Suggestions for improvements (New forum)

[Damage3245]

My suggestion is that experienced members of a verse be allowed CRTs.

This prevents CRTs involving unknown verses from "dying", becomes one less problem for the team to deal with, doesn't create a huge queue of CRTs if most of the mods are busy, and makes the function itself more useful.

Strongly disagree with this if I'm right in interpretating what you mean to say "Experienced members can pass or reject CRT's without staff oversight."

 

[TauanVictor]

Strongly disagree with this if I'm right in interpretating what you mean to say "Experienced members can pass or reject CRT's without staff oversight."

I mean, if they are experienced, they will not be biased. I don't agree with how experienced members are "useless" for CRT approval if they don't convince someone on the team.

And as I said, they would be an alternative in case of unknown verses for example.

 

[Damage3245]

I mean, if they are experienced, they will not be biased.

Strongly disagree with this sentiment too.

 

[KingTempest]

I mean, if they are experienced, they will not be biased. I don't agree with how experienced members are "useless" for CRT approval if they don't convince someone on the team.

And as I said, they would be an alternative in case of unknown verses for example.

"Experienced" doesn't stop bias.

Experienced members are just members who know much about a verse. Unfortunately, this wiki has no balance of "experienced opponents".

Most experienced members on this wiki favor the mess out of their verse, where they "think" they understand something so well that they'll be able to pass judgement and give agreeals based on what they think is right.


Massively disagree with experienced members approving CRTs

 

[Mr. Bambu]

My suggestion is that experienced members of a verse be allowed CRTs.

This prevents CRTs involving unknown verses from "dying", becomes one less problem for the team to deal with, doesn't create a huge queue of CRTs if most of the mods are busy, and makes the function itself more useful.

Can you clarify what you mean by "be allowed CRTs"? Any member can create a revision of a verse, unless of course there is a topic ban.

EDIT: New replies came in, yeah no I'm hard against the notion that we should let anybody approve CRTs. Experience with a verse implies one can be biased in favor of or against it. We require staff to come in because generally speaking they can be trusted to be unbiased. I know, said the staff member, but still- that is the general idea.

 

[TauanVictor]

"Experienced" doesn't stop bias.

Experienced members are just members who know much about a verse. Unfortunately, this wiki has no balance of "experienced opponents".

Most experienced members on this wiki favor the mess out of their verse, where they "think" they understand something so well that they'll be able to pass judgement and give agreeals based on what they think is right.


Massively disagree with experienced members approving CRTs

You see, no function is clean from having biased members. Right here, many people complain about biased staff decisions.

This is generalization. If the majority really "think" they understand some verse and cause disorder, I don't see the need to exist then.

Most of the team will not look at a CRT of some unknown verse, and it ends up that it is never approved.

 

[Nierre]

My only issue is that if you want to pass or reject a CRT but if your verse isnt well known, then you'll get like no staff in it, since they don't know anything about said verse.

Like I remember looking into one the Touhou CRTs, and few of the members were complaining about how Prom is the only staff who knows anything about Touhou, so it's hard to get any other opinions from other staff.

Though I'm aware that can't be helped.


Not saying I agree or disagree with that sentiment or anything, just my thoughts overall.

 

[Damage3245]

Right here, many people complain about biased staff decisions.

Staff members are kept in check by other staff members.

 

[KingTempest]

You see, no function is clean from having biased members. Right here, many people complain about biased staff decisions.

Staff check each other left and right

This is generalization. If the majority really "think" they understand some verse and cause disorder, I don't see the need to exist then.

Most of the team will not look at a CRT of some unknown verse, and it ends up that it is never approved.

As a knowledgeable member for many verses, I admit that even I greatly understand concepts of the verse and would let them slide, but I also know that they wouldn't even follow the standards

Now imagine that with people w/out standards and who wouldn't hold themselves accountable for their own evaluations.

Some "knowledgeable member" of a verse could quantify something as EE because they personally think it counts from their knowledge of a verse.

Being knowledgeable is not a justification for evaluating threads

 

[Antvasima]

Unfortunately our staff don't have the available resources to evaluate and act as quality control buffers for even nearly all of our content revision threads, but allowing anybody who has written their username on the knowledgeable members list page in our wiki to accept revisions is also completely unworkable and unrealistic, for reasons mentioned above. My apologies.

