Senior writers do not need CE's

[justanotherwriter]

I've heard this proposed on the zombie forums a few times. Seems like a good idea to me.

Writers with 1000+ articles and scores of 4/4+ do not need CEs.

They need leads. They would get bi monthly reviews and if their quality slips, they go back to 'regular' writer status.

Reviews would be extremely strict. Senior writers would be expected to be their own CEs. Even just minor typos on a few articles within the review period could be grounds for demotion back to 'writer.'

Imagine all of the money you would save.

Imagine the incentive writers would have to receive high scores.

Imagine how this would improve your image and show that you actually give a shit about good writers and value them in some way shape or form.

Other DSS's: Do you see any problems with this? Any obvious fuck-ups with this plan that I'm missing?

Sure, we could Man Up if we intend to quit before the next review, but we can do that now anyway.

[Ducky]

I would love it because I would qualify with those rules. The biggest issue would be that if the CEs knew this was coming they would stop giving out scores that would qualify writers to do it without them. Especially now with how they're whining about the low queue. We'd all have scores of 2/2 within a month, I can guarantee it.

[justanotherwriter]

Yeah good point. The only counter I can offer to that is that Demand should see it coming and warn CEs not to do it. I don't think it would be too hard for their leads to spot that, would it? Maybe..idk

I would love it too, and I think that quality in general would go way, way up across the board. This would also help to counteract the shitty CEs who give low scores with no justification.

ETA:

The % of writers who get to that point would still be pretty small, so it's not like it would put CEs out of business. It would, however, give Demand a reason to let the worst of them go en mass.

To keep things balanced, I am in favor of anything that gives them a reason to let the worst of writers go en mass as well.

[Ducky]

ETA: This is TL;DR and I know it. But I'm drunk and sometimes I like to actually think about things, which I am not afforded the opportunity to do at DMS. Plus, this would be my biggest wet dream if it actually happened.

I absolutely agree. Most of the writers who got such a position would fight tooth and nail to keep it, I would think. I hate DMS, I hate writing in general for the most part now and I don't give a fuck about my articles because I know half the CEs or more will just fuck them up anyway.

If this were put into place, I would honestly take the extra 5-10 minutes or even more to really read my articles and carefully edit them before I submitted them because after a taste of that sweet, sweet freedom the threat of going back to CE hell would be enough to keep me toeing the line.

I actually don't think Manning it up would be much of an issue. Sure, maybe a couple people would pull it, but as we've seen, even the current system isn't immune to that. Give writers who have consistently shown that they can produce what DMS deems quality work, in spite of all the CE bullshit, control over their own articles, and most of them will actually produce good content and more of it.

Think about it. Spending that extra time or doing that little extra bit of work would save you the stress of the CE bullshit and allow you to really be in control of your income since you wouldn't be worrying about review times or abandoned articles.

Some of the DMS writers actually have decently successful blogs and websites even though they're just one person. Okay, all of their stuff may not be perfect if they're self-editing, but they're making money. And they're doing it without posting their shit on sites like eHow that monopolize the Web. Obviously these people know something that works.

Everybody wins. Except the CEs. And there's the problem. Demand is never going to remove the CEs' cocks from their mouths to even consider the possibilities of something like this.

Even if they did, the only way I could see it working would be for them to implement it out of the blue, automatically adding all writers that met the requirements to the senior writer program and then doing something to truly audit the scores CEs gave afterwards to allow writers a fair chance to raise their scores. We all know the zombies who have been sitting at 3.5 for months and months will never make it in, but it's only fair to offer a new writer a chance to raise his scores as he gets used to the system without CEs shitting all over him for nothing to mark their territories.

