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A new rule to help our calc group members?

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DarkGrath said:
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.
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Yes, I think that both of them should be used as a first option, and regularly patrolled by all of our calc group members, who should give thumbs up to the requests that they have handled already, so duplicate work is mostly avoided.
DarkGrath said:
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.
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Yes, but a few of them mentioned in private conversations that they are being constantly spammed by requests, so it should at least be used first after the main option has been tried and failed, and attention should probably be given to if a calc group member's forum message wall is already crowded with requests, so the requests are distributed more evenly among our calc group members.
DarkGrath said:
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.
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Okay. Would 1 month be a more reasonable timeframe then?
DarkGrath said:
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.
Click to expand...
We already have such a function installed via all members' personal user settings. You can check my forum message wall for an example.

Anyway, thank you for your very sensible and levelheaded evaluations.
 
I had gotten Ant's permission to comment on this, so please don't go off on me; I already have more rulebreaks on this site than Aran Ryan.

I can agree with others, especially Propellus and Nierre on the subject matter. There are some calc group members who wouldn't mind a visit to their message wall provided they aren't spammed. Now, one of the issues that I've personally noted would impact whether a calc evaluation goes through or not is not time itself, but rather the calc group's interest in the subject matter calced. From personal experience, I've seen Psychomaster35 hop right into the Total Drama calcs I did just from me posting in the Calculations Evaluations thread and calling it a day despite it not being relatively well-known unlike things like Spongebob Squarepants and My Hero Academia, yet at the same time, I had calcs go without a single word besides the usual stock response from Ant, and that especially seems to be true for series not many people know about in the first place.

There are quite a lot of fictional works out there, and nobody is a walking encyclopedia, sure, but at the same time I feel lack of interest in or knowledge of a series shouldn't play as huge of a factor as IRL stuff. Two of the series I'll put up as an example were two Ant and I shared our grievances with one another about: respectively, Gold Digger and Debby the Corsifa is Emulous. For the former, Ant was literally the first person I've seen bring Gold Digger up, as I've only seen certain forms of fanart from the series prior to that, so I felt it was very unlikely for anyone else to have heard of the series, let alone calc'ed or evaluated calcs for it. As for the latter, I've basically calc'ed every feat in the Debby the Corsifa manga series so far and I've yet to find a single calc group member willing to evaluate any of them (I try to keep it capped at 3 or 4 calcs per blog despite the limit of 5 calcs per blog), primarily because I'm the only person on this site to have ever heard of the series.

Basically what I'm trying to say is people not having heard of so-and-so series is a part of a reason why some calcs go without evaluations. DMUA used to be the most generalist Calc Group member out there (even though I will admit his evals can be a bit wonky), but nowadays, I'm pretty sure he quietly retired or something since I hadn't heard from him at all here or on the wiki. Because of this, I am more than willing to go with a more lenient measure than outright telling people not to post on Calc Group member walls.
Antvasima said:
Okay. Would 1 month be a more reasonable timeframe then?
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The 30-day proposal seems to be a fair middle ground imo.
 
Well, I do not have any grievances about Gold Digger. I would just like us to get calculations and profile pages for the verse.
 
GyroNutz said:
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.
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It would be helpful, but IDK how to do it.
 
So what should we do here then? Write some rule text about that our members should try with our calculation request threads first, and only ask our calc group members directly if that fails, and to then try to ask a few of our calc group members that are not already swarmed with requests?
 
Antvasima said:
So what should we do here then? Write some rule text about that our members should try with our calculation request threads first, and only ask our calc group members directly if that fails, and to then try to ask a few of our calc group members that are not already swarmed with requests?
Click to expand...
Add the time frame proposed (~30 days) and yes, you pretty much got it.
 
Okay. That seems good to me at least, but this issue is mainly up to our calc group members to decide.
 
Okay. We have a 30 days waiting time between each post bump in our two calculation request threads though. I just thought that it might be a good idea to have the two values overlap. Or should we reduce the 30 days waiting time there as well in conjunction? And if so, how long waiting time should we use instead?
 
I dunno, honestly that's a matter of its own, the thread should have a bump limit since it'd just be the same calculations getting bumped over and over, leaving users who frequent the wiki a bit less or on less inhabited timezones at a disadvantage, while calc members aren't going to be swarmed to such a point.
 
Okay. So should we keep the 30 days bump limit for our official wiki management threads, but allow our members to ask our calc group members directly after waiting for a shorter/briefer period of time?
 
I think the 30 day timer for bumps is fine, less could work but having a reasonably long stop gap helps prevent the calculation threads from being cluttered.
 
While I personally think 30 days is kinda pushing it for a bump, but I guess it seems fine
 
Thank you for the replies. 🙏

Can somebody remind me regarding what we currently need to do here then please?
 
Last edited:
Shouldn't we put down some official instructions somewhere?
 
Antvasima said:
So what should we do here then? Write some rule text about that our members should try with our calculation request threads first, and only ask our calc group members directly if that fails, and to then try to ask a few of our calc group members that are not already swarmed with requests?
Click to expand...
So is it fine if I add a mention of this to our calculation evaluation requests thread, and should it be added to one of the rule pages in our wiki as well?

Also, what time limits should be mentioned in conjunction?
 
Anyone?
 
I'm not really super into setting up a genuine time limit. I feel like that should be up to common sense (like "hey, maybe I'm spamming this guy. I'll stop").
 