 

[Crabwhale]

You see, no function is clean from having biased members. Right here, many people complain about biased staff decisions.

And those people are almost universally dissatisfied because they couldn't get their way with things.

It's a thing with more-or-less anyone. Why should I go and get better arguments, better scans, better everything and try again, when I can just blame the almighty, all-powerful Staff TM for not accepting something. Why should I acknowledge my verse's faults when I can just not and say it's wanked/downplayed/whatever?

I'm not saying staff bias doesn't exist, because it absolutely does, in a lot of cases. But 99% of the time when I see the line "staff bias" I discard it because they're not thinking of us as individuals at that point. They're thinking of us as this massed concentration of people that are just a hivemind. Like Ant has us jacked up to the Matrix or some shit.

And that's just not the case at all. Staff disagree with each-other all the time, everywhere, even on trivial shit. You won't find any two staff members that think the same of a verse's ratings, even if they accept a compromise. Just because we got more responsibility don't mean we're any less or more fallible than the average person.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, you have all been selected to be staff because you have been evaluated to be sufficiently rational, helpful, and reasonable at some point. Or rather, the thread moderators and administrators have been selected that way. There are other criteria for other groups.

 

[Omnificence]

Was thinking about something...

Should it be preferable for users to create blogs explaining why certain characters, verses, civilizations, weapons, and so on are High 3-A or above? I know it's impossible to calculate such tiers for now, but I feel like it would give people a better understanding of the tiering system.

 

[Antvasima]

We already use cosmology explanation blogs and official pages in cases when in seems relevant and somebody sufficiently knowledgeable is available to write them.

 

[Omnificence]

Oh. Well... should it be a prerequisite or preferred for whenever someone wants to create a profile with such tiering?

 

[Antvasima]

Maybe. I am not sure.

@AKM sama @DontTalkDT @Promestein @DarkDragonMedeus @Mr._Bambu @Damage3245

What do you think?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Aren't understandable and verifiable explanations of stats, in whichever form, a prerequisite for every profile?
As long as they exist I don't think there's a point to demand them to exist as blogs or explanation pages in particular.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thank you for the reply.

 

[Omnificence]

What if discussions about High 3-A or higher tiers were held before they're applied to pages?

 

[Antvasima]

I think that they usually are already.

 

[First_Witch]

A issue i have noticed while using the Forum with my phone is that advertisment seems to have a weird priority of our buttons. Let me explain: While on mobile, ads take a pretty big portion of the screen for themself, which is not an issue for me per se, thats how ads works. But when my shortcut bar (The one where our message and notification button is to be specific) lies directly over a ad, i cant click on those afromentioned buttons anymore, the touch would be registered as touching, and thus accessing, the ad. I have to scroll my screen so that my buttons are not over an ad. I have tested this as precisly as possible, in case im just too clumsy to hit them but nope, ads seem to have a 100% priority.

Now i dont know if thats just an me problem, a known issue or a nonissue at all.

 

[Antvasima]

It seems to be a problem, but I don't know if we can do anything about it, or if this is just how the advertisements work.

Maybe you should use uBlock Origin in Firefox in order to remove the ads if they are a big problem for you?

 

[First_Witch]

It isn't, per se, its annoying but not worth jumping browsers for me.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[AKM sama]

I'd like to add my piece on the above discussion that I saw so late. Being knowledgeable and experienced with a verse doesn't equate to being reasonable and having a rational sense of judgment. It's one thing to know more about the verse and it's another to be able to process that information to make sensible decisions. Being knowledgeable most of the times also means that someone likes the verse which increases the risk of being biased too.

 

[MrKerf]

But shouldn't there be a line of a sort? A line after which a single admin's opinion does not outweight an opinion of multiple supporters and knowl users?

I've recently seen a bunch of crts (mainly old or closed ones) in which basically everyone agrees on something, yet admin can say lol no and close the thread without any discussion. Or refusing to apply the revision because he himself does not agree, despite multiple arguments against his opinion.
In all these examples people think that their opinion is worthless and question whether it is even needed to have discussions, if admins are the only people needed in said discussions.

Rational sense of judgment shouldn't be assumed just because a person is an admin, I think. Sera and that one admin who tried to bribe a calc member are examples.

By admin I mean stuff member btw.

