It has been posited that the application does not do a good job of filtering out the stupid. So, to see if this is true, for the next month, we will be going applicationless.
Admin, SCP Wiki
It has been posited that the application does not do a good job of filtering out the stupid. So, to see if this is true, for the next month, we will be going applicationless.
Admin, SCP Wiki
An inadequate filter is better than no filter at all. But, I can see wanting to try to quantify how much stupid actually is filtered, so I'll get ready— with popcorn, a flamethrower, and a fire hose.
Also, Bright, you gonna announce this on the wiki and/or in the chat?
Wasn't actually planning to.
Admin, SCP Wiki
Doing it is potentially bad enough. Announcing it is asking for trouble.
So within days we've been crapflooded. Three deletions in 24 hours of some of the most terrible writing I've seen around here in ages, with another three more in the tubes waiting for the flush, all posted by newbie authors within eleven hours of joining the site. You may consider this my official "crawling on my knees begging for a restored application process" post.
At least if we're going to do this scrap the 24-hour grace period. I've seen things worse, and with more downvotes, than Lil' Hitler over this week.
I'd like to see input from some other senior staff, but I hereby request that the grace period be removed for any SCP that gets down to … 15 or 20. Any agreements?
Admin, SCP Wiki
-15 sounds like plenty enough to kill it dead.
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
-20 sounds perfectly reasonable. I believe everything that's been that terrible has gone at least that far. And quickly.
The alternative option is to let them sit there, at massive negative numbers and serve as an example to others who would do the same.
"WELL FOUNDATION. YOU MADE IT SO EASY. SO VERY VERY EASY." - dimensionpotato
Yeah, -15 sounds fair enough to me. Reading most of these has made me want to kill myself.
I'm down with immediately removing ones that are below -15 or -20. Either one works for me.
I'd be fine with -15. That's well past the point of no return in my book.
Maybe just open them up for deletion votes when they get too low? The way I see it, if they're just immediately/automatically deleted once they hit the lower bound, it'll be hard to keep track of the new content coming in and out even if you check the wiki daily.
Plus, given the size of the userbase and active voters on the wiki+chat, the "delete after this value" policy would just circumvent the reasons the whole 24-hour grace period was implemented in the first place. It just moves from -5 to -15 or -20 or negative whatever, and when the size of the active userbase goes up, the lower bound will have to be lowered to accomodate for the voting trends, etc.
The bad SCPs are bad but it's not like they'll slip through the cracks and stay around for too long, but it's not like you can expect every new addition of content to be good. Part of what a creative writing community does is offer criticism and let people understand how they can improve before throwing something into the trash. I think if they're up for display as "This is how you do it wrong" for at least a defined (albeit short) period, it'll help the general userbase figure out what's bad and what's not and shift the general trend of new SCPs away from the bad. I'm not Senior Staff so…ignore this if you want.
(Side note: I think it'd be nice if 05command's forum's default nesting level is a number larger than 2 or 3. e.g. 6~10. Just my opinion.)
Edit: I also think 3 bad SCPs in the first couple of days of a trial period is an overreaction.
…Wait.
If you're not staff, why are you posting on this wiki? Shoo, shoo.
Personally, comments like this where a mod goes “I can't wait to delete it as soon as it hits the mark” as a knee-jerk reaction from a strict interpretation and implementation of the rules is why I think putting in speedy-exceptions in the deletion process is a bad idea.
You just need one person with a quick trigger finger and an excuse, and things will come crashing down like a non-planar graph of dominoes in a third-dimensional hypercube.
Heck, I don't even like that Senior Staff go around saying “I can't wait to vote for deletion in 18 hours” in discussion threads but that's just me.
I'm up for some sort of screening process to filter people like Wilson out but not for an exception to the deletion process. Sooner or later, I think deletion on the wiki will be simplified to “I hate this, it should be downvoted past -15 [or whatever number] so I can delete it now. *hinthint*” if it's implemented.
I concur. Staff shouldn't be making posts like that in the first place, especially when it makes authors sweat through an even shorter amount of time before possible deletion than outlined in the general rule.
Yeah. While I agree that an article at -15 isn't going to make a comeback, that's not the point of the 24 hour voting period, at least not as I understood it. The point is to give them time to read over the comments (and, if they want, to save their work for later). That way, they have time to learn something.
I will make an exception for articles like the Beans of Destruction, however.
If they were merely bad, Sophos, it may not be an issue. But some of these new ones aren't merely bad, they're horrendous. Like, -44 horrendous. So yeah, this is me voicing support for bringing back the application form.
