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I don't know if this should've been in this or in 'Help'.

Nor do I know if this has been suggested before but it's rather a help kind of thing than a suggestion?

 

If a mod sees this and is in the wrong section then please move it.

 

 

So here's the description of my dragon;

 

Fuego grew up on another island as an only dragon to his parents. They told him at a very young age about the battles against humans and how they wanted to take over the land. As he was growing up, it appeared to be more serious than a fairytale. Humans started to invade the land, creating villages. The Troopas didn't like it so war commenced. Fuego was given golden armour, the wings and fire of the Red dragon was blessed, as if his destiny in life was to be a survivor. Fuego was one of the last Troopas to survive the battle between them and humans. Fuego was disowned by his parents and relatives because he refused to go on anymore in battle. Despite this, their leader turned Fuego into an egg and threw him into the sea. Eventually, he was washed up on another island called Dragon Cave. A human walked past and saw the hot, cracked egg. Got picked up and put in a cave where he met other dragons, and especially made a bond with La Dama, his only wish is now to carry on the Troopa name.

 

    Moderator Reject: Please make the user suggested corrections.

    Accept:

    Accept:

    Accept:

    Accept:

    Abstain: *armour and the *He got picked *Dama. His ~D

    Accept:

    Accept:

    Accept:

 

Since there is no 'comment box' for users to say what they want to say or have another 'description' explaining the ideal and this and that and what they meant in their story without people actually wanting to change it.

 

I only have two letters to add because of the limit; then get told to add more which I cannot fit in, then a mod (who I have been waiting for weeks or more because I left for awhile) rejects it saying I should correct it in their way. (No, not changing it to Dama because it's not what I called her)

 

Some people are saying long winded words which I cannot fit in. Perhaps the person who made the description should also have a comment box? so the people who comment can adjust to the appeal and know any problems.

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They aren't saying change the name to Dama, they're saying replace the comma after with a period. "...made a bond with La Dama. His only wish..."

 

If you PM a mod on the forums, you can explain yourself there. You can also usually get your descriptions approved within a couple days by asking a mod to do so. Thus I'm not sure this is really neccessary. I've also had descriptions where I wish I could've explained something, but I think the PM feature already handles it well enough. If people are worried about others who don't use the forums, maybe having a link that says "problems? PM a mod" would help--could be an on site feature rather than taking it to the forums, kind of like reporting bad flower messages this Valentine's Day.

 

Squishing everything you need to say into 1000 characters can be tough, but I think you can manage it. You can probably squeeze in that "and" you need by changing one of the places it says Fuego to a generic "he," and as far as the other bit goes, maybe just make it "washed up on another island" rather than washed up on the "island of Dragon Cave?" It also has the added benefit of making your description match the otherwise formal tone you're establishing--Dragon Cave sounds rather goofy and probably isn't the real name of the entire island / continent / whatever DC is anyway, I'd guess. xd.png

Edited by angelicdragonpuppy

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Ah, ADP ninja'ed me (and was more eloquent than I am anyway). She's also right about the Dama/La Dama note: I was focusing on the punctuation and so "La" wasn't necessary to say. Sorry about the confusion. x3

______________________________________

 

Anyway, I do think that PMing a mod or posting in the forums is the best way to handle the lack of communication between reviewers and writers. But if there's mistakes or it goes against the guidelines, then those have to be fixed. Things have to be reworded to make room.

 

To be honest, though a spot for the user to communicate with reviewers is a helpful idea, I worry about misuse of it. I've seen far too many notes added to descriptions that are very hostile or insulting towards reviewers or are simply begging for the description to be Accepted. So that concerns me about ideas like this, which I think has been mentioned in chat before. :/

Edited by Dimar

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I would acutally like these because I think it might mitigate some of the hostile comments we get in the first place. By having a place to say this description is written in x way for y reason it could help mods when moderating.

 

Honestly I had a dragon that got rejects because all the s's were replaced with z's because of the way the dragon was.

