[Discussion] The SCP Sandbox Joining Process
Mainsite Mirror
Following a fairly lively conversation in Staffchat, we're moving the topic here to actually discuss:
Should we change the current sandbox invite system1?
[Discussion] The SCP Sandbox Joining Process
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» Policy & Voting / Policy Discussion
» [Discussion] The SCP Sandbox Joining Process
Summary:
"what if admin is hit by bus"
it's inconvenient for users. as staff if we're keeping something inconvenient for users just because getting rid of it might create some extra work for staff what are we even here for? this is a writing and reading site for authors and readers not some bureaucracy roleplay site
I'm sceptical that it even saves much staff work, this process generally involves a relay chain of 2-3 different staff members. The awkward truth is that if it saves us effort, it's only because people give up and post their drafts elsewhere.
I'm sceptical that it even saves much staff work, this process generally involves a relay chain of 2-3 different staff members
I'm admittedly a little confused by this. Counting the person sending the invites, there shouldn't be more than 2 people involved in the process of getting an invite sent out? If it's an issue of one staff member taking the invite info, telling another staff member to add it to the list, and then the inviter sending the invite out, could we address this with a bot that auto-populates a list?
Alright for my own two cents, along with summarizing the convo in staffchat somewhat: Let's go over the listed pros and cons.
Pros:
- It catches underage users who lie on their site application but tell the truth when joining the sandbox.
- IRC Staffchat don't mind doing it (I wouldn't count it as a pro, but hey it was mentioned in chat)
- Unrestricting the sandbox could lead to more people ignoring the greenlight process and just dumping their drafts on the forums.
- We wouldn't want people who don't bother going through the appropriate processes on the site regardless.
Cons:
- It's a very time consuming and unintuitive process to the user - involving going to an official chat, learning how the system works, passing said chat's verification gate, and waiting 1-3 days1 to actually be added.
- A complex joining process incentivizes not using the official sandbox and going to alternatives (pastebin, google drive) or just other sandboxes (which some critters even recommend), or even giving up on writing.
- The reason this gate was added in the first place (a particularly stubborn troll) has stopped being an issue since.
- The current system heavily relies on one staffer (zyn) inviting every individual user, and is a particularly egregious example of bus factor on staff.
- Onsite, the only way to join the sandbox is through IRC, which is a fairly old system which many people don't use nowadays.
- It increases workload on Internet Outreach, who have to deal with all of the users who decide not to bother with the sandbox.
- Even if it's not an issue for the individual staffer managing invites, the majority of the burden is on the userbase.
- The Chat Guide is fairly long and intimidating, even for users who want to learn IRC.
- The system will become increasingly unmaintainable as more users join the site and more users need to be added to the sandbox, especially since it already is being understaffed.
- The troll which the system was changed for won't be able to vandalize non-collaborative pages anymore, due to a permission change.
I swear to god I tried to list every unique pro which was mentioned in the chatlog to limit my bias, but even then the amount of cons is more than triple the amount of pros. Even then the pros are fairly minimal.
We are putting a lot of burden on our new users, which is a practice we've been doing for quite a while and has only gotten worse since. We have eight guides listed as "Required Reading," with some of them taking multiple sits to finish. You need to read, at the minimum, half of them to use the greenlight system.
We need to stop treating joining the wiki as this right you must earn through trial by fire, and instead actually help new users join the site and become part of it. If we make it impossible to join, we won't get only the cream of the crop. We'll get falling user numbers and die off.
Footnotes
1. Edit: Zyn has later stated that sandbox invites are done once a day, and so it should take one day at the most.
Making this a reply to Lucio because it addresses his points directly, but this is my own thoughts and I will not be replying here or in staffchat to any further posts made in reply to this. I have said much of this in staffchat and have recused myself from the conversation there for my own personal wellbeing. I am only making a post here to make my viewpoint publicly known.
Pros:
It catches underage users who lie on their site application but tell the truth when joining the sandbox.
