Feature Request: Hide Characters Based on Tags

Bugs & Features
1

Feature: I’d like the ability to hide characters in the awake list based on tags.

Reason: I like to browse the awake list to find other RPers that may have similar interests to me. However, there are certain characters with certain tags I’d rather never see to begin with. As in, even just quickly glancing at certain characters actually makes me feel sick and uncomfortable. Which sucks, because I love RPing on here and have been a supporter for years at this point. But, certain things are getting harder and harder for me to ignore. Wolfery’s policy, as far as I understand it is to allow allow all forms of roleplay. I get that, and I am not trying to re-hash topics that have been beaten into the dirt in other threads. However, we all have our preferences, and e621 for example has a blacklist system that works well and I think the same thing could work here.

To take this idea a step further, perhaps characters some of the more extreme tags, such as rape, ageplay, bestiality, blood & gore, torture, vore, etc, could be opt in. As in, the user has to choose to opt-in to seeing those characters in the awake list.

I think this also works well with the current concept of areas and area rules. If people don’t want to see characters with certain tags, they won’t see them in the awake list. Just like if someone doesn’t want to engage in certain forms of RP, they won’t go to certain areas.

Additional idea, perhaps areas could also have tags and the console could give the player a heads up when they enter an area with a tag they have blocked. That way, they can just turn around and be on their way. It could also work the other way around. If an area has a tag blocked, then the console could give a player whose character has that blocked tag a heads up about that too.

To be clear, it would just be a heads up. I’m not talking about straight up blocking characters from areas, or banning anyone’s RP. I merely want more options for player choice.

7 Likes
2

I agree whole-heartedly with this request! I believe that having to opt-in to see the more extreme kinks is a good idea. Though, I do wonder how it would work with custom tags? Would there have to be a word database for the extreme tags so someone can’t simply avoid the blacklist by making a custom tag? Would the user have to mark them as an extreme tag or would moderators have to manually blacklist people because for their custom tags?

I also feel that adding tags to an area or a room is a great idea in general and I could see it being a feature even if there isn’t any hiding. I think adding a little caution sign by the room’s name would be a good indicator if the room/area has an extreme tag, sort of like how an orange dot appears when a script is listening. It would show the room does have an extreme tag without being too obtrusive.

1 Like
3

I see your point and I agree. I don’t think that custom tags should be restricted at all. I feel like the simplest way to deal with them would be to allow users to choose an “official tag” that their custom tag best fits while they are making or editing it. There should also be the option to select no “official tag” for their custom tags at all if it doesn’t fit.

I also think people generally want to make their RP preferences clear. So, I don’t think people evading the blacklist would be too much of a problem.

4

I would say rather than making custom tags somehow be tied to existing ones (or not) would be a much more complicated system then simply having the name of the tag be word matched. If you wish to hide nonconsensual, for example, you’d hide anything that is named that custom or default. Granted, in that example it might be abbreviated to non-con, or whatever. but you can always add other variations to your hide list. In this way it would be much harder to avoid a block list because anyone who does with a custom tag would just have that blocked as well.

It wouldn’t stop people from just not listing a tag, but that’s another issue entirely.

1 Like
5

That could work too! It would just have to take into account the difference between like/dislike preferences. The only downside to an automatic system that I see is that it could get the intent of certain custom tags wrong, which could lead to frustration if people have to watch which words they put in their tag names.

6

Existing Negative Tag Filters (Tip)
I recognize that this isn’t a complete solution, but I’ll share this in case it’s useful for players who don’t already know:

You can currently filter the awake list by excluding tags.

For example, if I wanted to click through awake players who aren’t romantic, I would search !romantic

And if I wanted to exclude characters who like masturbation too, then I could search !romantic, !masturbation

This may be helpful as an ad-hoc solution— but the last time this was discussed there were some concerns: if we imagine a player could be uncomfortable with the mere idea of a tag, then they might prefer not to see these tags in their search bar.

I think it would be reasonable to offer a way for players to configure a default filter for their awake players filter (so they can filter out tags by default without having to see them).

I think the nuances of filtering by tags are too complex to make that a default.

For example, let’s imagine a hypothetical player is uncomfortable with bondage, and let’s assume they prefer not to roleplay with anybody that has the bondage tag. They may choose to filter out characters that have a bondage tag, but we should recognize that players who have a bondage tag might also be willing to play out scenes that don’t include bondage.

Making bondage opt-in (in the awake list) would effectively hide players (by default) for being willing to roleplay with bondage, liking it, or being open to it.

Consider the impact this has on players who have a different relationship to bondage:

  • Players who like bondage would not be able to find characters with the bondage tag without opting in.
  • Players who are not interested in bondage, but are okay with roleplaying with characters who have the bondage tag would be similarly impacted.

