Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

I had this idea running in my head for a while but I can't really think of a clever name yet so bear with me.

The idea is similar to the Researching Section (or Featured as we might decide to call it). Except where we use Researching to highlight entries that have been researched and completed, the Construction section would instead be reserved for ancient entries (regardless of status) that are void of any proper research or quality. Here they'd be highlighted to promote working on them.

So that's the simple idea: An area where we can throw all the entries that need work. Because it's like Researching, it's basically an extra tag that puts the entry in an additional section alongside its status, and thus won't affect the Database. For example the threads from Project Livepool and Project Reconfirmation are excellent examples to throw there.

But the entries got there for a reason: Nobody was arsed to work on them at the time and since then they've gotten lost in the size of our Database. So despite the fact that such an area can easily highlight entries in the infamous "submission purgatory", at the same time it needs people to work on them, people that most likely aren't us cus otherwise they wouldn't be there.

So that's why I think it's a good idea to make those entries Open, in other words entries that anyone with an account can edit. This should make it easier for users to help out without requiring a mod. Needs a simple guideline, but that's best done after this got support. Is this risky? Yes. But at the same time it's not like you can fuck up an entry that was already complete shit. Wikia's and Wikipedia use this system and it works wonders, so it's worth a tryout on KYM through this idea.

This idea would definitely help get rid of a lot of bad entries that have been forgotten, which is one of the sites biggest problems.

Might get me to work on some entries myself. I think it's something you can pretty easily go back on as well if you needed to.

The worst thing that can happen is spam, but I wouldn't expect bots to go to the thread, pick an entry, and begin adding malicious links.

This sounds awesome! We have waaay to many old [wip] entries on KYM, and this would definitely help get rid of those.
Where would this section go? I vote that if it's ever implemented it should be slapped onto this thing, which is in need of a serious revamp.

The worst thing that can happen is spam, but I wouldn’t expect bots to go to the thread, pick an entry, and begin adding malicious links.

If this ever becomes a problem (which I doubt it will), we could easily set a requirement for entry editing (your account must be x days old, your account must have x contributions, or something like that). After all, that's what Wikipedia does.

My idea was more to use this area for it, as in use it's similar to Researching:

Of course "Researching" also appears in the drop down menu on the top bar with memes, so of course this section would appear there as well. But we can also have a thread for Construction alongside for question answering and entry suggestions. There are two differences however from Researching:
- Researching is also featured and highlighted on the frontpage. We can't exactly highlight piss poor entries.
- A confirmed entry can't have the Researching tag, because at that point we assume Research is completed. However even Confirmed entries are at times godawful, so Confirmed wouldn't be excluded from the Construction tag.

Oh yeah, I figured the explanation of "like Researching but different" might appear vague to mods without entry powers.

So here's a quick Researching 101:

Left is how Status is decided, right is Researching. As you can see, Status is a drop down list of Confirmed/Submission/Deadpool/Hidden; while on the other hand Researching is a checkbox.

So Researching is an additional status. All Researched entries are also in Submissions, but not all Submissions are also Researched. (Confirmed entries have the checkbox removed, and we generally don't feature Deadpooled ones in there.)

Same deal with Construction, an additional tag below the Researching checkbox. Except, unlike Researching, Confirmed entries aren't excluded.

That reminds me though. It might be best to exclude Deadpooled entries from the construction tag. Technically Deadpool would completely lose its function as basically all Deadpooled entries can fall under Construction.

There are some Deadpooled entries that cover very legit memes with poor entries. Those need to be recovered then and put into Submission + Construction. But I don't think that's an issue.

Hey! I think this is a really good idea. I found an entry today that I would have marked in here!

Couple questions:

1. Can we come up with a shorter, snappier name than Construction? I'll let you guys brainstorm. I thought "Oldsauce" but that's not very nice! I also kind of liked "+1 Needs Work" but that's very silly.

