Project: Using Reference to document forum thread outcomes

Good morning!

As mentioned in a previous thread, we are taking on this project this quarter.

The goal of this project is to create procedure for how threads should be structured so that an agreement can be met in a timely organized manner and then documentation of those results in reference.

This will likely involve
* determining who should be notified into the thread
* how the proposal should be written
* how long discussion should go on before voting on resolution should begin
* what percentage & volume of votes reached before it can be agreed upon or not
* if and when staff should be involved
* and when the reference list should be updated.

The end result should help reduce friction between experienced community and newer ones by de-siloing edge cases from having to dig through the forums to determine if those issues have ever been addressed. This should also help us determine what needs to be integrated into the RSG and what is just interpretations of existing guidelines for specific cases.

Any views on what needs to be addressed here or any potential roadblocks would be appreciated at this time.

Thanks, great to see this initiative as it exactly is what I was looking for when making the comment in the other thread.

Not sure what your plans are but I would strongly suggest to sort the references per RSG paragraphs instead of the rather unsorted approach in the current Undocumented Guidelines section. This will make it much easier to use. I would also add a reference information somewhere in the RSG to link to this material. All this may be obvious, but I'll just like to mention it anyways.

Also think this is an excellent initiative. Sorry for the long post but I've thought about this process quite a bit since ing as the current method seems kind of arbitrary.

Diognes_The_Fox
what percentage & volume of votes reached before it can be agreed upon or not

This is something I've always found interesting when new "rules" are created based on a few votes in the forum.

As of the time of this post, there are 329,379 contributors to Discogs.

44,745 (~13.5% of contributor base) have 100 rank points or more (an arbitrary cutoff but indicates a reasonable level of engagement since that's 100 images/100 edits/33 contributed releases or a combo thereof).

There have been updates to the guidelines based on very few votes. The most recent example is https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/723662 (coloured vinyl as manufacturing variation). In that thread, guideline was updated after only 9 s voiced opinions (.000027% of contributor base, .00020% of "engaged" base). This is not a comment on that decision itself (I think it was proper and there were no dissenting opinions on the proposal) but an example of how an extremely minimal subset of s (statistically insignificant in fact) can drive guideline changes that impact all.

I would suggest some variables be considered to "weigh" s' votes before implementing changes to guidelines (not so much style/genre additions, credit list updates, etc.):
- Level of database engagement (i.e., rank points)
- Level of database activity (have they engaged recently? Have they not engaged in dbase for months/years?)
- Level of forum engagement (quorum should be related to how many s are engaged in database/advanced database forums on a "regular" basis, maybe 5%-10% of those engaged within last 90 days, don't want to set too high so quorum is never met)
- Tenure on Discogs (less important since tenure can be lengthy but engagement low)
- Average Vote (s who are consistently voted C/C+C should weigh more than those voted NMiC/C)
- Buyer/Seller status (do those who create revenue for Discogs deserve more weight or less weight than those who are only interested in catag and data maintenance)

These variables together would theoretically give weights like nik/DTF votes count as 10 votes, votes from those in first 25 or so pages of contributor count as 5 votes, votes from those with low rank/tenure/engagement would be worth 0.25 votes, etc.

If the weighting can be done and is handled well, then the decision can be based on 51% of weighted votes when voting closes and/or quorum (number of voters rather than number of votes) is met.

Diognes_The_Fox
determining who should be notified into the thread

All s above all thresholds set for weighting. It doesn't cost anything to send an automated "Your vote is welcome here" message to anyone who "qualifies" to vote. Hell, send it to all s. At worst a deletes it. If s complain about not being able to stop the volume of notifications "When Discogs sends an announcement " then create a separate notification type for guideline voting and add it to the settings as an opt-out tick box. This could also help peg the quorum level, those who just accept whatever guidelines are do not need to be factored in.

It also means all engaged s are afforded the chance to vote and it doesn't preclude those who do not happen to see the thread. Whether they take advantage of the opportunity or not, there's no grumbling "I didn't know" after the fact.

Mop66
I would also add a reference information somewhere in the RSG to link to this material.

This is a great idea, something boilerplate in the RGS line item under review such as "This guideline has proposed changes and you can vote on it at discogs/forum/thread/xxxxx"

Diognes_The_Fox
if and when staff should be involved

Engagement in forum topics regarding database decisions usually reduces when staff weigh-in as some consider it a "done deal" at that point. If Discogs wants it to be community-driven, then when voicing opinions staff should probably use a separate as part of the community rather than staff (this has been mentioned before by quite a few s). When confronted with dozens of new/revived threads daily, I know I tend to not click on those with "Staff" flag since I consider them pretty much resolved. Consider the level of thread references that mention "nik says" or "DTF said" even when no clear outcome was arrived at in the thread. If the staff are making an "official" statement then this should be weighted much higher.

Diognes_The_Fox
how long discussion should go on before voting on resolution should begin

Should be related to the average time between forum log-ins for s past the threshold set for for "Level of forum engagement" with a small amount of padding. Anything under 2 weeks (I'd say 4 personally) is just too short to make fundamental changes to Discogs.

