Streamline the description system

[Ponystar17]

So, people who use the describe dragon feature probably know that it can take months or years to get descriptions approved.   (This help topic discusses the issue, if you're unfamiliar.)  The severity of the problem is because the task of approving descriptions has always fallen to a select few forum mods, at that the current point in time, we only have a single mod with description privileges.  It's a lot to expect one person to keep up with, especially if they have a life, and it negatively impacts both players who are left hanging and (I imagine) overworked staff. 

 

I would like to suggest that the system be streamlined to reduce strain on forum mods and accelerate description approval times.  There are a few ways this could be done:

  a) take on more forum moderators and give them description privileges.  This wouldn't be my preferred solution since it doesn't tackle what I see as the underlying problem, but it would help on the player end.

  b) create a position of description moderator (people who just approve/reject descriptions and have no forum moderation powers), and take on a number of player volunteers to fill this role.  This seems preferable to a) to me, since splitting forum and description moderation duties would allow player volunteers with limited time to better focus their efforts.

  c) reduce appointed volunteers' workload by allowing descriptions to be approved purely based on peer review (requiring a certain number and/or percentage of approvals from the existing review player descriptions system to be approved).  Under this system, if this isn't already the case, flagging a description as inappropriate should cause it to be auto-hidden.  Optionally you could also add a separate soft-flagging/comment system for when an approved description isn't offensively inappropriate but has fixable grammar/perspective/godmodding/setting-inappropriate issues.

 

(I'm aware that there's a setting in Account Settings to show unapproved descriptions.  I don't think that fundamentally fixes the issue that our current system relies on one person to review the work of thousands of users.)

 

B seems to be the most popular option - C is controversial, but the majority of people who support C seem to support B as well.

 

Feel free to tell me why all of these are bad ideas, and/or suggest alternative solutions to the problem!  I'd be happy to edit them into the post, along with any pertinent pros/cons to these ideas that anyone can think of.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Ponystar17

[Babbage]

Support!

[HeatherMarie]

Full support in adding some dedicated description-mods to help with the load! I'm not too fond of being able to totally bypass a mod-approval by allowing user-approval like that, too much risk of abuse and misuse, but I can't imagine the strain on one moderator tasked with reviewing thousands of descriptions. 

 

Another thread on this topic, though a handful of years ago now:

 

[Shadowdrake]

I can't see user approval being too much risk of abuse if it's given both a minimum time span, a minimum # of users viewed, and a minimum score needed (with weight added for those description reviewers who already have a high modly-approval rate). It wouldn't be that much different from trade hub.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Shadowdrake

[Paradisiske]

support! I agree with shadowdrake on what can be done to make sure that user approval isn't abused.

[MissK.]

Support.

 

I don't know why this is not a thing already, honestly. Having description mods seems like the obvious solution, Kaini already said in another thread that there are people from Description Force who could help. But user approval could be alright too as long as there are enough requirements to prevent abuse of the system. I don't even do descriptions, but having thousands upon thousands waiting for approval and only one person who can do it is insane. 

 

 

[HeatherMarie]

Linking another thread I found on the topic, specifically a post by the only mod actively doing description approval at the moment. This thread is more recent than the one I linked before, though still a couple years ago it might be more relevant (especially the part in Kaini's post about a lot of straight-up spam descriptions, and the discussion later in the thread about what should and shouldn't be allowed in descriptions, another reason to be wary of user-approval, though if multiple restrictions/requirements were in place to prevent overt abuse it might be an option) :

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[Shadowdrake]

If the rules for description approvals were relaxed so it didn't have to perfectly fit site lore that'd be an immense decrease of the workload already. Mods who might otherwise be willing to approve based on grammar or non-spam are unlikely to always have energy to approve based on lore, which they'd often need to pull up and double check if they didn't know it by heart already. Remove the lore gatekeeping so writers of all ages and writing ability can get their personal descriptions approved (particularly since very few people are ever going to read them anyway), and, if must be, limit those who can approve to users over a week or a month old with a set number of dragons already grown to decrease the chance of people joining just to approve someone's spam.

[Kaini]

Thank you HeatherMarie for that link - I'll copy what I said a while ago down here:

 

Quote

User reviews help immensely, I see any user comments that are made and definitely use the feedback, and I can view descriptions based on how high they were user voted. It is an immense help when I have so many to sort through. (I'm pretty sure this was said somewhere before? Maybe?)

