Asking for your input on new site rules
June 10, 2023
Given recent events, here are the two changes that I’m planning on making for the site:
Developing a new set of rules and guidelines with input from the site community, and
Creating the Community Moderator system, where a rotating group of users will be able to make moderation decisions.
I’m developing the second part now and I’ll talk more about it when it’s closer to being ready, but today I wanted to gather ideas for new site rules.
In general, the rules need to be broad enough to cover most realistic situations in which they’d need to be applied, and not get too numerous and precise in an attempt to address every possible scenario. For example:
- Activity descriptions need to be three paragraphs or longer.
versus:
- Activity descriptions should provide a clear description of how to perform the activity.
I think the second is probably better because it allows for activities where a very short description is adequate.
My plan is to gather your rule ideas for a week, and then make a Google survey where I ask everyone to vote on which rules you think should be adopted on the site, starting the week of June 19. I’ll give one example of a rule that I plan on putting forward:
- Activity attachments should only consist of classroom materials. (This rule is because sometimes I see people attach completely unrelated files to their activities, like resumes or job applications. Please don’t do this – it’s not the purpose of the site, and it means anyone can see these files.)
Rules for comments and activities will need to be slightly different, since they have different purposes. It might be worth separating the rules into site-wide content guidelines, activity rules, and comment rules.
Please leave your rule suggestions in comments to this post, or send them to me using the site Contact system. If you want to talk about the situation in general, I’d request that you leave comments on the previous “June freeze” post.
I don't think completely barring activities on social issues completely is the best move here. We would have to take down all activities about Pride, Civil Rights, historical events, even activities relating around common holidays like Christmas and Easter. A big part of our job is sharing our culture with the students, and I think it's important to allow people the chance to share that with their students if they choose. Again, people can choose to use these activities, and they can choose not to.
However, ensuring a baseline quality and content standard is not a bad idea. I think having our guidelines follow MEXT's is a great way to ensure that our activities fall in line with what's being taught at our schools, while also allowing us the freedom to deviate from the textbook if we want to.
Activities should also be accessible for the students tagged. If an activity couldn't be run or understood without heavy JTE intervention, then the mods have the right to ask the OP to edit it.
While it may reflect in more work for @Jake database-wise, it may be worth making it so that activities HAVE to be linked to a specific part of a book, and/or specific keyword. Not only will it be a strong basic filter of out-of-scope topics, but it will make searching and filtering even better for the site/admin. altopedia is a reference and idea website, not our solution for all activities, nor a place to get our agenda over, if your school/JTE is asking for an activity that is not directly related to a grammar/book, then let it fall on you, the ALT, to make your own.
Things like English board material can still be categorized as a special "English Board Material" keyword, making it easy to find.
I also most definitely support the "Report" button, one can usually find them in any forum/discussion board. It's not just for the sake of avoiding flame wars, but straight up badly submitted activities, plagiarism, missing/broken files, etc.
@ToddC this is probably the best solution. I think thumbs up (like button) is the only way to show we appreciate the hard work. There should be some kind of (heart button ) to show the most loved one. That's it.
Outright banning topics that don't directly come from the book seems really silly to me. For example, none of my text books talk about Christmas or Halloween, but we do special classes for them every year. So could I not post materials that I might use because my textbook doesn't talk about them?
I think a report button seems like the best idea. Maybe upvote and downvotes for unhelpful comments?
Oh! Also, no descriptions that say 'Same rules as OO game.' Or 'OO game clone' please explain the rules even if its a super common game. It took me forever to figure what Battle for Japan was.
I strongly disagree with the idea of removing the comment section altogether. Part of what makes altopedia great is the ability to share ideas and get feedback. If it does come to a full removal - as in, we are unable as a community to get our act together and be civil, leaving that as the only feasible option - it will be a huge loss, in my opinion.
