Edit Suggestion Review

[+lumbricus]

Hi,

the last days I get daily edit suggestions for waymarks.

I think I reviewed about 30 the last two weeks. Who is doing that?

The provided reason: "spelling fix". No name.

It's hard to prove because all is red and green, not only the word which is fixed.

Thanks,

lumbricus

[+Max and 99]

Although it wasn't me, I don't understand why a name isn't shown since you have to be logged in to Waymarking.com in order to make the edit suggestion!

 

I wish someone would suggest a spelling correction on one of my kinetic sculptures to I can see what the notification looks like!

Go on, I dare you to find a spelling error. Ha! Just kidding. I'm sure there are some.

 

I'm guessing that it's hard to tell what the spelling correction suggestion is?

[+silverquill]

I'm being flooded with these too!

 

My guess is that some persons has decided that this is his/her contribution to Waymarking and is randomly, or perhaps systematically, going through waymarks to edit them. There are several problems with the way this is set up, and with the way that this person is going about this.

 

1). As you mentioned, there is no way to identify who is making the edit suggestions. This is a defect in the way Groundspeak set this up. There is no reason for this procedure to be anonymous.

 

2). The Edit suggestion goes to the category officers. The officer has two options - accept or decline. Since there is no way to know who is making the suggestion, we cannot ask for clarification. There is also a place for the reviewing officer to comment.

 

3). As far as I know, no notification is sent to the originator of the waymark that an edit suggestion has been made, or that a change has been made to his/her waymark. I think this is wrong. So, the comment from the reviewing officer goes back to whomever made the edit suggestion.

 

This is the way I THINK this all works. There is no official documentation of this in the Waymarking.com site that I know of. There are other gaps in documentation of the workings of the site, too.

 

The main challenge that we have in reviewing edit suggestions is verifying them. We are basically being asked to say that the person asking for the changes knows more than the person who originally wrote the waymark. In some cases it may be obvious, but in others we really have no way of knowing.

 

The burden of proof lies with the one making the edit suggestion. If I'm not sure, then I decline.

 

Many of the current flood of edit suggestions say simply "spelling fix." Some of these are simple typos, NOT spelling errors. In a short description, this may be obvious, but in longer passages, almost impossible to find. I haven't got the time to read several long paragraphs to verify the spelling change. Maybe the original was correct. So, here is the reply I just sent with a string of declines:

 

"With several long paragraphs, I can't find the "spelling fix." Since the edit system is set up like this, I don't know who is submitting the suggested changes, and unless you can specify exactly what you are attempting to correct, I cannot accept these. ~Larry (silverquill)"

 

Some suggested changes in other areas were just incorrect because the person did not take the time to understand the requirements of the category. (Such as trying to add USA to a waymark in the National Register of Historic Places).

 

So, we have a system that isn't very easy to use, and some person, or persons, using it incorrectly.

[+lumbricus]

Thanks Larry for summarize this issue.

[+fi67]

3). As far as I know, no notification is sent to the originator of the waymark that an edit suggestion has been made, or that a change has been made to his/her waymark.

 

I have received such a notification once; it was triggered by the decision of the officer, not the edit suggest. The functionality seems to be there, but obviously almost all of those notification go lost. When I have made an edit suggest, I received a notification in maybe 1 out of 50 cases, the ratio for the waymark owner seems to be even worse.

[GT.US]

I did get an email saying my waymark had been edited.

[+Max and 99]

I did get an email saying my waymark had been edited.

 

Did the email state exactly what was changed? If not, that would drive me crazy!