Improving moderation process

albert said:

I like the idea of adding a reject button that requires a reason. But this could be abused. A janitor could just exclusively use reject or approve and then approval will be entirely dependent on when a post gets uploaded and when a janitor sees it.

But if a reject were implemented, an auto-delete after 3 days would almost always be because of mediocre quality.

I think hiding or rejecting should also count as a down vote. You're expressing disapproval, and the score should reflect that. The only problem with this is the score would be dependent on when (and if) a post gets approved, since after approval it wouldn't be subject to further down voting. Maybe delay the actual approval until after the three days? This would clog up the queue further but it would ensure any mediocre post that gets approved would start out with a low score.

Going along with that, perhaps the queue should be sorted by score. Or make it an option.

The idea I meant to convey with the list of preset rejection reasons was not that janitors should delete queued posts on the spot, but that when they reject queued posts, their specific reasons for doing so should be visible to the other janitors as a strong recommendation not to approve a post.

Janitor A might, hypothetically reject a post for jpeg artifacts, and then janitor B might see the post still queued with that rejection reason next to it, and say, "Okay but I know janitor A, and that guy has fucking eagle eyes for artifacts; they're not always so prominent as he says they are," and then find that the artifacts in question are only visible if they zoom in or look from a funny angle. Or, a janitor might reject post #1598937 as guro, and another janitor see it and say, "Okay maybe a little guro, but not so much that it violates the rules."

"I just don't care for it, personally" probably shouldn't count as a downvote.

Type-kun said:

First of all, for all the users who never saw it, that's what the moderation queue actually looks like: http://imgur.com/3AEmZnU

Just had another look at this, and noticed something horrifying. There should not be an approve link in the thumbnail view. It shouldn't be possible to approve a post without seeing more than the thumbnail. Maybe the link could appear only for posts the janitor has already seen in at least 850px, but if that's not the case, this probably explains most of the bad posts that get approved.

hemoglobin said:

Just had another look at this, and noticed something horrifying. There should not be an approve link in the thumbnail view. It shouldn't be possible to approve a post without seeing more than the thumbnail. Maybe the link could appear only for posts the janitor has already seen in at least 850px, but if that's not the case, this probably explains most of the bad posts that get approved.

It's there because you open the image, close the image after checking it, and then hit approve or hide in the mod queue. If you approve the image from the post, you'll have to refresh the mod queue tab/page to remove the image from the list each time you do it.

Uh, no. There would be no point in using the queue without the approve link.

Would the coding be impossible to make the approve link appear only when the janitor clicks on the thumbnail? (or is this already how it works?)

As I said, it shouldn't be possible to approve something without seeing a larger version first. The sheer number of posts I've seen that look perfectly good in the thumbnail but turn out to be terrible is staggering.

Ye gods, that's the interface janitors have to work with?

Methinks it's time for some improvement to streamline the process.

Noting that I only have an hour or so's experience with the moderating interface, I definitely agree that there should be Approve/Hide/Disapprove buttons. Hide is saying you're unsure of a part of the image and want to leave it to others while Disapprove is a statement that you distinctly disagree with an approval of the image. I don't think they should affect the score of the post, but at least images deleted by timeout should display the number of Disapprovals (possibly also Hides, but I don't think I'd support that idea) given if only to give the uploader feedback and reassurance that the posts didn't "slip through the cracks." The issue of posts possibly being approved too quickly to accrue Disapprovals doesn't seem too big to me, but it's a possibility. It should also probably be called something other than "Disapproval" since it would sound like the equivalent of a manual delete to someone that didn't understand it, but my headache is denying me the right to think of a better word.

EDIT: Headache made me forget I wanted to mention that reasons could probably be added by expanding a box (ala tag editing) when clicking one of the buttons, which can either be filled and submitted or scrolled past.