Okay. I am uncertain exactly how we should structure any potential changes here.

@ImmortalDread

You tend to be pretty good at handling that sort of issue.
 
Is this rule removed? (Just reminder)
In the event that this fails to garner attention, users may politely remind the calculation group members to take a look.
Click to expand...

So after reading all comments carefully, I came to this conclusion:

My draft:
To ensure that our Calculation Group members are not unnecessarily bothered, we ask community members to follow the guidelines below.
  1. First, please post your calculation request or evaluation request in the Calculation Evaluation Request thread. This will help keep the process organized and ensure that everyone who needs assistance gets help.
  2. Wait for a reasonable amount of time to receive a response. In most cases, we suggest waiting at least 15 days before seeking help through other means.
  3. If you have not received help after 15 days, please bump your original request in the appropriate thread.
  4. If you still have not received help after 15 days, you may contact up to three Calculation Group members directly via their message walls. However, please be considerate and check first to see if they are already inundated with requests, or have indicated that they prefer not to be contacted in this way.
  5. While we encourage members to use the Calculation Evaluation Request thread whenever possible, it is not strictly prohibited to contact Calculation Group members directly for evaluation help. However, please keep in mind that this should only be done as a last resort, and only after a reasonable amount of time has passed.
  6. If you do decide to contact Calculation Group members directly, please be respectful and refrain from spamming or harassing them in any way.
To calculation members
To avoid confusion, you should to list a “Current Status” on message walls. This could include messages such as "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”.

This will help ensure that users are contacted in a way that is appropriate for their current situation.
 
Thank you very much for helping out. Should I place a version of that text at the top of the following threads then?

vsbattles.com

Calculation Evaluations (New forum)

This thread is intended for users to link to new blog post calculations, to relay them to the community, and have them evaluated by the calculation group, without contacting the members individually. To evaluate important off-site calculations, preferably copy them to blog posts in this wiki...
vsbattles.com vsbattles.com

vsbattles.com

Calculation Requests Thread (New forum)

This is the official thread for requesting calcs to be done by the members of the Calc Group and other senior editors. However, this help is entirely optional, and the people who do the requesting cannot expect that anybody will somehow be automatically interested in doing the requested calcs...
vsbattles.com vsbattles.com

@Executor_N0 @Spinosaurus75DinosaurFan @Mr._Bambu @Therefir @DMUA @Damage3245 @DemonGodMitchAubin @Jasonsith @Wokistan @Armorchompy @Migue79 @Psychomaster35 @CloverDragon03 @KLOL506 @M3X_2.0 @Dark-Carioca @AbaddonTheDisappointment @Aguywhodoesthings @Dalesean027 @DemiiPowa @Flashlight237 @Agnaa

What do you think?
 
I do not think we should make it a hard-set rule about how long one must wait to contact a Calc Group Member directly. The bureaucracy of this site bogs down all processes tremendously, I do not blame the average user for wishing to contact a CGM (especially one related to the series, or one who has made it clear that they wish to be contacted via their boards). In this case I can only speak for myself, however, as I suspect I evaluate less calculations than many of my peers. I do approve of the bit suggesting people not spam walls with this stuff, however- certain users will often mass upload calculations, and personally I just don't really want to dig through six or seven calculations riddled with mistakes while someone breathes down my neck about it.

Neutral on the timeframes for bumping the calc eval thread, I think they may be a bit high but honestly, there's so much on that thread that maybe it would be better to put in a rather strict timeframe. Again speaking from personal experience, I just choose one somewhere along the line that hasn't received evaluation and handle it.

does that last bit mean that if I leave my status as "leave", I'll be left at peace perpetually?
 
So should we just mention something like this then?

"Try our request threads first, and if that doesn't work, ask a few of our calc group members directly, but please focus on ones that have not already received a lot of such requests recently."
 
Mr._Bambu said:
does that last bit mean that if I leave my status as "leave", I'll be left at peace perpetually?
Click to expand...
No. You will be tormented until your dying day. When you finally perish, there will be no memories of your loved ones, or your moments of happiness, but only an eternity of unevaluated calcs and the laughter of thirsting bureaucrats.

That aside, I agree with Bambu on this topic, as I often do.
 
Both Dread and Bambu have some interesting points here, admittedly. It would make sense to not be strict on people asking Calc Group members, although the "no spam" caveat is perfect. The bumping thing would necessitate the strict time frame still. Hmm. I think three weeks may be sufficient without seeming too high or too low. I'm just throwing that hat in the ring, tho. I wouldn't care which way it goes.
 
I think I already gave my opinion on the matter, no?
 
I don't like this rule, even the revised version. I think it's good that some people request in more general channels, while some people ask specific members, depending on what they're more comfortable with (I like the more personal feel of asking specific people in your own way; on both ends of this topic). Plus, posts on someone's message wall are harder to ignore, so they can come up at times when a calc member wasn't thinking of evaluating calcs, but still has time to do so, leading to more calcs evaluated overall. On top of that, message wall posts run a lower risk of wasting time if the calc is instantly evaluated, since it's not shown to other calc group members. And finally, I don't think seeing 4 message wall requests for a calc eval is more exerting than seeing 10 posts in the calc eval thread.

But if that's just me, I don't think I'd be against us only letting people be messaged on message walls if they're open to it. Although there could be issues with removing that method of contacting them for particularly important things....
 
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