Diognes_The_Fox
how the proposal should be written

Using the thread above is a very good example of how it should be proposed: state the issue, state the current guideline, state the proposed guideline. That thread did not need much discussion because the OS also linked to multiple extensive discussions on the same subject (which is another reason long tenure/highly engaged s should weigh more - they are better at ing what was discussed, when and where.)

Diognes_The_Fox
and when the reference list should be updated.

After a successful, weighted vote, if it's a guideline update, both the reference and the guideline update should be immediate. By this point, it's just copy/paste of the proposed guideline, which only takes seconds

Also, Mop66. IMO this is a lazy kludge and not -friendly at all. Undocumented guidelines are not guidelines until documented.

I'm just spitballing and unaware of back-end limitations restricting what can be done (e.g., can weighting even be accomplished, can "yes"/"no" radio buttons be used in thread to vote so manual ing is not required, can quorum threshold be dynamically derived, etc.), so a lot of this could be pie-in-the-sky wishing and totally unrealistic but any enhancement to the current system is welcomed. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to be involved in this decision and good luck!

It's a good project but it all seems rather pointless if nik is able to jump in and overrule the clear (and very considered) consensus of the community, just, so it seems, to protect an earlier (correctly) disputed errant ruling from some time back.

Either the community has a guiding voice, or it doesn't.

Opdiner
It's a good project but it all seems rather pointless if nik is able to jump in and overrule the clear (and very considered) consensus of the community, just, so it seems, to protect an earlier (correctly) disputed errant ruling from some time back.

That's an issue but at least it is documented in a central point where everybody can refer to it rather than being buried in the forums. That is very important to me. I might disagree with an outcome but at least I can hopefully find what the current process is, be it a community consensus or a top down decision by the management.

Diognes_The_Fox Good Morning! I didn't see this yesterday. Some of the experienced oggers have been a bit discouraged lately (not me - I'm rather optimistic), but this is a step in the right direction, me thinks. As an experienced ogger yourself, what are your ideas? And as a staff member, do you think they can be implemented & effective?

Cause for instance: The overwhelming consensus regarding white label ...... went nowhere.

Mop66
Not sure what your plans are but I would strongly suggest to sort the references per RSG paragraphs instead of the rather unsorted approach in the current Undocumented Guidelines section. This will make it much easier to use. I would also add a reference information somewhere in the RSG to link to this material. All this may be obvious, but I'll just like to mention it anyways.

This will likely be our starting list of stuff to work with. It should serve as a good set of examples to "prime the pump" with.

cheebacheebakid
There have been updates to the guidelines based on very few votes. The most recent example is https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/723662 (coloured vinyl as manufacturing variation). In that thread, guideline was updated after only 9 s voiced opinions (.000027% of contributor base, .00020% of "engaged" base). This is not a comment on that decision itself (I think it was proper and there were no dissenting opinions on the proposal) but an example of how an extremely minimal subset of s (statistically insignificant in fact) can drive guideline changes that impact all.

Sounds like most standard real world politics. It's my hope that with structuring these procedures, we can provide a basis for future potential growth & development that will be more inclusive of the entire contributing community. At the moment, I don't know if pumping more people into this unstructured system will help much.

cheebacheebakid
Engagement in forum topics regarding database decisions usually reduces when staff weigh-in as some consider it a "done deal" at that point. If Discogs wants it to be community-driven, then when voicing opinions staff should probably use a separate as part of the community rather than staff (this has been mentioned before by quite a few s). When confronted with dozens of new/revived threads daily, I know I tend to not click on those with "Staff" flag since I consider them pretty much resolved. Consider the level of thread references that mention "nik says" or "DTF said" even when no clear outcome was arrived at in the thread. If the staff are making an "official" statement then this should be weighted much higher.

I fear that using a separate isn't going to change the weight of what I say and that it will just be footnoted as "staff said x, but on their personal ." One of my hopeful intended goals of this project is to take the weight off what is said in the forums and move the done and agreed upon statements to Reference. As it's also our goal to get more staff involvement in the forums soon, there are going to be more potentially conflicting viewpoints. It's already very difficult for me to make any statements that don't potentially conflict with a previous agreement made years ago, as many of you have noted.

TopCats45s
As an experienced ogger yourself, what are your ideas? And as a staff member, do you think they can be implemented & effective?

Cause for instance: The overwhelming consensus regarding white label ...... went nowhere.

As an ogger, I want to ensure that my work remains accessible and useful far after I'm gone. This idea is one that I've been pushing for awhile and got the greenlight to take on as part our team's actual formal goals this quarter. It's going to involve some work on our part, but I'm going to need everyone's help to keep the ball rolling once we get going.
Getting forum outcomes documented in Reference is really the first step. Once we have the data compiled, we can begin to look at what needs to be incorporated into the guidelines and what can remain as case-by-case interpretations of existing guidelines. This should ultimately reduce some of the friction advanced s have with newer contributors by improving process documentation, which will hopefully make everyone much happier.

