Posted under General
We don't really lose on any discussion, though. They still regularly appear on many flagged posts about whether the flag is right or wrong, whether it is bad anatomy or a result of artistical techniques, etc etc.
You might not think much about vitriol being thrown at flaggers but that is the exact reason why flaggers' name are hidden to everyone except Mod+. Then it wasn't "personal" harrassment but still shit flung at flaggers because they're flagging things.
Flandre5carlet said:
You might not think much about vitriol being thrown at flaggers but that is the exact reason why flaggers' name are hidden to everyone except Mod+. Then it wasn't "personal" harrassment but still shit flung at flaggers because they're flagging things.
My understanding of the change was to cut down on nonconstructive comments and not to protect flaggers.
As you point out, flaggers are already protected by anonymity so the change is superfluous already.
And to reiterate, flags are scrutinized for poor logic and not for just being flags. There are flags for image samples, screencaps, nude filters and upscales that far larger in volume and these do not get picked apart at all. And even on the scope of flags about anatomy, not every flag is questioned. In fact only a few do. These frequencies can even be observed before the flag colour border change.
I really do question the effectiveness of changing the border colour because it is said that it leads to abusive comments, when the actual reason is the flagging logic.
Otherwise, flags for sampling, third party edits and other solid reasons would have suffered the same abuse when red borders were around for the longest time. And these flags compose the bulk of the volume too, with far greater success rates.
Non-constructive comments on flagged pictures are most generally (not necessarily, admittedly, nor do I have any sort of numerical stats; but very often in my experience) abrasive comments toward flaggers and/or the flagging system, so it's in practice kind of one and the same to me. Anonymity or not, "this flagger is retarded" and other beautifully constructive things are still aimed at the person who flagged the picture.
Um, I think it's a bit obvious that sample and other such flags aren't the target of this, though. They're kind of beside the point; I thought that was generally understood that the problem arises - and so that the discussion centers around - when the flags are in regard to the actual art...
Squishy said:
And to reiterate, flags are scrutinized for poor logic and not for just being flags. There are flags for image samples, screencaps, nude filters and upscales that far larger in volume and these do not get picked apart at all. And even on the scope of flags about anatomy, not every flag is questioned. In fact only a few do. These frequencies can even be observed before the flag colour border change.
I really do question the effectiveness of changing the border colour because it is said that it leads to abusive comments, when the actual reason is the flagging logic.
With this in mind, if people still find issue (however those issues get expressed) with the flagging logic on display, then doesn't that also suggest that the flagging and flaggers themselves may need to be investigated?
Flandre5carlet said:
Um, I think it's a bit obvious that sample and other such flags aren't the target of this, though. They're kind of beside the point; I thought that was generally understood that the problem arises - and so that the discussion centers around - when the flags are in regard to the actual art...
In light of that, am I off target at all for emphasizing that red borders and abusive comments are a misguided correlation to make?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that flaggers should be subjected to attacks, and I would say for anyone else regardless of how they contribute.
Squishy said:
The topic starter's concerns were deemed valid enough to implement a 3 day cooldown.
To characterize this discussion as some kind of sinister plan by saying that you "can't conclude this is anything but a backdoor attempt at trying to weaken the only real check" seems unreasonably and needlessly sensational.
Characterizing my observation as a declaration of a "sinister plan" seems the more needlessly sensational part, here. Evazion was the one to implement a 3-day cooldown, but I certainly didn't agree to this course of action, but at the same time, Evazion decided not to make it any longer than 3 days for the explicitly stated reason of avoiding any deeper gimping of flagging.
I mean, it's not that hard to ascribe motives, here, since you can just suss out the logical consequence of a proposed course of action, and see why someone would want that outcome. People who complain about flagging and deletion asking for a change in the site's rules to make it so there will be less flagging and deletion is kind of easy to figure out.
Squishy said:
Agreed.
Except in this case, other than the initial comments, flaggers just kept pushing back with the same flag reasons. Who knows how long this would have kept going if I had not noticed the post and took the initiative to say something?
No discussion was occurring, just a game of ping pong with the image post as the ball
That's really not the case, however.
For starters, I again have to point out that each flag is from a different flagger, and so is each approval. If things come down to it, this winds up being a matter of attrition, with each "vote" having to outweigh the last, and again, I have yet to hear any real reasoning why that's not what should happen.
Secondly, your argument seems to be based upon the assumption that each image is a wholly separate argument unto itself. As others keep putting into the argument, there is a larger argument being made about what images are and are not acceptable on Danbooru, and if 5 images get flagged for the same reason, why should the exact same argument be played out on the comments section of each and every one of them? There are a few images that bring disagreements to a head in the forums, but often times, it takes persistent action to reinforce the consensus to those acting outside it.
Thirdly, you presume all discussion that takes place takes place in the comments section of the image, itself. Especially when a flagging reveals a serious disagreement in what should and shouldn't be on Danbooru among approvers, it tends to get taken to the forums, where the overwhelming majority of users, even most of the approvers unless summoned, don't even look. Beyond that, there's frequently use of DMail or other personal communication that won't be apparent to anyone not in the, either.
