Proposal: Developing alternatives to post count requirements

[Jorus Merrill]

Post count can be good, but there's any number of arguments for why we should give alternatives. For one, we've all seen the 50-post threads with 120 words per post. I feel like we're doing our members a real disservice by training them to write high volumes of crap and split it into soundbites.

I'd like to hold a short brainstorming activity/session so we can explore alternatives to post count requirements. Not in the sense of phasing out something so integral to our current system, but in the sense of offering choices to members. Word count, for example, or a marking rubric for some basic indicators of effort (the same kind of thing I used as a slush reader). Or we could think even farther afield -- hence the brainstorming session. In government they call these 'hackathons.' Sometimes nothing comes of them, and sometimes they change everything.

Please let me know if you're interested in participating in a hackathon activity on this subject. If we're successful in coming up with some good proposals, we can present them to [member="Spencer Varanin"] and see how things go.

 

[Darth Metus]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

You know I'm down.

 

[Raziel]

We all know why it's post counts at the moment. It's pretty easy to break it down and count it at a glance.

Of course we see bare minimum threads with 100 word posts and then 300 word threads which still aren't particularly lengthy. That's a third of the effort. Haven't got many ideas but keen to hear some!

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Every other place I write it is word count based. A good post should be at least 250 words. so a 10 post dev thread should be 2500 words. That is how I approach development most times. Yes some are a little less but I make up for them in other posts. Sometimes back and forth posting will be shorter posts. I am all for making it a word count thing but I imagine most of you are against that.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Reshmar"]

Don't worry, word count's on the table. Raz likes it, Spencer likes it, I like it. I'm hoping to see what else we can come up with, or specific ways to implement word count stuff. I'm pretty sure we have more options than we think we do.

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]
GOOOOOOOOO word count!

going word count would be awesome. it would piss some people off though. which makes it even better because the only people pissed off would be the people who abuse it. Alot of my dev I write up as one post then divide it up anyway.

 

[Tefka]

Your posts don't show word count, so how are you going to tell without copying and pasting every post into Microsoft Word or another Word processing program?

Don't some of you judge on your phones sometimes? What then?

 

[Jorus Merrill]

That's the main obstacle to a word count option, yeah. Most times I've seen it implemented, it's honor system - and factory bans if you get caught padding your numbers. I'm hoping a brainstorming session will come up with something workable, in that direction or others.

I've sent a PM chain around to some of the interested parties. We'll see if we can generate anything practical.

 

[Cira]

I've done word count before, but yeah, i doubt anyone wants to copy and paste posts just for word count.

I'd like to see anyone do that for my dev threads -- I only did so just to satisfy my curiously on how much Chris and I have written in our longest thread.

But it is a pain.



Unless you just want to standardized what a "quality post" is at it's base. ( this is only for Factory / Codex dev threads, not everywhere on the board... )

IE A quality post has approximately "This general amount of words" give or take a few. Just a general area.

So thus it works out something like...


If you are doing development, we require a quality post to be defined as the following:

"The average word count for a quality post. "


The standard will be the guideline but it is not fixed. There is some wiggle room, as we want to not restrict creativity and "fluffing" just to fluff.


And if one becomes familiar to around what that "average quality post" length looks like, it is easy just to skim and not have to copy and paste.

Plus there is still wiggle room.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Cira"]

Yeah, pretty much. Hence why we're trying to brainstorm other solutions for improving dev, trying to come at it from other directions. 'Cause while it'd be nice to say 'must be 200 words' or something like that, I'd rather create more options than more rules. I'll toss you into the brainstorming PM chain.

 

[Ellie Mors]

I dislike the notion of quantifying what is quality. I can easily use as much purple prose as possible to turn 300 words in a post into 1500 words, or more. If we want to look at an alternative, then maybe we can put a minimum down for words per post rather than an overall word count and retain the current post count method. Otherwise we're just changing the problem of minimal effort.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Another idea that was posed by the boss (indirectly, I suppose) was to judge the thread by story completeness. If the story is completed (organically) before the post count, in a reasonable range of posts/words/whatever, then we can let it through there.

From that basic idea that was brought up, then maybe we can say "x words is the minimum for a quality post", "x to x posts are the range of posts I am looking for", and if they happen to complete a story that surrounds the item being developed? So long as it doesn't set off any alarms, meets at least one of the two quotas listed before, then let it through. Obviously don't let 10 posts slide for 100 posts, but if the thread hits about 15 when we asked for ~20, and the story is complete and the submission is developed throughout? Should be good to go.

I, myself, ask for a range of posts rather than a hard number. So for a limited production beskar armor, for example, it might be normal to ask for somewhere around 20 posts, I'll ask for 15-25, then if they complete it at 15 and I feel it meets what I am looking for I'll stamp it, if it doesn't I'll make the hard choice to ask them for some more posts - usually not much more, maybe five tops. I don't always ask for a range, though, and it really isn't based on a leniency thing or whim, it's generally reserved for when I'm asking for a lot of development, upwards 40 to 50 posts, in which case I'll go a bit low and give a maximum of exactly what I want with a starting point maybe 10 posts under that. So ~40-50 for what I would normally request 50 posts for. Most people tend to react better to a range, maybe it's the option of ending a little earlier than what is being asked for, than a hard set 50 posts (for example).

 

[Alric Kuhn]

I would like to alternatively not do dev threads at all.

 

[Allyson Locke]

I want something that makes devs less of a chore and are more fun :c

[member="Alric Kuhn"] didn't we try that before? And how would you deal with some of the bigger and more "op" items and restricted materials?

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Spencer Varanin"]

Buff every submission until its all OP.

If everyone is super, no one is.

 

[Allyson Locke]

Or we could go back to deny or approve. Op deny fits standard approve. Clean cut. [member="Alric Kuhn"]

 

[Alric Kuhn]

[member="Spencer Varanin"]

That was the general gist of my joke.

The Factory Judges balance submissions so nothing crosses a certain line of OP. You don't have to instantly deny, just make it okay to use on the board.

 

[Allyson Locke]

[member="Alric Kuhn"] :c I wish you wouldn't joke.

 

[Raziel]

It could certainly work for starships to remove all dev.

However we'd be hit by a sudden surge of submissions. Currently the dev requirements in the rules are what stop every major faction submitting loads of star destroyer designs week in, week out.

We've also let some ships through with around double the firepower of current stuff through before. However, I'm not really sure it's a massive issue. People get by with writing fleet battles and if it became an issue we could deal with it.

 

[Raziel]

I agree word counts are going to be impractical. I don't think it would hurt to have guidelines in place. Like one posts is expected to be 150 words or more and we'll accept a single posts as counting as more if the writer tacks on a word count at the bottom. But them we're obsessing over the size of the dev again.

I love the restricted mat challenges.

Why don't we make some generic writing challenges, easy, hard and very hard categories and let people use them for tech and ships. We could easily lump them up together. Stealth tech, ships, space stations, etc. Can have PvP and solo/group writing challenges.