Eliminating edge cases

Some people post a BB thinking "close enough - it should be fine."   And this makes for a lot of work for people doing the certifying.  

I want to point out that this is being offered for free.  And if a submitter doesn't get certified, usually the person doing the rejecting is put into the time consuming space of explaining why.  I suppose that this is fine if the person doing the certifying is getting paid a professional wage.   But this is free.  

I think people doing the certifying are cool with certifying a dozen BBs that obviously meet the criteria.   But after encountering two or three edge cases, the certifier is starting to think that their time is better spent elsewhere.

When you submit, please make a PROPER submission meeting ALL of the requirements.    This is not something for a "B" grade.   There is only "A", "A+" and "F".  

If you go to submit and realize that you forgot to take a picture at the beginning, please do it over.  Please DO NOT submit and hope it gets through.  Please be respectful to the people donating their time to make this work.  

Hey, Paul! I turn in a lot of badges, and because of that high volume, I do get my share of edge cases and rejections. (I know it's me sometimes!) I almost never have the "close enough," attitude. It's usually something I forgot, (simple mistake) or that I didn't interpret a requirement the same way my certifier does.
I appreciate the time and kindness of the volunteers helping with BBs. Because of this post, I will focus on NEVER having the "close enough" attitude.
At the same time, please accept my gentle feedback that I'm not trying to waste anybody's time. Some of the bbs have ambiguous wording, and in an attitude of working together, I would be happy to volunteer time to help address this issue on the bbs I have had trouble with, if that's helpful.

I agree with Paul ! On the other side, i'm happy to contributing in dealing with edge case, i am seeing as doing my part for the forum. Hopefully i'll get more badge and be able to deal with more wide range badge bit certification in the next months-years.

Rebekah Harmon wrote:Hey, Paul! I turn in a lot of badges, and because of that high volume, I do get my share of edge cases and rejections. (I know it's me sometimes!) I almost never have the "close enough," attitude. It's usually something I forgot, (simple mistake) or that I didn't interpret a requirement the same way my certifier does.
I appreciate the time and kindness of the volunteers helping with BBs. Because of this post, I will focus on NEVER having the "close enough" attitude.
At the same time, please accept my gentle feedback that I'm not trying to waste anybody's time. Some of the bbs have ambiguous wording, and in an attitude of working together, I would be happy to volunteer time to help address this issue on the bbs I have had trouble with, if that's helpful.

There are over 1000 BBs.  And the popular BBs have had lots of folks suggesting clarity.  Always a good thing.  And as you take on BBs that are less popular, a few suggestions for clarity could be good!  Of course, the clarity stuff is usually better before submitting the BB.

If you go to submit and realize that you forgot to take a picture at the beginning, please do it over.  Please DO NOT submit and hope it gets through.  Please be respectful to the people donating their time to make this work.  

Maybe if a SKIPper makes a BB, a common response is to give PIE to the evaluator?  

Again, this is a giant gob of free.  And the person rejecting you has a powerful feeling of "please don't kill the messenger".  

Maybe a person starting on SKIP would want to buy a bunch of PIE knowing they will be giving it out as they make booboos.

Raphaël Blais wrote:I agree with Paul ! On the other side, i'm happy to contributing in dealing with edge case, i am seeing as doing my part for the forum. Hopefully i'll get more badge and be able to deal with more wide range badge bit certification in the next months-years.

That will get you a lot of BBV points, which you will need for PEP2!

Rebekah Harmon wrote:Some of the bbs have ambiguous wording, and in an attitude of working together, I would be happy to volunteer time to help address this issue on the bbs I have had trouble with, if that's helpful.

I think that would be helpful.  Maybe post to the BB asking for clarification before doing it.  If you submit it based on assumptions, and it causes stress for the certifiers, it's less helpful.

If a BB has had two pages of completed submissions, then I'm guessing it's pretty clear.  The ones with fewer submissions are probably the ones that need a bit of polish.  It usually helps to look at prior submissions to get a feel for how things have been successfully completed before.

Mike Haasl wrote:If a BB has had two pages of completed submissions, then I'm guessing it's pretty clear.

You would think but not always the case. For example, the wash dishes by hand BB https://permies.com/p/889555 states "- post a picture of the completed dishes with obviously less than 3 gallons water used" which is a popular BB but, as it turns out, "obvious" isn't commonly obvious. I thought I had an A+ entry but my submission was rejected, not even edge-cased. I always look at previous posts (not the first but starting at the most recent), and I found a number of prior submissions where I thought that the amount of water used was questionable yet approved.

