Content Revision Threads

[Golden_Void]

I'm gonna keep it simple. And this is not in reference to any singular post.

I firmly believe that if you do not know the topic of the matter at hand, which would be a general amount of knowledge that allows you keep up and interact with others on said subject, or thorough knowledge on the subject, you should refrain from posting any uneducated opinions on whether you agree or disagree in the thread.

Why?

Because, if the OP makes a post for an upgrade or downgrade, no matter how detailed, there's almost a guarantee that you're going to have a line of guys coming out the door saying "I agree" like this is a versus battle, and they have little to no knowledge of the topic at hand. If you have a certain level of knowledge, that's one thing. Not to come off as rude, but there are many threads where someone doesn't have sufficient knowledge on a subject, but instead they tell OP "contact x, y, and z, as they have knowledge on the matter". This is also not to say you shouldn't post in a thread if you don't know anything. You can still point out whether or not someone is using fallacies or illogical arguments, or question points made by others.

Otherwise, the thread is likely to end up with a few people simply agreeing then regurgitating the info in the OP, agreeing with everything and having 0 objectivity (which leads to bias, but at this point trying to find bias that isn't blatant is like trying to find a needle in a haystack), probably not understanding the context, and then the few people that actually do know what they're talking about get shut out, because the majority wins 90% of the time, which I could post examples of, but I don't want to single anybody out.

It is possible to educate yourself on the topic by immersing yourself in the source material of which the thread is based off of. If you're pulling info from another wiki, or have no knowledge on the topic, more often than not, your $.02 ends up derailing the thread, or offers nothing of substance. Saying you agree with something, or that something makes sense literally contributes nothing to the thread, but the OP won't care because either way they're getting their votes. Don't even get me started on the fallacies produced from this. :^)

And no, I'm not talking about the CRTs that literally take 5 seconds to make a decision. This is mainly directed towards the "I agree" type of comments that get counted towards the overall conclusion of a CRT. They can be noted, but they shouldn't really contribute to the progress of a CRT, which is why we have voters in vs battles thread give a detailed reason for their vote, but people who agree with said detailed reason, and find the reasoning sound, can agree with that, though anything can be debunked with sufficient info.


Inb4 somebody comments "I agree"

 

[Fllflourine]

Oh well, yea seems reasonable. OVO.

 

[The_real_cal_howard]

• thinks of how to word this.

I'm doing the opposite of disagreeing. People can be sheep, and I'm not exempt. Some people skim through the OP, or have bias in it.

 

[QuagsireTheLegend]

I agree

WHAT CHU GONNA DO ABOUT IT

 

[Golden_Void]

So you're agreeing? :^)

And basically, the goal is achieving more refined and accurately evaluated CRTs.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, the problem is that if we followed this suggestion, only 25% or so of all CR threads would get evaluated by the staff, due to lack of knowledge or activity on our parts.

I think that it is much better to simply ask for thorough clarifications/explanations from whoever made the thread, and then attempt to evaluate the information as best we can.

 

[Antvasima]

In many cases no staff member is informed about a topic, whereas some heavily biased regular members are. We have to be allowed to still make judgement calls regarding whether their suggested upgrades seem feasible.

 

[Antvasima]

Of course this is not at all a perfect solution, given the problems that you described, but I think that outright forbidding any participation in threads regarding issues that we are not thoroughly informed about would be a far too extreme option.

 

[Golden_Void]

This is mainly directed towards the "I agree" type of comments that get counted towards the overall conclusion of a CRT. They can be noted, but they shouldn't really contribute to the progress of a CRT, which is why we have voters in vs battles thread give a detailed reason for their vote, but people who agree with said detailed reason, and find the reasoning sound, can agree with that, though anything can be debunked with sufficient info.

Take for example Weekly's recent Bayonetta post .

Not everybody knows Bayonetta, but by reading the context of what has been supplied and questioning things that should be questioned, there was an actual discussion of the feats involved, which led to a productive CRT session. There wasn't just a bunch of "I agree" comments.

Most CRTs include relatively brief points, which can be read in a few chapters of a manga, or a few minutes of video, with the exception of novels.

"I think that it is much better to simply ask for thorough clarifications/explanations from whoever made the thread, and then attempt to evaluate the information as best we can."

