How to go against misusage of tags

Because you keep trying to set yourself as the victim and framing this to make it seem like you weren't the one who struck first. You gave an invalid feedback, you received an invalid feedback in response, you started complaining about the feedback you got while ignoring why it was given to you. When both were deleted you started complaining about that too and claiming that Topsy got preferential treatment. You kept claiming that he "got away with it". If you expect me to stay silent in the face of this you're going to have a really bad time.

My feedback:

>Topsy has had a long history of misusing tags
>still misuses tags to this day (unintentionally or not)
>other users repeatendly sent Topsy DMs to please fix it
>mistakes still happen (unintentionally or not)
>gets neged, nothing happens
>mod says to inform him if continue misuse is noticed
>users ping him when it happens
>never a reaction from the mod
>Topsy continues to misuse the tag (unintentionally or not)
>mod gets pinged again but still it looks like it gets ignored
>Topsy gets another neg

"NO, YOU'RE JUST SALTY AND TRYING TO GET HIM BANNED YADA YADA!"

Topsy's feedback:

>immediately sends a negative feedback without any prior attempt at all to communicate only to me.

"Seems fair to me."

You gotta be shitting me, NNT. You could have stepped in at any given time on the way I listed above which lead to my feedback. But you didn't. Only when Topsy sent his revenge feedback and other users were complaining about it, you decided to take actions. It is clear to me now that you have formed a bias here and it is preventing you from looking at it rationally. If that is the case you're simply not fit to moderate this dispute so unless another mod steps in, this is pointless to continue any further.

EDIT: Might worth noting that prior to this case, I already sent a DM to Topsy once about him trying to pass duplicates as revisions to which he didn't react really positively either. So, yes, I do assume Topsy doesn't like me and that's the reason why he only sent a neg feedback to me, and not the others. But no, certainly, his feedback had nothing to do with being spiteful.

Provence said:

Basically, no need to adjust the poor tagging. On every level. Because everyone does it.
Why do we have to tag properly again?
Instead of striving to become better, you're actively saying we should not be doing that.
In my opinion, you are going the wrong way here. Instead of saying that these warring over that tag should stop, you're making that behavior the basis of removing a negative feedback. And that's just backwards. It's justifying a wrongdoing with another wrongdoing.
By deleting these feedbacks, you're giving out freedom in which everyone tries to do what they can barely get away with or even straight up break the watered down rules. It sets a bad precedent.

And then there's the point that you are saying one should not give out feedbacks because you notice a wrongdoing you're doing yourself. Yeah, it's hypocritical, but the point of feedbacks is to point out certain actions that are detrimental or impact the site negatively on another level. And I don't see how potential hypocritical behavior changes that. A wrong is still a wrong, it's just a fact. The author behind a feedback must not matter if the content itself is still valid. If that author receives the same feedback, then that's on them, but it's in accordance with feedback guidelines.
Am I supposed to check all my 55k uploads if they're in accordance with the loli wiki when I notice someone misusing that tag?

Also, guys. Please do not use this topic to appeal your feedbacks. That's clearly not the goal here. I hope you realize that that's not an effective approach.

That's not what NNT said at all. Feedbacks don't exist to nitpick every minor mistake a user makes, which is what was happening here. Topsy Krett was leaving off tags for no more than 10 minutes, something a lot of Builder+ do, "failing" to tag loli on borderline or strictly not-loli posts, and got unjustifiable negative records nitpicking this behavior that applies to everyone on site. I bet you've made just as many of these kinds of minor mistakes as anyone else here. Nowhere in NNT's post did he say we should just stop caring about tagging well, just don't hand out petty feedbacks over trivial mistakes, especially if you're making those same mistakes. Feedbacks don't exist to record every single minute wrong doing a user does.

Leaving posts untagged for an hour or more is a problem, not for a couple of minutes. Never tagging loli on posts that are indisputablely loli is a problem. Misrating obviously explicit posts is a problem. Topsy Krett wasn't doing any of those things, at least not to a degree that deserved a negative record for it.

zaregoto said:

I feel like feedbacks are pretty pointless, it only serves to let others pile up on the positives/negatives a user has and form a preconceived image of them for other people that doesn't seem to go away. Bad tagging behaviors should be DMed about and then reported to mods if they are not changed.