Mike Haasl wrote:Maybe post to the BB asking for clarification before doing it.

&

paul wheaton wrote:Of course, the clarity stuff is usually better before submitting the BB.

I think that's a lovely idea but it's more likely that we don't know what we don't know. Plus, I always look at more recent posts to make observations of what was accepted and rejected to gain clarification but, as it turns out, there's certifier-to-certifier variation in how BBs are judged.

I wish that all those who get rejected or edge-cased BBs wouldn't all be lumped into the "close-enough - it should be fine" category. I think it's easy to reinforce this narrative that people just want to degrade or disrespect the program but you know people inherently make mistakes because the human condition is flawed yet the SKIP program doesn't have the patience or manpower to deal with a thousand petty dramas. I wish the environment was kinder to imperfect human condition (for both certifiers and submitters). I don't really have ideas nor am I willing commit to volunteer so I'm sure this message just comes off as a load of whining.

On that note, I've thought about giving feedback previously but I don't for fear that it'll only be read from a sore loser narrative, emotional and combative. Which wouldn't totally be off-base because the fight or flight, sympathetic nervous system has to kick in to speak up. And it's been 4 months and I'm still a bit frustrated that my submission was rejected.

Another thing that comes to mind, I've had too many submissions be rejected or edge-cased that I have lost my motivation to continue. It feels bad to repeatedly hit submit and wait in excitement to then feel embarrassed and, well, rejected. When I was at the Rocket Mass Heater Workshop, another woman said that she's always gotten really helpful feedback and even purple moosages with advice or clarification. I have not had that same experience.

In sum, there's too much subjectivity for my sensitivity. Yes, it's totally free, which is great, and I've gotten way more than I've paid for. I'm also thrilled to see so many people thrive and persevere in the program. Maybe those people have more grit than I or maybe they've had more lenient certifiers than I. Maybe I'll pick it back up when I'm able to cultivate a different set of expectations. Maybe there should be a support group where I can post my draft submission and get feedback to see if I missed something more "obvious" to someone else.

I have noticed where folks will ask in a BB about a detail and it won't get seen.  

As an experiment, I started a thread for people to ask questions about BBs.  Then other people can see it and weigh in.  It might lead to changes to the wording of a BB but that's not guaranteed.  

BB Clarification Thread

I've tried to approve some BBs but have a lot of trouble when the list says

- show thing one
- show thing two
- show thing three

and the submission has two and three, but not one (not showing the shirt for the repairing shirt badge, not showing the manual for the sewing machine maintenance).  What's worse, is that previously approved badges also don't have this, so now there's a precedent.  It's so important to look at the requirements before approving.  

As someone who might one day become an OTIS or at least plan to use SKIP when hiring farm help, the biggest value I see in SKIP is the ability to follow simple directions.  

Can the person take the time to check for themselves that they got everything on the list?  Or do I have to babysit them?  There's nothing more time-consuming than having to follow around after a helper on the farm doing all the things they missed and fixing the things they broke by not following simple instructions.  It takes half the time to have done the work myself.  

The more careful we are when approving BBs the more value SKIP has for Otis and the more impressive it is for someone who has achieved badges.   A bit like how graduating from Mrs Golightly's Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners is less impressive than a degree from Oxford.  I can see SKIP as being better than the best university because the people who earn those badges have actually done the stuff.  You guys rock!  

....

But also thinking, maybe when SKIP grows bigger or if someone wanted to donate a bunch of money to pay the development bills, we could get an easier way to see what the list of thing one, thing two, thing three is so we don't have to hunt back to the first post of the thread to find it and compare.  Even if it just had a link to open the first post of the thread in a new tab would be awesome.  

This isn't perfectly on-topic for the thread, but it's at least adjacent: There is a BB pending for cooking rice right now (and for the last week). I looked at it several days ago and decided to slink away rather than approving or rejecting it. It doesn't exactly show the rice going into the haybox and being uncooked, but like, I'm not really sure how someone would even do that. (That requirement was added after I got that BB myself.) So I certainly don't feel like rejecting it when the requirement is either vague or bizarre, but I also don't feel like it would be appropriate for me to ignore the unmet requirement and approve it even though I think that's what someone should do because the spirit of the demonstration was obviously met.

More directly on-topic: Remember that, as I noted in the narrative above, the requirements for these can change over time. So having a couple of pages of thread filled with success doesn't necessarily mean that new submissions are facing the same challenges that legacy submissions did.

I just quickly skimmed the "All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More!" Wiki. What I think is missing is a tutorial about how to submit BBs for approval. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
If you literally had to "Start HERE" with these as your first two BBs, it might save some headaches later on...

