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?
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?
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.
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:
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 .
@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
@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"?
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.