As far as the whitelabels thread goes, things do fall off my radar in the day to day shuffle. I'm always happy to look back into things, I just need to be poked about it.

Thanks Diognes_The_Fox. Okay, to get the ball rolling (as well as everyone's eyes):

* determining who should be notified into the thread
Who should be notified is a good question. Staff for sure. Experts if known, but some oggers don’t know who are the “experts” are in what fields. The owners/sellers of the affected release – depending on the “proposal” that could be thousands. And in response to a remark from cheebacheebakid - an open forum discussion is just that - everyone should be participating. I was 100% green when I started on this site (down to about 50% now). The forum's are great education, and us dummies get set straight pretty quick :)

* how the proposal should be written
Clear and brief, siting an example, previous forum discussion if possible, and whatever source can be obtained. PS this one was proposed very well: https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/723662

* how long discussion should go on before voting on resolution should begin
30 days minimum for discussion & 30 days for voting.

* what percentage & volume of votes reached before it can be agreed upon or not
75% consensus one way or another. Volume may not be achievable as there are many oggers that either don’t have an opinion or don’t have the knowledge, so therefore stay out of the discussion. OP should bump every couple days.

* if and when staff should be involved
Staff is encouraged to participate and present any difficulties (legal, logistic, or otherwise).

* and when the reference list should be updated.
Staff should be notified at consensus and acknowledge decision. At that time, update reference list.

Diognes_The_Fox
As it's also our goal to get more staff involvement in the forums soon, there are going to be more potentially conflicting viewpoints.

To add to what Brent has said here, one of our goals is to try and balance the impact of what a staff member says here in the forum with a clear indication that we are also community with opinions. It'll obviously be a challenge to make it evident when staff is merely expressing an opinion vs. communicating a done-and-done guideline change (for example), but we do want to start interacting more in the forums as community , and not just as staff. If we start commenting on debates on other non-staff s, we feel it would come off as disingenuous and we'd rather be on the up and up about our participation as staff.

Long story short, you will be seeing more staff involvement in the coming months in the forums, and a lot of it will be as engaged community . We do understand that the staff badge carries more weight, and we're going to do our best to balance our opinions as community when it comes to communicating in the forums. Hope this makes sense, and if you have any ideas, please let us know!

Diognes_The_Fox
* determining who should be notified into the thread

What do you mean by this?

Diognes_The_Fox
* how the proposal should be written

Do you mean proposal for this project or do you mean how to propose a RSG change in the future threads?

Diognes_The_Fox
* how long discussion should go on before voting on resolution should begin

I think the person that started the discussion should be in control of this decision. One way this could be accomplished would be if the person who started the discussion could lock the thread once they feel their question has been answered or if they wish to relinquish ownership of the thread such as with the ones that begin as a specific straightforward question, but turn into a broader, wider-ranging, voluminous discussion than originally intended (example = the Unique Recording vs. Unique Studios thread has expanded to encom all studio LCCN names).

Diognes_The_Fox
* what percentage & volume of votes reached before it can be agreed upon or not

Is this for all discussions or just proposed RSG changes/interpretations that would end up in the annotated guidelines?

Diognes_The_Fox
* if and when staff should be involved

I don't know how it is for staff, but as a , the current system of filing a SR whenever we need help has worked really well for me. Sometimes we just can't reach a consensus simply because it's a challenging topic and the only thing that we can agree on is that we need professional help.

Diognes_The_Fox
* and when the reference list should be updated.

I think the GL update system would work well for this, i.e., regular periodic updates that are infrequent enough to ensure that the list remains relevant, but also slow enough to ensure that it's reliably familiar enough so that we can stay apprised of changes without having to constantly monitor it.
(Edit)

MarbleheadJohnson
Long story short, you will be seeing more staff involvement in the coming months in the forums, and a lot of it will be as engaged community

That's awesome to hear! The staff posts are super helpful not only for the obvious authoritative weight it carries, but also because you guys bring a unique birds-eye perspective.

berothbr
One way this could be accomplished would be if the person who started the discussion could lock the thread once they feel their question has been answered

You mean, when the decision that they favour has been reached? No, that is not an option IMO. There must be a general way of doing it not based on personal preference. One Donald is enough, we don't need that here on Discogs.

Mop66
You mean, when the decision that they favour has been reached?

If they are not acting in good faith, then the outcome of course would not be binding and certainly not end up as an example in the annotated guidelines/edge case resolution list. However, the flip side is that it's unfair that anyone who starts a thread can't say enough is enough such as when it's just turned into a repository for gripes and/or superfluous feature requests or, conversely, doesn't understand the consensus and wishes to continue the discussion until they do. Edit: Basically, if we can decide on a 'consensus' standard, then it shouldn't matter if someone just wants to cut it short prematurely simply because they have lost interest or if they wish to continue exploring the topic even after the consensus has been reached.

berothbr
What do you mean by this?

