Things, especially aesthetic shit, are conditional based on the preference of the player... at the time. I change the way I write sign-ups literally every time I make one! But from the perspective of being GM, I've been swinging back and forth with introducing something, and the way I've been approaching sign-ups depends a lot on the "point" of the RP -- they're an extension of the tone, plot, and themes. Just like a superpowers section isn't always relevant. Say in one RP I ask for characters' -- they're teachers -- their specific positions, and their personal motivations for working in those positions, because it's plot-relevant. I wouldn't ask for their "inventories" because it's a contemporary RP mostly limited to a public school campus, not an adventure story where the items you bring with you matter. 

I have a list of [i]essentials[/i] much like Dervish, but mine's a lot shorter; right now it's only really the character's name, age, and their height/weight and/or build. I also would like for players to [i]sell[/i] a character with the fewest words possible; a 150/200-word summary is recurrent. 

Right now, as someone who's very frustrated with arbitrary character information, I'm debating whether writing samples are helpful. Because it's essentially asking for a short story, and not everyone may be that motivated, or be able to tackle it in due time. A lot of RPs die because they take too long to start, and I'm unsure whether writing samples add to that problem. [i]Because otherwise I would love to throw prompts at people and it would make for shorter sign-ups, since longer ones make me itch.[/i] So if writing samples have or haven't worked for you...

Some notes about my reactions to other peoples' sign-ups: I think the "some-things-aren't-relevant" mentality still applies? Although I'll admit I'm disappointed with other GMs seemingly copy/pasting the same formats, the same Appearance/Personality/History triad, which is just a forum RP staple at this point. For some characters, I combine Appearance & Personality. Sometimes I don't even approach Appearance because I don't feel like it. Sometimes it's all written in-character, and she's overselling themselves to get hired in her bad, broken English while dropping mentions of "chloroform" because that's just in her mind. In-character sign-ups are underrated and a lot of fun, haha.

Generally, I like the character creation process. I like writing character profiles, and making characters. I think sign-ups can, and in my opinion should, function as character introductions so people don't waste time IC. 

And uhhh I also strongly relate with Sierra's note about dedicating a separate doc to scribbled "psych" details, because all of my actualized characters usually have one of those as well. So sign-ups don't cover everything, and as a GM I would expect people to work on developing their character beyond the criteria I would present to them. Though a lot of that's IC and all.

long post boyz