The gaff - time for a rethink?

[#1]

Is it time for a rethink about the place of The gaff in the community?

Each week a new edition is published and is given pride of place as a sticky thread on the ‘Contribute’ board, but does it really deserve such treatment? I would argue that it doesn’t.

The first problem for me is that it is unclear how The gaff is put together. I can find the names of ‘contributors’, but who has editorial control? Is it the mysterious @willp789 who posts it to the board each week? And is it signed off by giffgaff staff before publication? (The ignoring of the dreadful issues related to the Halloween advertising campaign in last week’s edition would suggest not, but maybe it should be?). And if any other members of the community wanted to contribute, would that be welcomed? If so, how can other members go about that?

A second issue is the quality of the content, which seems to either be lifted from elsewhere in the community or copied directly from external websites, as was the case with the High-Tech Highlights section last week. Does this really fit with the purpose of the ‘Contribute’ board as a space to provide feedback, take part in giffgaff projects and have a say in upcoming developments?

One of the biggest issues for me is that each edition of The gaff is followed by many comments which seem to be placed entirely with the aim of getting kudos - which are given by (and in some cases to) those involved in the production of The gaff - but only if the comments are entirely uncritical. Of course, this is nothing unusual on the giffgaff forums, but when The gaff is given pride of place as a sticky thread in the Contribute board, it smacks of corrupt practice by giffgaff.

I would welcome your thoughts. Maybe I am being overly harsh, but I would suggest that The gaff  be moved to the General Discussion board as a non-sticky thread. What do you think?

[#2]

@alanjury I disagree with what you have said will789 is a giffgaff member who does a good job with all the other members who help. now going on about kudos so what it doesn't hurt you as for the Halloween thread one mistake that the gaff didn't know about then was edited.if it had to go in GD they might as well stop it all together.

[#3]

@allan1954

Thank you for your thoughts.

I would have to disagree with you regarding kudos. As I understand it, there is a fixed amount of payback to be shared out each 6 months, and the number of kudos received is one of the factors which will determine the amount of payback received. 

Perhaps your opinion is influenced by the 5 kudos you received simply for writing 'always a good read the gaff.' last week, 2 of which were from contributors to The gaff?

[#4]

@alanjury now you have brought in payback isn't that going off topic your thread was about the gaff.i get and give kudos in that thread every week I appreciate what the members do on the forum like the gaff you asked for comments which i gave you mine then bring in about kudos I have given in the gaff wonder never cease.

[#5]

@allan1954

If you look at the penultimate paragraph of my original post, you will see that I said "One of the biggest issues for me is that each edition of The gaff is followed by many comments which seem to be placed entirely with the aim of getting kudos", and that "when The gaff is given pride of place as a sticky thread in the Contribute board, it smacks of corrupt practice by giffgaff."

The issue of kudos is not going off topic, it is a key part of the problem as I see it.

[#6]

Sorry I've been absent from the community this weekend, which unfortunately coincided with the halloween content issues. I take my role of editing The gaff very seriously, but sometimes there simply isn't time to check every e-mail that hits my giffgaff inbox (yes, I have a seperate inbox for giffgaff). In this case, I was busy with coursework for my degree.

I think the easiest way to answer all your questions @alanjury is one-by-one:

• Each week a new edition is published and is given pride of place as a sticky thread on the ‘Contribute’ board, but does it really deserve such treatment? Clearly the answer of this is subjective, and I don't feel it's my place to comment on whether it's deserving of "such treatment", but it's been a longstanding tradition that The gaff is stickied on Contribute each week, since long before I took over editing. The main reason for stickying The gaff has been to make it easier to find, especially since it's no longer possible to subscribe for weekly PMs.
• Who has editorial control? That would be me. Small gramatical errors which I spot will be edited. If I find bigger problems, I will talk with the member who wrote the content and we will agree on a solution. This sometimes happens, but for the most part there aren't any issues.
• And is it signed off by giffgaff staff before publication? No, but is this something we should look into long-term? The reason we don't currently do this is because The gaff is (and always has been) a member-run project.
• If any other members of the community wanted to contribute, would that be welcomed? If so, how can other members go about that? Absolutely. If anyone is interested and feels they can offer something new to the gaff, they can send me a PM and we can talk about it. I'm always open to new ideas.
• A second issue is the quality of the content, which seems to either be lifted from elsewhere in the community or copied directly from external websites, as was the case with the High-Tech Highlights section last week. Ah ok, now this is the first time I've heard about this. After a quick look, it would appear you are correct in saying that High-Tech Highlights was (for the most part) copied from an article elsewhere. I don't agree with this practice, but the source was cited so technically it's not necessarily plagiarism (not that this makes it acceptable). I will be having words with the contributers to see if we can spin news content from a fresh perspective to avoid this issue.
• Does this really fit with the purpose of the ‘Contribute’ board as a space to provide feedback, take part in giffgaff projects and have a say in upcoming developments? I don't think the aforementioned problem with High-Tech Highlights is a significant factor in deciding whether The gaff is worthy of being posted in Contribute. When you consider The gaff as a whole, it's very clear that The gaff belongs here rather than General Discussion.
• One of the biggest issues for me is that each edition of The gaff is followed by many comments which seem to be placed entirely with the aim of getting kudos. You're more than welcome to post regular comments under The gaff to get more kudos . On a serious note, it's hard to say whether this behaviour is deliberate, but it's something which I agree shouldn't be happening for the purpose of getting more kudos. What kind of solution could we implement to fix this "issue"?

I hope that's helped clear things up somewhat, and again I'm sorry that I missed the content issue this week. Due to my tight schedule, I often compile and edit The gaff up to 24 hours ahead of the publication time. The contributers are typically sending me their content on Wednesday / Thursday so I've got enough time, so I certainly don't think this is the fault of bluemoonbaz. Regardless, it's very sad that giffgaff's halloween campaign has been halted and there will be many knock-on effects (such as the content issue with The gaff).

Anything else, please @mention me or PM me .

[#7]

@alanjury wrote:

I would welcome your thoughts. Maybe I am being overly harsh, but I would suggest that The gaff  be moved to the General Discussion board as a non-sticky thread. What do you think?

In my opinion I think you are being too harsh, and The Gaff should be where it is as a sticky in Contribute.

The Gaff has always been a thread where those that don't live on here can see what's been going on in the community quickly and easily without having to trawl through pages of threads, so it should reflect content from elsewhere on the community, that's kind of the point. As to the actual content, that'll always be subjective and more seem to like it than not.

I've never been involved with The Gaff, but I would suspect that it is prepared well in advance and scheduled to start at a pre-determined time. It may well be signed off by giffgaff as well but what does that matter?

As to the Halloween thing, that most likely blew up after the edition was submitted and therefore there would have been no reason at that time to edit the content.

The kudos issue is whole other issue. Lots of people kudos each other all over the place, but I doubt the kudos given in The Gaff thread accounts to much in the whole scheme of things and I don't see any connection with people giving kudos and "corrupt" practice by giffgaff  in regard to The Gaff.

edit: typo

[#8]

@alanjury how do i get this please as it working for you. Please give kudos or award 'best answer' if this post has been useful. 363 posts 313 kudos.as for the gaff and contribute long may it reign.

[#9]

Thank you for the comprehensive reply, @willp789

I will see what other forum members have to say before comingh back to you, but in the meantime thanks for the clarifications!

[#10]

@willp789 wrote:

On a serious note, it's hard to say whether this behaviour is deliberate, but it's something which I agree shouldn't be happening for the purpose of getting more kudos. What kind of solution could we implement to fix this "issue"?

@willp789

My view would be that for many who post in the thread, it is deliberate behaviour designed to increase payback. Of course, the same behavior is rife elsewhere and we should remember that much of what we see posted in the entire community is driven by payback.

As far as the Gaff is concerned, I can think of two solutions; keep it in Contribute but lock it or post it in GD (where I gather posts and kudos have less effect on payback) but, if you like, have a locked post linking to it in Contribute.