Donmai

Dear mods / Image Quality Standarts?

Posted under General

Whatever suits your fancy. I'm essentially blind on the situation so feel free to call me out on my bull :P

In any case, it does mildly tick me off that we've essentially pissed off a good uploader just because he feels unsafe about what to upload. Makes me want to upload a lot less too now.

Mikaeri said:

In any case, it does mildly tick me off that we've essentially pissed off a good uploader just because he feels unsafe about what to upload. Makes me want to upload a lot less too now.

Maybe. That is the problem of flags since they are easily taken personally, even if they are justified.
Or just comment #1653269 by OOZ662. That is probably "harsh", but correct in my eyes.

We won't get rid of that, either. Even if we change the system according to buehbueh's suggestions. Flags will also always cause such topics like this one.

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All I want to say is that there are improvements to be made and that this isn't the fault of any one user. Clearly you have the prerogative to do as you like, but saying the system is okay as is just reeks of complacency.

Honestly, if it were up to me, I wish a lot more users would be comfortable uploading whatever they found. It would make enjoying this site a damn lot easier. But given the status quo, there's only a handful of users doing all that heavy lifting and if any one of them left, others have to carry or leave that payload. There's talk about how it's impossible to be a contributor etc etc... when as I see it, there's tons upon tons of good art to share. When Qpax, a user that consistently finds and uploads images using the same techniques I do, decides to stop, it just feels demotivating. Feels like crap.

If the cookie cutter response is to just "go to Gelbooru" then again, it just reeks of complacency. We're using this site because we see a lot in it. It's the progenitor of booru-based boards. Wikis are constantly rewritten and updated, there are constant improvements made (image samples, sourcing, etc), great translators roam the site more frequently than any other board, tag gardeners frequently update tags that would otherwise make images difficult to find... if we take that content away from them, it's going to polarize the community.

Content is not taken away. It just ends up behind status:deleted.

Also, no it is not impossible to become a Contributor. If an user is saying that, then the most reasonable reason is that the uploads are just not good enough or they have not enough uploads. There are at least two members that do upload quite well, but don't have enough uploads, yet.

One can talk a bit, but those users don't see what's going on behind the curtains (I also can't see what the mods are doing. Maybe they are discussing right now that I should be permanently banned because of the flags..who knows).

You know...the main antogonist of good is perfect. Flags do reflect that pretty well: If I would flag everything showing the slightest error in anatomy, then it would be "perfect", but not good and acceptable anymore. That said, really bad posts should be wiped away into status:deleted. Otherwise you don't end up with "good". If a flag is calling out for too much "perfection", then it is a hopeless flag (once again, you can take your example :P). I guess you know what I mean: Even flagger have to abide to the standard level. One can try to shift that a bit with flags (see Not One Of Us), but you can't change the essence of Dan and that's not the goal, either.

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Ugh, you're missing my point. I'm saying that the current perception is that uploading is difficult. I'm not talking about you or me, I'm talking about just in general. There always seems like there's a crapload of checklists to know about and a ton of things to be forewarned of, when in actuality you quickly pick up these things as you go. And neither am I talking about content that ends up deleted, I'm talking about content from uploaders who would normally upload these things going lost because they got sick of the current system in place. I've uploaded like 50-80 images a day constantly updating artists and trying to share more of what I can find, and I get overjoyed when someone else uploads stuff from an artist I usually follow. I don't know how Qpax feels, but I'm pretty sure part of him would also feel relieved. If that occurred more around here, thank gosh.

Ask any of your friends who like browsing pixiv/seiga/tumblr/deviantart/artstation/etc if they'd be interested in helping curate art here. You link them to howto:upload and howto:tag and I'm sure at least one of them will feel overwhelmed. I know a few friends of mine did. It's the truth that this sort of volunteer work takes a lot of effort and passion, and users that want to do it well only come every once in a while. And when they go inactive (like Schrobby, for example), someone else has to pick up that workload. So popular content gets uploaded slower... so what. I think it's the new and diverse artists that make more than half of what this site is, since the popular stuff is really easy to find. Aside from banned artists, of course.

I never really found it difficult at all to upload stuff back before Albert gave me Contributor status without warning (I mean I'm talking "I can't see ads anymore, did I just fuck up somewhere?). I never saw it like that and always consider Danbooru as a hobby that I somehow did not see myself doing on a regular basis. I don't find the system "fucked up" because I generally see whatever I don't get approved as a litmus test of what to avoid. It's growth in the end and it's my way of trying harder to upload better and better, hammer and yohane notwithstanding.