And finally, I again have to ask, what, exactly, is the problem with there not being some new and somehow more entertaining reason every time something gets flagged? Again, why do you need a completely different reason from "the quality is terrible" to flag post #574061?
The only reason there even needs to be a flag reason at all is that it helps focus approvers on the reason why it needs further scrutiny. For a long time, flag reasons were nearly always just "Quality" because there didn't need to be any more than that, and it was really only necessary for saying something like, "it's a third-party edit of post #______ that was flipped to avoid detection" that wouldn't be immediately obvious.
Squishy said:
But isn't the change of the flagged image border colour from red to blue doing this? If discussion is encouraged, which is what I would like more of, how does trying to hide flagged images get a pass?
Whereas, having a cooldown period for flags encourages flaggers to take time to write out their concerns instead of being limited to the briefness of the flag to build a stronger case instead of kicking the post back into the queue. By the way, those discussions only occur when commentators engage the flag, so I am quite puzzled why comments of such nature are looked down on.
That's an entirely valid observation, and my response to that is that I didn't endorse the change to a blue border, either. That said, it only reinforces my conclusion that the objective of both suggestions wasn't to encourage discussion, but to discourage discussion.
Again, without flags, approvers have the near absolute power to approve things unilaterally, but require a unanimous decision to delete anything (by not letting it be approved in the mod queue). If someone has "unlimited uploads" privilege, they would then have that same near-absolute power to put literally anything on Danbooru. Outside of flags, the only way to get someone to stop disruptive behavior was to constantly badger the admin until they were finally so fed up with hearing about someone's behavior that they finally strip them of privileges or rewrite the site rules, both of which took a couple YEARS in the last case involving just one moderator's demotion.
Flags are the only way to make someone who doesn't care what the majority consensus of the approvers has agreed to sit up and pay attention to what the consensus is. Red border flags help regular users notice and invite them into the discussion. Trying to hide flags basically exists for the effect of making less regular users notice and therefore limiting the number of voices in the room, and therefore keeping more relative power in the hands of the minority.
Squishy said:
Again you are being needlessly sensational by dragging in this "us vs them" mentality.
I do not understand why it is a valid argument separate viewpoints into majority and minority camps. Not only is this assessment disputable, but does this have anything to do with the legitimacy behind the reasons being discussed at all?
Because, as you mention later on, the approvers should have some kind of agreement among themselves as to what does and doesn't belong on Danbooru. There is a rule that we don't allow JAV photographs on the site, and there's a pretty solid consensus around that which means that any JAV photograph that is uploaded will not be approved. Because the rules are so ill-defined (on purpose, as some of the moderators will openly attest, since they prefer to leave it up to judgement and consensus between approvers) Danbooru works largely on the basis of precedent to guide uploaders in what is and is not acceptable. Hence, having that consensus is important so that you don't have something where an errant approver dramatically skews what is and isn't approved according to their own personal tastes, especially if they have favoritism for one particular copyrights. (Which would functionally mean that different "rules" apply for what is approved based upon whether a particular approver is online that day or if it's a franchise or character that approver likes.) A system like this functionally demands friction between approvers to force them to reach a consensus, and that means argument and capacity to block the actions of others to force them to listen instead of acting unilaterally. It's simply that, as proven here in this thread, if the discussion is held outside of public view, there are complaints of elitism or secrecy, while if they're held openly and publicly, there are complaints of too many people arguing too openly and taking art too seriously.... It's simply my position that people arguing that there's too many arguments is the least of all evils.
Because of the way Danbooru works with unilateral approvals, however, if an approver decides they want JAV images on Danbooru, then it requires persistent flagging of JAV images by others (again, almost always other approvers) to try to send the message to stop. The only other recourse is outright demotion, which, again, isn't something admin is particularly quick to spring to using. If the reasoning is already made clear, persistent flagging is the message being sent as to how approver behavior should be guided just as an uploader seeing their uploads not be approved in three days is the message as to what they are allowed to upload even without needing direct discussion.
And there's nothing sensational about saying that certain people persistently argue one side of an argument while others persistently argue against it every time. Things are a lot more simple and straightforward than you seem to be claiming. If someone is out there trying to push that hypothetical "Danbooru should host JAV images", and an overwhelming majority of approvers push back against that, yes, there is an "us versus them", but it's not something involving secret motives or the like, it's people openly arguing two positions upon which they have declared their own interests.... And considering as you generally seem to be arguing for more open discussion, then you're also arguing that people more openly take sides on different issues, which inevitably means that some people will be arguing against others in an "us versus them" "sensational mentality".
Squishy said:
I only speak for myself that I do not appreciate bad faith accusations cast upon my participation. If my behavior and talking points are problematic or bely some kind of ulterior motive then please feel free to take that up with me before making such conclusions. I am sure that others would have similar responses for being accused of this without good reason.