This is also a good idea.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, again, I am not sure what we can do, as solving your problem would cause far greater negative consequences for the proper functioning of this wiki.

I try to help out with most content revision threads, or at least the ones that other staff members do not already seem to have well under control, and recurrently have to simply make a comment regarding whoever I agree with, due to the time restraints of juggling many different tasks at once, and simply having nothing of further interest to add.

This, however, does not mean that I, and likely most others, haven't attempted to read through the entire thread, and get an overview of the situation at hand.

 

[Antvasima]

The staff should however, preferably ask for clarifications, proof, and explanations when we need further information to make a judgement call.

 

[Gwynbleiddd]

Most staff members are as biased as regular members.

I strongly agree with this.

 

[The_Everlasting]

I think a main thing, for me at least, is that I often just don't have anything more to say other than my agreement, so elaborating further is a bit pointless.

Unless I'm really misinterpreting this thread (Probably am).

 

[Antvasima]

Well, much of our job here is nevertheless to attempt to evaluate CR threads as best we are able. Enforcing a regulation would usually turn it much harder to reach any form of conclusions.

 

[Golden_Void]

@Ever

You just missed a few details :^)

@Ant

How would this regulation impose anything that isn't already functional on the wiki, such as the rules for versus threads? The concept is similar.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, for example, I recurrently spend around 63 hours a week managing this wiki, and given the sheer number of tasks, I can manage to read through and evaluate threads and their responses, but not give long replies to all of them, when I do not have anything to say that has not been mentioned previously.

However, a lot of the time it is necessary to give official clearances that suggested content changes can or cannot proceed in order for anything to happen.

It is a much easier task to focus on a much smaller number of threads that solely relate to topics that are personally interesting, but this also gives a more limited perspective regarding what is going on in the community as a whole, and I do not have that luxury, given that it would leave most CR threads completely unattended, which would be very bad for the healthy development of the wiki.

If we enforced this rule, it would completely cripple mine and other staff members' abilities to evaluate any topics that we are not personally invested in, which would mean that virtually nothing would get done, causing regular member frustration and resulting unaccepted content changes/vandalism to increase drastically.

 

[FanofRPGs]

It is not as though our current situation leads to great productivity as it is.

For example, back in May, I dealt with lengthy revisions pertaining with Doctor Who, wrote whole blogs on their feats, and yet it took almost weeks to merely surmount enough support to have the changes be done. Such thing happened with Dragon Quest VIII back in Late August too, albeit to a smaller scale, where I had to scrape up any agreeance to have it proven.

And I get where you are coming from when you say that not all members are to be knowledgable on a verse. This is why I think furthermore as a standard for content revision threads, it is a mandatory rule to supply images/scans/excerpts for background context. As in even if one seems correct in his proposed revisions, if he proves absolutely unable to provide context of the feat and what happens as a result, his revisions will be denied until he can supply context. As such, if we are to be required to state all background factors or terms or conditions in a revision thread, those unknowledgable on a verse yet knowledgable on consistency, fallacies, calculations, or intuition may comment.

 

[Promestein]

Of course images / scans / excerpts should be mandatory, but that is besides the topic, so please don't derail things.

I think Ant is overreacting a bit, but it should still be possible and fine for users to intelligently analyze what is offered in a thread regardless of their knowledge on the verse. I don't think a flock of "I agree" is worth much and most people don't believe so, either; if someone brings up a good argument against it, that is obviously worth more than any amount of people saying that they agree. This is already the standard in content revision threads. I remember a lot of threads that went that direction, exactly. I don't think there is much that needs to change.

People going with majority rules isn't an issue with the rules, but with those people's judgments. I don't understand why this needs to be turned into a ruling when anyone who is going to actually analyze what's offered to them and ask for clarification and elaboration. We can just put a ruling in discouraging blind agreements, I suppose.

 

[Antvasima]

I think that Promestein makes sense.

For the record, I am particularly worried because I wouldn't be able to perform a large part of my wiki work if I was not allowed to comment in threads about topics that I am not previously well acquainted with, and given that I am recurrently the only one available to evaluate them, this would result in most non-popular verses not getting any improvements gradually performed.