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I would also like a comment box for reason writing happy.gif. This way you don't have to PM anyone to explain your chosen writing format, and reviewers can add comments based on what is really needed without confusion.

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I was very annoyed few weeks ago when a reviewer accused me of referencing "greek gods" in a description by using a modified version of the poem that precedes the phrase, "The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame", from the Ripley Scroll, which was actually written in the 16th or 17th century by some European dude NOT the Greeks, and actually talks about the philosopher's stone. It's actually quite obvious in the original I borrowed from, which many people wrongly believe talks about Hermes the Greek god who, last time I checked, never was a bird to begin with! Though the description I wrote is no doubt confusing as it uses archaic grammar and unusual timing, what the user had to say mentioned none of that - they only cared that I had "referenced greek gods". If the user was basing this assumption off their familiarity of the passage, they were basing their assumption on false facts as the passage never talked about gods, but rather a stone that's "white and red", able to "quicken (rouse, awaken, animate) the dead", etc. The philosopher's stone is even mentioned by NAME on the Ripley Scroll in the passage immediately above the one I borrowed!

 

This is the modified passage that is my dragon's pending description:

In the sea without lees, stands the dragon of Hermes,

Plucking his wings vigorously, and making himself blemish free.

When all his scales be from him gone, he stands still here as a stone,

Here is now both white and red, and all so the stone to quicken the dead,

All and some without fable, both hard and soft and malleable,

Understand now well and right, and thank you God of this sight.

"Hermaphroditos is my name, eating my wings to make me tame."

 

I had in fact changed all references of birds to dragons, feathers to scales, and relevant references of Hermes to "Hermaphroditos", a greek god whom I named the dragon after! He is a Lumina and scale-plucking is something they do to become "blemish free" all the time, his mate is also Salmacis, an Undine, named after another greek god(ess) who was a naiad/undine (naiads and undines are both water spirit mythologies), and who once tried to force the god Hermaphroditos to be with her but he tried to escape and they randomly fused into one person; an androgynous male, who was very beautiful. Weird, but that's what my dragon's are named for, so referencing Greek gods by name is to reference my own in-cave dragons, and shouldn't be a problem unless I call them gods.

 

But after all that, there was still a reject vote against my description, so I resubmitted (tehehe - that probably hurts me more than the user lol but I was so annoyed haha).

 

BUT my point and the reason I went on this very large rant/vent/attempt at self-vindication was that, even if there had been a comment box, there was no way that I could have known that the user would take that particular issue with my description. I could not have guessed that they would think I was talking about gods. I had hoped that after acceptance that people would get the reference and get a kick out of it or something, but I was convinced I had before me a passage of text that spoke of a dragon not a god.

 

What I'm failing to say is that a comment box wouldn't fix anything, because if you know that others are going to take issue with what you've written, you've either written something you know doesn't fit the guidelines and shouldn't submit yet, or you have written something that needs explaining, and if you've written a description that needs explaining then you really haven't written a coherent/relevant/sufficient description in the first place, have you? To need describe a description is to fail at describing. To need to comment on what is effectively already a comment on your dragon is to fail at commenting in the first place. All you should need to know should be in the description box when you submit it. The rest is either not worth knowing or is excuses for things you know you've done wrong.

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There's a RULE against referencing Greek Gods ?

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Not per se, but I suppose one could argue that it's not based on Earth and is in medieval times so wouldn't fit as those gods are far too ancient. But one could also argue that who knows where the people of the continent came from, maybe it's a magical realm that you can travel to from earth? So cultures and all sorts of things could have arrived with the people. It all comes down to the overall way a description reads though, I would say.

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There's a RULE against referencing Greek Gods ?

My stance as reviewer (and by extension, as a description writer) is that any reference to the real world should be kept subtle, and I consider multi-layered references through the use of elements of the dragon other the description itself (e.g. name, code, birthday) to be outside my jurisdiction as a reviewer.