I'm not talking about you, there. I'm stating how I see the facts and motives of others, since I don't believe see the whole picture or what is at the center of the argument. (Which happens to be part of why I'm saying this is all an exercise in obfuscating the real issues.) There are, as I've said before, people who openly argue that specific things should be allowed on Danbooru while others openly argue against that. To see someone openly acting to approve something then immediately make a thread to stop flagging after the thing they just approved get flagged really does invite the association of the creation of that thread with the fact that something they just approved got flagged. This isn't some sort of Machiavellian secret chess game, here, the actors are moving in the open, it's just that the arguments take place over dozens of different fora, from the comments of specific images to the forum to DMail, and if you're only tuning into this now, you're probably not clued into all the moves that have taken place up to this point, which is why I'm explaining it to you.
If you're so offended by assumptions of bad faith, I should point out, you shouldn't immediately spring to them, yourself. You presume you're the subject of criticism when I talk about the actions of others without specifically naming those actors, and trying to frame much of what I say as "sensationalizing" is itself a sensationalized accusation of bad faith.
Squishy said:
In which case shouldn't they be discussing this amongst themselves instead of playing dodgeball with the queue?
What I'm saying is that both are one and the same.
If you don't have flagging, then outliers can ignore everyone else and flout the rules and consensus to push their own personal tastes onto Danbooru regardless of the stance of the rest of the site. It's only when that unilateral power to do things is challenged that they're willing to come back and discuss things. Without having the ability to force things back into the queue, they can gleefully blow off all discussion, which is exactly what they want.
Again, flagging is to approvers what the mod queue is to regular users, in that it guides behavior since, while it's possible to argue against and appeal things, it's so tiring to do that with every single post that is contentious (especially when the same approver is getting images with the same issues flagged for the same reason on a daily basis) so it will eventually drive people into compromise, which is the basis of that consensus that Danbooru de facto built around achieving.
Squishy said:
My understanding is that a mod can only approve once. If so, then the act of a flag being rejected means 'disagreed base on provided flag reasons' and trying to push the same flag reason through without additional discourse seems like brute force mentality that is not constructive.
A mod can only approve once because of the abuse that went on in that post. That's the reason limits on approval exist, and that's kind of the crux of this argument, here.
After all, turn that logic around: If multiple people flagging the same thing is a "brute force mentality that's not constructive," then why is brute force approval any better? Again, people are complaining that there is too much unilateral power in flagging, but flagging solely exists to diminish the unilateral power of approval. Again, why do flaggers need new and creative reasons while approvers do not? A lot of these arguments are based upon the assumption that as a default, everything should be approved, and, to turn a sentence from the first page of this thread around, "It implicitly validates the idea that approvers are always working for the Greater Good of Danbooru, while those who flag are nothing but toxic irrational outsiders." (Keeping in mind, approvers and flaggers are almost always the exact same people.)
The threat of flagging is what keeps approvers mindful of the consensus and willing to have those discussions. Not having the capacity for the majority to come in and outweigh approvals is like having speed limits on roads without any traffic cops to write tickets: The rules are meaningless if not enforced. Even with enforcement, if you say the speed limit is 55 mph, if the cops won't stop you unless you're doing 65 mph, then the speed limit is de facto 65 mph.
This is especially the case with Albert now promoting users almost completely at random up to approver status, meaning that there is a constant influx of people with wildly differing opinions that need to be shown and brought into agreement with the consensus every couple months.
Squishy said:
This precisely why there needs to be discussion.
Did I misunderstand the spirit of the approval process? Is there not some kind agreed upon approach by approvers?
If it's only just a majority vote, then what happens approvers vote multiple times per appeal/flag of the same image when they cast the "moderator as reviewed this image" counter?" One approver can say no multiple times without limit?
Yes, and the only way to bring them to the table to discuss things is to make it so they can't just unilaterally get their way without caring what the majority has agreed upon.
And yes, I think you do misunderstand the de facto implications of the approval process, even if you may understand the spirit. There is no agreed upon approach until the approvers hash it out, and the only way to get that to happen is to have these kinds of "dodgeball in the queue" arguments. The MS Paint beedrill image "brute force approval" is exactly what happens when you let a single approver have unilateral power to overrule all others (including moderators).
And approver's votes are recorded, so, as I said earlier, I didn't even notice this image was reapproved and then reflagged until I saw it mentioned in this thread. I had already voted upon it the last time it was flagged, so it didn't ask me for another vote.
And I should mention that one of the proposed rule changes that came about the last time that the errant behavior of a single moderator was so contentious it brought about a year's worth of forum arguments to demote them was that Albert wanted to outright go to full-on democracy for images, with each user voting whether things go or stay. One of the more compelling reasons for voting it down was that the random occasional user generally doesn't give a crap what guidelines there are on Danbooru until someone enforces them to guide behavior, and outright open voting would literally just turn Danbooru into a copyright/art style popularity contest completely apart from its stated original purpose. One of the other implications, however, is that it kept the capacity for near-unilateral approval in the hands of the small number of moderators and janitors, and several of the people who have that power seem to rather prefer to keep it that way for reasons that can be easily guessed.