Flagging, in this case, I never dispute anything I uploaded because 100% of the time they're in the right to be back in mod queue. Hell, that still applies today when I have less to worry about not getting stuff to find.

Oh and never use me as a model what you can upload. Over half of what's my deleted uploads are there for a very good reason.

Mikaeri said:

Ask any of your friends who like browsing pixiv/seiga/tumblr/deviantart/artstation/etc if they'd be interested in helping curate art here. You link them to howto:upload and howto:tag and I'm sure at least one of them will feel overwhelmed. I know a few friends of mine did. It's the truth that this sort of volunteer work takes a lot of effort and passion, and users that want to do it well only come every once in a while. And when they go inactive (like Schrobby, for example), someone else has to pick up that workload. So popular content gets uploaded slower... so what. I think it's the new and diverse artists that make more than half of what this site is, since the popular stuff is really easy to find. Aside from banned artists, of course.

Can't be helped. I dare to say that the amount of "retired" dedicated uploaders are far surpassed the amount of "newcomer" dedicated uploaders. It's just a matter of time until this site will implode OR the based Danbooru bots themselves will get tired of uploading stuffs.

May I ask something pretty simple? Well, I have a clear idea what the goal of quality control is. In order to achieve that rare flags won't do anything, so there should be flagging done on a larger scale (still not as big as flagging 20 posts from each date:2017-02-xx).
Since such topics exists because of different ideas what qc should achieve, I want to ask what other users are thinking about that. Note that this question is not about flagging posts, but the goal behind flags, since I mostly want to ensure that if an user accumulates to many flagged posts, that they should change their uploads to some degree by doinmore filtering out. Like I said, to have impact, there are more flags than 1 per day.

Sacriven said:

Can't be helped. I dare to say that the amount of "retired" dedicated uploaders are far surpassed the amount of "newcomer" dedicated uploaders. It's just a matter of time until this site will implode OR the based Danbooru bots themselves will get tired of uploading stuffs.

Exactly. It's unhealthy if this continues to be the current perception. Eventfully it'll function a lot less well if users that upload the other content just disappear. Part of the joy to curation for me is finding new art and artists, since it's easy to enjoy popular art of the same breed -- to the point it gets kinda stale.

Users hate QCing, and users hate sniping. Nobody wants to try sniping art from other uploaders because it's stressful and annoying as hell. Having your name behind an upload guaranteed to get +10 favorites, etc... great, take the credit. It's just your name beside something. But then there's little confidence in sharing new art because everyone knows the mod queue is hell to go through. Sometimes it's to the point where all you're willing to do is camp a few popular copyrights and upload anything mediocre from them, since even good original art struggles to get approved on some days.

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Sacriven said:
OR the based Danbooru bots themselves will get tired of uploading stuffs.

Good luck with that. Once one Bot leaves another takes it's place. It's annoyingly disgusting, and the fact that they have piss poor uploading and tagging etiquette. Outside of Mr_G I prefer this place 2-3 years ago

Rastamepas said:

Good luck with that. Once one Bot leaves another takes it's place. It's annoyingly disgusting, and the fact that they have piss poor uploading and tagging etiquette. Outside of Mr_G I prefer this place 2-3 years ago

Take a look on the positive side. At least you can enjoy the "results" with proper tagging without breaking a sweat and freely favorite/saved search that you like from those. It's not like that we're uploading things for living.

Rastamepas said:
Outside of Mr_G I prefer this place 2-3 years ago

Ahh, Mr_GT, the epitome of upload spammers. Gone for a month under 6 years (funny how time flies, huh?) and still sits at #6 on the user list sorted by number of uploads.

So, what is the suggestion for improving the situation here? I see all the complaints that various psychological problems exist in terms of discouraging uploaders, but they all stem from core functions of the site and no solution is suggested past "make it feel better." If people get started on Danbooru and progress along far enough to understand how the site has operated nearly unchanged for rolling around a decade now, why is it suddenly there's a big problem with the features? Besides getting rid of moderation (and thus the core feature of the site that sets it apart from other 'boorus) or completely obfuscating it from users (which would never be happily accepted), what could be changed so people don't get upset?

