I certainly love SP, but the one thing lacking, in my opinion, is that the profile is really simple. I would love to see a larger profile where we can write more things about ourselves (hobbies, etc). A larger text box, with more characters allowed, etc.

While I realize that Tal has a lot to do already (I would assume, that is), this is just an idea that would make SP a whole lot sweeter.

Is anyone with me on this? And, feel free to add what you feel the profile should be like (or what should be added.)

It's big enough for me, but if Tal feels like doing it, it's not a big deal. *shrug*

Expanded profiles? These would probably just transform SP into some kind of dating site, dare I say :D

My life is boring as it is. I don't need to let other people know how boring it actually is. :shake: :rolling:

These would probably just transform SP into some kind of dating site, dare I say Haha, but no, that's not what I had in mind. I meant something like the ones on anycraze.com, or something like that.

Looks like I'm not the only one checking the profiles on a daily basis. :angel: I feel they're fine as is. Why would you need more space anyway?

SP is currently using the UBB engine. So far as I've seen, some customisation is available by the settings but I don't exactly know how much. Probably not too much, anyway. Perhaps there are some UBB hacks somewhere to expand the profiles, but we're going to switch to a different board engine when the version Tal wants comes out, so there's not much point customising this one. ;)

Additional info in profiles may be fun, but so is getting to know people and finding out about them. People's post and existing profile info provide quite a lot of information unless the person is being secretive. There's birth date and location, so you can more or less know what kind of culture to expect. Occupation, interests... Interests are a small field, so you need to choose the most important ones -- says something. Then there's also the picture link where some people have photos. If the person has a photo in the profile or an avatar, you can also tell the gender. To my knowledge, there are no cross-gender people-avatar couplings on SP. :p Finally, you can learn about people's views in the Alley or about their other interests in Booktalk, the Sensorium and Colosseum... Then, there are many tidbits in the RBP and the rest of the Whatnots. :p Some people also give their ICQ or AIM ID, so it's a safe guess that they don't mind a conversation with a fellow SP-er. And let's not forget the PM option and #sorcerers. Some people have their own sites and those are also linked in the profile. Reading a person's personal site or blog can tell you much. Ultimately, you can always google the nick. ;)

For example, if you click my profile (chevalier), you will learn that I've been on SP since Dec. 02, was born on 20th April 1983, am interested in "history, languages, psychology, archaelogy, classics, religions, webdesign," and probably wouldn't mind talking for a while on ICQ. My avatar (potrait), as well as the picture in the profile, will reinforce you in the idea that I am male and that alcohol is one of my hobbies not mentioned in the "interests" field :p . Also, you will find the URL to the Tower of Ivory (http://www.towerofivory.net), which is my site. You still probably want to find out what country I'm from. Currently, my "location" field says SP. So you either do a search on the Sorcerous Sundries forum for threads including "nationality" or "country" or "from" in the title and look for a post by me. Or you browse my site for a while and find out that my email address has a "pl" ending, which tells you I'm from Poland. Or if you check the ICQ details for my number given in the profile, you will find out what country I'm from, as well as what languages I speak and some other information. Next, my site also has my MSN contact info, so you should be able to access my MSN profile (with some additional information) and MSN space (some ramblings and a couple of pics).

If you still aren't satisfied, you can look for posts from me or threads started by me in specific SP forum subsections: Booktalk, Sensorium etc. If you need to know what I think about some political or social problems, you search the Alleys for posts by member chevalier including words like "marriage", "Bush" etc. If this is not enough, you can google my e-mail address that you find on my site, as the official [mail removed] won't likely get you any far. If you google "chevalier", you will probably find something, but will have to dig a lot because of all those people with Chevalier for a surname plus historical knights and generally any French site that includes the word (it's a common noun in French, so figures). However, when you take [mail removed], your results will become much, much more relevant. You will even find other forums in which I post and you'll be able to read quite a lot of stuff that I don't post on SP, as well as profile info. This is because all forums and other such sites use e-mail for registration and you leave your e-mail address everywhere, including comments on blog sites.

