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The Guide Spotlight == April Issue ==
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Post by
SquireKel
Moderators can't see a guide's edit history so we're no more likely to know how substantial changes are than anyone.
True enough, currently. This would have to incorporate a new tracking component to the site.
Also, I'm not sure how happy I'd be about guides that receive updates getting put into our queue for attention along with everything else unless it's really necessary... just in terms of taking up more of the time we have to give as volunteers.
Understandable. I'm not trying to find ways to make more work for you all, but I think we can agree that without using moderators somewhere, some guide writers would abuse the option to send their guide to the top of the list. But in checking back on guides I've made comments to in the past, there are some guides that underwent serious revisions after receiving feedback, and they could benefit from a trip back to the top of the guides list.
A 3000 character addition requirement, plus the writer checking off a box beside the "submit" option could limit how much actual work would get added. That way, a writer could edit as much as they wanted, but it would only get sent to moderators if the guide writer wanted it to. Even making the box check-able a maximum of once a month could help to avoid spamming your worklist.
Post by
asakawa
That's a lot of work for... what benefit?
I think it's understood that the site needs further integration of guides into much more of the site and when there's time available to make that happen I think that might go a long way toward making guides more visible or getting guides in front of the eyes of interested users.
I personally don't see your proposal as an important or beneficial change. I think that instead of promoting updated guides the site already has built in a way to weed out un-updated guides in the patch number column. If you keep a guide current then it will always have the latest patch number associated with it with a nice green tag (normally, MoP notwithstanding).
Perhaps simply an alteration to that system is all that's required like colouring OoD/un-updated guides red? This could probably safely happen with each full integer increase in patch.
Post by
SquireKel
In terms of why I'm proposing the addition, the reasoning is two-fold:
First, I think it's important to encourage people to return to their guide and keep it up-to-date, and show that doing so will have an impact. A guide that was incomplete or poor initially will have a low rating, and it can be difficult to rebound from that, no matter how much revision it gets, simply because a poor rating puts a guide low on the list & decreases its viewers. By offering the option to put a guide back up to the top of the list (thereby increasing its viewers, albeit temporarily), a writer is encouraged to make changes to their guide.
Second, patch number has little effect for most people, and updating a guide doesn't automatically update the patch number - a writer must do that manually.
This is most pronounced in that the preset sorting order doesn't take the patch number into account - only the rating. For instance,
this guide
is from patch 4.2.2 (and the patch number associated with it reflects that), yet it sits highest on the overall list of guides, simply because when it was relevant, it received a lot of visits and votes.
There is also the issue of guide writers forgetting about the patch number or wrongly using it.
This guide
has 9.9.9 as its patch number, completely ignoring the game patch options to date, and
this guide
has correct information as of 4.3.3, but uses content from classic WoW, so the guide writer uses a patch from then. And
this guide
was updated to reflect changes in 4.3.3, but the guide writer forgot to update the patch information, wrongly indicating that the guide has old information.
Post by
asakawa
So we should encourage guide authors to only submit their guide for approval when it's actually complete and get people to use the patch number correctly (even possibly enforce correct patch number use via moderator edits)?
Why work around what exists instead of working better with it?(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by
SquireKel
Asakawa, since the guides feature became active on the site, I have enjoyed the use of it, both as a writer and a user. I recognize, however, that there are certain shortcomings with the feature as it is relatively new.
I was suggesting what I could think of to help improve the feature, because I wanted to put it out there and see if others had similar ideas or thoughts. I wasn't trying to increase anyone's workload significantly, but there are guides being approved of that are clearly incomplete. Right now, the only comment towards "encourag guide authors to only submit their guide for approval when it's actually complete" is in the paragraph above the text box - a comment that seems to be easily ignored, much like the other comments in that section that suggest things like making sure the content is unique or at least offers something more than other guides.
Since no one has given any other suggestions, and all I've seen so far really is you and hatman opposing the extra workload, I'm not sure it's all that important. If the only reason not to do something like this is the additional work, another person could become a moderator and take on that job specifically. I would be more than happy to do that, if this was the case. But it seems not to be the case, since other users have not provided suggestions of their own, regardless of their level of investment in the guide system.