Stakeholders! Person who submitted it, edited it, sellers, collectors, interested parties. Anyone who might benefit or be inconvenienced by such an update.

berothbr
Do you mean proposal for this project or do you mean how to propose a RSG change in the future threads?

Anything from day to day stuff like artist/label merging/separating mass edit requests to more formal guideline changes. Having a standard layout / procedure would help all around, imo.

berothbr
I think the person that started the discussion should be in control of this decision. One way this could be accomplished would be if the person who started the discussion could lock the thread once they feel their question has been answered or if they wish to relinquish ownership of the thread such as with the ones that begin as a specific straightforward question, but turn into a broader, wider-ranging, voluminous discussion than originally intended (example = the Unique Recording vs. Unique Studios thread has expanded to encom all studio LCCN names).

The contributor who initiated it should certainly keep task with trying to see it through to resolution and to help keep the discussion on track. In this case I mean more about keeping a period of time open to discuss the issue, make sure key stakeholders have had a chance to be notified and post and suggestions/objections and to give everyone a chance to review any potential issues before moving to vote for that change, be it mass edit, guideline adjustment, or otherwise. We don't want to push changes hastily.

berothbr
I don't know how it is for staff, but as a , the current system of filing a SR whenever we need help has worked really well for me. Sometimes we just can't reach a consensus simply because it's a challenging topic and the only thing that we can agree on is that we need professional help.

That works. I more meant at what point should staff be called in to break ties / get advice. Having a firmer idea of when to call for help would probably help y'all out in prioritizing requests.

berothbr
I think the GL update system would work well for this, i.e., regular periodic updates that are infrequent enough to ensure that the list remains relevant, but also slow enough to ensure that it's reliably familiar enough so that we can stay apprised of changes without having to constantly monitor it.

I think the guidelines should be clear, concise and somewhat simple for people to be able to navigate and read without getting scared away from the DB completely. By keeping a thorough document of what's been agreed upon though, we can draw those into guidelines where there is enough of a trend to show benefit of additional guidelines.

Mop66
You mean, when the decision that they favour has been reached? No, that is not an option IMO. There must be a general way of doing it not based on personal preference. One Donald is enough, we don't need that here on Discogs.

Yeah. I more meant the period of voicing data / opinions before a formally voting for or against potential updates. (ie, mass updates because someone posted a request and 3 people stated +1 in the span of an hour).

Diognes_The_Fox
Stakeholders! Person who submitted it, edited it, sellers, collectors, interested parties. Anyone who might benefit or be inconvenienced by such an update.

Gotcha — +1 for every one of those and, if we're adding to that list, anyone who has posted a comment in a history, but never edited it. In other words, the more notifications the better. plus, for anyone who's not interested, they can always turn down the DB notifications anyway.

Diognes_The_Fox
The contributor who initiated it should certainly keep task with trying to see it through to resolution and to help keep the discussion on track. .... We don't want to push changes hastily.

100% agree. However, it's also counterproductive whenever a thread drags on for months and especially when it's because a minority is unwilling to consider a reasonable compromise as an outcome. In those instances, it can be more effective to stop, reflect, and then revisit the topic in a fresh thread.

Diognes_The_Fox
I more meant at what point should staff be called in to break ties / get advice. Having a firmer idea of when to call for help would probably help y'all out in prioritizing requests.

The only examples of what constitutes a 'good' reason to file a SR due to a discussion is when there is abusive language, spam, and/or to report a bug, i.e., technical problem. Beyond that, I'm not sure type of scenario/question Discogs wants us to ask for help and vice versa. Therefore, maybe you can tell us what you think is a good use of a SR and, more importantly, help us understand what constitutes a 'bad' SR? (if you need any examples of bad reasons, please feel free to use me — I won't be offended).

Also, to clarify about the GL comment, I meant that, like the GLs, prospective updates to the proposed 'Reference Document' would likely be most beneficial if carried out at a deliberately infrequent, but predictable pace, as opposed to an ad hoc/real-time approach.

berothbr
100% agree. However, it's also counterproductive whenever a thread drags on for months and especially when it's because a minority is unwilling to consider a reasonable compromise as an outcome. In those instances, it can be more effective to stop, reflect, and then revisit the topic in a fresh thread.

Yeah. It's okay if threads get deadlocked or if there's not enough data to move forward. Having something like a one or two month active window before a proposal times out would be helpful. At that point, the proposal could be brought up again at a later date, something like six months to a year.

berothbr
The only examples of what constitutes a 'good' reason to file a SR due to a discussion is when there is abusive language, spam, and/or to report a bug, i.e., technical problem. Beyond that, I'm not sure type of scenario/question Discogs wants us to ask for help and vice versa. Therefore, maybe you can tell us what you think is a good use of a SR and, more importantly, help us understand what constitutes a 'bad' SR? (if you need any examples of bad reasons, please feel free to use me — I won't be offended).

