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

I like the idea of customizable folders/tags, similar to how G-mail's system works. It would be nice to just have certain labels show up next to my character's names on my dashboard, or be able to hide them away in a folder if I want to. Being able to sort by what groups they are in comes to mind for why I'd stick certain characters into folders as opposed to just tagging them.

I quite like the idea of tags/flags, although to be fair 99% of my characters are in a particular setting so perhaps types of characters, like mythical or regular humans would be cool anything with colour is also welcomed since I organise things better when there are colours involved.

Being able to label or group characters together would be awesome. Labeling or grouping could include Fantasy/Realism/Other, as well as Available(to RP)/Unavailable(to RP). I have some characters that belong in similar stories so it would be nice to categorize them together, while keeping other characters separate. Also, maybe a drag/sort order option instead of alphabetical by name? I'm not sure how much of that is doable on your end, but those are just some of my thoughts.

Thanks, Kim, I look forward to seeing what updates are implemented on Monday.

Edit

Overtired and I completely miss read the thread. I have no idea where I got drag n'drop from -_-' disregard this post

Assuming tags would work as filters like usual, I'd favor that over folders, I think. It'd have better potential to get worked into a site-wide system where you can look for certain types of characters, and I have a sort-of obsession with the ability to easily resort/regroup things.

Folders would still be welcome though, whether as an alternative or combo.

The only thing I hope for is to be able to be more specific than 'Fantasy' 'Sci Fi' etc. For example, I have fantasy characters from different fantasy worlds. So I hope I'd be able to input my own categories such as "D&D" "Ironclaw" etc.

I also had a 'traffic light' system in mind where green would be "Yeah this character is 100% available for RP" Yellow would be "Limited Availability" and Red would be a retired/inactive character

I agree with filtering and organising characters by groups they're in or by the settings they're in. Maybe there's preloaded settings or you can decide the settings yourself and edit them. But then I thought maybe RPR creating RPR official setting groups for characters to tag onto and be filtered by. Cross-tagging genres might also be a possibility for characters with additional elements or aus. This could crack down on people looking for historic characters etc.

Perhaps a good way to categorise your characters in a fancy way on your profile could be by buying frames for your rpr and putting fancy frames around their names.

Seconding this, more or less. Folders would be helpful for organizing one's own characters, while tags would be helpful when browsing other players' characters.

Some folks have also suggested having some method for demarcating which characters are active, and which aren't - I think that would be incredibly useful.

I'm 100% behind the folder and dragging options. For me, that'd make all the difference when it comes to keeping track of my characters and sorting them without any sort of...clutter, for lack of a better word.

This really is the distinction that needs to be made. The Dashboard already has two "folders" (Your Characters and Your Groups) you can open and close - being able to make more and drag/drop between them would be an awesome personal convenience, but for visitors and searchers, there's nothing a folder could do that tags wouldn't do better.

Thank you everyone! This is all super useful.

I think both a tagging AND a filing system would be good. For instance, my rarely used/inactive characters could be placed in an 'INACTIVE' file and a tag optionally displayable on their main page saying they are rarely used/inactive.

I have several characters that I almost surely will never use, but I don't have the heart to delete all my hard work for good because I'm a sentimental crazy person with severe alt-oholism.

The active characters would go in a different folder ('ACTIVE'), and perhaps another folder or sub-folder would house the 'MAIN CHARACTER's.

Beyond that, I think user-editable tags (within reason) would also be a good idea. For instance, most of my characters are played on Furcadia, but I have a few characters I play on MMOs like WOW and Champions Online. I'd like to label/tag those so people don't keep requesting forum rp of them.

DON'T FORGET ABOUT GROUPS! Groups need labels/tags too! I run a few groups and routinely get applications from out-of-game RPers that seem confused about what they're applying to despite me saying where they are played in the description.

It's hard for me because all of mine connect somehow...so perhaps the folder system and tag system could both be implemented? Honestly, I find that it's harder for people looking at my characters than it is for me. Generally I can remember each of mine (yes I'm serious!!!) but I know looking through my big long list can be daunting so if a folder and tag system combo was in effect it might make their lives easier.