Post by
Ashelia
Asakawa, since the guides feature became active on the site, I have enjoyed the use of it, both as a writer and a user. I recognize, however, that there are certain shortcomings with the feature as it is relatively new.
I was suggesting what I could think of to help improve the feature, because I wanted to put it out there and see if others had similar ideas or thoughts. I wasn't trying to increase anyone's workload significantly, but there are guides being approved of that are clearly incomplete. Right now, the only comment towards "encourag guide authors to only submit their guide for approval when it's actually complete" is in the paragraph above the text box - a comment that seems to be easily ignored, much like the other comments in that section that suggest things like making sure the content is unique or at least offers something more than other guides.
Since no one has given any other suggestions, and all I've seen so far really is you and hatman opposing the extra workload, I'm not sure it's all that important. If the only reason not to do something like this is the additional work, another person could become a moderator and take on that job specifically. I would be more than happy to do that, if this was the case. But it seems not to be the case, since other users have not provided suggestions of their own, regardless of their level of investment in the guide system.
If you would like to email me a list--sky's the limit--of how you want the guide system improved, please send it my way: ashelia@wowhead.com
I cannot promise you we will do all of it (or any of it), but I can promise that we are going to change guides before MoP hits live so if you give me your feedback in a place I can star in my inbox and return to, I will be reading it while I design that project.
Post by
FatalHeaven
If you would like to email me a list--sky's the limit--of how you want the guide system improved, please send it my way: ashelia@wowhead.com
I cannot promise you we will do all of it (or any of it), but I can promise that we are going to change guides before MoP hits live so if you give me your feedback in a place I can star in my inbox and return to, I will be reading it while I design that project.
I am honestly very happy to see this. This is the first Moderator (Albeit you're not just a Moderator but actually the Site Director) post to embrace taking on the suggestions whole heartedly. Every other response I have seen from a Moderator so far has been about it not being reasonable or likely or taking too much time. Don't get me wrong I respect all the Moderators and the time that they volunteer. However, when users make suggestions and continually have them shot down without even
seemingly
a second thought or given any serious consideration, the people making these suggestions are eventually going to stop. I haven't been a member of WoWhead for a considerably long time but in the time I have been here the community seems to always be helpful and full of suggestions on various matters relating to not just guides, but the site as a whole. I'd hate to see this stop because users start to feel like it isn't worth it.
Thank you Ashelia!
Post by
asakawa
I'm really sorry you feel like that.
Green text means volunteer and blue means administrator. What that means is that while we have a slightly different view on some of the practicalities involved, we're totally not in a position to make the kinds of promises Ashelia can. Ashelia is not only privy to the schedule but she sets it ^_^
That said, I'm a terrible nerd and I love Wowhead the combination of which means that I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how the site can be improved or made to work more smoothly and efficiently. When ideas are presented I never consider that I'm shooting them down, just offering my view on them and I give them a lot of thought.
The thing is that without knowing the kinds of resources the site will be putting towards a project in the near future I usually assume (and it's been safe to recently with so much MoP stuff going on) that a practical resolution to a problem should work within the confines of the current system as much as possible. Truth be told, my own thoughts on these things tend to run nearer to the "overhaul" side of things but there's something to be said for tweaking things to work better instead of making sweeping changes changes and I feel many of the things brought up here could be solved by things like a policy shift in Approval (being more strict about what gets approved or perhaps just making clear that incomplete guides might suffer from getting low initial ratings) or tweaking the patch numbering system to be more useful to people.
Post by
SquireKel
The thing is that without knowing the kinds of resources the site will be putting towards a project in the near future I usually assume (and it's been safe to recently with so much MoP stuff going on) that a practical resolution to a problem should work within the confines of the current system as much as possible. Truth be told, my own thoughts on these things tend to run nearer to the "overhaul" side of things but there's something to be said for tweaking things to work better instead of making sweeping changes changes and I feel many of the things brought up here could be solved by things like a policy shift in Approval (being more strict about what gets approved or perhaps just making clear that incomplete guides might suffer from getting low initial ratings) or tweaking the patch numbering system to be more useful to people.
