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The Vs. Battles Wiki Problem

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One last time, because I'm staring to get annoyed:

  1. This is a critique. It's a "this long-time admin feels the site has gone under in her opinion. Why?" thread. Not a "these are objective issues that must be dealt with thread".
  2. It's tagged Friendly Discussio and is put in the General Discussion board, not Wiki Management for a reason.
  3. Not a single massive revision or immediate call to action was suggested. I'm not trying to pile more stuff onto your plate.
  4. Zark and Ovens' decisions were their own and they've said three times now it had nothing to do with this thread.
  5. These are criticisms not complaints. There's a difference.
  6. I stated in the OP, in the replies, and multiple times on Discord that these were not objective. They are opinion-based. They logically cannot be inaccurate, only based on inaccurate information. If others can't accept someone's opinion without getting upset they are what's wrong with public discourse in the 21st century.
  7. My intention was not to demoralize the community and I highly disagree and find it flat out insulting that it's being considered as such just because two staff decided to own up and resign and a few normal users decided to start complaining about the staff.
 
Okay. My apologies if I brought offense then.
 
Ok so, I have this proposals to deal with some of the problems pointed out in the OP.

WAY Too Many Pages

  • Let's make a rule stating that any new profile should have everything with linked evidence (P&A and feats/scaling in all their stats), this can be right where the stuff is claimed on the profile, its Notable Attacks/Techniques, in a list of Feats, or in a blog linked to the profile. If it doesn't have everything with linked evidence, a deletion for the profile should be undisputed.
    • Primarily, this would make bad profiles easy to detect and detele. There is a lot of them I see, I don't belive in the stuff they claim and I do nothing about it as I would need to make a CRT to ask for everything...and then wait for that to be done, which takes an unrealistic amount amount of time for anyone to deal with this problem properly. Later the time would give me the reason when other users also have problems with those profiles and do make CRTs about them.
    • Secondarily, this would delay users who just love making kinda unimportant profiles or just a lot of them. One of the points in the OP says that we have many profiles, I disagree with it and think we should allow basically any amount of them, but the control over them should keep up with that.
    • Yes this would delay good users from making profiles too, but we had this coming and completely deserve this. We need to be responsible now.
Too Many CRTs

  • This one's less controversial, simple and extremely useful, it's beyond me how it wasn't just accepted when originally proposed as something optional, but now it should be mandatory: All verse pages should have a section listing ongoing CRTs (and likely Q&A & Discussion threads too), and the users making them should edit the verse page to add them.
    • All users following the verse page of a verse would now always know when threads are brought, meaning that more users than just a few would see and evaluate CRTs.
    • This would also mean that more users will have a better motivation to enlist themselves in a verse to help out, among them reliable users.
    • The same topics would be less likely to be brought twice, including after someone is already talking about it (like when a new popular movie comes out).
    • Threads would be easier to find, trolls can removes topics at any time no? And some verses just have a lot of threads.
Prioritization of the OP, the Philosophical, and the Technical

  • More or less related but the page where users make CRTs should link a page giving examples of properly organized OPs from other CRTs to stop new or bad users from doing messes. Also, the main page of the wiki should have a gif showing that we have the options we have above on caps (INFORMATION, FEATURED PAGES, GUIDELINES, etc. Seriously new users don't see that sh*t, hence no one knows the stuff there or reads the rules).
 
I wasn't talking about anyone specifically, Ant, just people in general still getting the wrong idea.
 
@Eficiente

I don't think that linking to evidence for absolutely every information in our pages seems realistic, but having sections for the major currently ongoing content revision threads for a series in the reated verse page seems like a good idea, especially given our upcoming external forum.

@Sera EX

Okay. No problem.
 
That is another potential problem, yes. Reference lists are fine, though.
 
@Ant Only for new pages, and we can at least do something similar to a lesser degree. This not being realistic is completely on purpose, one of the reasons for that being that less pages in a month=less inflation. Inflation needs to be desperately removed while also not disallowing users from doing stuff, so it it only makes sense to make things more strict.