 

As for solutions, honestly the main problem right now is... so few mods are working on descriptions. (edit: not that I'm blaming anybody I realize that might come off that way - I'm barely doing any because it really just is so time consuming) I would say just me but I know at least one other mod took a large chunk a while back, but it's been a while. It's very time consuming is the main problem, and I just don't have the mental capital to read and critique 200 descriptions a night. Lately I've been knocking off the obviously spammy ones (there are a LOT... that are just. straight up spam, so I'm very much against users being able to freely post descriptions with no moderation) but I don't have the time to knock out a lot a lot.

 

It IS a problem - it's very overwhelming to have almost two thousand descriptions waiting on me.

 

My chosen solution would be description moderators - like RP mods, whose sole duty is to do descriptions

 

I still stand by it. I'm not in favor of relaxing requirements or just letting user approval work - because there are a LOOOOT of complete spam ones that ya'll don't see, such as people using the space as a notepad (x won't breed with x), spamming memes, etc. You can write whatever you want about your own dragons elsewhere, but I think if it's going to be published on-site it should match site lore.

 

I just really need some help to stay on top of it. Once I am on top of it, it's a lot easier, and that guilt of 'ah crap 3k people are waiting on me' isn't there.

 

Description mods for the win. Some folks whose only job is to approve/reject descriptions. 👍

[HeatherMarie]

7 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

If the rules for description approvals were relaxed so it didn't have to perfectly fit site lore that'd be an immense decrease of the workload already. Mods who might otherwise be willing to approve based on grammar or non-spam are unlikely to always have energy to approve based on lore, which they'd often need to pull up and double check if they didn't know it by heart already. Remove the lore gatekeeping so writers of all ages and writing ability can get their personal descriptions approved (particularly since very few people are ever going to read them anyway), and, if must be, limit those who can approve to users over a week or a month old with a set number of dragons already grown to decrease the chance of people joining just to approve someone's spam.

 

 

Personally I do *not* think 'relax lore stuff' is a solution in any way to the issue of 'too many pending descriptions resting solely on one mod's shoulders'. That doesn't really make sense to me, if the issue is that *one* mod is doing the description-approvals and they simply don't have the time to go through hundreds or thousands of descriptions, changing what can be *put* in a description isn't going to change the fact that there are still thousands of descriptions that one person needs to go through. Dedicated description mods are the best way to combat the main issue of descriptions taking so long to be approved. 

 

Now, if the issue is 'descriptions take too long to be approved *because* of too many/strict rules', then maybe relaxing lore would make sense. I've seen nothing to support that though. The only way I could see description-rules being significantly relaxed would be if there was a change to what descriptions *are*, ie if they became straight-up 'fandom' and not needing to adhere to site lore at all and it was clearly stated as such. Something like 'this scroll owner made up this story for this dragon' or whatever. But again, that's not exactly the issue behind descriptions taking a long time to be approved.

[Shadowdrake]

"Strict lore" is a possible reason why no other mods are willing to help on a regular basis. Cross-checking is a bigger time commitment and pressure to be right than just making sure than a description has correct spelling and grammar, so they can't even come in and tick off a couple a day when they're up to reading without the spoons for much more. Like, I know I would only approve descriptions once I had a day set aside for them, because essentially confirming someone's description is canon is a big responsibility.

 

And anyway, the need for personal descriptions to be staff-approved seems about as arbitrary as the need for names to be unique, as well as overly restricting to the detriment of personal gameplay enjoyment and putting unnecessary pressure on staff. But since this isn't a thread about description rules, I'll leave it at that.

 

 

9 hours ago, Kaini said:

because there are a LOOOOT of complete spam ones that ya'll don't see, such as people using the space as a notepad (x won't breed with x), spamming memes, etc.

People who regularly approve descriptions do see these, though. I'm aware there's lots of trash which is why I suggested multiple stringent requirements before any description can be user-approved.

 

 

I'm not against creating a new position solely for description approvals, I just don't see the point when a few changes to the system will both lighten the workload and avoid this problem coming up again when the theoretical roster of approvers all grow out of or get bored by DC.

[Kaini]

3 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

"Strict lore" is a possible reason why no other mods are willing to help on a regular basis. Cross-checking is a bigger time commitment and pressure to be right than just making sure than a description has correct spelling and grammar, so they can't even come in and tick off a couple a day when they're up to reading without the spoons for much more. Like, I know I would only approve descriptions once I had a day set aside for them, because essentially confirming someone's description is canon is a big responsibility.

 

... it really isn't any extra work, though? What am I cross checking? If I'm reading a whole description to make sure it has good spelling and grammar, I'm at the same time making sure it fits site lore. There's no extra step and I don't have to read it twice. Taking away the requirement for it to fit site lore would not make me go any faster, and it's not a big responsibility? 

