Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Last Login Date Feature?

I was wondering if it a “Last Login Date” feature could be implemented for writer and character profiles.

See, ever since I was shown the random character link, I’ve been using that extensively to find potential rp people.

However, I’ve found no way to determine if said are inactive or dead other than looking at their recent activity and seeing if they’ve done anything as of late. Even then, this is a weak way of trying to find activity, as some people just may not be outgoing.

As such, I think it would be a nifty feature to see if a profile been online recently. Of course, also make it to where this can be turned off if people don’t want their activities known.

This. I would appreciate it as well for finding future RP partners and they had no recent public activity. Sometimes it doesn't mean that they're gone right away; they could be using PMs instead, but you don't know that off the bat until they start posting in public again for RP or something similar.

So yeah, I have to second this one.

I believe the random character and user links only limit their findings to users who have been active in the last... I think it was either 1 or 2 months? Most features on RPR are focused on only bringing you data that is up to date, to avoid you running into the issue you're describing of being met with 'dead content'.

I'm personally very hesitant about features like this because they add more tools that make stalking and harassment easier, but if they have to be manually toggled, and are turned off by default, then I wouldn't be against it.

I actually didn't think of it like that, Sanne. As someone who has been stalked before, it should've hit me that it can be used for something like that as well. I agree, if it's manually changeable and off by default, I think it would be fine.

But wouldn't that also defeat the purpose of the feature being there in the first place by not being viewable when first implemented? I'm sure people can turn it on when the news comes out, but newbies might not know that information when joining the site.

It's just a curious thought. I'm personally neutral on this now that I've given it a second thought. Yes, it would be ten times useful for contacting people who don't seem active but really are. But it also does give way for stalking if said people aren't publicly active to maintain privacy.

If it's implemented in a way that's not too intrusive yet people can still see it somehow and have the option of turning it off, I wouldn't mind. For example, giving a vague indicator instead of a precise date. (I.e. This person was active this week, this person was active in the past month, etc.) It's just random thoughts being tossed out there. I'm not much of a programmer yet to give any sound advice about how to do it.

RPR values a user's privacy before the convenience of others because privacy is the baseline of having a safe and enjoyable experience on the internet. Even the 'Currently Online' feature is off or Friends Only by default and has to be toggled to include people you don't already know. Every account starts with the features set in such a way to protect your privacy, why would this be any different? I'm not comfortable with the idea that a stranger's convenience to track when I was last online outweighs my right to privacy when I first join a site - lots of places do this, and it bothers me a lot personally.

If this feature gets implemented, then it will be available in the same settings that users are directed to and expect to find it when they want to make changes to their privacy settings. I'd be surprised if it was a huge issue to find it.

@Sanne: Ah, okay! That's totally understandable. I keep forgetting that the online now options and the like were set to friends only by default. But that does bring up a tiny question: Why doesn't the online now option suffice when there's no public activity? I can see why it won't suffice with people you haven't friended, but what about people who have?

Overall, I have to agree with Sanne here. If it's off by default, or maybe even friends only by default, then I wouldn't mind it much if at all. I'm still neutral on it and have mixed feelings for it because I usually rely on the public activity of a person and word of mouth from others that they're online instead of a last login date. (Which makes me a lot more comfortable than looking at a login date and feeling like a stalker, now that I think about it.) It does feel intrusive to a user's privacy, but it's also useful in its own way. It's up to Kim though on how viable it would be with the current setup.

Any confirmation that the random character or group searches only show active ones? Does that count players being online generally? That seems like a neat feature.

I would still really love to see a feature like this, opt-in/out or otherwise. As someone who likes to look over profiles more before I go dive in and message them that they have at least some lurking activity. The "recent-activity" feature at the bottom of most profiles isn't usually the most accurate in telling someone how frequently a person comes online. Instead it just shows how often they speak out in public areas.

For anonymous characters this feature would be absolutely brilliant. They don't usually have recent activity to follow, unless again they're in public areas. So, if you're trying to find out if the USER for that character has at least been online recently then you're more aware of the possibility of finding a new game partner.

I'm not sure if the random character one shows recent activity, but after some personal studying towards the groups area I can tell that it only shows groups that have recently updated a page/announcements/or added new members. It doesn't tell you WHAT they've done, but it certainly shows only groups that have done something more recently. I tested this with my own groups I've made and found that they were at the top of the list and then trickled down based on other groups activities.