Also legit every time I see copyright laws being mentioned it always seems like an excuse to not add evidence, there are a lot of ways to make everything legal, mostly with albums on Imgur, applying fair use on youtube and turning videos into images with subs.
 
>Points 1 and 2

I've agreed with this point for the longest time. We have become too big for our own good when it comes to accuracy. The popular verses are fine in comparison as they have people on both sides (pro and against) to debate about the stats and come to a reasonable conclusion. The more eyes you have, the better you can look into it. But obscure verses with no "haters" is really a problem because their stats can be whatever a small group of people want as long as they make a coherent CRT. Because many of us don't care about the verse and don't want to dive too deep in to the context. (I'm not talking about all the obscure verses, obviously.) But many of these verses need more eyes on them.

I agree with how people react to a downgrade thread is really horrible. Suddenly you're the villain when you're just doing your job to keep the site accurate. As long as you're okaying the upgrades, you're everybody's friend and this place feels like a heaven. But as soon as you call for a downgrade, people start hating on you and driving you away. It's starting to become a quest for survival, really. You wanna survive? Just okay the upgrades and be chummy with everyone. Otherwise this place will become a hell for you. (Again, I may be exaggerating, but the issue is there.)

These are the points I agree with most. I'll not say anything else since the thread has already seen much drama. Also one problem at a time, and the main one at that.

P.S. I am very sad that Sir Ovens and Zark have retired. Both of them are great people and were really deserving of their positions and irrespective of what they say about themselves, I know they have helped out a lot. I seriously hope it's a small break and they reconsider and return to their positions as staff when they feel up to it.
 
Well, I suppose that may be a good point, but this is the entirely wrong time to focus on lots of major revisions, as others have mentioned here, and I have mentioned elsewhere.

Also legit every time I see copyright laws being mentioned it always seems like an excuse to not add evidence, there are a lot of ways to make everything legal, mostly with albums on Imgur, applying fair use on youtube and turning videos into images with subs.
Imgur albums and uploaded images to this wiki are probably fine, but Fandom has told us that they much prefer if we avoid linking directly to manga hosting sites, and in addition, they are frequently shut down.
 
I strongly agree with this. It is the responsibility of all staff members to try their best to act as bulwarks against inaccurate information, but doing one's job in this regard can recurrently lead to gang-ups by hordes of fans of a certain franchise.

P.S. I am very sad that Sir Ovens and Zark have retired. Both of them are great people and were really deserving of their positions and irrespective of what they say about themselves, I know they have helped out a lot. I seriously hope it's a small break and they reconsider and return to their positions as staff when they feel up to it.
Strongly agreed about this as well.
 
> I agree with how people react to a downgrade thread is really horrible. Suddenly you're the villain when you're just doing your job to keep the site accurate.

Agreed. I've recieved so much hate on here for downgrade threads in the past. The kind of thing that has discouraged me from starting new threads because I know how they always end up.
 
I actually agree with you, for once, that it'd be immensely better to postpone discussion on this rather inconveniently timed thread up until the forum was moved.

I also do not think that there is much that we can do about this in our current situation, although Eficiente's idea of listing important ongoing content revision threads in our verse pages may be a good idea after the forum migration.
 
@Damage3245

I do not always agree wth your downgrade attempts, but appreciate that you are striving for accuracy.
 
Ok sorry for another post but I couldn't stop rambling about the numerous points in the OP that I agree with.

To be blunt, most don't care for other verses (excluding the popular ones) as long as they get to upgrade their own (obviously I don't expect everyone to put the site's overall accuracy before their verse, like Ant). This is the most serious issue because everyone is busy upgrading their verses, while they should be busy critically analyzing other verses. A strong opposition or "haters" for every verse are absolutely necessary for a site like this to remain accurate. (I know this point is controversial, but needed to be said.)

