Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version 1.0

Discuss all topics related to the existing rules and policies

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Vote to officially ratify the Project Manager Guidelines (Wiki) and approve from draft status

Yes - I read the proposed rules and vote to officially approve them
11
92%
No - There is something seriously wrong. I object.
0
No votes
Wait - Please make some minor corrections first. I'll change my vote after it's satisfactory.
1
8%
 
Total votes: 12

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Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version 1.0

Post by cloudii »

  • As of April 8nd, 21:23 GMT, 2014, Supervisor Simon has approved the ratification of the Project Manager Rules with 10 in favor, 1 waiting, and 0 objections.

    These rules are now officially passed. The wiki page is protected from all changes.
------------

For this poll, vote ONLY on the:
What was decided at Baka-Tsuki General Meeting
1). Project Supervisor -> Project Manager (position can be filled by anyone, but usually a project translator)
2). Project Administrator -> Supervisor (position must be filled by wiki supervisor or above)

Vote: In Favor (8) - Not in Favor (0)
In case of inactivity or management problems, the project staff may ask the Supervisor to mediate and/or appoint a new Project Manager amongst the active project members

Vote: In Favor (8) - Not in Favor (0)
First project manager is appointed by supervisor during ATP procedure.

Vote: In Favor (6) - Not in Favor (1)
Other Interesting Changes of Note:

1). Hm, despite the discussion at the General Baka-Tsuki meeting (most of the attendees favored some really strict activity rules), I've started this written draft with the most flexible, least-strict rules.

2). If you favor stricter rules than what I've written here, propose something and I'll start a vote.

3). As for appointing the first project manager during ATP procedure... I've more-or-less spread that rule onto the Project Startup Guidelines. If you noticed, there's a line there that suggests that a project manager be assigned then.

------------

If you vote, please leave a comment saying what you voted for. This is not a secret ballot.

This is simply so we don't get stumped if 5 trolling readers people vote "no" or something. FYI, the votes are changeable.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by Misogi »

Voted Yes after a quick glance.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by Cindynka »

Voted Yes - I don't see anything that would be out of place/not detailed enough
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by cloudii »

voted yes for myself... xD

Kind of impressed this time. No one's taken issue yet(?)
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by Hiro Hayase »

Voted yes as well
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by rydenius »

Yup, same here, looks good. Voted yes.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by arczyx »

I vote for minor correction (or maybe just asking for further explanation).
First project manager is appointed by supervisor during ATP procedure.
I thought the one who started the project is the first project manager by default and therefore is not "appointed"? What if there's no supervisor yet? And who "decide" the supervisor anyway?
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by cloudii »

arczyx wrote:I vote for minor correction (or maybe just asking for further explanation).
First project manager is appointed by supervisor during ATP procedure.
I thought the one who started the project is the first project manager by default and therefore is not "appointed"? What if there's no supervisor yet? And who "decide" the supervisor anyway?
Sure. I'll explain the reasoning (if I remember the conversation correctly).

A some situations, the person who starts the project has no intention to stay with the project (ie: they started it as a "teaser" that they really only translated for fun). As such, they may not necessarily want Manager responsibilities, etc.

That's why we decided it wasn't exactly accurate to automatically assign Project Manager to the project starter.

Ideally, the Project Manager should be the most dedicated individual to the project. With that in mind, the people at the meeting pointed out that the person who puts in the application for full project approval usually intends to carry on with the project and cares a lot about it (hence Krytyk suggested the appointment occur there).

...Retrospectively, I'm not sure if that's the most practical way of carrying out things, but it was something that was discussed at the meeting and I've quoted it for everyone's reference. If you read carefully, I actually didn't put that line in the new rules word-for-word, since "appointment" has connotations that the process is one-sided, which I don't necessarily think is always the case (and if it were, it'd be more work XD).

-----

Neither the Project Manager nor the Designated Supervisor are required positions.

