Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I don't think this will work. The idea to label submissions as 'work in progress' is of course very good; it would be helpful to have a distinction between submissions waiting to be reviewed, and those waiting for revision by the author.

But if we want to expand the circle of people that could approve articles, it would be better to just appoint a few more people we trust as editors.

An alternative would be to allow anyone (or any two) to vote for approval of a submission, but that this vote then would need validation by an editor. This editor then would only have to approve the person as trustworthy, without having to look at the submisison itself. If someone without any publications or longstanding Comments history would suddenly pop out of nowhere to approve something, the editor would typically not validate that vote.

As implemetation it would onle be needed to have the site register the votes. In fact the 'favorites' system that we already have could serve that perpose: favotiting an unpublished submission can be taken as a vote for its publication. What would be helpful to editors is to see in the unpublished list how many times the submission was favored. If this was more than a threshold, he could just open the page, look who favored it, decide if that is a trustworthy crowd, and publish it without further consideration.

I think it is good that there is some limit to the rate at which people can publish. If someone has hundreds of ideas, it in general means he is not critical enough about his own ideas. As Pritchard said: "it only takes 10 seconds to invent a new chess variant, and unfortunately some people do!". It seems extra important to have editors scrutinizing such serial publications, and allowing these to pass poorly reviewed seems the worst of ideas...

But if we want to expand the circle of people that could approve articles, it would be better to just appoint a few more people we trust as editors.

That would be fine if more people were willing to become editors. I think A. M. DeWitt and Bn Em would make suitable editors if they're willing.

As implemetation it would only be needed to have the site register the votes. In fact the 'favorites' system that we already have could serve that purpose: favoriting an unpublished submission can be taken as a vote for its publication.

No, I have already removed the ability to favorite an unpublished submission, it was only available for games and not for other pages anyway, and approving of a page for publication is a lower bar than marking it as a favorite.

I'd even suggest that, for the latter, having less expertise is helpful.

Yes, indeed. When I'm trying to understand rules, I don't try my hardest to figure them out. Instead, I request that they be explained clearly, because they should be easy to understand by anyone, including novices.

I think A. M. DeWitt and Bn Em would make suitable editors if they're willing.

Hmm...this is an unexpected turn of events. I take it that this implies that you are offering Bn Em and I a position as members of the editorial staff.

A part of me wonders if I am the right person for the job. I suppose the best route is for me to take up the offer and see what happens.

Well, to use the favoring system was only an idea born out of laziness; of course a similar system could be cloned from it, which replaces it for unpublished articles. It was not the intention that the votes casted during review would persist after publication; the would have to be erased in order to start with a clean slate.

OTOH, people without much knowledge might not notice the variant, or pieces used in it, already existed under another name.

OTOH, people without much knowledge might not notice the variant, or pieces used in it, already existed under another name.

This is why it's good to have multiple editors and reviewers. Someone may catch something that someone else may not. I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of Chess variants myself, and I expect no one else does either, but together multiple people can have more comprehensive knowledge of Chess variants than one person has alone.

True. But if it only requires a single editor to publish a variant, the others with the complementary knowledge might never get to see it.

A part of me wonders if I am the right person for the job. I suppose the best route is for me to take up the offer and see what happens.

Thanks for accepting. We all have different skills and expertise, and no editor is fully capable and qualified to do the whole job. So we do what we can and lighten the load for others with a different focus. I know your pages tend to be well-done and high quality, and this means you have a good idea of what a page needs to be a good one.

I have marked you as an editor in the database, which gives you privileges beyond those of a regular member. You may now edit comments, edit member-submitted pages by others, use the File Manager for pages other members have created, and publish pages by editing database information about them and unchecking "Hidden". I will email you the userids and passwords you need to log into the site, access the database, use the email account, and upload and download files. Let me know if you don't get the email or if you need detailed instructions on how to do anything.

I have now emailed you the information you will need to access the site. Look for an email from me called CVP Passwords for Editors. If you don't receive it, I can try again through another account.

But if it only requires a single editor to publish a variant, the others with the complementary knowledge might never get to see it.

Well, publication doesn't stop anyone from getting to see a page, and the publication process is usually slow enough that multiple editors usually see a page before it gets published. Generally, my own instinct is that if a game seems simple and obvious enough, someone may have invented it already and I should check this site and other sources to see if I find a match. But if a game is large and complex, it is probably original.

@Fergus,

To be fair, this offer couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

I have tested the Editor privileges, as shown below. Most appear to have succeeded, apart from ones where no attempt was made and the CVP email account requiring a code from you.

