Uploader and Approver Complaints on Low Quality Images

Some guro has been allowed, but only within certain limitations... which you reoutinely ignore.

[...]
Well, we can start with a couple like these:

post #1738797
or
post #1932919

Honestly, I'm not even sure what you're arguing here, as you just attempted to deny a statement that you routinely upload guro by showing off how much guro you uploaded.

Is your defense is that if you occasionally actually follow the rules, if only by accident, then everything you do should be permissible?

I have uploaded 9 images tagged guro in the last 3 months (6 if you discount the Skullgirls works).

How is 2 images / month equivalent to "routinely ignoring" the rules regarding guro?

Let's not get side-tracked: Kikimaru doesn't bypass the queue, so if he feels like using a more shotgun approach to uploading, then so be it. It's the approvers' job to go through the queue and filter posts, not his.

This discussion is about what Danbooru standards are or should be and how can they be more effectively maintained, and the people that set the standards are the people that either bypass or control the queue, i.e. contributors and approvers alone.

Kikimaru said:

I literally don't care anymore tbh.

You never cared, as far as I can tell.

richie said:

And after these 3 days finally comes guess-who? to approve it. If you're lucky enough.

This "guess-who" is... not one of those currently present, amirite?

Fred1515 said:

Let's not get side-tracked: Kikimaru doesn't bypass the queue, so if he feels like using a more shotgun approach to uploading, then so be it. It's the approvers' job to go through the queue and filter posts, not his.

He has (literally) over 9000 deleted posts at this point, yet he keeps uploading random crap, mostly comprising Western scribbles depicting someone extremely famine-resistant. While I agree that whoever approves such rubbish is to blame, that doesn't mean we should let the uploader get away with murder: not only his "endeavors" create additional work for the staff - they serve as a bad example for all the novice uploaders ("Look, a Builder uploaded that, so it must be okay!").

I'm going to lock this thread since it's just become "dogpile on kikimaru" which isn't productive. If one of the other mods disagrees they can reopen it.

Unlocking because D'Eye has promised to behave but if individual posters start getting called out again I'm going to lock it again.

While he wasn't the only problem poster he was the one that triggered the lock. Don't call out individuals. We're trying to address issues as a whole not 1-2 posters/mods who individuals may or may not take issue with. If you have a problem with an individual poster contact albert or Renim (sorry renim, throwing you under the bus for opening the thread since we don't have a mod-only forum.)

Just my 2 cents as a casual observer here:

Uploading posts is extremely easy and doesn't have much consequence in the event of deletion. On the other hand trying to get posts deleted is highly demonized and I've heard it can get you negative records or even bans.

It seems like these two actions need to be equalized and carry the same responsiblity. Posts getting more time in the mod queue and requiring more than one approver might help.

Hoobajoob said:

Just my 2 cents as a casual observer here:

Uploading posts is extremely easy and doesn't have much consequence in the event of deletion. On the other hand trying to get posts deleted is highly demonized and I've heard it can get you negative records or even bans.

It seems like these two actions need to be equalized and carry the same responsiblity. Posts getting more time in the mod queue and requiring more than one approver might help.

Well, to go back to what I was saying before, yes, this is one of the ways that, mechanically, the rules can be changed in a way that wouldn't involve as much personal drama.

If you upload things, you raise your upload cap unless a significant proportion of your uploads are deleted (which de facto doesn't happen around here), but your flagging cap only moves with promotions, and your basic user has 10 uploads and 1 flag. Users are rewarded for a 25% deletion rate, as well, but all you get is threats from other users for flagging things.

Whether you tag or not doesn't matter. Some people upload little, but have literally tagged hundreds of thousands of posts, for tens of millions of tags, while others upload thousands of posts without tagging, and the uploaders are the ones mechanically rewarded by the current system.

This system mechanically is designed to reward bulk posting without caring about tagging and has no incentive to care about quality beyond what will get you over a 25% deletion rate, which clearly isn't all that much.

Yes, bad janitors are still going to be a problem, but unless you're going to install some ostracon system to vote janitors into exile, (which is pretty drama-filled, as well,) then there isn't a mechanical solution for that.

Giving users more flags to at least clean up the mess, and lowering the rate of post cap increases such that deletion rates matter a little more would be a fair way to at least start to put some balance back into the system.

Hoobajoob said:

Just my 2 cents as a casual observer here:

Uploading posts is extremely easy and doesn't have much consequence in the event of deletion. On the other hand trying to get posts deleted is highly demonized and I've heard it can get you negative records or even bans.

