I am a bit surprised that this actually seems to be an issue. In fact, it seems to be a major problem. And this at a time where I have been pleasantly surprised that the number of usable (read: edited) descriptions has finally gone up....
Seriously, I've seen a few bad descriptions that also were long. People have put poems in it, for example, or lists of whom they have killed. However, that were only a few, most descriptions were not touched at all, or contained only the
original problem of empty lines and false "You evaluate" text.
The latter has (mostly) gone, and I do not think that simply having a somewhat longer description is similar to that problem, because it does 1) not try to provide false information and 2) not tries to hide the system message (you always know that it's there). It is not the fault of the description writer that the system message is not put in an extra text field at either the top or bottom of the window, and instead appended to the description text.
I certainly don't read excessively fast, and right from the beginning I've encountered long descriptions. Usually I'm able to read the description while participating in the conversation. At other times, I OOC-ly state that I'm reading their description, so they know why I'm not paying attention. Keeping an eye on the chat box, one can skim through the description, or pause reading for a while, even shove the window outside the screen to resume reading later (you don't have to close it, and it can stay there for hours, even after the player logs out), whenever there's some quiet time.
While all of this surely isn't the most convenient thing, and UtM certainly does have a point, it's not
that bad. Also, usually it isn't even very important for the RP at hand to have fully read the other's description (the exceptions tend to be obvious upon first glance).
Regarding the wipe: I keep an exact copy of my description as a file on a server, so if need be I only need to type it back in.
This discussion
has highlighted the benefit of formulations like "one may notice" over "you notice", even if no actions or thoughts are imposed upon the reader (which I've always taken care to avoid). I'll certainly review my description for it, but I'm not going to overdo it (for example, I'm
still going to say "the glyph is red", even though some people are colorblind
).
Regarding a character limit: I'd rather limit the number of characters that someone can create within a week, than the numbers of allowed characters in a description. In fact, I'm already weary of the one or two alts people tend to have, but if someone creates a character for each person that may occur in one of their stories, or play some side-role in their envisioned RP, then I can't help but wonder if they're truly RPing, not running a one-player-event, especialy when they're multi-clienting.
The abuses of the description feature that
I have seen didn't coincide with an excess of characters, and given our new "quality guidelines", I expect to see the number of well-meant but badly done descriptions to plummet. After all, most players editing their descriptions
do care for RP and other RPers, and also read the board, in contrast to those who seek to trick newbies into letting themselves get slaughtered. Also, I don't consider price lists as abuse of the description feature, just as I don't consider use of familiars as signs one, because there are relly no alternatives yet. Once alternatives exist, the problem will go away by itself.
Regarding the different sections: I don't think that's really needed. Maybe an "at a glance" section and a "closer look", but certainly no "life story" or similar sections. The /tell shortcuts may work, but I'm not going to use them, too much hassle, and too prone to misdirection AFAICS.
