Suggestion: Hide characters in the #lobby

It seems to me there are two motivations here.
1. Making the list of people in the lobby easier to search.
2. Not looking at people who you find annoying for whatever reason.

I think an easy solution for both is to offer something that would be the opposite of the "favorite" function.
If you mark someone as your favorite, they show up on top of the list. If you do this new thing (let's call it hide), the character will appear all the way on the bottom, so as you search through the list, you will only ever see them if you go over everyone else who you didn't hide.
And if you hid them because they were annoying, you'll know not to scroll all the way down.
I am against censoring/blacking out particular images on principle (as long as the images don't depict illegal stuff).

Hmm sending characters to the bottom of the list sounds like a good compromise and something I did not think of. Thank you for the great idea!

Just collecting ideas not making any promises here.

I hear you, and disagree.

The motivation for me isn't to make the lobby 'easier to search', the motivation is to make it easy to see at a glance if there is ANYONE in the lobby I'm interested in playing with.

My ultimate goal would be to 'hide' everyone I have absolutely no interest in playing with, so ONLY people I might be interested in, would show up in my lobby list.

Arranging the list of people I have no interest in playing with in order of how disinterested I am, is not a functional solution to this problem.

My ultimate goal would be to 'hide' everyone I have absolutely no interest in playing with, so ONLY people I might be interested in, would show up in my lobby list.
Noted.

PS: Did you know; As a workaround, you can use the favorite function and favorite characters you like, this will make them appear at the top of the list.
You can also create rooms and federations and only invite people you might be interested in.

Yes, absolutely, and thank you for pointing that out.

The issue becomes, if none of my 'favorites' are in the room, that doesn't mean they haven't created another character I might also be interested in playing with, or someone new I might be interested in playing with, but I can barely find them among the 'noise' of characters I see all the time clogging up the lobby who I never have, and never will be interested in playing with (nor they with me, I suspect).

I agree, filtering IN people I'm interested in is easy. Filtering OUT people I would rather never see again, to make room for the ones I am compatible with is not easy, and IMHO should be.

Did you try the filters here: Search and filter chatting characters
You can filter this to your liking, and only see characters you like.

The #lobby is our main public room and therefore will always have a lot of 'noise'. :)

The filter is wonderful, and I love it. Thank you!

The lobby of course is not always noisy, as blocked characters have their comments hidden in the lobby conversation.

And so presumably would hidden characters.

They'd also be removed from the sidebar, making it even more clean. :)

Please see and understand my point "How to handle the conversation flow of #looby, rooms, and federation rooms " and why this is a bad idea if this would be applied to a large number of hidden characters - which you stated you would use.

-> While your #lobby would look clean and tidy, you would break the conversation flow of everyone else. When you hide a large portion of messages. And only reply to parts you see. If this is done by everyone, the lobby would be chaos.

The same problem exists already with blocked characters, but as blocking is used more carefully, it does not create to much trouble in the general lobby conversation flow. But it is from time to time noticeable.
Hiding messages in the lobby on a wide range would fully break it.

The lobby is a public space, not your space. We offer more than just one system, to create your own space. I will not make the lobby your space.

Very fair! The lobby is a lovely space. :)

You do bring up an interesting point though, an alternative could be to give users the option to create 'private lobby' rooms, where individuals could curate their own list of who is online. Not even a place to chat, just a list of everyone online like the lobby but with the additional option to hide those from the list that you aren't interested in seeing, and then from there you could reach out to other users privately if you're interested in chatting. Or, if you want to chat inside the public lobby, that option still would exist.

I have no interest in messing up the lobby chat, for sure!

YES! Preach!

I think one option would only be marginally more convenient to you than the other, but significantly more difficult to implement. Hidden people wouldn't be arranged by the degree of interest (I at least don't expect this option to be introduced), but most likely by the order in which you hid them.

And, like with the favorite feature, there could be a small icon, like a star, or a circle, or an X, next to the names of hidden people, so you know you can stop looking when you're at the end of un-hidden characters.

Again, I second and agree with what Greg the Pet Vet is saying.

