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Avatar Wiki:War Room/Changing the voting procedure for featured blogs

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__NOWYSIWYG__ The existing procedure we have for voting on featured blogs is as follows: 1. * Users nominate a blog post authored by another user to be featured. Users may not nominate their own blog posts. 2. * Immediately, users may vote {{support<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}}, {{neutral<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} or {{oppose<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} to this post being featured, providing a reason for their position. 3. * 24 hours after its nomination, if there have been ten votes overall or more and if there is consensus in favour, the blog post will be featured. 4. * If the two conditions above are not met by the 24 hour mark, voting will continue until there are ten votes overall. If there is consensus in favour, the blog p

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__NOWYSIWYG__ The existing procedure we have for voting on featured blogs is as follows: 1. * Users nominate a blog post authored by another user to be featured. Users may not nominate their own blog posts. 2. * Immediately, users may vote {{support<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}}, {{neutral<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} or {{oppose<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} to this post being featured, providing a reason for their position. 3. * 24 hours after its nomination, if there have been ten votes overall or more and if there is consensus in favour, the blog post will be featured. 4. * If the two conditions above are not met by the 24 hour mark, voting will continue until there are ten votes overall. If there is consensus in favour, the blog post will be featured then. 5. * If voting is still short of ten votes after two weeks, the blog post will not be featured. In my view, in light of the reduced activity we have in regards to voting, this procedure is much too restrictive, and should be simplified. I would therefore like to propose that the last three lines be replaced by one single criteria: 1. * Users nominate a blog post authored by another user to be featured. Users may not nominate their own blog posts. 2. * Immediately, users may vote {{support<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}}, {{neutral<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} or {{oppose<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} to this post being featured, providing a reason for their position. 3. * After one week of voting, if there is consensus in favour, the blog will be featured. 08:45, December 27, 2013 (UTC) I agree. As it stands, the current procedure is both impractical for our less active community, and confusing. I don't even really know the protocol, because it's hard to understand. However, I do think we need a more specific 'if there is consensus in favor', as I haven't actually seen anyone vote against any article, and if they do, it is sparingly. I think six or seven support votes within the week is a better alternative, because it is linked on the RWA and visible to everyone. 08:51, December 27, 2013 (UTC) i mostly agree, but i think we should keep the 24 hour rule: if enough people support within a 24 hour period, then it should be featured. otherwise, after a week, general consensus decides. Intelligence4 (wall • contribs) 08:53, December 27, 2013 (UTC) A quick scan through the featured blog posts page shows that there have been "Oppose" votes in the past, so I don't really see the concern there. Additionally, I don't like the idea of setting a bar a blog has to reach to be featured. Suppose we set it at 7 support votes; that would mean a blog with 6 supports but no oppose wouldn't get featured. Well, if after a week a blog has 6 support votes but no-one has opposed, then it seems clear that community consensus is in favour of it being featured, but because it didn't reach a subjective bar we set, it isn't. That doesn't seem correct to me. Same goes for the 24 hour rule; just because a blog gets 7 votes in 24 hours, doesn't mean it should automatically be featured. With the reduced activity we are seeing, 24 hours is not a particularly long time for people to see the nomination and respond. Extending it to a week ensures there is at least a reasonable amount of time for people to see the nomination, without stretching out the process to long. 09:22, December 27, 2013 (UTC) I strongly oppose changing it to the extremely simple and complete denunciation of quality rule of "if there is a favorable consensus after a week, it's featured". The point of a featured blog it to highlight quality blogs. However, if the sole criteria for it to be featured will be "it needs to have a positive consensus", then you'll revert to cases where two votes for a blog will be able to feature it, even though it might not deserve it. There should at the very least be a minimum amount of votes reached. However, I can find myself in an alteration of the system, but then more akin to what we have for the featured fanon stories (though with a higher minimum amount of votes, since we're coming from a high criterion): for a blog to be featured, it should either: * Receive 7 positive votes within 24 hours (akin to the 10 votes rule now) * Have 7 positive votes after 2 weeks when there are no other votes cast * Have the majority of the positive votes after 2 weeks with a minimum of 7 votes cast. * By this I mean that there will have to be at least 7 people who showed an interest in the featuring of a blog. If not, then though luck for that blog, but then it's clear that not enough people of the community cared for that blog. "Well, if after a week a blog has 6 support votes but no-one has opposed, then it seems clear that community consensus is in favour of it being featured, but because it didn't reach a subjective bar we set, it isn't. That doesn't seem correct to me." That is exactly what featuring is. Featuring means that the community cared and/or supported something enough to feature is, which should inherently imply a certain standard to be met. If not, something being "featured" loses every possible value as it can be done by anyone as long as it gets a nomination and then asks some friends to vote. A qualitative standard is always needed. 