What to do with comments?
About the author
Jon
University of Edinburgh
Wed, 04/04/2007 - 10:14
Here's a bit of a problem that hypocentre brought up - what do we do with comments on tutorials that point out errors, give suggestions for improvements or other comments that essentially require a chnage to the tutorial? What about other comments - along the lines of "I like this!"? As hypocentre pointed out, it looks a little unprofessional. Basically it could become a list of errors (fixed of course!), which does look somewhat rubbish . However, I think these comments need saving - there could be discussion on what should be in, what shouldn't be in, should this be fixed, is it ok, etc, etc.
My thoughts (somewhat unorganised right now are):
- These comments are valuable (or at least could be valuable)
- If I remove comments pointing out errors, that person loses a point (unless I hack some code together to prevent this)
- It's nice right now where the comments are with the tutorial, it's much easier to keep track.
- The comments under the tutorial do look crap and unprofessional
My first solution would be to keep the comments, but "hide" them, ala wikipedia (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Geology)
Any other thoughts on this?
P.S. Forgot to mention - this will also apply to articles, pictures, etc. In fact, we might need to come up with a strategy for each type of material...
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The drupal community have
The drupal community have discussed this in some depth - their view is essentially mine - on some pages the comments are a distraction: http://groups.drupal.org/node/2931
Another thought occurs to me - why not make the tutorials and in-depth articles more wiki-style? Rather than let everyone edit them willy-nilly, allow a group of users to edit them. I could set it up such that a user must email me to be added to a group that is allowed to edit the content. I could set some conditions on this (must be a member for > 1 month and have > 100 points, say). This would remove the need for a lot of comments as regulars could fix them for themselves. Guests and new members could not though...Hmmm...Any thoughts on this?
wiki or forum
I like the idea of a wiki. It would have been quick for me to have made the adjustments and you could have reviewed them at you leisure without a leaving trail of now largely meaningless comments.
I also think that I'd (and perhaps others) be more inclined to provide additional content to the existing articles/tutorials rather than appear to publicly 'criticise' those articles - so far I have limited myself to matters of fact.
You would need to think about the points for a wiki update. I've no problem losing the odd point if a comment is deleted after a tutorial is corrected but having spent several hours yesterday updating an article from last year and not getting any points for it, because it was an update was a pain - not that I'm bitter
Alternatively you could remove the comment link at the end of the tutorial or divert it to a new thread in the forum which would be a more natural home.
Again, more food for
Again, more food for thought....
Points on updates:
I noticed you had updated your Uni article (many thanks for that). We should have some kind of reward for updating an article or tutorial (after all you get them for commenting on said article/tutorial). Might be a bit of code hacking, but do-able. This leads nicely onto...
Wiki-Style:
The problem with everyone writing an article is that no-one is "responsible". How do you go about saying "this is my work"? Sure you could alter the "About the author" block to be "About the authors", but my original idea of tutorials (and I'm always willing to chnage these ideas), is that it was the author that was responsible for them; it is their work, their style, their idea on how it should be presented. If we go for wiki-style we get a bland mix of "committee style" writing, ala wikipedia - most articles are dross; bland and inoffensive with no style to them. However, they are up-to-date (by and large) and are easy to maintain. We might get more material this way (always a good thing).
Creating material in this way may also destroy our points system somewhat. One person creates tutorial - gets 100 points. People edit it and 6 months later it looks nothing like the original tutorial and the only person with points is the original author. Of course we could give points for updates, but what if someone completely re-writes the peice (and does a fantastic job of it), but gets, say 5 points for updating. Someone fixes a typo and get 5 points. How would the original author feel about that?
We might be able to limit such edits (not enforcable, but relient on people) to minor editorial changes and updates on facts. Dunno really.
Another idea might be to create some restricted pages. These could be the current content but restricted to a small group (the same theoretical group as above). We could edit this as we please and do "releases" once enough changes have accumlated. That way we make sure the current author is OK with changes, we (as the editing committee) are ok with no points for our work (possibly?). Again, these are just random thoughts...
Going to have to think about this a bit.
Revision or tweak?
more random thoughts ...
For articles/tutorials, two buttons rather than 'reply'
Tweak: minor edit (typos, small errors of fact). No moderation. No author attribution. No points. ('Approved' editors only)
Revision: major edit (rewrites, substantial additions). Moderator approval. Author attribution for non-original author ("hypocentre adds..."). Points
Edit: Three buttons
+ Comment: start thread in forum for discussion
Possible Problem
The only stumbling block I could foresee with any "communal" editing, including a committee, would be how to resolve disputes. Something which a lot of time and effort could be spent on, especially if adopting a wiki-style system.
This isn't so bad when updating facts and figures in tutorials, for example, because refined data/new methods are available compared to when the original tutorial was written, and updated references/sources can be provided.
The major problem lies with interpretation of available data.(Yes even with tutorials!). How would we accommodate two "editors" with opposing but equally valid views? How do we avoid individual tutorials being "sucked into" whatever theory proponent X thinks is currently in vogue?
It is a good idea, and whilst I'm definately not belittling the ideas put foward, I am however, pointing out that this could open up a whole can of worms if appropriate measures aren't put in place to deal with such predicaments prior to adopting such a system.
Unfortunately at present i can't think of any alternatives...
Well after thinking about it
Well after thinking about it on the train for 3 hours, I've decided (along with Katie) that comments on tutorials, articles and glossary entries will be turned off. I think it detracts from the educational aspect of the site and turns GR into the "Geology Wikipedia". Each bit of material contains links to contact the author by PM or Email (if they wish to use them) or there's the site contact form. If discussion is required, we have the forum.
I agree with Ben's comments above and think that this could well open a whole new batch of problems.