If there's no Designated Supervisor, then communication should default to all wiki supervisors. That's why there's an Administration Contact Page on the Wiki, now. In the past, it was supposed to default to Oni, but Oni's so overloaded and busy nowadays I think it's fair to distribute the load more.

If there's no Project Manager, then communication should default to active translators. Furthermore, the guidelines of the project should follow the default Baka-Tsuki rules.

-------

"Deciding" of Designated Supervisors doesn't really occur. Since there's such a small number of Supervisors (and theoretically, all of you Administration people are supposed to know each other ;D), I sort of assumed you guys would take the roles you guys wanted and resolve it amongst yourselves.

Furthermore, it's not like the "Supervisor" role is a crucial role. It's present for historical reasons, as it's really a re-naming of "Project Administrator". Designated Supervisors aren't supposed to do much, but they're an available resource that's listed if necessary. I've also added (in consideration of several "incidents" in the past months), that Project Managers have no punitive power, whereas Supervisors do. This formally gives Supervisors/Administrators a little bit more leverage in projects than they used to.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by arczyx »

Ah, thanks a lot for the explanation. I'm ok with it now (though just like you said, I think "appoint" is not the right word). Also, one more thing:
"Deciding" of Designated Supervisors doesn't really occur. Since there's such a small number of Supervisors (and theoretically, all of you Administration people are supposed to know each other ;D), I sort of assumed you guys would take the roles you guys wanted and resolve it amongst yourselves.
Does this mean someone with wiki supervisor rights can assume the role of supervisor in the projects he/she wants without any procedure? (nothing wrong with it, just asking)
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by cloudii »

arczyx wrote:Ah, thanks a lot for the explanation. I'm ok with it now (though just like you said, I think "appoint" is not the right word). Also, one more thing:
"Deciding" of Designated Supervisors doesn't really occur. Since there's such a small number of Supervisors (and theoretically, all of you Administration people are supposed to know each other ;D), I sort of assumed you guys would take the roles you guys wanted and resolve it amongst yourselves.
Does this mean someone with wiki supervisor rights can assume the role of supervisor in the projects he/she wants without any procedure? (nothing wrong with it, just asking)
Yes, that's about right. No procedure was ever developed for Supervisors.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by victorrama »

victorrama walks in. victorrama sees the poll.victorrama votes yes.victorrama goes out.

its perfect and i voted yes at the meeting. and it stays even now :D.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by chancs »

Voted yes. No issues.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by rock96 »

Well, yes. No problems from my side.
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by rydenius »

In light of discussion on the preceding rule ratification thread (New Project Startup Guidelines) related to handling site-wide Recent Updates reporting, I'm wondering:
Should chapter completion reporting be a responsibility that should be added for Project Managers? If update notices are posted to a central "Recent Updates" page by the Project Managers, that would save the person running the Twitter and Facebook feeds a lot of effort trying to keep track of when a new chapter is finished. It could also be useful in that Project Managers could then delay the update notice in order to give editors time to edit and quality check a newly posted translation.

Additionally, thinking about the "Requirements and Responsibilities" section and detailing what the Project Manager duties are, the draft seems to be mainly "requirements" and not very specific in the way of "responsibilities". Are there specific responsibilities that it would be good to enumerate here? Maybe as sub points or appended to this line:
You must be a dedicated contributor of the Project, meaning, you frequently monitor the project and read all of the contributions that are made to it.
Monitor the project and... do what? :? Also should the "what" to be monitored for be detailed? Or is it better to just leave these things vague? (Surely the monitoring is for disallowed material, maintaining compliance with the guidelines, and resolving issues between editors and translators, etc., but are those things that should be made specific in the guidelines?)

I'm not necessarily in favor of any changes here, just throwing it out there since everything was going so smoothly on the ratification... :twisted:
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Re: Rule Ratification: Project Manager Rules (Wiki) Version

Post by cloudii »

rydenius wrote:In light of discussion on the preceding rule ratification thread (New Project Startup Guidelines) related to handling site-wide Recent Updates reporting, I'm wondering:
Should chapter completion reporting be a responsibility that should be added for Project Managers? If update notices are posted to a central "Recent Updates" page by the Project Managers, that would save the person running the Twitter and Facebook feeds a lot of effort trying to keep track of when a new chapter is finished. It could also be useful in that Project Managers could then delay the update notice in order to give editors time to edit and quality check a newly posted translation.
In an ideal world, that would be nice.