It seems like these two actions need to be equalized and carry the same responsiblity. Posts getting more time in the mod queue and requiring more than one approver might help.

Flagging is anonymous to all but janitors & above now IIRC.

Kikimaru said:

Flagging is anonymous to all but janitors & above now IIRC.

Yes this is the case.

Hoobajoob said:

Just my 2 cents as a casual observer here:

Uploading posts is extremely easy and doesn't have much consequence in the event of deletion. On the other hand trying to get posts deleted is highly demonized and I've heard it can get you negative records or even bans.

I've handed out far less negatives for flagging than I have for bad uploads.

If there's a reason to neg a user for flagging, the only reason I would do so is extended flagging for frivolous reasons. Take this user, for example (EDIT: link changed to one all users can view). That might be the most extreme example I could find.

So I don't take issue with the act of flagging; though, flagging solely to re-queue posts that shouldn't have been approved in the first place personally seems like an unnecessary use of that function. I take issue if the flagging reasons themselves are bad.

It seems like these two actions need to be equalized and carry the same responsiblity. Posts getting more time in the mod queue and requiring more than one approver might help.

I disagree with both, because neither solves issues attributed to a single approver, and just involve hoping that the problem fixes itself and goes away.

3 days has been enough time for posts to go through. Extending the mod queue time is only going to delay the amount of time for low-quality images to get approved by that one guy while they've been hidden by everyone else.

On requiring a second approver: I've considered this before, but a single problem approver isn't worth making changes at the approval level just to cater to their presence. It's also not going to fix the issues with him that users of various levels have pointed out, in both negative records and the thread. He isn't aware of what his actions are doing (or IS aware and just doesn't care, going by his lack of change or response to either), so he shouldn't have a role with that much influence on what's accepted on the site in the first place and needs to be demoted.

And it's not like that demotion would be a total ban from all site activities, it would involve being removed from the Janitor role that people (again, people that are users and other approvers) think he's doing a bad job with. That's really not as harsh as people are making it sound.

Fred1515 said:
This discussion is about what Danbooru standards are or should be and how can they be more effectively maintained, and the people that set the standards are the people that either bypass or control the queue, i.e. contributors and approvers alone.

This is correct. This shouldn't have to be repeated across the thread's lifetime (but it will anyway, because people don't read).

Apollyon said:

Take this user, for example.

FYI users below Janitor can't use that creator_id search option. That link just shows us all flags from all users.

To clarify: that user flagged 3 images for "communistic imagery" one for "incest" one for "gypsy shown" and one for "male focus"

Toks said:

FYI users below Janitor can't use that creator_id search option. That link just shows us all flags from all users.

Sorry. I knew I should have just pointed to the user's records instead.
http://danbooru.donmai.us/user_feedbacks?search[user_id]=107989

I'll edit my previous post with that.

Sorry for delayed response, but I was a little busy this week. And, to be honest, my final line of this post expreses my sense of participating in serious discussions at danbooru recently.

Apollyon said:

Again, that's the problem. No, I don't think such an approver is intentionally expanding the scope of artwork or even intentionally sabotaging the approval process, because either one would be giving them way too much credit.

I don't know about intentions, but truth is he is the one who's backfilling the quality trench between posts which need to go through demanding and often irrational moderation process and these which are avoiding it having a free pass because of user priviledges.
You want higher standards - you'd have to do something with the latter ones first.
And this won't happen unless something REALLY changes.

That's also why I wouldn't suggest any system-wide changes to accommodate to or justify either of the two above issues while leaving them as they are. That's really not needed when the main problem involves a minority Appover and other Approvers don't think he's doing the job properly, while making theirs harder, and don't think he should continue to have that role.

What are the consequences for contrib+ for having in their portfolio a succesfully flagged post? A two? A three?
For what amount of deleted post would you evaluate such number if the poster was - hypotethically - subjected to normal, moderated procedure? (BTW: right now it's only simple increase of deleted number counter. Really?)
And who is supposed to make following decisions?

See, that's the main problem.

Wypatroszony said:

I'll have you know that 'nobody cares about it' is exactly due to the same 'guess-who?' simply stamping approvals on any flagged junk uploaded on contributor level. Just food for thought as to why some may not bother.