 

You're making a lot of assumptions about how mods think and act here that are just not true - other mods aren't avoiding descriptions because they have to fit site lore and that's too hard - it's just because they have jobs and lives like all of us and the act of reading each description is time consuming. No matter what restrictions you put on it or remove, I still have to read the whole description either way. So honestly I do believe description requirements are moot here unless we are removing EVERY requirement, including spelling and grammar. There's not point cherry picking them - it is the same amount of work and I still have to read the whole thing. I don't have a 'Valkemare canon' document up and I'm not cross checking anything - it's a simple as 'oh this dragon is overpowered, doesn't fit site lore' as I'm reading for spelling and grammer or 'oh this references a real world video game, doesn't fit so quick reject'

 

Actually imo the site lore requirement actually makes descriptions go faster, because if something makes a real world reference I just reject it and move on and don't have to read any further, lol. 

[Infinis]

Cross checking because descs are also supposed to adhere to breed lore, not just broader site lore: 

 

No Conflicting Descriptions

While the goal of being able to describe your dragon is to personalize it and make it unique, the breed descriptions were created as they are for a reason. If a dragon is part of a breed of pacifists, it doesn’t make sense for the dragon to be a bloodthirsty murderer. You don’t have to follow the breed description to the letter, but behaviors that clearly contradict the breed’s concept will likely be rejected.

 

I do avoid description modding because of that. I can’t remember all the lore for everything I created/helped create, much less all the rest of them. Cross checking with breed lore in addition to general site lore like “fitting the setting” takes more time than I can really put in. I could care less about a player writing a bloodthirsty description for a white dragon, for example.
 

That doesn’t mean it should be removed. I don’t know how many submitted descs really break breed lore! But that’s why I stopped description modding, in addition to work and real life. 
 

IMO the best solution is description mods - a dedicated group of people who JUST do description modding, not forum modding in addition to it. Don’t need to alter description requirements and spreads the work out. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Infinis

[purplehaze]

2 hours ago, Infinis said:

IMO the best solution is description mods - a dedicated group of people who JUST do description modding, not forum modding in addition to it. Don’t need to alter description requirements and spreads the work out. 

Agreed that this makes the most sense.

Total support for having dedicated description mods.

[animatedrose]

I'm all for more descriptions mods or a dedicated team. Get Kaini some help already! That's way too much to pile on a single person!

 

Granted, the lore aspect is what drove me off of trying to help approve stuff. I don't have the memory for that and I'm not keen on getting jumped on for screwing up, I get enough of that for IRL stuff. lol

 

Just whatever happens, I hope blank rejects are entirely banned. If someone does something wrong or needs to fix something, TELL THEM! A blank reject says nothing. If you can't explain your rejection, leave it to somebody else that can. That's all that I ask. Thank you.

[Kaini]

4 hours ago, Infinis said:

IMO the best solution is description mods - a dedicated group of people who JUST do description modding, not forum modding in addition to it. Don’t need to alter description requirements and spreads the work out. 

 

I stand corrected lmao, guess I just have too much headspace dedicated to dragons lol.

 

This is the main point tho - I stand by what I said that changing the description guidelines will not for me at least make this problem any better - I just need more hands. 

[Stormcaller]

4 hours ago, Kaini said:

This is the main point tho - I stand by what I said that changing the description guidelines will not for me at least make this problem any better - I just need more hands. 

 

I say, give Kaini the extra hands that are needed.  In this case they should be specialists who just do this one task and do it efficiently and well.   Bringing on more mods would possibly involve advertising, screening,  etc., which would take time and create other issues for TJ and the mods. However,  I suspect that they already know enough qualified and interested members to create such a new department immediately.   I would just suggest that Kaini be in charge of overseeing their work and be the sole arbitrator of any conflicts between their decisions and members who might be in disagreement with them. 

[Shadowdrake]

1 hour ago, Stormcaller said:

Kaini be in charge of overseeing their work and be the sole arbitrator of any conflicts

Certainly not? Kaini already has a ton of work, they don't need to be put in charge of a whole group when there's already a full mod team that can supervise.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Shadowdrake

[Kaini]

All other mod actions are collaborative between mods, so I don't really see myself as the 'sole arbiter' of anything, but I'm sure there would be a system where descrip mods can ask forum mods for assistance if needed. 