To point out the elephant in the room, a lot of people are so touchy about flags, even when it's a flag about something they don't care about or even like in the first place, is that it poses a conceptual threat to something they like getting flagged somewhere down the road. To bring up the old George Carlin skit, "Ever notice how everyone else's stuff is shit, but your shit is stuff?!" People who feel they have something to lose letting the guidelines be enforced by consensus may well prefer total unilateral approval anarchy so long as their stuff stays safe to seeing something they like get deleted, but it's not really healthy for the site as a whole, especially since it means that the only way things actually get off Danbooru is when there are mass user protests like with what happened in response to guro images in the past.
Squishy said:
Approvers are questioned when they approve questionable stuff. A recent flood of re-qc tells me that approvers are held to standard as well. So it's not just flaggers who are scrutinized.
And that recent flood of re-qc is exactly what this thread was created to stop. If you're saying that re-qc flags are a necessary and healthy part of keeping approvers on the same page, then you should see why I'm arguing what I'm arguing.
Updated
NWSiaCB said:
I mean, it's not that hard to ascribe motives, here, since you can just suss out the logical consequence of a proposed course of action, and see why someone would want that outcome. People who complain about flagging and deletion asking for a change in the site's rules to make it so there will be less flagging and deletion is kind of easy to figure out.
This proposal was in the context of the heated issue concerning the Smug Wendy issue. The concern coming from one of the approvers themselves; one whom has been an approver in good standing for a good while and hardly engages in these kinds of discussions concerning image flags. I think your conclusion is a most uncharitable and unfair one to make. You're grouping the proposer, their course of action and their intentions with the people you characterize as vehement opposers of the 'tyrannical' flaggers.
Even then, how does this invalidate any of the reasons brought forth for suggesting a way to curtail rapid fire image flagging on the same image?
For starters, I again have to point out that each flag is from a different flagger, and so is each approval. If things come down to it, this winds up being a matter of attrition, with each "vote" having to outweigh the last, and again, I have yet to hear any real reasoning why that's not what should happen.
Secondly, your argument seems to be based upon the assumption that each image is a wholly separate argument unto itself. As others keep putting into the argument, there is a larger argument being made about what images are and are not acceptable on Danbooru, and if 5 images get flagged for the same reason, why should the exact same argument be played out on the comments section of each and every one of them? There are a few images that bring disagreements to a head in the forums, but often times, it takes persistent action to reinforce the consensus to those acting outside it.
That is a good question.
My understanding behind the precedence for flagging is "Hey, this image doesn't seem right. Can we look into this again?"
If my understanding is correct, then it should follow that it is the reasoning behind the flag, and not the number of flags, that is the key factor for determining whether or not the flag was on the mark for calling attention to the image's quality.
This is why I think treating the approval process as some kind of numerical vote seems against the whole idea of the queue. That bouncing the same reason against the queue within a very short amount of time can be considered abuse. Slamming the queue over and over with nothing new to add just makes more needless work for approvers, which is one of the main reasons why this topic was opened to begin with.
At the very least, having the flaggers put forth a detailed reason that builds upon and clarifies the previous one will alleviate this. This would facilitate communication that helps both flaggers and approvers come toward a mutual understanding instead of having them kicking things back and forth with no progress toward resolution.
Thirdly, you presume all discussion that takes place takes place in the comments section of the image, itself. Especially when a flagging reveals a serious disagreement in what should and shouldn't be on Danbooru among approvers, it tends to get taken to the forums, where the overwhelming majority of users, even most of the approvers unless summoned, don't even look. Beyond that, there's frequently use of DMail or other personal communication that won't be apparent to anyone not in the, either.
Obviously not all discussion, but a good amount of it takes place in the comments, which provides good context with the image and flag/approval history being readily available at hand. It is also the most visible section too.
I'm not discounting that discourse can take place elsewhere (I even cross-linked the comment and forum together to help with this particular case), but I also see no reason to downplay discussing the merits of an image in the comments. That's the whole reason why images can have comments after all. Right?
And finally, I again have to ask, what, exactly, is the problem with there not being some new and somehow more entertaining reason every time something gets flagged? Again, why do you need a completely different reason from "the quality is terrible" to flag post #574061?
In short, this attitude toward the process disregards the value of feedback, cooperation and mutual understanding. Repeating the same thing over while hoping for the result to change is insane, especially when it concerns people dealing with people.
If I can't convince someone, I try a different approach or drop it (you can see my dismal appeal record and deletion appeal thread posts as proof of that). To bother other volunteers with nothing new to bring to the table can considered disruptive.
The only reason there even needs to be a flag reason at all is that it helps focus approvers on the reason why it needs further scrutiny. For a long time, flag reasons were nearly always just "Quality" because there didn't need to be any more than that, and it was really only necessary for saying something like, "it's a third-party edit of post #______ that was flipped to avoid detection" that wouldn't be immediately obvious.
Exactly, by building a stronger case for the flag, it helps approvers understand what the flagger is trying to say about the image. Being vague isn't helpful in any situation. Especially if the same vague reason is brought back to the table over and over.
As well, just as approvers are not perfect, neither are flaggers. Sometimes approvers make bad calls, and so do flaggers. Again, feedback is key. They should be working together to cover each other, not treating one another like some kind of obstacle. Not encouraging some form of communication can result in endless flagging and reapproval as neither party considers the viewpoints of another.
