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The role of a Meta Editor is a leader and community manager for the Project. As a group, the Meta Editors govern the MusicMoz community. They work with staff and the community to develop guidelines and codes of conduct for the community and shape the growth of the Project. Meta is granted to a few seasoned editors who show exceptional editing, leadership and communication skills, as well as a fundamental understanding of the Open Music Project's goals and purpose. Metas are expected to be active editors and community forum contributors. Roles which metas are expected to take include:
In all these tasks, metas should act in an objective and judicious manner, without prejudice or bias.
In addition to the above, metas have the ability to perform the following functions, either individually or collectively in order to help manage the community:
No meta editor is expected to perform all these tasks. It is assumed that you, as a meta editor, will be able to find the task or tasks most suited to your interests and skills and the needs of the Project. A Meta Editorship comes with no time commitment or minimum level of involvement. Your level of participation is up to you and nor should you feel bound by the above list of tasks. As a Meta Editor, you are in a unique position to spearhead new initiatives, work to fill in gaps that may be present and help steer the Open Music Project in its continuing growth and development.
Communication in the editor forums should always be done in a courteous and respectful manner. When disagreements arise among editors, metas are expected to keep their cool and work constructively towards resolution of the conflict. While it is not reasonable to assume that metas will always agree with one another, or the community consensus, it is important, once consensus has been reached, that, although they may respectfully disagree, all metas go along with the decisions that have been made.
It is never appropriate for metas to communicate with other members of the community in a hostile, aggressive, sarcastic or snide manner. Nor should they seek to intimidate, berate, or otherwise insult another editor who disagrees with them. Metas should be aware of the influence they have on the editing community and never try to use their influence to abuse, belittle or demean another editor or his or her point of view. Staff reserves the right to remove your meta privileges if such detrimental communication methods become commonplace.
Metas have access to a private meta forum, linked from their dashboard, which is accessible only to meta editors and staff. This forum is provided as a place to confidentially:
In addition to the expectation of confidentially required by all editors, as set out in the Editing Guidelines, all Meta Editors should understand the additional expectation of discretion that goes along with their expanded privileges. Information which is not available to the editing community at large should, at all times, be withheld from all individuals who are not otherwise entitled to it. This expectation extends to the entirety of the private meta forum and any other confidential communication among the meta community or between meta editors and staff. Lapses in this confidentiality seriously hamper the ability for the staff and the meta community to effectively manage the community. Violations of meta confidentiality and the trust placed in you by staff may result in a reduction of privileges.
Applications from potential editors are an essential part of the continued growth and well being of the Open Music Project. As a meta editor, proper screening of new editor applications is crucial to maintaining the high standard of data quality required by the Project. While there is no template for a model application, good applications will have consistently good spelling and grammar, will provide concise and well structured reasons for wanting to edit at MusicMoz and in their chosen category. Things to consider when reviewing new editor applications include:
The same basic guidelines apply, when processing new permission request as do for New Editor Applications, however there are a number of differences. Above all it is important to be judicious and unbiased when it comes to processing these requests. Being part of the same community, it is quite possible that you and the applicant have worked together in the past, or had discussions in or out of the editor forums. Use this knowledge to your advantage, by evaluating the merits of the request in light of what you have learned of this individual. However, you should always be mindful to approach the request objectively. It is never appropriate to approve a request based solely on personal affinity towards or friendship with an editor, nor is it appropriate to decline a request solely because of personal enmity or difference of opinion. In order for the community to be healthy and prosperous, you, as one of its leaders, must be able to deal justly and fairly with requests.
Evaluating a new permission request should be done carefully. It is very labour intensive to clean up after a bad editor so the suitability of an editor should always be evaluated before resolving a request. Things to look for when handling new permission requests include:
When in doubt, or when considering a request for an extremely large category which will likely place the editor in some sort of leadership role, do not hesitate to ask other metas opinions before resolving the request.
As a leader of the community and the Project, it is inevitable that you will, at some point come across instances of bad editing and potential abuse. In instances where the editor is not following established guidelines, feedback should be sent to alert the editor of the problem. No editor is going to be perfect, or know every nuance of the guidelines. Some editors will not be as active and aware of the MusicMoz culture as you are. Please be diplomatic and courteous in all your communication.
Metas should work as a team when investigating abuse whenever possible. One of the primary purposes for the private meta forum is to facilitate this. Despite working as a team, it is generally best when contact to the editor under investigation comes from only one of the meta editors.