This is an incredibly common occurrence. Like, seriously, this happens most days. Catching underage users on sandbox invite requests carries their ban to the mainsite, the sandbox, and the chat. It's efficient.
It also catches users who are 16 but fall under the cut-off (who generally have site membership). Something, something, someone recruited an underage user to staff (and they didn't even lie about their age), but it wasn't until they applied for sandbox membership that it was noticed. I'm sorry, but I personally don't want underage users on staff.
Additionally, if the sandbox was entirely open, there would be underage users with pages on there who wouldn't be members of the mainsite, including those banned from the mainsite. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can ban users from a site if there's no membership system. This also of course applies to all mainsite-banned users.
IRC Staffchat don't mind doing it (I wouldn't count it as a pro, but hey it was mentioned in chat)
Sandbox invites are probably the majority of interactions in 17. It is the main part of our work, as staff in 17, to add users to the sandbox.
Unrestricting the sandbox could lead to more people ignoring the greenlight process and just dumping their drafts on the forums.
Yes. If a user won't read a 115 word guide and ask a single question, they aren't going to bother reading the sticky threads in the forums or any of the other required reading. Unrestricting the sandbox will lead to more users seeking crit (which is a neutral, if not good, thing) but most of them will be likely-underage users who dump their sandbox in the draft forum and then leave the site when they get staffposted.
It will also likely lead to a larger number of auto-defers in #thecritters. Auto-defers are used when drafts have such a high level of grammatical errors, nonsensical conprocs, incorrect formatting, and severe lack of clinical tone that they are considered entirely uncrittable. They are very rare in the draft forum, because users there take the time to read the guides and seek greenlights. They are also rare in #thecritters, but if the sandbox was entirely accessible to everyone and #thecritters was the place where users can go when they want draft crit without greenlights, #thecritters would see a lot more auto-defers. Same goes for the discord, so good luck with that.
Tell me, is the greenlighting process also something you want to remove? Because it's pretty complex. It requires reading a couple of sticky threads (with multiple posts, in two different forums) and filling out the template and posting to the correct forum, and then also reading the Butterfly Squad Roster and probably connecting to #thecritters (which requires IRC registration) and actively PMing people for crit and then replying to the crit and so on. It did reduce a lot of low-quality spam content that caused severe burnout to forum reviewers, but that doesn't matter, right, because it's excluding users. A lot of people who utilise the forums don't stick around for very long because they post for the thrill of participating in the community, and the greenlighting process probably deters a fair number of users too, maybe even more than the sandbox. Why does "If people aren't putting the work in to read the guides, they probably aren't ready to be on the site yet" only apply to posting to the mainsite and forums, but not to the sandbox?
We wouldn't want people who don't bother going through the appropriate processes on the site regardless.
See above. High-quality users read the guides, and if they aren't sure they ask questions. It's not hard to read one guide, press one button, ask one question, and wait one day.
Cons:
It's a very time consuming and unintuitive process to the user - involving going to an official chat, learning how the system works, passing said chat's verification gate, and waiting 1-3 days to actually be added.
IRC does not have a verification gate. Most users asking for sandbox invites do not register their nicks. Those who do typically do so after they've been added to the sandbox list, because they want to join #site19 or #thecritters, but most people just ask on unregistered guest nicks and then leave once they've been added. Sandbox invites take 24-48 hours (1-2 days), usually closer to 1 day, between a user being added to the list and the invite being sent.
A complex joining process incentivizes not using the official sandbox and going to alternatives (pastebin, google drive) or just other sandboxes (which some critters even recommend), or even giving up on writing.
It's not a particularly complex process but whatever. Incentivising users to not use official systems that are in place is bad, and the same goes for incentivising users to not use the official chat because it's "too complex", especially when you are doing so but are also unwilling to move the workload elsewhere. A little critical thinking is required to contribute to the shit statue fanfiction website, heh.
Pastebin is occasionally recommended in #thecritters for users who are waiting on their sandbox invites, but more often it's recommended for users who are wanting to seek ideas crit and are waiting for their mainsite applications to be processed. It's a temporary fix so they can seek crit in chat until they can use the sandbox or the forums.
