Tips for New Category Editors

When you first start as a Category Editor it can seem like you have taken on a daunting task.

It's an understandable emotion but if you follow these few simple tips you will find that it is actually quite easy:

Tip 1: Introduce yourself to your fellow editors

Use our special closed forum for editors to say hello. You'll find your fellow editors are a friendly and helpful bunch and a great resource if you need the answer to a question. Introduce yourself by posting a simple note along the lines of:

"Hi, I'm Joe Bloggs, the new Category Editor for "Best Free Blogging Software" and would just like to say hello. "

Tip 2: Read the site documentation selectively

There is an ever growing list of useful information under the "Help" section on the Category Editors page. It's too much to read in a single sitting so initially I suggest you read these essential guides:

• Style guidelines for writing reviews
• Tips for using the HTML editor
• How to moderate comments and revisions

Tip 3: Don't leap in and make many changes to your reviews

The biggest mistake of new editors is they feel compelled to make immediate major changes to the existing reviews for their software categories or, worse still, to totally re-write them.

My advice is initially, to confine your changes to simply updating the existing reviews.  Correct the spelling, fix the grammar, update the product details etc. In other words, keep it simple.

The reason is compelling. Initially you will have you hands full just learning the mechanics how to edit the reviews and approve your revisions. You don't want to complicate this by having to worry about the content of your reviews.

In fact I suggest your very first edit should consist of making one single change to an existing review. Use the HTML editor to add a comma, capitalise a product name, whatever, just make one change. Then save it using the "Submit "button and approve the "revision" by "reverting" to the latest version.

Already you can see from the buzzwords I've used that you have a lot to learn without worrying about the content. 

Learn how to use the HTML editor here

Learn how to "revert" a revision here

Tip 4: Trust Site Visitors

The cumulative knowledge of site visitors is far greater than any individual. So read the comments at the end of your reviews and act on promising suggestions.

Many Category Editors have found they never need to fully re-write their reviews but rather just make incremental changes in response to comments made by site visitors.

Of course some visitors will even make these changes for you by using the wiki style editing features of the site. That's even better - you just have to approve them.

Adapting the existing reviews to accommodate suggestions is a much smarter way of working than completely changing the reviews in your software category. You can do this of course but in so doing you are  making the job harder than it needs to be.

Tip 5: Make updating your review format your first major task

Some of the reviews on this site are in an older format that we used to have when the site first started.  Here is an example of a review in the old format and here's one in the new format.

If you inherit one of these old format reviews I suggest your first major task should be to convert the review to the new format but leave the text unchanged. In the process you'll learn a lot about how the Drupal online editor works.

You can find detailed instructions how to convert an old format review here.

Gizmo