Fluffing: Just Why

Wait, would it actually burden the mods if people could comment on the spells. I mean I think by this point it puts a lot of pressure on mods to look through every spell. But I guess now you'd need to monitor the comments on the spells.

Also it doesn't have to be negative commentary. Just think how validating it would feel to see public comment from people who've tried your spell and had good results from it.

Brysingr, am I missing something. The stuff you mentioned earlier was pretty valuable as a contribution btw so thanks. It's important to know why my ideas might not be so smart.

Nekoshema, good point about hurting people unnecessarily. I feel like it's mostly a problem when people bring others down with them with misinformation. It's especially irritating when there's a magical equivalent for what they want.

For example the cat demon thing. I can totally buy the idea that your friend has a spiritual resonance or tie with cats. Her behavior, thought patterns, and magic are reminiscent of felines and the image has power for her and it makes her special.

Who on earth does that make her a bakeneko or a nekomata. Her characteristics make her special enough or does she actually claim to be an immortal being who shapeshifts into a cat with two tails and then torments or eats people.

All people who practice magic do it uniquely and have capabilities beyond normal people. You already are unique and quite literally magical. Anyone who doubts this fact about practitioners should wrong a voodoo priest or cross a hedge witch for no reason and see what happens.

People who want species transformations are missing magical options that can allow them to accomplish their goals

If you want to be a werewolve enchant a wolves body parts or preferable a depiction of a wolf to let you enter the mindset of a wolf. That's doable with enough research or effort. It won't let you change form but it has it's own interesting effects I guess. You can do that for any animal

You can easily make a spell that drains others in an almost vampiric fashion for your own gain.

Becoming a demon? I wouldn't recommend invoking a demon so that it possesses you, but if you're smart you can evoke one safely.

Dragons. You can use magic to take on their more noble spiritual characteristics and work with dragons on the spiritual plain.

Mermaids, well the closest is working with water spirits or using water as a magical focus

Actually I just noticed, but the spells that come closest to vampirism and lycanthropy are really immoral in nature. Even dark magic if you believe in the concept.

Does anyone get what I'm getting at or am I just ranting?

Adding commentary on spells wouldn't be that hard to regulate/supervise so long as they were as easy to see as new forum posts.

That being said, you can also just up or down vote spells rather than having a whole new place for inane debates such as these. :)

Awake too long. I wish that voting down worked. If it did we wouldn't have this debate.

http://www.spellsofmagic.com/spells/weather_spells/fire_spells/11719/page.html

Here is a spell that claims to be able to boil water with magic. It consists of watching a pot and speaking two rhyming lines.

It is rated four stars

I am glad to have come across this thread this evening. As a new member and new to forums in general, there is a lot to take in. I am a new member that genuinely wishes to learn and discover and maybe understand myself and the world around me even better. Common sense has helped me work out a lot regarding what I should read or ignore or research further and from the little (I say little not because there is nothing to learn - it is meant in the grand scheme of things) I have learnt already by reading articles and the help section etc that a lot of posts are not quite what they seem. From my perspective I can see that if I had not read what I did before even signing up, I might of just jumped into believing that all the spells posted (especially the top rated ones) here were not 'fluff'. I have decided that if ever I was to progress with enough knowledge to use a spell I would probably write it myself, carefully working out every part until I felt it was ready. From my view of the site, I also hoped that the Covens would be a place that was free from those who like to block progress or waste time and therefore their spells would be free from being misinformed or similar - I definitely could of been misled by the rating. :)

Welcome to the magick community. We have our 20% experienced people that actually know what they're doing. 50% green to magick with half that pretend they know what they are doing because they read two whole books on the subject (or maybe 10 websites) and 30% that just evoked the toothfairy last night in their living room and that fairy granted them wings and super psychic powers. That last 30% could be kids, role players, people mocking us because they find magick a joke, or truly delusional people that are in need of mental health care. But we really can't determine why these individuals say these things because it's the internet. In person we may have a better grasp at profiling them. This is sadly the reality.

You'll see this in every community, not just magick ones. You have your trolls, ignorant people and crazies. And no one likes them. If you really want to tear into them, that's what 4chan is for, not here. Here we don't like them, but because this is "where the world learns" about magick. It is technically a teaching website. If you walk into a school and find more teachers than students, then that's pretty weird.

Most experienced magick practitioners don't want to talk to the other 80% online about their practice. The 20% here either A. Live in a Bible Belt or other discriminatory environment that prevents them from being open. B. Don't have family or friends that can relate. C. Are naturally helpful people. D Are naturally egotistical people.

No matter where you go, you will always see the fluffy bunnies hopping around. You will always have at least one little group who think they are special snowflakes, and you can't rid of them. You can't rid stupid.

You just gotta accept the fact that they're there, mate. And in all honesty, mods can do the best that they can to get rid of them, but they'll come ahoppin' back.

Thank you for being so welcoming. It's quite hard as a newbie, working everything out and wanting to learn. Thankfully it has been easy to find information like this to help - it is pretty clear in newbie central and does warn about such antics. I got this far without being hasty and it really hasn't put me off reading things that could be classed as fluff, if anything it just add even more motivation to research. I've decided to to keep a page to write the names down of members threads, articles and posts that I have liked and hopefully soon I will just recognise who knows what etc. As there are so many sections and covens it means literally reading and filtering - tiresome but very worth it I think. Oh and the mailing system - some of the messages i have received are quite, well erm rude.

I think our system of marking fluff works fine. Spells are already rated by number of stars and most non fluff members are quick to mark something as fluff. Also some things that certain members disagree as fluff along spiritual lines. Also so many are quick to say impossible. Once flight and inter planet communication was impossible. Instead of marking pyromancing as fluff it'd be better to explain that their answer doesn't lie within magic but possibly within chemistry. Long story short a fluff button would be mis used

There will always be such ones who are either trolling, who cannot seem to differentiate between reality/fantasy, or are honestly misinformed. I am in agreement with both Sataset and awake on this one. All we can do is ignore such
nonsense, guide those who truly want to learn in the direction they desire.Or
be vocal. Whatever direction one chooses to take, is soley up to the individual.