Membership Images or Descriptions? (Forums)

[Morrigan 1,826]

Continuing on my questions about roleplay development. This one is more specific to forum roleplaying but my question here is, what do you prefer as far as forum viewing. The options are relatively clear and I want to know your preference as a staff member and a perspective member (I figure they may be even but you never know).

 

For me I have no preference. If I understand the setting then the image will hopefully give me a feel for the location I'm going to post in. Descriptions are nice but can be too lengthy on the board index (sometimes I feel that a topic would be better). Otherwise I really have no preference. Note that I'm an avid advocate for subforum-less forums for easier browsing.

[PERSEPHONE 1]

I like both but in a sense where the written description is not a lot to read either. If there's an image and then a block of text, that gets overwhelming for me, I guess. I just want a brief rundown of specifics to accompany the picture.

[Orchid 12]

For me, it depends entirely on the RP itself.

 

Fantasy RP's, I prefer written descriptions so I have an idea of what the setting is supposed to be.

 

Real life? Big cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, pictures are fine. Small town places that aren't widely known? Gimmie some text so I know what's what.

 

Very rarely do I like 'both' as it's usually ugly. I haven't seen it well done yet on a site.

[Elena 546]

I voted for both. It can work with a small image on the board as such, but I need a more detailed description (hopefully accompanied by an image) in a pinned topic inside the subforum. Because all the writers need to see the same thing. Where a tavern wasn't described, some saw it had wooden benches, others big vaults and tables and chairs, etc. When a ship wasn't described, it became a mix of a brig/ frigate/ sloop quickly, with 1-2 decks at each writer's imagination.

[CovertSphinx 710]

I've always done basic written descriptions, but that was also because most of my boards frequented were some sort of fandom. So we sort of all were on the same page to begin with.

 

With my new one, I plan to put small images on the index page, but I also have a "World Atlas" dedicated to describing each location in more detail. This way the forums aren't cluttered.

[Sparky Muse 16]

I like both, but then again, I strongly dislike either being "required", and the "real-life celebrity face claims" do nothing but annoy me, especially since a lot of those are now "required" on a lot of sites I see and in several cases the app won't work without it. It's kind of like, say you've got a character in mind, it doesn't fit any known celebrity, so it's either, "redesign the character image or don't use the character". It's annoying and kinda rude, far as I care. Yes, images are nice, but I can't say I really like the limited options of only Real-Life or Anime/Manga, especially when they get more limited the more users on the site.

[Space_Rogue 0]

My preference is a brief but concise description of a location with a suitable photo. With my RPG (one of them at least) we have the wiki as a reference and often we will copy and modify some of that description for locations, especially around the SGC. Photos are much easier

[KARA BELLA 18]

As staff or a prospective member I like both, description for ooc forums and images for if forums.  I try and keep by descriptions short and to the point because yah sometimes they can get a little too long.

[Space_Rogue 0]

4 hours ago, KARA BELLA said:

As staff or a prospective member I like both, description for ooc forums and images for if forums.  I try and keep by descriptions short and to the point because yah sometimes they can get a little too long.

We had one guy copy and paste the entire page from one section of the Stargate wiki and I mean the ENTIRE page...*facepalm*

[KARA BELLA 18]

31 minutes ago, Space_Rogue said:

We had one guy copy and paste the entire page from one section of the Stargate wiki and I mean the ENTIRE page...*facepalm*

Why?  Why would anyone not at least try and write their own descriptions?

[Space_Rogue 0]

26 minutes ago, KARA BELLA said:

Why?  Why would anyone not at least try and write their own descriptions?

I think the word is lazy

[gavinvenom 1]

As both an admin and a player I prefer descriptions. I really have no reason why I prefer that. It doesn't keep me from thinking games look nice or joining if pictures are used instead of forum descriptions. I just like written descriptions better for some reason.

[Josie 198]

For me it depends on the setting, but in general I like to have both! In some cases I don't feel it's necessary to have both an image and a description, or it's simply not practical to. I don't tend to make forums for extremely specific locations, but rather entire countries or regions, which makes having a description or an image impractical by turns.

[Icewolf 258]

With a forum, I prefer description over images, but I have used maps so I don't have to list every individual location of an area. I'm not sure that I would join a forum if there were too many images because I'd wonder if the quality of the writing was good.

 

@Sparky Muse As I do a lot of fantasy rp, it makes me cringe when people use images of celebrities as their face claim when the celebrity is dressed in modern clothing. If people can't find find an appropriate photograph to depict their character, then I'd prefer it if they used good fantasy art. I've lost count of the number of hours I've spent searching for images which fit my characters, trying to find something that fits their personality and appearance, and I try to stay away from using celebrities which are very common to depict original characters in a fandom at any particular time. I cannot take a character seriously in a fantasy/historical setting if the face claim is modern. Sometimes we would flip characters to a modern setting for a short time and I'd find it even more difficult to find modern face claims that fit the personality of my female original characters because most of the ones I come across are glamour/catwalk/award ceremony/movie premiere type photos where make-up, etc is done perfectly. That doesn't fit the type of characters I normally write.

[Gina 17]

Definitely both. I'm a visual person, so I love being able to see what an area should look like as well as read the details and specifics for it. As an admin, providing both options to the member-base is something I do in case someone needs one and not the other. It shouldn't hurt to have both, unless it ends up being a hassle to hunt both pieces down.