That's an entirely valid observation, and my response to that is that I didn't endorse the change to a blue border, either. That said, it only reinforces my conclusion that the objective of both suggestions wasn't to encourage discussion, but to discourage discussion.
Again, without flags, approvers have the near absolute power to approve things unilaterally, but require a unanimous decision to delete anything (by not letting it be approved in the mod queue). If someone has "unlimited uploads" privilege, they would then have that same near-absolute power to put literally anything on Danbooru. Outside of flags, the only way to get someone to stop disruptive behavior was to constantly badger the admin until they were finally so fed up with hearing about someone's behavior that they finally strip them of privileges or rewrite the site rules, both of which took a couple YEARS in the last case involving just one moderator's demotion.
Flags are the only way to make someone who doesn't care what the majority consensus of the approvers has agreed to sit up and pay attention to what the consensus is. Red border flags help regular users notice and invite them into the discussion. Trying to hide flags basically exists for the effect of making less regular users notice and therefore limiting the number of voices in the room, and therefore keeping more relative power in the hands of the minority.
Because, as you mention later on, the approvers should have some kind of agreement among themselves as to what does and doesn't belong on Danbooru. There is a rule that we don't allow JAV photographs on the site, and there's a pretty solid consensus around that which means that any JAV photograph that is uploaded will not be approved. Because the rules are so ill-defined (on purpose, as some of the moderators will openly attest, since they prefer to leave it up to judgement and consensus between approvers) Danbooru works largely on the basis of precedent to guide uploaders in what is and is not acceptable. Hence, having that consensus is important so that you don't have something where an errant approver dramatically skews what is and isn't approved according to their own personal tastes, especially if they have favoritism for one particular copyrights. (Which would functionally mean that different "rules" apply for what is approved based upon whether a particular approver is online that day or if it's a franchise or character that approver likes.) A system like this functionally demands friction between approvers to force them to reach a consensus, and that means argument and capacity to block the actions of others to force them to listen instead of acting unilaterally. It's simply that, as proven here in this thread, if the discussion is held outside of public view, there are complaints of elitism or secrecy, while if they're held openly and publicly, there are complaints of too many people arguing too openly and taking art too seriously.... It's simply my position that people arguing that there's too many arguments is the least of all evils.
Because of the way Danbooru works with unilateral approvals, however, if an approver decides they want JAV images on Danbooru, then it requires persistent flagging of JAV images by others (again, almost always other approvers) to try to send the message to stop. The only other recourse is outright demotion, which, again, isn't something admin is particularly quick to spring to using. If the reasoning is already made clear, persistent flagging is the message being sent as to how approver behavior should be guided just as an uploader seeing their uploads not be approved in three days is the message as to what they are allowed to upload even without needing direct discussion.
Rather than using the flag/approval system to slam each other, wouldn't it have been better to have discussed the issue in a proper venue?
It works both ways, whether it be a single approver allowing JAV / terrible quality posts, or when flaggers who does not know howto:flag keeps improperly flagging images. Instead of letting them figure out in their own about why their actions keep bouncing, they should be contacted to help them understand what they're doing wrong (or right). Recent examples include the approver who re-flagged all their images for a second round of QC and some of the questions about the anonymously made flags. Immediate results. And that's better, right?
And there's nothing sensational about saying that certain people persistently argue one side of an argument while others persistently argue against it every time. Things are a lot more simple and straightforward than you seem to be claiming. If someone is out there trying to push that hypothetical "Danbooru should host JAV images", and an overwhelming majority of approvers push back against that, yes, there is an "us versus them", but it's not something involving secret motives or the like, it's people openly arguing two positions upon which they have declared their own interests.... And considering as you generally seem to be arguing for more open discussion, then you're also arguing that people more openly take sides on different issues, which inevitably means that some people will be arguing against others in an "us versus them" "sensational mentality".
I'm not talking about you, there. I'm stating how I see the facts and motives of others, since I don't believe see the whole picture or what is at the center of the argument. (Which happens to be part of why I'm saying this is all an exercise in obfuscating the real issues.) There are, as I've said before, people who openly argue that specific things should be allowed on Danbooru while others openly argue against that. To see someone openly acting to approve something then immediately make a thread to stop flagging after the thing they just approved get flagged really does invite the association of the creation of that thread with the fact that something they just approved got flagged. This isn't some sort of Machiavellian secret chess game, here, the actors are moving in the open, it's just that the arguments take place over dozens of different fora, from the comments of specific images to the forum to DMail, and if you're only tuning into this now, you're probably not clued into all the moves that have taken place up to this point, which is why I'm explaining it to you.
I am aware that there are different viewpoints when it comes to content, but I do not see why this tangent has anything to do with the reasons being discussed here. It may be because of my recent activity has followed me and coloured your perspective, but I think the concerns being brought forth are independent of those 'sides'. And lets be honest here, if we're counting the names that often pop up together in these discussions, there IS an over-representation of one viewpoint that can be found across the comments and forums.
And that doesn't matter to me, because I consider the points brought up on an individual basis and consider their merits, regardless of the stances and opinions held by their creator.