And it's not that I think their leads couldn't spot the scoring bullshit that would happen in the aftermath. It's that I don't think they would bother to check. Did you see the discussion that got closed down today because Sam pissed everyone off by basically saying the CEs are acting like asshats with scoring since WDP? A ton of CEs rushed in there to proclaim how they'd NEVER heard a peep about how they should/shouldn't be scoring in their reviews. Yeah, GG CEs. You all just admitted that DMS does absolutely NOTHING to even spot check the scores that fucked at least a few decent writers.

Only other option I think would be to do away with CE scoring completely after the program was instituted and instead have a staff member or editors with actual experience in a new freelance position -- that they actually verify credentials for and test heavily for to make sure they're not complete morons -- assign scores to a random selection of each writer's articles on a bi-monthly or monthly basis, kind of like what is (not really) done with the CE reviews. With that system, you could still get fucked since it would be random, but you stand a better chance than a CE scoring you while trying to protect his income stream.

[jekhyl]

I disagree. All writers need editors. They are the ones who are PAID to catch typos, spelling errors and other mistakes a writer would miss.

Am I saying writers suck? No. I'm saying, as a writer, that there are plenty of times that I have looked over my own work and everything looked "fine," only to look at it later and find a silly mistake that I totally glossed over.

And I'm not talking about demand stuff.

What senior writers do NOT need are the power-tripping asshole CEs that they are getting now. You know the ones:
They return rewrites for obvious typos with notes longer than the actual article.
They return rewrites saying you have to provide a reference for every fact (EVERY fact including shit like "sugar is sweet" or "the sky is blue.")
They return rewrites because they have to nit-pick about one insignificant factoid in the intro that really doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things ("Citrus fruits are acidic.": Actually, I looked up a bunch of sources that say not all citrus fruits are acidic so you need to change your intro to reflect that...).
They return rewrites because they think more words = more value to the reader (or they just resent that you got paid $15 for a 200-word how-to).
They return rewrites for stupid questions (Does the fabric for your pumpkin costume have to be orange?)
The list goes on.

Writers need editors. They do not need these fuckwits.

ETA: that I had to edit this three time to correct minor punctuation mistakes. That's three times the work that I've done and I wasn't even getting paid for this. No thanks. Give me an editor. Just give me a DECENT editor, not some power-tripping asshole with a chip on his shoulder.

Four times.

[justanotherwriter]

[Ducky]

That's the thing. I agree writers need editors, and we all make mistakes. But if we could surpass the CE stage, we could afford to let our articles sit for a bit and come back to make sure they're edited properly before submission. CEs have often caught mistakes in my articles, but maybe they're mistakes I would have caught myself if I had cared enough to look over the thing before I submitted it. As it stands, I don't because CEs introduce errors and irrelevant changes FAR more often than they fix things I've done wrong.

Writers do need editors. But writers who are just crapping out bullshit content for DMS? Eh, maybe not so much.

[jekhyl]

[jekhyl]

[Ducky]

I'm just saying that I personally would put the extra time and work in to not have to deal with the CE drama. Some probably wouldn't. Would I let it sit 12 hours if that's what it took for me to self-edit to the point where I wouldn't get removed from the program so I didn't have to go back to tearing my hair out over stupid CEs? Fuck yes. In general, a CE isn't going to pick up my article and approve it within 12 hours anyway, so I'm not really delaying my pay. Yeah, the queue is down right now, but for the most part 12-hour reviews aren't the norm, at least for special projects.

My point about writers crapping out content not necessarily needing the CEs was merely about the fact that DMS does not care if there are minor errors. They might fix a factual error, but they don't give a shit about typos, grammar or AP style in published articles. And even more than maybe one or two minor mistakes would be cause for the writer to be removed, according to the plan proposed by the OP.

All I'm saying is I really do not think the overall structure quality of the articles would suffer or the number of true errors would suddenly skyrocket if writers who had high scores and who have written a ton of DMS articles were given the ability to self-edit.

ETA: I can even agree that "it isn't that writers don't need CEs, they just don't need THESE CEs." But much like this proposed program, DMS cleaning up its editor pool isn't going to happen. It's all just musing.