Google docs are not permitted in the forums or IRC at all because they can doxx users.
Critters absolutely should not be recommending the use of sandboxes other than Sandbox 3. There's nothing inherently wrong with most other sandbox sites, but if a user can't wait a day for an invite they probably aren't going to be receptive to critique and following the rules and reading the guides. Most users in #thecritters who use sandbox sites other than Sandbox 3 are authors who have or qualify for an author page. I have never seen a first-time author there use a sandbox other than Sandbox 3. Perhaps this point would be fixed if discord critters stopped telling users to use other sandboxes.
Users should not be giving up on writing, I very much agree with that point. However, with signposting having been made easier to follow I would hope that those who are not in 19/critters/the discord will be more able to ask for sandbox invites. For those who do make it to 19/critters but still don't know about the sandbox, staff and users often and easily point them in the direction of 17. I would hope the same would be happening in the discord (e.g. "The sandbox is invite-only right now, but if you go to the helpdesk and give staff your wikidot username and your age they can add you to the list.").
The reason this gate was added in the first place (a particularly stubborn troll) has stopped being an issue since.
The n-word troll has not been an issue on the sandbox since the input of the invite list, but has been in IRC multiple times recently. The sandbox list has other benefits, but I also very much believe the n-word troll would go back to vandalising the sandbox if they found out they could make new pages.
The current system heavily relies on one staffer (zyn) inviting every individual user, and is a particularly egregious example of bus factor on staff.
It takes Zyn between 10 seconds and 3 minutes a day to send sandbox invites. The list isn't very long, but if it was (e.g. in the future, as you keep suggesting) then perhaps some other admins could pitch in and help out. Do you know what's an even more egregious example of the bus factor on staff? Site staff refusing to answer questions in 17 on occasion or add people to the sandbox invite list because you think you're too good to do a bit of grunt work.
Onsite, the only way to join the sandbox is through IRC, which is a fairly old system which many people don't use nowadays.
The sandbox join page now links directly to the Lounge, rather than to the Chat Guide. All users have to do is connect to the Lounge under a guest nick (literally just clicking the CONNECT button) and ask for an invite. As above, most users don't stick around in chat and therefore don't have to learn how to use IRC.
It increases workload on Internet Outreach, who have to deal with all of the users who decide not to bother with the sandbox.
As was discussed with Yossi in staffchat, if Yossi would add the one daily user who asks him for a sandbox invite to the list, the larger part of this issue that pertains to IO would be fixed. Advocating to change an entire system based on the fact that one staffer won't take 30 seconds out of their day to add one user to the sandbox list really doesn't hold much weight.
Beyond that, it's just a case of making the sandbox join page more visible in the offsite communities moderated by wiki staff (e.g. "If you want to write for the wiki, you can ask staff for an invite to the sandbox.") and get staff outside of 17 more used to adding people to the list.
Even if it's not an issue for the individual staffer managing invites, the majority of the burden is on the userbase.
The sandbox join page is 115 words long. If users can't read a 115 word page that very clearly explains how to ask for an invite to the sandbox, they probably shouldn't be using the sandbox yet.
The Chat Guide is fairly long and intimidating, even for users who want to learn IRC.
The Chat Guide isn't linked on the sandbox join page. The Chat Guide also barely applies to sandbox invites; it's for users who want to join #site19 and #thecritters. Users who only connect to get an invite to the sandbox do not have to read the Chat Guide.
The system will become increasingly unmaintainable as more users join the site and more users need to be added to the sandbox, especially since it already is being understaffed.
Get more staff who are willing to add people to the list then. There's literally only a handful of people in 17 sorting out sandbox invite requests (mostly Kufat, who isn't even wiki staff) but if you wanted to help out or organise the discord helpdesk so staff there could help out we'd be happy for the help. "It's understaffed so we should get rid of the staff entirely" isn't as good of an idea as you think it is.
The troll which the system was changed for won't be able to vandalize non-collaborative pages anymore, due to a permission change.