Hereinafter said:

I personally think the site would function a lot better if casual and simple, direct communication amongst users was encouraged directly on the site itself rather than relying on an overly bureaucratic feedback system on the forefront and a discord circlejerk in the back. Discord in general functions as a cancer of the brainstem for any community and inevitably leads to development of in-group/out-group social dynamics, targeting of individuals, dishonest particularism etc etc.

This to both, I can't for the life of me think of a valid reason for the negative feedback system to exist over a report dashboard only visible to the mod team. A user who ignores constructive DMs isn't going to suddenly amend their ways because their newest DM informed them of a red bar somewhere else on their profile and should be left for the moderator team to deal with. Currently it just feels like a venue for builders to stroke their egos by minimodding the site and they're not even being objective about it half of the time.

Provence said:

Basically, no need to adjust the poor tagging. On every level. Because everyone does it.
Why do we have to tag properly again?
Instead of striving to become better, you're actively saying we should not be doing that.

I think what NNT is trying to putting a stop to is the continuous, hyper focus of monitoring specific users for not being perfect at something that is challenging for everyone to consistently apply across the site.
This is especially egregious when the users who are doing this sort of monitoring are also facing the same difficulties.

The examples that NNT laid out show this. The application of this tag is not clear cut, even for contributors that perform at high levels.

I don't see this is green light for users to think they can tag poorly without consequence.
Its to stop one-sided, unfair hounding between users.

Squishy said:

I think what NNT is trying to putting a stop to is the continuous, hyper focus of monitoring specific users for not being perfect at something that is challenging for everyone to consistently apply across the site.
This is especially egregious when the users who are doing this sort of monitoring are also facing the same difficulties.

The examples that NNT laid out show this. The application of this tag is not clear cut, even for contributors that perform at high levels.

I don't see this is green light for users to think they can tag poorly without consequence.
Its to stop one-sided, unfair hounding between users.

To me, it sounds like he's justifying the misdeeds of one user with the misdeeds of another without trying to reach an actual conclusion. The numbers here are just one side of the coin, but it also matters how long this has been going on and if that user was willing to change. Please note that Topsy's case is just the example here, so I want to try to make this as applicable to every situation as possible.
Yes, monitoring users is an issue. But that's only the case when there is an unjustified reason, like when there are no mistaggings at all or only very few of them from user A. I don't see the problem when it's done by an user, user B, who does the same mistakes. That's just bad luck if you are also getting caught, too. The goal of such behavior is probably not to make the site better, though, but it's still a call out from user B. Should that be any less valuable because user B is still doing the same shit? What harm does it do if user B calls it out but also gets caught two weeks later or so?

It's really just the mod's call, but how I see it treated here is that potentially bad behavior gets off the hook because multiple users are doing this.

In the end, this sets a precedent that unincentizes people to write feedbacks because at some point in the past, you may or may not have done the same thing. It's not actively giving green light to an user doing shit, but it's passively by making feedbacks a nearly impossible thing to write now.

Diet_Soda said:

This to both, I can't for the life of me think of a valid reason for the negative feedback system to exist over a report dashboard only visible to the mod team. A user who ignores constructive DMs isn't going to suddenly amend their ways because their newest DM informed them of a red bar somewhere else on their profile and should be left for the moderator team to deal with. Currently it just feels like a venue for builders to stroke their egos by minimodding the site and they're not even being objective about it half of the time.

A question crosses my mind every now and then. Why can Gold and Platinum users leave Negative feedbacks? Why can they give feedbacks at all? Members can't, for obvious reasons. Builder+ I can understand, but what benefit is there for people that paid $20 just to go right back to lurking, but now with the ability to coom to lolis, being able to access a pseudo mod function? I guess it's more "fair" and makes the place look less like a hierarchy, but you hardly even see anyone below Builder use it, anyway. I assume most don't even realize they can.