............

[rambling warning] I'm reading and I am curious about your idea of:

• How to handle the conversation flow of #looby, rooms, and federation rooms
  • If someone is trigger-happy with hiding a lot o chars, his view of the rooms might be quite different compared to someone who hides none. Therefore his post might be entirely out of context or even interrupting.
    • And some confirmed that you would use more often 'hide' then 'block'
  • Should this person then see a dummy line such as "hidden content posted" for each line that we hide from his view? So he would be aware that something is going on that he can't see. Or might that be ugly and distracting?

• Maybe hiding chars supports stalking?:
  • If you hide a char because he is annoying, you ask us to remove him from all your views but not block him. Meaning he can follow you around in all rooms, stalking you. He even can talk publicly against 'you'. And you would have no way of seeing or reporting it.
  • With the current solution, you at least know he is here. ** And don't forget blocking works both ways, meaning he can't see your text. But hiding would only work one way, you can't see him, but he still can see (stalk) you.
  • And all he needs to do to secretly stalk you around is a dickpic because he figured out you hide all dick pics chars. And as you decided then to hide him, you would not even recognize that he follows you around in all rooms.
  • In other words: Hiding means, a random char can see everything you do, but you don't even know he is there. (Once he triggered you enough to press the hide button.) Stalkers would love that feature!

• If hiding/blocking chars would remove them from the user list, the noise about "ChatFighters is using bots" is louder again because:
  • Solution A) the total number of chatters in a room would no longer match the number of chars.
  • Solution B) The total number of the chatters would be different for everyone.
  • Granted, this is just a small problem, but just one more topic that needs a decision.
  • And believe me, someone would be opening a support case or a forum post, "the room shows 5 users, but I only see 3" or "Why is my friend seeing 5 users and I only 3?". So that screams for a 'quick unhide' button in rooms maybe -> more work?

• If you hide someone, would that be a character or account decision?
• If you hide someone, would you hide all his characters (like it works for blocking), or only the current character?

I'm sure I missed some points. But it is not as simple as 'just allow me to hide'. And I'm not convinced that this might be the most important feature to invest time in (considering mute and block are already there) right now - but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise. Next on our internal roadmap was a federation update, but we can change it to a hide function update instead.

For me, I really only need this 'hide character' function inside the lobby. Others may want it site wide.

The lobby already hides comments from blocked characters, so I think extending that functionality to rooms if some characters were 'hidden' would be consistent across the site, and therefore a moot point. Yes, it's up to the user who has blocked or hidden people to navigate their conversations with some of the information hidden.... just like what currently happens in the lobby with blocked characters.

As for stalkers? Make one "hide character" button and one "hide and block" button (that blocks, but does not hide, all other characters associated with the account.) Problem solved.

As for the count of people inside a room: change the number count of active users to number of active users / number of hidden users. Problem solved. (And if you're super cool, you could also make that "number of hidden users" button clickable to see who you've hidden in that room. :D)

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The issue with making separate sections of the site for male/male, female/female, and mixed, is MANY times I am approached by women who have written "female/female only" on their profile. They just don't want to be identified as women who would enjoy fighting men, because they don't want to be approached. With all due respect, *I think splitting up by gender preference is a bad idea.*

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My personal opinion? Is that I don't use federations, so a federation update would not improve my experience. Eliminating 80% of the people I'll NEVER interact with from my view, so I don't have to scroll up and down the lobby to see if there's anyone I might be interested in playing with, definitely would.

For the record, I second pretty much everything Greg the Pet Vet said. With absolutely all due respect to The Tech who keeps this site running, a lot of the problems mentioned are already things we have to deal with in the current system. Having a hide option likely wouldn't exacerbate them.

Well, a few of the things you mentioned are true for "mute in lobby" as well (especially in regard to "weird conversation" or "may talk behind your back but do so right in front of you).

A different approach: how about just "black-out the avatar" instead of hiding the complete entry and text? This will not the issue of all people that contributed to this topic so far, but would help those that would like to have some things no longer being pushed into their face without causing the problems you worry about

That kind of exists in the chat options, you can disable avatar pics in the chat text.