2. I would love for us to think about a way to reward people who are interested in working on this stuff. Different type of badge, maybe? Let's incentivize. "Archaeologist" maybe? We also have "Historical Meme Historian" currently, maybe that could be repurposed to this type of role.

3. Probably can't be adding it in the header. I think duplicating Researching and putting it somewhere is the most likely option, but not sure. Interested in hearing more ideas about where it could go.

WIP is going to be the shortest term. Pretty much everyone knows it stands for "Work in Progress" but it doesn't exactly come off as professional sounding either. Maybe "In Work" or "Adding Info"

I think badges would be a great idea. maybe a hard had with "KYM" written on the front or side. Not against the others but I think this one would attract more attention.

Part of me thinks it should have it's own section like the Image tagging page, because there are just a huge number of entries that are unfinished or no longer meet current standards. However, this would also mean that few people would actually see it, so that would rather defeat the purpose, even if we made the link to it more obvious… I can't think of anything better than a duplicate of researching right now.

There are definitely waaaay more entries that would fit this description than we could possibly fit in a sidebar but sometimes I think when we make long lists, it's a bit overwhelming for people.

I like the idea of limiting it to what can fit on the sidebar because then we kind of take down the demands a notch, and give people clear instructions – "Start here! Pick one of these!" – which will be helpful to the types of editors we're trying to attract to this area.

My general idea wasn't exactly the side bar because I don't see WiP entries as something you want to promote and highlight. And the section itself would literally be a gauntlet of everything crap-looking.

But if you wish to bring attention to them, it might be a good idea to highlight them a bit. This doesn't mean you can't WiP tag all of them. You can tag them all and then highlight a few that we think deserve priority.

3. Probably can’t be adding it in the header. I think duplicating Researching and putting it somewhere is the most likely option, but not sure. Interested in hearing more ideas about where it could go.

Simple enough, just a new tab for this new section, just like Researching has. Same for the drop down menu.

If it's like Researching, then this makes the most sense imo.

Oh I see what you mean, that placement makes a lot more sense.

With that placement i kind of go back to liking my name "+1 Needs Work" for the section. I love things that are steeped in the culture of the site, and I also love that it's a call – pay attention! these ones are for you to work on! they NEED WORK! Are there any other names you can think of that do all those things?

Alongside it might be best to have some sort of message at the top of the entry like the Submission and NSFW ones:

Only reading something along the lines of "Please heed our call for help and work give this entry the quality it deserves! Unlike other entries on the site, anyone can edit these entries. For more information and questions, please head over to [Forum Thread]."

Or anything clever.

Oh, I remembered that Wikias commonly name bad entries a "stub", in the definition of "An entry that has minimal text, no text, or has not been written in full in an online reference work.".

These Wikia pages usually have these messages on top of "This entry is a stub. You can help blablabla by Expanding it!" etc etc.

Maybe adapt that.

Moving out of the mod forum and into Suggest Ideas based on discussions.

If you wanna go with an easy and snappy name, the best would probably be "+1 Work". It's a comment section classic and thus easily recognisable.

Can't we already post these ideas in Research, since adding to an entry involves further researching it?

^The backlog of poor entries is quite big. This feature would allow easy highlighting to promote users working on them, in the area where it matters: the entries.

The Forums are our least visited area. Threads about it would most likely lack readers. That has always been a risk of discussion and featuring general site stuff in the forums, too many are unfamiliar with its existance. Best place to highlight entries is the entry section.

Also several ideas for this feature can't be executed with just a thread.

Question: Some entries will more likely get picked then others. If you plan to let anyone edit those entries, how will you prevent that everyone will gang up on the same entry?

Entries have a natural editor limit of 20, so first come first go. If some entries motivate more people to work on them, then they'll only be finished quicker. Should some do nothing for an extended period and others wish to take their place, they can request mods to remove editors (we'll throw that into a thread alongside it as well).

Also once the entries are up to quality again, we'll pull them out of Construction and highlight them into Researching. Then they're no longer open, and anyone who ended up pointless can be removed if necessary.