Since I am neither a moderator nor an administrator, I can only propose ideas. While it's clear that the site is focused on MoP currently (and let's be honest, who isn't?), there are components that won't become outdated and lose traffic once it goes live simply because they won't be endgame content anymore, and the guides section is one of them. It's also relatively new, so there are kinks to work out.
I wouldn't want to presume to demand stricter policies with guide approval, though I very much believe that's necessary, because I do not have those responsibilities that you as moderators and administrators have, nor am I clear on what the tipping point is between approval and rejection (or even what you guys look for when deciding if a guide is set to be approved). I've seen some posts that say a guide was approved of "early" in the hopes that it would get the guide writer to finish it quickly, or the community's feedback would help fix the guide's shortcomings. While those moves are made with good intentions, it promotes the probability of poor ratings, and is one of the reasons I suggested the "revised" idea in the first place.
To be honest, I thought those in charge of approving guides were being as strict as they were ever going to be - a frustrating thought, but again, I don't know what factors decide whether a guide is approved of or not. With premature approvals, poor grammar and spelling and little to no formatting in some guides detracts from the actual content of a guide - and oftentimes, the fault lies between the writer and the approver. Getting the guide into the community earlier has its merits, but not giving the guide a second chance at a high traffic, "spotlight" location makes it more detrimental than beneficial.
If you would like to email me a list--sky's the limit--of how you want the guide system improved, please send it my way: ashelia@wowhead.com
I cannot promise you we will do all of it (or any of it), but I can promise that we are going to change guides before MoP hits live so if you give me your feedback in a place I can star in my inbox and return to, I will be reading it while I design that project.
Great! I'm currently working with very limited access to the internet and my personal computer, but I will email you when I'm back. In the meantime, I'll try to collect my thoughts so you get an organized list of ideas, rather than a jumble of ramblings. :)
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was also posting here in the hopes of keeping this thread active. >_>
Post by
asakawa
Well there's a couple of ethoses when it comes to approving these things.
The first is to check for misuse or abuse of the staff-level BBCode availability and approve anything that doesn't present "problematic" content (also people can be used to the site filtering their language so I always run a quick check that they're not using language that will be unfiltered by the guide process).
This is the 'sink or swim' idea that if an author has presented a guide for approval then they've created something they're happy with. It can be approved and the community can use ratings to place that guide where it belongs in the order of things.
The other idea is to provide some filtering of content at the approval stage, rejecting guides that don't meet a standard even if they don't contain inappropriate content.
The reality is that the approval process is somewhere in between but there will always come a point where it becomes clear that the author is unable or unwilling to do more and it just gets approved.
My personal view is that I want to protect the site's reputation by trying to maintain a high standard of approved guides but I also think that if someone puts something for approval then
they
are responsible for the state it's in -
they
reached a point where they felt it was ready for the public.
What I probably can say is that the state of guides has become more "binary" over time. At first guides were good, bad and
everything
in between. Right now we get ~1-3 guides sent for approval a day and they tend to be instantly approve-able
or
completely unformatted, single paragraphs more suited to database comments. There's very little in between these days.
Post by
hatman555
We also had to be a bit more liberal with approvals at the start. We wanted people to feel that they could write a guide.
I can't speak for the actual changes that will be happening with MoP and Wowhead, but I wouldn't put a review of ALL posted guides out of the questions. There will need to be a culling of the bad sooner or later.
Cheers,
Hat
Post by
hatman555
Yeah, sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to address this separately.
If you would like to email me a list--sky's the limit--of how you want the guide system improved, please send it my way: ashelia@wowhead.com
I cannot promise you we will do all of it (or any of it), but I can promise that we are going to change guides before MoP hits live so if you give me your feedback in a place I can star in my inbox and return to, I will be reading it while I design that project.
I am honestly very happy to see this. This is the first Moderator post to embrace taking on the suggestions whole heartedly. Every other response I have seen from a Moderator so far has been about it not being reasonable or likely or taking too much time.
The first moderator post, would be the main post itself. After reading a lot of feedback from users, and seeing that there was frustration because there wasn't really a place to talk about guides, I decided to take it upon myself to give the users something they could use until a broader change happened, or a final solution could be reached. Myself along with Asakawa spend 2 long days working up this post and the content in it. And a new one is coming on Friday!
