Posted by Kim on August 5, 2020, 9:00am
We spent July talking about how the RPR mods work, what situations you might want to call on an RPR mod, and even how to effectively mod your own RPR groups... but there's plenty that individuals can do to make the site feel safer and comfier without ever needing to talk to a mod!Today, we're going to explore RPR's comfort and privacy settings.
Getting there
To get to the comfort and privacy settings page, start by hovering over your own username in the upper right corner, and select the "Account Settings" link from the dropdown.
Or, if you're on mobile, you can find the link in the mobile menu like this:
Then, from the sidebar (or toward the bottom on mobile) choose "Comfort and Privacy Settings"
What do all the comfort settings mean?
Violence, nudity, strong language
The first three settings, that all begin with "Do not show me general warnings about..." all control whether or not you see warnings before being exposed to a particular type of content. By default, every time you try to access a group profile, character profile or gallery image flagged for mature content of one variety or another, you will see a warning and be asked to confirm that you actually want to risk taking a look at that content before showing it.
You can prevent these warnings from ever being shown, and just see all content without a warning, by checking these three "Do not show me general warnings about..." boxes.
Even if you check all three of those boxes, you'll still see specific content warnings -- that is, clearer explanations of what kind of sensitive content a profile contains written by the profile author. However, you can skip even those warnings by checking "I don't want to see other, more specific content warnings either." I really don't recommend that you skip these, but if you don't think there's anything that could upset or unsettle you in the world, then it's up to you!
Arachnophobia
This is a bit of an oddball setting in that it's only used during Epic Week, and then only some years; but, if we have any monsters that are too spidery, we'll hide their images and substitute something less upsetting instead.
When I block someone, hide all their forum posts from me
Change how blocking works on the RPR -- blocking can simply prevent a person from contacting you directly (such as via inbox messages or by sending you inventory items,) or, using this setting, it can basically prevent you from having to see them on the site anymore.
This doesn't just apply to forum posts, but will hide news comments and the like too!
Forum posts flagged for...
The final option, "I want to see forum posts flagged for sexual themes" will only appear if you are 18 years or older. If you do not have this box checked, then no Looking For RP forum posts that are flagged for sexual themes will be shown to you, period. This also affects the Find RP search tool.
Controlling who can see what you're up to
Only want to be contacted by people in your age group? Those settings are here! Choose "People in my age group" under "Who can send you friend requests," and under "Who can initiate private message conversations with you?" This will prevent people who aren't in your age group from initiating friend requests or starting inbox conversations with you in this section. (The age groups are younger than 18, and 18+)
For that last option, "Who can see if you are banned by moderators from forum or private message participation?" you might be thinking to you yourself... who would want that? Well, imagine this: you are involved in a busy RP with three online friends, when you do something that causes you to lose your posting privileges for a week. You can't write to your friends to let them know you aren't purposefully ghosting them! Use this setting to automatically broadcast to your RP partners and friends that you can't talk right now, with an automatically placed message on your user profile should this situation ever arise.
Blocked Users
The final section on this page is Blocked Users and Characters. If you've blocked anyone, that list will appear here, along with your notes about why you did it. You can also use the "unblock" link from this page, if you've changed your mind.
And there we have it! I hope this overview of our comfort and privacy settings was helpful
Post tags: Feature Explanations
Comments
Thanks for making all this so that people can personalize things so much to their comfort levels! 
Shinyrainbowlithogra
August 6, 2020
4:35pm