Posted by Kim on February 27, 2022, 9:00am
Didn't manage to make it when it was live? Here's some highlight Q&A from my Office Hours this weekend.
I read recently that the staff is discussing the implications of gender-exclusive RP requests and if they should be allowed going forward. I was wondering if there were any more developments on that? I get that alot of people use it for creepy, keeping the FBI employed reasons. But honesty being the best policy, I admit I've sometimes been very tempted to add a "guys only" standard to my requests. Just because of how many bad experiences I've had in the past with..well, you know how men treat lesbians? That but with women and gay men.
the question we're struggling with is, is there a way we can differentiate people asking for safety/comfort reasons (ie "I prefer to RP with people who identify as femme or queer for comfort reasons") and those who are asking specifically about someone's cisness for less savory, perhaps more dangerous, certainly specifically exclusionary reasons.
It's a tough question. I think a lot of the time what people are asking for is not a specific gender identity but some other assurance that has a statistical correlation, like, "Please don't join this RP if you fetishize gay men," and that that might often be the better request to make.
In some ways it'll come down to phrasing and specificity. "Be a real woman/man" is a VERY different ask than "I'm most interested in hearing from people who identify as masc/femme for X reason"
Our concern is, we suspect we have a LOT more of the "be a (subtext: cis) woman" happening than we do people with genuine trauma inflicted by a particular gender, if you get my drift. I overwhemingly see these requests coming from cis men expressing interest in women, often with implications of only cis women counting, and that's... pretty icky.
What are your current top three priorities when it comes to improving the site? I've noticed things have been a little hush-hush in the Suggestions Forum, so I'm curious to know what features you might be working on.
Oh, fun question. So I had two over-arching themes for the RPR development path that I announced on January 1st. They are basically 1) Before 2023 rolls in, I want to make it possible for you to design a map for your RP, and you and your RP partners can position your characters' avatars on it in real time as you play. and 2) I've set myself a side-theme of privacy, security and comfort.
There's nothing visible yet for the maps goal, I suspect it'll be the fall before I'm able to preview too much of that. But I have been slinging out a fair number of privacy, security and comfort features already this year.
Ones high on my list that I haven't yet tackled:
- Making it possible for users to filter custom terms on the forums, so you don't see topics where the OP mentions terms you're sensitive to.
- A kind of security/privacy settings review that can walk you through the settings you currently have enabled for your account and help you make changes... We have a TON of options, so some more ways to understand them would be good.
- I'd also like to have security/privacy reviews for group founders, to help them understand and change who can access the group, its various pages, and its forums all in one place.
Also, another random goal on my radar, I think it'd be fun to incorporate giphy search into the site.
I should also mention online status lists and the ability to launch fireworks/glitter bombs at anon RP partners, though I doubt I'll be able to address those before Epic Week.
This particular week I've been working on four separate Epic Week tutorials, to try and make mastering the event more accessible to more folks. I know it's a doozy of a thing and the amount of ~stuff~ that can be done in it can turn some people off.
giphy search? What all does that entail?
You know how in Discord and FB and a bunch of other chat apps, you can click an image button and type in a keyword and it brings up a bunch of reaction gifs? And just clicking that gif will post it into your chat? I think the RPR should have that.
Is it me, or have we been getting an influx of new people, but not much activity on the site?
Activity levels have been more or less average, but focused on PMs rather than forums for a bit here -- though there's been a dip since the invasion of Ukraine started. I think a lot of us are on the terrified side right now.
On the Epic Week tutorials thing, has the Armory been of any help with that?
I finally started getting it better cleaned up and stuff this year, and I've got a semi-hidden page in there that's just... a mess of various notes and links and stuff. It's uhm, hmn.... Here, sneak preview: https://www.rprepository.com/events/epicweek/2022/tutorial/combat
I'm trying to keep it more to interface and general concepts rather than specific to the monsters of a particular year, but I'm working on one that does discuss the various uses of the armory, though, including that amassed wisdom of warriors can be found there.
As an aside: It's confirmed there WILL be an arachnid monster in Epic Week this year. I encourage all arachnophobes to make sure they've checked "I have arachnophobia" in their Comfort & Privacy Settings, so they never have to see even a cartoon spider when things kick off.
Are there always little things that we celebrate here on RPR like the valentines ones day one this year?
There are recurring events that happen throughout the year. They've changed over time, but next month we will have the live Spring Masquerade RP, and the month after that, we're going to have the major Epic Week event
After that, there will be a summer event, a community character designing event, the halloween event, and more.
I do think the world building event will get skipped this year because it takes so much of my time, I'm still working on polishing off the last one, and my goal for the year with providing the maps feature is SO large, something had to give in my schedule.
Epic week is so much fun but it makes me tired even though I’m not actually doing anything in irl but hey it feels like I’m at a real party haha
I know what you mean, I'm always a bit of a zombie after Epic Week. It's a high-intensity event
It's hands down my favorite time of year though.I haven't been following along with the map stuff ... is it like small scale combat maps (like a room within a dungeon with a hex grid) or more like nation maps? (Or both?)
At least to start with, it's more like small scale combat or situation maps -- you'll have avatars for your characters you can move around.
Sounds neat! Will it be connected to the text RP. (Like...in this post character A moves from here to here - hence being able to 'replay' it when re-reading the RP)
Thaaaat I'm not too sure about. It'll be largely live.
I've actually been wondering which feature you're the most excited to release to the RPR this coming year?
I guess in the long term it's avatars and/or maps, I'm desperate to get those out. But day by day I get really excited about smaller things, like this morning I woke up with a bee in my bonnet about wanting to make the Find RP search tool work for more styles of searching and attract more people there than straight forum usage, so like... about 50 seconds ago I pushed a patch that lets you choose to see Find RP results not in random order but in terms of which topics were most newly created. So if you're using the forums to see what's newest, the Find RP tool can do that for you now. It will remember whichever one you used last and save your preference until you change it.
And it STILL ignores bumping, so you will actually see which ads are, indeed, newest, not which ones are being pushed hardest.
I confess I'm not totally sure what the appeal of just using the forums directly is beyond being able to see new stuff more or less sort of first; the ability to mark ads as not interesting seems like such a bonus to me.
Could it be compactness, maybe? If anyone has any insight on that I'd love to hear it 
Am I forgetting that we have 'remember these search settings' options or do we not have them?
Find RP remembers your "Open to" (All ages, adults only, both), your allow/disallow/require "sexual themes" and whether to show you LFRP ads only, groups only, or both and now what order to use from whatever the last settings you used were.
How long do things stay in Find RP by default - was it 2 weeks?
It stays in Find RP search results for 10 days since the last time the OP interacted with their ad (using the renew button counts, whether or not they also posted a bump post in it). And if a topic is marked closed, it does not show up in Find RP at all, whereas it'll still be visible on the forums.
ArbutusFebruary 27, 2022
9:47am
I also am troubled with the amount of fetishization of LGBTQ+ people. I've dealt with it a few times, and now I'm always troubled if some perv would just want to RP with me for the sake of some "UWU Gae boi romance OwO"