The Mod Queue itself is definitely showing its age. I don't have a clear idea of how to freshen up the interface, but I'd like to see some more functionality put into it. Maybe some more customization available on the user's end on what information to display.

hemoglobin said:

Just had another look at this, and noticed something horrifying. There should not be an approve link in the thumbnail view. It shouldn't be possible to approve a post without seeing more than the thumbnail. Maybe the link could appear only for posts the janitor has already seen in at least 850px, but if that's not the case, this probably explains most of the bad posts that get approved.

I agree with the importance of looking at posts in full. It's one thing to Hide posts when just looking at thumbnails; like Alanis mentioned, maybe a post contains certain content or a copyright that the approver doesn't care for, and that's fair. It's easy enough to filter out such posts in the queue, hide them, then go back to more preferred posts. If the artwork is good enough in spite of an approver ignoring it, someone else can give the post a shot.

To Approve a post without looking at it in full is counterproductive to the role of quality control and not something I rarely skip out on doing, as it seems like common sense. I've suspected for a while that posts that would be rejected otherwise like duplicates (especially those tagged as such while still Pending), photos of figures, self-uploads from artists and just outright bad posts have been getting handwaved because of a lack of effort being put into examining a post.

Hiding the Approval button until the post has been seen in full sounds okay, but it doesn't guarantee someone won't just simply click posts and go back to approve without actually observing them closely. But I do think it's an important step, so maybe an indicator can be put into place to see who actually checks posts in full view before approval.

OOZ662 said:

Noting that I only have an hour or so's experience with the moderating interface, I definitely agree that there should be Approve/Hide/Disapprove buttons. Hide is saying you're unsure of a part of the image and want to leave it to others while Disapprove is a statement that you distinctly disagree with an approval of the image. I don't think they should affect the score of the post, but at least images deleted by timeout should display the number of Disapprovals (possibly also Hides, but I don't think I'd support that idea) given if only to give the uploader feedback and reassurance that the posts didn't "slip through the cracks." The issue of posts possibly being approved too quickly to accrue Disapprovals doesn't seem too big to me, but it's a possibility. It should also probably be called something other than "Disapproval" since it would sound like the equivalent of a manual delete to someone that didn't understand it, but my headache is denying me the right to think of a better word.

This idea is alright. Approve/Hide/Disapprove sounds similar to the Positive/Neutral/Negative system in place for records.

Unless there's actual proof that people are approving posts without looking at them let's not panic and remove the only feature of the mod queue that even makes it usable. "I see that's how the mod queue is set up so that MUST be what's happening" isn't sufficient.

albert said:

I like the idea of adding a reject button that requires a reason. But this could be abused. A janitor could just exclusively use reject or approve and then approval will be entirely dependent on when a post gets uploaded and when a janitor sees it.

But if a reject were implemented, an auto-delete after 3 days would almost always be because of mediocre quality.

I think hiding or rejecting should also count as a down vote. You're expressing disapproval, and the score should reflect that. The only problem with this is the score would be dependent on when (and if) a post gets approved, since after approval it wouldn't be subject to further down voting. Maybe delay the actual approval until after the three days? This would clog up the queue further but it would ensure any mediocre post that gets approved would start out with a low score.

Going along with that, perhaps the queue should be sorted by score. Or make it an option.

As others have already said, please note that "reject" option isn't intended to remove the post from the queue; it's basically a stronger version of "hide" that shows approver's negative response to the post, so that other approvers and uploader could take it into consideration before approving or appealing.

Though, indeed, there's potential problem with post being instantly approved without others having any chance to look at it. It is possible to delay approval - not for the whole 3 days, but 12 hours, perhaps - but that would seriously clog up the queue, and I'm not sure this is necessary. If implemented, pre-approved posts should be shown in separate tab to not interfere with regular queue processing, but I'm not seeing what's that going to achieve, as it's impossible to revoke the approval even if others are not content with it.

As for mod queue interface, I think there should be a way to see sample-sized image without leaving the queue, and approval should only happen after looking at it.

I've stickied this thread and the "Uploader and Approver Complaints on Low Quality Images" thread at forum #104709 for convenience, and for having discussion important to the site.

