Forum:Some issues with Featured Editor

It's been 2 months since The Black Scorpion topped the nominations for Featured Editor, and by the end of this month, it will be the 3rd month. Ever since, I haven't updated Featured Editor since May for ThomasWikia. The thing is, The Black Scorpion has been in the nomination list for a very long time (since May 2012), and his votes accumulate until now. I know The Black Scorpion has made numerous valuable contributions to our wiki, but it would be silly to reward him the June / July FE for the months he didn't even contribute in. If he'd been rewarded in the months before, it would still make sense.

This has happened before to Farhanmendel too, who made contributions to The Sims Social. He was nominated for quite a long time, until he was up for FE in March 2012, but he had stopped editing in November 2011. He returned in June 2012, though, but that's irrelevant since his FE reward was due late anyway.

I think the problem is in the nomination & voting rules. Once a user is nominated, it will stay indefinitely, maybe for a really long time until he/she accumulate enough votes and become the FE. The user might've been inactive by the time they became the FE. This will be unfair for users who actually made contributions on that month. If this keeps happening, we might end up in a queuing problem where old nominees are up late, and late nominees are up even later.

I want to ask what the community thinks about this. Do you feel this is an issue? Do you have any solutions for this? I want to know what you think about this before proposing any ideas.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  04:57, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion
I agree with you, Nikel. There are definitely some issues with editors that are on the list to become featured and stop/take a break from editing. Then, when it is their turn to become FE, they aren't editing anymore, and there are others on the list that don't have as many votes, but are active.

I don't have many ides that would help to combat this problem, though. The only ones I can think of are having a set amount of edits that one has to get within a month (which would be a problem as some editors do one big edit on a page where others would do about 5 or 6) or having some sort of rule relating to activity (which could also cause problems relating to "how can we define activity?"). ~ Waikikamukow  ( Anyone wanna chat? ) 06:58, July 7, 2013 (UTC)


 * That's when we count quality over quantity. I'm sure we can find ourselves which user has made big contributions - be it good quality, a big amount of edits with fair quality, or just really helpful to this wiki.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  09:41, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

One thing that could solve this issue is if we switched to more of a "User of the Month"-like system. Basically every month somebody can go and nominate someone else who they think should be a Featured Editor based on how significant their contributions to the wiki have been for the past month as well as activity. More than one nomination can be made and whoever gets the most votes for that month is Featured Editor and then the slate is wiped clean and the process is repeated for the next month.

This would require an almost-complete restructure of the Featured Editor system but I'm confident it would work to help solve the issues that Nikel pointed out. I don't think arbitrary edit counts should matter too much as 50 very good edits is better than 100 okay-at-best edits but I digress.

That's all I've got. 13:30, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
 * That might work pretty well. I assume it will also be revised for Featured Author as well then? 14:27, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Georgie's idea is good. Personally, I don't know about it being revised for Featured Author though. I don't contribute in the fanon namespace so I'm not totally familiar with it, but I think that a featured author doesn't have to be active to receive acclaim for their [literary] work. Maybe an exception could be made if the author's been inactive for an extensive amount of time, but that's how I feel about it. -- Bleeh (talk) (blog) 23:53, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
 * I like Lost Labyrinth's idea. I think it would pretty effectively solve the problem. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 01:09, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, Lab. I had a similar idea as well, and I like it. I'm just afraid it wouldn't attract enough votes to decide the FE. It raised some questions to me, like when the vote will begin, how long it will last (entire month / a week / a day), and how we will vote (using poll, or the classic voting style). Or, will it be based on community votes or we discuss it to a group of people?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  09:41, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
 * I was thinking maybe have a nomination period towards the end of the month, like from the 19th to the 23rd and then the voting period would be the final week of the month. As far as how it's managed, as long as the reason for nominating the user is strong and not just "he's my best friend" it shouldn't be an issue. 21:43, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't agree. I think that even if the recognition is late, it's still deserved nonetheless. Therefore, I don't think time should be an issue, even if the user got away or doesn't even edit anymore. The quality is very important, even more than the timing. The only issue I see is when people vote due to personal reasons, but we can't do much about this, since it can be well hidden by just commenting "they are a great contributor". I know this doesn't offer any solutions, but it's all I've got. -- RoseGui ✿ ( talk ) 22:07, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