Not sure this is true, actually. Afaik, the deal with collab pages is as long as you are a member of the site you can create your own pages and edit any collab page. If you remove the concept of membership, anyone can edit any collab page, create new pages, and I believe edit non-collab pages as well. If this isn't the case, I would like to see proof of it.
Overall:
Ultimately, most people arguing in staffchat to remove the sandbox invite system do not understand how the system works. They do not use IRC, nor do they add people to the sandbox list, and I doubt that many of them are even aware of the underage chatbans page, let alone the number of chatbans on the underage chatbans page that come from sandbox invites (hint: it's almost all of them).
Lucio having had to make two edits to the footnote in the original post in this thread because he didn't know what information users have to provide to request an invite nor that all staff with O5 access can add users to the list is very telling. I appreciate the attempt at a thought-out policy discussion, but it's very clear that you do not understand what you are doing. Therefore, while I do vaguely agree with some of your points based around making the system more intuitive to new users, this is not a discussion where you should be acting like you know everything when you clearly don't.
I would support making an extra tab (the first tab) in the Chat Guide that says something along the lines of "If you are joining chat to ask for sandbox membership only, please click here [link to the lounge]. If you are wanting to join our general or critique chats, please read the other tabs in this guide before connecting to the chat.". However, I don't know who maintains the Chat Guide so I think this would be a separate conversation for the future.
I have said in staffchat that I do not particularly care whether the invite system stays, most of you aren't going to listen to me anyway, but do not come complaining if it gets removed and shit falls apart.
My impression was simply that we'd make joining the sandbox as simple as joining the main site, not totally make it free for all. I don't get the impression that Lucio is claiming to know everything, this is a discussion for a reason and if we're misinformed this is a great opportunity to address that, so thanks for clarifying various points.
As for the age verification, we could just ask about that in the sandbox application or when people join chat, so I don't think this should be the deciding factor.
I didn't really have any specific plan in mind for how to solve this issue, just moved it here to get a pulse on what everyone thinks and to brainstorm solutions.
As for the age verification, we could just ask about that in the sandbox application or when people join chat
This admittedly sounds like the current system of invites?
With regards to applications, I've found that those are pretty easy to spam/post egregious content into. Part of the reason O5 Command is invitation-only was because we would routinely get spam/trolling/roleplaying/etc. applications.
This is an incredibly common occurrence. Like, seriously, this happens most days. Catching underage users on sandbox invite requests carries their ban to the mainsite, the sandbox, and the chat. It's efficient.
maybe it's efficient for staff (and only staff) but it also forces people to publicly state their age (not cool) just to get access to the sandbox
I'm sorry, but I personally don't want underage users on staff.
this part comes off as overly staff-centric and disregarding of the experiences of non-staff users, who are the vast, vast majority of sandbox users. this is a common theme in most of your post
Sandbox invites are probably the majority of interactions in 17. It is the main part of our work, as staff in 17, to add users to the sandbox.
i hear the 17 staff complain about not enough staff around to handle things - surely this would then help to solve that problem?
It will also likely lead to a larger number of auto-defers in #thecritters.
again, you're only considering how this would affect staff
Tell me, is the greenlighting process also something you want to remove? Because it's pretty complex.
this is a terrible comparison. the forums pre-greenlight were unsustainable. the sandbox pre-sandbox list was functioning completely fine for a decade
It's not hard to read one guide, press one button, ask one question, and wait one day.
it's harder than not having to do this, and you again neglect the fact that people have to publicly state their age in a public channel, or in DMs with someone they do not know.