I don't know. There aren't really any bad SR's. Some stuff I am going to have more impact on than others on. I don't mind looking at total deadlocks and stuff like that, but I might not be able to provide any unique and correct perspective on them beyond what's been stated. I'd at least like to see people tried.

Okay. Probably going to air this thread out for a bit longer before writing up a rough draft of procedures.

Feel free to invite anyone who may be interested in shaping how things should be done in the future here.

inviting people who participated in in.spirit

Also tommy.b who have done edits on the wiki https://reference.discogslabs.com/wiki/Undocumented-Guidelines

velove
inviting people who participated in https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/733335

I didn't participate, but, in addition to the 'thread outcomes', perhaps the reference document can also include some examples of releases that illustrate some of the advanced topics and best practices (especially with BaOI descriptions).

cheebacheebakid
Also, https://reference.discogslabs.com/wiki/Undocumented-Guidelines should no longer exist as mentioned by Mop66. IMO this is a lazy kludge and not -friendly at all. Undocumented guidelines are not guidelines until documented.

Mop66 didn't say it shouldn't exist, just that it needs to be sorted better, (my interpretation:) to make it more like "annotations to the guidelines", in guideline order, rather than the current jumble.

I would add that the title choice "Undocumented Guidelines" is perhaps not as ideal as "Community standards and forum thread outcomes that supplement the guidelines in the RSG", but we do need to keep it somewhat simple.

Before anything is renamed or removed in the wiki, the wiki needs to have redirect capability added, and followers need to be preserved. Currently there's no way to add redirects and no way to keep followers when you rename a page. I reported this via SRs and it was duly noted and the tickets closed.

Personally, instead of having forum thread outcomes and further explanations of guidelines living in some separate space, I would rather have the RSG be directly commentable, in the way that the PHP documentation is. For example, see https://secure.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php ... Every page of the PHP documentation is like this, and it's so helpful. s can add "notes". Questions are voted down and either hidden or removed (they belong in forums), whereas well-written advice and examples are voted up and essentially become part of the permanent documentation.

It would be nice to see undocumented guidelines and stuff only found in forums (like not voting on own releases) moved to Guidelines.
I would like fixed guidelines for sorting Companies, Credits, BaOI, and how to enter variants on matrix/SIDs.

mjb
Personally, instead of having forum thread outcomes and further explanations of guidelines living in some separate space, I would rather have the RSG be directly commentable, in the way that the PHP documentation is. For example, see https://secure.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php ... Every page of the PHP documentation is like this, and it's so helpful. s can add "notes". Questions are voted down and either hidden or removed (they belong in forums), whereas well-written advice and examples are voted up and essentially become part of the permanent documentation.

interesting idea that should be looked at.

the wiki as it is now with no multi edit capability is not really a great place as last one to edit will just overwrite earlier edits.

Thanks for the invite velove. I was aware of this thread but I was holding off posting until I felt there was something a little bit more concrete to comment on to be honest.

However I'm here now so........

I still consider myself a new due to the relatively small number of edits and submissions I make compared to others, not withstanding my presence in the forum.

I understand the guidelines can't cover every situation a faces when submitting but the current situation is untenable in my opinion.

New s do not have a bank of guideline qualifying threads to call on, embedded in their profile pages, or saved on their computers.

The 'wiki' if clearly set out with examples of best practise submissions, would be a great help.

Will be following this project, which looks like a really welcome addition, but probably won't be able to contribute that much because after 3 years of being unemployed, and as such my increased Discogs activity over that timeframe, I have started at a new, quite challenging, job on January 1.

Thank you velove for inviting me, and thanks Diognes_The_Fox for inviting general opinions. Many responses focus on the guidelines, but the aspect which enthuses me, is formalising forum debates and capturing best practice.

Currently a problem not answered in guidelines is hard to find in forums. The search function is poor: intuiting permutations of a thread title is not easy; using an external search engine for a site specific search is not optimal, e.g.

Searching google: Phrase: "Rights Societ*" - Keyword: BIEM - Site: discogs.sie.com/forum/thread
= 149 returns, top ones all relevant and unique

Searching within Discogs:
= 11,396 returns, relevant results, but hard to sort as same ancient threads repeated again and again

And that's a topic with obvious keywords, others are more ambiguous. An immediate database enhancement would be to make the advanced search tool (from the main search box) available in forums and marketplace.

Finding answers within a thread - general principles you can apply to your specific release - can be woeful. Good debates can be so lengthy they are practically unusable when you just want to finish a sub. I've been lucky so far: I've been on the losing side of every argument, but my opponents have been fair, reasonable, courteous, professional. But I read more threads than I post in, and I see many descending into irrelevant and acrimonious personal attacks which benefit none.

We need a mechanism for harvesting the good bits from forum debates, and sorting them in a meaningful way. A best practice database. And there needs to be some way for s to feed into this.