 (Resetting indent)  Rose raises a couple good points, in that any good contributions are ones worth recognizing. However, it seems to me like it's pretty ridiculous to publicly honor and congratulate a user if that user isn't even editing the wiki anymore. So, implementing Lab's idea or putting some sort of activity requirement on the current system seem like the best solutions. The latter solution would be more simple, I think, but might not get to the root of the problem. The former solution I see as being more complicated, but nothing that couldn't be figured out. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 02:34, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't see any point in giving recognition to a user who had completely retired from a wiki, as if say someone like Wiryawan, Charlie, or Dev was up for being the next Featured Editor. But if they do come back to edit, not necessarily too recently but within a reasonable period of time that the edits they made actually leave a mark or make a lasting difference, because there are some Users that only edit for short periods of time but have meaningful edits during the time they come back (for example, JM9193). Other than a case like that, I wouldn't see any other reason to be giving the recognition to an inactive user who isn't even there to realize that they've been given that honor. Something like this, though, would be the best of both worlds, if you will. 03:22, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me explain a little better: I think to nominate an inactive user for whichever featured is out of question too, but imagine if a user has a lot of good contributions in February 2013 and someone decides to nominate them; while they collect votes each month, there is always someone on the top of them who gets "awarded" first and, in the meantime, they leave the wiki, or rarely edit. However, they have collected enough votes in June to be the Featured Editor or Author, is it fair to remove them from the nomination then? -- RoseGui ✿ ( talk ) 12:39, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with your point. However I would reply that as that is the case, the real problem is that it took so long for their contributions to be recognized in the first place. It shouldn't be that there is such a long line of 'nominees' that by the time it finally gets to someone, they've already left. I think Lab's idea could mitigate that problem. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:37, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * Responding Gui's point, I think that's the problem we're having right now. Resetting the nomination each month will determine a user's validity in the nomination, which is also based on their activity. If they're not the current FE, they still have potential in the subsequent months, as long as that user is still active.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  17:55, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * Think of it this way: when you're given an award for something, it's for doing something significant that has been acknowledged and appreciated and part of receiving that award is so that whoever is given the award can feel their own personal satisfaction for doing something significant that has been acknowledged.


 * But what if you're given an award and you may never know about it? The message stays the same but whoever wins the award wouldn't have much satisfaction to take in because they never knew about it. I agree that users should be commended for their efforts even if they do go away for a while, but that is the root of the problem, believe it or not.


 * My proposed idea would tackle this and as Nikel stated above, if a user is active then there would be no limit on how many times they can be nominated before they become the Featured Editor. Plus if we go with the end of the month thing I said earlier, this could be effective in encouraging activity on the wiki. 22:08, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I understand now. And the "not agreeing" part was not actually about the solution you have suggested, but the problem adressed in this forum. I do, however, support your idea now that the root of the problem has been made clear to me by other users. -- RoseGui ✿ ( talk ) 23:06, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm with Gui. I think that Lab's idea is probably best and that it will work out. There might be some problems, like if a User nominates an inactive user, but you only learn though trial and error and there don't seem to be any errors at the moment in Lab's suggested course of action. 02:20, July 10, 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, now I understand what Gui meant. Yeah, I agree too, even though it's late, they still deserve to be rewarded. However, it will no relevant anymore because it's too late. But anyway, I'm sure you understand now.


 * IMO, if a user nominates an inactive user, the chance they will get a good result won't be as good as those who are, hmm, more active. Such loophole will be handled itself anyway.


 * I have a question. How do we vote? Do we wait for community inputs and regular votes, or we're going to have a team to discuss who would be the well-deserved FE?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  07:08, July 11, 2013 (UTC)

The voting system was never really an issue with Featured Content. As it's not as formal as an RfA, I think it could be like Featured Article where the nominator gives a reason why they're nominating and everyone else just votes on who should be the Featured Editor. 15:17, July 11, 2013 (UTC)

Going back to the root of LostLab's suggested system... I'm worried that there might be issues in rounding up participants to nominate and vote on users for the next month, given the small window left open to accomplish this. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to push recognition back for a month. By this I mean, after the end of a month, Featured Editor/Editor of the Month opens up for nominations for the next month, based on user activity from the most recent month. So, for example, at the beginning of August we'd nominate users who made good contributions in July, then vote on them and have them featured in September.

If we wanted to modify this, we could choose to have the Featured Editor changeover not occur at the beginning of the month, but have it occur in the middle. So, a user's contributions for July would be considered when the nomination period begins, in late July, with voting taking place in the early part of August, and the Featured Editor being formally set in the middle of August.

