SmashWiki talk:Probation

Getting out

Will there be a way of getting out of the probation group if you get in to it? Shanicpower Make it rain! 05:22, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

If you start being a constructive user that puts effort into helping the Wiki, then yes, you'll be taken off probation. Omega Tyrant 07:18, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

Do you know which people to be in the probation group? The Awesome 19:11, 13 September 2012 (EDT)

It wouldn't be hard to figure out, we just look at all the user pages that are currently protected and apply it to those users, then remove the now-useless protection. Toomai Glittershine The Ghostbuster 11:15, 14 September 2012 (EDT)

I saw the notice at the top and I thought a good idea might be to put a user in probation when they have less than X% mainspace edits for more than Y time, and get removed from the group after being over Z% for Y time?ScoreCounter (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2012 (EDT)

The plan is to avoid using straight numbers as a cutoff. Toomai Glittershine The Sharp 18:13, 15 September 2012 (EDT)

The major problem with giving defined percents is:

1. They can't accurately measure a user's contributions alone. It's possible for a user to only have 10% of their edits be mainspace edits while having 50% or so go to their userspace and Smash Arena, yet those few mainspace edits are all of amazing quality (as well as their other constructive edits). Such a user would be given considerably more leeway than a user whose 10% of constructive edits are all minor or inconsequential. Quality > Quantity.

2. If we gave defined percents to reach, it heavily encourages users placed under probation to make a slew of "no effort" minor edits (edits that aren't outright revert worthy, but is an edit that pretty much adds nothing to the quality of the page), and do underhand things to boost their mainspace edits, such as intentionally not getting the edit right on the first edit and making successive multiple edits to fix the same edit, and even intentionally making minor bad edits (removing a sentence is easier than adding information, yet you can't really prove the user made the edit in bad faith instead of removing information they thought was faulty). These things will boost the user's mainspace edits and give the illusion they're trying, but still no effort is going into the quality of their edits nor to improving the Wiki.

3. Whatever percent it would be is arbitrary. Just why is 30% mainspace edits with less than 50% userspace edits fine, but 25% mainspace with under 52% userspace isn't? No percent suddenly makes the user a constructive user.

4. Once the percent is reached, it encourages the user to stop making an effort and go back to their previous behavior. Hey, all they need to do is use some of the "tricks" in point 2 to inflate their mainspace edit and keep it above the threshold, and they can continue their userspace and Smash Arena focus all the way.

So as you can see, giving defined percents to enforce this under would be a terrible and counterproductive idea. Omega Tyrant 18:47, 15 September 2012 (EDT)

I agree with OT and would like to add that there are certain users such as Emmett who mainly edit policy and don't do a lot of mainspace editing, and also users like myself who don't edit the mainspace but pop in for big policy discussions like this one. So, I think that idea should be abandoned and we should focus more on coming up with something more general that can be applied to every situation. DoctorPain99 {ROLLBACKER} 00:05, 18 September 2012 (EDT)

I'd like to push this if no major problems are found in the policy as written. Toomai Glittershine The Free 12:34, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

I see no issues and support its immediate implementation. DoctorPain99 {ROLLBACKER} 18:33, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

One minor issue I have with it is that I don't think there should be "probation durations". If we did such, a particularly lazy user could just wait it out, and then do their same old shit when the duration runs out. When put on probation, it should be indefinite, and the user won't be taken off until their effort towards being constructive becomes satisfactory. Omega Tyrant 20:06, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

Indefinite probations are certainly the default for users that are showing little or no contribution effort. But a secondary reason to apply probation is when wiki traffic is very high and reducing unproductive edits is necessary to monitor happenings, and the user in question is doing good work but is also spending much time in user/forumspace. In these cases a timed probation length would be more useful and less punishing (or even a non-fixed duration such as "when status drops out of red", but I'm not a fan of that). Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 20:20, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

I see, follow through then. Omega Tyrant 20:24, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

Letting regular users suggest probation

What do you think about letting regular users suggest probation? It sounds like a bit too much at first, but I'm thinking that we can have higher restrictions on submitting RfPs, in a similar vein to changing the SmashWiki Status System. Perhaps regular users can only submit, say, one RfP per month? Air Conditioner -.-- -.-- --..! 19:06, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

The "original plan" was to allow admins to apply probation without requiring a request procedure, similar to how they can currently protect userpages/block users. Unfortunately it's impossible to change usergroups without a bureaucrat, so a request procedure is needed. In practice I expect RfPs won't be much more than an admin asking a bureaucrat to click the buttons, just like how users can ask admins to look into users for needing probation. Toomai Glittershine The Incomperable 19:12, 25 September 2012 (EDT)

Move

I think the name of this page should be probation users, since there are users that have been probated. The Awesome 09:38, 6 October 2012 (EDT)

Probation is a state that users may be placed into, similar to administrator, rollback, and bots. It is not like autoconfirmed, because it does not occur automatically. Therefore, it does not need to be a users added to the end of the title. In addition, learn some damn English, because probation users makes no sense. MegaTron1XD 10:18, 6 October 2012 (EDT)

Different system for edits

If a user has been warned to not do a certain action when editing the mainspace, such as pointlessly changing links and adding completely unnecessary things to an article, yet performs such action anyway, should those edits be counted towards the actual edit count? As human beings, we can tell if it's just learning or just trying to inflate the edit count to avoid probation. Bots are not needed for this, simply taking the time to search through contributions will do. MegaTron1XD 21:04, 3 March 2013 (EST)

Edit count doesn't matter for anything on the wiki; nearly everything is decided on a qualitative, not quantitative matter. Mr. Anontalk 21:22, 3 March 2013 (EST)