Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

For a long time users have complained about the "Request Editorship" system we have in place. For a shorter period of time, we've had a concerning lack of entries being added and edited. We are at a dire lack of entry mods, because we are at a major lack of people other than admins editing and creating entries.

So, here's a solution me and a few others collaborated on to build: an entry version of the Scrapbooker system.

It can be given when you hit a certain number – say, 15 editorships and 150 edits. The higher, the more reliable you are likely to be, but the less people we will have with it.

The powers that would be given could be a number of things, but they all include the ability to add yourself to any entry. This is the core of the idea. Hypothetically, you could also have the ability to add others.

By having a minimum requirement that ensures that you have some level of experience with entries, and rewards for reaching it, it would (hypothetically) encourage more users to learn how to make entries, and to make them. It'd provide us with more entry candidates as well, helping the administration, userbase, and moderators all at once.

The necessary downside of this, as with scrapbooker, is that sometimes people don't use it right. I have to say though, from experience, it is rare for someone to misuse scrapbooker powers. I can only think of 2 particular instances off the top of my head from the past ~9 months, and if I had to guess there'd probably be 5 total since I became a mod that I'm aware of.

If misuse of powers is a huge worry, the requirement could be as high as 30 editorships, 300 edits, at which point you are at the bare minimum for being considered for entry modship. I'd say at that point, the vast majority of people who reach it could be trusted with it.

There would be some who would misuse it, but they can be caught, like scrapbookers who misuse their powers, and it can be reverted by simply copying the text from the edit history.

Thoughts?

I normally wouldn't support this, but we are seriously in dire need of new entry editors. This site is supposed to rely on its users to create entries, but admins make almost all of the entries these days. The number of users willing to do entry work is stunningly small, and we need a powerful solution. Dire situations call for dire measures, and this will definitely create more motivation for users to work on entries.
The editorship/edit count should definitely be more than 15/150. Entries are far more complicated than image editing, and so of course there's always the potential issue that users will just get 15 editorships and then bullshit their way to entry scrapbooker powers. This is something we should definitely be careful of.

I would definitely be more willing to make edits if I could just go in and edit any entry whenever. There's been far too many times in the past I've wanted to make minor changes to entries but didn't want to request editorship just to correct a typo or reformat something.

BIG +1

Spoiler alert: We actually were disussing this feature with the staff when Scrapbookers first came up years ago (when most of you nerds were still crapping in diapers). There was support for it, making discussion mainly about how much entry scrapbookers could do. Discussion just died and was forgotten about. Back then, the main power we wanted to give them was the option to add parent entries, as that was a pretty big bother. But back then we didn't have things like categories yet. The site changed ya know.

Currently, with additional years of experience and the succes of image scrapbookers, I'd apply it the same way image scrapbookers works: Any user who reached the milestone can enter and edit any entry they wish, whether this is expanding on the research or simple fixes.

Any excluse moderator hoo-hah will remain that: Moderator exclusive. With image scrapbooker this is moving between galleries; with entries this becomes things like categories, entry status, gallery accessibility, etc. Categories is already something mods and staff can clash with; the last thing we'd need is a third group with the ability to fuck it up.

As for requirements: Honestly, 15 editorships or 150 edits is enough to me. Hell, I'd be willing to even lower it to 10 editorships or 100 edits. Image scrapbooker is given at 100 image uploads, an easy to reach number, and as such we have over a 1,000. Even with 10 editorships, I doubt we'd have 100 users who can apply (around 10 who would even make use of it atm), making it easy to police. You're naturally gonna have more scrapbookers than moderators in any category. Make the requirement too high, and nobody would aim for it, and those that would are mostly mod material, destroying the purpose of the system. We were also hesistant about image scrapbookers at 100 uploads, and that turned out perfectly fine. Trust our contributing users a bit more.

Write a guide, and if necessary build in a tool in the mod entry options that disallows entry scrapbookers access.