Currently, my efforts will probably be best spent on inspecting and publishing pages, and perhaps helping with the new publication process. I will need to set up my Personal Information page before that can happen though.

Also, we should update the Who to Contact page so that I (and Bn Em if he accepts his offer) am listed as an active editor.

With that said, here goes nothing!

Attempt to access CVP email account halted by Yahoo's verification process. Requires a code from Fergus.

I forwarded you the email with the code, though I'm not sure if it will still be valid. If not, we will have to synchronize things better.

Also, we should update the Who to Contact page so that I (and Bn Em if he accepts his offer) am listed as an active editor.

I have now added you. I was about to do it earlier when I was interrupted by a phone call and then forgot what I was going to do.

I feel like I must echo A. M.'s reaction; I don't know whether I'd be the right person, but I'm honoured by the offer and willing to have a go.

And congratulations to A.M. on their appointment to the Editorship!

Thanks for accepting. I have marked you as an editor in the database, which gives you privileges to use the scripts editors may use. I have not emailed you any passwords, as your email address leads me to think it is not real, and I picked you more for your expertise in Chess variants than for your programming or web design ability. Since it's a bit too late for me to quickly think of what I want to say, take a look at my earlier comment to A. M. for the powers you now have.

There seems to be the most support for adding a distinct work-in-progress stage. Pages at this stage would not appear in the list of pages needing editorial review, and there would be no cap on how many someone could be working on. However, there would be a cap on how many could be submitted at once for editorial review and publication. The first step in making this happen is to come up with a way of marking this in the database. Right now, we have the binary flags IsHidden and IsMemberSubmitted. Adding another flag, such as IsUnfinished would give us multiple variables that could occur in unintended combinations, such as IsHidden being false while IsUnfinished is true. So perhaps I could replace IsHidden with a Status field that has multiple possible values, such as "Work-in-Progress", "Awaiting Approval", and "Published", or maybe it could feature levels of visibility, such as "Private", "Members Only", and "Public".

your email address leads me to think it is not real

It is in fact real, albeit a play on an earlier practice of providing false email addresses before websites started to insist on verifying them. So should you still wish to send me those I can receive them there. Or if you prefer a realer‐looking one, perhaps [my username]@disroot.org (which tbf is also less of a pain for me to access over tor). Though I agree I have scant programming experience and yet scanter web‐design experience, so at least at this point I don't feel too strongly either way.

Getting a newer nicer set of email addresses (associated with mỹ own domain) remains on the to‐do list.

To avoid confusion with the [edit content] link, I would like to change the [edit] link to a [metadata] link, as it's actually for editing metadata about a page, and the only reason it ever got called [edit] was because we didn't yet have the option of editing pages in the browser. But I wanted to let other editors know before I did it so that they won't be wondering what happened.

Since IsHidden is stored as a small integer, the simplest way to handle three states of visibility instead of just two is to give it a value of 2 for works-in-progress. This would keep these pages out of search results without any need to modify queryinc.php, because it is already using 0 for public pages and 1 for non-public pages that members may see. A value of 2 would mean it is even more private than a value of 1. I would mainly have to modify forms to allow it multiple values instead of just two, and when displaying hidden pages, I would have to make a distinction between IsHidden values of 1 and 2.

The first change I've made is to the edititem.php form. Instead of having a checkbox for Hidden, it has a separate line for Visibility, and this can have three different values. Select Public to publish a page.

I have not tested this yet, and I still have to update the second part of the script for new pages.

Hidden Items have started showing up on the What's New page, which shouldn't be happening. I assume these still need to be converted to the new format in the database.

That's fixed. I had deleted some code I shouldn't have.

So far, it's possible for editors to change the visibility of a page by editing its metadata. I changed the visibility of a test page to private, and I just published Okapi Chess. I also made private pages invisible to anyone but the author and editors, and I modified yournew.php to show works-in-progress when unfinished is 1.

I still have to allow authors to submit a work-in-progress for editorial review and publication, and after I do that, I can make new submissions start out as works-in-progress.

I still have to allow authors to submit a work-in-progress for editorial review and publication, and after I do that, I can make new submissions start out as works-in-progress.

These are both done. An author can submit a page for approval by editing its metadata (formerly called index information). In the the future, I might make this easier. For now, we just have something that works. Also, new submissions now start as works-in-progress.

I still have to move the cap on submissions to the submission for review part and allow unlimited works-in-progress.