Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-4991685-20170904232604

Hi everyone!

So on the discord recently there's been a bit of discussion about Discord's criteria for becoming a wiki contributor. Many people, including myself, have expressed concerns over the criteria put forth currently in the rules and have considered changes or tweaks to the system that could improve it, to make the process of being a contributor fairer and more conclusive. Below is my breakdown of the entire debate:

Background
In early April of 2017, SporeWiki retired its old IRC server and adopted Discord as its official instant-messaging apparatus and integrated it into the UI of the wiki. While the general consensus is that Discord has proven a superior communications platform, an unexpected consequence of the change has been a massive influx of new users. This influx of an entirely new generation of users has largely been due to the relative accessibility of Discord, being more modern software than IRC as well as far more accessible due to its prominent position in the wiki's UI.

This gigantic spike in wiki population presented a unique issue. The newcomers to the Discord can be split broadly into two groups-- "New Users", who possess wikia accounts and plan to stay on the wiki in the long term; as well as a much larger group which I will identify as "Transients"-- general Spore fans who drift onto the Discord and either lurk or show little interest in becoming a part of the community. At this point, there were only two classes of Discord user-- Admins and Regular Users. The idea of lumping Pre-Discord users, New Users, and Transients all into one group and giving them equal access to all channels was likely seen to pose many potential issues in terms of keeping a reign on the community for the admins, so an additional class was created in an effort to separate long-term users from passersby-- Wiki Contributors. The primary contention of this post is the criteria for becoming a Wiki Contributor.

The System as It is
As it stands, the criteria for a New User to become a Wiki Contributor are to make 250 'constructive edits' to either the mainspace or to fiction. The perks then granted to Wiki Contributors are access to all chat channels (non-Contributors only have access to the main channel, #earth, and the fiction channel, #grenzaar ), coloured nicknames, and in a more social context more credibility as a user-- having proven themselves to be reasonably permanent and reliable fixtures of the community. This system most certainly makes sure no Transients become Wiki Contributors by accident, but it does so by means that are, in my opinion, problematic.

This system has a couple serious flaws. For one thing is the use of edit count to begin with-- an edit count is an arguably-poor way of determining a user's editorial merit, especially when one's edits are in the dozens, or in the hundreds. At such low numbers the actual dedication of a user isn't immediately apparent as editing habits can drastically change the edit count between two users even if both contribute an identical amount of data.

Picture the scenario where one person does five edits, one per section, to complete a fiction page whereas another person does the exact same thing in one, hours-long session. They've both put in the same work, but the edit count seems to reflect that the latter user only did a fifth of the time and work. Despite this, I think as a measure Edit Count remains important and necessary to be used as its one of the only objective measures we have that can be reasonably used by admins who are already busy as it is.

Another issue is the simple number of edits. No matter one's editing habits 250 edits can be a tall order on the SporeWiki of today. Its undeniable that even among New Users the average age of our community has risen, and with the rise of average age has come the decrease in edit-rate due to peopl taking on more and more things in their real life. People simply don't edit at the prolific rates they once did, so I think that a 250 edit count requirement is, if anything, a bit outdated if we want New Users to become Wiki Contributors and thus full members of the community in as short a time as is reasonable.

Solutions
When faced with the issues of the current system its important then to draft solutions that are constructive and manage to both do what the original system did right (a realistic way to segregate Transients from the rest of the permanent community), while also doing better what it did wrong (see above). I will go through a few proposals below, but before I do an important thing to note is that a common theme through them is a reduction in the importance of edit count. While I did say that edit count is a flawed but necessary objective measurment-- it still remains flawed, and as I see it any measure to reduce its importance is a step in the right direction.

1. Mixed-Probation System
My personal favourite solution, this would be something of a compromise to a straight probationary period-- wherein users are automatically admitted into the ranks of Wiki Contributors after a period of time-- and admission by edit-count. While I will leave out specific details (and where specific details such as numbers are present, they are a suggestion and placeholder), the idea of a Mixed-Probation System would be that the criteria to become a Wiki Contributor would be:


 * To consistently make edits on the wiki and converse on Discord for a period not under one month;
 * To in this time, make at least 110 edits.
 * If one reaches 110 edits in a period exceeding one month, they then get their Wiki Contributor status.

The hope with this system would be that the combination of a one-month probationary period before being able to be issued a Wiki Contributor status as well as the relatively-lax edit requirements would mean that the majority of New Users would get their Wiki Contributor status in a month, successfully keep Transients from becoming Contributors by accident, and also avoiding giving Contributor status in error to users who make a frentic burst of, say, 200 edits in the space of a week before disappearing or burning out. I feel this is the fairest system, as well as one that remains manageable by admins while also giving them a level of discretion needed by any admin of an online community. There are, however, more options.

2. Reduced Edit Count Criteria
A simple reduction of the Edit Count requirements from 250 to 100-200. I feel this solution lacks the safeguards of Mixed-Probation while still suffering the issues of the current one, only now increasing the risk that Transients become WIki Contributors in error. It is, however, easily the most obvious solution and was once (and may still be) the most popular.

3. Foundation of New Discord Channel
One proposal that was offered was the foundation of an entirely-new, fiction universe-only Discord channel. The level of separation this channel would have from the main SporeWiki, from low to near-total, is unknown and would be a matter of debate, but the implication nonetheless would be that the SporeWiki channel proper would be repurposed as a general Spore fandom/mainspace Discord. I feel this suffers from three major issues;


 * A Divided House. The assumption in this plan is that the Fiction Universe Discord would be more exclusive, with New Users and Transients being sent the Spore Mainspace Discord's way. This seems to me like a very easy way to divide the community unreasonably and dangerously between the club that hangs out in the FU channel and the one that hangs out on the Mainspace channel, neither having much communication. Even if this doesn't happen, it seems like a hassle to give out an invite to every guy who makes it to Wiki Contributor on the Mainspace channel.
 * This Wiki ain't big enough for the two of us. Assuming the two separate channels don't shear the community in two (and even perhaps if it does), one Discord or another would become the more trafficked one by Wiki Contributors, leaving one mostly dead and vestigial out of simple inconvenience.
 * "So... Uh... How's the weather?" For the mainspace of SporeWiki, nearly a decade of fan interest has meant that the vast majority of the data on the game has already been catelogued. Much of the work that's left is in organising that data in incrementally-better ways. Mainspacers just won't have that much to talk about on their own channel, which would likely lead to its decline.

I think this final proposal is easily the most radical and risky, and if it isn't paired with one of the other solutions would struggle to address the main problem at stake.

However, what's most important are the thoughts of the community. What are your views on the matter? Have you a better solution? Do you believe no change is necessary? I've made my views clear, so please post below. Its a public discussion for everyone after all. 