 

[Antvasima]

We unfortunately don't have any better system available than trying our best to make sure that we pick the most rational, reliable, and unbiased members to become staff, and then having them evaluate and act as buffers regarding what seems reasonable to apply. My apologies.

 

[MrKerf]

I meeean... sure. We don't have one now. Doesn't mean we can't brainstorm something better suited for everyone.

Suggestions for improvements and all.

 

[Antvasima]

If we turn this in to a popularity power issue, and remove our buffers, we would end up with far more unreliable statistics and frustrated staff members than currently, to the point that the community would stop functioning properly.

 

[MrKerf]

Popularity contest is a no go obviously, but right now we have frustrated community which thinks that the entire stuff is biased against some verses. Even the term "stuff bias" or smth wouldn't appear out of nowhere, right?

Having reliable statistics =/= neglecting opinions of certain people over another. Now, I won't say that this happens all the time stuff member votes against the majority, but the issue is still there.

 

[Antvasima]

It is far more common that our staff members simply try to be unbiased/critical when it comes to upgrades, and as such may oppose them or support downgrades, especially if they like and know the verses well enough to properly evaluate them.

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, I personally often do not have enough available time to read more than other staff arguments, and am severely overworked just from adding that to my schedule, due to how many tasks that I handle, but said other staff members should ideally read the posts of regular members as well. They are not required to agree with them though.

 

[AKM sama]

Rational sense of judgment shouldn't be assumed just because a person is an admin

In most cases, we try to make sure that only people with rational sense of judgment are promoted to an admin or thread mod position, because at the end of the day, they are the ones responsible to evaluate threads.

You mentioned that we can't make it a popularity thing. Then there needs to someone who can take decisions. If we select you to take decisions about some verse's CRT, the problem won't disappear. Whether they are staff, or some selected rational members, no matter who the decision makers are and what decisions they take, there will always be some people unhappy with them, they'll feel upset, and they'll say the decision maker is biased when things don't go their way. I'm afraid there is no good alternative.

 

[MrKerf]

Nice profile pic

I am just saying that there shouldn't be the case of staff's opinion > everyone else's opinion. Automatically I mean. Ultimately the discussion is what supposed to be a decisive factor. Yet there was numerous times of staff members closing threads when discussion still was ongoing. Or saying that the arguments aren't convincing. Or that there aren't enough of them. Or any other reason. I do not believe that there should be an individual that decides in the end, that's the same thing, different flavour.
EDIT: I don't mean there weren't times when arguments aren't convincing for a fact, but there still should be a discussion.

 

[AKM sama]

Thanks.

If there is nobody who will decide which arguments and points are more valid, then it will become a popularity contest. Everybody will keep spamming their points and the side with greater number will win.

 

[MrKerf]

I meeean, not really. It wouldn't be about spamming points, but refuting wrong statements of one another. Like in general ability addition there is an objective way of saying which ones are right and which are wrong, there is an objective way for most other situations, which shouldn't be resolved without providing an explanation.
Although I do admit that I can't outline a template for every situation, I still think we should brainstorm this issue.
(Probably in stuff only thread, as ironic as it is).

 

[AKM sama]

The example you provided can be really objective. Like, if someone demonstrates an ability, it's really not difficult to settle on what it is and how it works most of the times. And those are not the cases where issues happen either. They happen when things become subjective. Both sides might think that they are convincingly refuting other side's arguments. In such cases, there needs to be someone who can evaluate.

 

[MrKerf]

I know, I know, my examples aren't the best for said issue. But you understand the issue already, aren't you?

Anyways, I proposed the improvement. Or at least I proposed to have a discussion to be made regarding said issue. Can't you at least try finding the solution to it between yourselves?
I know you'll say that what we have now is probably the best. But maybe someone in stuff discussion will propose something even better? It won't hurt anybody if you'll just try.

 

[AKM sama]

I have been here for years, and Ant has been here for even more years. And believe me, I have been on both sides of the coin. I did start out as a regular member and I had my threads get rejected too even when I believed I was right. The current solution is the best one and has been working for so many years. But, if someone wants to talk about an alternative, they can always send a private message to me or Ant or someone. In fact, I have received some suggestions in the past but again, they weren't better than what we currently have. I do not think we need to make a discussion thread on this though.

 

[Antvasima]

I have been here for almost 8 years now, yes.

@Catalyst75 is the only active member who has been here for longer than me.