IRC does not have a verification gate
true, but people who have never used irc (most ppl now) might be put off by it being straight out of the late 90s
Incentivising users to not use official systems that are in place is bad
exactly, yeah, and making other sandboxes easier to use does this
I also very much believe the n-word troll would go back to vandalising the sandbox if they found out they could make new pages.
if this happened we could simply reconsider
Do you know what's an even more egregious example of the bus factor on staff? Site staff refusing to answer questions in 17 on occasion or add people to the sandbox invite list because you think you're too good to do a bit of grunt work.
reasonable suggestions to allow staff who do not want two chat clients open to help users in 17 (rhymes with 🅱️iscord-irc bridge) have been shot down in the past. u can't complain about people not wanting to help while also rejecting their suggestions for how they can
As above, most users don't stick around in chat and therefore don't have to learn how to use IRC.
does not change the fact that it appears intimidating to users only familiar with discord
Advocating to change an entire system based on the fact that one staffer won't take 30 seconds out of their day to add one user to the sandbox list really doesn't hold much weight.
true, the stronger argument is, as many have stated, that it's inconvenient for users to have to wait a day to draft when there's an alternative proven to work in which they do not have to wait
Get more staff who are willing to add people to the list then.
so now there's multiple people doing the staffwork to make it more inconvenient for users to draft?
Not sure this is true, actually.
i'm like 99% sure that ppl couldn't edit others' pages pre-sandbox list - the troll always made fresh pages for the sandbox while editing existing ones on the mainsite
and I doubt that many of them are even aware of the underage chatbans page
check revision zero of the page
overall thoughts:
this whole post treats users' inconvenience like it's an afterthought, when as staff it should be the number one thing we're considering when thinking about new policies/changes to existing ones. the points about additional staff workload are either exaggerated or incorrect. while your point that some underage users are discovered through the sandbox list is accurate, it does not justify making literally everyone who wants to draft publicly state their age and be inconvenienced when it's so easy to remove this
Providing some context:
- "maybe it's efficient for staff (and only staff) but it also forces people to publicly state their age (not cool) just to get access to the sandbox" > chatops have taken the info in PMs for awhile, if I recall correctly. Though I agree users shouldn't need to publicly state their age, so could we use a bot instead?
- "the sandbox pre-sandbox list was functioning completely fine for a decade" > well… sort of. We had ban-evaders there frequently, we had (some) staff checking it for problematic content, and it was more common for site members (usually reviewers) to get trolled/harassed by people posting links to sandbox pages containing NSFW content of various types. Screenshots available to staff upon request.
- "true, but people who have never used irc (most ppl now) might be put off by it being straight out of the late 90s" > hopefully, having invite requests via Discord will help with this?
- if this happened we could simply reconsider > I would personally like to have staff moderation support in place for the sandbox ready just in case, should cleanup be necessary in addition to reconsideration.
- "i'm like 99% sure that ppl couldn't edit others' pages pre-sandbox list - the troll always made fresh pages for the sandbox while editing existing ones on the mainsite" > It is true that currently the sandbox is edit-restricted to page authors. However, there are still vulnerabilities (I can provide further explanation upon request if desired)
I think a lot of the points noted above have been addressed in detail elsewhere; I just want to poke about this bit:
The current system heavily relies on one staffer (zyn) inviting every individual user, and is a particularly egregious example of bus factor on staff.
Since it feels like there may be a misconception about how much time/effort it takes to process invites?
It's not hard to process invites, and most of the time in the process is just waiting for a list to auto-population. I would hesitate to portray such a process as a "particularly egregious example of bus factor on staff" since pretty much anyone could pick up the task (and someone else totally could if there was a severe pressure to get someone else on the task!) and there's no reason it must be me doing the invites.
I really do appreciate everyone's concerns about lightening my workload, and I want to assure that invites don't take long at all to handle. (The most time-consuming parts of my day-to-day workload are responding to PMs, housekeeping the forums, and going through Recent Posts. d:)
I would suggest directly allowing applications to the sandbox, similar to the main site. It makes it simpler for both staff and users. Make them put their age in the application if we really want to, although the kind of person that can't remember to lie about their age twice is probably going to slip up some time soon anyway.
This might increase the workload of the sandbox administrators (unclear, I would assume accepting an application is simpler than consulting a list) but if that is an issue we could just promote more staff members to sandbox admins - they don't have to be admins on the main site as well, the sandbox is definitely less important.
