Subject: EDQ #4: The Queue & the Editing Process
Posted by: agony
Date: Apr 19 13
Today I'd like to talk about the editing process - how it works, and what to expect from it. If you have a vision of the editors in an office, diligently working away at quizzes from nine to five -- well, that's not even close to reality.
I'll start with something that most of you know -- the staff at FT are volunteers. This means, yes, that we are not paid, but a more meaningful way to look at this is that we work here in our spare time. A few staff are retirees, some are students, but most of us have jobs. Many of us have children. We have lawns that must be mowed, dogs that must be walked, and significant others who expect a significant portion of our attention and time. We slip our work here into odd moments of our lives, just as the authors and players do. Some of us only get here once a week or so; others are here every day, but often only for five or ten minutes at a time.
The quizzes that you see coming online are only a fraction of the work the editors do. A large number of quizzes edited don't make it online - nearly half of created quizzes never get online. The vast majority of Correction Notes are for quizzes whose authors no longer visit the site, which means the editors are taking care of them. This often involves considerable research and/or extensive rewriting. Subcategories are always being created, quizzes moved around. There are constant discussions going on about practices and policies - the site is always under refinement, always being tweaked to make it work better.
The actual editing is not usually a simple process of ticking off a list of problems-- bad spelling, check; time dependency, check; titles not in quotation marks, check-- but can be very time consuming. It's not unusual for an editor to take from fifteen minutes to half an hour per quiz, especially those from new authors. A quiz with substantial problems can take an hour or more to edit. You will occasionally see a block of quizzes from one category go online in a short time, but those are almost always quizzes from experienced authors whose quizzes do just need a quick check, or resubmits (or re re re submits!) of quizzes that have already had a lot of time poured into them. If you only see one quiz from a category go online in a day, it does not necessarily mean that an editor popped into that category queue, put one quiz online in five minutes, and then left. It's a lot more likely that an hour or more was spent on that queue, but all that work only produced one publishable quiz.
Posted by: agony
Date: Apr 19 13
Today I'd like to talk about the editing process - how it works, and what to expect from it. If you have a vision of the editors in an office, diligently working away at quizzes from nine to five -- well, that's not even close to reality.
I'll start with something that most of you know -- the staff at FT are volunteers. This means, yes, that we are not paid, but a more meaningful way to look at this is that we work here in our spare time. A few staff are retirees, some are students, but most of us have jobs. Many of us have children. We have lawns that must be mowed, dogs that must be walked, and significant others who expect a significant portion of our attention and time. We slip our work here into odd moments of our lives, just as the authors and players do. Some of us only get here once a week or so; others are here every day, but often only for five or ten minutes at a time.
The quizzes that you see coming online are only a fraction of the work the editors do. A large number of quizzes edited don't make it online - nearly half of created quizzes never get online. The vast majority of Correction Notes are for quizzes whose authors no longer visit the site, which means the editors are taking care of them. This often involves considerable research and/or extensive rewriting. Subcategories are always being created, quizzes moved around. There are constant discussions going on about practices and policies - the site is always under refinement, always being tweaked to make it work better.
The actual editing is not usually a simple process of ticking off a list of problems-- bad spelling, check; time dependency, check; titles not in quotation marks, check-- but can be very time consuming. It's not unusual for an editor to take from fifteen minutes to half an hour per quiz, especially those from new authors. A quiz with substantial problems can take an hour or more to edit. You will occasionally see a block of quizzes from one category go online in a short time, but those are almost always quizzes from experienced authors whose quizzes do just need a quick check, or resubmits (or re re re submits!) of quizzes that have already had a lot of time poured into them. If you only see one quiz from a category go online in a day, it does not necessarily mean that an editor popped into that category queue, put one quiz online in five minutes, and then left. It's a lot more likely that an hour or more was spent on that queue, but all that work only produced one publishable quiz.
