Custom hobbies Comments and suggestions

Hello,

I am a fresh user of Penpal Gate, and I really like this site. I find it very simple and intuitive, yet some aspects of it are quite strange. I was quite surprised I can't create a custom hobby to put into my profile.

What if someone loves rock music, but hates metal? They are in the same option, so one can't really choose what he has in mind using Penpal Gate.

I suggest allowing users creating their custom hobbies in profiles, each being a link to a group of users sharing the same.

Example: I put "rock" among my hobbies. When someone clicks it, she sees all the users who put rock there. Simple, isn't it?

It would need creating some naming policy (or rather suggestions) of naming, because "rock" and "rock music" would make two distinct groups and lead to chaos... I think that simple "Name your hobby as simple as you can, be careful with abbreviations." and reviewing them from time to time would be enough.

Of course, there are other options, like creating MUCH MORE options to tick... But that will require quite a lot of work to think about all the possibilities and leave us as limited as now.

So, what's Your opinion?

Hi Aleksander et welcome to Penpal-Gate,

I suggest allowing users creating their custom hobbies in profiles, each being a link to a group of users sharing the same.

The hobbies have to be static, so the search engine has defined groups of hobbies to manage. What you're suggesting could be taken into account, but with a way larger community 😉. However it's still a good suggestion.

Example: I put "rock" among my hobbies. When someone clicks it, she sees all the users who put rock there. Simple, isn't it?

Yup, but since they aren't millions of members, 99% of the time you would end up being the only one with the selected hobby 😉 That's why they've been gathered into generic hobbies.

It would need creating some naming policy (or rather suggestions) of naming, because "rock" and "rock music" would make two distinct groups and lead to chaos...

You get it, this is what the whole point is about.

I think that simple "Name your hobby as simple as you can, be careful with abbreviations." and reviewing them from time to time would be enough.

No it wouldn't, trust me 😉

Of course, there are other options, like creating MUCH MORE options to tick... But that will require quite a lot of work to think about all the possibilities and leave us as limited as now.

Yeah it'd be too messy, "only" the most popular hobbies have been listed. Obviously there can be so many more hobbies, but at one point there has to be a decent limit 🙂

Thanks for your suggestion!