Also keep in mind that these "upload bots" being referenced are always going to fall prey to "the candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long" and that will always be the case regardless of how much effort is put into trying to retain them. Danbooru's a hobby, and while any hobby can be fun to dive full-force into to begin with you're going to either have to pull back eventually or you'll completely burn out. Currently, we don't seem to have anyone filling this role to such an astounding level as users like Mr_GT have in the past, but is that really something to worry about? Do we need users cluttering the place up with every half-acceptable image barely tagged and rarely sourced and edging out the attention that could be spent on more obscure but quality posts from odd copyrights? Does seeing people do that really somehow inspire others to do more themselves? It seemed quite the opposite to me, but I was also much newer to the site back then.

Danbooru isn't dying. If anything, it's retracting and as a result is probably fitting its intended purpose as a quality art gallery more closely as more "grassroots" uploaders appear and less "firehose uploaders" exist. Flagging supports that same dynamic, reminding uploaders that can take the criticism that they should take care in what they're uploading. Unfortunately, many people immediately assume that a flag is the result of someone directly attacking them, their effort, or both instead; I don't see how that can be solved without conflicting with the core moderation feature besides perhaps just making flagging a toggle instead of requiring a reason, which is usually the thing that gets people fighting about it. Even then the response "there's nothing wrong with this picture" will join "I've seen worse" on the top of the Most Used Argument list.

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OOZ662 said:

Also keep in mind that these "upload bots" being referenced are always going to fall prey to "the candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long" and that will always be the case regardless of how much effort is put into trying to retain them. Danbooru's a hobby, and while any hobby can be fun to dive full-force into to begin with you're going to either have to pull back eventually or you'll completely burn out. Currently, we don't seem to have anyone filling this role to such an astounding level as users like Mr_GT have in the past, but is that really something to worry about? Do we need users cluttering the place up with every half-acceptable image barely tagged and rarely sourced and edging out the attention that could be spent on more obscure but quality posts from odd copyrights? Does seeing people do that really somehow inspire others to do more themselves? It seemed quite the opposite to me, but I was also much newer to the site back then.

So this Mr_GT is far crazier than Ars and Randeel? Wow, new things learned everyday.

OOZ662 said:
Danbooru isn't dying. If anything, it's retracting and as a result is probably fitting its intended purpose as a quality art gallery more closely as more "grassroots" uploaders appear and less "firehose uploaders" exist. Flagging supports that same dynamic, reminding uploaders that can take the criticism that they should take care in what they're uploading. Unfortunately, many people immediately assume that a flag is the result of someone directly attacking them, their effort, or both instead; I don't see how that can be solved without conflicting with the core moderation feature besides perhaps just making flagging a toggle instead of requiring a reason, which is usually the thing that gets people fighting about it. Even then the response "there's nothing wrong with this picture" will join "I've seen worse" on the top of the Most Used Argument list.

When you spent majority of your time by searching pics to upload and then got flagged afterwards, it's normal to get angry. It's as if your precious time is spent for naught and you efforts aren't respected. Just saying.

Sacriven said:

When you spent majority of your time by searching pics to upload and then got flagged afterwards, it's normal to get angry. It's as if your precious time is spent for naught and you efforts aren't respected. Just saying.

Well, you should expect that if you spend a lot of time as a "hobby" curating pictures for an imageboard with a rough quality control process.
It's kinda like spending a lot of time playing a ranked game then complaining that your time is spent for naught because you've won 2 games but lost 3 so you lost a rank.

OOZ662 said:

So, what is the suggestion for improving the situation here? I see all the complaints that various psychological problems exist in terms of discouraging uploaders, but they all stem from core functions of the site and no solution is suggested past "make it feel better." If people get started on Danbooru and progress along far enough to understand how the site has operated nearly unchanged for rolling around a decade now, why is it suddenly there's a big problem with the features? Besides getting rid of moderation (and thus the core feature of the site that sets it apart from other 'boorus) or completely obfuscating it from users (which would never be happily accepted), what could be changed so people don't get upset?