I know that list of characters offered to search through usually shows newest created or updated and what not, but the random character feature I don't think follows the same thing.

I don't see this as something for users to use for stalking, per se, but it could certainly be used for those users that don't have a good sense of when it is okay to ask someone if they're going to reply. I have come across users who are extremely impatient when it comes to getting a reply and will message within hours of posting their own reply to see if they're going to get a reply back. This site has been the worst by far, from personal experience, I have seen of this issue. (Not to say anything negative on RPR, but I didn't have this issue on other mediums, though other friends of mine certainly had this issue elsewhere. I've just noticed it seems far more prominent here than anywhere else I've seen.)

Anyhow, I can see where the concern lies for those users who appreciate the communities patience and would see impatient users finding this feature to be highly advantageous towards pestering other writers. However, there is a certain harassment rule to this and can easily be maintained with simple reporting or blocking of anyone that decides to go that route. We're big kids, we can take care of ourselves and be responsible in making sure the community can follow the rules just the same. Just the same, if this feature helps someone find someone who is definitely stalking them then it helps the staff of the site identify good and bad behaviours to prevent future issues.

@PrettySir
Though I can see the convenience of this feature being mandatory, I value privacy much more. Sending a PM to a user just saying "Hi, are you open to RP?" wastes very little time if nothing comes of it, and if someone lacks patience during RP then they'll pester you regardless of your online status if you're not replying.

The main reason people make anon characters is so that people are unable to associate that character with any site user. Being able to use this feature would be one step closer to connecting dots if you suspect who the user is, and would make the anon option redundant.

Unfortunately any punishments would never undo the fact that the stalked user's privacy has still been violated, and the information could have easily been leaked to places where damage control is difficult/impossible. All it takes is one person with malicious intent and this can spiral out of control.

In this specific case, this isn't true! The random character and random user links were actually added by your request back when you were a moderator - they were originally purely for mods to bounce around the site getting a random sample of stuff they might not normally see, so we could catch rule breaking. This was back before the days of us being able to see a stream of all images uploaded to the site, so our methods of checking for rule breaking were a lot more hodgepodge. How's that for trivia?

Although these links were eventually then shared publicly for people to play with, because their original intent was not about finding RP partners but about helping mods find stuff that may have slipped our notice, they have no time restrictions associated with them.

For privacy reasons, I don't think we would expose any exact dates for anyone. However, for those who have opted in to showing their online status to others, I could happily consider the possibility of generalities. "This user has been active in the last week," or "this user has been active in the last month" type notices, perhaps?

Personally, that still kind of makes me uncomfortable.

I appreciate the attempts to compromise, though even with the idea of 'this user has been active within the past--', there's always going to be that possibility that there might be that person that has little respect for one's privacy or personal matters, and might end up making something worse for a person by poking and prodding.

I consider this especially with users that might use this information to also pester someone off site -- like a messenger such as Skype or Discord. I have my status on those kinds of things set to invisible for my own reasons a lot of the time, and I've had people contact me as soon as they see that I've made a post on RPR because that stuff also shows up for people that either like to look at my profile, or follow my activity on their home feed on the site.

Oh man, I forgot about why those links existed LOL. I must be thinking about something else then, like the RP Finder?

If the addition is an opt-in feature, and not automatic when showing online, then I'd be in favor. Otherwise I'd probably never set my online status to show again.

Probably! The RP Finder is increasingly aggressive in its attempts to show relevant info.

I would be immeasurably happy with even THIS option. There's so little one could do with the information, and I personally feel the paranoia on this site is a little high when it comes to "stalkers" online. I realize they are a serious thing, but it's gotten a little out of hand and there are good people, not stalkers, who just want to see if someone's been online recently before handing out a hello.

This again could be an opt-in/out feature for those who are absolutely terrified of being stalked and would prefer not having the feature on at all.

I'd love to see this, it would be amazing and I'd love to let my own followers know when I've been around.

For anyone who wants to try and use this to "harass" me for attention, I'd be gladly reporting them for stalking or harassment as one should be doing to prevent that person from getting away with it at all.

I appreciate your input and I understand that this is not something that has happened to/bothered you personally. However, there are members on the site who dealt with stalking situations severe enough to get the police involved where their lives were at risk and account deletion was their only option to get away from their stalker because *any* information on their activity was a threat. While it may seem paranoid to you, it's a reality for enough members to take privacy like this seriously, and it comes across as dismissive of their experiences when you say things like this. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but could you please be more respectful of people when they express concerns like this and don't make it seem like they're being silly, even if it feels silly to you?

