Less Projects Idea

[Sebastian]

Replacing and fixing should be one, I never understood why there's two of them in first place.

'poteito' 'potahto' duh

That's what I said:

the Replacing the sheets thing has been discarded. It will be fixing the sheets from now on which is fixing and replacing.

I don't think we should have anymore replacement projects. It should be fixing the sheets like it is now.

I don't like the idea of splitting the updater team

I agree. Splitting the team is a bad idea.
I liked the idea of assigning an Updater to a project before it even starts like what we did with Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Also:

Updaters, what do you think of another section like submissions, but is only devoted to replacements?

I like this idea the best^
and I'd like to know what the Updaters think

[FireArrow]

I don't like the idea of splitting the updater team, but I'm all for combining projects so they encompass both fixing and arranging; that's something I advocated for a while back.

The idea is to get more updaters who edit and accept sheets for the project rather than working on the submission board. I'm going to say that if we want the projects to run at a reasonable rate, this is necessary. The submission board has been absolutely fabulous, we've just had a 60 sheet update along with a Halloween one.

Fixing the Sheet Project? Hasn't been touched in two months.
New Leaf Arrangement? Seems like it's crawling along.
Replacing the Sheets? Um, lol.

We just don't have the man power. Yes, replacing and fixing need to get combined, I have no clue why we have two in the first place.

I disagree with the idea of combining Arrangement projects and sheet replacements. It wouldn't reduce the workload too noticeably (it's an entire OST rather than one and a half OSTs, woop woop?) and it would slow the rate that problematic sheets get replaced, which I feel should be a priority.

(Note: My take on it is different than TMP's. I'd rather see 2-4 lesser updaters who don't have the same privileges the 4 main ones have. No badge or ability to press the "accept" button in the submission board, just the authority to go through and edit the sheets in the projects (what Don was doing with the New Leaf project.) They can then, depending on how Olimar views their capabilities, either accept the sheets for the next update or send off the now easier to critique sheets to you guys.)

[TheMarioPianist]

(Note: My take on it is different than TMP's. I'd rather see 2-4 lesser updaters who don't have the same privileges the 4 main ones have. No badge or ability to press the "accept" button in the submission board, just the authority to go through and edit the sheets in the projects (what Don was doing with the New Leaf project.) They can then, depending on how Olimar views their capabilities, either accept the sheets for the next update or send off the now easier to critique sheets to you guys.)

This is moving in the right direction, I like it. When I went out and said that all 6 updaters would have equal power, I probably did go too far. I wasn't worried about the permissions and stuff as much. I was basically trying to get at FireArrow's point: we need more people. I was just trying to cover myself up for using the term "splitting" because it kinda gave a bad connotation. Anyway, FA's idea is better than mine, I think.

[Sebastian]

(Note: My take on it is different than TMP's. I'd rather see 2-4 lesser updaters who don't have the same privileges the 4 main ones have. No badge or ability to press the "accept" button in the submission board, just the authority to go through and edit the sheets in the projects (what Don was doing with the New Leaf project.) They can then, depending on how Olimar views their capabilities, either accept the sheets for the next update or send off the now easier to critique sheets to you guys.)

^^^^^

This is moving in the right direction, I like it. When I went out and said that all 6 updaters would have equal power, I probably did go too far. I wasn't worried about the permissions and stuff as much. I was basically trying to get at FireArrow's point: we need more people. I was just trying to cover myself up for using the term "splitting" because it kinda gave a bad connotation. Anyway, FA's idea is better than mine, I think.

I agree!

[JDMEK5]

Replacing and fixing should be one, I never understood why there's two of them in first place.

*Quote from mariolegofan*

*Virtually identical quote from Latios*

'poteito' 'potahto' duh

This is kinda because someone(s) copy/pasted my original OP that I used for the Pokémon Project. I was the one to write both of those.
MLF did it first, and then Latios copied that if my memory serves correctly
I don't really have that huge of an issue with it; it's just kinda disheartening to spend so much time and effort writing that as cohesively as possible and then just having people steal it as need arises.

This is kinda irrelevant to the topic but I just wanted to explain that cuz there really actually was a reason behind it.

Why not just have a separate updater team for projects, since they're becoming a regular thing anyways and deserve to have regular and predictable rate of approval. The cons I see with removing one are:

I like this idea too but there really isn't any Updaters that are really interested in projects.

*Later on*

I don't like the idea of splitting the updater team, but I'm all for combining projects so they encompass both fixing and arranging; that's something I advocated for a while back.

I agree. Splitting the team is a bad idea.

