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.
QC Check List
Look out for the following points:
• The task corresponds to the page title and includes appropriate and relevant information
• Text is original and written by the user and all quotes are properly cited
• Spelling errors
• Grammatical errors
• Factual errors
• Specific and helpful information versus general, vague information (fillers)
• Neutral, objective writing (all Mahalo content must be encyclopedic, and factual)
• A minimum of 300 words of original content on the total page
• 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 on the page
• The task includes citations
• Citations are properly formatted
• Citations are from apt sources
• Disclaimers appear on all medical, legal, and financial pages
• At least 5 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
QC Scoring
Mahalo has strict standards for quality and presentation. Each guide should expect to have several pages scored each week. The scores will be accompanied by feedback, explaining any consistent errors. In some cases, the feedback will ask the guide to update the page and resubmit it for review.
The scores are on a scale from 0-10, with 10 representing the perfect Mahalo page and 0 representing a blank Mahalo page.
Here are some guidelines on how to interpret your scores:
10: Perfect page. These will be very rare.
9 - 9.5: Excellent page. This is what you'd expect a Vertical Manager or staff member to produce.
8 - 9: Very good page.
6 - 7.5: Promising page with room for improvement
5 - 6: Potentially good page with some significant work needed.
3 - 4.5: A problem page. Urgent attention needed from Page Manager.
0 - 2.5: A poor page. We would consider replacing this Page Manager were effort not taken quickly to correct problems.
Here are the scoring standards:
Word Count
Topic Pages and Short How Tos
Under 200 words of original content (-2) and urgent fix needed
Under 300 words of original content (-1)
Pages that contain fewer than 200 words of original content become stubs, which means they do not index on Google. These need to be brought up to 200 words immediately.
300 or more original words on each Mahalo page is the "standard" for topic pages. These 300 words INCLUDE Fast Facts, video/image descriptions and all other original text that appears on a Mahalo page and is composed by a user. List sections that just list information such as movies, books, nominees of awards etc. do not count towards the word count requirement. Quotes are also not considered original content.
Full Length How To Pages
Under 100 words of original content in a step or intro (-1 for each section)
Under 200 words of original content (-0.5 for each section)
This does not apply to the short, 300 word How To pages.
Factual error (-2)
Mahalo pages should have NO inaccurate or incorrect information. All dates, data, statistics and other specific information should be backed up by citations.
Bias/NPOV (-1)
Mahalo pages should not take a perspective on an issue or a side in a discussion. All information presented on a Mahalo page should be fact-based, rooted in supportable research from external sources rather than anecdotal information. This includes political pages or pages about controversies, but also general interest pages. Remember that even positive statements of opinion (such as "schnauzers are great dogs for kids!" or "cinnamon buns are the best way to wake up in the morning") count as biased and should not be included. (NOTE: How To pages may occasionally include a bit more "anecdotal evidence" and "personal opinion" than standard Mahalo pages, but should strive to eliminate bias).
Outdated information (-1 to -2)
While this is more likely to be an uissue with updates, it's important to make sure that new pages contain the most current information.
Vague writing/filler (-1)
Often, page managers may be tempted to "pad" their writing in order to create the appearance of more content on their pages. This is strongly discouraged. Examples of padded writing or filler could including repeating the same point or phrase multiple times, talking around an issue rather than getting right to the point or making obvious statements that any person with common sense would already know.
As well, being vague or misleading about a topic should be avoided. Always be as specific as possible, and when writing descriptions of objects, places, events, processes, etc., try to work in as many details (who, what, where, when, why, how) as possible. Remember that the ultimate goal of Mahalo pages is to be truly helpful to readers.
Spelling error (-.25 to -.5) per error, depending on severity
Grammatical error (-.25 to -.5)
No categories (-1)
Aim for 3-8 relevant categories.
Inlinking Errors (-.5 to -1)
Excessive inlinking , having fewer than 1 inlink per 100 words, or inlinking to nonexistent pages will all impact the score.
No Related Mahalo Pages (-1)
A writer should include at least 5 "Related Mahalo Pages" on every topic page. Failure to include at least 5 related pages will result in the loss of a point.
No image section (-1)
Every page on Mahalo should include an image search, and should have an appropriate image selected in the first available spot.
General formatting error (-.5-1)
This can include any basic formatting problem on the page. Common examples include sub-sections in the written content that do not have "headlines" or titles, Featured Videos that do not have 50-100 word captions, or sections that are misplaced on the page.
No citations (-1)
If a page contains specific, factual information that is not cited, that page will lose 1 point. Not ALL factual information needs to be cited. A good rule of thumb is whether or not that fact is "common knowledge." That Barack Obama is President of the United States who was elected in 2008 is a commonly-known fact that would not need to be cited. That he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is much more specific, less commonly-known info and should be cited.
No disclaimer (on medical, legal, financial pages) (-.5)
These disclaimers appear automatically on all new pages in these three categories. They should remain intact on the page and you will be marked down for not having/including them.
No Fast Facts/Tips (-1)
All topic pages require Fast Facts; all How To pages should include Tips sections. Fast Fact sections should include no fewer than 5 facts and Tips sections should include at least 3 tips. Having fewer than 5 Fast Facts would be considered a general formatting error.
No Featured Video (-1)
All Mahalo pages should include a featured video. If you cannot locate a video that is exactly about the topic, then you can use a more general video that includes the topic.
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.
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, factual errors or sections which have not been completed even though they are relevant on the task —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.
Edit and Improve 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
- Videos and images provided within tasks may need to be turned into "featured object" sections on the published page.
- "Tips" sections from How-To tasks will be need to be moved to the "Tips" bar within the content section.
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. It's especially important to add inlinks to the terms most relevant to the page, such as company names.
4. Are movies, books, ships, video games, newspapers and magazine titles in italics? You can add italic font by adding two double apostrophes before and after the word.
5. If you accept a page for a Barnraising, 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. Add corresponding categories.
9. Add redirects. Delete extra related pages section.
10. 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.
11. Is the guide note image accurate? If not, find an accurate one and pin it to the first slot in the photo section. Either way, make sure to pin the first image, because images can otherwise rotate around in this section.
12. Anything else at a glance need to be deleted from the page? Spend just a minute on the content of the page making sure the content is accurate.
References
Fast Facts
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Fact:
QC the Oldest Tasks First
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Fact:
If there are only minor errors, accept the Task. Make note of the errors within the feedback - And correct the errors on the published page for the writer
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Fact:
After you publish a task, visit the page to ensure all is in order
