And this always seemed odd to too. Reviewers only need a 5.0 to become editors, yet their own work requires editing until they reach 5.5

I agree it's odd. However, to me the real issue is that rank really doesn't correlate with grammatical skills or the ability to edit others. There are high ranked reviewers that do not have the best grammatical skills. However, I still feel like the reviews as a whole are still readable, which is the goal of the editing program. Ideally, reviewers should have a separate "Grammar rating" for each review that would determine if a reviewer qualifies for the editor program and auto-publishing.

I know this is off topic, but many people have expressed angst over auto-publishing reviews. Perhaps reviewers that qualify for auto-publishing could have an optional button to forward for editing? It would have no points associated with it. However, these reviews would probably have to be in a separate list and not be counted as part of an editors daily review total. Personally, I would be happy to do these since I know for the most part that very few edits would be required.

So true! We met a girl on here not too long ago who had absolutely outstanding grammatical skills and would have made a terrific editor, but her ranking was still too low due to the fact that she hadn't written many reviews. By the same token we've all seen ones who submit review after review and move up quickly, but they haven't the skills to make their own reviews readable, let alone someone else's. It's a complicated situation all around.

That's a good idea that you have about the optional editing. We had a couple of ex-students who were sending us reviews via eMail to look over for quite some time after they achieved the auto-publish rank. We didn't mind at all, but I'm sure they aren't the only ones who would feel better with the option of having someone give their reviews a final glance.

I think that is a great idea. I hope that it's implemented. Good thinking Sir!

Another option would be to offer a "Forward" or "Share" button. This would allow a reviewer that would normally auto-publish to either forward or just share the review to anyone they choose. It doesn't have to be an editor since it would normally auto-publish.

I actually don't like the idea of locking a review after editing. I've gone back to my reviews several times to change things, add information that might have slipped my mind the first time around, rephrase thing to make them clearer, add in pictures etc. Not being able to do those thing if and when I wanted to would suck.

If you're going to make significant changes, then perhaps an option to re-submit for editing again. Also, the review gets locked to any further editing for all reviewers after a period of time (2 months I think?).

I really like this idea. If a contributor makes changes to a review after it has been edited, then it would be nice if the review were automatically resubmitted to the original editor again. As it is, unless an editor goes back and rereads every single review s/he has edited over the past couple of weeks to check for changes (an impossibly time-consuming task), there is no way for the editor to know whether changes have been made to a review--that is unless the contributor notifies him/her, but that just rarely happens. Though there have been a few times (from reading the public comment section under the review the next or same day it published) that I just happened to discover that the contributor has gone back to add or change something, I've only been notified on one occasion by the contributor that s/he had made changes or updates to a review after I've published it. Of course, this is perfectly fine for a contributor to do; it is, after all, his or her review. It's just nice to have the opportunity to check the updates for soundness of grammar and spelling.

Therefore, it would be incredibly helpful if either the review were resubmitted or a notification were sent to the editor after any updates by the contributor. However, since the review would most likely remain published in the interim after the contributor has made changes, perhaps as someone else suggested, having an icon noting the last person to edit would be helpful as well.

[Edit: I've removed my second suggestion to post in a new comment so that it won't be overlooked.]

No one (mentors or editors) should be changing the words that have unique spelling based on country (color v. colour). I am fairly certain that in another forum admins said that these sorts of differences should be left to the reviewer.

You're not offending me. My only pause is over those who've had a mentor. Not everyone NEEDS a mentor. I wouldn't want to see a potentially awesome editor disqualified because they haven't been mentored.

I can see how it could happen though. If people don't realize where the reviewers are from it'd be easy to automatically make that swap. Especially with me since I have a bad habit of switching out z's for s's in certain words (realize, organize, etc). My significant other is from England and I've picked up some of his mannerisms in spelling

That's a neat idea. Having more people edit less reviews each.

