Describe



A description is a piece of prose or poetry a user can write about their dragons (and other creatures except the Leetle Tree), which will be shown below the normal species text on the breed's page once approved. Descriptions are meant to give the dragon a brief backstory: name origin and/or meanings, personality, role, history, relation to others, etc. In the past, there was no distinction made between the breed's official description and a user's description- only a paragraph separated them. Now a bold title of "User Description" can be found heading any description a dragon may have that is publicly visible.

Descriptions should be in third person, with little reference to eras in time, especially to modern day. They must also be in English, follow basic spelling and grammar rules, and contain no HTML or other code. There is a Description Guidelines page for writers to follow.

Descriptions undergo a moderation process before being approved. This is to ensure quality control and to avoid sensitive material on the site. While the description is 'Awaiting Moderation', other users can post anonymous reviews, often giving praise or critical help, or they may simply hit Accept, Reject, or Abstain without writing a comment. Only the description writer and mods can see comments and the number of Accepts and Rejects. An Abstain without comment will not show up under the description. The moderators will delete harmful descriptions such as flames.

The moderation process can be as short as a few minutes to as long as many months, depending on how busy the moderators are. Users call the group of descriptions yet to be checked "the queue", which can be as long as tens of thousands of creatures for the mods. As of May 21st, 2016, users can now opt in or out via their account settings to be able to see user descriptions not yet approved by moderators, but that have received many user approvals. This change was done as part of a range of updates for DC's 10th birthday to help alleviate some pressure from moderators that are unable to approve descriptions.

Many users have asked for comments to still be seen after a dragon's description has been approved. TJ09 has said no to this, since any system with information coming in must have information going out.