The only players who would benefit from this are those who cannot tolerate characters for having this tag at all.

Offering ways for players to individually tailor their experience could be empowering, but defining a set of tags that all players have to opt-in to is opinionated, and makes assumptions about the preferences of players we don’t know.

My preference would be not to define a default experience for all players that is rooted in discomfort, but I do value folks’ comfort, and feel supportive of alternative approaches. Your original suggestion seems like a good place to start. :slight_smile:

6 Likes
7

What about simply blocking the tags themselves, without making the character invisible?

For instance, if just seeing a tag that says “non-consensual” on a character profile is enough to make a person uncomfortable, they can choose to block those tags specifically, and now those tags will just not appear when they look at anybody’s profile. Now they can feel free to interact in the usual relatively restrained fashion we expect in ‘neutral’ places like Sinder, where extreme/offensive kinks aren’t supposed to be played out anyway.

Just straight-up making anybody who has non-con invisible, in this case, would be a poor solution because it could turn out that two players have everything in common except that one tag and could RP together just fine.

So I would personally make tag-blocking an opt-in thing. By default, have nothing blocked. Users can go to their options and block tags, including custom tags by just typing them in. We can’t possibly anticipate every tag that everybody might come up with, or how to categorize them. We can only ask that people try to use custom tags with respect and reason, and not as a way to circumvent block lists, or as a way to snipe at other players.

We might want to set guidelines for what can go in the global “About” page, though. It’s all well and good to talk about offensive tags, but tags are usually left pretty vague and inoffensive. Sometimes you click on a person’s profile and the “about” section is full of all sorts of graphic descriptions of some extreme kinks that really, REALLY should be consented to first, if you catch my drift. Maybe a rule that extreme content in the “about” section needs to be behind spoiler tags? Give a layer of protection for a person to click your profile, and decide that this isn’t what they want to see, and back out before getting flavor-blasted with graphic gore or something.

8

I mostly agree all of this, don’t really have too much more to add. Especially the part about having to opt-in to extreme tags. It really is a matter of preference as to what is considered extreme person to person.

9

I don’t think blocking tags themselves would work well. Reason being, tags are how people express their RP preferences. If I can’t see a tag I don’t like, but can still see the character, that could lead to a miscommunication as to what sort of RP we’re both alright with. Sure, they could still ask if a certain kink is alright with the other person OOC, that is how it should be when things are not clear regardless. However if the tag was visible to begin with, it wouldn’t have gotten to that point. Additionally, there would be no way for the other person in this example to know that the person they’re RPing with has one of their tags blocked. Which could also lead to further miscommunication as to who has what blocked.

To address your second point using your example, if someone has the non-consensual tag blocked, then that means that they really don’t want to engage in that form of RP, and that is their choice. If they later decided that it’s too restrictive, they can simply edit their preferences.

Lastly, I do see where you are coming from with the about page, but generally reading that takes more effort then reading a tag or a player’s name. On the other paw though, I feel like putting explicit stuff behind spoiler tags is just common courtesy.

10

To address your second point using your example, if someone has the non-consensual tag blocked, then that means that they really don’t want to engage in that form of RP, and that is their choice

Yes. But if you are playing in an area (say, most of Sinder) that doesn’t allow NC to be played openly, then it isn’t going to come up. And if you don’t want to acknowledge NC to the point that you are blocking the tag, then you are not likely to go wandering into areas that are marked OK for it.

Let’s say, I am playing on a character that is NC-yes, and you are NC-no, and we meet in Sinder. I can clearly see on your profile that you have NC as a no. You (for the sake of illustration) have NC blocked, so you don’t see that my profile is NC-yes. You and I can still have interactions that are great and that fit within the scope of Sinder’s settings and rules. If, at some point, I decide I wanted to go play something NC, I would… not invite you to that, since you have it as a no on your profile.

But since I never plan to use any kind of tag blocking feature, I would defer to the opinions of those who would use it. As long as it’s optional and not on by default so it doesn’t affect the rest of us.

11

I see your point, however, it’s not just about the tags and staying out of certain areas. There are certain characters I really don’t want to see at all that have attributes that are readily visible either in the profile picture/name/species within the awake list.

To give an example, I play mostly feral characters. It is possible that there is someone out there who is very uncomfortable with feral characters to the point where they’d rather not see them at all in the awake list. Or maybe they’re not that bothered, but they’d never consider a feral character for an RP. That person in this case would hide ferals from their awake list and stay out of areas that are frequented by ferals.

I do agree with you though, that if anything, the feature should be purely optional so that if someone doesn’t want to use it, they have that choice.