in discussion Policy & Voting / Policy Discussion » [DISCUSSION] Secondary Mainlist Curation Standard
I find myself disappointed that this is being considered as a possible solution to the lack of mainlist slots remaining. This solution to me feels like it's been proposed without much thought into the potential consequences of it, and is essentially a bandaid that will gives us only a few months stay of execution. I also think it fails to acknowledge that should it proceed, its effectiveness will be damped by a likely influx of people with pre-existing drafts jumping at the opportunity to snap up lower number slots that would be opened under this proposal, giving us less time then we'd thought we'd get.
For this reason I am opposed to this proposal. I am also opposed to freezing the mainlist for similar reasons, and because it would, in my opinion, cause significant harm to the Wiki and the community surrounding it.
What we need is a multi-solution approach, one that takes into consideration the different factors at play and works to address them. Without that approach we'll be left kicking the can perpetually down the road, a state that will negatively impact the Wiki and stop the growth of recent years, something which I believe has been a hugely positive thing. But we can't begin a discussion on a multi-solution approach until we examine some of the factors that have lead us to this point.
1. Frequency of contests and events
I personally love seeing all the contests and events, both official and unofficial. It's truly a wonderful thing to see the community come together to create works around a shared theme or for each other in cases like Art Exchange. But it's also true that there has been a big influx in events/contests recently. This influx has contributed to the problem we currently face as many others have pointed out.
The solution here is an obvious one: to limit the number of events/contests. The specifics of this is something best left to the Contest Team, but I genuinely believe we don't need more than 3-4 contest/events a year. That number gives us breathing room, letting users recover and not get burnout, as is happening at the moment.
2. Lack of reading & reviewing incentives
Under the current system, unless a work becomes popular, is promoted heavily or is part of an event/contest, it's a coin toss as to how many readers it will attract. With an increased threshold, this means works that are underead would be unfairly unlisted or deleted. This has lead to two problems:
Problem A: Works that would be downvoted to -10 and deleted are left sitting in the low positives or negatives, taking up slots they wouldn't otherwise if they had the readership.
Problem B: Works that deserve more upvotes remain undiscovered. Most sit with anywhere from 0-30 upvotes and don't see any traction. Their only real chance at the spotlight is a front page feature or a random plug that takes off, but that's a shot in the dark at best.
To fix both these problems, we need to encourage more users to not only read more works, but to vote and comment on them. How to do do this is a difficult question. People have limited time in their days to read, and many want to dedicate that time to reading works they know they'll likely enjoy. But there are a few possible solutions:
- Reward for reading, voting and reviewing such as front page features.
- Contests or events exclusively revoling around reading, voting and reviewing works.
- Promoting these works on our socials or other locations so they're seen by a wider group of potential readers/voters/commenters.
There are likely more possible solutions, and I think regardless of what steps we take next, something to get more people reading must be addressed.
3. Critique imbalance & lack of established user participation
One of the arguments for raising the threshold is that it'll prune works that needed more time in the crit oven. I don't deny that there are likely a lot of works (some of which are my own) that could use more time to cook, and that affording them that opportunity and reposting them could see them net more readers, votes and comments. But the problem with this solution is an imbalance with critique, something that isn't the fault of anyone but rather a natural consequence of time.
For newer authors without established friends in the community, they're often left recieving critique from other new authors, many of whom are still learning to write for the website and how to critique. This limits how effective critique can truly be for this group. And while the occasional established author, paired with resources like Deer College's Moth Squad, help to mitigate this somewhat, it still leaves newer authors in the dark. This in turn leads to works being posted when they're not ready. While they're not worthy of deletion, they also don't stand out, leaving them sitting in the low positives or negatives.
Established authors on the other hand have often formed friend groups who they use for writing advice and critique. They keep to themselves for the most part, thus taking with them valuable critique knowledge and the experience of writing in the SCP format, leaving newer authors without the opportunity to have experienced eyes look over their works and to see how experienced critters critique.
If we want to fix the works being posted that need more critique, we need to incentivise these established users to return to places like Deer College. Programs like Reviewer's Spotlight work to an extent, but more can and should be done if we want to see an improvement in this area.
4. Harsh Critique
Somewhat related to the above point, but harsh critique and the lack thereof, is another point I've seen being raised. If more works recieved harsher critique, both before and after posting, it's believed that this would stop works that need more time from being posted early, and if they are, see them reach the deletions threshold. I don't deny that harsh critique is a good thing, but only to a point. Harsh critique is not inherently useful because it's harsh. What is useful is honest and actionable critique.
I know many people, myself included, have sometimes held back on critiquing, voting or commenting on a work when we shouldn't have. Perhaps we only novoted, or didn't mention something to avoid upsetting the author. Once again, no one is at fault. It's human nature for us to avoid upsetting other people. But if we want to see the kind of change we need, we must start encouraging more honest critique and actionable critique. Is it's not honest, and if the critique isn't actionable, then it does nothing to help and at its worst could make people leave the site.
How to make this kind of change if difficult to say, but I believe it needs to happen if we want to see mainlist slots fill up slower.
5. Popular authors vs newer/unknown authors and promotion
It's a fairly obvious truth that if you ask users what they'd rather read, more often then not read the work of an popular author over the a new/unknown author. This isn't because the community is bias against newer/unknown authors, but rather if you have limited time to read, you want to read something you'll like. An popular author has already gotten a reputation for works of a certain quality, making reading theirs far less of a gamble. There is also the element of author style and that if a user likes an authors style and/or their previous works they become a more obvious choice to read.
This makes thing harder for newer/unknown authors, plain and simple. While it is possible for a first time author to publish something that gets 100+ in the first week or more, it's an outlier. Most new/unknown authors will struggle to get reads unless they get lucky with a front page feature, sustained plugging from other users or extensively promote it themselves. Pairing that with the site's subpar discoverability means there are many works that could reach 50+, 100+ or higher that are sitting below 50. This proposal will mean many of these works never get a chance, as they'll be deleted or unlisted if they're below 20 upvotes.
These works deserve better. Their authors deserve better. We can and must start making it a more even playing field between the popular and newer/unknown authors. And its not something that's a difficult task either. On IO I do what I can to share works both popular (1730, 682, etc) and works that are new or need some love. Front page features also help in this regard to an extent, but many of the features have already been read and voted on by a large number of users. Possible ways to make things more even include:
- Contests where users with only a few works or who have a low total upvote count are the only ones who can participate. Alternatively, an event were users submit works under a certain upvote threshold for people to read, the winner being the work that gets the most upvotes during the events duration.
- A spot on the front page for low upvote works that people can submit works to. For example, works that are at least +15 but no more than +30.
- Site news having a section where 1-2 works below 50+ or similar are given a brief highlight.
In sum: I oppose this proposal. I believe that the only way to truly fix this problem is a multi-solution apporach that takes all the factors that contributed to the lack of slots and addresses them.