#BuildaBetterEden - Community Planning: July 2012 - Everybody welcome!

I'm concerned that many of the suggestions are tied to rank, in many cases raising the minimum level to qualify. Rank does not necessarily correlate to ability as a reviewer or mentor. As an example, if we raise the mentor requirement to 7.0, that would reduce the current pool of mentors from 142 down to just 42, and that includes members that are not active anymore. I have been reviewing for almost 2 years and I would not qualify. I think we just have to be careful about relying on rank to set the standard since it's not a good gauge.

I also think a Mentors and Editors only area could be useful, but should probably include past editors and inactive mentors. I have not been an active editor for awhile but I know the program quite well and feel I could contribute in a discussion. less

I have friends who sell toys through their sites like tupperware, I was wondering if eden could do something similar. Like the affiliate program, but a person who joins can be given a cookie cutter site to use (that's customizable) plus sales help and suggestions from experienced members at the site. less

Just popping my head in to say that I'm liking the direction of discussion so far, and echoing Kindred's thoughts about a) rank not being the sole judge of someone's capability, b) possibly having a feedback system for mentors, if a way that it can me done quasi-anonymously can be figured out, and c) that judging a mentor by students' reviews is not fair, because the student is the owner of their own review.

If you were to look at ways to judge mentors' suitability, (AND THIS IS ONLY A BRAINSTORM), I know that I always communicate with my students using the comments field beneath the review, and always the log that's recorded there shows my suggestions, and what my students thought of them. If there are complaints leveled that a mentored review is of poor quality, maybe an admin could read through that log and see whether the mentor attempted to get the student to focus on the 'bare spots'? less

for the mentor program, what about a qualifier test? it could be multiple choice, like the personality tests retail stores have for applicants, essay,or perhaps a mix. It would test knowledge of toys, materials, cleaning methods, along with writing and editing skills and people skills. It an be time and there are special browsers that are available so people can't check the answers online. This way, people are scored more on their skills and less on how many reviews they've written. less

This made me think of an idea.

What about a match quiz for students and mentors? When the student wants to join the mentor program that are directed to a quiz. It should ask things like what do you want to improve on in the program? What kind of items are you looking to review? A other personality questions and questions about what you plan to do here. When you finish the quiz it could link you to a selection of mentors that meet your needs.

Of course mentors would have to fill out a quizz too, so we can be paired with students. However, the suggested mentors are just suggested. So, they can still request who they wish. less

There are many suggestions from last month and some of those are going to be implemented.

This month, if we could focus on suggestions for the mentor program, that would be fantastic.

- What's good, what's not?
- What do you think about the criteria to become a mentor? less

If this has already been said, I apologize, but I was editing reviews earlier (some as a proofreader and some as a mentor) and it occurred to me that a lot of the issues with the Mentor program could be addressed by getting rid of the "gift card" and just rewarding Mentor's for each review edited.

It's not as big a reward, but at least then the mentor is rewarded for the reviews he or she edited regardless of the outcome of the class, and regardless if someone is advanced or not. It might also encourage some mentors to work a little longer with students before "graduating" them.

As for an easy way to judge who's appropriate to be a mentor — you've got me.

I see way too many people vote "EU/excellent" on reviews riddled with bad grammar and errors, but then only "U/Good" on other reviews seemingly because they don't have pictures or they're short (i.e. they don't give "the chemical breakdown for things like water and air" ) to consider rank as an accurate indicator of… well, anything. less

The system would have to be set up to only reward points for reviewers who are not already advanced and have a rank of 5.5 or lower because currently the $25 GC is only for graduating/failing non-advanced students and editing points would not be awarded because above 5.5 you auto-publish. I think it's doable, just would require programming changes. less

This made me think of an idea.

What about a match quiz for students and mentors? When the student wants to join the mentor program that are directed to a quiz. It should ask things like what do you want to improve on in the program? What kind of items are you looking to review? A other personality questions and questions about what you plan to do here. When you finish the quiz it could link you to a selection of mentors that meet your needs.

Of course mentors would have to fill out a quizz too, so we can be paired with students. However, the suggested mentors are just suggested. So, they can still request who they wish. less

I made a few suggestions last month so I won't repeat them, but overall the program needs to have more information available regarding the program for both students and mentors alike. For example, the function of a mentor (versus an editor/proofreader) and how to request student assignments. Too many contributors don't understand how the program works.

I'm not sure what the criteria are to become a mentor other than having a rank of 6.0. Unfortunately, rank often is not a reflection of one's ability to write quality reviews or mentor. Rank is affected too much by sheer volume of reviews. Personally, I hate to say it but there are mentors that I feel are not the most qualified when I look at their own reviews. I think the qualifications could stand to be a little stricter.

I also mentioned awhile back that it would be great if we could implement some sort of rating/feedback system so that prospective students have an idea of past students' experiences with that mentor. I'm not sure how to implement this and have the results still be anonymous.

Edit: And I really like the idea of a directed thread each month. less

Gosh, sorry everyone! I kept meaning to respond to all of the posts, I haven't forgotten about you.

@Antipova - You can edit your information here: "link". It's in the Mentor program dashboard.

Ok so basically what I'm taking away from all of this is that rank should not be a deciding factor and that we need to outline the mentor responsibilities and provide better resources for both mentors and students? Correct? And possibly a matching system...my only issue with the matching system is that people might feel like some mentors are getting more of the requests than others. Just due to the way it would be set up, this might cause people to say they are skilled in things they aren't. So what do you have in the way of suggestions for that?

I do know we have some programming changes coming down the pipe, it's just a matter of time. less

Gosh, sorry everyone! I kept meaning to respond to all of the posts, I haven't forgotten about you.

@Antipova - You can edit your information here: "link". It's in the Mentor program dashboard.

Ok so basically what I'm taking away from all of this is that rank should not be a deciding factor and that we need to outline the mentor responsibilities and provide better resources for both mentors and students? Correct? And possibly a matching system...my only issue with the matching system is that people might feel like some mentors are getting more of the requests than others. Just due to the way it would be set up, this might cause people to say they are skilled in things they aren't. So what do you have in the way of suggestions for that?

I do know we have some programming changes coming down the pipe, it's just a matter of time. less

Here are several suggestions that I think might be useful to implement:

Affiliate reports - export to xls:
link

Estimated "back in stock" date:
link
link

Quantity in stock:
link
link

Backordering (not sure about this one since -unlike my other three suggestions- it might be a little tricky):
link less

This would take a lot of work, but could we get an overhaul of the product categories and have them more consistent with the "Refine by" feature and with review categories? Some examples:

-All clothing is currently listed under "Sexy Lingerie." However, this includes men's clothing/underwear and costumes. How about if the Overall heading was instead "Clothing and Costumes" and then break it into the current sub-categories?

-The Vixskin Spur dildo is classified as a prostate massager.

-Reviews for the Tantus Acute dildo are listed under Dildo Harnesses > Attachments and accessories.

-Men's underwear as products are listed under Sexy Lingerie, but the reviews are under "For Men > Raunchy Underwear" (And I find the term raunchy inaccurate and a little offensive)

These are just a few examples of some of the strange groupings I've encountered and really feel like that whole system just needs someone to look it over and update it. Products and reviews are not always located intuitively. less

There appears to be at least a few mentors that are no longer active but still appear on the available mentor list. Would it be possible to institute an automated system in which mentors would be notified every few months and have to actively confirm that they are still mentoring, otherwise the "don't accept new students" is automatically turned on? less