Already answered your question I think in our query and I have already shared my opinion with Provence but I'd like to quote what I have shared with them. I'll just directly copy and paste my post that shared them with little tweaks so that other denizens of the community can also able to see what is causing my current distress regarding to problem or the situation that made me feel or lead to create this forum. I'm still not that content, still nothing is solved but you can't move forward if these things keep you bothered. So this is the summer of what is bothering me recently:

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As I said before I have absolutely no problem with flaggers and their flagging habbits but the problem lies elsewhere. The reason why I got a bit pissed off the flags is that it is because flaggers are pointing minor details in the picture even though overall quality is more dominant when you look at the picture at first glance. I will give same example I used in this topic to be more clear but when I first uploaded witch Mercy pic (post #2619719) then as I said before and as far as I can see, it has received good response from the community and no one said anything about the overall quality until I uploaded the pixiv mirror as you can be seen in this post #2619719 and it was doomed to deletion until someone comes around and flag it. I know I have shitty taste when it comes to assessing the quality of image but I never even noticed those flaws until someone pointed them out me. I am againist the deletion of these kind of images as long as the flaw of the image doesnt really that eye disturbing. For example if the flaw of the image is very noticable as you can see in this post #2619175 (NSFW) then flaggers rather should focus on cleaning these kind of pictures from danbooru rather than focusing on little details people like me can't even notice in the first place. I know that why mods who have better perception than us here for. After flaggers are done with this cleaning job then they can go ahead and try to raise the quality of the site even more by flagging and sending posts like Mercy pic to mod queue for more further assessement (this is just an example by the way we are not assesing the picture quality here). Someone from one of my flagged post pointed out this post #2482184 in his comment for example and until this time no one had friggin' flagged this picture even though the bad anatomy is so noticable and eye disturbing. I find it quite hypocritical for flaggers spending their time on flagging rather little details that won't hurt the overall quality of image than focusing on clearing posts that has more issues like this post #2619175 again anyways. The flagging is subjective and mods are not doing good job if the flag reason at least looks reasonable to them. That subjectiveness changes from people to people so there is no middle part of it and that's the problem that causing distress on contributers such as me especially. I mean let's say I might find that Mercy post acceptable in image quality standarts since I didn't noticed the flaws in the image when I first uploaded it but others might have more sensitive perception than me so they can find this kind of images not acceptable and not fitting to their image quality standarts and consequently its deleted and that's where the problem lies. All the effort you poured into finding it and uploading it goes somehow waste.

Even some mod said in my topic that (as in this case OOZ662) if the image doesn't fit to his personal taste he usually don't approve it if it is waiting in mod queue for approval. Wish there was system that made more objective assessement of these pictures before approving them like I dont know like voting system where all the contributors, janitors or even paid users are taking part in rather than normal members. It sounds more democratic at least rather than relying on the fine art taste of couple or few people from ruling body that handles these kind of approving work. In that way it can also relieve the stress they are dealing with everyday.

So my suggestion for flaggers that rather than focusing on little details that no one notices unless they are pointed out especially in posts like this one ( post #2615275 I'm using my posts as an example again) they should aim for posts which is more eye disturbing than this one. Arguing little details like her butt cheek looks off so it should be deleted is what makes no sense here even though when you look at the overall quality of image is more dominant than the flaw itself. I mean look at this way. If the flagger havent pointed out her butt cheek then no one even noticed that flaw in the first place since the image quality in overall is good at the very least and that flaw is not even noticable, in this case at least for me. It changes from person to person and as I said I didnt even noticed her butt cheek when I first uploaded the image itself (and still it doesnt bother me). However please take this post an example too post #2619175 you can see how foots are eye distrubing and you cant help but focus on that part body rather than pointing your attention to some hot action that is going on here. Or this image that has been around for like five long month: post #2482184 that anatomy that blonde haired chick has makes no sense at all and it is really disturbing. Even someone pointed out "what the fuck is wrong with her waist" yet it wasnt even flagged at all. So what I am trying to say is that flaggers who has more good perception at the very least should focus on cleaning these kind of images on the site rather than pointing out "ohh look her butt cheek is fuckin a little above so lets remove it" or "her right leg knee is pointing out wrong way" in Mercy post even though the pose she is commiting here is "pigeon-toed" so it doesnt even noticable at all or at least to some pleb like me. So when you do this kind of flaggings or if the image doesnt make it from mod queue I honestly think it is just shame and feel very demotivated deep inside. I'm giving an example from me but I know many people feel same way who is trying to contributing to the site.

