This site has been trying, over the years, clearing out the trolls, fluffy, vamps/were, spamers, and such. But the thing people have forgot to worry about is the submitted spells on the site. Is it time to clear out those fake spells? Spells like to change your eye color and spells that doesn't make any sense of how they work. I would have trusted the Mods and the site owner to do this, but knowing that they will know which spell is fake and which one is real is faded.
So here is my thought, since spells have stars on them we could downgrade, as a site, on the spells we believe isn't real. Once a spell gets below two stars then it will go into review of being deleted. Before we all do this we must see if the Mods and the site owner agrees to this idea of clearing out the fluffy stuff in our books. If this is already being done, than ignore this post.
Re: Clear Out The Trash By: Vanitys_Fire / Knowledgeable
Post # 4 Nov 13, 2012
Moderators have no control in merely clearing out the submitted spells. Those who have posted the spells have to be the one's who delete the spells and rituals/articles. The coven leaders may or may not be able to them, but if they can it is highly up to them to handle the matter; two which they have a right to chose to or not to delete any thing. The Administrator may be able to go through the spells and articles and delete submissions, but that is far too much work for one person to handle and Pet has more than enough work on his hands for running a website as is - aside from personal life.
Down-rating is a good idea but can only go so far. Any one can go in and rate a submission to a higher ranking. You have to take every single submission into account no matter what the rating is. There are many spells and articles that are high and low ranked despite being fake, true/real, written politically correct, poorly written, followable, incomprehensible, etc. So when finding a spell to cast in the spellbook, it is suggested against subjecting your self to simply what is highly ranked - such as four or five star rankings. Now back to the taking care of them. Aside from what has been said, you can also mark a spell as Spam. There is a button for it twards the bottom right of the page when viewing a submitted spell or article. So unless you your self can delete them, down raring and marking as spam is all you can do.
But don't merely do so just because you think it's fake. There are some spells in the fantasy section that are real: such as the dragon spells. Even spells to change your eye colour can work despite it not being an actual physical change; it's an illusion, but still works as the illusion. You need to take every amount of detail involving what has been submitted into consideration. This is why there are Editors on the sight. People who know exactly what to look for whether it's required of them or not to do so.
I understand where you are coming from but it is kind of shameful when the spell page says Real Spells. Yes the way it is now is protected spells, real or fluffy, but this is why I was asking for a new way to clear out the fluff. This site is not just being represented by the chat and forums, it is also being represented by the spells as well.
If there is no way to do this or even make a little plan on how to handle them then at least remind the group to review each spell before accepting. But I can understand if doing work, even if it is a lot of work, is too much. Let it build up.
Well from what I've seen looking through the spell books the "fluffy" ones appear to be ranked overall higher than the serious ones. I can only assume it's like this because the role-playing members are the most active at ranking spells.
So in light of there being no way of removing the spells petitioning serious members to take the time to rank some of the spells might at least help to indicate to new comers what sort of things are more reasonable. Most people with moderate experience know what's fake but those starting out don't. Basically you don't need to await the moderators approval to go sifting through the spell books hoping for them to be deleted, just do it, at least that way the ranking system will be a better indicator than it is now.
The entire purpose of rating the spells is to rate the grammatical aspect of the post rather than it's authenticity. A more effective way of getting rid of spam is to mark or flag the post as spam. It will, however, take time (especially that there are few on a scale of this entire site that have the ability to edit and even fewer to actually publish the edits).