Alternatively we could just let people join the sandbox directly, under the reasoning that all sandbox pages are locked to the page creator anyway and so a vandal would only be able to alter collaborative pages. This honestly doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal even if it did happen - it would be irritating, but you can just ban the vandal and revert the edits. Unlike on the main wiki it doesn't really matter what the current iteration of the page looks like.
I think a system of applications similar to the main site would be, indeed, a good idea!
IIRC, we did have direct joining up until the troll showed up, and that seemed to work just peachy.
General note, prior to the troll (and during the troll) we had staff checking the sandbox regularly for rulebreaking content (screenshots available to staff upon request). If we return to direct joining, I highly advise we have staff to moderate the sandbox again.
I am in support of this approach. I know that I've seen concerns about a potential increase of rulebreaking posts to the draft crit forum, but I honestly don't foresee this happening. At most we'll see 1-2 weeks of an increase in posts needing staff attention, but once people realize they're breaking rules, things should normalize. I know that I personally have no issue taking on the burden of making a few extra staffposts each day should we need it.
The troll which the system was changed for won't be able to vandalize non-collaborative pages anymore, due to a permission change.
The reason we even changed the joining process on the sandbox was because of said troll and according to this point, they will not be able to do it anymore. I'll leave it there because I think you know where I stand about this.
(plus, with the official Discord being already fairly successful and even if I'm probably the only one who thinks IRC is overhated, let's be honest, it's extremely NOT popular of a chat service to use)
With the sandbox's join page being changed to have a direct link to TheLounge and instructions on how to connect (just click the button), I'm going to recommend giving it a month or so and see how well that reduces users getting discouraged by the process.
I'm going to recommend giving it a month or so and see how well that reduces users getting discouraged by the process.
Assuming users are not at all intimidated by IRC anymore after this fix, it still will only fix one of the listed issues.
You still need to wait 1-3 days, there's an issue of IRC understaffing, it relies heavily on Zyn, it will become unmaintainable with time, the troll seems to be gone… There's still a lot of things to consider.
You still need to wait 1-3 days,
Wait time is closer to a couple hours to under a day. Longer wait times are usually due to wikidot eating edits on the invites list page.
there's an issue of IRC understaffing,
Would having a bot handle the invitation list population address this?
it relies heavily on Zyn,
There's no reason I need to be the sole sandbox inviter, since the process is very simple. It just takes so little time that I haven't asked for assistance yet. I don't mind running shifts with other sandbox admins if there's a pressing need to not have me do invites.
it will become unmaintainable with time,
Hopefully when wikijump is viable, we won't need to bother with a sandbox invitation process.
the troll seems to be gone… There's still a lot of things to consider.
There's a bit more context about this, but it basically boils down to the troll not being the sole concern for the sandbox. I can provide further information to staff upon request.
Changing the joining process for the sandbox was a good strategy to deal with a hole in security, but that hole has since been fixed. So I think the question is "Is this current process in any way better than the previous one?"
To me the only real pro of this process is that it sometimes catches underage users when they identify themselves by username and age. That's assuming they don't think to lie twice, which could (and probably does) happen. But identifying yourself by username and age in site17 or discord creates its own problem. We're requiring users to post their age in a public space, and per the current justification of this process, we're hoping that underage users will post their age. Yes, there are some steps to access IRC, but any argument towards that being a safety measure doubles as a point against the process as a hurdle to overcome.
As it currently stands, it's more difficult to access and edit a sandbox than the main site; that's just dumb. I don't see how making it harder to get into the sandbox can result in anything other than encouraging users to dump coldposts into the forums.
Unless the process of simply accepting applications to the sandbox is somehow more labor intensive than this bucket-brigade process, I don't see any real justification for keeping the current invite system.
EDIT: Per enlightening from Zyn on the moderation of the sandbox, I now see an additional pro to the current invite system; it allows for screening before folks can post filth to the sandbox. However, I'm still not thrilled about encouraging users to post their age in chat. If we do return to just applying for sandbox access through the site, we should consider a sandbox moderation team. I'd be amenable to joining such a team.
