Dear mods / Image Quality Standarts?

I agree with the thread starter. This overzealous flagger does not seem to understand the difference between stylistic choice and anatomy error, or the idea that one perceived error does not invalidate the entirety of the work.

There's also a fact I've been wanting to discuss but have been dreading to. From my observation the queue's design is largely skewered towards the safe depiction of anime art. Experimental styles or styles that offer different aesthetic sensibilities (but are still anime related) will almost always certainly die in the queue if reported. I think that needs to be addressed.

Action_Kamen said:

There's also a fact I've been wanting to discuss but have been dreading to. From my observation the queue's design is largely skewered towards the safe depiction of anime art. Experimental styles or styles that offer different aesthetic sensibilities (but are still anime related) will almost always certainly die in the queue if reported. I think that needs to be addressed.

Care to give some examples of the sort of thing you are talking about there?

Mikaeri said:

On the contrary, something that completely ruins the image for a single person shouldn't be the sole factor in deciding whether to keep an image or not.

That is true, but it's not like that's actually how it works here; the picture in question has to get through moderation after that person said "hey this anatomy sucks", which means it's not just a single person but the whole moderation team that didn't judge it good enough.

I still don't see the problem. Off course flags are going to throw of people.
But if we'd follow this, then flagging becomes vandalism simply by just flagging a post. That's surely not a solution and that's why I don't really care if people are lamenting about anatomy flags, especially if they are visible. If they are there, then it's up to decide whether those flaws are too much or not. But that's not part of the flagger, but the part of the Janitors.

Provence said:

I still don't see the problem. Off course flags are going to throw of people.
But if we'd follow this, then flagging becomes vandalism simply by just flagging a post. That's surely not a solution and that's why I don't really care if people are lamenting about anatomy flags, especially if they are visible. If they are there, then it's up to decide whether those flaws are too much or not. But that's not part of the flagger, but the part of the Janitors.

There has been a recent trend with flagging for minor anatomy issues that do not impact the whole illustration. The janitors are generally agreeing these one or two flaws (which did not get noticed on initial approval) are enough to condemn the image as bad quality by what appears to be the sole virtue that the flagger is accurate, not because these flaws ruin the entire composition.

Lets be honest here, this thread alone and the time lines / volumes of recent anatomy flags have been noticed by the userbase. Many images that made it through and completely fit in with the existing gallery for some artists are being successfully flagged for an arm or leg or something you have to be eyeballing with an anatomy book open for comparison. Regardless of the remaining 80~90% anatomy, lining, colouring, shading, clothing, pose or subject matter, a few expertly noticed flaws will mean its no good.

The example i brought up with the artist mamuru is an example of this new direction. Five of the latest images have been flagged for nitpicks, despite the artist's style being consistent as ever and there were ZERO flags for any of their art before the last 30 days.

So was there a recent change in the anatomy standards? What is the new threshold that the flagger and janitors are using? I wish to know the direction of the river so i don't waste my time pissing against it with my 1 appeal a day where i will need to highlight the 90% of the illustration as being well done, repeating the same reasons everytime. Then it will eventually seem like a cheap copy paste template used by me even if the reasons are valid on a case by case basis.

There has never been a change in the standards, but nobody used the flagging option for reasons absolutely unknown to me (obvious sarcasm).
But I'd probably say that the quality standard did indeed change, but not because of changes in the guidelines or rules, but because of demotions of (active) Janitors due to too many deleted approvals.

Squishy said:

There has been a recent trend with flagging for minor anatomy issues that do not impact the whole illustration. The janitors are generally agreeing these one or two flaws (which did not get noticed on initial approval)

There's one thing to consider, also: a lot of pictures never did get through initial approval, and rather bypassed it entirely as being a contributor upload.

Provence said:

There has never been a change in the standards, but nobody used the flagging option for reasons absolutely unknown to me (obvious sarcasm).

I already indicated that i am aware the anatomy flagging has been used to expunge grotesque images where the anatomy issues are so obvious and widespread.

However with the discussions that have taken place since this thread was opened and several people noticing this trend, i think there is an issue that needs to be sorted out with how the guidelines for axing posts for anatomy should be dealt with.

