Lax editing standards as long as updates are free?

[Dedekind]

These are general comments I have heard on poor editing:

1) "If I spot poor editing, it makes me wonder what they missed that I also missed."

2) "If they didn't put the time in to make it easy on me, why should I go easy on them?"

3) "My time is precious and I don't want to waste my time deciding what they meant to say (instead of what they actually said)."


(1) and (3) seem most relevant for RPGs. I know just reading the forums I skip over posts that use a lot of shorthand or have a lot of misspelling.

 

[jaerdaph]

I think there's a growing trend across all industries to release the beta to save money as well as make your money now up front, and rely on your customers to provide the feedback and fixes. This might work for RPGs and software. Accelerator pedals on SUVs? Not so much...

 

[Alan Shutko]

Bad editing just plain bugs me. It annoys me and makes me less likely to want to have anything to do with the product. A typo in a product is understandable, but when I'm running across a bunch in a single product, I get really annoyed and write off the publisher. I am capable of reading past the errors, I just don't want to.

Production values matter. Editing is just one of those things. A publisher that slacks off on it won't get much of my business. The Dungeonmastering.com folks are really bad at this. Every product I've read from them has been rife with errors, and the sample Adventure Club module convinced me not to subscribe before I finished it. Oddly, their website does much better than their PDFs do. Perhaps now that they're under new management, things will improve.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I know just reading the forums I skip over posts that use a lot of shorthand or have a lot of misspelling.

I also skip over forum posts with bad font choices and bad color choices. There are some users who always post in a nonstandard font, I hate it and almost universally skip right past. Those are like signposts telling me not to bother as they are trying to make their point difficult to get to.

 

[Dedekind]

I also skip over forum posts with bad font choices and bad color choices. There are some users who always post in a nonstandard font, I hate it and almost universally skip right past. Those are like signposts telling me not to bother as they are trying to make their point difficult to get to.

Absolutely. It makes it impossible to scan.

But... I don't see a lot of problems in most rpg matter I read. Even the bloggers seem to avoid most pitfalls, though style is sometimes an issue.

 

[wedgeski]

I understand how editing errors can slip through, and I sympathise with the difficult job of moving a book through dozens of people's hands and having it come out right at the end. But, I'm not cutting Wizards any slack on this. They've been doing it long enough now that the processes should be well-ingrained. Skill erosion caused by constantly shrinking the staff is almost certainly to blame.

 

[Umbran]

Skill erosion caused by constantly shrinking the staff is almost certainly to blame.

One could blame skill erosion if they'd ever shown they had the skill to erode. I'm not sure we've established that. Every edition's been pretty spotty in QA terms.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I suspect overly optimistic deadlines are more to blame- IOW, "haste makes waste."

 

[jaerdaph]

I suspect overly optimistic deadlines are more to blame- IOW, "haste makes waste."

On a related note, many RPG companies have stopped announcing firm release dates anymore.

 

[MrMyth]

One could blame skill erosion if they'd ever shown they had the skill to erode. I'm not sure we've established that. Every edition's been pretty spotty in QA terms.

Yeah, this. I don't think any editing issues are the result of 'updates being free' - we had books filled with problems in the past, even when getting errata for them was like pulling teeth. Maybe its the nature of the game, maybe they just need more redundancy in the editing process.

Though didn't they just announce something like that? Mearls gaining a 'final, super-editor' role as part of his duties, announced at Gen Con? Or I am just making that up entirely?