Some here think 'undocumented guidelines' are bad. I disagree - but +1 mjb the names a bit crap, you have to find it, then interpret a cluttered front page, and then it takes you back to the damn forums! The guidelines must be concise and non-specific: to cover the immense plurality of releases, and to be comprehensible and usable by all. We can't answer everything in the guidelines, grey areas will always remain. A method of documenting what we've learned, and a trail of how we got there, would help a lot

I'm a novice. The clumsy forums, even though I enjoy them, have made learning 'how to Discog' slow and confusing. Unreadable forums result in wasteful repetition, ad infinitum, and thwarted progress. That's why I need it, and I think we need it, I'll comment on how separately.

First step is to formalise the forums - not general etc. just the 'database' sections - by creating a structure, heirarchy, process, explained in a simple 'forum rules' sticky inc. FAQ. A process could be:

1) Add a thread to discuss and resolve specific case: Release1, Artist1, Label1
- if a specific case suggests general principles...
2) Add a separate thread to discuss issue
- if thread results in general learning...
3) Add to best practice thread (will define)
- if the best practice highlights flaws in guidelines...
4) Add to guidelines thread (will define)
(can start at 2 or 3, but 4 needs evidence)

Firm rules must be applied to the forums. Rules about correct process, not just about proscribed behaviour. Stick to the issue, no hijacking, no digressing, keep discussion focused and impersonal. There should be a mechanism where the OP can police the thread - so a thread can be frozen and flagged when hijacked, to get a disruptive blocked. Of course OP bias is a danger. And blocking to require staff. Ideally this would be rare if clear process rules were defined and policed by all participants. I guess you don't want s to access page coding, so mechanism to tag keywords for indexing would help for later retrieval.

For 1 - Specific Case:
OP first post states issue / problem, and defines parameters of thread; second post for polling and result, initially blank; third post OP states their view, opens discussion and posts in Release1 notes (& MR?), but open to all comers. If a tool could be made to vote within thread, consensus could be checked and added to top of thread - in stages and in aggregate for a large thread. Staff input welcome, not vital. If discussion reaches conclusions (simple majority, no minimum quorum), added to top. Timing / locking OP discretion. Release1 edited (or not) based on findings.

For 2 - General Issue:
Same rules, open to all comers: set parameters, debate, present case-studies. Poll and collate findings at top. Staff input welcome, not vital. If there's anything learned, take it to step 3.

For 3 - Best Practice:
A separate sub-forum (of advanced?) made to feed best practice into Reference Wiki. Concise discussions, drawn from case studies, deciding if it's best practice, then best way to word it. Much more staff input useful here. Polling here by qualified majority and with minimum quorum, but no restriction on who can vote. Reference Wiki to be a standalone resource of best practice, divided into sections (by RSG and/or by sub-form section - LCCN, BaOI), drawn from forum discussions (justification / history), not an index to forums but a standalone sub-site. Reference Wiki to be edited by s, but restricted to authorised 'experts'.

For 4 - Guidelines:
A separate part of forums with set of stickys of guideline sections. In the rare cases where guideline flaws are highlighted s can state their case here, and only here. Propose a suggested change, in one post. A simple statement with reference to previous consensus and poll. Highly staff monitored. Restricted number of threads, so easier for 'expert contributors' to monitor. Permanent, continuing, no time limit. Not a place for debate. Polling to clarify weight of opinion only.

Guideline changes should be influenced by community but decided wholly by staff. Community opinion should carry weight for releases and artists, but guidelines can impact on mechanisms beyond contributor scope, with commercial and legal implications. E.g. yesterdays guideline update: it's easier to websource images, and they're better quality than my scans, so say I don't agree with copyright laws and I come from a territory that doesn't enforce them, so I get my mates to vote the change 'websourced images = great'. Discogs gets sued, files bankruptcy, we all lose. Fatuous example, I know.

Well, that's my general suggestion. I know it's so long it won't be read, but best I can do. One last post, and I'll drop it...

I'm against staff using stealth profiles, lets keep it direct. Current ambiguity over staff comments is problematic. Too much over-interpretation. I recommend adopting a style / crib sheet of standard phrases / caveats, for clarity, e.g.: 'this is my opinion about this release only, not a general rule', 'this is my opinion about the general rule', 'these are the rules, and they must be followed'.

I'm against qualified voting rights within forum polls. Being very complicated to explain, presumably very complex to design. It would be frustrating to participate in a discussion, then be infantalised by disenfranchisement. It is elitist and inimical to the inclusive community ethos. Democrary sucks, but nobody has invented a better system yet. I am, hypocritically, in favour of restricting those who edit Resources Wiki, but have no opinion on parameters.

The guideline changelog should be pushed to all , contributor or not, as an inbox notification. Changes are rare and important, we shouldn't have to look for them, they should be shouted at us all.

in.spirit
The guideline changelog should be pushed to all , contributor or not, as an inbox notification. Changes are rare and important, we shouldn't have to look for them, they should be shouted at us all.

or like the SPIN initiative pop-up.
I agree that guideline updates are important and as every contributor is bound by the guidelines it makes sense to communicate the updates more prominently.

in.spirit
The guideline changelog should be pushed to all , contributor or not, as an inbox notification. Changes are rare and important, we shouldn't have to look for them, they should be shouted at us all.