At the very least, I would just remove the ability for anyone below Moderator to give negative or neutral feedbacks, only allowing positive ones, if the feature needs to exist. Can't let them have neutrals because those would just end up being used like negatives.

blindVigil said:

At the very least, I would just remove the ability for anyone below Moderator to give negative or neutral feedbacks, only allowing positive ones, if the feature needs to exist. Can't let them have neutrals because those would just end up being used like negatives.

Now, in the last part, I'll have to disagree with you. Just because a user doesn't possess a Moderator rank doesn't mean they cannot detect bad behavior among users and give them a warning before it's too late; I have to clarify I'm only speaking about the current situation on Danbooru, thus meaning we are not speaking about the past when completely inexpert users could buy Gold and gain access to privileges such as leaving Feedback. Currently, the only way to gain access to this function is being promoted to Builder or above. Under this premise, a promoted user will have (In theory) experience and knowledge about how the community works, and they should be aware of the rules and what kind of behavior is not welcome here. So, having access to leave Neutral and Negative feedback is, and should remain as an option to Builder+ users, not only to Moderators or Admins.

And if a feedback is wrong, it's unfair, or it doesn't have correct information, sending a DM to that user is a solution. Personally, I wrote Feedback with bad information in the past and a user took the bother to send me a DM informing me about it, and I simply changed it. And if for some reason a user refuses to change their unfair Feedback despite being informed about it, an Admin can simply delete it.

blindVigil said:

A question crosses my mind every now and then. Why can Gold and Platinum users leave Negative feedbacks? Why can they give feedbacks at all? Members can't, for obvious reasons. Builder+ I can understand, but what benefit is there for people that paid $20 just to go right back to lurking, but now with the ability to coom to lolis, being able to access a pseudo mod function? I guess it's more "fair" and makes the place look less like a hierarchy, but you hardly even see anyone below Builder use it, anyway. I assume most don't even realize they can.

At the very least, I would just remove the ability for anyone below Moderator to give negative or neutral feedbacks, only allowing positive ones, if the feature needs to exist. Can't let them have neutrals because those would just end up being used like negatives.

Mod+ seems a bit much, though I do agree with builder+, it's a bit of a weird requirement to be gold+ (even though you haven't been able to buy it for a long time).

This topic isn't meant to discuss the feedback system as a whole but what to do when users misuse tags and what constitutes as a misusage.
We otherwise try to tackle too many topics at once and get nothing done

You can still get Platinum from the occasional giveaway, so it's technically not necessary to have money or experience to have access to easily abusable features.

I don't actually have a problem with it being Builder+, I just suggested Mod+ because it's essentually a Mod feature, and taking it away from Gold/Platinum could be seen as "oppressive" or whatever, even though almost nobody below Builder uses it.

As far as users below Moderator go, Negatives are effectively just an awkwardly implemented report function that gets announced to the whole site forever. I don't entirely agree that that should be a feature available to people without mod privileges, but it doesn't get abused that often, at least that I see, so maybe it's fine.

Provence said:

This topic isn't meant to discuss the feedback system as a whole but what to do when users misuse tags and what constitutes as a misusage.
We otherwise try to tackle too many topics at once and get nothing done

zaregoto said:

Bad tagging behaviors should be DMed about and then reported to mods if they are not changed.

Pretty much what zaregoto said should be done. The system works pretty fine, if you try to DM people 1-2 times if they're misusing a tag more often. But users on here are so feedback-happy, that they rather use a neutral, instead of communicating via DM, which leads to silly feedbacks.
If a user doesn't improve at all, you can still add a neutral to their record. A negative feedback should always be the last straw on a user-user basis.

Nacha said:

Pretty much what zaregoto said should be done. The system works pretty fine, if you try to DM people 1-2 times if they're misusing a tag more often. But users on here are so feedback-happy, that they rather use a neutral, instead of communicating via DM, which leads to silly feedbacks.
If a user doesn't improve at all, you can still add a neutral to their record. A negative feedback should always be the last straw on a user-user basis.