I admit I haven't done as much as I wanted to do. Through my experience on other platforms in varied corners of the internet, I've seen vs debators, at any platform, mostly make use or refer to our statistics. And literally, the only reason I joined, was to make the most popular indexing site as accurate as I could so that this chain of accuracy will reach to all the other corners of the internet. And I admit that I've not done a very good job at it. I am not even sure if I made any difference in the grand scheme of things I originally set out to do.

But instead of looking at this in a negative light of discouragement, we should all look at it with a positive intent, a pep talk. This should be a collective responsibility of all the people and we must all do our best. Just ask questions in other threads even if you're not familiar to the verse, like "why?", "how?". Keep exploring and asking relevant questions and make the upgrades difficult. These questions are the backbone of a site like this. Make sure to analyze a profile you come across and check if their stats are properly backed up. It's small things like this that make the big differences.
 
"I agree with how people react to a downgrade thread is really horrible. Suddenly you're the villain when you're just doing your job to keep the site accurate.'"

I think this depends on who you ask though. Dargoo is fairly well regarded by the community and is pretty much solely known for downgrading a few verses like JoJos. Sure, individual users tied to the verse may well take personal offense but it seems possible to get a generally favorable response from downgrades.

Strongly suspect this conversation is gonna go on until the forum move though so... what we do about that, I dunno.
 
Interesting post, to say the least. Two mods going down (Best of Luck to you both, Zark and Ovens). I will give more input when I have more free time
 
Mr. Bambu said:
wasn't really fishing for this but noted

its less you guys and more just the atmosphere of the place slowly but surely wearing down on my poor poor weary psyche. it seems every other week we get more wiki-altering discussions that will then immediately be forgotten for eight or so months only to be stonewalled. this place ain't the wiki I joined and the alienation feels compounded when friends like Ovens get filtered out by the times changing. dunno what to do, really.
Click to expand...
Heh, same.

-

Gone for months, reappears just to say this ovo
 
Well, for what it is worth, I did ask the community to not start major wiki revisions before the forum migration if possible.
 
Mr. Bambu said:
"I agree with how people react to a downgrade thread is really horrible. Suddenly you're the villain when you're just doing your job to keep the site accurate.'"

I think this depends on who you ask though. Dargoo is fairly well regarded by the community and is pretty much solely known for downgrading a few verses like JoJos. Sure, individual users tied to the verse may well take personal offense but it seems possible to get a generally favorable response from downgrades.
Click to expand...
I feel like, more than depending on who you ask, it depends on what verses get downgraded and if anyone in those verses would get angry about it. I dunno if the downgrader's approach to a downgrade could help them get a better response, it might just be the luck of the draw.
 
I think people are attached to their fav characters, so they don't take too well to them downgraded.

Not everyone is like that, i mean i routinely downgrade stuff i like, cause i don't care about how powerful they are, but accuracy, however i think a lot of people on this site are reasonable people.

How it's approached is important, cause i have seen people being really obnoxious about it, including staff.
 
"I feel like, more than depending on who you ask, it depends on what verses get downgraded and if anyone in those verses would get angry about it. I dunno if the downgrader's approach to a downgrade could help them get a better response, it might just be the luck of the draw."

Very possibly, yeah. It could just be luck. That said, continuing to use the example of JoJos since that's the only downgrade I can actively remember at the moment, people did get a mite bit pissy about it, but as far as I know the downgrade was considered fairly reasonable outside of that particular verse. So... response in-verse, bad, response overall, generally good.
 
There is a lot of luck involved with 'reception' of a proposal, but personally what is most important is communication before the actual thread.

Talking with enthusiasts offsite and onsite, making sure everyone is on the same page before a revision is proposed, can greatly streamline how fast a revision is accepted or rejected and tone down hostilities. Additionally, notifying neutral administrators to monitor and enforce debating rules greatly helps if the verse has a history of large debate.