Abuse can take a number of forms. All of the following are considered abusive:
Meta editors and editalls are in no way exempt from any of the guidelines and violations of the above nature by them are, in general, more serious due to their expanded permissions. Meta editors who feel one of their colleagues is being abusive or violating forum confidentiality or any of the guidelines are encouraged to discuss the issues with the meta involved. Staff should be consulted only as a last resort, when every attempt at resolution has been made. Staff encourages metas and editors to work out their differences on their own, however, when staff is called in to rule, their decision will be final, and staff requires the meta community to respect and abide by these decisions once they have been made.
Although MusicMoz staff always prefers abusive editors be reformed and reintegrated into the community, it is inevitable that cases will arise where an abusive editor is unwilling or unable to reform. In such cases the investigating meta may recommend removal. The final decision to remove editors should not be made hastily, and it is expected that, in the case that a recommendation to remove has been made, that broad agreement among the meta community will have been sought and obtained, and that sufficient time has elapsed to give all metas a chance to argue their case, before the editor is removed. The investigating meta is required to obtain votes from five meta editors, including his or her own, supporting removal, and then wait at least 24 hours before he or she is permitted to remove the editor. Objections to removal should be resolved before action is taken. Removing an editor without obtaining the necessary support of the meta community is considered an abuse of your privilege, and may result in removal of these privileges.
In cases of extreme and immediate abuse, when the investigating meta feels that immediate action is required to prevent large scale damage to the dataset or the community, he or she can perform an emergency removal before obtaining consensus within the meta community. In cases of abusive editing, the meta also has the option of revoking the category permissions of the editor under investigation to curtail his or her ability to edit, instead of outright removal. In all such cases, the investigating meta is still obligated to provide sufficient proof of abuse after the fact.
All removals are reviewed by staff. Staff reserves the right to reverse the removal or emergency removal of any editor if a case proves to be without merit or for any other reason, at their sole discretion.
Staff reserves the right to grant editall and meta permissions at their sole discretion. Nevertheless, they encourage meta editors to identify and nominate potential candidates for higher permission and to discuss with the rest of the meta community and staff those editors which are under consideration. As leaders of the community it is inevitable that meta editors will gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of potential candidates which are not evident to staff. Since the community is based largely on peer review, it is important that all editors granted these higher permissions meet the expectations of the meta community, and are able to work well with the community as a whole.
Meta and editall permissions may be revoked by staff if an individual interacts poorly within the community, shows disregard for any of the editorial guidelines or otherwise violates the trust placed in him or her by MusicMoz staff.
Metas have the ability to set the following features on a category-by-category basis:
Meta editors have the ability to grant category permissions to editors, without the need for them to submit new permission requests. In most cases, it is preferred that the editor apply for the category. It is appropriate to grant categories in the following instances:
In all cases, category grants should be limited to special circumstances. Editors should not ask a meta to grant a category as a way to circumvent the new permissions process. Metas should refuse grant requests which do not involve special circumstances, where a new permission request would be appropriate, or when the category was recently denied to the editor by another meta.
Metas can reinstate editors whose accounts have timed out or who resigned previously. Before reinstating an editor you should check to see that they were an editor in good standing at the time their account was inactivated.
Meta editors have the ability to leave notes on editors profiles. These notes are visible only to meta editors and staff, and should be used to make brief comments on the editor and his or her editing. The notes are colour coded and purposefully bulky. If you have a lot to say about a particular editor, it is best to start a thread in the private meta forum and post a pointer to it on the editor's profile.
To facilitate moderation in the editor forums, meta editors have the ability to lock threads, which prevents posting new replies to the thread and the editing of previous posts. Threads which are continued elsewhere can be locked without discussion. In more difficult cases, it may be appropriate to discuss with the meta community before opting to lock a thread.
Metas have the ability to modify the category search keywords used by the internal musicmoz.org search engine. These keywords are also dumped to the XML so that downstream users can make use of them. The category search keywords are a list of synonyms for a category which are designed to lead users to the proper place when they search for a term that means the same thing as the category in question. For example:
Use these keywords judiciously. Having every conceivable combination is not necessary nor worth the effort. Concentrate on setting keywords only when common alternates exist that a user is likely to search for.
MusicMoz Staff reserves the right to change and/or update these guidelines at any time.
Although staff has the final say over the contents of the editing guidelines, suggestions from editors are very valuable.
For simple corrections, such as misspellings, an e-mail to staff is sufficient. Any larger changes, or suggested inclusions, should be discussed in the editor forums, and agreed on by editors, before being presented to staff.
Last updated 6 June, 2003 GMT by ketiltrout.
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