--  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 15:39, July 11, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd be in favor with the occurrence of Featured Editor in the middle. I'm still concerned what if we don't get enough votes? What if there are only 2 nominees and only 3 users made their vote? Sure someone will come out as the highest voted nominee, but is three votes enough to really see them as "featured"?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:28, July 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * Very true. Featured Editor hasn't always been the highest voted-on "Featured" section, most Users get votes a long time after they've gotten their last, so we would need something major to draw attention to it. The only thing is: What? 16:33, July 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * I prefer to bring it up in Chat or IRC (I don't have access to IRC however) and discuss it with people who are there. Who's that?  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  08:32, July 17, 2013 (UTC)

(Late to the discussion...) After reading through the discussion a good few times, I think Lab's idea is the best bet we have for this. I will admit that voting on Featured Editor has been a bit haywire, seeing as a few amount of users have been on the list of nominations for quite awhile now and they don't seem to be going anywhere. I also think we should put LiR's idea to good use, but going back to Nikel23's point of discussing this with the community on Chat/IRC or the community member's who don't use neither or clients, makes me suggest a small idea of myself. Perhaps, for promotional matters, we should set up a community message in the "Community Corner" on Recent Wiki Activity, which could possibly bring in more members of the community who could weigh in on the discussion. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 16:17, July 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * If you think this (or any) forum thread would benefit from being posted in community corner, do not hesitate to add it there. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 22:23, July 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * That idea of promoting it in community corner is good. After all, it's something to be recognized in public.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  05:09, July 30, 2013 (UTC)
 * I have went ahead and promoted this thread in the Community Corner; let's hope this brings in more users and more opinions. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 21:31, July 30, 2013 (UTC)

I think it will be a good idea to remove a user after a certain time. Like if, after one or two months has passed and that user hasn't been nominated, we remove them from the list, and then they get nominated again by another user. Of course, this will be unfair to the editor if he is active.

I think we should strikethrough all of the users who haven't been active for 3 months and put them on hold. So let's say a user had the same amount of votes as TheBlackScorpion they could just cross Him off and that person will get it for the month then the other inactive user (TheBlackScorpion) has to be active for 3 more moths to get it accepted. Sorry if my point was a little confusing JasonThePlum talk ◦ blog 07:23, August 10, 2013 (UTC)

Next steps
As discussion has slowed down, I think we should start getting to the point of where we actually implement changes.

It seems the general consensus is that we opt for a system where users are nominated for a month with the user who has the most votes becoming the Featured Editor and all votes are removed and the process starts from scratch again the next month. The idea of having the Featured Editor switch over at the middle of the month has also gained support and fared favourably in terms of consensus.

For us to effectively make these changes, I'd like to propose now that we suspend Featured Editor completely so that we can get to work with implementing the improvements to the system which have been discussed and then we can start up again once we're done with that. Note that the intention behind suspending FE isn't to discredit anybody who may be currently nominated but not given the Featured Editor title but rather so we can improve the system and make things more efficient in the long term. I'd also like to discuss a more fleshed out system of how long/when typically the nomination period starts/ends and the same for voting before the switchover.

What do you think about this? 19:57, August 12, 2013 (UTC)


 * Technically, the feature has been suspended / inactive for several months already. It can wait until the new system can be completely implemented. I'm still uncertain about the voting system though. What if not many people participate in voting the nominees during that shortened period? They might be aware to vote in the first months, but they might be less and less aware of the nominations for the subsequent months.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  15:26, August 13, 2013 (UTC)
 * I too share the same concerns with Nikel, however it's up to the community if they participate in the voting period or not. It's their choice and we cannot make them participate. However, apart from that small concern, I think it is probably best to close Featured Editor until we have this new system implemented. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 20:32, August 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps in the event of no/extremely limited participation by the users, the admins could select a featured editor? --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 22:38, August 14, 2013 (UTC)
 * With lack of community participation in FE, I think that would be the best way to go with having an Admin choose which User will be the FE; the appearance of one user having multiple votes is really just compiled votes of weeks, months, or even possibly years. I hope that either way, we can find something that works out... It would be a shame for something like this to go to waste. 03:19, August 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to support that idea, in the sense as a result of admins' discussion, not someone's decision.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  04:30, August 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * Personally, I don't support that decision. I think the featured editor should be picked by the community, as it's a community feature. As well, the admin picking the featured editor could be biased (which is also a problem with the community picking, though). If no decision can be reached, though, an administrator picking the featured editor could be an easy solution. --Bleeh (talk!) <font color="#EBACA4">(edits) 19:20, August 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * Even if participation is little (as in if 3 users vote for that month; 2 users vote for User A while the other votes User B), I'd still recommend we go by the vote count to avoid potential bias. If we're deadlocked by the end of the voting period then it seems to me that despite a potential level of bias by the act of one user, the only viable solution is to let an admin decide who the Featured Editor for that month is, so I reluctantly support this. 19:40, August 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * I support what Nikel said, I disagree and I think that it should be continued and not discontinued as it is a big part of the community on this wiki. 10:49, September 7, 2013 (UTC)