Following the rework of the pages “puzzles” and “AI”, the page of pending contributions is now under the tab “community”. There also you can find the contributions you’ve made and the panel to create new ones.
We’ve decided to give the rights of moderation to more CodinGamers. Indeed we find it a shame that there are so many pending contributions. The handful of moderators couldn’t keep up with the pace of created contributions, knowing that checking one takes quite some time to be done correctly.
From now on, any CodinGamer who is above level 24 has the right to accept/refuse/edit a pending contribution. CodinGuardians have also moderation rights. Editing validated contributions remains a right that only CG staff has (for now).
Here’s the opportunity to remind everyone how moderation of contributions works:
a puzzle or CoC is definitely approved/refused once three moderators have approved/refused it
once a contribution is validated, it appears with the other validated puzzles. If it is refused, it will appear only on the panel “my contributions” of the author.
moderators have an additional button once they open the contribution with the three options approve/refuse/edit
We’re currently working on creating a list with codinguardians of things to check before accepting a contribution, and I’ll add it here once it’s finished. meanwhile you can get inspired by the criteria of Bob:
We have still working on some tweaks to make the life of a moderator better, I’ll keep you updated.
Also I forgot to mention it, we’ve reduced the number of notifications from actions on pending community contributions.
Before, each time a contribution was approved or refused, a moderator would get a notification. Now a moderator will receive a notification once per day per contribution.
ADMIN EDIT 4/12/17
We’ve reverted to the previous behavior. Now, moderators can deactivate these notifications in their settings.
The moderation rights on validated contributions has been given to the CodinGamers above level 29: @Agade, @superredlark, @Bob_, @Plopx, @TheNinja, @Magus, @royale, @SatineChatounette, @leclercmartin
and will be given to any CodinGamer who reaches level 29.
Moderators have a new tab from and an edit button when clicking on a contrib:
I recommend that you give some XP reward to those who approve a community puzzle that is published. I didn’t mention it before because only a (somewhat) randomly selected elite were eligible for such a reward.
Now that anyone above lvl 25 is eligible, though, I think it makes a lot of sense. Here’s rationale, in case it’s needed:
It takes a lot of work to approve a puzzle. I know that I spend a lot of time that could be spent on other tasks that would earn me XP.
I honestly do learn skills from the approval process.
We want to encourage people to work on approving community puzzles, right?
Once you start getting that high in levels, you start running out of other things to do to gain XP.
Once you start getting that high in levels, you need a LOT of XP to progress.
There may be some drawbacks, though:
It may encourage people to be less thorough in their analysis of puzzles, in their haste to earn XP.
It may encourage approval on puzzles that really aren’t that good.
It may encourage a deluge of very easy puzzle approvals, since those are quick to validate.
Full disclosure: I have approved close to half of the community puzzles out there today, so this would likely greatly benefit me.
Sometimes it’s more work to approve one than to write one
I’m as much for the free XP as the next guy, but your first listed drawbak resonates deeply with me. Case in point, latest approved community. (Aka, first since the lvl25 thing)
Not my favorite ever, but I think it’s a decent puzzle, and I spent a good amount of time trying to rework / polish the problem statement before I hit that approve button. Out of curiosity, what are your objections?
I don’t like chess moves and I’m aware you approved it, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the decisive approver barely read it before approving.
Edit: oops, missed that:
[quote=“player_one, post:9, topic:1844”]
Out of curiosity, what are your objections? [/quote]
Mostly what I commented during the review phase. Underspecified. Requires external lookup to have a chance at some of the cases. For no algorithmic interest at all in the end, just pure implementation.
By the way, I’m 100% in on the fact that XP should award more than prestige, and community super power is a fine thing, and I hope more of those will pop up in the future? (Myabe more codinguardians).
Also, I just checked and it seems that being a Codinguardian allows me to be a contribution moderator of level 25 and 29 (while I’m only level24 I can edit contributions), cool bean
EDIT: Nevermind, it seems it’s because I’m on the staff group.
There are some community puzzles that can’t be edited. An example would be The barnyard. I decided to try to clean that one up a bit because the description is still a bit incorrect on it.
The edit button is disabled, and the mouseover text says Impossible to edit this contribution. I have a guess as to why this happens, but I just want to make sure that this is known and expected.
We’re giving the rights of moderation to more CodinGamers. Now every CodinGamer above level 20 will have these rights.
There are a lot of pending contributions, and validating/refusing one takes quite some effort and time. We thought you wouldn’t mind a few other hands.
@player_one indeed we have thought about giving XP to moderators for validating contributions, but as you and @JBM pointed out, we’re afraid of the quality of moderation that might result from a race to XP.
Thanks for the reply. I understand the decision and the rationale. I’ve given this a bit more thought. I’ve heard mentioned several times that it would be nice to be able to upvote published community puzzles. I agree. Here’s some thoughts about how this could all work together:
Users can upvote or downvote a published puzzle after solving it.
More a general, site-wide comment… I think that downvotes should require a comment.
Both the author and the validators get XP whenever a published puzzle is upvoted.
Community puzzles can be sorted by highest vote count.
Thanks for all that you do! CG is improving steadily.
