I'm looking for feedback regarding the Planewalker submission system. There are some questions that I want to get answered specifically here:
1) Is it worth it to our writers/submitters to have different forms for different types of information?
2) Do we have all the different types covered that need to be covered? (I have a standing request for one extra form for monsters already.)
3) Is it confusing? Where? How would it best be fixed to be less confusing?
4) Is it awkward to get to / submit things to?
5) What is the most obvious reason you can think of for why folks might not use the system?
It's useful for entries of a certain type (ie monsters, spells), unnecesary for some others (errata, feat), and even overcomplicating things for some (non-magical equipment). Overall, I wouldn't remove the different forms, but I'd gladly jettison some of them. Many, come to think of it.
Other than that one, I can't really think of anything... I used the "misc article" form when I wrote my pantheons, but I don't think you could do a submission form that fits this category without making it too large and unwieldy. Though perhaps a single field with an empty "Table: Deities" would do, with name, rank, alignment, portfolio, domains, and other columns?
Like I said, sometimes it gets needlessly complicated. For example, people that submit monsters tend to stuff all the text into the entry field on the first page, since they don't know that Combat, Habitat/Society, and Ecology are on the following pages. Some other forms have several fields (on the same page) where one would suffice.
See above. Also, there was that bug that hid the "submit" and "save draft" button from time to time, but you may have already fixed that.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Why they don't submit stuff at all, or why they use the "misc article" form instead of the one they're supposed to?
If it's the former, I guess the site/community is still recovering from the crash, and also, we need to make it clearer that we're taking submissions from anyone, any time.
If it's the latter, I suppose they just don't want to tackle the zilion entry fields when they can just drop a block of text and leave it to the editors. Actually, I prefer receiving entries this way, since it's usually easier to edit them than those that come in wrong or poorly used forms.