Hey, Log, would it be an improvement if, instead of the approve link being removed outright, it were changed into a "zoom" button which loaded the 850px wide version of an image right in the queue, and became an approve button upon being clicked? In this hypothetical, the thumbnails are moved to the right of the buttons and information, so that when they expand into larger versions they don't displace their own accompanying text.

Kinda minor, it'd be nice if the queue had the same (or maybe smaller) "play" button in the top left of the thumbnail on animated images as the regular post searches do. Granted animated does start with an A, but glancing at the tags to tell why this really weirdly framed image was uploaded feels unintuitive.

Regarding "reject" option.
I like the idea for dealing not wanted posts that not required waiting expiration time. Can be quite helpful by cutting noticeable chunk of queue's size.
Approve/hide/disapprove sounds okay, but it something lacks either. I'll think that way later.

Since "approve" function moved as permission, may there is also be "reject" permission. Or merged with "approver".
How I see it's work:
- "Reject" is much like "flag" but for pending images and may or not may use unique border (lets say pink or cyan, but latter was seen for "appeal" bar). In case of "not" it'll be marked as usual "flagged for rejection(deletion). Reason: whatever(rejected for whatever)". "Reason" is must to prevent abuse and quick feedback avoiding descent to forum, also it's notice to other approvers. Marked post must be visible in queue, visibility to other cases - on admins' decision.
- It must gain n+1 (n can be vary) "rejects" to force expiration process like after 3 days, but use N "reject" flags instead. Example: need 3 "rejects", post get them, post getting "unapproved" status or "Deleted, Reason: got 3 rejection flags" or something like that.
- Case: Post still in queue, but already got "reject" flag. Can be appealed by additional approval from other approver to outweight rejection. Reason is must or not - approvers decide. If got got 3 or 2 approvals - it approved automatically.
- Not sure about user's statistics. "rejected" posts can be either as "flag" count or posts that got solid rejection.

I'll stick to this topic for a while, so we can discuss this.

E1: Like said earlier - reject reason may be preset for convenience.

Something simple I'd like is to be able to change the number of posts per page. I like to deal with the queue in small chunks at a time. This would make that easier.

ShadowbladeEdge said:

Something simple I'd like is to be able to change the number of posts per page. I like to deal with the queue in small chunks at a time. This would make that easier.

That would help. I usually end up filtering my queue to individual copyrights, mediums, and users to cut down on the mass number of posts displayed and start finding posts to approve from there.

I'm still trying to think of the right way to put into words of how to improve the Mod Queue. But in general, what if the Mod Queue had similar functionality to the Posts directory, but with expanded info for the sake of managing posts there?

How about comments from individual approvers attached to the posts for only other approvers to see? Or did someone already come up with that?

I found an interesting comment from Log a few years ago:

The ability to "watch" a post. Have it stick in your mod queue with it's current status displayed until you actually manually click "unwatch" (or stick/unstick.) Sometimes I just can't decide on a post and would like to think on it for a couple days, if someone else approves it in that time I'd like to at least know so I know I wasn't alone in finding the post interesting. Yes, I can sort of do this manually by clicking the hide link a lot and just leaving the post at the top of my queue but generally I'll forget I had a post I was questioning myself about in the first place and only find it months later if ever.

I think of this as a sort of snooze button that lets you temporarily hide a post and reconsider it after a day, after which some other approvers have had a chance to weigh in. Anyone think this would be useful?

Watchlist for certain posts or is it like a pin function where you have a certain number of posts on the top of the mod queue page every time you enter it?

albert said:

I found an interesting comment from Log a few years ago:

I think of this as a sort of snooze button that lets you temporarily hide a post and reconsider it after a day, after which some other approvers have had a chance to weigh in. Anyone think this would be useful?

Isn't that kind of, sort of what favourite groups were mildly incentivised to be made for? Even if not, that feature alone probably covers this ground.