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A new rule to help our calc group members?

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Antvasima

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Hello.

It seems like we forgot to ever officially add the following rule to either our calculation evaluation requests thread or any of our rule pages. Is it fine if we add it so our calc group members are not overexerted by being constantly spammed by disorganised message wall requests?

"It is not allowed for members of this community to bother our calc group members via their message walls regarding performing or evaluating calculations. For these purposes, please visit our calculation requests thread or our calculation evaluation requests thread instead."
 
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I think it's a good idea. To be honest, I wonder if a more universal rule about using message walls for staff requests is prudent. I feel like whenever I visit a staff member's profile their message wall is filled with people linking them to CRTs, or bringing up admin issues, etc. Stuff that is best funneled to content revision promotion or the various wiki management threads.
 
I'm not too quite sure about this really, the calc members didn't really seem to mind when I requested to evaluate calcs on their walls. And calcs that get requested to be either evaluated/requested to be calced almost never get looked at
 
I take it regular members means non-staff, is that right?
Yes. If there is an ongoing revision that genuinely needs calc group help in order to finish, staff members are willing to call for help to a few of them via @ - notifications if necessary.
 
Doesn't that conflict with the rule
In the event that this fails to garner attention, users may politely remind the calculation group members to take a look.
?

I think this should instead say that one should first post in the calc request/eval thread and only if that doesn't work for some time go to them directly.
 
This is fine to add, although if some calc group members are still willing to have people comment on their walls (such as me), they would need to specify. Otherwise, they can safely assume that they are not allowed to post on their walls.
Well, I saw to that we all got the ability to post public notification messages at the top of our forum message walls if we wish.
 
Doesn't that conflict with the rule

?
Where is that rule located?
I think this should instead say that one should first post in the calc request/eval thread and only if that doesn't work for some time go to them directly.
Well, they are allowed to post unattended requests again in our wiki maintenance threads once every month.
 
I'm not too quite sure about this really, the calc members didn't really seem to mind when I requested to evaluate calcs on their walls. And calcs that get requested to be either evaluated/requested to be calced almost never get looked at
Well, it is much easier for our calc group members to keep track of which of those that have already been handled by other calc group members, as they give likes to the request messages that they have handled personally.
 
Well, it is much easier for our calc group members to keep track of which of those that have already been handled by other calc group members, as they give likes to the request messages that they have handled personally.
But I don't really see that happening in any of those threads
 
I'm fine with the rule, I'm also fine with members asking to evaluate calculations, as long as they don't spam the message wall and don't ask to evaluate multiple calculations.

I remember someone linking 4 or 5 blogs to evaluate. I won't even answer someone that does this. Someone was spamming my Wiki message wall so much that I simply stopped taking requests from there and only from here, as my profile message says.
 
I honestly don't mind either, especially if it is from peeps I personally know and like conversing with all the time on and off-site. Just keeping the spam to a bare minimum should be encouraged, that's all.
 
I think it's a good idea. To be honest, I wonder if a more universal rule about using message walls for staff requests is prudent. I feel like whenever I visit a staff member's profile their message wall is filled with people linking them to CRTs, or bringing up admin issues, etc. Stuff that is best funneled to content revision promotion or the various wiki management threads.
Brother, this is a staff thread, you aren't staff, you shouldn't comment.
 
I don't really mind getting messaged for evaluations. I don't evaluate all (or most) of them, but like, it's already pretty hard for folks to get calcs accepted, I feel like we shouldn't make it even harder.

If CGMs are bothered by the messages and wish to not receive them then they can just specify that in their notification message, it doesn't need to be a universal rule.
 
Brother, this is a staff thread, you aren't staff, you shouldn't comment.
That doesn't seem to be the case on other threads in this section of the forum, except the ones explicitly labeled (STAFF ONLY), but I digress.
 
Okay. I will adjust the rule text above then.
 
It's mostly over bombardment is what I think the rule should be against. Some calc group members should have at least some activity unless the inform people ahead of time about their IRL workload. And I think the more active a Calc group member is, the more the rule applies as for them to not be exhausted. But at the same time, I also do not wish for any of our calc group members to get over bombarded. Also, some calc group members tend to be more active when friends message them offsite, so I'd say case by case but agree with there being some kind of rule.
 
I really have no strong feelings towards the rule, I don't know how active our calc members are in the calculation evaluation thread that this rule as is in the OP wouldn't just lead to even more calcs just never getting the attention they deserve. I agree with a rule against spamming, but that would go for any member not just calc members.
 
I’ll leave my vote up to what the calc members think is best. Given they’re providing a very vital contribution to the wiki and are ultimately the ones doing the math, I can’t speak on their behalf for what’s considered fair
 
Maybe it would be best to have some sort of status system, where a calc member can show whether they're taking calc/eval requests at the moment on their wall. Ik some people would communicate this already, but making it more formal could help keep calc member's walls uncluttered during busier times while also helping them see important calcs.
 
It's up to the calc members, whatever they decide is fine with me.

Maybe it would be best to have some sort of status system, where a calc member can show whether they're taking calc/eval requests at the moment on their wall. Ik some people would communicate this already, but making it more formal could help keep calc member's walls uncluttered during busier times while also helping them see important calcs.
This seems like a good idea.
 