I'm currently planning more JoJo changes, however I have noticed there are many users on the site that are also planning changes contrary to me. Instead of trying to 'race' those changes, I'm planning on contacting those other users and discussing potential debate topics in posting a joint thread.
 
This is not a wiki-altering discussion. It's tagged Friendly Discussio for reason. It's just my humble opinions. Where the site goes from here is up to you lot, not me.
 
Sera EX said:
This is not a wiki-altering discussion. It's tagged Friendly Discussio for reason. It's just my humble opinions. Where the site goes from here is up to you lot, not me.
Click to expand...
A discussion may be friendly and indeed alter the wiki. And, whether it was your intention or not, this has altered the wiki. If used positively, it will lead to some form of staff reform, or at least be another step in that general direction, maybe some other benefits as well. If not then... who knows.
 
Read through the whole thing and try to digest anything I can.

The paradoxes and problems are clearly explained. While not much solutions have brought out I would give my feedback.

1. WAY Too Many Pages

I would not say so. Imagine what cramping virtually all characters across all fictional verses with and without a Fandom wiki into this site and we expect this to happen. In fact I see some super famous fiction works NOT YET having profile pages here. (Then some fans of some obscure verses they love hard make pages and pages here. I see no problem with that, the real problem is they are really unfamiliar with the format of our profiles - just visit the profile deletion thread.)

2. Too Many CRTs

Well virtually this can be solved by having one CRT per verse, but this may cause many hassles and sometimes there are revisions that affect multiple verses.

3. Calc and Powerscaling Abuse

Well what others have said.

4. Too Many Staff Members

We see a lot of things going on here. So I will rather say we have insufficient staff but each staff's workload cannot be rationally and effectively assigned to meet the demands of the site. Hell lots of calc requests are waiting for months to get satisfied and more calc are waiting to be evaluated, lots of matches are yet to be added or removed... Just to say a few aspects of how understaffed we are to cope with our demands.

Also, given the pro bono / voluntary nature of staffs here, the overstaffing in this situation I would say is essential.

5. The Community's Role

So basically we should have "site staffs" who just manage the site, and "verse staff" who are knowledgeable in verses and can therefore can actually evaluate whether a calc blog or CRT content is accurate. Similar to what we currently have, but needa down tuning.

6. Prioritization of the OP, the Philosophical, and the Technical

Well this: this should be rephrased as "more focused on feats and less on flowery languages, esp. WOG, Statements, etc.".

Which should be what we are already doing.

7. The New Tier System is Sorta Worthless

Not familiar with this. So far I am fine with the current system if anyone can reiterate / elaborate the system and applying it consistently. Can anyone summarise what extra / new the new system can offer?
 
Jasonsith said:
4. Too Many Staff Members

We see a lot of things going on here. So I will rather say we have insufficient staff but each staff's workload cannot be rationally and effectively assigned to meet the demands of the site. Hell lots of calc requests are waiting for months to get satisfied and more calc are waiting to be evaluated, lots of matches are yet to be added or removed... Just to say a few aspects of how understaffed we are to cope with our demands.
Click to expand...
I strongly agree with this.
 
We functionally do have too many staff who don't really do anything (no slight to them, interest wanes, I certainly understand). So I do think that in that scenario they don't really need to be staff anymore. And I do think it'd be beneficial for an overall evaluation of staff to go through. I wouldn't mind trying to collectively muster up some ideas as to what constitutes good-staff-vs-good-user and putting said insights to use with recruitment drives. With that said and regarding Jason's particular issues here...

I would like to formally announce to users a few golden rules to get your calc eval'd. First, ask on message walls directly. I know I personally tend to lose focus when looking at the eval request board and I'm willing to bet others do too. It's daunting and with aforementioned inactive users, I'm willing to bet the board is a good start but hardly a guarantee of immediate assistance.

