This past offseason, the league started a new type of point task to try and incentivize people to update their wiki pages. With it being the first iteration, and the fact that very few people before this likely touched their wiki after doing the original wiki task, the bar was set nice and low to get people into the swing of this. This was also the first season I decided to do a little more than just update my player every now and then. So when it was announced that the grading team needed a new grader to take on this job, I decided to take up the role. So since we're all new to this concept of "updating our wiki page", I figured I'd say what I liked and disliked about the task, the wikis I graded, and how we could improve this task for next offseason.
To start, I liked seeing the personalities of players being described and fleshed out. It's made me see some players as "real" instead of another circle on a rectangular screen. However, a good chunk of users who didn't do this or had already done something similar before this task existed really seemed to struggle on what to write. Most, if not all, resorted to giving descriptions of games and seasons, while also neglecting the fact that their player had an impact on that result. While I wasn't grading how interesting the writing was, I feel like it's an important aspect.
250 words is a lot to write on an overview of a season. It's almost unnecessary, since almost every wiki is regurgitating the same info over and over again. And to do that for every offseason, it would make every article an unpleasant mess. I'd vouch for a 50 word reduction to this task, bringing it to a 200 word requirement. I also want to enjoy reading it. I get that not everyone is a talented writer working on the next multi-million dollar novel series, but I want to see some creativity! So I think this aspect should be gradable as well. Perhaps 120 words talking about the player's offseason, season, achievements, etc, and the other 80 dedicated to a season overview.
The statistics tables, while most of the time displayed the correct information, varied wildly in terms of setup, info displayed, links or no links, career totals, etc. My direction on these tables was "if the info is there and is correct, it's good". This made grading the tables quite the chore, since I had to compare stats that sometimes weren't even shown on the index and forced me to pull out a calculator. Around the second page, I decided to just start checking if the most recent season's stats were correct.
We need a universal table template to be made so that every table, regardless of who's wiki it's on, displays the same information. My favorite stats table is Mike Boss's. It's eye pleasing, has lots of info packed into a small space, and just does a great job of showing stats. It's not perfect, there's some info that could be added, but it's a fantastic example of what these should strive to look like.
Yet another thing I've found is that people don't like to double check. I, for the most part, fixed many of the spelling errors and stat inconsistencies, and gave the user a note to double check their update next time. I did that until I wasn't motivated to anymore, and simply just fixed errors and kept grading. This is something that I feel must be stressed; PROOFREAD! There was a point where I just wanted to make the user go back and make corrections, but decided it's not too big an issue to complain about unless the update was chock-full of them.
Finally, I want to talk about page organization. Like with the tables, pages are organized in wacky ways, and sometimes not at all. Offseasons and seasons get combined into one chapter, while awards and drafts get combined into another. It's not pleasant to read. It's choppy and unorganized. I'm not trying to shame anyone here, I'm just saying that wikis should start being held at a higher standard than they are now.
It's a lot to consider, and it's ultimately not up to me how this task is going to be changed next offseason, if at all.
Thanks for reading my blog post.
To start, I liked seeing the personalities of players being described and fleshed out. It's made me see some players as "real" instead of another circle on a rectangular screen. However, a good chunk of users who didn't do this or had already done something similar before this task existed really seemed to struggle on what to write. Most, if not all, resorted to giving descriptions of games and seasons, while also neglecting the fact that their player had an impact on that result. While I wasn't grading how interesting the writing was, I feel like it's an important aspect.
250 words is a lot to write on an overview of a season. It's almost unnecessary, since almost every wiki is regurgitating the same info over and over again. And to do that for every offseason, it would make every article an unpleasant mess. I'd vouch for a 50 word reduction to this task, bringing it to a 200 word requirement. I also want to enjoy reading it. I get that not everyone is a talented writer working on the next multi-million dollar novel series, but I want to see some creativity! So I think this aspect should be gradable as well. Perhaps 120 words talking about the player's offseason, season, achievements, etc, and the other 80 dedicated to a season overview.
The statistics tables, while most of the time displayed the correct information, varied wildly in terms of setup, info displayed, links or no links, career totals, etc. My direction on these tables was "if the info is there and is correct, it's good". This made grading the tables quite the chore, since I had to compare stats that sometimes weren't even shown on the index and forced me to pull out a calculator. Around the second page, I decided to just start checking if the most recent season's stats were correct.
We need a universal table template to be made so that every table, regardless of who's wiki it's on, displays the same information. My favorite stats table is Mike Boss's. It's eye pleasing, has lots of info packed into a small space, and just does a great job of showing stats. It's not perfect, there's some info that could be added, but it's a fantastic example of what these should strive to look like.
Yet another thing I've found is that people don't like to double check. I, for the most part, fixed many of the spelling errors and stat inconsistencies, and gave the user a note to double check their update next time. I did that until I wasn't motivated to anymore, and simply just fixed errors and kept grading. This is something that I feel must be stressed; PROOFREAD! There was a point where I just wanted to make the user go back and make corrections, but decided it's not too big an issue to complain about unless the update was chock-full of them.
Finally, I want to talk about page organization. Like with the tables, pages are organized in wacky ways, and sometimes not at all. Offseasons and seasons get combined into one chapter, while awards and drafts get combined into another. It's not pleasant to read. It's choppy and unorganized. I'm not trying to shame anyone here, I'm just saying that wikis should start being held at a higher standard than they are now.
It's a lot to consider, and it's ultimately not up to me how this task is going to be changed next offseason, if at all.
Thanks for reading my blog post.
Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname || K || Orange County Otters || 382 TPE
http://sim-football.com/wiki/index.php?tit...ichseinnachname
Player Page||Updates
http://sim-football.com/wiki/index.php?tit...ichseinnachname
Player Page||Updates