10:08, December 27, 2013 (UTC) I agree with Lostris's suggestion— the initial criteria is too strict, but I think that the proposed isn't strict enough, cause just simply being in favor can mean two people who both support causes the blog to get featured. So, yeah. I like Lostris's suggestion. 03:01, December 28, 2013 (UTC) I will repeat my earlier objection to having a criteria of get so many votes in 24 hours and it is automatically featured. We don't have that sort of criteria anywhere else, and having it allows the exact situation you note as wishing to avoid in your comment. What's to stop someone getting 7 of their friends to vote for them within 24 hours. So, I disagree with that point entirely. Regarding the second and third, I will note first that the second point is entirely unnecessary, since such a situation would be covered by the third (that is, if a blog had 7 support votes, no oppose, after 2 weeks (situation 2), then by definition the majority of votes are for it being featured, and the min no. of votes needed has been met (situation 3)). Also, I'm not entirely happy with the way it is worded. I would prefer something akin to: * If after two weeks, at least 7 votes have been cast and there is consensus in favour, then the blog will be featured. My only concern here is that I still feel 7 to be too high a number in regards to the activity we actually have with voting. I wonder therefore whether we might add something like the {{VfD}} template to the blog in question to indicate to readers that it has been nominated to be featured, to try and encourage people to contribute. 11:05, December 28, 2013 (UTC) You do realize that my suggestion was a suggestion for an idea and not a suggestion for the permanent wording of the rule, right? Though your proposed wording is not really fluent imo, so it would be better to switch that around to "With a minimum of seven votes cast, a blog will be featured if there is a consensus in favor after two weeks." A set amount of votes is necessary. Seven is not too much, as proven by ATFF's blog that was able to easily reach that number. If other blogs can't, again, tough luck for those blogs, but seven is not an exaggerated number in this community. Such a template could be added, I don't particularly care either way. 11:22, December 28, 2013 (UTC) I support in principle keeping the same rules but reducing the numbers of votes required. A simple consensus is not really ideal for this scenario as there potentially an element of self-promotion. We do want to establish that there is a sufficient depth of support in the community before we feature a blog post. The 888th Avatar (talk) 14:04, December 28, 2013 (UTC) I agree with this as well. At the very least, reducing the requirements of the accepted system of guidelines should logically be attempted before trying to radically overhaul it into something else. The current specifications for featured blogs has performed adequately in the heydays of 2011 and 2012 so it follows as a corollary that it will continue to do so, so long as we adapt it to fit the proportions of the present community. KettleMeetPot • wall 03:08, December 31, 2013 (UTC) I'm fine with that as well. So what, same rules, only seven votes? 08:57, December 31, 2013 (UTC) @Lostris - I don't feel your suggested revision flows as well as the one I suggested. So, given that, I still feel the rewrite I suggested to be best. @KMP - I would hardly consider the changes to be drastic, and irrespective of that, just because something has worked before doesn't automatically mean it should continue. The whole point of having War Room forums is to allow things to be changed that are no longer working. Since all three of you are advocating keeping the 24 hour criteria, can you explain to me how you feel that criteria is consistent with the idea of allowing the community time to contribute to such discussions? I contest the idea that just because a blog gets 7 votes in 24 hours that that somehow makes it so worthy of being featured that we can bypass allowing any meaningful discussion to actually occur over a reasonable period of time. Such proposals for image changes have been shot down before for the same reasons, and in my view, this should be no different. In deference to the views expressed by everyone else, here is my revised proposed changes to the system: 1. * Users nominate a blog post authored by another user to be featured. Users may not nominate their own blog posts. 2. * Immediately, users may vote {{support<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}}, {{neutral<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} or {{oppose<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>}} to this post being featured, providing a reason for their position. 3. * If, after two weeks, at least 7 votes have been cast and there is consensus in favour, then the blog will be featured. 