I'd love to see the issue of portraits addressed as some point. As someone who is very visually inclined, character portraits are very important to me. I'd love the chance for GMs to create their own gallery for portraits, or at least be given the option to use their own hosted images for character portraits. I must be honest and say, the portrait gallery is the one thing that stands out negatively on rpol in general.

I recall there were 'reasons' for rpol's policy regarding portraits, which I totally understand. It does however seem like given the responsibility endowed to GMs of adult ans mature games, the same sort of liability could be implemented at some point (e.g. GMs who upload or allow objective content lose their accounts etc..). Given the storage of portraits, it just seems like removing that and allowing GMs to host their own images would free up space for the web server.

I have a few friends who will not return to rpol because of the portrait policy. Some RPers draw their own art for characters, and they aren't happy with the idea that anything they submit to rpol's galley can be used by other players for character representation. The art is intended for their character, not community property. Likewise, I personally find it limiting in terms of only submitting one portrait a week as I tend to play a lot of characters (with a certain visual rep in mind) and I can't usually find the right image in the gallery. It's off-putting to settle for a portrait that in no way, shape, or form serves as a visual of my character. :/

I understand not all RPers are visually inclined, and some probably don't care about portraits, so not expecting this to get much consideration. It is however the main item on my 'wish list' and will likely remain so.

Thanks. :)

This is not an option that will be considered.  As you mention, there are reasons that we prefer to handle portraits the way we do, and those reasons have not changed.  These reasons are not connected with the responsibilities of Adult GMs (note that the responsibilities of Mature GMs are not that different from those of GMs of General rated games).  For example, I've yet to see an Adult GM run into problems based on copyright law.

Allowing GMs to set up their own galleries would not actually free up ANY space on RPoL's server, as the current galleries are not hosted here (the portraits are stored on webspace donated by volunteers).

Our galleries are entirely open to all site users, and were specifically set up with that principle in mind, so any submitted portrait can be used by any user (even if that user isn't able to create or locate a portrait for themselves).  If somebody objects to sharing the portrait that they want to use, they have several options:

• insert the image into every post manually
• not use a portrait at all
• play elsewhere

This message was last edited by the user at 18:52, Mon 13 June 2016.

I understand the final decision. Yes, I'm aware of adding images to character discrptions, which is something I will be likely ultilzing again. Sorry if the suggestion was moot or a waste of mention. Thanks for the reply.