I absolutely agree with this. I fear we're striving more towards user warring between each other. And that's a very worrying development.

HOWEVER, if what 123kid writes is true and a mod has been contacted several times and 123kid has never received a reply, then it's the moderation's turn to step up their game. We can't demands user to go that route when the moderation staff doesn't step in in one way or the other. It's almost always ever when the child has already drowned in the well that the moderation steps in. And that's just too late.

Provence said:
This topic isn't meant to discuss the feedback system as a whole but what to do when users misuse tags and what constitutes as a misusage.
We otherwise try to tackle too many topics at once and get nothing done

The opening post is misleading then, since it specifically focuses on feedback procedures. If my understanding of NNT's post is correct, feedbacks are the reason it was made in the first place, so it stands to reason the underlying system would be brought into question.

Unapproved_in_Three_Days said:

Alright, you relax now.

forum #283710
forum #288515
forum #290898
forum #291139
forum #293211

I'm sorry, but if this is all you can bring up as justification for a neg it only serves to strengthen the other side's point. I mean

forum #283710 - a question in a thread made for such questions, weird notion sure but they didn't even change the rating
forum #290898 - a question about meta tags
forum #291139 - user confused about what constitutes a valid tag and neutrally explaining why, dropped topic after being corrected by an admin
forum #293211 - did you mean to link forum #293222? - just a failed BUR that was still upvoted by 2 builders, far from an offensively bad one

I'll give you forum #288515, but they rectified it shortly after being told off and have been thorough in their tagging ever since as far as I can see. How is any of worthy of such a harshly worded, permanent blemish on their record? I'm sure there's builders in this very thread that have done dumber shit than that as newbies.

Edit: linked the wrong post in paragraph above

Diet_Soda said:

The opening post is misleading then, since it specifically focuses on feedback procedures. If my understanding of NNT's post is correct, feedbacks are the reason it was made in the first place, so it stands to reason the underlying system would be brought into question.

Of course it is adjacent to the feedback system.
But it's not a question on a fundamental level but rather how it's applied and should be applied going forth. At no point in time was there a suggestion to entirely rework it. I thought so much was clear, but it still drifted into that direction.

I think the feedback system is incorrectly configured.

Only mods should be able to neg, everyone else should only be positive.

Diet_Soda said:

I'll give you forum #290898, but they rectified it shortly after being told off and have been thorough in their tagging ever since as far as I can see. How is any of worthy of such a harshly worded, permanent blemish on their record? I'm sure there's builders in this very thread that have done dumber shit than that as newbies.

forum #288515

But I agree we shouldn't give negatives just for asking "dumb" questions or making bad BURs (it's a different matter if it's the same dumb question over and over). It's much better to ask than to go all Leeroy Jenkins and make the changes yourself. The only things I think reg panda actually did wrong were asking others to tag their post and jumping the gun with the wiki editing.

I believe we should only use neutrals and negatives to point out repeating behaviors that cannot be resolved through sending DMails. These behaviors should be harmful enough for the site or show a clear disregard for the rules to the point that justify leaving a record for the mods to refer to. They should link to evidence to show the pattern, but should not contain every single example.

Maybe we could make it so neutrals are automatically deleted after a certain period of time. I think negatives should only be removed manually since the offenses are more severe. The downside is it might encourage more users to go straight to sending negatives instead of neutrals.

I'm not saying those are the only reasons I assigned the negative either, those were just the most particularly egregious examples.

Those forum posts link the start of discussions, the question themselves are not the reason for the negative - I'm not that stupid enough to neg people for having genuine questions, otherwise there'd be no point in asking questions if you'd just get a negative in return. It's what ensued from that conversation that was part of, but not the sole reason, for why I wrote that feedback. There are countless examples of this in their forum history.

Blank User said:

making bad BURs (it's a different matter if it's the same dumb question over and over)

A Contributor was demoted for this exact reason, though in their case that's because they were also making a complete mess out of tags in addition to creating the BURs (jumping the gun). I can very easily change it to a neutral as a warning but there were enough cases of making a mess or giving actual bad advice in forum posts that I could not ignore, and that's why it is a negative. It's not just those forum posts.