Very good point.

velove
I agree that guideline updates are important and as every contributor is bound by the guidelines it makes sense to communicate the updates more prominently.

Agreed to that and saves time.

Hey all!

Thanks for all the input here! I will take notes and ask questions as I process all this. Feel free to ping anyone else who has input here, new, experienced or otherwise.

ChrisEfterklang
Will be following this project, which looks like a really welcome addition, but probably won't be able to contribute that much because after 3 years of being unemployed, and as such my increased Discogs activity over that timeframe, I have started at a new, quite challenging, job on January 1.

Congratulations!!

Thanks Diognes_The_Fox, I am really enjoying working again and so far it is going rather swell.

in.spirit
The guideline changelog should be pushed to all , contributor or not, as an inbox notification. Changes are rare and important, we shouldn't have to look for them, they should be shouted at us all.

+ 1 from me as well.

in.spirit
The guideline changelog should be pushed to all , contributor or not, as an inbox notification. Changes are rare and important, we shouldn't have to look for them, they should be shouted at us all.

+1 for that too

That would empower threads, evolve RSGs + avoid mistakes + repetative treads!
Totally agreed

Awaiting.. specs

Another thing that hit me is that it might be helpful if we have an index forum thread where contributors can post active conversations that need additional involvement so that we can collectively keep track of what's being worked on. Could be something simple like 'Description - link - status'. I think that would help keep some of the redundancy down.

TopCats45s
* determining who should be notified into the thread
Who should be notified is a good question. Staff for sure. Experts if known, but some oggers don’t know who are the “experts” are in what fields. The owners/sellers of the affected release – depending on the “proposal” that could be thousands. And in response to a remark from cheebacheebakid - an open forum discussion is just that - everyone should be participating. I was 100% green when I started on this site (down to about 50% now). The forum's are great education, and us dummies get set straight pretty quick :)

* how the proposal should be written
Clear and brief, siting an example, previous forum discussion if possible, and whatever source can be obtained. PS this one was proposed very well: https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/723662

* how long discussion should go on before voting on resolution should begin
30 days minimum for discussion & 30 days for voting.

* what percentage & volume of votes reached before it can be agreed upon or not
75% consensus one way or another. Volume may not be achievable as there are many oggers that either don’t have an opinion or don’t have the knowledge, so therefore stay out of the discussion. OP should bump every couple days.

* if and when staff should be involved
Staff is encouraged to participate and present any difficulties (legal, logistic, or otherwise).

* and when the reference list should be updated.
Staff should be notified at consensus and acknowledge decision. At that time, update reference list.

I like these! I don't think every decision needs staff final approval. The majority of database forum threads are actually for artist/label merges which are pretty routine for the most part. I'd also like to hopefully set these procedures up to make the process as community autonomous as possible.

velove
inviting people who participated in https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/733335

Thanks!

mjb
Personally, instead of having forum thread outcomes and further explanations of guidelines living in some separate space, I would rather have the RSG be directly commentable, in the way that the PHP documentation is. For example, see https://secure.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php ... Every page of the PHP documentation is like this, and it's so helpful. s can add "notes". Questions are voted down and either hidden or removed (they belong in forums), whereas well-written advice and examples are voted up and essentially become part of the permanent documentation.

This is really really neat. I am going to make note of this.

isidroco
It would be nice to see undocumented guidelines and stuff only found in forums (like not voting on own releases) moved to Guidelines.

That's the longterm goal. Moving everything to reference is a good first step to help organize what's what. At that point we can group like decisions and make any needed guideline revisions where needed.

in.spirit
Finding answers within a thread - general principles you can apply to your specific release - can be woeful. Good debates can be so lengthy they are practically unusable when you just want to finish a sub. I've been lucky so far: I've been on the losing side of every argument, but my opponents have been fair, reasonable, courteous, professional. But I read more threads than I post in, and I see many descending into irrelevant and acrimonious personal attacks which benefit none.

Yes, keeping threads on topic and civil are things we'd like to encourage more of. I don't like having to remove people from the forums, but with more and more people needing to use this site, I am expecting contributors to do their part to make new s feel as welcome as possible.

in.spirit
Well, that's my general suggestion. I know it's so long it won't be read, but best I can do. One last post, and I'll drop it...

It's exactly what I was looking for and there's a lot of detail here that will get factored into the rough draft / phase two. This post will likely be made on Monday at some point.

velove
or like the SPIN initiative pop-up.
I agree that guideline updates are important and as every contributor is bound by the guidelines it makes sense to communicate the updates more prominently.

Valid points, I'll look into this.

Diognes_The_Fox
Yes, keeping threads on topic and civil are things we'd like to encourage more of. I don't like having to remove people from the forums, but with more and more people needing to use this site, I am expecting contributors to do their part to make new s feel as welcome as possible.

