Characters vs. Profiles

I think renaming them to "Profiles" could work well to clear up any confusion, as you rightly point out not everyone makes a new profile for each character of theirs. What about "Character Profiles"? We'd need to see more votes for this to indicate broader support before we would consider renaming it at this late stage.

Blacklists are on the account level, because usually the things that squick people out are part of them, rather than part of their character. Though I do agree, the favorite tags could definitely be more useful if account-specific.

Actually, maybe I'm using blacklists a tad wrong, since I also blacklist common things I dislike (but they don't freak me out, like humans, ponies... because I don't want them to come up in the popular/fresh search, but I wouldn't mind seeing the content if it was someone I watch), maybe we could benefit from a dislike section that's profile specific instead :o

I personally don't like the idea of "character profiles" and "profiles" being the same thing at ALL, mainly because I have "profiles" for my clean artwork, adult artwork, and fursuit making. However, if I were ever to want to gather a collection for a "character" of mine, I'd put it in a folder, not an account.

In that vein, I think having "Character FOLDERS" would be a better option. The folder could have the character's reference sheet/profile featured on the left in a sidebar, and a collection of the character's artwork in the folder itself. Ideally you'd be able to add artwork from other artists into the folder as well.

Using "Characters" in any extent immediately implies that it's related to works of fiction, and there's really no way around that. It's far less confusing to simply call it what it is: a Profile.

One of the other sites, possibly Weasyl? Maybe Nabyn? I can't even keep them straight anymore.. it had a function for setting up different 'Character' profiles, independent from the main account profile, so you could set up character info, and funnel all art of your character into that 'collection'. I agree that having the main profile say 'Character' is a little strange. She may represent me, but I am not my character. She'd have a pretty hard time working this little tablet. ;) I also have a dozen or so other characters I like to draw and play around with, but wouldn't want to switch between them as my main profile representation.

I Totally agree with this one!

Also, the character tab could include several "characters" in a list with a picture/portrait and the name of the character. Then, if you click the character, you see the character page much like a user profile with statistics such as age, weight, height, species, likes, dislikes, etc. This could all be completely adjustable like the customizable fields of the profiles. Then each of those character pages will have its own gallery/folder where you can store all the pieces featuring the character. To achieve this you could add a new field to the submission management labeled "add characters" besides the "add tags" and "add to collection" fields. If you then upload the submission it will appear in your regular gallery and the assigned collections and additionally under your character page, while still remaining the same submission. So the "galleries" of the characters would actually only be special folders.

The thing about character drawings only being in special folders on your main gallery is perfect, no need for an entire new user page for a new character.
Also "the character tab" is the way to go, add this to your main profile and list your characters there and their atributes, linking to you gallery character folders for their respective art.

Personally I prefer "Character" to "Profile."

One solution would be to add a "profile type" field with "character," "fursuiter," "artist," etc. that would act as a title on the site. Profiles would read in Name (Character), or Group Name, or Name-Artist or something like that.

I totally agree with that! I know a character function from Weasyl where you can upload descriptions and pictures of the characters you are drawing regularly and when I saw a feature named "character" here I thought it would be the same. It was quite confusing to see that there's no connection from the character to my main account/profile/whateveryounameit at all and that it's treated like a completely different account.

This feature is great for people who like to separate their uploads e.g. in sfw and nsfw or pictures and photographs or art and fursuits. However, this is nothing that I would connect to the word "character", therefore I highly recommend to rename it to profiles.

When you want to give every fursuit/character an own profile, you can still use that feature for that purpose, no matter how it is named. However, in my opinion the word "profile" describes much better what do you have to expect from this feature before you create a new character/profile. Which would be a great help considering how much potential this feature has. (Especially until the option to delete a character again is implemented.) :)

I also agree with the idea of creating a possibility to present your OC's somewhere on the profile main page as a subcategory. Many people created impressive backstories for their characters and it's very interesting to read them. :)

Putting in my support for this to be changed. I have set up just one other "character" that is actually meant to be a character who I WILL interact IN CHARACTER with other people as, but that is because she is a story/comic character. The other profiles I have set up are kind of 'oops' "character" profiles that I will end up deleting once that feature is implemented because I don't want to interact as those characters at all. The character page idea is great as having linked "accounts" (that's really what they are, just under one registration which I DO think should be kept as a feature!) for people who have more than one fursona, and maybe DO want to interact as that character with others. See my example above about my comic character.