But I understand you want to hide only specific pictures with neutral versions - in the chat and user list. That's doable.

But.. you do know to which website you joined right? :D
We will never be family-friendly. So if we start by offering an option to hide pictures, what's next?
But if hiding the avatar picture would already make a huge difference, then sure, why not. But don't ask all couple of weeks to hide another part. ;)
-> This reply is to everyone not only specifically to you :)

• Male vs male
• Female vs female
• Mixed

So I think it might be cool to choose your preference, and then apply certain site-wide changes to hide other content - with dedicated #lobbies etc.
Then (fake) girls don't need to be upset by (fake) dicks.

I want to throw my support in for Karla's suggestion to be able to hide certain avatars if it's do-able.

I don't have anything against people putting a picture of a huge cock or giant saggy tits on their profile, because I only have to see it if I actively click on their profile to look at it, but when it is their -main- profile picture used as their avatar, I am forced to see it every time I look at the lobby user list and they happen to be on screen on the list.

Karla is definitely not alone in being here for reasons other than regular porn, and this is something that has bothered me as well. In fact, if someone DMs me for a match and their profile picture is a dick pic, I immediately turn them down and tell them that I decline anyone with a dick pic avatar because it's pretty clear we're not here for the same things.

Instead of blacking them out, what about the alternative of moving them to the bottom?
- That would bring the advantage that you can from time to time glance at them to see if they changed the picture.

Or would that not go far enough for you?

That would probably work for me, personally. The only issues I can see is if someone like that is in a federation with me, federation user lists usually aren't that long so they'd always be there on screen.

Second thing is someone who has avatars shown in the actual chat would still see the images whenever the dick/tit avatar person sends a chat message.

I should also say that even though the in your face nude pictures as avatars bothers me, it's not a -huge- deal to me. I've been on this site for years and never complained about it, but I figure since changes are already being discussed that could mitigate this thing that is one of the very few complaints I have about the site, I might as well voice my support for it!

I'm all for this too, just as long as it ain't much of a technical lift. Cos the rest of the site just works so great for free, it's almost embarrassing to ask for anything else 😉

I would really appreciate such a "hide" function: a number of users have in-chat-avatars basically shoving their genitals (male and sometimes female) right in your face. I don´t die when I see a dick or a spread-wide-vulva, but I do not come here for "regular porn", so I would be happy to be able to "hide" those. Or, have a "block" actually hide those from view as well (two problems solved with one click, so to speak)

Yes, sista! Preach. Amen to everything you said.

I would also like to point out that some users have purposely put up ugly or disgusting images as their avatars to force others to see it. It really is a troll move, and honestly, one of the reasons I avoid the Lobby.

I completely support this option!

And to be clear, so people can hide me as well, if I am not of interest to them.

Agree with the idea, the hide feature would help to make the list shorter. It is getting too long and with people I have zero interest of contact them.

The ability to hide other users would be a welcomed feature. I feel that sometimes people I have blocked or who are blocking me purposely stay in the spaces I am in explicitly to catch my attention. Sometimes it can't be helped due to mutually shared federations. Regardless, I think such a hide feature could cut down on some bullying from those who clearly don't want to be associated with or even want to see users they have blocked. Ideally, such a function would be users hiding others, not automatically kicking in for both sides when a person hides one, much as we see with Blocking.

While I'm a huge fan of inclusivity and the joining of a massive community with common interests...it's a reality that not everyone on the site shares the same interests. Some folks here are here for the female/female stuff, and simply don't have much to say for folks who present or are interested in only male/male interactions, or whatever else the case may be.

If a 'Hide' were implemented as an optional feature, it could be beneficial for users who like to have a more filtered and streamlined experience , while those who have wider interests, are social butterflies, or simply prefer not hide/block people, would still have the freedom to see and interact with the community at large.

I know there is an option to 'Mute' a character in the #lobby, and 'Block' a character in the #lobby, but I would LOVE to see an option to 'Hide' a character in the #lobby so they don't show up in my sidebar at all.