But from a practical standpoint, people (especially people on Baka-Tsuki) are really lazy. xD I don't really believe it that even if we made it a rule, people would go along with it. I can imagine the faces of half of our project managers grumbling if they're told they need to post the updates to a central location. I even know projects who don't even post their update notification to their own project updates list. xD In the end, it wouldn't be utilized universally, and then we'd have a dead-weight rule that really isn't really followed.

As much as possible, I'd like to stick with natural rules. Baka-Tsuki kind of regulates itself, and I've been trying to write rules that reflect what we do, rather than what we should do. Why? Mostly because of ease of transition. A lot of things are changing nowadays, and there's no real imperative to double the amount of bureaucracy on everything. As a matter of fact, I'd prefer to minimize the expansion of bureaucracy as much as possible.

No one here wants more work if they can avoid it.

TBH, it actually doesn't take that much effort on my part to do the tracking. It's about 3 minutes a day to scan the recent updates page. I also have plans to recruit more individuals to do this job... (preferably a reader, not a translator/editor), so if I ever retire/vanish the system doesn't collapse.... @_____@;;;;;; But yeah, we'll discuss that later in the future. xD If and when the blog goes up again, perhaps I can get a more effective recruiting drive out... audition some people... and fire the ineffective ones >:D
rydenius wrote:Additionally, thinking about the "Requirements and Responsibilities" section and detailing what the Project Manager duties are, the draft seems to be mainly "requirements" and not very specific in the way of "responsibilities". Are there specific responsibilities that it would be good to enumerate here? Maybe as sub points or appended to this line:
You must be a dedicated contributor of the Project, meaning, you frequently monitor the project and read all of the contributions that are made to it.
Monitor the project and... do what? :? Also should the "what" to be monitored for be detailed? Or is it better to just leave these things vague? (Surely the monitoring is for disallowed material, maintaining compliance with the guidelines, and resolving issues between editors and translators, etc., but are those things that should be made specific in the guidelines?)

I'm not necessarily in favor of any changes here, just throwing it out there since everything was going so smoothly on the ratification... :twisted:
Well, different Project Managers perceive and act upon their role differently.

Some Project Managers are control-freaks and extremely detailed. In their cases, "monitoring" means scrutinizing every diff for every change with a magnifying glass, be it (+3 characters) or (-1). If they see something they don't like, they march onto the user-talk pages right away and give a very feisty talk.

Other Project Managers are laid back. These ones don't necessarily freak out over edits they think aren't stylistically ideal, but they keep a watchful eye open, even if they don't check every minor edit to the project. They perceive their role more-or-less to coordinate the contributors and resolve arguments, perhaps less as an individual who enforces rules. Project Managers have the capacity to change the default Baka-Tsuki guidelines for a project, but these ones may not even want to.

People have different personalities and different opinions about what a Project Manager sure do. Sure, maybe one is better than the other, but I'd like to give as much freedom as possible to baka-tsuki members.

Under these guidelines, Project Managers have power, but they also have a right not to exercise the power if they don't want to. IMO, this kind of flexibility is important, and I eavesdropped on a conversation between OH&S and Cthaeh yesterday that confirms my opinion on this (OH&S was taking Project Manager roles for Index). Some Translation Projects just aren't as suited to one person in absolute power over the others.

I really approve of the way they handled the situation, especially the way that they sat down and clearly delineated what they expected from each other. Every Project is different, just as much as every project staff is different. There's different needs, and the best way for handling things for one project isn't necessary the best for all others.

In short, Project Managers can do a lot if they want. They can also do very little, if they want. :D Their most important responsibility is to act as a contact point and resolve conflicts should any ever occur.
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