Maybe it would be best to have some sort of status system, where a calc member can show whether they're taking calc/eval requests at the moment on their wall. Ik some people would communicate this already, but making it more formal could help keep calc member's walls uncluttered during busier times while also helping them see important calcs.
Well, I asked our forum system manager to install a feature to allow us to place bold text notification messages at the top of our message walls here, so that function can already be used if necessary.
 
Doesn't that conflict with the rule?

I think this should instead say that one should first post in the calc request/eval thread and only if that doesn't work for some time go to them directly.
Where is that rule located?

Well, they are allowed to post unattended requests again in our wiki maintenance threads once every month.
In our calc eval thread.

I feel if that just doesn't work for a while it should be ok to ask people. At least for priority 3 or higher.
Oh. I should probably remove that then. It is very outdated.

Okay.
Anyway, should I reword the instruction that DontTalk found to instead mention that our members should only directly ask our individual calc group members for help if they have not received any help with genuinely important calculations for at least two or three months after first asking in our wiki maintenance forum threads, and that they should then check if the calc group member that they selected is already spammed with requests at the time, and also show consideration if a specific calc group member has left a message to leave them alone in this regard?

It might be useful to add a request procedure order instruction to a relevant rules page in our wiki as well.
 
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The point is, we really shouldn't be making calculation evaluations even harder than they are already, calc mods doesn't seem to look at the evaluations nor the requests threads, otherwise the calcs may never even be looked at all. Like I would understand if the calcer doesn't want any messages about evaluations on their walls if that were the case.
 
The point is, we really shouldn't be making calculation evaluations even harder than they are already, calc mods doesn't seem to look at the evaluations nor the requests threads, otherwise the calcs may never even be looked at all. Like I would understand if the calcer doesn't want any messages about evaluations on their walls if that were the case.
I check the calculation threads
 
I'm not a Calc member so I can't speak for them, but I personally disagree with this addition because from experience most CGMs don't even see or even actually evaluate calcs that are in the thread. There's a WAY bigger chance that they'll at the very least take a look at the Calc when it's on their walls - hell they'll even evaluate it if ur lucky.

Most Calc members from what I know don't even mind then being asked to evaluate stuff on their walls - at most they'll just ignore the request because they're busy or maybe they just didn't see the notification (somehow)

Point is - I don't really think this addition is necessary nor generally useful for people who need calculations evaluated ASAP.
 
Well, I just want to add something like the following to our instructions:

1) Ask for help in one of our calculation request threads.

2) Wait in order to receive help.

3) If you have not received help after 30 days, ask again by bumping your old request.

4) If you have not received help after 30 days again, go ask 1 to 3 calc group members directly via their forum message walls instead.

5) Check if those calc group members are already spammed with requests and/or state outright that they do not want to be bothered via their message walls. If either of this is the case, please ask another calc group member instead.

Also, the main job of our calc group members is supposed to be to bookmark and regularly monitor our two calculation request threads for new tasks that can be more easily divided among them, so I really hope that your claims are not true in this regard.
 
The Calculation Evaluation Request thread does exist for a good reason. It'd likely be unsustainable if this thread didn't exist and the first thing people did when making a new calc was to directly contact all the Calc Group members they could - with the volume of calculations being made for different characters and verses over time, this would result in periods of needlessly high pressure for tasks that could be dealt with in a much cleaner, more systematic way.

However, it's not necessarily always a problem to contact Calc Group members directly for help with evaluations on their message wall. A fair few Calc Group members have already commented on this thread with their experiences, and while it's not universal, most have noted that they don't mind (as long as they aren't being spammed, obviously). While perhaps not a perfectly equivalent situation (as I'm not Calc Group myself), I do often get contacted on my message wall for staff input with CRTs, and I'm often more than happy to lend a hand. Staff members are people users of the site should be able to contact directly for help; we're supposed to be dependable, reliable people who keep our respective fields of the site running smoothly. While we are ultimately volunteers, and may have other duties of greater importance than site matters, I think it's a reasonable expectation of me and other Thread Moderators to be willing and able when threads need to be moderated, in the same way I'd hope Calc Group members are willing and able to assist with calculations.

With all this in mind, I don't think it's reasonable to block off directly contacting Calc Group members as an option for only the most extreme circumstances. Preferably, our rules should direct people to go to the Calculation Evaluation thread first, and to contact Calc Group members only if they fail to get a response within a reasonable timeframe. To be frank, 2 months seems like far too wide of a timeframe just to be allowed to do something that a lot of people don't mind you doing in the first place.

On a connected topic, I believe it would be worthwhile for users to be able to list some form of "Current Status" to their message walls. As in, a message to say (whether temporarily or permanently) if they are okay with being contacted, or if they are only okay with being contacted for specific matters (i.e.: "Temporarily inactive, do not contact for now", "Only contact for moderation, not evaluations", or "Please leave calculation evaluation requests in the thread, do not contact directly"). People can technically just add their own messages to their message wall to do this, but it means such statuses could get buried under other messages.
 
Hey, i have been allowed to participate on this thread, so heard me out:

As someone who frequently askes the CGM to evaluate the calc by helping the verses that needed it, this rule isn't a good idea at all, as it only make everything harder for the members and verses that wanted their calc to be evaluated quick, especially for an unpopular verses
Yes, i know that there's Calculation Evaluation Thread, but for me the progress there is very slow, and you don't know if the CGM noticed it unless you're asking them right off-the bat
 
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