-15 sounds good. Honestly, I've never seen an article come up from -8 or deeper, so -15 is almost gratuitous. (by agreeing to -15 I automatically agree to -20. Just sayin'.)
EDIT: Sophos, he said "remove the grace period" not "remove the voting system" what are you thinking.
I don't recall talking about removing the voting system.
Is it wrong that I stare at an SCP rated -42 and instead of the immediate reaction of 'KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT' I kind of want it to stay up just to see how low it'll go?
No, that falls within the bounds of "normal".
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
All right, laying this down here. The reason we have a 24 hour grace period is so a user can see what they did wrong. Unless an SCP is an obvious trolling attempt, such as the racist beans, no matter how low it gets in that 24 hour period, DO NOT DELETE it until that point. There is NO harm to leaving it up the full 24 hours. This is about people knowing what they fucked up, so they can do better next time.
Admin, SCP Wiki
This. Also, if we make rules about bad SCPs, and we break them because "this SCP is REALLY BAD", then what's the point in having the rule?
Bumping thread because I'm pretty sure the month is up and I'm still not seeing an application.
Do we need one? Granted, we've got some stupid SCPs, but nothing that couldn't be deleted. So, vote goes to the Senior Staff of the wiki, do we need an application.
Admin, SCP Wiki
I prefer having one, but can deal either way. On the one hand, the application does measurably reduce the idiocy around here. On the other, we have so much less to do.
I don't think we need one. The worst seems to have passed. And, if anything ever happens in the future, it'll be easy to re-implement it.
"WELL FOUNDATION. YOU MADE IT SO EASY. SO VERY VERY EASY." - dimensionpotato
I will vote for no application, but I will again voice my appreciation for you guys who were handling it while we had one because it did make a nice difference.
But even if we have more crud to sift through we might get more good ideas in the end, and we only keep the good stuff anyway, right?
We've had some bad SCPs recently, but we've also had some really good ones. I think we're cool going without an application.
I don't think we need a special application.
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
I'll say no app, for pretty much all of the above reasons.
no applications seems like an alright thing for the time being.
Applicationless seems like the way to go.
Throwing in my two cents, it seems as if the community is self-regulating at least somewhat. I think we've managed to gel enough people to act as a antibody for the garbage entries/users, and we can always re-instate applications if it gets bad.
Alright, as much as I hate to seem like a stick in the mud over this, I think it bears mentioning again, what with the flood of miserably awful SCPs recently, and the number of outright trolls we've seen. I personally think we should consider bringing the application back to some extent. The stuff seen in this thread seems to support that. Now, I'm not saying to bring back the old long-form thing, but I figure it can't be a bad idea to filter some of that. These aren't exactly good trolls we're looking at here.
Suppose we bring back an application with, say, two questions, and we switch off/open up approval duty among the admins? That seems like it would cut down on time spent approving and reading, and still provide more of a filter.
Honestly, putting the applications back up would slow down the applicants. *shrug* I can handle the traffic flow, no problem.
Admin, SCP Wiki
I'm agreeing with Bright, here. Open applications seem to result in a little extra work for mods and admins and a lot of new members. I mean, would we have gotten people like Tanhony with an application up?
"WELL FOUNDATION. YOU MADE IT SO EASY. SO VERY VERY EASY." - dimensionpotato
Echoing this sentiment.
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
I like the old style of application, and we seem to be able to self-manage bad users somewhat well now, however, i have a question: How do we go about approvals now? They seem to be building up in the site manager now, and before I get tempted to just bash through it, i wonder if there's a set procedure people would like to adopt.
Personally, i think misspelling in the application and overt stupidity are excluding factors, but should we set a formal guide?
I'm thinking, bad spelling/grammar, overt stupidity, ICness, and indication of not wanting to actually contribute to the site?
Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.
I generally do them twice a day, but I do faire weekends.
The general consensus is: Look for spelling, whether they can write SCP over SPC, whether they are willing to actually contribute to the site, whether they treat it like a roleplaying site, if they're complete morons…. I generally deny anyone who claims to have psychic powers or the like.
Oh, and I always deny anyone whose ap consists of "I don't want to make any contributions to the site, I just want to fix grammar and spelling issues."
Admin, SCP Wiki
Sounds good to me, though I might suggest lifting the ban on mere-proofreaders. Maybe I'm naive, but what's the harm there?
It's more the bit 'I don't want to contribute anything' that i have issue with.
Admin, SCP Wiki