-
-
Mahalo's "Quality Control Team" is a specialized group of users who have been selected to help our staff approve Mahalo Tasks completed by the public. Quality Controllers (or QC-ers) are generally compensated the equivalent of half of the price of the Task (so checking, improving and accepting a M$3 task is worth M$1.50).
QC'rs can be seen as the copy editors of Mahalo. They make sure there are no spelling and grammar errors on pages. They make sure the formatting is up to standard. And, they often act as mentors for community members—teaching them how to build Mahalo pages, and processing all Rush Week tasks.
In order to be selected as a QC Team member, Mahalo users must be on the "How To" team. All the pages you manage should meet Mahalo's quality standards, and you must demonstrate a mastery of Mahalo's writing style and formatting. It is advisable to study our How to Build a Mahalo Page guide thoroughly.
-
-
Step 1: Select a Task to QC
Members of the QC Team will be able to access a tab in the Tasks system, called "QC Tasks." This will open up a list of Mahalo Tasks that have recently been completed by users. The M$ amount you see here, is what you will earn for QC'ing this task (generally, it is half of the value of the task). QC'rs have a 4 hour limit to process each task, and can only claim up to 3 tasks at a time.
Browse this tab, until you find a task you would like to QC. Then, click the "Review" button. The task will now open up. Go into this task, and click the big, blue "Perform Quality Control for this Task" button. And, you're ready to QC!
-
Step 2: Understand the Task
Before beginning your Quality Control assignment, read over the task and understand what was asked of the writer and the amount the task was worth.
Most tasks seek a Guide Note and Fast Facts to be written, you can consult, How to Write a Guide Note to learn more about the standards of these sections.
Also consider that many task assignments are drafted from templates and that some items may not be relevant for a particular task. If you notice something from the assignment outline missing from the task, do not reject the task unless it is essential to completion of the task.
-
Step 3: Perform Quality Control
When you are QC'ing tasks, make sure the writing is neutral, and not anecdotal. For example, the phrase "Rice is a delicious food, and my personal favorite dish," should be replaced with something like, "Rice is a nutritional grain that is a main staple for many cultures." Look out for spelling and grammar errors, and make sure all hard facts put forth backed by citations. Citations should come from quality, official sources. Wikipedia and other user generated sources are not generally acceptable sources. (For more on this, look at the "More on Citations" section of How to Build a Mahalo Page). Check to see if content is plagiarized, (more on this can be found here: Copy and Pasting on Mahalo Guidelines).
Keep in mind the rating system that Mahalo Staff, and use the checklist blow, to make sure you attend to the key points, while QC'ing your tasks.
-
QC Check List
Look out for the following points:
• Spelling errors
• Grammatical errors
• Factual errors
• Neutral, objective writing (all Mahalo content must be encyclopedic, and factual)
• A minimum of 300 words of original content on the total page
• The Guide Note must have at least about 200 words
• Good internal links
• Categories
• At least 5 Related Mahalo Pages
• Make sure the Related Mahalo Pages appear on the sidebar
• Make sure the Related Mahalo Pages are relevant
• An image section is included
• Citations are properly formatted
• Citations are from apt sources
• Disclaimers appear on all medical, legal, and financial pages
• At least 3 fast facts are included, at the top of the page.
ADDITIONAL POINTS TO WATCH FOR, WITH "HOW TO" TASKS
• Guide note has at least 200 words of content
• Steps have around 200 words of content
• Steps have titles
• Video section put above Steps
• Video section includes a 50—100 word synopsis
• At least 3 tips at the top of the page -
Step 4: Providing Feedback
When there are minor errors on the page—such as minor spelling or grammatical issues, or small formatting mistakes—you should approve the task, and fix the errors on the published page. In the feedback section of the task, let the user know the mistakes you have found, and how to fix them in the future.
If a page has glaring errors—such as a complete lack of citations, no inlinks, not enough content, or factual errors—you should reject the task. Be sure to be encouraging and empathetic in your feedback to the user, and take the time to inform them of Mahalo formatting standards. Give the user as many helpful links to instructional pages as you can.
-
Step 5: Edit On the Published Page
After you approve the page, you must visit that page and fix any errors that may have occurred during the Task-to-Page transfer process. Some issues that appear often are:
• No Image section in the Links area of the page.
• The Related Mahalo Pages section appear in the Links area. This section must be copied and pasted into the sidebar
'''RE-DIRECTS'''
Re-directs are important! Put in any phrase that a reader might use to find the content of your page. Be careful not to go off topic. A page on "San Francisco Zoo Coupons" should not have "Zoo Coupons" or "Los Angeles Zoo Coupons" as re-directs... these titles can be used for other pages. "San Francisco Zoo Coupon" or "SF Zoo Coupons" are more appropriate re-directs.
This is also the time that you want to do a quick once-over of the links section of the page and remove any inappropriate links, videos, images etc... This section becomes the responsibility of the page manager (the writer you are QCing) and a friendly reminder or suggestions on how they can improve this section can be added to your QC feedback.
-
-
Additional QC Information
1. Check that each section has the proper information. Reviews in the review section, complete fast facts, related pages etc.2. Check for plagiarism. This can be done by taking snippets of written material then performing a Google search on it, using quotes on both sides of the statement. Pull a few sentences from each section.
3. Check for inlinks. Are all dates, companies, names, titles, products etc inlinked? Anything that can be a potential Mahalo Page should be inlinked.
4. Are movies, books, ships, video games, newspapers and magazine titles in italics?
5. If you accept the page, note it in the Google Docs for that particular barnraising.
6. When accepting or denying a page, be sure to use positive words. Let the users know what they can do to make their next submission better.
7. After the page is noted in Google Docs, visit the newly created Mahalo page.
8. Move Fast Facts underneath the guide note, and other sub-sections accordingly, pinning each section.
9. Add corresponding categories.
10. Add redirects. Delete extra related pages section.
11. See if there are any other pages you can add this page title to in their related pages section. For example, if you are creating a page for Sears Coupons, add the coupon page to the Sears main page, along with other major retailer pages.
12. Is the guide note image accurate? If not, find an accurate one and pin it to the first slot in the photo section.
13. Anything else at a glance need to be deleted from the page? For example, videos don't normally go on coupon pages, so delete that section. Spend just a minute on the content of the page making sure the content is accurate.
About this page
-
Page Views0