I took a big chance with this post, and the reception has been pretty good. So yes, there are posts where the moderators embrace suggestions.
Don't get me wrong I respect all the Moderators and the time that they volunteer. However, when users make suggestions and continually have them shot down without even
seemingly
a second thought or given any serious consideration, the people making these suggestions are eventually going to stop.
We never shoot ideas down. We provide insight on to how the idea would work, and how it wouldn't work. We never dismiss anyone's well formulated points or ideas, and are always happy to talk out any problem, or suggestion a person has.
This latest topic
is a is a 3 page, 51 post conversation where 90% of the posts are happening between 1 user and a couple moderators. We don't agree with some of the ideas in the post, but from the beginning we have been nothing but courteous and analytically about the suggestions presented.
I haven't been a member of WoWhead for a considerably long time but in the time I have been here the community seems to always be helpful and full of suggestions on various matters relating to not just guides, but the site as a whole. I'd hate to see this stop because users start to feel like it isn't worth it.
It won't stop. I became a moderator because I enjoy helping the users on this website. I was a HUGE poster on Wowhead Feedback section. I would constantly try and help, and suggest things for different problems and ideas.
The Feedback section of these forums are like no other. It is an open place where people can, and do, post anything they want about Wowhead and how they feel. The input this site gets from users is HUGE, more than any other static forum site. The users here really do have a voice.
This post
was made long before I became a moderator. Here are two small quotes from it. I recommend you read the whole thing to get the true perspective.
Would it be possible to unlock some of these code for users that would use it responsibly? Users who have been posting guides and other useful information on these forums that keep users coming back?
We've been poking around at the idea of a new rank for those who apply to be guide writers--either people with stickied guides or who want to write guides like Perculia's. This would be included in that rank. This something we'll revisit next week and try to figure out if we'll do it or not. Your suggestion definitely has a lot of merit and I agree, we just need to figure out the logistics and we're busy
I like to think I had a small part in bringing the idea of Guides to Wowhead.
Cheers,
Hat(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##Myself along with Asakawa spend 2 long days working up this post and the content in it. And a new one is coming on Friday!Don't let him give me any credit. He did all the work on this thing, I was just there as a "consultant" ^_^
Post by
baradiel
Good Afternoon;
Hat or Asakawa, can one of you guys check my Engineering Recipes guide? for some reason the Orgrimmar zone isn't showing, is on a toggler. Thanks!
Edit: SquireKel helped me
THANKS ALOT!
Post by
lankybrit
Hey everyone,
Thanks for viewing my guide 5000 times and getting me the Famous Guide achievement.
Much appreciated.
Cheers.
Post by
asakawa
Grats lanky!
Post by
asakawa
I'd like to request an experienced Warlock to take over or develop a new Warlock guide from 5.0 onwards. I no longer play WoW so while I've been able to maintain the current guide in the light of the minor changes towards the end of Cataclysm, I won't be able to undertake the overhaul required to make it work for MoP.
Anyone willing, knowledgeable and able is welcome to use any formatting/coding they like from my current guide along with any content that might still have any relevance. I'd also be very willing to help in any way I can with formatting since Warlocks are dear to me ^_^
Post by
TheReal
Looks like the "About" section for the new featured guides is still reflecting the first set of guides' text.
Post by
hatman555
Looks like the "About" section for the new featured guides is still reflecting the first set of guides' text.
It is. I guess i should have put an "Under construction" sign up.
Should be fully updated by tonight
Hat
Post by
SquireKel
I'm glad to see the featured guides section was updated - what about the tip of the post & interview sections? (personally, i'd like to see an interview with eidyia)
also, requested guides doesn't have the request for someone to take over asakawa's warlock guide.
Post by
hatman555
I'm glad to see the featured guides section was updated - what about the tip of the post & interview sections?
Its actually in edit mode right now on a different tab, along with the next interview. Just sitting on this conference call, and its really hard to type sentences when I have people screaming into the phone.
Speaking of that....why do people think that phones have just been invented and it requires that they yell as loud as they can? We have really nice phones....in all our world wide offices....there is no need to yell >_<
*ears bleed*
Hat
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