I have found several groups on yahoo in which character biographies,
when they are submitted, are nit-picked to death, and so many
revisions are demanded that what remains is merely a shadow of the
character you started with.

I've also seen other groups, where these biographies of inactive
characters are collected into a nice neat little folder to give the
appearance of a game being more active then it in face actually is.
I'm not even certain that biographies are fulfilling their roles in
the role playing world.

All too often, there are moderators with no intent whatsover to even
get players started, and that I have found to be the most annoying
thing of all. There are several really great groups out there, that
require 3 or more revisions on a character sheet after hacking up the
players original concept so much that the character is no longer who
that player envisioned to begin with.

If character sheets are a necessary evil, then something else needs to
happen as well. More guidelines need to be given to the players
writing them about what in fact someone is looking for, and moderators
need to stop asking for tons of revisions with no intent whatsoever to
ever get a player started.