Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

DrCaduceus 14 Sep 2014 04:52

Step by step, we are becoming a better-quality site. We've updated, changed, customized and created many unique things to fulfill the goal of being a successful spin-off. With the influx of authors, the number of new articles are on the rise. Not only from the new ones, but also the old authors. And most articles on the site are under-appreciated, which is a main problem.

We need to keep quality control high and readership of articles up, to make sure everything has been read and appreciated.

Therefore, I am proposing that the creation of a new Staff team be implemented: the Board of Review for Wiki Articles. This team will be responsible to check and critique all of the work in the main site, including the pre-existing ones, and make sure everything is in top quality. Every time a new article is made, they must be the first on the scene to see if it's good enough for our standards. That means having the authority to use the following Staff powers: Deletion Votes, Rewrite Votes and Page Deletion.

This team must have at least one active moderator/administrator to carry out the above powers.

Sounds good?

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Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

Victor Strate 14 Sep 2014 14:38

It seems like a good idea on paper, but just think about what would end up happening:
Your article would be deleted, or it would be kept. A black and white system doesn't work when we have a rating module there to judge quality as opposed to a board of people that instantly decide the fate of your article. We need some other system for it. Different people have different opinions, some things will bother people more than others, so a black-and-white system for a site full of different people with different personalities can only cause conflict. We can make it their job to leave reviews and critique with their rating, but I feel the actual deletion should be left for staff vote once it's hit -2. We need something with a bit more variety or else nothing but conflict will ensue. There will be users confused on why their article disappeared off the face of the earth, and that could cause new users leaving, asking admins or moderators (who would have not had any say in the action), or possibly even just re-posting. General annoyance and confusion all around. We could have some sort of quality assurance team, where articles are sent to a certain spot on the site before they are posted so our team can check them out and give them the go-ahead. One of the QA team members would then PM the person on their decision, giving either a go-ahead or a list of problems that need to be fixed, and it would cause considerably less confusion. It would also offer users a chance to polish up their articles before they get posted if they aren't up to par so we would still end up with the solid, high quality list of articles we need. Of course, the currently posted articles wouldn't need to be checked by the QA team because, well, they're obviously already either up to par or tagged with to be deleted.

Of course, there's bound to be some disagreement with the QA system too, but it at least eliminates a few of the problems you might run into with a judge, jury and executioner at the ready at all times for the new articles. I think it'd be best to use a bit of a more diverse system based on individual opinions instead of group thinking.

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Victor Strate | "If you ever get in a gunfight with somebody, just make sure to keep aiming for his groin until you've hit it at least once. That way, even if you lose your life in the fight, that bastard'll never breed."

Last edited on 14 Sep 2014 14:51 by Victor Strate Show more

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

DrCaduceus 14 Sep 2014 21:27

I didn't say that they would delete bad articles at will, Strate. I said that they would check and critique every new article to make sure no page goes without being approved and acknowledged. The moderator of the team, as well as the team staff, have the same deletion powers with other staff. They are only responsible for quality control.

This is similar to the Criticism Team of SCP, if I should really have to bring that up. Remember the key words I'm emphasizing: check, critique, approve, acknowledge, first on the scene.

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Send Message | Know that my bloodstained palms will only ever care for a greater plan.

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

Victor Strate 16 Sep 2014 14:18

I'm aware of that, but you still did say they would have the power to vote for deletion, and that would still cause for a lot of confusion. It would still be a team that decided the fate of your article right from the beginning, and I agree with Ed in that we already have a pretty solid system. If we do use some sort of system like this it should be based on the voices of the community as a whole and not just the staff's final say on what happens.

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Victor Strate | "If you ever get in a gunfight with somebody, just make sure to keep aiming for his groin until you've hit it at least once. That way, even if you lose your life in the fight, that bastard'll never breed."

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

EdAWACSdenyY 17 Sep 2014 05:17

Victor I think that isn't want Cad is proposing. As I've stated before, this is merely the refinement of an already existing system. The only difference would be that we would have a team for it.

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Former CI Wiki Administrator Now just CI Wiki member: | Tuum Est: It's up to you

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

EdAWACSdenyY 15 Sep 2014 04:25

Sorry for the late reply, was busy with school work.

I feel that personally that would be a great idea for the site. However there is a layer of thin ice when it comes to the matter itself. The important question we are to ask ourselves is whose opinions are we going to value the most? The people or the staff? As Victor pointed out there isn't a black and white system.

But I think that there is misplaced worry personally. Because what Caduceus was trying to propose wasn't a staff member going over and saying: "This article is terrible for me so we must delete quickly calling deletion vote." Because frankly, that would be a terrible misuse of staff power and pretty selfish. I have faith that none of the staff would do that cause let's face it, what I said does sound ridiculous.

What we have right now is already a pretty standard system of review, People rate articles based on their personal preference and the collective opinion decides what stays and what doesn't. The staff are there to carry out that will really. We add our voices to the community and than act in turn. What Caduceus was proposing is merely a refinement of the system we already possess with more involvement from staff such as to place him as role models to project his/her own opinion on the matter. So I'm all for it.

However, there are some problems with the proposition, and that is the rain shadow of this cloud's silver lining. There just isn't that many staff members around and not all of us are able to give the time to carry out writing line by lines. The critique level will be quite slow. Also the second concern I have with this proposal is that most of the active members are staff. Aside from the very first articles, other articles have mostly been upvoted/downvoted by staff. This greatly upsets the power representation as the staff opinions will have a much greater effect.

Other than this I see no problems with this nor do I say I'm really enthusiastic for it. You will receive my support. But to summarize, this is merely taking an already in place system and making it the job of an official team task. Nothing more nothing less.

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Former CI Wiki Administrator Now just CI Wiki member: | Tuum Est: It's up to you

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

DrCaduceus 15 Sep 2014 11:10

Alright, I see I have you on board. Thanks.

I should leave notes on your concerns:

• If there are few active staff members, I suggest we make an official list of active/inactive staff members (with the definition for being 'inactive' to be discussed later) and see if we should either promote or recruit another responsible active member.
• Critique level will be slow, but appreciated nonetheless. I will head the team for the time being, but I would prefer that some other staffer helps me since I shouldn't critique my own work (duh).
• Staff opinions are practically regarded as any other opinion. We're still members, it's just that we have a duty for the site.
• However, if there's any reason that a Critique Team Member must have and will have a higher degree of critique importance, it's because we've chosen him as a Critique member in the first place.
• I should defend my statement about critiquing pre-existing articles:
  • All articles have been read at least once, that's true. But it's conducive to the author to get feedback to know what's good and not. It will also weed out the few bad pages we have.
• New articles should be responded to. It's quality control. We need it. A good article can always be a better article.

Note: If you think we don't have a good pool of members and staff, and the proportion of staff-to-member is very…disproportionate, then I'm good with waiting a few before launching this team.

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Send Message | Know that my bloodstained palms will only ever care for a greater plan.

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

DrCaduceus 13 Nov 2014 10:16

Well, I guess we have enough users-to-article creation rate ratio to agree: we should create this team asap.

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Send Message | Know that my bloodstained palms will only ever care for a greater plan.

Re: Staff Vote: Board of Review Creation

Dr Nouva 14 Nov 2014 20:17

Late to this but up to date. Agreed.

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