While I agree with your point on rank having nothing to do with writing skills, I also think that rank is an indicator of the level of experience one has in the community and how their reviews are seen by others. If you look at those reviewers who are ranked in the 6+ range, you'll see that the majority of them have well-written reviews, and are obviously dedicated to the site.

I do think that the editor program should have an higher rank requirement. There are people who might be drawn to the program for the points and not the editing process.

I disagree. You do have a valid point, but that's not always the case. I was accepted as an editor when I was only a 5.4. I didn't even autopublish at the time. My rank had nothing to do with my experience or editing ability. I've been reviewing here since 2007. The reviews have just been here and there and spaced out in such a way that my rank never got very high. But I've done as well as any other editor with a higher rank. I don't think rank should have all that much to do with editing.

You have a very good point. It's no secret that the quantity of reviews someone submits can move them up through the ranks quickly, and not submitting often enough can cause their rank to fall, so it shouldn't be taken as the only indicator of ability.

I agree, especially with the 2nd paragraph. I've wondered why some don't bother doing the comments. My mentor ALWAYS did and was always super encouraging, but the new editors I've had don't leave them. No biggie, but it would be nice to see.

Personally, there are two reasons why I don't vote on review that I have just edited:

1. Once we post a review, we have to go to the actual review page to vote on it. Not a huge deal, but I'm usually editing multiple reviews and don't want to break the flow of my work.

2. I prefer to not vote immediately because I don't want to be influenced by my editing. Some reviews have a lot of mistakes, and my opinion is probably jaded since I know what work went into rehabilitating it.

What Kindred said, but it's also because they're not mentors. A mentor's job is to help you write better reviews, point out your errors for YOU to fix, tell you what works and what doesn't. An editor's job is to simply correct the GRAMMATICAL mistakes and move on.

Yes, this. There is a big difference between the the role of a mentor (who serves as an encouraging coach and sometimes even as a cheerleader in the public arena) and the role of an editor (who should perform his or her job quietly and without fanfare behind the scenes).

EF editors are not supposed to make suggestions for improvement on the content of the review. They are also not supposed to try to improve the writer's style to make the review well written as far as presentation goes. Comments on content, presentation, and style should be made by mentors.

While it is not an editor's job to make a review well written when it comes to content, presentation, and style, it is an editor's job to make sure the review is well written when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Their job is also to make the review understandable and readable. Sometimes this entails deciphering the meaning of sentences so the writer's meaning can be made clear to the reader.

I always leave comments detailing the changes that were made on each review that I edit, state my reasons for doing so, and provide links to helpful grammar web pages, but I leave these comments on the private editing page (which only the editor, contributor, and perhaps other staff members can access) for the contributor to view confidentially. Even though my motivation in posting my comments is to be helpful and to allow the contributor an opportunity to disagree with a specific change, I highly doubt the contributor would appreciate me publicly posting these comments. That would be pretty rude, wouldn't it?

My point is that community members should not automatically assume the editor made no comments to the contributor at all just because they do not see any comments by the editor underneath the published version of the review. An editor's comments to the writer should be made confidentially since the scope of the editor's job is limited to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. And if the editor made no private comments at all, the contributor can always message the editor with any questions that s/he may have about the grammar, punctuation, and spelling corrections. I think any editor would be open to answering questions and explaining the errors the reviewer tends to repeat.

Yeah, I find myself not voting on reviews that I've just edited, too, especially if I had to fix a lot of mistakes.

I particularly don't want my negative vote to unduly influence others who will be voting on the review.

Per my understanding (I am not staff), they're in the process of changing this again and so it's taking a little longer for them to respond. They're selecting editors now that will take on the next cycle. I don't know how many applications they have or how many staffers they have reviewing the applications.

Sammi is going to be your best bet for contacting. However at this moment nobody is being accepted or denied since we're in the process of updating a few things. When the updates happen, current editors will be swapped out and new editors will be brought in. We don't have a fixed date for when anything will happen though.