 

For example, "This dragon is named after a human deity of war" is fine, while "This dragon is named after Bellona, the Roman goddess of war" is not.

 

As far as I am concerned, real world historical figures, mythology and religions do not exist in the DC World, which is now basically confirmed by the proper introduction of Valkemare in the encyclopedia, and as such direct reference to them are not acceptable.

 

Of course, this is my interpretation of the big shiny "Use the Correct Setting" line on the description guidelines. Unless there are any internal guidelines for mods that I'm unware of, the decision is more about the interpretation of the same rule by the mod faced with the description in question than anything else.

 

 

I was very annoyed  few weeks ago when a reviewer accused me of referencing "greek gods" in a description by using a modified version of the poem that precedes the phrase, "The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame", from the Ripley Scroll, which was actually written in the 16th or 17th century by some European dude NOT the Greeks, and actually talks about the philosopher's stone. It's actually quite obvious in the original I borrowed from, which many people wrongly believe talks about Hermes the Greek god who, last time I checked, never was a bird to begin with! Though the description I wrote is no doubt confusing as it uses archaic grammar and unusual timing, what the user had to say mentioned none of that - they only cared that I had "referenced greek gods". If the user was basing this assumption off their familiarity of the passage, they were basing their assumption on false facts as the passage never talked about gods, but rather a stone that's "white and red", able to "quicken (rouse, awaken, animate) the dead", etc. The philosopher's stone is even mentioned by NAME on the Ripley Scroll in the passage immediately above the one I borrowed!

 

I had in fact changed all references of birds to dragons, feathers to scales, and relevant references of Hermes to "Hermaphroditos", a greek god whom I named the dragon after! He is a Lumina and scale-plucking is something they do to become "blemish free" all the time, his mate is also Salmacis, an Undine, named after another greek god(ess) who was a naiad/undine (naiads and undines are both water spirit mythologies), and who once tried to force the god Hermaphroditos to be with her but he tried to escape and they randomly fused into one person; an androgynous male, who was very beautiful. Weird, but that's what my dragon's are named for, so referencing Greek gods by name is to reference my own in-cave dragons, and shouldn't be a problem unless I call them gods.

The biggest problem is with the "Hermes", which common interpretations of the scroll that my quick Google searches found suggest it to be a refererence to Hermes Trismegistus, which, whatever it really is, is still a concept originating from real life.

 

The rejection you got is most likely impulse-driven after seeing "Hermes" and connecting it to the Greek god without giving it too much thought, but at the end I wouldn't exactly call it unjustified.

Edited by CNR4806

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I once had a user incorrectly correct my grammar, and so my description was rejected with the same moderator message of "Please make the user suggested corrections." Instead of changing anything, I simply resubmitted the exact same description - and lo, it was approved.

 

As such, I don't think a comment-response box is necessary - it would probably just devolve into knock-down drag-out arguments between an anonymous user and the owner of the dragon.

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I once had a user incorrectly correct my grammar, and so my description was rejected with the same moderator message of "Please make the user suggested corrections." Instead of changing anything, I simply resubmitted the exact same description - and lo, it was approved.

 

As such, I don't think a comment-response box is necessary - it would probably just devolve into knock-down drag-out arguments between an anonymous user and the owner of the dragon.

Right on ! I used to get complaints about my spelling which is - except when I make typos, pretty perfect (I have many faults but bad spelling is not among them. xd.png)

 

Where I referred to "colour" and so on, I'd get requests to correct it and once actually got a rejection as a result. I posted about it somewhere and was told there was "a separate thread for reporting grammar and spelling errors." But that was NOT my point; I was objecting to people rejecting descriptions because they want everything US. I haven't written descriptions much since that. But I can imagine what would have happened if there had been a box...

Edited by fuzzbucket

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I was under the impression that mods actually check the description and said user-rejection comments before coming to their own conclusion and rejecting the description itself?

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