88 replies. On page 3 of 5 pages. 1 2 3 4 5
zippolover
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I did not ask for a specific answer. I was worried that my quizzes would never rise, but that is not the case. I will go back on the naughty step now :) Reply #41. May 01 13, 12:26 PM |
guitargoddess
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It could depend on the reason for 'probation' too. If the reason is largely because the author is awful to work with, argues every correction asked for, resubmitd without making any changes and has a history of throwing a fit and deleting the entire quiz after I've spent time on it - I am in no hurry whatsoever to edit that quiz. I'll take the awful Justin Bieber submitted by a probably well meaning author any day. If though the reason for 'probation' is because the author really struggles with writing correctly or yes even the big plagiarism but they're pleasant to work with, puts a good effort in and does usually follow through to produce a decent quiz in the end, if i have the time available I may go for that one ahead of the Bieber quiz. Reply #42. May 01 13, 12:33 PM |
| guitargoddess
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Just to clarify, I don't edit in Music, I was just keeping the Bieber example. In my case the equivalent would be a Pretty Little Liars quiz or High School Musical or similar :p Reply #43. May 01 13, 12:56 PM |
agony
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Yeah, don't worry about quizzes never getting to the top of the queue. There are a lot of factors affecting the speed at which they rise, but they all rise. Reply #44. May 01 13, 1:04 PM |
VegemiteKid 
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This is about a single question rather than a whole quiz; I wrote a new question this morning and posted it - went back to have a look and noticed that it had a word out of order. Of course, there was nothing I could do about it at that time, and no place to indicate to the editor that I'd picked it up. It's been accepted now and I wanted to say thanks to the editor for finding the errant word without being told and fixing it for me! Reply #45. May 01 13, 11:58 PM |
looney_tunes
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We do fix that kind of small error when we see it - it's part of the service. (That doesn't mean we rewrite totally unintelligible submissions, but if it's clear that there's a typo it's easier to fix it on the spot than to send it back.) If a question does go online and you see a problem that wasn't picked up, you can go to My Single Questions: Edit, then click the link to My Contributions: All Accepted Submissions. There you will see all your questions, and can click "I see an error" on the relevant question, then send a correction note detailing what you wish to see changed. Reply #46. May 02 13, 2:09 AM |
adam36
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So guitargoddess what you are saying is that your not looking forward to editing my next quiz about a fantasy where Justin Beiber guests stars (sans monkey of course) on Pretty Little Liars called "Revisitng Dante New Levels Of Hell". Actually hold that thought the title might actually work for a challenge or A of A... Reply #47. May 02 13, 7:50 AM |
kaddarsgirl
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I recently wrote my very first crossword puzzle and I noticed some differences on that part of the site from the regular quiz part. There are still 20 categories in which to submit crosswords, but there are much fewer editors. Are queues different for that part of site (still by category or all lumped together)? What is different about the editing process for Crosswords (I assume they take longer to edit because the grid and the clues must be checked)? They also seem a lot more difficult to change/correct because one tiny error could ruin the entire grid. Reply #48. May 04 13, 10:51 AM |
kyleisalive
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There are only a handful of crossword editors and they are still approached by category (though some editors handle half a dozen or more). I only deal with VG. Crosswords are much harder to edit in my opinion. Aside from ensuring that everything matches up properly, the requirements are not easy to meet, especially if one or two things need to change and the puzzle is shifted out of whack. One clue removal or addition makes a correction notice very difficult to write or read since all of the clue numbers shift. There's a very fine balance and it's one of the reasons I rarely write them anymore. :p Reply #49. May 04 13, 11:14 AM |
| salami_swami
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I would love editing crosswords. More difficult, yes, infinitely. But so much fun. Lol. I need to write more. I have a celebrities one in the works... Which is why it takes me so long. Lol. I can imagine my crosswords are the worst to edit.... What with them backwards and all. ;) Reply #50. May 04 13, 1:55 PM |
spanishliz
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"One clue removal or addition makes a correction notice very difficult to write or read since all of the clue numbers shift." I edit crosswords in several categories, and get around this problem by quoting the grid reference (Row 3 Column 4 for example) instead of the clue number. I'll usually also note the word that goes in the grid in CAPS (e.g. CLUE) to eliminate any ambiguity. I need to be wide-awake to edit crosswords, by which I mean I try not to tackle them just before bedtime. It is easy to miss something in the grid if your eyes are crossing with fatigue :) Reply #51. May 04 13, 3:37 PM |
funnytrivianna
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I've posting the link to this discussion on my team's message board. I really appreciate the explanations from all who have contributed to helping authors understand the editing process better. I find this very helpful and hope that authors and up and coming authors take the time to read this topic. Thanks for giving some insight into what the editors have as responsibilities as well as problems that make things take longer to sort out. Reply #52. Jan 30 14, 7:05 PM |
Oidioid32123
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Do editors edit other editors' quizzes? Or can editors put their quizzes on automatically? Reply #53. Feb 06 14, 5:35 PM |
Buddy1
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Editors edit each other's quizzes but never (or maybe I should say rarely?) their own. Even editors writing quizzes can make mistakes. Reply #54. Feb 06 14, 6:04 PM |
| looney_tunes
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Everyone needs an editor, if only to pick up that silly typo you didn't catch despite two different people proofreading it both onscreen and in hard copy. I've even fixed Kyle's punctuation once or twice. :) Reply #55. Feb 06 14, 7:55 PM |
| agony
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I wouldn't say an editor would *never* edit their own quiz, but it is really discouraged and happens very seldom. Editors sometimes get their quizzes sent back for changes, too - when it comes to categories we don't edit in, we're just like the rest of you, just authors. Reply #56. Feb 07 14, 7:27 PM |
| Oidioid32123
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Is it possible to be "Express" with single questions and be allowed to submit as many as you want at a time? Reply #57. Feb 16 14, 10:34 PM |
| looney_tunes
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Only 5 per person at any time seems to be a universal maximum. Reply #58. Feb 17 14, 1:21 AM |
runaway_drive
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This may sound like a stupid question (stupid questions are my forte), but what does the interface look like for an editor? Are there special pages that us mere mortals do not have access to? Is there a list of all the quizzes that they have to edit? And when you do edit a quiz, do you edit it just like we do, with the same quiz template? I've just always been curious, that's all. Reply #59. Feb 17 14, 4:17 AM |
| agony
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Yes, we have access to several special pages. Each category has its own list of submitted quizzes that doesn't look all that different from any other list of quizzes. You can see the title and intro, plus any notes that the author might have attached, and notes editors might have made for each other - we often put our names on quizzes that we've started the editing process for, so other editors don't have to open the quiz to see if it's being worked on. The editing template is the same one you see, with some extra features - a button to put the quiz online, a box in which to write a rejection note, etc. Reply #60. Feb 17 14, 9:43 AM |
88 replies. On page 3 of 5 pages. 1 2 3 4 5
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