[Charu]

I'm definitely supportive of allowing users to approve descriptions. If 10 people accept a description and none are rejects, it should be reasonable to auto-approve it. People who spend time in the descriptions queue and volunteer to help people with feedback seem like their role is one that could just be filled on the forum or Discord. The majority of users on this site that contribute to the community are already heavy lore nerds. I don't think they're apt to approving a description that doesn't fit. I mean, most people are such lore nerds that the second question after "is this fair for as many people as possible" is, "does it fit with the lore?" for suggestions.

 

In my opinion, it is unrealistic to expect a small handful of people to go over the moderation queue and we kinda need a solution in the more immediate term. As I've shared in another thread, I have a description that has sat in "awaiting moderation" limbo since about March or April. It quickly got approved by the users that read the description queue. If it's just one person reading over the descriptions, I can see why it takes so long to get a description approved. Adding moderators to approve seems like a temporary solution for a long-term problem unless a strict set of guidelines is set for approving those moderators. I remember we used to have a half-dozen moderators for the description line, most of which have disappeared from DC and one of which has pretty much erased themselves from existence. 

 

What will the guidelines be?

How active would "being active" mean for a potential moderator of the description queue? Are they going to be people who have given meaningful feedback in the description queue? Will they be auto-approved after certain criteria is met or hand-chosen by TJ? If not TJ, then another moderator/administrator of the website? TJ's interactions seem to be mostly limited to posting news updates now and less about interacting with the forum, so I think this latter question is fairly important. After running DC for so long, I totally understand him stepping back and letting it run itself.

 

This post might seem "standoffish" but I'm genuinely trying to ask those hard questions to instill discussion on moving things along without keeping the moderation queue up to 1 person. I would personally support crowd approving descriptions since it would make people want to help out with the queue and a hundred or so somewhat dedicated players working towards a problem might be more effective than a small handful of people who basically have proofread and approve as their entire job.

[Stormcaller]

30 minutes ago, Kaini said:

All other mod actions are collaborative between mods, so I don't really see myself as the 'sole arbiter' of anything, but I'm sure there would be a system where descrip mods can ask forum mods for assistance if needed. 

 

Whatever works.  You need the help, so I hope you get it soon. 

[Kaini]

1 hour ago, Charu said:

I'm definitely supportive of allowing users to approve descriptions. If 10 people accept a description and none are rejects, it should be reasonable to auto-approve it.

 

The issue I have with descriptions auto-approving is the ability for users to cheat that system to get abusive or spammy descriptions approved, whether by botting it or other cheating. There have been those that have tried to use the description system to harass others/moderators or spread hate.

 

And, well, descriptions that are sufficiently upvoted by users still show, currently.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, Kaini said:

 

The issue I have with descriptions auto-approving is the ability for users to cheat that system to get abusive or spammy descriptions approved, whether by botting it or other cheating. There have been those that have tried to use the description system to harass others/moderators or spread hate.

 

And, well, descriptions that are sufficiently upvoted by users still show, currently.

 

This, exactly. Very much. 

 

We can *say* 'oh well, users who would spend the time going through and approving descriptions aren't likely to be the type to approve spammy/inappropriate stuff', but we don't know that's true at all and based on the spam posts here in the forum and the fact that the mod *doing* the approvals has outright talked about tons of spammy descriptions.... I would not at all have faith that user-approval would weed out spammy/inappropriate messages. And we'd *still* need a 'report' button, and *still* need a mod or two to check the spam/reported descriptions.... 

 

Add to that the fact that one of the other threads on this topic (that I linked) devolved into a whole debate about why lore should/shouldn't matter in descriptions and people actually *saying* they would approve things that go directly against DC lore.... Yeah, no. Unless descriptions are deliberately changed to be more of a 'fanon, untrue story that doesn't need to fit lore', but unless/until that happens I would not support description-approval based solely on users.

 

And I do not agree that having dedicated description mods would be any more 'temporary' than the mods we have on the forums. Do mods come and go, sure, but we still *have* them on the forums and they do a pretty great job with things, I don't see why having a few mods *only* needing to do descriptions (and therefore less pressure on them to 'mod' different things) would be any different.

[SomeRandomCorviknight]

Support! I think description mods would be good, both for the people wanting their descriptions added, and the mods because they dont have to go through thousands of descs.

[Fuzzbucket]

12 hours ago, Kaini said:

 

The issue I have with descriptions auto-approving is the ability for users to cheat that system to get abusive or spammy descriptions approved, whether by botting it or other cheating. There have been those that have tried to use the description system to harass others/moderators or spread hate.

 

And, well, descriptions that are sufficiently upvoted by users still show, currently.

I support whatever will best help you7, kaini. But I DO agree that automatic user approval cannot work,