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An alternative to the edit queue?
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By em , Section Wishlist []
Posted on Thu Jun 06, 2002 at 12:00:00 PM PST
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I just had a look at the queue on Kuro5hin, and some other loser has again submitted a hopeless story into edit. Which led me to remember some thoughts I've had on edit queues.
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I think there are two main problems with the edit queue as currently implemented:
- Submissions stick around for a while without being votable. This is greatly empowers the scourge of the web: crapflooders, spammers and trolls.
- The edit period is very short. It can't be made too long, because then stories can stick around on the queue forever. But the short period limits the amount of time for people to give comments that the author can incorporate. Also, it forces the author to stick around for two hours after submission, continuously reloading and reediting if she wants to benefit from edit.
In addition, I've already gotten flamed by authors, along the lines of "it's your fault that such and such thing in my story is wrong, because you didn't point it out while it was on edit!" Yes, this is a really lame flame, but there is a point. The edit period is very short.
The alternative: author drafts
My proposal is that stories still under edit don't belong in the queue. Rather, each account can be associated with a draft area, accessible from the account info page. Essentially, the "Request editorial feedback before voting" button, instead of showing the story under the queue in edit mode, just makes it visible under the submitting account's draft area. The article sticks around in the draft area for editing, until the author decides to submit it to the queue.
Articles in draft area would be editable as drafts currently are, and only allow editorial comments. Further limitations can be imposed:
- The number of drafts per author can be limited. E.g., an author could be allowed to have just one draft at a time
- The amount of time an article can spend in draft can be limited too, for example, to 5 days. At the end of this period, a cron job could e.g. mail the text of the draft to the author and delete it from the site.
The idea is that the process should go as follows:
- Author submits draft.
- Author circulates draft for comments. This can be done through a diary entry, or there could be a "Current Drafts" page where people can go look at drafts.
- Author has a longer amount of time to incorporate comments (e.g. it can go up from 2 hours to 3 days). Likewise, others can have a longer time to comment.
- Finally, author submits draft to queue, where it is immediately voteable.
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