If you're so offended by assumptions of bad faith, I should point out, you shouldn't immediately spring to them, yourself. You presume you're the subject of criticism when I talk about the actions of others without specifically naming those actors, and trying to frame much of what I say as "sensationalizing" is itself a sensationalized accusation of bad faith.
Nobody has introduced these tangents into the discussion besides you. An unrelated tangent that was touched upon at great lengths in three instances while replying to my concerns. I think it is reasonable for me to address the needless introduction of the tangents, their irrelevancy to the discussion, the alarmist terminology used to describe those tangents and how they do not apply. If the very act of addressing these sensational talking points makes me guilty of being implicated with that, then I am very disappointed at being the target of a **kafkatrap** for no good reason other than a poor attempt undermine my message with unwarranted accusations.
What I'm saying is that both are one and the same.
If you don't have flagging, then outliers can ignore everyone else and flout the rules and consensus to push their own personal tastes onto Danbooru regardless of the stance of the rest of the site. It's only when that unilateral power to do things is challenged that they're willing to come back and discuss things. Without having the ability to force things back into the queue, they can gleefully blow off all discussion, which is exactly what they want.
Again, flagging is to approvers what the mod queue is to regular users, in that it guides behavior since, while it's possible to argue against and appeal things, it's so tiring to do that with every single post that is contentious (especially when the same approver is getting images with the same issues flagged for the same reason on a daily basis) so it will eventually drive people into compromise, which is the basis of that consensus that Danbooru de facto built around achieving.
A mod can only approve once because of the abuse that went on in that post. That's the reason limits on approval exist, and that's kind of the crux of this argument, here.
After all, turn that logic around: If multiple people flagging the same thing is a "brute force mentality that's not constructive," then why is brute force approval any better? Again, people are complaining that there is too much unilateral power in flagging, but flagging solely exists to diminish the unilateral power of approval. Again, why do flaggers need new and creative reasons while approvers do not? A lot of these arguments are based upon the assumption that as a default, everything should be approved, and, to turn a sentence from the first page of this thread around, "It implicitly validates the idea that approvers are always working for the Greater Good of Danbooru, while those who flag are nothing but toxic irrational outsiders." (Keeping in mind, approvers and flaggers are almost always the exact same people.)
I understanding is that approvers are selected whereas anyone can flag. Every approver can review an image once, whereas there can be potentially unlimited flags for whatever reason due to the open ended system for flaggers. Approvers are already dealing with new images in the queue, so they are quite overworked. That's why it takes one approval to match one flag. Is my understanding of this situation flawed?
The threat of flagging is what keeps approvers mindful of the consensus and willing to have those discussions. Not having the capacity for the majority to come in and outweigh approvals is like having speed limits on roads without any traffic cops to write tickets: The rules are meaningless if not enforced. Even with enforcement, if you say the speed limit is 55 mph, if the cops won't stop you unless you're doing 65 mph, then the speed limit is de facto 65 mph.
Agreed, I think approvers should leave a message at they very least when they approve a flagged image behind their reasoning as well.
This is especially the case with Albert now promoting users almost completely at random up to approver status, meaning that there is a constant influx of people with wildly differing opinions that need to be shown and brought into agreement with the consensus every couple months.
This sounds like a very time-consuming system to work with. Isn't there some kind howto:approve or crash course to get new approvers up to speed?
And I should mention that one of the proposed rule changes that came about the last time that the errant behavior of a single moderator was so contentious it brought about a year's worth of forum arguments to demote them was that Albert wanted to outright go to full-on democracy for images, with each user voting whether things go or stay. One of the more compelling reasons for voting it down was that the random occasional user generally doesn't give a crap what guidelines there are on Danbooru until someone enforces them to guide behavior, and outright open voting would literally just turn Danbooru into a copyright/art style popularity contest completely apart from its stated original purpose. One of the other implications, however, is that it kept the capacity for near-unilateral approval in the hands of the small number of moderators and janitors, and several of the people who have that power seem to rather prefer to keep it that way for reasons that can be easily guessed.
What if the same treatment is given to flaggers as well? Flagging being treated like a privilege like approval powers?
One of the issues is that anybody can flag, without any prior knowledge or training. A more strenuous selection of flaggers in the same way with approvers will give precedence for granting image flagging a stronger weight when it comes to the process and do away with the one approval overturns all flags concern.
Food for thought.
To point out the elephant in the room, a lot of people are so touchy about flags, even when it's a flag about something they don't care about or even like in the first place, is that it poses a conceptual threat to something they like getting flagged somewhere down the road. To bring up the old George Carlin skit, "Ever notice how everyone else's stuff is shit, but your shit is stuff?!" People who feel they have something to lose letting the guidelines be enforced by consensus may well prefer total unilateral approval anarchy so long as their stuff stays safe to seeing something they like get deleted, but it's not really healthy for the site as a whole, especially since it means that the only way things actually get off Danbooru is when there are mass user protests like with what happened in response to guro images in the past.
I was there for the guro images. As well as the loli / shota thing. AND the gigantic breast / penis thing.
Those were resolved with much discussion. Unpleasant discussion, but communicative discourse nonetheless. It set a clear boundary and rigid guideline. Perhaps we could use another one.