We have tags for minor issues you need a magnifyiny glass for, deletion for glaring ones that form the majority of the image, so what happened with this sudden black and white approach?

Provence said:

But I'd probably say that the quality standard did indeed change, but not because of changes in the guidelines or rules, but because of demotions of (active) Janitors due to too many deleted approvals.

Thank you, this is all i needed to know. So there was a change after all. No wonder all the anatomy flags of recent have been 100% on the opinion of the flagger for decent posts.

I'll just leave this here:
Whatever your idea of Quality Control is: Start using some discretion and look for things more egregious than minor details in pictures that don't actually ruin an entire picture for people other than you.

Dragging otherwise decent posts into deletion in the name of pointing out a minor problem is stretching what's intended to be quality control. And if this deletion enough to where people are openly taking it personally, pointing it out in a thread like this, maybe we need to figure out where a good balance can be found instead of brushing off the concerns raised.

Squishy said:

Dragging otherwise decent posts into deletion

People need to stop seeing flags as some sort of immuable "this post will be deleted" mark. A flag is just a post being sent (a first time for some, a second time for others) into approval queue. It's not rare that flagged posts get reapproved.

Flandre5carlet said:

People need to stop seeing flags as some sort of immuable "this post will be deleted" mark. A flag is just a post being sent (a first time for some, a second time for others) into approval queue. It's not rare that flagged posts get reapproved.

Indeed. It is very, very likely a post gets re-approved if the post is decent. So it stands 1 flagger against around 70 Janitors. That is quite a huge amount. I'm aware that not all Janitors are active, but judging from the user reports, there is still a good amount active (I think when counted over the half.)

Squishy said:

There has been a recent trend with flagging for minor anatomy issues that do not impact the whole illustration.

Successfully deleted examples? As far as I know, the posts affected by the recent vandalism / revenge flag wave have been re-approved.

Squishy said:

Dragging otherwise decent posts into deletion in the name of pointing out a minor problem is stretching what's intended to be quality control.

Even if a post is ultimately deleted, it is still available for everyone to view. Maybe we should ask a developer to implement a "QC off" switch (permanent status:any mode) in "Advanced settings". -_-

Squishy said:

Thank you, this is all i needed to know. So there was a change after all. No wonder all the anatomy flags of recent have been 100% on the opinion of the flagger for decent posts.

Don't be so quick to gear into confirmation bias. New approvers are added and removed pretty often on a trail basis and have been for a while before this "controversy" started. People got a bit rustled when it was decided among the staff to remove approval rights from one user whom had had that right since long before it was common to add and remove them, and this has often been twisted sarcastically into the plural. That has very little to do with flags, how they operate, or their role on the site; most flags have been and all of them should be 100% the opinions of the flagger, because that's how they work.

By the way, the way I flag doesn't exclude any user from the process. Which means I'll also flag my own posts if needed. Didn't happen until now, but maybe it will ( ・ω ・ ).

reiyasona said:

Even if a post is ultimately deleted, it is still available for everyone to view. Maybe we should ask a developer to implement a "QC off" switch (permanent status:any mode) in "Advanced settings". -_-

That would be a most excellent feature that will empower individual users to have control over what they see without clashing with others. For an issue that is deeply rooted in differing subjective opinions, i can think of no better solution.

I already have the exclude deleted from search turned off but there are... limitations

But isn't the default search from Danbooru status:any? So how should this work?
Switching the default listing to status:active kicks out every flagged post, but also every post that is pending approval.

You know, I've been thinking lately that it wouldn't hurt to increase the appeal limit for regular users. A lot of frustration seems to be coming from how people don't feel that they can formally contest flags, and a one-per-day appeal limit in the face of over a dozen flags a day is certainly discouraging.

Provence said:

But isn't the default search from Danbooru status:any? So how should this work?
Switching the default listing to status:active kicks out every flagged post, but also every post that is pending approval.

Isn't the default -status:deleted?

reiyasona said:

Isn't the default -status:deleted?

Seeing how we can see pending and flagged posts by default, I'd say this is the case.

reiyasona said:

Isn't the default -status:deleted?

Hmm, seems you are right.