There could be a tutorial BB about "how to document a BB using photos"
There could be another tutorial BB about "how to document a BB using videos"
It could literally be as simple as taking 3 screenshots of the tutorial, and submitting them. Or maybe search Permies for "Paul Wheaton Eco-Scale" and screenshot a particular segment of the graphic... or some random set of 3 posts out of a list of 100 so the combination would be "unique" each time. Maybe these tutorial BBs could then be able to be graded by AI?
Maybe no other BBs could be submitted until these were complete?

Kenneth Elwell wrote:I just quickly skimmed the "All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More!" Wiki. What I think is missing is a tutorial about how to submit BBs for approval. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
If you literally had to "Start HERE" with these as your first two BBs, it might save some headaches later on...

The threads exist but are maybee not always easy to find.

How to get a badge was on the page all about SKip
And there is a thread about How permie work, there are the links about posting videos and pictures.

Raphaël Blais wrote:

Kenneth Elwell wrote:I just quickly skimmed the "All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More!" Wiki. What I think is missing is a tutorial about how to submit BBs for approval. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
If you literally had to "Start HERE" with these as your first two BBs, it might save some headaches later on...

The threads exist but are maybee not always easy to find.

How to get a badge was on the page all about SKip
And there is a thread about How permie work, there are the links about posting videos and pictures.

Thanks Raphaël! I missed the link...in my quick skimming... which in part speaks to the "following instructions", and "reading carefully" aspect... ha ha!
But I still think a "PEP tutorial BB" could be a good place to "Start HERE". (especially if it could be automated)
Then maybe after submitting those it redirects you to the "what the easiest BBs were for people" thread.

Good idea! I would see it easily in the Pep Community section, since it pratice your interraction with others in doing badge bit. I have chek and the wiki page ''All about SKIP'' is not one who can be modify be the public or else i may have work at least on placing the tutorials more clearly. Maybee you could propose your change in the ''tinkering with this site'' section.

Kenneth Elwell wrote:

Raphaël Blais wrote:

Kenneth Elwell wrote:I just quickly skimmed the "All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and More!" Wiki. What I think is missing is a tutorial about how to submit BBs for approval. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
If you literally had to "Start HERE" with these as your first two BBs, it might save some headaches later on...

The threads exist but are maybee not always easy to find.

How to get a badge was on the page all about SKip
And there is a thread about How permie work, there are the links about posting videos and pictures.

Thanks Raphaël! I missed the link...in my quick skimming... which in part speaks to the "following instructions", and "reading carefully" aspect... ha ha!
But I still think a "PEP tutorial BB" could be a good place to "Start HERE". (especially if it could be automated)
Then maybe after submitting those it redirects you to the "what the easiest BBs were for people" thread.

Everyone's journey will be unique.

But if you've done a few badges,  why not start a thread sharing what badges you found easiest and tips on getting the bb approved quickly.

Getting a few of these conversations going might be a big help for future skippers and to help identify patterns in your own journey.

r ranson wrote:What's worse, is that previously approved badges also don't have this, so now there's a precedent.  It's so important to look at the requirements before approving.    

I'd say two things about this...
1.  The requirements do change occasionally so older/legacy submissions may not show something that is required now
2.  Just because someone approved one incorrectly before, doesn't mean it's a precedent.  
3.  If someone really messed up and approved something that shouldn't've been, we have been known to unapprove them.  Generally pretty quickly, once some time has passed, it is less likely.

Mike Haasl wrote:
I'd say two things about this...
1.  The requirements do change occasionally so older/legacy submissions may not show something that is required now
2.  Just because someone approved one incorrectly before, doesn't mean it's a precedent.  
3.  If someone really messed up and approved something that shouldn't've been, we have been known to unapprove them.  Generally pretty quickly, once some time has passed, it is less likely.

Perhaps there could just be a "copy/paste" response for being an edge case (as in simple directions to fix the issue and to pay closer attention-to-detail in the future)?


I didn't know what it meant that I was an edge case and I was uncertain as to if I should fix the issue or re-submit...

This is quite literally the only place I visit regularly on the internet and I feel very welcomed and as though I fit-in here, that being said, I felt like I just gicked on my mothers floor and didn't know how to clean it up...

Yeah, I think edge case certifications are for cases where the certifier is pretty sure you did do the task but you forgot some proof that you can likely still submit.  At least that's what I use it for.  So I think the best approach is to resubmit so the certifiers get a notice that there's something to look at.  Editing isn't as good because certifiers might not notice you changed anything.