Apollyon said:
With this in mind, if people still find issue (however those issues get expressed) with the flagging logic on display, then doesn't that also suggest that the flagging and flaggers themselves may need to be investigated?
If the complaining person is just writing in all caps (which is a sign for being abrasive and destructive, read howto:comment) or just does not want to understand the flag, then why should the flagger be punished for flagging an image?
This is not logical at all.
In fact, I highly suggest to you that you also keep calm under your flagged posts, especially when they end up getting deleted in the end: Flaggers do understand why they are flagging an image and even if you put in tags, then this does not excuse anything if the errors seem to be to big.
In fact, I am likely to say to say that the approver in this cases missed something.
One does not always need to scrutinize the flagger, but also the persons who wants to counter a flag.
That means logically that not every person who is speaking up against a flag is completely against it. Most of the time it is balancing the point for and against a post for deletion.
The persons who are hardline against flags have received bans and/or multiple negative feedbacks. And then to use such a comment in order to say that the flagger on post #2729937 "did not look right" is in all honesty a pretty lousy way in countering flags and flaggers.
Maybe it's time to give flags categories or something like that. Categories that, individually, can only be used once (or need increasingly more people soliciting a review for them to be valid) so that there's no constant, repeated complaints about an image. Maybe then we can actually use things like votes and favorites or Gold Member marks of approval or whatever to guide the content selection process rather than sheer "I think this is good/bad" which in reality is heavily affected by everything from series of origin to fetish content.
There's too much for me to respond to here, so I'll just make a few points.
Finally, I would like to point out that out of ~97,000 uploads in the past three months [1], only ~5000 were deleted [2], only ~350 of which were due to flags [3]. This whole topic of flagging is highly overblown in comparison to how few posts are actually deleted.
[1]: https://danbooru.donmai.us/counts/posts?tags=age:<3mo+status:any
[2]: https://danbooru.donmai.us/counts/posts?tags=age:<3mo+status:deleted
[3]: https://danbooru.donmai.us/post_flags?search[category]=rejected&search[post_tags_match]=age:<3mo+status:any&limit=1
There's more cases of it but at the moment it's hard to tell because the list cannot be organized by flag quantity. Back when I began my janitor trial it happened all the time (post #2310376 post #2500952 post #2618455 post #2618515 - just those being mine, other examples found on threads like http://danbooru.donmai.us/forum_topics/13712 / post #2626272) and got pretty damn tired of it so I'd say it can be an issue. This is especially true when it happens to really old images.
Frankly I find it hard to believe that an old pic would suddenly get a bunch of flags out of nowhere. It doesn't really make much sense to me unless there's a coordinated group or some approvers are just THAT particular about what kind of content gets on site. In case of the latter though I would think we'd see a lot more detailed rejections, which is seldom the case.
DetBarkhorn said:
Frankly I find it hard to believe that an old pic would suddenly get a bunch of flags out of nowhere. It doesn't really make much sense to me unless there's a coordinated group or some approvers are just THAT particular about what kind of content gets on site.
The first flag will draw attention to it. Waking the sleeping dog, so to say. The same goes for undeleting old images.
I really doubt we have coordinated groups of flaggers. I’m guessing that it’s several individuals with similar views that flock to the same posts once someone draws attention to them.
Take the recent flag war on the infamous Doom picture, for example. It was an old post, sitting there deleted since the last flagging war. Then it was mentioned as an example for flagging wars and some joker had to reapprove it, re-igniting said flagging war. Draw attention to it → users flock to it.
kittey said:
Then it was mentioned as an example for flagging wars and some joker had to reapprove it,
For the record, I'm the one who reapproved it months after the initial "flagging war" and it had nothing to do with it being mentioned somewhere or being a joker or anything like that.
I undeleted it because I thought it was a (very) competent piece of work, like every other artwork I've undeleted/reapproved after user appeals.
DetBarkhorn said:
There's more cases of it but at the moment it's hard to tell because the list cannot be organized by flag quantity. Back when I began my janitor trial it happened all the time (post #2310376 post #2500952 post #2618455 post #2618515 - just those being mine, other examples found on threads like http://danbooru.donmai.us/forum_topics/13712 / post #2626272) and got pretty damn tired of it so I'd say it can be an issue. This is especially true when it happens to really old images.
Looking at the flags on these posts, and on the posts in topic #13712, they all look like they were either within a few days of one another, or more than a month apart. The ones within three days would be prevented now. The ones that are more than a month apart I don't think can be reasonably prevented, not without preventing other cases where a second flag may really be justifiable.
I suggest that the simplest way to resolve these disputes would be to ping an admin and let them make a call. Lock the post if necessary. For things like the Doom post, where two sides disagree vehemently, there's no other way to resolve it. Someone has to make a decision.
Frankly I find it hard to believe that an old pic would suddenly get a bunch of flags out of nowhere. It doesn't really make much sense to me unless there's a coordinated group or some approvers are just THAT particular about what kind of content gets on site.
Mods can see it if there's a pattern of people tagteaming posts. I haven't seen any mods come out and say that this is happening though, so I don't know if that's the case or not.
kittey said:
The first flag will draw attention to it. Waking the sleeping dog, so to say. The same goes for undeleting old images.
