According to Auto-editor elections - MusicBrainz there were only 2 elections in last 5 months, which seems fairly low to me.
In 2021, there were only 9 elections, and it should be noted that 7 were from only one proposer (@chaban).
I personally find the process tedious, especially since we have now to post to forums and manually trigger mailings (@reosarevok can you confirm?). In the past it was simpler (I think).
Many editors deserve to be auto-editors, but I have the feeling they stay under the radar, and many never get a chance to be elected.
Iām not sure those are the right questions, but letās see what it givesā¦
Do you think the current system for auto-editor elections works well enough?
Yes
No
I donāt care
0voters
Do you think we have enough auto-editors elected over the time (related to overall active editors)?
Yes
No
I donāt care
0voters
Do you think we should have something between normal and auto editor status?
I would be very interested in what this could look like. I canāt think of a way to āreduceā the āpowerā of auto-editors that isnāt entirely arbitrary (e.g. making only some edit types auto-edits).
Maybe we could use a more automated way to spot candidates? Right now an existing auto-editor needs to bump into a candidate, follow them for a while and make the decision to propose them. But a bot could see that a normal editor has an x amount of edits and votes, that only a certain percentage of edits fails vote, that the editor leaves notes etc. A lot of the first selection of a candidate is quantifiable, and in the next step human auto-editors can have a look, maybe contact the candidate to see if they are interested etc.
Iām extremely hesitant to implement something like this. Any sort of automated system encourages people to game it. Iām already wary of abusive editors gaining elevated privileges using the current system; if we let an AI do the picking for us, we may end up with some.
The discussion is most welcome, but the questions only focus on the outcomes and do not tackle the root causes of the drought.
To āmakeā an autoeditor, you need a sufficient supply of 3 (partly overlapping) ingredients:
Long-term non-autoeditors
Voters who review each otherās edits
Active autoeditors
Once you have the right ingredients, whether you bake them or you boil them makes little difference IMO.
We donāt have aggregated statistics on types of editors over time, but it seems clear to me that voters are the scarce resource. So a key question is how do we incentivise voting?
The first thoughts that come to my mind: gamification; better communication tools; a mentoring system (where more experienced editors commit to supporting potential candidates); exposing edits in engaging ways (like the pre-NGS Dashboard/Music News pages did).
This could be very interesting to explore - great suggestion!
I agree with your hesitation about gaming an automated system, but my idea is explicitly to use that system to find potential auto-editors. Deciding should still be done by existing auto-editors.
That doesnāt assuage me very much. I know of several active editors who are extremely manipulative, and will almost certainly charm auto-editors unfamiliar with their history or the patterns of behavior being exhibited in front of them into gaining auto-editor privileges, which I know from experience they will wield as a weapon (both to make controversial auto-edits in violation of the CoC, and to bully anyone who calls them out on it).
āgamificationā sounds backwards. That will just lead to people voting to get a higher score. Quality is better than quantity. This place should never be about stats.
Voting stats are also misleading. Iāll look through four or five pages of edits per day, but often not need to vote as many are auto-edits. Yet if I see an issue Iāll pick up on it, comment, explain, and correct as needed. There is no way to see this kind of work that many editors do.
I also agree with @HibiscusKazeneko that a fully automated āmake them AE after X editsā is a bad idea, again on that quality control thing. We could all name editors that would cause havoc if none of their edits were voted on. Also edit stats are misleading - a single well researched edit may take hours to do, meanwhile someone hits a script adding dates to performers. Numbers do not show effort.
With AEs, less is more. Quality over quantity. No one should have a problem waiting 7 days for an edit to complete. The best way to see how effective things are is watch āVoting/Auto-editor Request Threadā. When assistance is required, people are available. And if a big debate is kicking off in an edit, then it also gets posted here for more eyes on and opinions.
I donāt think this is what was suggested. Itās rather a tool to attract attention from active auto-editors to potential new auto-editors.
It would be interesting to analyze what currently leads auto-editors to point an editor as a new candidate.
And then look whether there are other editors with similar profile who werenāt suggested.
To me, the current process is very random. If you are in a field of music where very few auto-editors are active, you are unlikely to be ever elected (because never suggested).
Iāll let the polls run for a while, thanks for all participating.
I general I have to agree with @IvanDobsky especially on voting stats. As to the survey I cannot take it because it does not have a āI do not now enoughā it just has āI donāt careā. I do care, I just do not know enough to vote yes or no.
I rarely see the affects of auto-editing in my genre plus I have @chaban looking over my shoulder nudging me ever so lightly when I make a bone-head move. As to voting, I only vote on what I know or have research.
I do not have enough information on the functions and use of auto editing to make a decision on the subject.
Sorry, I said the wrong thing again. Badly worded what I means. I was just kinda over exaggerating to make a point. Humans need to be involved in processes like this. Humans checking stats to find where to look is good.
Very much agree on this. And as AEs are picked by AEs editing in their areas, this means focus stays on those areas.