Second, don't spam the same person for evals all the time. It is volunteer work, and unless you actually know the person, it gets really repetitive. A good way to grab attention of different calc group members is just to see if they have recent edits to suggest they're online. Given our current situation with staff, some on the list may simply me inactive, and some may simply not associate with your given verse, preferring to look into their own interests (not an inherently unruly thing but it does limit your options a bit). So if it is a genuinely really important calc that needs to be looked at, you could ask multiple calc group members. If one doesn't respond, others might.

Finally! You get points for quality, not quantity. Make your calc as easy to understand as possible. I've dipped into calcs where images are taking up most if not all of the screen and text just falls under something like "leg = 59 px doorway = 971 px" with little explanation or the significance or, in some scenarios, which leg. Be sure to pixel scale and, not to sound like a high school math teacher, but showing your work isn't bad and lets us (me, at least) follow your train of thought.

that is all, back to the depths I go
 
Well, I still much prefer to have a lot of staff members who mostly only have the time to help out here and there than a few staff members who mostly help out here and there, as I would get even more ridiculously overworked otherwise. I think that suddenly firing lots of staff members would be a very bad idea.

I would obviously also prefer more help with the content revision threads though, but the lack of staff attention may also be the fault of my standard modux operandi. I first tend to ask the members already responding to a CRT to ask the staff and knowledgeable members listed in the verse page to help out, and if that doesn't work out/if there are not enough knowledgeable members listed, I ask them to contact some random staff members in a list that I present to them, so the staff members who don't list themselves in the verses that they are interested in also get less demands to help out. Perhaps I should change this approach somewhat?
 
I can say I agree with this on some sort of personal level, not with everything of course, and I think I mostly agree with the spirit of a lot of the points more than anything.

Still, I do believe everyone should lighten up. I don't expect or think any sort of relevant, big changes should be expected in anyway to spring from this, but nothing more than to raise some thought whether you disagree or agree, entirely or in some measure, and to get some feedback on the thoughts of everyone else.

It may sound weird and contradictory, but trying to remain strict shouldn't translate into feeling hurried to anything. It feels like that at times, like I can't even get into a thread and digest it slowly before thinks pick a little too speed.

One thing I can immensely agree with is just the terrible, terrible reception of downgrades for some verses. Granted I can't really speak for bad behavior as I have, and I am sure maybe someone here could have seen it at any time, a terribly bad reaction whenever I feel the arguments on one side grind down towards people repeating the same thing, entirely bypassing whatever I brought up.

But that's besides the point. All in all, I don't think this being mentioned happened at a terrible bad time as I don't expect anything beyond suggestions and interaction/discussion to happen until things calm down after the forum wide big thingy coming.
 
@Ant I know the idea of "How can we handle the site better so that Ant isn't doing most of everything (reviewing edits, aiding CRTs, helping calcs)" has had some discussion, but I don't think any good concrete solutions have come from it yet, at least to my memory...
 
Also, personally, I don't mind staff focusing a little on the stuff they know.

Having someone that can be considered trustworthy with a more watchful eye in a "section" of verses feels better than expecting them to do well no matter the nature and the content of the CRT, even if it would be hoped some action in other sorts of CRTs could be expected.

The issue of staff not doing much other staff stuff is one I can understand much better, since is not all CRT related stuff.
 
Read the whole thing multiple times. I agree with some, strongly disagree on some, but I don't have much to say about it. Yes, some of these stuff are true but we can do nothing about it. We're not going to suddenly start massively deleting profiles or reevaluate every single CRT.

The thing I agree the most about is calcs though. Many calc group members (including me myself too, admittedly) don't really evaluate calculations carefully. Sometimes I read the whole calculation, but occasionally I just simply say "looks good" when in reality I just skimmed through the calculation in 10 seconds.

I remember somebody suggesting evaluating calculations should involve the calc group member doing the whole calculation himself, since calc group members often somehow ignore stupid adding or subtraction mistakes. This might be a good idea, but I'm not sure would this be too much for some calc group members.
 
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