I really doubt we have coordinated groups of flaggers. I’m guessing that it’s several individuals with similar views that flock to the same posts once someone draws attention to them.
Take the recent flag war on the infamous Doom picture, for example. It was an old post, sitting there deleted since the last flagging war. Then it was mentioned as an example for flagging wars and some joker had to reapprove it, re-igniting said flagging war. Draw attention to it → users flock to it.
Flandre5carlet said:
For the record, I'm the one who reapproved it months after the initial "flagging war" and it had nothing to do with it being mentioned somewhere or being a joker or anything like that.
I undeleted it because I thought it was a (very) competent piece of work, like every other artwork I've undeleted/reapproved after user appeals.
kittey said:
I guess once again, coincidence does not imply causality.
Flandre5carlet had said that the Doom post shouldn't be deleted at the time. After being promoted to approver, Flandre5carlet went and undeleted the post because that's when the opportunity arose, and the post was then subsequently flagged and deleted again...
Again, I don't see how you can hold up multiple people flagging the same post as a problem while saying it's perfectly fine to have multiple people approve the same post. It, again, presumes that all images should be approved as the default, no matter how overwhelming the opposition. And it's not as though people don't complain about these things, including some insurrections involving the likes of guro images. You might not like there being some sort of public "voting" on images by approvers, but in the absence of any kind of hard rules (which that image notably exploded), there is no other option for how this should be resolved.
I don't even see how the frequency of "flagging wars" is relevant: It's the practice of last resort because of how severely informal the moderation system in Danbooru is, and I again have yet to see anyone provide any valid reason why this is a problem that would need solving in the first place. People are complaining either simply that they can see and participate in the conversation even while complaining that there isn't enough conversation, or they're complaining that they can't prevent all flagging altogether.
Why is a "flagging war" NOT the best way left to resolve these sorts of conflicts?
NWSiaCB said:
Flandre5carlet had said that the Doom post shouldn't be deleted at the time. After being promoted to approver, Flandre5carlet went and undeleted the post because that's when the opportunity arose, and the post was then subsequently flagged and deleted again...
Again, I don't see how you can hold up multiple people flagging the same post as a problem while saying it's perfectly fine to have multiple people approve the same post. It, again, presumes that all images should be approved as the default, no matter how overwhelming the opposition. And it's not as though people don't complain about these things, including some insurrections involving the likes of guro images. You might not like there being some sort of public "voting" on images by approvers, but in the absence of any kind of hard rules (which that image notably exploded), there is no other option for how this should be resolved.
I don't even see how the frequency of "flagging wars" is relevant: It's the practice of last resort because of how severely informal the moderation system in Danbooru is, and I again have yet to see anyone provide any valid reason why this is a problem that would need solving in the first place. People are complaining either simply that they can see and participate in the conversation even while complaining that there isn't enough conversation, or they're complaining that they can't prevent all flagging altogether.
Why is a "flagging war" NOT the best way left to resolve these sorts of conflicts?
Stop being dense. There's an infinite amount of flaggers and a handful of approvers; It is not some fair, democratic process by any stretch of the imagination.
DetBarkhorn said:
Stop being dense. There's an infinite amount of flaggers and a handful of approvers; It is not some fair, democratic process by any stretch of the imagination.
This is a flawed premise. There is theoretically an infinite amount of flaggers. In reality, the amount of active approvers almost always outstrips the number of users actively reflagging posts. It's exceedingly improbable for flaggers to debase the authority of approvers, as it currently stands. Instead, the complaints being lodged here are primarily against people overturning the votes of three or four approvers - a minority.
DetBarkhorn said:
Stop being dense. There's an infinite amount of flaggers and a handful of approvers; It is not some fair, democratic process by any stretch of the imagination.
Don't make the mistake of thinking any of our processes are intended to be democratic in any way. The moderation staff has broad power to delete posts on a whim or prevent less privileged users from flagging them at all, and they aren't obliged to consider the desires of the majority in any case. It isn't fair; nor is it meant to be. Fairness would be giving equal weight to the users who want to upload real-life porn and ditch all our standards of art quality. It would be approving or deleting posts based on score alone.
feline_lump said:
This is a flawed premise. There is theoretically an infinite amount of flaggers. In reality, the amount of active approvers almost always outstrips the number of users actively reflagging posts. It's exceedingly improbable for flaggers to debase the authority of approvers, as it currently stands. Instead, the complaints being lodged here are primarily against people overturning the votes of three or four approvers - a minority.
iridescent_slime said:
Don't make the mistake of thinking any of our processes are intended to be democratic in any way. The moderation staff has broad power to delete posts on a whim or prevent less privileged users from flagging them at all, and they aren't obliged to consider the desires of the majority in any case. It isn't fair; nor is it meant to be. Fairness would be giving equal weight to the users who want to upload real-life porn and ditch all our standards of art quality. It would be approving or deleting posts based on score alone.
Then it's even worse if you can't understand that this carefully constructed balance of power can be tipped by someone having a handful of random accounts.
