alone wouldn't be very useful for people other than myself. That's where a tagging system would complement the sorting feature.

I'm thrilled about the general concept of being able to add customizable organization to characters! I usually set my inactive OCs to anonymous but I'd like to be able to have them on display with an appropriate label. One thing I'd considered doing was adding collapse tags to my personal profile and categorizing my characters under them. My only uncertainty about the folders is I wouldn't be able to have my OCs on display, so other players would have to rifle through folders to see all of what I have. I think it would be nice to just have a column of characters like there is presently, but be able to break it into sections? As in
Title
Picture
Character

Picture
Character
Title
Etc.
(Writing from mobile, excuse any lack of clarity!)

I really like the idea of tagging and folders, but I'm not sure which I like more. I feel like being able to organize them with either method would be increeeeedibly helpful. Like Libertine, I got a lot of mine set to anonymous, but I'd like to put more on display (but I like organization too, so I tend not to). Sorry I'm not super helpful!

Folders and being able to drag and organize sounds great to me

Folders would be incredibly beneficial, if characters can be assigned to multiple. Such as, one folder for roleplays of "Furcadia" and another for roleplays in "WoW", for example .

I think... it's more "groups" than folders, but still!

I agree entirely with the folders idea. If you look at Deviant Art and the gallery section, I think something like that would work.

It works in that you can create a folder and drag the desired art into that folder, so similarly in this situation you would click "create new folder" and a pop up window would perhaps present you with the option to name that folder, but also I think it would be nice if these folders came with a selection of folder colours and basic premade thumbnail art/icons, perhaps one per main genre. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc. Then perhaps also the option to upload your own icon to a folder (with set dimensions, of course).

Folks can then organize these however they want. Folders should probably either drop down to reveal the characters inside or open onto a new page to display the characters on their own separate page. For simplicity and ease of use, I think drop down when clicked is the best method.

Sub folders as an option may also be helpful. So people can do something like: Medieval Fantasy > +Feral +Anthro +Humanoid and so on.

Tags that sort by process of elimination, if that makes any sense. I'll try.

There could be a small number of RPR-wide tags, such as whether the character shows up on your page or not, but the rest would be up to users to define (and maybe decide if they're searchable for guests). So a user would see tags displayed alongside their characters on their dashboard like so:

Angelus (visible, moderator, seeking rp)
Ben (unlisted, WIP, moderator)
Copper (visible, WIP, moderator)
Doubutt (visible, fantasy, seeking rp)
Epicness (visible, fantasy)

While a visitor to their page would see the characters arranged alphabetically, as usual, uncluttered by their tags,

Angelus
Copper
Doubutt
Epicness

But see the tags the player has deemed searchable below. They tick off the boxes that appeal to them:

☑ fantasy
☐ moderator
☑ seeking rp

Only Doubutt satisfies both of those tags so everyone else is hidden, the visitor sees the character of their dreams, and away they go. It's a more inclusive and intuitive system than folders, and could narrow down hundreds of characters to handfuls in just one or two clicks.

I like the idea of the Folders and Tags. Personally, the biggest problem I have with my characters is that I'll find an rp, and discover several of my characters fit into it, but then I'll have to list them all(Which is a pain to say the least). So, a Folder system would be perfect for me. And tags could be helpful if I have a character who fits into multiple settings. For instance, my character Digi-Sketch. Whilst he's made for a modern time period, he could easily fit into a Fantasy and Sci-fi setting due to his nature as a Gremlin and due to his nature as an energy based being.

Now, IDK if this was suggested yet(Haven't read through the whole thread yet), but I really think the addition of sort of 'Tag search/category' option when searching for characters would be helpful. I think tags could also be helpful for general rp's, but that'd be straying off topic. Anyways, there's ,y two cents on the whole thing. So, yis. Hope I was helpful *Thumbs up*

Folders would be awesome- easier on other users, too, so they could better find characters that better suited their rp/genre styles. Or, if someone’s got inactive characters, they could make a folder and put them in there for better organization. Tags would be good too! It’s kind of what I’ve seen people do/what I’ve done already, though that’s more of, putting it into their RPR name (which has a limited number of characters).

I couldn't think of exactly how to word what I would personally like. But Sland hits it on the nail for me. I second their idea 100%. I'm not against just regular tags and folders though, anything at all would be fantastic. But out of the ideas I've seen Sland's is very close to what I personally want.

I like the layout Sland suggests too