Difference between revisions of "Team Fortress Wiki talk:Wiki Cap/Nominations"

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(FAQ)
(Given the abolition of the nominations hiatus, this post no longer serves any purpose and might cause confusion. I'm a bit unsure as to archive this or not)
(Tag: Replaced)
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{{archive list|archives=[[/Archive 1|August 19, 2011 - September 8, 2019]]}}
 
{{archive list|archives=[[/Archive 1|August 19, 2011 - September 8, 2019]]}}
 
= Explanation of Wiki Cap nomination hiatus =
 
 
== Rationale ==
 
 
With my sincere apologies to the editors at large. We have to read the
 
writing on the wall at some point.
 
 
TF2 is spinning down into maintenance mode, Valve is moving to an outsourced
 
device-and-app store model as a company and as a whole we don't have the level
 
of staff cohesion we used to. Both in terms of us mostly being a skeleton crew
 
at this point and - more importantly - lacking the community engagement
 
required to have substantial loc reviewers for each given language. And due to
 
TF2 having slowed down in general, most of what gets nominated is for loc
 
editors. STS being dissolved and removing the badge-incentive there didn't help
 
us much either despite itself.
 
 
Otherwise, I'm sensing a possible problem occurring with the queue at this
 
point that I thought we ALL - staff and regular editors alike - agreed wouldn't
 
become a problem. Which is that the hat is turning into a compulsory
 
participation trophy that people think <b>must</b> be awarded on a systemic basis.
 
 
This is not true and never has been. In fact it's contrary to the point of the
 
hat as a token for valuable contributions to encourage more of them <b>per the
 
years-old disclaimer we put in the Active nominations section</b>. We owe it to
 
past recipients to maintain our branding for scrutiny. And fact of the matter
 
is that issues with the last two nominees - including the flimsiness of their
 
reviews and nominations in the first place - is good enough of a canary for me
 
to call it quits on this experiment for the time being. We cannot - and I
 
personally will not - allow the hat to turn into a blue ribbon based on friends
 
nominating friends and staff having to take single reviews at face value.
 
 
<b>One more time for anyone in the back not listening</b>: We owe it to our
 
recipients past and <i>future</i> to maintain the strong branding of the hat.
 
And it's our responsibility as community project stewards to do this even if it
 
causes us the badfeels in present time.
 
 
Again, I apologize to editors at large who didn't get to participate. But we've
 
been doing this on a consistent volunteer basis for over 10 years now. This
 
project was a success by any standard and maintenance mode is an inevitability
 
sometimes.
 
 
== FAQ ==
 
 
=== Is this closure a proposal or RFC? Are we voting on it? ===
 
 
That time came and went. The primary issue at hand is staff
 
cohesion, staff interest and lack of a sibling project (with their own badges)
 
like STS to source from organically. Our system doesn't match the activity
 
level from editors currently either.
 
 
=== Why though? Is this closure forever and no more wiki caps? ===
 
 
I'm letting our old staff off the hook for volunteer work they have long since
 
moved on from in spirit anyway. And work which is unfair to ask current staff
 
to do for the time being without strong support. How long it lasts is mostly
 
dependent on how long it takes Valve to decide they want to pay attention to
 
fundamentals again and bring the community together. Finally fixing a few high priority bugs is a good sign.
 
 
=== Let's just make more people staff or force current ones to vote more actively! ===
 
 
We have, but this doesn't solve the issue of loc-based nominees getting ever-harder to strongly verify/review. And in keeping with how stringently we've reviewed past nominees.
 
 
=== Let's just lower the vote threshold/requirements and devalue all past awards! ===
 
 
<b>No.</b> And my response will be much the same to any similarly self-evidently bad ideas.
 
 
=== What will end the hiatus? ===
 
 
In an ideal ecosystem there would be an active team of primary/main-namespace/english staff of at least 5-8 people having lively discourse about the nominee with at least a couple of loc editors - none of which are nominators themselves or friends of the editor - to form a secondary team to get input from. Such that we can freely exchange information about the nominee and potential issues/highlights that might not be covered by a single anonymous review. This also better reflects the lively dialog and scrutiny we subjected nominees to in the past. And it's only fair that we continue to maintain this, and in the process maintain the hat's purpose as a brand token.
 
 
As things stand, we must seek out known competent bilinguals on a case-by-case basis. Then ask to them to anonymously provide a full review in their spare time. The active staff - such as they are - then must judge based on this single review and our own instincts. With little else beyond that. The problems with this are self-evident even if we didn't have a skeleton crew issue. We've tried to operate by this system for a few years but it's simply not possible to hold interest and cohesion in these conditions. The resulting issues with assuming good faith in people who submit nominations under these conditions - especially when it's clearly friends nominating friends - are also self-evident.
 
 
Since loc nominees encompass the vast majority of reviews now due to the main namespace being "done", this has turned into more and more of an obvious issue. And the resulting effects on staff morale is causing more and more people to drop out. We will <b>not</b> continue to pretend that this is a sustainable process. And we <i>cannot</i> as community stewards, for the sake of keeping the hat's brand preserved. And allowing past recipients to continue having a reason to show it off. Thus prompting <i>future</i> ones to work harder.
 
 
---------
 
 
-- [[User:Lagg|Lagg]] [[File:Backpack_Stickybomb_Launcher.png|24px|link=User_talk:Lagg]] 18:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 

Revision as of 22:37, 15 November 2022