And more importantly my friends this leads another problem. The problem is all the good posts are dominated by power-uploaders so when you go your way and find a post that you think it is acceptable in terms of quality standarts of danbooru or at least you think it is acceptable quality according to your your standarts (again not noticable eye disturbing bodly features unless someone points out like in butt cheek example) then you see that it is not making its way to danbooru from either mod queue or it gets flagged because of reasons like that. So what do danbooru expecting from us? It's not easy to find good posts over there even though all the good posts are dominated by very same people all time. So when you thought of you have contributed a good image in your own subjective standarts then another person comes and says that it is not acceptable and it is pretty demotivating thing to do. You do your best to improve your quality standarts of what you are sharing on the site but there are always people who finds little flaws in those kind of posts. You can't help but question if the system is even fair when personal point of views are more dominant on the site than community itself.

In short when all the good posts are dominated and we know that then you try to find a good post that should be acceptable in terms of image quality standarts. You then proceed to upload it. I'm not talking about pictures below to quality standarts but rather like this one at least (post #2615275 again). It either doesnt make it out of queue or in this case it gets deleted because petty reasons like that which is flag reason is focus on only butt cheek while the overall quality is more dominant the flaw itself. I gave example from my deleted posts but there are more posts like this which suffers from same issue. So while all good post dominated by other people you cant help but try to look for alternative sources to find good posts which is equal to these posts. You upload it even though you had to go all that trouble to find them compared to those power-uploaders that uploads from same artists all time then your post in the site is not appreciated and rather treated badly or you think so. I'm talking about the images thats above to quality at least which has very little issues or the flagged posts that was deleted or not approved due to reason I talked about above.

So it's hard struggle to please either mods or people with refined taste in arts. I know I can't put into words well but while there are lots of good posts outta there you can't get chance to upload a good one or fanarts regarded as hidden gems outta there. It takes a lot of effort to browser through and find them. Power-uploaders are fine. They know what they doing by sniping good artists all time so their posts are always regarded in high manner. When you upload something you think it is good and spend a lot effort to upload them on the site (I'm not even talking about the process where you spent a lot of time on such things like tagging) but when it is in return exposed to subjective rejection you can't help but feel demotivated and crave for uploading from mainstream good artist even you know you can't since they are instantly shared on the site. So when you upload from alternatives your hard work is not appreciated as in and as I said when its treated due to little flaws even though there are tags outta there on the site, for example lets take anatomy; bad_anatomy, bad_legs or arms thin_waist or other #error tags like 6 fingers etc.

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Sorry for the wall of text and I know I couldnt explained myself here better but that was intention behind the creating this topic. You can't be sure what to upload because there are no consistency. You think you have improved your image quality standarts but there are people who always find a flaw on them. This leads to confusion and make me feel unsettled and make me question what should I do to please the mods or the people who have better perception and fine taste in arts or people who have anatomy nazi? That's why I created this topic that rather than relying on subjective point of view of mods, I wondered if there was any image quality standarts that was the set by creators rules by admins. After all and after recent flaggings you can't be sure what you upload in the future will be subjected to same treatment. So I thought and wondered if something changed in the site when I got those flaggings. After your posts get flagged you can't help but feel that what you are doing is even alright. That's why in order to improve my uploading standarts I created this topic and inquired some answer but with the how system works currently I know there is no answer and like OOZ662 said the system in motion for more than a decade now. I also know that you cant please everyone so its better to keep on and improve yourself by taking notes from those flaggings rather than being salty about them.

Sorry for the long ass wall of text and thanks for the reading!
Sincerely.

To me, there is no real objective answer to your concerns. At the end of the day:

Step 1) A picture gets approved if a single approver out of however-many-we-have liked it enough

Step 2) A picture may get flagged if a single user out of however-many-there-are found it to deserve a flag

That is the normal way danbooru functions (for standard users) and both "approvals" and "flags" are intrinsically linked with each other.

This system is bypassed wholly by contributors who upload art without going through the queue - and in turn, a contributor-uploaded picture that gets flagged is only just a "Go to step 1" instead of bypassing that step entirely.

To me, a flag is just that: a picture going through the queue (once if uploaded by a contributor, or again if uploaded by a standard user). The only difference is that there is a supposed flaw attached with it. From then on, it is in the hands of the approvers much like any piece uploaded by a standard user; and it'll get approved if deemed good enough despite the flaw, or it won't get approved if deemed not good enough - in which case it probably would not have been approved if uploaded by a normal user.

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