Unapproved_in_Three_Days said:

I'm not saying those are the only reasons I assigned the negative either, those were just the most particularly egregious examples.

Those forum posts link the start of discussions, the question themselves are not the reason for the negative - I'm not that stupid enough to neg people for having genuine questions, otherwise there'd be no point in asking questions if you'd just get a negative in return. It's what ensued from that conversation that was part of, but not the sole reason, for why I wrote that feedback. There are countless examples of this in their forum history.

Again, if that's what you consider most egregious I can hardly imagine how inconsequential the rest is. All the posts you linked lead to short and to-the-point exchanges. I don't see the discussion. If what you mean is you watched them flip out about it somewhere else, that's what should've been linked in place of those posts. Bad form to discourage discussion unless it's clearly a waste of time where one party can't be reasoned with, and you haven't so far shown any instances of reg_panda being such a party nor the vague "endless pedantia" mentioned in the feedback.

Can you provide specific examples of the user giving bad advice or otherwise acting instigatory, malicious, or ignoring feedback? I skimmed through their post history when I made my previous response and they seem to be mainly asking questions rather than answering them. Nothing out of the ordinary for a new contributor trying to wrap their head around the site's workings. Are they repeating the same mistakes over and over?

A Contributor was demoted for this exact reason, though in their case that's because they were also making a complete mess out of tags in addition to creating the BURs (jumping the gun).

Not familiar with whatever situation you're talking about but "bad burs" and "bad burs on top of large scale tag vandalism" are not the "exact same reason" at all, are they? And none of the user in question's BURs even approach the level of offensively bad.

Diet_Soda said:

Can you provide specific examples of the user giving bad advice or otherwise acting instigatory, malicious, or ignoring feedback?

There's some bad advice in topic #27958, but it seems unintentional and I haven't seen much else besides that. I'm not saying Unapproved in Three Days is wrong; there could be a pattern of bad advice that goes beyond this that would warrant feedback. I just haven't seen it myself yet.

Not familiar with whatever situation you're talking about but "bad burs" and "bad burs on top of large scale tag vandalism" are not the "exact same reason" at all, are they? And none of the user in question's BURs even approach the level of offensively bad.

Here's the context for that situation:
topic #25213 (attempting to make changes manually before the BUR was approved even when the votes were almost universally against it)
topic #27172 (the event that triggered the ban)

For what it's worth, I haven't seen similar behavior from that user since after the ban.

There's some bad advice in topic #27958,

I don't really want to do this, but:

Iirc forum #292255 had some direct contradictions against help:upload_rules[*], and forum #292302 partially addressed those too. Then you changed forum #292255, and called it "Changed wording a bit for clarity.". I remember it this way, because it seemed weird. Anyway, if forum #292302 seems redundant and pointless, especially after forum #292255, it is because of this. Just imagine a much worse and untrue forum #292255 before it. (Or maybe this is not what happened. Who can tell.) Also, if that's the case, I consider forum #292302 helpful to you at least. Was it helpful to Skarow? I hope so! I faced similar problems, and I've reached the conclusion that the upload rules pages are misleading in the sense that people use a different set of rules to the extent that they don't even know what's written there. And my emphasis was based on this observation, as I think this is a key idea for Skarow to understand what's happening. Or it's not, and I am just misinterpreting what's written there. Anyway, as always, I advocate for the update of the rules. If they've changed, those should be written, and if I am misinterpreting them, then they can be clarified.

[*] it shouldn't matter much, but help:upload_rules is actually very clear about what's prohibited, and what's "borderline", which is even elaborated as "The following things are not strictly against the rules, but they have a much higher chance of being deleted than normal. Uploaders should be careful about uploading these things, and approvers should be careful about approving them.". Also hard-translated contains the reasoning for it, which can be interpreted (and I believe it was the intention when the wiki was written, and hard translated was common!), that if those problems do not apply, then hard-translated is okay.