XD Just thought that was really funny

But my thoughts: Both options have their pros and cons, and while I've had a bit of trouble following the conversation, maybe it's already been mentioned but I think: Arrangement project and fixing the sheets = One project. Then have a max of 2 projects on at once. (But I'd recommend only 1 at a time) This should keep us from having to split the current updater team while actually increasing productivity in both the projects as well as regular submissions/replacements. I'm just trying not to overthink it too much.

[Latios212]

This is kinda because someone(s) copy/pasted my original OP that I used for the Pokémon Project. I was the one to write both of those.
MLF did it first, and then Latios copied that if my memory serves correctly
I don't really have that huge of an issue with it; it's just kinda disheartening to spend so much time and effort writing that as cohesively as possible and then just having people steal it as need arises.

Hey! I repurposed it specifically BECAUSE it was well written. [emoji14] Feel honored that your project has been reincarnated!

[JDMEK5]

Hey! I repurposed it specifically BECAUSE it was well written. [emoji14] Feel honored that your project has been reincarnated!

As I do. lol

[FireArrow]

Yeah, I remember way back when Olimar appointed you lord of fixing the sheets :3

But my thoughts: Both options have their pros and cons, and while I've had a bit of trouble following the conversation, maybe it's already been mentioned but I think: Arrangement project and fixing the sheets = One project. Then have a max of 2 projects on at once. (But I'd recommend only 1 at a time) This should keep us from having to split the current updater team while actually increasing productivity in both the projects as well as regular submissions/replacements. I'm just trying not to overthink it too much.

No, it would not increase productivity, or at least by a significant margin. I took a half hour to write out all the math and decided it would be too tl;dr to get any attention from important people, so I'll just leave it at this. Your idea would reduce the current workload to less than 33%, so if you want to see a project that has downtime waiting for the staff that's less than 3-4 months, something else is going to have to change. There's 3 conclusions you can draw from this:

1) The current staff doesn't have the man power to handle both projects and submissions.
2) The current state of things is not an accurate representation of the staffs capabilities.
3) The staff is currently putting a lot of effort into something ephemeral, taking a lot of focus outside of arrangement projects.

If either 2 or 3 are true, then no solution is needed. If 1 is true, then we have the following solutions:

1) Remove official arrangement projects all together and make everyone submit their own stuff.
2) Reduce the workload of arrangement projects to something more manageable.
3) Add more man power to the staff.

The first solution is a bit sad, but I could life with it. The second one is completely implausible, because you'd have to reduce the size of things far beyond simply combining them in order to get the desired results. Three is probably the best solution, but requires both willingness from the staff (they seem to be pretty conservative when it comes to community suggestions and discussion, and rightfully so since things are in a better state then ever before) and candidates for the staff (I sure ain't one and the few qualified people I can think of aren't very active.)

Honestly, I vote for getting rid of official arrangement projects all together. Combining them might give it life for another month or so, but it'll just die again. Getting more staff members isn't gonna happen unless Olimars willing to host free theory lessons for the few people on this forum who have the time to make such a commitment. The submission board is going quite well and I don't see any reason why we can't just submit our things there.

[Latios212]

Let's see...

So in my opinion there isn't a problem with the amount of manpower (knowledge and capability) around here. I'd say the problem is more because the bursts of free time and motivation within the staff come somewhat spontaneously, and even more so because the updaters aren't being used efficiently. (See below.)

Best ways to help fix, in my opinion:
- On the community side: More feedback from the community on the actual sheets. Believe it or not, not all the sheets that end up on the updaters` desks are almost perfect. I'd say a significant portion of what we end up doing is trivial stuff that anyone could do, like making sure notes and articulations don't collide, which ends up eating up a lot of our time that we could be using to approve more sheets. The mindset right now seems to be that once you submit something for a project, it's in the hands of the updaters, but actually we need as much feedback from people as possible in order for the updaters to just put a stamp of approval on everything and move on. Besides TMP, FireArrow, and Tobbeh, the SM64 project has been pretty much dead in regards to feedback. What happened to everyone who voted for it?
- On the staff side: Set timed goals. We've been successfully reaching our 20-subs-per-month minimum, but, err, we don't have a set schedule for projects at all.

As for new staff:

the few qualified people I can think of aren't very active.

And I'm not the person to discuss new staff with, anyway.

This might not sound very nice, but rather than speculate when projects will finish, I suggest everyone help move them along. Please? This comes up again and again, but I can't stress enough the importance of community feedback and support in helping to fix sheets. Anyone can do it.

[Sebastian]

This might not sound very nice, but rather than speculate when projects will finish, I suggest everyone help move them along. Please?

beautiful

[Altissimo]

I wonder if it might be helpful to have a separate set of staff (maybe just for community projects, maybe for submissions as well) whose goal is, above all else, to address and fix aesthetic things, like the aforementioned "notes and articulations colliding" and general formatting issues; anyone with access to the proper template or Finale can give a sheet the formatting it needs if it doesn't have it already. Then, all the "musical" updaters would have to do is address the musical elements, and not formatting issues.

