Thread: wiki based tracker reviews

Multiple reiterations of tracker review threads in an attempt to stay current, reviews with broken images, the tedious task of maintaining a review index post. Seems to me like all these problems could be solved by having a wiki for tracker reviews.

If something gets outdated, or an image breaks, all it takes is a few clicks to get it fixed instead of having to start from scratch or wait for someone else to pick up the work. I don't see any downsides as long as it's handled properly.

1) Limit editing privileges to a handful of people. By doing so you would eliminate the threat or wiki vandalizing, inaccurate information, and errors.

2) Make a position of wiki "curator". Much like intro moderator position, this would take workload off the staff, and put it in the hands of people deemed trustworthy and capable of the task.



3) Continue to allow posting of tracker reviews by all users. The reviews that met proper standards would then be transcribed to the wiki by those with editing privileges.

4) Have a thread where everyone can report problems found on the wiki. Would be the responibility of wiki mods to keep up with and correct reported issues.

5) Another important function of reviews is it provides a place for people to discuss the tracker and for other people give their own thoughts on it. This also brings up another problem with the current review system, since when an old review thread gets scrapped, so does all the input from other users that went with it. To solve this we could continue to have tracker specific threads, but instead of containing the review in the first post, it would merely have a link to the wiki review (and other relevant information when necessary). This way the thread would never become outdated and in need of replacement, allowing for a continuous discussion of the tracker.

I think this is a great idea. I find it a pain to track down tracker reviews. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't been able to figure out how to search JUST the tracker review section. This means my search includes every reference of the tracker name and I end up browsing through thousands of results for many trackers.

We need an index of some sort, and I think a curated wiki page would be simply awesome.

I'm not sure if we need the page to be locked down to only admins, as I think that restricting modifications to 10% + users would suffice, if all changes are tracked to specific users. Then it would become a chopping block type issue, where one would be punished for defacing the site. If the wiki system is used bad edits could be easily reversed.

I'm really digging this idea, and I hope it is implemented. I might be missing behind-the-scene issues though.

Thanks teh_pwn for the suggestion!

Originally Posted by oscarnater

I think this is a great idea. I find it a pain to track down tracker reviews. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't been able to figure out how to search JUST the tracker review section. This means my search includes every reference of the tracker name and I end up browsing through thousands of results for many trackers.

We need an index of some sort, and I think a curated wiki page would be simply awesome.

I'm not sure if we need the page to be locked down to only admins, as I think that restricting modifications to 10% + users would suffice, if all changes are tracked to specific users. Then it would become a chopping block type issue, where one would be punished for defacing the site. If the wiki system is used bad edits could be easily reversed.

I'm really digging this idea, and I hope it is implemented. I might be missing behind-the-scene issues though.

Thanks teh_pwn for the suggestion!

Well, there actually is a review index that tm775 keeps updated,
http://www.torrent-invites.com/track...enre-year.html

But that still leaves the problem of broken links, outdated reviews, multiple reviews.

Also, a wiki would make the job of indexing much easier, you could create a sortable table, so when a new tracker gets reviewed you just have to add one new line, instead of having to edit four separate posts in the index thread. Not to mention.. sortable tables are awesome! You could click the headers to sort the review index by name, category, year, whatever you want!

Originally Posted by teh_pwn

Multiple reiterations of tracker review threads in an attempt to stay current, reviews with broken images, the tedious task of maintaining a review index post. Seems to me like all these problems could be solved by having a wiki for tracker reviews.

If something gets outdated, or an image breaks, all it takes is a few clicks to get it fixed instead of having to start from scratch or wait for someone else to pick up the work. I don't see any downsides as long as it's handled properly.

1) Limit editing privileges to a handful of people. By doing so you would eliminate the threat or wiki vandalizing, inaccurate information, and errors.

2) Make a position of wiki "curator". Much like intro moderator position, this would take workload off the staff, and put it in the hands of people deemed trustworthy and capable of the task.

3) Continue to allow posting of tracker reviews by all users. The reviews that met proper standards would then be transcribed to the wiki by those with editing privileges.

4) Have a thread where everyone can report problems found on the wiki. Would be the responibility of wiki mods to keep up with and correct reported issues.

5) Another important function of reviews is it provides a place for people to discuss the tracker and for other people give their own thoughts on it. This also brings up another problem with the current review system, since when an old review thread gets scrapped, so does all the input from other users that went with it. To solve this we could continue to have tracker specific threads, but instead of containing the review in the first post, it would merely have a link to the wiki review (and other relevant information when necessary). This way the thread would never become outdated and in need of replacement, allowing for a continuous discussion of the tracker.

I don't really see much difference compared to the current version. Your suggestion is basically just a more fancy version of the currently implemented one.

to 1) The priviliges of editing tracker reviews have already a couple of people: the OP, the sections mods as well with the staff of high ranking. I don't see anything different, please correct me if I'm wrong.

to 2) Section mods have already the ability to edit/delete posts ...
It may be a good idea to allow users of the userrankings 55%/75%/99%/100%/ViP or Exalted to edit OPs in reviews (to update pictures ...) This is, in my opinion, a good idea as a lot of tracker reviews have broken images and it's just too much to ask from section mods.

to 4) If you think something is spam or otherwise inappropriate you can use the 'report post' function.
It may be good to allow broken images and stuff like that to be reported.

to 5) I hate if people just post things like 'OMG this is my dream tracker; I love this tracker so much; Yea, it's really hard to seed; ...'
And I think things like that should be forbidden and not be encouraged.

I think it requires a lot of work, just for a little bit of design changes. I don't really seem to get the point of your suggestion, I'm apologizing if I'm thinking in a totally different direction.

Originally Posted by oscarnater

Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't been able to figure out how to search JUST the tracker review section. This means my search includes every reference of the tracker name and I end up browsing through thousands of results for many trackers.

First click on the Tracker Reviews subforum link, then click on SEARCH FORUM in the upper right hand corner, viola.