If you happen to be extremely lucky or know Polish or have linguistic skills or good perception (or use an online Polish-English translator :p ), using that e-mail address in google, you could even find my real name and surname or another e-mail address of mine. Googling another e-mail address (I have 3 plus 5 aliases :p ) would give you even more info, likely getting you my real name and surname. Having my real name and surname from google and my birth date, you have an open way to find such details as what highschool I went to, possibly where I live or even my family members' names and my mobile phone number. Online translators will translate text from languages you don't know.

As a final result, you will have found more stuff than I could possibly remember or even know about being available online, and all this without bothering me with questions. :p Simple, isn't it?

[ October 16, 2005, 17:01: Message edited by: chevalier ]

You'll get some more profile options once we switch to a new board (God knows when that will be at this rate of vB's slow progression), but for now I want to keep profiles as basic as possible, because any customizing could potentially mean trouble when it comes to importing the data into another message board software. But yes, it's on the to-do...

Chev, you forgot your staff page on SP. :shake:

On the few boards I have joined I find that people don't give much information even when they can. I doubt that I would add much to my profile here.

Someone here wants my autobiography? Well...a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, Chev, you mentioned a lot of things, but it would be far simpler and quicker if it was all in one place. If i wanted to quickly check out some information about you, I could just click on your name and *BAM*, there it is!

Expanded profiles? These would probably just transform SP into some kind of dating site, dare I say [Big Grin] You mean it already isn't? :confused:

@Ara: Eh, I guess it *could be*.

The idea of dating a woman of SP seems a bit strange to me :eek:

And besides, who could possibly have interest in *me*? Prove me it exists and I'll believe it :D

Until then...

Only problem with an SP dating service is the lack of available females on here :lol:

Expanded profile would be quite cool for those who use it. But personally I don't see it as neccessary. :)

Optional fields for the new profiles (in no particular order):

- Have you read the Forum Rules? (Yes/What Rules?)
- Hair and eye colour:
- Heigth:
- Weight:
- Gender:
- Body measurements (in cm):
- Name (and picture) of favourite pet:
- Yearly income: (- Now really: )
- Religion:
- Follower of the Pink Dragon (Yes/No)
- Number of evil siblings:
- Can you understand all of chev's posts? (Yes/No way)
- Would you date The New Order?
- Hobbies:
- Education:
- Scanned fingerprint:
- Favourite smiley and gem:
- How would you make the world a better place?
- If you could travel back in time and kill Hitler before he was an adult, would you do it? Explain and cross-examine your answers with the replies of at least two other Board members.

I've seen the "Yearly Income" thing on one of those random poll sites, and I thought it's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Just how crazy or ignorant must someone be to fill something like that out so that any random stranger on the Internet can read it, along with all their other detailed personal information? Might as well put in a category of "What's the easiest way to break into your home?" and "Do you think you could spot a gold digger expressing interest in you because of the amount of money you make?" and "Do you realize that the site holding your extended profile information is making a killing re-selling all your sensitive details to interested advertisers and other parties?" and similar.

I'm sure there'd still be plenty of ignorant people around that not even those questions would clue in... Seriously people, if you don't look after your own best interests on the Internet, there are precious few sites like SP that will do it for you.

[ October 17, 2005, 16:39: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

:lol: Interesting idea, colthrun, but make it available only to females, please. Heterosexual here!

*EDIT* Hey, new gem!

Don't knock it 'til you try it.


Kidding.

I think we should have a section of our profiles dedicated to credit card numbers.

What about one dedicated to retinian scans?

Eh, perhaps I should say a word about my previous post. I'm glad you've enjoyed the humour ( :shake: :lol: :evil: ) but don't take it too literally. ;) Google is a great tool for information and if you know how to handle it, you can really find a great lot of information about a person. But many people could consider it rude or dangerous. Besides, you could find quite a lot of tidbits taken out of the original context and interpret them in the wrong way.

What I mean by advanced profiles, I didn't mean having a bunch of questions like what colthrun suggeste. Of course, those are always nice, but I meant that we should have a large block where we can type whatever we want in it, something like that. Perhaps what I am describing is similar to AIM profiles?

There's already a need for a locally hosted image gallery, so I guess adding a couple of text fields on top of it wouldn't be such a great bother. I still wouldn't like to see SP turn into a dating site. Part of its unique charm, I think, comes from profiles not being too detailed, without too much information handed on a silver plate. Then again, profiles do tell a lot on one hand and people can always choose to leave fields empty on the other, so why not.