This would be good
I have like a 1000 characters but of course I won't bring them here, only a selected few. But I would think that a main cathegory and then a sub folder in it would be good

Or as a choice, have the 'feral, anthro, humanoid' ones be selectable cathegories for the main ones
Some people don't have an army of characters based in certain time periods or genres. so just cathegorising them like that would be a thing

Also the opinion to not cathegorise at all

I don't think there's any amount of tagging, disclaimer text, statements in rules, statements on main profile pages, etc. etc. that will prevent this phenomenon -- people don't read as much as we'd like them to.

You might try incorporating this into the app itself as a box they MUST check to continue.. "I understand that the RP for this group is conducted via _________, NOT on the RPR."

Then no matter which pages they did or did not look at, we know that the one place they HAD to look, it was.

I don't have too many chars, but user-defined tags you can apply to chars and then filter by sounds awesome.

I like the idea of the tag system.

For example, Darrien and Malefor fit into the Medieval Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Magic categories.

Thor fits into the Modern Fantasy and Historical settings.
Lailah fits into Modern Fantasy and Supernatural settings.
Lord Chaos fits into Medieval Fantasy, Magic, and Supernatural.

And Maria belongs to the Medieval Fantasy and Modern settings.

I think tags would work well if we have a list of default tags to use. Being able to have any tag would be great but I think it might make it harder to find characters if multiple people use three different tags to mean the same thing, which I have seen on another site that allows custom tags for filtering things.

For a list we could have tags for:

General

Fantasy

Sci-Fi

Realistic (as opposed to fantasy)

Semi- (partly whatever comes after the prefix. Semi-realistic or partly realistic. Some magic may be fine but not tons of it. Keep it simple or pretend magic is real and think about how it would work if it were really real.)

Modern(RPs set in the present day or 1990-something and more recent)

Historical(RPs based off historical time periods usually in the past. Often with some degree of realism.)

+ Historical Fantasy(Victorian pixies with dragon butlers that have tea every Tuesday.)

+ Historical Sci-Fi(time traveler goes to the past and stuff happens)

Medieval(can be mixed with Historical or Historical Fantasy).

Steampunk

Anthro(Animals that act like humans. Can be further divided between those that look like animals and those that look mostly like humans).

Human(Two arms, two legs, one head, one torso - this is the usual count of parts. No fur, not magical, no super powers. Can be overly dramatic about everything.)

Supernatural (Superman, Batman, X-Men, Aliens, Vampires, Werewolves, etc.)

Active

Inactive

Retired(Character that is rarely or no longer used but the player hasn't yet deleted them or doesn't want to delete them).

Busy (as in an active character that is already in a RP and unable to be requested for more RP until later).

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I know some ideas for a list of tags have already been made and I can't think of all the tags people would need or want. I'm not against custom tags, I just worry that they could cause problems in some cases.

No idea how the coding works or if custom tags will even happen for sure.

I think a folders for those with many tens of characters would be nice. I am sure if I had a great many characters each with a profile I might be able to keep them all straight but I wouldn't like scrolling down the list as a RPer or as someone looking through a giant list for a name or picture of someone else's character that may catch my interest.

Grouping characters in ways other than A - Z for those that look at our characters would be nice.

I like the idea of searches for tags only showing the characters with those tags on a profile. if someone looks through the tagged characters and wants to see all their characters they (I assume) can still click the player's name and see all their characters no matter what tags they have.

I see tags as being after the character's name or above it, maybe it shows up when you mouse over the name? Something like that. Maybe have little icons for the default tags that say what they are when you mouse over them or just tiny words. A cell phone for Modern like the RP Finder icons plus more for other tags.

I know this is a jumble but I wanted to give some kind of input into this conversation since I plan to use it and really want it to work well and be as useful as it can be. I may have repeated things, sorry if I did or if this mess is unclear.

I agree with a lot of the people here; folders and genre tags would be a great way to organize characters. I have several of mine that are all of a fantasy/Sci-fi race I created and I have no way to combine them in a convenient spot.

I would also suggest adding a button in a character profile that allows it to show up as under construction. It would help a lot if people wondered why there isn't much compared to another one by the same player.

As for another idea... Hmmm... Perhaps a way to make it easier to connect characters you have that are family and friends, such as some sort of listing in their editing that would allow you to check off your pick of Friend, Family, Foe, and so forth.

That's a good idea, but unfortunately even then people hardly ever read those questions. I also get applications that make zero sense for that group (like a catgirl applying to a pack of wolves).