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 5 of 5 pages. 1 2 3 4 5
spanishliz
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Saving, even without a change being made, is seen by the system as a change. In any case, this sounds like the quiz I put online this morning, as it had reached the top of two queues (the Geography one, and my own "to edit" one which includes quizzes in three categories plus crosswords). Reply #81. Jul 10 16, 9:05 AM |
kyleisalive
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Re: "Saving, even without a change being made, is seen by the system as a change." To elaborate on this, this is because the system can't know if you're simply making a fix to a typo or changing out a whole question (or more...or less...) so every save is treated as a new copy of the quiz. This may also mean that it overwrites any work an editor has already put into it if it's been sitting for a long time. Reply #82. Jul 10 16, 12:13 PM |
windrush 
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I apologise in advance for this, because it seems I should know the answer already, but where do you find the approximate queue lengths for each category? It seems some queues are over a week while others are only a matter of a day or so; as someone who normally writes a couple of quizzes and a couple of crosswords at one hit, then takes a break of a few weeks, it would be helpful to know what I should submit first for the minimum wait time, and leave the slower moving queue till last. Reply #83. Oct 05 18, 3:48 AM |
agony
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I think we may have retired that page, as it was not really even a little bit useful. If it is still around and someone can link you to it, don't put a lot of faith in it. Your own personal feeling of which categories tend to be fastest for you is likely to be more accurate. I can say a couple of general things, though, which while not being about categories, might be helpful about getting quizzes accepted quickly: Photo quizzes are likely to take longer in the queue. They take longer to edit, and so an editor who just has a couple of minutes will pick something else, and leave the photo quiz until they have more time. Very long quizzes are likely to take longer. Same reason. Several categories don't even accept 25 question quizzes very often. Quizzes which break new ground in some way are often going to take longer. A new concept in quizzing will likely spark a "What do you think? Will this work?" discussion among editors, which takes time, even if the result is positive. Quizzes that don't fit firmly into one category will take longer. If the editors have to have a "Is this World, or Geography? Or maybe General?" conversation, that's going to take some time. We don't mind getting any of those quizzes, but you can't count on them being edited quickly. Reply #84. Oct 05 18, 4:07 AM |
| windrush
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Thanks, Agony. Reply #85. Oct 05 18, 5:37 AM |
rossian
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As agony said, not much use. It calculated on what had already happened, so a queue could be empty because an editor had done a marathon session to clear it before going on holiday. So, submitting to an apparently empty queue could still mean a long wait until that editor returned. I believe it is still around but I don't know how to find it even if I wanted to. Reply #86. Oct 05 18, 6:36 AM |
AcrylicInk
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This is where I can see it: http://www.funtrivia.com/author.cfm If the link doesn't work, to get on the old author central, I click on 'player author challenges' from the new author central. From there, click on 'author central' at the top and it will take you to the old page. Queues are there under 'resources'. Reply #87. Oct 06 18, 1:03 AM |
Catreona
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This is not a question, but rather observations on my own experience as a quiz author. In my experience, the editors are friendly, helpful and, especially in the case of Agony, with the patience of Job. There were two quizzes in particular that she had to practically nurse me through. I remember one question on one quiz that I kept rewriting and rewriting, and she had to keep telling me it was unsuitable for one reason or another. Eventually, I got to the point of telling her to forget it, I would abandon the quiz. But she said not to worry, we'd get it worked out; and, eventually we did. The other instance wasn't quite so extreme, but still, without her combination of meticulousness and calm patience, I would have given up. Then there was Wes taking the time to tell me that my first attempt at a Sci-Tech quiz was very good. That meant a lot, since I'd been very nervous submitting in a category in which I am, to put it mildly, not an expert. Wes' kindness in adding those words of encouragement to his acceptance note boosted my morale and confidence. On the matter of wait times: I'm as inpatient as the next author. BTW, thanks for the reminder that even so much as opening and saving the template sends the quiz back to the end of the queue! This is something we must all always keep in mind. Anyway,once I had two quizzes put online in the space of about half an hour. Don't recall at this length of time whether they were in the same category or different ones, but even so, it was pretty amazing. Similarly, I once had a quiz put online about three hours after submitting it. Not sure if that's an FT record, but it's certainly something I'm not likely to forget. Both these instances, though, underline a point that has been made several times during this discussion, which is that you really have no way of knowing how long it will take for any given quiz to go online. It's like dropping a letter in the mailbox. Rather than fretting about it, the best thing is to put it out of your mind and let the people who take care of such things get on with taking care of it. Reply #88. Oct 20 18, 8:07 PM |
88 replies. On page 5 of 5 pages. 1 2 3 4 5
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