I do not agree that it has to be specifically tied to a textbook.. A lot of the cultural based activities are very helpful and informative, and may not be connected to a specific unit. Like country presentations. There are even some story based posts that would not really fall under anything, like the excellent Momotaro, and Isshin-Boushin ones for example. Sometimes there are times in class where we may not necessarily be doing textbook related activities, so fun little games and information about various countries I think is really good, even if it is not textbook related.
Also, another thing to back up the idea of needing it to be connected to a textbook. My special needs class, we do not use a textbook at all, and sometimes these simple and interesting stories and activities are perfect for them.
How about a 3 strike policy to deter people from continuously posting problematic and controversial material. It is also worth noting that the last 2 controversial activities were posted by the same person.
@lyricalottie I agree, I think comments are helpful for feedback and questions about activities.
I like the idea of only posting activities related to social issues if they are directly mentioned in the textbooks. That's not stopping anyone from making activies not mentioned in the books, only from posting them here.
I also strongly disagree with totally removing the comment section. I sometimes overlook some details on my worksheets and presentations and could correct them thanks to the feedback of the good people on the site. It's sad that we're considering removing that aspect of this website when we're all adults here. The upvote and downvote idea sounds great!
Let's just keep social issues limited to what's in the textbooks, as others have said. The issues being brought up lately are highly opinion-based. Also, moderators can easily be biased. We have to remember that we're ALTs and nothing more; we are not the main characters here. Leave the deep thinking about social issues to the teachers whose job it is to do that stuff.
@Kmontgo Nobody has suggested banning topics that don't come from the book. Please read my original suggestion again.
This would specifically apply to social issues. Of course you could upload materials about halloween and christmas.
The least bad option in the short term is to remove the comment section, perhaps replaced with a more nuanced voting system, that would give an indication of a submission being controversial, and to think about before using them.
Outside of that, submissions that are simply trolling should be removed. Though again that would be a subjective judgement.
As many have said, being a new ALT is often daunting, given textbooks and materials are often often lacking. This site has been so important for me and others in giving a solid set of activities to enhance our lessons. Thank you again for all your hard work, and to all the contributors who have made my lessons much better than they would otherwise be!
Anything can be interpreted as hate speech. Everything is controversial. Remove the comments section, it's not needed.
Instead allow users to submit one-way feedback to the creator of an activity. Only the creator can view the feedback. You can even leave this in the same format as the comments are currently, just change the authentication on the backend. This will allow the creator to see their feedback and edit their activity accordingly.
the comment section is really really useful for correcting minor errors, updating or changing things, or letting people share and exchange ideas. i've always found value in reading what people changed when they used someone else's activity. in every single activity aside from gordy's, the comment section has been an absolute boon. i think it's worth pointing that out.
I see a reoccuring problem if we only allow creators to view the comments made on their activities. For example, if a creator has an error on their activity, the creator of the activity might get 10+ comments saying the same exact constructive feedback because everyone else viewing the activity can't see each other's comments so they don't know the creator already got feedback on that specific issue 10+ times.
I really like the new collections feature! It's sweet
I feel the need to restate my original suggestion here as people have taken it out of context:
- Activities that approach social issues can only approach the issues being talked about in the text books.
The suggestion is that if an activity is going to discuss social issues then they should be linked to a textbook. The logic behind this is that any social issues within the textbooks have already been approved by the government or our employers and therefore we can avoid any arguments as to whether or not an activity on social issues belongs on this site. This is a verifiable method of ensuring content adheres to MEXT guidelines and stops the unprofessional minority from bringing the site down.
This would not ban christmas, halloween and games - Please check my activities, not a single one is attached to a textbook however as they do not deal with social issues there would be no need to attach them to a textbook.
I hope things makes things clearer.
I have been thinking about this a lot and I think that if there is a robust "report" system in place then a lot of the hate that has spilled over into elsewhere will have an outlet. Reporting is limited to each activity one time per user (or a user can report an activity max once per month. Activities can be edited and potentially made worse). Perhaps once you click on the report you go to a page with the guidelines detailed and "Are you sure this activity is agains the site guidelines?" at the bottom. Perhaps also the user has to click which guideline it breaks.