If we do return to just applying for sandbox access through the site, we should consider a sandbox moderation team. I'd be amenable to joining such a team.
We actually have this team already as a sub-team of MAST. It hasn't been a priority as of late due to the reduced use of the sandbox, but if that were to change, I would definitely take some added hands and ensure the team gets the help it needs.
There's a lot of reasons to ditch the current system, and normally I'd agree to do so, but frankly I think its best to wait for ~ a month or so and see how things change. If n-word troll has been seen in site17, and with the rollout of 19cord, I thinks its best to wait for a little bit and see if this issue becomes more urgent.
the current system has been unnecessary for like well over a year. it was created to catch a particularly frustrating troll who we haven't heard from in so absurdly long that there is really no sense caring anymore. i used to help with sandbox invite requests in 17 quite a lot back when i was more active; it felt pretty pointless then and it seems even more pointless now. it's a massive inconvenience to our userbase in order to catch a handful of underage users, and i'm sorry, but if we're justifying this much inconvenience on the basis that having those handful of underage users onsite without our knowledge is *so* severe, then we better increase our measures for catching underage users cause there are gonna be dozens and dozens more getting through without our noticing whether we use sandbox invites or not. the *only* benefit this provides is minor, in exchange for a massive increase in inconvenience for every other user who passes through this system. the calculation simply does not work out.
i used to help with sandbox invite requests in 17 quite a lot back when i was more active; it felt pretty pointless then and it seems even more pointless now
Would a bot handling this portion of work be an improvement?
it's a massive inconvenience to our userbase in order to catch a handful of underage users
The current system also addresses ban evaders, as well as removes (at least part of) the need to moderate the sandbox site closely for severe rulebreaking content (screenshots of examples available upon request).
Also, general context, there are currently about 200 underage bans from chat on the listing.
Would a bot handling this portion of work be an improvement?
no, it felt pointless because the impact it has on maintenance of the site, improvement of the site, or the user experience is extremely minimal, not because the work itself was monotonous and could be performed by a bot.
The current system also addresses ban evaders, as well as removes (at least part of) the need to moderate the sandbox site closely for severe rulebreaking content (screenshots of examples available upon request).
this is at the expense of user experience. i do not believe the equation works out here. it is a minor boon to staff for a major inconvenience to most users.
Also, general context, there are currently about 200 underage bans from chat on the listing.
there are over 100k users on the site. guaranteed a very significant portion are underage and there is literally nothing we can do about it. 200 more for this inconvenience to the userbase is a nonsensical calculation in my opinion.
i do not believe the equation works out here. it is a minor boon to staff for a major inconvenience to most users.
I'm a little confused here. I could be missing something, but I thought most users don't write for the site or interact with the site at all beyond reading, or the occasional vote?
a very significant portion of users at least try to write something. whether or not it is 'most' in the clinical sense is a semantic argument at best. it's a major inconvenience to a significant proportion of our users, at the very minimum, which is not vastly improved from 'most'.
I guess I'm personally not certain I agree that the current sandbox setup is a major inconvenience, but in the interest of not getting bogged down in semantics, I'll just note that I'm willing to hear suggestions on how we can improve the setup while retaining (or at least compensating for any introduced weaknesses in) the current security benefits of the current system.
I will note that I am also considering the effect on reviewers both on the mainsite and in chat (and all authors who seek feedback in both locations), should the sandbox join process be changed to its initial approach and the proportion of underage authors asking for feedback (and often needing more assistance with some of the writing basics) increase correspondingly.
Zyn (and others) have raised this issue of sandbox moderation to prevent the posting of disallowed content to the sandbox, which people can then link and get people to view in a way they wouldn't for other types of URL.
Part of me is tempted to regard this as not really an issue, since if it does happen we can ban people who do it, but I suppose there are concerns about allowing rule-breaking content on an official SCP wiki space for any length of time and I think we would need to moderate the sandbox more often if it was easier to join.
/forum/t-14568682/discussion-the-scp-sandbox-joining-process#post-
