Forums » Help » Can I sort to avoid anonymous characters?

Due to the amount of times I have gotten ghosted by anonymously played characters, I try to avoid them like the plague.
Which is very annoying when I look for potential roleplays. I get so invested in the posts, only to realise its posted by a character played anonymously.

Please tell me there is a way to sort so I dont have to keep getting disappointed like this?

That actually is a good idea! An added tick box on the character list search to 'exclude anonymous characters' would be a good feature. The default would still be 'all characters'. I seem to remember this being discussed before... *off to search*

Exactly! It absolutely would. It would certainly save many some headache. I doubt im alone in this kinda frustration

I bet a toggle in the character search is possible to make, but I don't think it's possible to sift out forum topics started by anonymous characters, which is what I think your first post was about? That seems like a massive undertaking to me.

I personally just have a rule to not play with anons over DM at all ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠˘⁠_⁠˘⁠)⁠┌ Public boards or nothing.

I agree that a tick box to exempt anonymous characters from the character search would be a nice feature. But my experience here is anonymous characters don't ghost any more or less than public characters/accounts.

I guess I don't understand. If you were "avoiding anonymous character like the plague", yet you "look for potential roleplay posts" and "get so invested in the posts", you would already know the character is anonymous since it is clearly stated under the character name, and they would have had posted whatever post you're looking at and getting invested in. Your reasoning doesn't make sense to me.

Suggesting a good feature enhancement is one thing, but dissing on anonymous characters as if there is some sinister reason they are anonymous isn't really called for, is it? Like Bruinen says... if you don't like interacting with anonymous character, don't interact with anonymous characters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't. But I use rpr mostly on my phone. And therefore, posted by anonymous characters is the last thing I see. I see the title first, then I read a bit of the post and just before im about to tap into the post, I see its anonymous.
Could just be ive been unlucky with the ones ive done. Ive had handfuls of interactions both positive and negative. I dont mean to diss anyone for using anonymous characters, not at all.
Just knowing someone's actual profile before starting would be nice. Especially if they're like me and they tend to keep their partners updated on life situations through their status.
Avoiding like the plague might have been harsh. I just wish there was a way I could peruse easily with my preference in mind, is all.
Though these days ive developed a habit of scrolling down to see who made the post before I read much more than the title.

I'm going to second Archivest here and repeat that that your saying doesn't happen more or less with Anonymous Users then it does with non Anonymous. I personally tend to use my status to tell my partners when I'll be gone or when somthing will effect my replies but I also DM the active ones and I've left my status as quotes or funny tidbits and I've had partners who's status is only funny quotes or sayings.
I've actually been ghosted less by Anonymous users then I have by non Anonymous ones and if I could go back in time I would make all my characters Anonymous for personal reasons.

I will refer to my comment above. To shit on people with anonymous characters was not my intention. I worded it wrong and thats my mistake. I have an anonymous character too that I use for certain ones. I simply used the wrong wording to explain something I experience on the sites phone formatting

I still don’t understand what you mean MynMeni. I’m on my phone now, and when I go into a forum section (RP ads for example), the thread titles are to the left and the character name with (played anonymously) or (played by account name) is to the right. No scrolling. I’ll leave it at that.

I do like the toggle selection on the character list search though.

This has kind of been kicked to death already, but as someone who has over 20 years of play by post experience, this issue really isn't about anonymous characters vs. being able to identify the player. The fact is, it is very hard to find committed players that "get you", write well and are available regularly to be able to post. That is just the reality of things unfortunately. Even when I know someone's screen name, that seldom makes any difference in terms of "knowing them". At best, I have a secondary place to send a private message if they don't respond to a pm that I send their character if they go silent. My only concern about Anonymous characters is I don't know if I'm dealing with an underage player. I don't deal with minors. The only other reason age can be important is life experience. I'm an older Gen Xer who likes doing modern day/slice of life type stuff. It's harder for younger writers to really understand the world before the internet in general if they weren't around then. Also, it can be hard in certain types of RPs to work with someone who is in a different spot/time in their life in terms of relatability. That can be important in trying to write something highly detailed if realism is important to you. That's a big deal to me, although it may not matter to others. I guess it really depends on the type of RP you are doing and other factors.