Maybe it could be a bit stronger than encourage. If forums had their own protocol guidelines (additional to community guidelines), maybe power could be given to OP to freeze a out when a thread is getting trashed (bit like the ignore button). Just applying to that specific thread. could appeal through SR if they feel it unfair. Drawback would be making it personal, danger of bias, and ethical dilemma for OP. Just there seem to be a minority of serial offenders, not new s, who turn anything and everything into a fight.

Despite criticism, forums are still pretty great. I first posted about 2 months ago, and I've learned loads, from many really helpful people.

MarbleheadJohnson
To add to what Brent has said here, one of our goals is to try and balance the impact of what a staff member says here in the forum with a clear indication that we are also community with opinions.

Just a naive and friendly, but simple thought:

Wouldn't it be the staff's task to collect those impacts and consensus related topics?

There are guidelines, they give structure. E.g. DonHergeFan made a commented guideline, means the discussions were assigned to guideline chapters. And some comment collection with [i]final decision 'how to'[/b] should be created officially here.
This would be the 'Advanced Guidelines'

Just an observation and I am not intending to attack management here, but most very very long discussions in the past 2-3 years contained interventions of a staff member, but it was not closed with a decision at the end. Usually it was let in a diffuse state. I am sure, that community will never find a consensus on a difficult topic. As in real life, there is the need of a guiding hand, to take a final decision. Even if 178 people will say 'Yes' and 8 will say 'No', it is not a consensus and the owner of this site should decide, which arguments are best for the future of his database.

Isn't it?

Edit:
In belief, you have a better way of searching forums than us, the most pragmatic way would be to search for nik's inputs to discussions and sort them descending by date.
Else, sometimes s spend much, much, much time for doing some review on a topic as I did for example in https://www.discogs.sie.com/forum/thread/704544
It would help, not to ignore it, but to work with it. RSG §12 was reviewed by all staff contributions of the past 6 years. Still with open questions btw.
Maybe also a 'Guidelines Deviation'-subforum in Development could help to indicate guideline driven input...

Diognes_The_Fox
index forum thread where contributors can post active conversations that need additional involvement

Good idea! Which would turn into a "stickied" thread for forum decisions that need to be considered/added. Initially post prior "decided" forum decisions that no one can ever find :)

Oliver_Ostblock
Wouldn't it be the staff's task to collect those impacts and consensus related topics?

Sorry for the delayed response here. Yep, that's definitely what we do, and something we'll try to balance. It's not perfected yet, but you make some good points all around. You're going to see staff get more involved in the forums, and the level of our participation will more than likely always be changing, dictated by the degree the involvement is needed.

MarbleheadJohnson
You're going to see staff get more involved in the forums, and the level of our participation will more than likely always be changing, dictated by the degree the involvement is needed.

Often seen are conversations, being 'neverending' and moving around in circles. Here, many s wait for 100% Consensus, which will never occur. Rather then ponting on a missing consensus, if they are convinced by the minority alternative. Here I woul wish, that we come to an end more quickly.

I e.g. a discussion about lower case or upper case in BAOI description field, which is not described verbatim in the guidelines, causing weeks of extended and emotional discussions. You would not believe, how emotional people can get by this or, second example, by the ordering of labels in LCCN.

MarbleheadJohnson
Yep, that's definitely what we do, and something we'll try to balance.

I posted this elsewhere before, but a couple of years ago Discogs sent a Marketplace survey to sellers. I'm not sure if it had any benefit for Discogs, but it was something I appreciated, spent some time on, and felt good being able to voice some ideas/suggestions/etc. If provided with the opportunity to participate in a comparable survey about the database and/or my experience as a contributor, that's something I would definitely take advantage of and probably enjoy doing.

berothbr
I'm not sure if it had any benefit for Discogs, but it was something I appreciated

It's funny you mention that as Brent and I were just talking about this very thing! So yes, it's definitely something we're talking seriously about. We definitely want to design it to be something enjoyable for all, and we'll certainly keep you up to date on this.

Oliver_Ostblock
Here I woul wish, that we come to an end more quickly.

I agree with you here. Finding a 100% consensus is more than likely an impossibility with very few exceptions. I think staff can do better with ending perpetual conversations while balancing out what we think is best for the database. Like Brent mentioned in this thread, I think once we lay down a clear time limit for conversations to go on it will at least give all of us some clear expectations. Yeah, people can get really emotional about stuff, and that's where it gets tricky. We never want to sidestep into these deep emotionally-charged discussions and then get lost on what the original point was, and this does tend to happen. It's tough to dictate an individual's time they choose to give the database, and that's when the emotions flare up.

MarbleheadJohnson
We definitely want to design it to be something enjoyable for all

Sometimes I observe such severe "guideline-faithfullness", which ends up with a result, which is maybe not that desirable for s, who use Discogs without editing it. E.g. when being strict by format, many CD 5''es will land in Miscellaneous-category, where they usually are not expected. Just one example, there are surely more.
Maybe we should focus more on the result by of UI instead of nitpicking on help of a certain guideline. Discussions on this are hardly to win, as nitpickers will always point to the verbatim guideline...