I know. I've been there too.
Still doesn't change the fact that I've personally expierienced the almost-three-days-after salvation quite a few times and I don't think I was posting a junk. Maybe if other janitors+ were, ehm, more active or have broaden their scope of approval interests... just a food for thought why he's not seen as the devil incarnate, well, at least not for some of us *ba-dum-tss*

And flagging things twice on my own, just because of a wonky approver, feels a bit unethical in my book and makes me look like the persistent asshole,

That's because flagging - as it is now - is not (shouldn't be...) a tool for posts which evade mod queue completely. This should be only a tool for the posts which were already accepted by at least one (other) mod. And I also fully agree that to make things more equal, if you're expected to write reasons for flagging then I'd expect having a written reply by mod why the flag has been turned down and the post was accepted anyway. Right know it only makes you looking as a fool - you're trying your best, and then you got the "lol, no *approval click*" response. And consequently this makes you stop caring about anything really quickly.
But this isn't what I had in mind when I've said that nobody cares about it. What I wanted to say that even if some flags stays and posts are being deleted there is no follow up. And I'm afraid it's not something that is surprising me in current state of "the system".

What other way to make the 'head' of this site aware it IS an issue, other than giving him a thread of discussion, while also keeping it mature?

....

richie said:

I don't know about intentions, but truth is he is the one who's backfilling the quality trench between posts which need to go through demanding and often irrational moderation process and these which are avoiding it having a free pass because of user priviledges.
You want higher standards - you'd have to do something with the latter ones first.
And this won't happen unless something REALLY changes.

You're missing something about these privileged users you keep bringing up: The majority of users got promoted to Contributor and upwards because they earned it before by showing they could hang with the moderation process. That's not getting a "free pass", since they worked for their privileges and proved they don't need someone to watch over them.

If this is part of the such and much worse posts happen to be posted by contrib+ that you said before, then you should have pointed out some examples instead of just mentioning them in passing. Because I'm not seeing these "such and much worse posts" from that set of users. That in itself is as bad as an appeal saying "things worse than this have been approved".

Even if the mod queue is getting reduced by one person, that still doesn't justify the act of going over everything with a wide paintbrush, letting in everything at the low end of quality that has to be flagged afterwards. Even less so when, chances are, he's not even aware of what he's doing.

Maybe if other janitors+ were, ehm, more active or have broaden their scope of approval interests... just a food for thought why he's not seen as the devil incarnate, well, at least not for some of us *ba-dum-tss*

Janitors+ are under no obligation to broaden their scopes of approval. I'm still active, and I'm certainly not going to let in posts I don't like just for you. And since you want to wag your finger about grudges, the one you apparently have against users Contributor and upwards seems localized to you, since you're the only person in this thread even still mentioning them at this point. Chances are, that might just be your problem.

Well, if talking about users is not allowed, and talking about changing the nature of the rules is not allowed, either, it seems like there is only one person and purpose for this thread, and no other conclusion is permissible.

But if that's the case, then in fairness, there have been posts flagged that are the responsibility of others than the janitor at the center of this thread.

I still don't see why changing things to let non-janitors have more flags per day or changing the rules to make deleted posts more significantly discourage posting of marginal or lower quality works wouldn't be something both fairly easy and potentially useful.

NWSiaCB said:

I still don't see why changing things [...] to make deleted posts more significantly discourage posting of marginal or lower quality works wouldn't be something both fairly easy and potentially useful.

Several times already Albert has tried changing things related to upload limit so people with many deleted posts are more heavily penalized. But it gets reverted within days every time because many people complain it's unfair. Not only the large number of affected people, some senior staff members also agreed it was unfair.

If you have a specific algorithm in mind which is more fair than the previous ones then you could suggest it.

NWSiaCB said:

let non-janitors have more flags per day

Basic members used to have 10 flags per day but it was abused so it was lowered to 1. Gold to Contributor still have 10.

Toks said:

Basic members used to have 10 flags per day but it was abused so it was lowered to 1. Gold to Contributor still have 10.

Would it be possible to have flags work like uploads with successful flags raising the limit, while overturned flags lower it?

Hoobajoob said:

Would it be possible to have flags work like uploads with successful flags raising the limit, while overturned flags lower it?

I assume it would be easy to implement since the flags table already has an is_resolved column which as far as I understand keeps track of whether the flag is overturned or not.

Still seeing a lot of "this post offends my artistic sensibilities" shite in here.

Just accept that some mods like stuff you don't and move on with your life.