More editors

I want to start a discussion here how to attract more potential editors to keep pace with all the games that are not yet in UVL, because I feel that the handful of editors which are very active now are the same people who do it for many years.

For that I propose to open up more editing abilities to people who simply register without being manually activated by Andrea. Giving them the tools to edit and add games, add tags and upload screenshots "immediately" will significantly increase the chance that someone decides to become a regular editor I think. Once they have the tools and see how easily and promptly game entries can be changed/added more people might start to do it and if only to add the games they own to be able to use UVL as a collection tool.

Some features should still be limited until the user gets promoted to full editor status, like deleting games. But for the rest... why not? At least let's try it and see if it works out.

Of course that means that we other editors/moderators must check new entries more exactly for signs of abuse. It will be difficult at times to explain new users what informal rules and standards we have discussed over the years, but I think its worth a try.



If that happens, I think we should also get a better method of communication between editors than we have with the forum now. At the moment it works, because there is not very much to discuss/explain to new people. But a private message system between editors (without using email) or a non-public editor forum could be helpful. Because I know it will happen that we have to tell new editors how to do some things properly and what they should avoid doing. For example if someone enthusiastically uploads screenshots with watermarks from other sites he must be told not to do so. We must tell him that he or we have to revert the changes, but this has to be explained to him/her non-publically, so that the new editor continues to upload screenshots with enthusiasm.

A new editor must be aware that his changes could be modified again by other editors and that both editors can have different opinions about certain data. As I said it's not much of an issue now, because the editors normally don't work on the same games at the moment, but I also had situations where I thought a private message to another editor would be more fitting than a public forum entry (example: http://www.uvlist.net/forum/thread/66209/Renegade+NES+Duplicate). With a private message system for example I would at last be able to ask Dandyboh if he approves of me deleting some of his older Amstrad CPC screenshots here and there (the ones with the big black border from emulator) and re-upload them in a (in my opinion) better natural 320x200 resolution ;-)

Completely private messages should be avoided to keep certain issues public so others don't repeat them. It's perhaps not very nice for the individual editors, but unless we have way to bring attention to common problems, we don't really have much options for that.

Hi, first of all I agree with the need to have more editors.

Sending private messages is already available, but it was "buried" in the latest layout updates because it lacked some features. I'm now looking at it and can be easily activated and revamped.

These messages, when sent to a special user (system), are already visible to all editors (just look at the users/messages menu, about the messages created when someone fill the contact form) but I could add a sort of "carbon copy" feature (optional) so that messages can be seen by editors too.

Some editors are moderators too, and this permits them to add/remove the editor status to users.
By adding a procedure to send the welcome message to new editor requests, it would be easy for moderators to quickly activate new editors.

Letting "anyone" doing some kind of editing is risky. For example editing tags, considering the huge effort of you all have done here, is a bit too complex for untrained users.

Technically yes, but I have only seen it on the page that lists the editor logins. There I have the option to remove editor/moderator status and make moderator status. But since everyone on the list is already an editor there is no chance to activate non-editors to editor status.

Without good ways to undo large changes and (temporarily) block "misbehaving" users from doing more harm, I have to agree.

It's also issue with the tag system since the tags are essentially "hidden names" (you have to get it from the URL when checking tag info, or read it from the tag list of other games). Auto-fill would help with this problem as it can show what tags are already valid while typing them in rather than after having submitted them.

What about a daily quota for game edits and/or tags then? Until full editor status someone can only add 25 or 50 tags? Would this be hard to implement?

What I want to achieve is that someone can do something with the tools "before" he has to do the "contact someone and wait" process. I know this from myself where I wanted to contribute/fix some information to a wiki or some other site, but as soon as it gets more complicated than just fixing/adding something with immediate result I often restrain myself from doing it. Once he gets results he might be motivated to do more. At the moment someone wants to contribute and asks for permission, but once he has it, chances are high that he already went on and lost interest.

Good suggestions to consider.
Here are some more suggestions:
Easy rollback, so if an untrained or vandalous editor creates problems, all their changes can be converted to creq (or something) until reviewed by other editors or corrected by the original editor after they've learned better.
App (web/desktop) to add information to multiple database sites at once. Thus encourage members of other sites to use the UVL app to gain UVL incentives. If the app supports two sites of their choice and UVL, that alone is incentive to use it.
Contests for new editors, enter by signing up. I'll forfeit entry and would suggest other long time editors do the same
Contests for editors, nominated and voted by senior editors based on quality and quantity. I'll forfeit entry and would suggest other long time editors do the same
Prizes would have to be produced. Carnival booth selection may work best (Winner picks any one item from Shelf 1, Shelf 2, Shelf 3). Or some sort of prize currency could be awarded and spent on individually priced prizes. Another alternative is to have prizes 'hidden' in the game entries (ie: "Senior editors have verified that you added an original screenshot to a Game Wave entry with a hidden prize token. Collect 100 of these to earn a prize"). Fame is cheap to produce. Other prizes could be donated by editors or solicited from developers (free game in exchange for publicity/review with the understanding UVL will transfer ownership of it after). Also, digital distribution content picked up on sale cheap/donated by editors (I have Bridge Builder and coming soon, Wasteland 2 to donate, and all my Steam trading cards).
Similar to prizes, bounties could be offered. "First to add 1000 verified complete game descriptions gets X"

EDIT: I've been playing ogame recently and thinking that it is very simple in relation to it's popularity. Also, it does not require a lot of attention-time for it's popularity (it does not detract from my editing time as much as some other games have a tendency to do) Perhaps UVL should have it's own pay-to-win MMOG where in-game currency is rewarded to editors. If this sounds like a good start of an idea, I'll start brainstorming ideas and looking into the most popular features of MMOGs with similar design as ogame.

A lot of websites seem to have Achivements for using them in various ways as well. People seem to like achievements ridiculously much, but why not, it's automated recognition for milestones and achieving something "significant". But yeah, the idea you suggested is kinda the same as behind one game I added here, mostly because it was fully functional game even outside of the rewards and cross-linking with the website it was on.

This is called gamification, I always wanted to add it to UVL even because I'm technically curious on how to implement it.