Tagging off of Beast Shocked NSFW's comment: I think that having a profile type is good. Eventually I'd like to host my comic here, and be able to list the characters who have major roles in it on their own profiles under the @name for the comic..Kind of like how a wikipedia page for a television show lists the cast.

I know that folders are here and good as well, but I want to have another linked "account" to where I can post the more extreme fetishes that people commission me for so those things aren't mixed into my main gallery because I may not be into all of those fetishes that I draw for others, and I don't particularly want to see them all the time.

That's my two cents about this one.

I actually like having separate sub-account for major characters, and I understand while some people need them even more than myself.

Maybe a good solution to this connundrum with regards to what Beast and Sov mentioned (the fursuiter/in-character acting), would be implementing a special tag sub-category that would allow us better mark characters in works (across commissions, multiple images of our own).

Most artists don't actually require a full profile to collect their characters, as it's too cumbersome. But being able to list what characters appear in the work would be definitely helpful (think e621 and its... what color was that thing, green? mastertags). Doubly so since the current tag-system is complicated with capital letters and multiple words.

What I thought "New Character" was: To be able to quickly change between characters.
How I felt: Wait... What about a main profile? I don't get it. I need a business profile first. Why is my main account a character and not a profile?

What I know now: "Add Character" is actually "Add Account Profiles" with the ability to customize info entirely to the point you can make it specifically for alternate accounts of varying reasons. Be it Business, RP, a Separate NSFW account, etc.
How I feel: Oooh, i am so glad I looked this up. That's less confusing now. Now it' something very helpful. I was about to make OC Profiles and find out the hard way what these were actually for specifically. It's cool that having all that under one account is available. How it's titled is confusing. I think there should be a FAQs section describing how these Alt Profiles work. i haven't made one yet, but from what I'm reading, they act as entirely different accounts than your "Main"? I hate trying to check out new features without know anything about them and what using them does.

Things I wonder (without "Adding New Characters"):
1. Are they Separate "Accounts" all together just linked by your main?
2. Do you have to go to that sub profile to view Notifications for it?
3. Can other people see that the profiles are linked?

Just poking my head in to add support to this thread (which I see is Under Review, which makes me very happy). I'm an author, first and foremost, and I've never really been invested in the roleplay/character side of the fur fandom at all. I don't even have a proper fursona, so coming into this site as a newcomer and being immediately asked to identify myself as a "Character" is both confusing and very offputting. Multiple profiles are great - I think the best way to do that would be the GMail setup, where you're only able to act as one person at a time, but you can easily switch your interfaces between associated profiles/accounts by clicking through a dropdown menu or the like. All the same, I do definitely think it should be renamed to "Profile", both to match average user expectations and to avoid alienating more "casual" members of the fandom.

I'm actually confused about what this feature is. Is it basically multiple different accounts under a single master-account? Do people see that the different accounts are associated together?

It's basically just linking multiple "accounts" (which they have called "characters"). You can choose your default, but it's not super easy to switch between them, and no, they're not shown to the public as linked unless you put it somewhere in the profile.

I personally find calling them "characters" dumb. They're accounts, call them what they are.

I would also like to see this feature renamed!

I was confused about its function until I realized it was for alternate profiles.

please rename this to be "profiles" so the function of it is more clear
when I joined I thought it was for separating art of different characters? but there are folders for this

+1
I'm not a character, I'm me! :(

Can someone tell me how characters/profiles appears to the other furries? I'd like to keep my NSFW and SFW stuff strictly and completely separated, have one open for public access and the other strictly members-only. Can you do this with profiles or should I have two separate users. I don't want a guest to be able to see in a list or something that I have other naughty characters.