Requiring CRTs for More New Profiles & Enshrining New Page Deletions

[Agnaa]

Ant has expressed concerns about it being difficult for the relatively few staff members that keep a watch on new pages to evaluate the more complicated higher tiers of our system. Finite tiers can be linked to calculations which have to be accepted by CGMs, but High 3-A and up lack this basis.

We currently have a rule in this vein, but it only covers Low 1-A and up:

Profiles for characters that have any statistic or ability that is Low 1-A or above are not allowed to be created unless their reasoning has been evaluated and accepted by the wiki staff via a content revision thread or explanation blog, or if they scale to characters whose reasoning has already been evaluated.

Ant doesn't think that's sufficient.

I think that High 3-A through 2-A are relatively easy to decipher, so if we move it, I'd prefer we only drop the minimum tier to Low 1-C.

Ant wants this to extend further, for everything High 3-A and above to have a CRT so that the information can be evaluated.

I think that's a kind of flawed approach, since many ratings within the finite energy band are open to skipping evaluation, such as by using standard calculations. Using those, you don't need any users to actually say whether the calculation applies to that instance. I view High 3-A through 2-A as largely operating the same way, we're equivocating specific feats to standard values.

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Also, Ant doesn't think there's enough backing in our rules for staff members to delete new pages with bogus statistics. I think this part of the Editing Rules gets at that:

Only create profiles for characters that you are very familiar with and know much about. Remember to present evidence or logical arguments regarding why they should be rated as they are.

But isn't too explicit. I think we could add an extra sentence onto that:

New profiles whose information isn't backed up by accepted Content Revision Threads may be deleted by staff if they believe there is insufficient evidence or improper reasoning.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I'd prefer we only drop the minimum tier to Low 1-C.

Fine by me.

But isn't too explicit. I think we could add an extra sentence onto that:

New profiles whose information isn't backed up by accepted Content Revision Threads may be deleted by staff if they believe there is insufficient evidence or improper reasoning.

I agree the original wording is enough to allow us that ability (and, if it isn't, common sense as the arbitrators of the rules of the wiki surely does), but I don't mind adding in a word so the users know we can. Never caused a fuss thus far but, can't hurt to "fix" it.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Looks good to me.

 

[Antvasima]

To reiterate what I mentioned elsewhere:

Inexperienced members will still often misunderstand how our tiering works, or just want to exaggerate their favourite characters as much as they can get away with, and the second option applies to many experienced members as well.

At the very least, tiers Low 1-C to High 1-B are very high, and also quite hard to understand for more inexperienced members, and as such there should be some extra safety mechanisms for them.

It is not easy for our, unfortunately usually likely relatively few, edit-patrolling staff members to constantly nearly instantly evaluate if new pages with extremely high statistics are reliable or not on our own, without any content revision thread evaluations.

If new pages have accepted calculation blogs as a basis, that is rather quick and easy to verify, but for statistics that are not finite in nature, it is extremely more difficult with limited time and information available.

So I would personally prefer that new pages in our wiki that are not self-evidently scaled from preexisting pages, and that are not based on accepted calculation blogs (meaning up to tier 3-A), should always require accepted content revision threads in our forum before they are created.

 

[Agnaa]

but, can't hurt to "fix" it.

Eh, I do think it can.

Everything we add to the rules pages makes them more difficult to read, and makes people more able to make "There's no rule saying a dog can't play basketball" sorts of arguments.

So I would personally prefer that new pages in our wiki that are not self-evidently scaled from preexisting pages, and that are not based on accepted calculation blogs (meaning up to tier 3-A), should always require accepted content revision threads in our forum before they are created.

I'll mention that in the OP.

However, I would also have to push back against that idea, since there are many things which I think do need evaluation on that level. I think of High 3-A and above as essentially being standard calculations for certain feats. The trouble is figuring out whether those general standards apply in these particular cases or not. And so I think that issue still exists in the finite tiers with their literal standard calculations.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

There's no rule saying a dog can't play basketball

whole point of those movies was that they did indeed allow those dogs in on that technical ground

I see what you're saying but I also think we can common sense our way out of that one, too? The root answer to everything can't be "just trust staff to intuit what's right" but in this case both sides of the issue do seem plain and simple what should be the case. I don't think this is reaching Air Bud level of specificity as to be harmful to us, at least.

 

[Catzlaflame]

Snip

It’s not about strength as much as it is complexity: “X character destroyed a multiverse with infinite universes” is just as easy to digest as “X character destroyed a planet the size of Neptune”

Any non-malicious user that misinterprets 2-A, I think, would be just as likely to misinterpret 5-A. Although the scale is higher it’s still very explicit.

It is not easy for our, unfortunately usually likely relatively few, edit-patrolling staff members to constantly nearly instantly evaluate if new pages with extremely high statistics are reliable or not on our own, without any content revision thread evaluations.

Which I imagine will just shift the workload onto our similarly limited eval team, no? I get that it improves accuracy, but we hav to weigh the pros and cons:

If we take the last 100 tier 2 pages made, and the last 100 Low/High 1-C pages made, I imagine there’s gonna be a considerably higher chance that the Low/High 1-C ratings are flawed compared to the tier 2 ratings. Is it worth making all tier 2 pages need a CRT over the (relatively speaking) smaller likelyhood of a mistake in that tier ?

Granted, I will say that Low-2C does seem to be an exception in that from what I’ve seen, people tend to misinterpret that one more than the other sub-tiers in the that range. So at the very most id support including it.

Low1C/High1C makes sense tho, yeah

 

[ActuallySpaceMan42]

I was under the impression that we already require CRTs for the creation of Tier 1 profiles, whereas profiles for Tier 2 and below can be made freely, but cannot be edited afterward. This leads to evaluations of those profiles, even if the initial Tier 2 rating is inaccurate, or deletion if edited without a valid reason afterwards. I also agree with Catz that Tier 2 is among the simplest tiers to understand and is less prone to issues.

 

[FinePoint]

To me this essentially is a question of whether we'd rather have the content mods or thread mods be the first bulwark against bad pages within these tiers.

From that perspective, I think I actually really like Ant's proposal.

The forum is a better place to have those kinds of discussions in general I think. Multiple people, and even regular supporters, can easily and publicly weigh in and make cohesive arguments as to whether these pages should be made as proposed. It's also far more conducive to direct feedback.

In contrast, as it stands, content mods kind of have to act as instant judge, jury, and executioner. They generally have to make a decision on-the-spot of whether to allow everything on that profile without the significant input of potential supporters of the verse or much conversation at all.

While I understand that conceptually it can be just as simple to evaluate whether someone destroyed six tons of TNT worth of stuff or if they destroyed six universes- the actual justifications and/or scaling chains for characters reaching these levels tend to be from more complicated verses where things are more complicated in general. So from that perspective, I think the difference between finite and infinite is a reasonable point of cut-off of requiring actual discussion.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you, FinePoint. Those are my views as well, yes.