# Discovery > How characters are ranked and surfaced on Reverie, what you can filter, and why an unfinished character never appears. Source: https://reverie.im/en/docs/community/discovery Language: en Discovery on Reverie is the character grid plus the rails on Home. This page covers what each sort actually orders by, which filters exist, and the admission rules that decide whether a public character is eligible to be shown at all. ## Sorts on the character grid \[#sorts-on-the-character-grid] **Recommended** is the default. Everyone sees the first four sorts; the last three appear only when you are signed in. | Sort | What it orders by | | -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Recommended** | Popularity, then average rating — personalized once you have chat history | | **Popular** | The daily popularity score, highest first | | **New & noteworthy** | A 7-day early-traction score, limited to characters first published in the last 30 days | | **Recently updated** | Last edit, newest first | | **Following** | Characters from creators you follow, newest first published | | **Favorites** | Characters you have favorited | | **My Characters** | Characters you created | Alongside the sort chips you get the search box, **Browse all hashtags**, a **Card videos** switch, **Reset filters** and a **Filters** panel: **Category**, **Gender**, **Tags** (up to five; a character must carry every one you pick), **Richness** and **Features**. On **My Characters** the panel adds three sections that apply to your own list only: **Sort by** (**Last edited**, **First published** or **Date created**), **Status** (**Published**, **Link only** or **Unpublished**) and **Age** — the age set on the character, in ranges, or **Not set**. There is no language filter, no content-rating filter and no "this week"/"this month" window on the grid. Adult content is an account-wide setting at **Settings → Preferences → Content filter**, not a grid control, and your tag preferences are applied here too — when they are, a bar above the grid offers **Show all this time** and **Manage tag preferences**. See [Preferences](https://reverie.im/en/docs/account/preferences). Signed out, the grid stops after three pages and offers a sign-in prompt. ## What the ranking actually uses \[#what-the-ranking-actually-uses] **Popular** uses a score recomputed daily from seven inputs, each capped so no single number can dominate, in roughly this order of importance: | Input | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Total conversations | | How many of last month's players came back on another day | | Conversations in the last 30 days | | Average rating, weighed by how many ratings it rests on and how long each rater had played | | How long players keep chatting | | Favorites | | Number of ratings | The rating and the come-back share are measured against a neutral middle, so a character nobody has rated yet — or one too new to have a returning audience — neither gains nor loses by it. A few ratings move the score only slightly; the average carries its full weight once many players have rated. A rating from someone who chatted only briefly moves it less than one from a player who came back, and ratings that [rating protection](https://reverie.im/en/docs/characters/reviews-and-notes#rating-protection) stopped counting do not move it at all. The come-back and chat-length figures leave out the creator's own chats. A newly published character also gets a cold-start boost that fades away over its first 30 days, so a good character surfaces before it has a lifetime of engagement behind it. **New & noteworthy** is a separate 7-day score: distinct users per day, chats started, messages per chat, new favorites, and how recently the character was first published. **Recommended** adds personalization in stages, based on your last 20 web chats, weighted so recent chats count more: | Your history | What is used | | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Signed out, or 1–2 chats | No personalization — featured characters, then popularity and rating | | 3–5 chats | Your top three categories | | 6 or more chats | Categories, plus a gender preference when over 60% of your weighted chats share one, plus a mature-content preference when over half do | Characters you have already chatted with are excluded. On page one, a share of the slots is reserved for characters published in the last 7 days by creators you follow. The recommender reads metadata only: which character, its categories, its gender, its rating, and who you follow. It does not read the contents of your conversations. ## Why a public character may not appear \[#why-a-public-character-may-not-appear] Publishing and being discoverable are two different bars. > A character is filtered out of discovery entirely — while still being > public — unless it has all five of: a name, a bio or description, a > personality or description, an avatar, and at least one opening message. > A public character with no greeting is invisible in the grid and in > onboarding recommendations. Two further rules apply: * Public listings only include characters whose creator is an approved creator. See [Becoming a creator](https://reverie.im/en/docs/creators/becoming-a-creator). * **Recommended** and **Popular** add a media bar when you are not searching: the character needs either an avatar video or at least three gallery images. Searching inside those tabs stays exhaustive, so a character you search for by name still turns up. ## Search \[#search] There is no global search bar. Search is per surface: characters can be searched without an account, while story search needs one. | Surface | Searches | Notes | | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Characters | Name and bio, plus `#tag` and `@name` operators | Combined with AND; results stop after 15 pages, or after 3 when signed out | | Stories | Title and blurb | Results stop after 3 pages | Matching is substring and case-insensitive, not prefix matching. The operators split on the next `#` or `@`, so `#regency tutor` is read as one tag — `"regency tutor"` — rather than as a tag plus a word. To combine a tag with free text, put the tag last. Moments, hashtags and creators have no search of their own. ## Home \[#home] Home is a set of rails rather than a ranked list: the daily check-in banner, **Continue** for chats already in progress, a picks section with hot, rising, recommended and recent characters, and the newest moments. ## Related \[#related] * [Finding characters](https://reverie.im/en/docs/getting-started/finding-characters) — the practical walkthrough * [Hashtags](https://reverie.im/en/docs/community/hashtags) — how tags are derived and where they lead * [Collections](https://reverie.im/en/docs/community/collections) — the editorial shelves on Home * [Following creators](https://reverie.im/en/docs/community/following-creators) — what a follow changes in the grid * [Publishing](https://reverie.im/en/docs/characters/publishing) — the creator side of these gates