Changing Descriptions

Out of curiosity, how committed are staff to the "description is fixed in character creation" principle? I rather like the feeling of being flexible with my descriptions, as I may want to be emphasizing certain parts of my character's appearance more in certain times than others, and feel like the overall vibe that people get from someone's appearance may change with time, and it would be helpful to be able to reflect that with sdesc and desc.

I assume that abuse is the worry here, in which someone radically changes their appearance such that they're almost unrecognizable, or something, and I haven't played enough MUDs to know how significant a problem this is. But I feel that subtle changes of appearance or of demeanor, such as might be conveyed via descriptions, shouldn't require staff approval. Is it just too much of a can of worms? Would X number of changes per year be an acceptable compromise?

You know what, whenever you suggest something and it's already in the game, I feel this little burst of glee because I have a level of appreciation and respect for you that makes me happy to say 'great minds think alike' and imagine that I too have a great mind. 

So, there's two features here that match this:

One is DMOTE, which lets you put temporary notes into your description, like an extra 'description emote'. You can change this whenever you want and keep it as long as you want.

The other is OPPORTUNITIES, which gives you period annual limited changes to certain facets of your character that would need updating with character development.

Dmote is very cool, and I did not know about that one! I checked Opportunities, and it seems like character description is *not* part of those change opportunities, is that right? I see 'stats', 'personality', 'background', and 'customizations'.

I may be misunderstanding how OPPORTUNITIES works, but I have an additional thought.
the first month of a characters life is really when you figure out A LOT about them.
It might be nice to have the opportunity to resubmit or edit your description & personality once or twice within that first month before having to use your opportunity or annual changes. With new MOOs in new worlds with new lore and heritages and new plots and campaigns you really don't know what you're starting until you're in it, things change super fast. Some sort of grace period as you settle into the boots of the character could be very helpful I think, to add flexibility for new characters as they figure themselves out.

At least that's been my experience with basically every character I've ever made. The person they are in chargen and the person they are month 2 are often drastically different. 
Being wed to that first inspired direction can be limiting. Being able to change it, pending staff approval akin to the first approval process (sorry for putting more on your plate, here) would open up more room for character development, it seems to me. 

Yeah that's true, Belhajj! After opportunities (maybe you already used the description one at some point) you can also use CHANGE to ask to change something with staff approval. 

Starting out we give people a few extra opportunities on things like background updates but ... 

Unfortunately right now changes are a bit buggy still, so please feel free to use them but you might end up having to submit a petition instead of it doesn't work.

cool so CHANGE exists!

Buggy or not that's a nice to have. Given the number of pending approvals and work going on behind the scenes adjusting your character to be pitch-perfect and up to speed is definitley not a priority, I'm just glad it's possible once things have slowed down a bit. 

Just as an extra data point: my OPPORTUNITIES include multiple changes of my background, personality, and public info, but also no description change. I didn't bug report it because I didn't think it was a bug, should I?