Perhaps your browser is in desktop mode? Either way, i use Chrome on my phone and the posters identity is usually on the bottom

This is one of several reasons why I don't like the anonymous characters. I have no way of knowing the age of the person behind the character. The thought I might be writing about certain topics to a minor is something I wouldn't want on my conscience. To clarify: I don't mind if a person reaches out to me with their actual account before using an anonymous character. That is completely fine. Having communication only through an anonymous character is where i draw the line, personally.
That being said, the ghosting rate from clear profiles and anonymous characters is about the same

I hope my earlier shruggie didn't come across as dismissive! That wasn't my intent.

But the above is also the main reason for why I don't RP with anons over DM. If we keep it on the public boards (alternatively an age-restricted Group), there are more easily enforceable limits on the maturity level of the content we post, thus dramatically reducing the risk of engaging with children in a way that's way beyond my comfort level.

I don't know what's going on with the way post/poster's name is aligned for you, that sounds a little annoying; the name + timestamp comes first when I'm viewing the site in the Firefox mobile browser. Maybe it's a setting you've toggled on or off somewhere?

I believe it could be that I've toggled to let the site "resize to fit smaller screens"
Here's what it looks like to me. Edited to hide the poster, of course
It gets frustrating

Oh wow, yeah, definitely doesn't look like that to me. Supposed to go timestamp » poster » post body » RP details, just like when viewed on a big screen.

If the site looks like that to you I understand your irritation!

Heh. For a second I was worried people thought i was going crazy haha. This is where my frustration comes from. But due to the size being more comfortable to me, I will keep using the site like this. I just have to develop a habit to scroll down to see the poster before i get invested in the post

I believe I know what the issue is.

What you're looking at is the Find RP page, not the looking for RP forum post page. When you click on "Find RP" at the top it shows RP prompts on desktop in an overview format for easier scrolling through prompts, so you don't have to manually open each forum post to see what's inside content wise. That layout is different from a regular forum post, and you're correct that a name and icon shows up on the bottom instead of the top like with a forum post.

I'm not sure if Kim had a specific reasoning for formatting it this way. I imagine the intent was probably "the genre information and the content of the request itself are the most important to show because most users want that information before knowing the name of the character or user" which is why they're visible first on mobile.

As for filtering out anonymous characters, I imagine that wouldn't be too difficult to add. I do worry that people will forget they have this toggled and drastically reduce the available prompts, leading to complaints about inactivity. But that may be a "if the user chooses to toggle this, it's on them" situation too?

Either way, hopefully Kim can find some time to chime in on this.

Im also imagining this won't be too hard to add. I mean, we can adjust our search preferences. Couldn't it just be as simple as that? Just as easily as we choose to see posts with required writing length or posts open to everyone or just adults.
That said, I know nothing about setting a website together and how hard it would be to make this possible.

My original post was made out of frustration after a page where the majority of the posts were posted anonymously.
Another thing I wish the find rp page would sort out... my own posts. I dont need to see that either haha

When I go to the community character list and I click the 'More Search Options, I get some parameters I can check. ↓



If I check any of these options and search, I get the result, but the next time I come to do it, the check boxes are again all unchecked. If adding a 'exclude anonymous characters' check box option isn't a big problem, it would satisfy the desire to not see anonymous characters on the list and won't remain checked for the next search.

Personally I don't care if characters are public or anon. I judge the character on their profile content and not whether they are public or anon, but that is just me.

I agree with Dawn on the above. Whether I can identify the user is pretty much irrelevant. There is one concern I have based on something I saw recently- an underage user expressed interest in certain adult themes that are not only inappropriate, but a violation of the terms of the site. As far as I know, everyone can make anonymous characters. I do have a concern now about a minor making an anonymous character to join or advertise an RP that is not appropriate for those under 18.