09:19, December 31, 2013 (UTC) @HammerOfThor: And here I was under the impression that you wished to change it because the "procedure is much too restrictive" and "should be simplified" - i.e. you wished to broaden the scope of what was to be featured by removing any sort of low water mark to water everything down to simple consensus, and not that the current concept of system plain doesn't work anymore. Please clarify your wording if indeed the latter was your position. As I said, what I can (and did) agree on is that the current set of guidelines requires tweaking to tighten it up - along the lines suggested by Lady Lostris. Your previous position backing the removal of a key element advocating a simple depth of support measurement from a system with a basic premise - whose inherent efficacy has been thoroughly demonstrated over three years - is what I termed drastic, as it does the opposite of what is intended. The problem with blogs are that they are usually very short-term. It is an ingrained trait of the entire system. You misinterpreted the purpose of the guideline, as it never meant that getting this many votes under 24 hours made a blog somehow more "worthy" to be featured - just that any outstanding blog which received a large measure of community support from the outset would be featured in a meaningful time-frame. News blogs and opinion blogs are short pieces of writing based on the now, or the recent - and background context and events are key to why blogs are written, how they are understood, and the readership they receive. From my perception, the rule was to fast-track the featuring process in a way such that new blogs of quality were quickly recognized and advertised to the community. At the prime of the first three books of the original series, you can see why that might have been important: quickly featured opinion/news blogs written at the time would be able to capture short-term site traffic for one popular topic, fresh in everybody's minds, to make up its readership; and/or the material would only be relevant in a short time-frame (for example, before the next episode) - which usually means featuring every single one after two weeks becomes relatively pointless as they either become irrelevant or there is no significant willing audience there to read it. I think the principle should remain, though I might suggest a small increase from a day to maybe two or three. EDIT: "explain to me how you feel that criteria is consistent with the idea of allowing the community time to contribute to such discussions?... Such proposals for image changes have been shot down before for the same reasons, and in my view, this should be no different" You're comparing apples and oranges, mate, is all I can say. Discussions for PIC (or any other C pages on that note) and voting for featured blogs (note the italics) will never be near in any way similar; there is no "consistency" to achieve here. They both relate to very different mediums and issues, are both used for very different purposes, and are conducted in very different ways. The first is a discussion - where every issue must be debated at length to reach a logical community consensus. The second is a vote - no reasoning is even required for an individual to slap down a simple support or oppose; it is all valid - whether you'd like to lay out the reasoning behind your vote is optional. There is no logical reason for us to completely get rid of the 24 hour rule so we can force a "meaningful discussion" anyway - it will either happen, or it will not, as you can see by the most recent vote. You cannot treat an apple like an orange. KettleMeetPot • wall 15:56, December 31, 2013 (UTC) @HoT: well, per the previous "the writing is not fluent", I don't support your proposed sentence, but that's beside the point now as it doesn't matter for me anymore now and I care little to start a "yes/no" game over this. For the rest of your open questions, KMP beat in answering them most eloquently, so I refer to his post. 16:57, December 31, 2013 (UTC) My position is that the system is intended to promote well written and stimulating blogs, but it fails to do that by being too restrictive given how activity on the wiki has changed, and thus does not work. Clarification given. Your reasoning for keeping the 24 hour criteria does not hold true when you look at the blogs that have been featured. From what I can tell, only two blogs have actually been featured under the 24 hour criteria (TAD's demotivational posts, and 888's Tolerance on Avatar Wiki blog). Neither of these blogs, I would say, are only applicable within a short time frame, and neither would have lose their impact had they not be featured immediately. The assertion, therefore, that the featured blog system has, by having this criteria, ensured that quality, time-dependent blogs are featured in an applicable amount of time, doesn't hold true. Next point; a large number of votes from the offset does not a quality blog make. Just because a blog gets such a large number of votes within that period, it doesn't mean it must be a quality blog. What's to stop someone getting 7 of their friends to vote for their blog? If that happened, does that make the blog worthy of being featured? No, of course not. This brings me to another point as well; a 24 hour criteria does not allow people the time to see the vote and respond. This is something that relates to my point about the criteria not being applied with PICs (which, I would contend, is not apples to oranges). An oft given reason against implementing a similar criteria for PICs is that it wouldn't allow people the chance to respond to what was happening. In my view, the same applies here; if we truly wish to ensure that only blogs judged to be quality by the community are featured, then it should be after we have allowed people a reasonable time to present their views, not in a short space of time when many people might have missed it entirely. I think that covers everything I wanted to say. Let me check..., yep, looks good. 22:30, December 31, 2013 (UTC)