15/150 sounds good to me. I'm not picky about the exact number, as long as it's not higher than 30/300 or lower than 10/100 – in which case I think it's too high or too low.

Write a guide

Well, if/when the admins add it, as soon as they say they're doing it, I can work on it. We'd need exact knowledge of the features it'd entail. (If I was to pick, I'd go with the ability to edit any entry without moderator or editor approval, and the ability to add others without being an editor on that entry. Entry mods can do the latter, right?)

Pretty much agree with everything RandomMan said. Emphasis on entry scrapbooker being a power that is revokable. Hopefully this will never become an issue, but I know of at least a few former users who would have met the suggested qualifications who I personally doubt could have been trusted with that ability for long.

So, we all know Suggest Ideas is where good ideas go to die. This time, though, got quite a bit of moderator backing, and I think this is a really good possibility.

So, question is, can RM contact the admins about this (since they basically only respond to him fml ;-;), or should we flesh it out more first? Or is there some other path we should go to see if we can get this added?

Tbh I think I've never actually seen a proposal in SI go through, other than really minor changes.

It's not super necessary to flesh it out first. The main two things are what we'll give entry scrapbookers and when they'll get it. Allowing them to edit all entries and add editors (+1 there btw) is a pretty basic power that fixes a lot of issues; so it shouldn't be too difficult to convince the staff. The milestone required is something the staff has to ultimately decide by themselves, since they have access to more metadata than us and thus can hopefully see how many entry scrapbookers we'd end up with in any scenario (we can add that we recommend something along the lines of 15 editorships if necessary).

So yeah, unless you want to flesh it out more, just give me the word. The main thing that we need to agree on is which powers will be given (free writing and editorship handouts).

ShiJo wanted me to add that he thinks 5/50 is a good number for it, and 15/150 is too high.

Other than that, with this thread sitting here for over 2 weeks now, and nobody else on the IRC speaking up, it seems we're pretty much done.

So yeah, unless you want to flesh it out more, just give me the word.

Here's the word: "Jam". Spread the word.

I have worries about entry scrapbooker for reasons Jacob mentioned. Why don't we just make people entry mods more frequently?

The issue is, we aren't really finding anyone who could be a full blown entry moderator, with things like warning and working out solutions with other mods. On the other hand, we do have a small pool of users who are at least half decent with entries, and more who probably would be motivated to do more with an entry scrapbooker power waiting.

I've suggested lowering the bar, but the response so far has been "no we can't have more useless/bad mods".

If the possible defacing of entries is the admin's main worry, why not give the mods a faster way to reverse changes to an older version and make it possible to quickly nullify negative changes to an entry? 21 suggested it come back u yurilord and I would suppose that someone who gets the power in first place won't be abusing it, but in case someone does we can have a faster and more efficient way to change it.

BRUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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Don wrote:

I have worries about entry scrapbooker for reasons Jacob mentioned. Why don’t we just make people entry mods more frequently?

Being helpful in entries doesn't necessarily equal being entry mod material. You don't make someone with just 10 editorships an entry mod, but allowing them a bit more power is a nice way to reward them and boost userbase productivity. It's a nice step inbetween. Just modding everyone isn't the answer, and seeing how they handle entry scrapbooker is a nice and easy way to look for potentional mods instead of trying to be omnipresent.

I mean, same question in the current state of scrapbookers: Why do we have media scrapbookers and not just more media mods, literally the only difference is moving between entries and deleting? Because especially the deleting is something that requires a certain sense of responsibility. An entry scrapbooker would only be able to edit entries and add editors, but not do the dangerous stuff like hiding them altogether or lock areas. It's a save bonus in power as a thanks for their help with the added hope of climbing even further.

Which is also why I suggested a block option, if the entry is complete or a controversional topic, add a mod option that locks out entry scrapbookers to prevent them from fucking it up. Outside of that we can reverse their edits and any abuser (which I don't fear for) will get their powers instantly revoked (alongside further punishment because we don't fuck around when it comes to entries).