I think it'd help tremendously in taking the workload off the current updaters, freeing up more time for looking at and accepting submissions/projects, and I don't think it'd take too much time out of the "formatting" updaters' day to fix simple formatting issues.

[FireArrow]

So in my opinion there isn't a problem with the amount of manpower (knowledge and capability) around here. I'd say the problem is more because the bursts of free time and motivation within the staff come somewhat spontaneously, and even more so because the updaters aren't being used efficiently. (See below.)

People are people and updating isn't a paid job, so using a high, consistent level performance as a measurement of what an individual updater is capable of isn't going to work. The idea of adding more man power is that having more people with spontaneous free time and motivation equates to more work getting done.

Best ways to help fix, in my opinion:
- On the community side: More feedback from the community on the actual sheets. Believe it or not, not all the sheets that end up on the updaters` desks are almost perfect. I'd say a significant portion of what we end up doing is trivial stuff that anyone could do, like making sure notes and articulations don't collide, which ends up eating up a lot of our time that we could be using to approve more sheets. The mindset right now seems to be that once you submit something for a project, it's in the hands of the updaters, but actually we need as much feedback from people as possible in order for the updaters to just put a stamp of approval on everything and move on. Besides TMP, FireArrow, and Tobbeh, the SM64 project has been pretty much dead in regards to feedback. What happened to everyone who voted for it?

To be fair, this is also an example of why non staff plebs have little power in arrangement projects (as opposed to the submission board, where community feedback is easy and effective and threads don't "die".) Iirc, the feedback you mentioned still has yet to even result in anything... because the project is dead. If we were updaters, we could go in and make the changes ourselves (a la Don in New Leaf.) That's why I think we need some sort of drastic change to projects, they don't run smoothly and they're too reliant on motivated staff members. The best way to do this besides finding more staff is simply doing away with the "Official" title and make people get the sheets onto site using the method proven to work - the submission board.

[Altissimo]

The best way to do this besides finding more staff is simply doing away with the "Official" title and make people get the sheets onto site using the method proven to work - the submission board.

I honestly don't want arrangement projects to go away. The submission board may be "proven to work" but it's also slow as molasses to get a lot of things accepted through it. Like, I've said before my plan is to get all the Hamtaro sheets on site. Without a personal update, or an arrangement project, this is going to take at least six years, and while I like participating in other arrangement projects (like GSC) I can't justify putting them through submissions when a) Latios has already looked at and approved of half of my GSC sheets and b) it's time I can't use for the Hamtaro sheets.

This is a personal anecdote but really, I think separate arrangement projects are important.

[FireArrow]

I honestly don't want arrangement projects to go away. The submission board may be "proven to work" but it's also slow as molasses to get a lot of things accepted through it. Like, I've said before my plan is to get all the Hamtaro sheets on site. Without a personal update, or an arrangement project, this is going to take at least six years, and while I like participating in other arrangement projects (like GSC) I can't justify putting them through submissions when a) Latios has already looked at and approved of half of my GSC sheets and b) it's time I can't use for the Hamtaro sheets.

This is a personal anecdote but really, I think separate arrangement projects are important.

Arrangement projects are significantly slower from a number of sheets perspective (though I suppose it's still faster if you're trying to upload an OST?) If you wanna try to keep them in a way that isn't unreasonably slow, we either need more staff members (which includes ideas like yours, which I really like ;3) or at least making them more conductive to community feedback.

[Latios212]

The idea of adding more man power is that having more people with spontaneous free time and motivation equates to more work getting done.

Again, I'm not in charge of this and I'm not completely clear on why we don't need more staff, but from what I understand we simply don't have any perfect candidates. Who are you thinking of?

To be fair, this is also an example of why non staff plebs have little power in arrangement projects (as opposed to the submission board, where community feedback is easy and effective and threads don't "die".) Iirc, the feedback you mentioned still has yet to even result in anything... because the project is dead. If we were updaters, we could go in and make the changes ourselves (a la Don in New Leaf.) That's why I think we need some sort of drastic change to projects, they don't run smoothly and they're too reliant on motivated staff members. The best way to do this besides finding more staff is simply doing away with the "Official" title and make people get the sheets onto site using the method proven to work - the submission board.

Well this would be solved if everyone simply gave consent for their sheets to be fixed up by others. Which I don't think would be difficult to get? We're a pretty collaborative community. Again, I'm still not sure who exactly you're referring to.