Edit: I also want to add that just reporting stalkers to mods when said stalkers may have followed you across literally a dozen sites doesn't do anything to help protect members. While the tools in place are good, they are not fool proof, and stalkers go very far to get around such things. Prevention should be a priority rather than putting a bandaid on it.

Assuming makes an ass of you and me.
I've not done anything to disrespect or belittle anyone's experiences as I have no knowledge of anyone's experiences of traumas here on the sight but as someone who has dealt with stalkers and sitatuions that actually completely ran me off of websites before, I can say with confidence that I understand the seriousness of the situation of stalking as I did in my post before and did not belittle them or make them sound silly.

I cannot control nor make my words come across to you in a way that would make them more "appropriate" and "respectful" because I have already stated I understand the seriousness. It is up to you on how you read and take my words.

1. I never stated that it was silly nor did I say it felt silly. I merely stated it's abundance.

I'm basing my words on the fact that each time a feature has come up similar to this one the immediate concern is a strong and rather panicked response to the possibility of stalkers finding more ways to stalk.

2. I would appreciate not being called disrespectful until you go through every possibility of what I have said. I would hate to have a strong pillar and prominently abundant and influential figure of the site stating such because your words have 100s of times more influence than my own. Please consider this with your platform when approaching people publically.

3. I would like to continue by staying on topic of the subject. Thank you.

Edit: please do not contact me on further discussions on this. Stating a fact that people respond with being paranoid or upset at the possibility of stalkers is NOT invalidating their experience or belittling it. Please do not assume this of my statements. Being paranoid is NOT Negative. The word paranoid holds a negative connotation by readers but it not how I am using it. Being panicked at the possibility of stalkers is also not invalidating an experience when someone points it out. If this is your assumption of my statements, I kindly ask you to think on that again.

I believe the reason that the Anonymous feature even exists, and Kim can correct me on this if I am wrong, is to prevent this from being a thing? I personally have 28 characters, and of those characters, 20 of them are not publicly listed on my profile because they are not characters that I want everyone to associate with me as a player. Granted, I tell my immediate partners about them after they've been created, but the fact of the matter stands that there are players on this platform that do not wish to have their activity readily available.


I feel like this comment negates what you just said about the Last Login feature being useful. If someone comes to your character's page and sees that you have been active with them in say, the last 12 hours, they might not take into account the Time Zones. If someone wants to roleplay with you that badly, they will private message you beforehand to hash out details and determine if something between the two of you will even be worth it.

I would actually like to direct your attention to the Rules and Terms section of the site. There are users that are 13 years of age on the platform. So, no, we are not all big kids here, we cannot all take care of ourselves. Many 13-year-olds that I know have not made any major life choices. In fact, as a general rule of thumb 13 years is considered a minor and as such the major decision making falls to their parents. When I was 13, I was testing the limits of the rules around me, not following them.


Kim's already addressed this, but allow me to pitch my two cents into the well of knowledge:

1. There is this thing called "Legality" that people don't seem to be taking into consideration. We use "usernames" that are not our actual names (aside from a select few of us like Kim, Ben, and a friend of mine that I will not name publicly) because we don't need/want our employers to find our account. Yes I have supplied my given name on my profile, but that was my decision! The only other thing that is publicly displayed is my age so that players coming to it know that I am safe to play adult content with.
2. Our emails are also hidden from the public eye so that other player cannot find them and blow up our emails asking us if we'll be logging onto RPR.

In every reply to this thread I have seen by Sanne or anyone else, I have not seen one person refer to you as "disrespectful", even though that is how you've been presenting yourself in my honest opinion. (Also, "publically" isn't a word, the correct spelling is "publicly. Sorry, I'm a Creative Writer, so I nitpick things at times.)


All of that being said!

I feel like if Kim was to implement something that allowed users to see when other users were last active, I would personally leave this site. I personally have mental health issues, I'm more active during manic periods which are random at best. During the times I am not as active, I still open RPR to update the group that Sanne runs. I feel like if this option were created, it would allow those following my profile to question why I'm even on the platform in the first place. But, this is my own fear with it.

Okay, I think I understand the request, the reasons behind it, and the counterbalancing concerns to manage enough that this conversation can be closed.