Thread:Arantoer/@comment-26172435-20160710140404/@comment-26172435-20160710201740

Arantoer wrote: No, this was me going through the CESB like you keep asking us to do. I don't even know which moderators are engaged with the wiki. I don't think it matters, as long as someone sees it has been noticed and a mod gives feedback or a notification it has been noticed/sent through it should be enough. We certainly appreciate feedback by the mod team, but we would prefer to know what we can expect and what the implications of any judgement are, to enable us manage expectations among the many dedicated users who spent quite some part of their free time on helping the mod spot and define improvements for the future.

As a matter of fact, I do think it matters. Three of your colleagues have joined a FB group that focusses on a number of questions related to the way we deal with suggestions here at the wiki. I find it very odd that you don't know which of your mod team buddies are in that team.

In that group we have discussed whether or not it is sensible for mod team members to directly answer in endorsed threads or not. Arguments have been exchanged and after the discussion, the involved mod team members have not actively participated in suggestions threads on the wiki. As they have not clearly communicated about this, it is yet unclear why, but let's assume they had a reason for refraining from active participation. If that is the case, you may want to be informed of that.

You may wish to keep this one thing in mind when considering this:

Whatever you reply, you are a member of the mod team and as such represent the mod team. Some hundreds of community members interpret your words as being those of the mod team. This is the main argument for mod team members to consider not to actively engage in providing feedback on suggestions, unless you're Mevans.

Also, we (the wiki mod team) have proposed a simple procedure on how mod team and wiki team could deal with endorsed suggestions after review by the mod team. Until now, the mod team has been creating more confusion than clarity in their answers relating to this and to the entirety of the way we deal with the suggestions here. In brief, your colleagues have indicated the following:


 * The mod team joined the FB group to help us get the best suggestions to Mevans, in-line with the groups objectives and the assignment of Warpig, Ithilion and me. Basically, they initially agreed to help us find an effective method to screen out the best suggestions.


 * The mod team agreed on a number of main decisions (by consent) we made to shape the procedure on how to do this on the wiki, a.o.: #kudo's, weight of staff kudo's, cleanout every 2 weeks after 8 weeks of uptime, confirmation of the present wiki posting rules, cleanout of LoD, establishment of the CESB, etcetera, like everything that has been communicated in the announcement thread on this subject.


 * The mod team does not wish to close any suggestions thread and is sad about the practise of selecting up-front, based on originality, etcetera. We provided clear wiki-related arguments against this and keep to the practise. The 'orginality' issue was particularly fiercely debated and since the CESB overview posts have been established we finally have a clear reference to call any new suggestion original or not.


 * The mod team claims to be fiercely against any selection and calls our endorsing procedure a "foolish way at giving some a more 'elite' status on their suggestion.". We have clearly provided arguments for the selection method, related to the means we have available on the wiki and the history of wiki forum practise we have continued upon.


 * Oddly enough, the mod team has ousted no objections against the practise of us cleaning out about 75% of all suggestions after about 2 months, which has been common practise in past year. This is the epitomy of the 'selection' method the mod team appears to despise.


 * Also, the mod team claims none of them are able to judge the meaningfulness of any suggestion thread for the mod. This basically implies our proposal for the mod team to review endorsed suggestions (as they are the most supported by the community, so potentially the most meaningful of all the 200+ suggestions we get each month) ... is useless. We requested the mod team to provide info on which endorsed threads they had reviewed and whether a reviewed suggestion would become 'Rejected', 'Accepted' (either partially or entirely, for future implementation) or 'Pending'. I still believe it would be the wisest thing to do within the current wiki framework, but I'm afraid we won't see any progress on this in coming months. It's not a big deal though, as we can simply fill the CESB with anything that gets the 'popular vote', be it very meaningfull new or modified features or meaningless nonsense.


 * Current status of our contacts with the mod team on this seems 'pending'. We have clearly proposed a way forward within the framework of the wiki, and all it's limitations, including to use the present 'Void' board as a collection board for anything that doesn't end up 'endorsed'. The mod team has indicated it is checking an alternative option. Meanwhile, your humble servants of the wiki staff are trying their best to live up to the expectations we carefully manage, and communicate to our best knowledge about what the community members are to expect.

So, it may be wise to align expectations with your colleagues.

Please don't get me wrong:

Overall, I guess we will all be fine with one or more mod team members actively participating in the suggestions forums, and basically relieving us of the burden of having to cumulate all forum history and weigh all historical arguments in favour or against features in our careful judgement of any new suggestion. It would certainly help raising the quality level of our common efforts. Just keep in mind that we have to make sure we can keep up expectations and provide a clear and just way of keeping (keep viewable) or discarding (remove from view) suggestions in the forum.