How can I help improve site quality?

Question

There are tons of older questions that are hard to comprehend or just generally unkempt, and editing them simply clogs the front page for no good reason.

Flagging them is too drastic as they don't violate any rules, and bothering the mods for simpler editing adds too much pressure to Fizz and the other active mods, so that's not a good route to go about either.

I get that there's really no need nor any urgency in editing older questions, specially if they're resolved, but this could be a long term, low priority sort of a coordinated effort where people like me with some spare time can chip in to help out to improve the site quality in the long run.

I'm trying to see if we can dedicate an hour a week or so when the site is relatively inactive to carry out edits, and have it done like a group effort, where a Mod can redirect those with Editing powers to carry out minor renovations without shaking the whole foundation and clogging the front page.

I'm not sure if PM can somehow add in a feature that allows Experts and above to edit older questions which go for moderation by a team of Editors and above before the edits are approved. Maybe that's too much to ask for, but meanwhile, I'd love to know what I can do on a personal scale to help out.

Thanks in advance,
Rex

Comments

Just so you're aware, the auth team are aware of the issue and we've been discussing what to do with old questions and other low quality content for a while now.  I don't think we've decided on anything concrete yet so I won't mention anything, but we'll take ideas on board for sure.

If you guys want to go out of your way and edit and reformat some stuff in you're own time you're more than welcome to organise that. Unfortunately the current auth team are pretty spread out in terms of availability and timezones which is partly why we haven't done something similar already.

I will say before you start any drastic editing , please wait just a little bit of time. We've got some new ideas for improvements going and they may involve how we proceed with formatting and old content, so maybe hold off on massive waiting sprees. Maybe just do some here and there

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@Jim
The problem with that would be that experts that decide to do a Gligurr and be an ass could get away with a lot more before anybody notices. With the current experts, I doubt that would happen, but it's always something we should consider. Also I believe silent edits do still have the "edited by" thing, they just don't bump posts.
That being said, I do think that something should be implemented that prevents edits to old posts from bumping them, as I have noticed before some users editing their own questions that are relatively old for trivial reasons, and, beyond that, edits not bumping old posts would allow experts to contribute to the site, in terms of improving post quality, a lot more. Maybe a page that can only be viewed by editors and higher that displays all edited questions could be implemented? I've not no clue how easy that would be for PM to implement, and he's already busy enough, so I doubt that will become a thing, at least in the foreseeable future.

As PX said, the auth team has been discussing stuff relating to site quality, so I wouldn't do too much for now, but if you do see recent posts and feel as though they could be improved, feel free to do so. Don't worry too much about comments, but, on questions and answers, correct grammar, increase clarity, make movesets more uniform, anything like that. Small stuff can go a long way.

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@sumwun, were you talking to me? About hosting the next tourney?
@PX: Oh no, don't worry I don't think anyone wants to suddenly bring up old questions and spam front page; we'll wait for auth to call us on once y'all come up with some ideas
@HT: Yes, this was exactly what I was thinking. I really wish PM is a bit more active here, but then again this isn't his day job so that's understandable. Also what was the whole Gligurr thing about, if you don't mind me digging up old history? I was mostly inactive so I knew (s)he'd abused powers but no idea what exactly.

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I wasn't even around for the Gligurr thing, but I believe that he edited questions/answers and turned them into some sort of nonsense.

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This is a good question. It's part of what encouraged this: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/meta/70622/?show=70658#a70658
I'll respond to it in some length on the weekend when I have more time. As HT and PX mentioned before me, we've been discussing this recently. I should be able to progress with that over the weekend as well.
(Will mention here: silent edits don't leave 'edited by...' messages, but they do show up in edit histories.)

Answer 1

Hey, glad to see more people keen to help out with editing.

Your main point seems to be that editing things clogs up the front page but that's not the case - the main page shows only recent questions and answers. All Activity shows edits but that's the point of the page, to show everything that's being updated.

I don't see an issue with edits beings shown there. In fact, it's probably better to have regular edits spread out over the day than everyone piling on at once and doing hundreds. I don't want to hide edits away somewhere because I think having public activity is useful for "validation" - i.e. everyone can see and check that everyone else is doing a good job.

There's no harm in doing some co-ordination via Discord or the chat, it's always good to discuss what changes can and should be made to improve things.

Comments

thanks PM (: