Improving moderation process

If you're wondering why some mods don't approve explicit images, then I should explain why I in particular don't, since I've got no explicit images under my belt as an approver. Doesn't mean I've not uploaded it, but my interest in this site changed a little, and I wanted to standout, so I stopped uploading pornography.

It also has to do with the images themselves. A lot of pornographic images are well drawn, but a lot more of them aren't, and many times people skip physical accuracy to make really strange pictures that just don't look right. As a newer janitor I can't say I trust my judgement just yet with them, but I know there's janitors who don't mind, and have pickier standards, and they know how to differentiate those physical standards better than I naturally do.

That the moderation staff and approvers are light on consideration for them is probably because we've all seen waves of these images, and it doesn't make them special or have artistic merit. Yes, there's good ones, and even great explicit, and those do get approval, pretty fast in my opinion.

A lot of those images are "faceless male? Check. Random cumshot? Check. Ahegao? Check. The problem with that is that unless the art is stand out, by nature most of those images just aren't special in any way, and even if they're closer to well drawn, their artistic merit is so dependent on a great understanding of or respect for good anatomy, which wasn't their intention.

But that's my reasoning, I can't speak for the others, but I'm sure they'd give you similar responses. We don't force each other to approve things we don't like, cause that's not how danbooru approval works. Honestly, I always thought it was the non-explicit images getting the shaft before, but now there might be more to it than that.

Sacriven said:

Then it makes Danbooru almost no different with Safebooru.

There's pool #2709 so no. Actually, if I'm not wrong, the rating:e images that do get approved do so for reasons similar to that pool

buehbueh said:

If you're wondering why some mods don't approve explicit images, then I should explain why I in particular don't, since I've got no explicit images under my belt as an approver. Doesn't mean I've not uploaded it, but my interest in this site changed a little, and I wanted to standout, so I stopped uploading pornography.

It also has to do with the images themselves. A lot of pornographic images are well drawn, but a lot more of them aren't, and many times people skip physical accuracy to make really strange pictures that just don't look right. As a newer janitor I can't say I trust my judgement just yet with them, but I know there's janitors who don't mind, and have pickier standards, and they know how to differentiate those physical standards better than I naturally do.

That the moderation staff and approvers are light on consideration for them is probably because we've all seen waves of these images, and it doesn't make them special or have artistic merit. Yes, there's good ones, and even great explicit, and those do get approval, pretty fast in my opinion.

A lot of those images are "faceless male? Check. Random cumshot? Check. Ahegao? Check. The problem with that is that unless the art is stand out, by nature most of those images just aren't special in any way, and even if they're closer to well drawn, their artistic merit is so dependent on a great understanding of or respect for good anatomy, which wasn't their intention.

But that's my reasoning, I can't speak for the others, but I'm sure they'd give you similar responses. We don't force each other to approve things we don't like, cause that's not how danbooru approval works. Honestly, I always thought it was the non-explicit images getting the shaft before, but now there might be more to it than that.

I like your answer and reasoning. All of your statement is true, especially in the quantity and quality part.

Borrator said:

There's pool #2709 so no. Actually, if I'm not wrong, the rating:e images that do get approved do so for reasons similar to that pool

That means around half of Danbooru's post are not qualified to be approved.
That pool was made for reason, which is for explicit images that purely for artistical sense, not for all explicit images.

Sacriven said:

So explicit image is a no-no for several mods? Then it makes Danbooru almost no different with Safebooru. I'm not insulting or disrespecting your personal preferences and judging skills, really. I just want a clarity here.

I don't think this is as black and white with all approvers as your believe here. Everyone's got their own preferences. Personally: Sexual content, the kind that determines what rating is applied to a post, isn't a factor in whether I approve a post. Quality takes precedence over that. If I think it's well-drawn, I'll approve it.

Rest assured, I'm not someone that recoils from seeing naughty bits, drawn or otherwise. I'm the furthest thing away from the obnoxiously puritan, chronically offended Internet people you have in mind.

Apollyon said:

I don't think this is as black and white with all approvers as your believe here. Everyone's got their own preferences.

Yup. For example, I've noticed that Apollyon here has a thing for big tits and ass but that doesn't deter him from considering the quality of a post.

Sorry to ask, but how many Mods that still active in this site?

Sacriven said:

Sorry to ask, but how many Mods that still active in this site?

Are you asking how many approvers are active in approving posts? This page lists 51 approvers. 46 of those have approved at least 20 posts in the past three months.

There are 18 moderators specifically. At least 14 of those seem to be active in one way or another, not necessarily in approving posts.

Toks said:

Are you asking how many approvers are active in approving posts? This page lists 51 approvers. 46 of those have approved at least 20 posts in the past three months.

There are 18 moderators specifically. At least 14 of those seem to be active in one way or another, not necessarily in approving posts.

I see. It's just bugging me that my posts (now already got approved) are reviewed by only 5 persons for 3 days straight. It seems they're busy.

Not unsurprising if you are on at the same time each day. You'd need a larger dataset to really draw any conclusion from it.

Uh, is it just me, or has the number of active janitors been shrinking lately? I've been noticing a steady trend of posts getting reviewed by less and less moderators, and by this point I'm lucky if my images get reviewed by more than five people. What's going on up there?

As I said, upload more quality images, and they will have a 99% chance to get approved by me.

Not sure where to post it so I guess might as well post it here. Apparently I have a shitty eyesight and my monitor is really small. I might have approved more than one image with artifacts. I usually look at the tags but they are not always there. Is there any way to automatically detect and tag artifacted images like it happens with resolution tags?

MagicalAsparagus said:

Not sure where to post it so I guess might as well post it here. Apparently I have a shitty eyesight and my monitor is really small. I might have approved more than one image with artifacts. I usually look at the tags but they are not always there. Is there any way to automatically detect and tag artifacted images like it happens with resolution tags?

From a Google search of JPEG artifact detection, there does appear to be a lot of research that has gone into producing algorithms that can detect digital noise from compression, but aren't completely reliable. Incorporating that into Danbooru would probably be a major nuisance, with the number of false positives it could create from how variable compression can be. You should continue checking each image manually, examine the edges on everything by zooming in, and checking the file size. Once that's become habit you should avoid the problem. It's not a major problem unless the compression sticks out enough to impair the image, which can be a matter of taste.

If you have a laptop or netbook, tilt the screen and look around the edges of things. Large areas of red in particular. If you have a desktop, use image zoom to 150 or 200% - just enough to make sure.

Twitter JPEG files will have artefacts 99% of the time btw. I stopped posting those because of their crappy re-compressing.

The tilt method also works with non-IPS monitors or you can just increase the contrast.

Twitter files are only acceptable if it's a PNG or it's the only source of the picture.

I'd like to bring up a proposal to change the way users see how approvers are reacting to images.

Before, only users with access to the modqueue could see how many approvers had hidden an image from their personal queues. Then, the system was expanded with the ability to give reasons for hiding; currently Breaks Rules, Poor Quality, No Interest, and Detailed Rejection (why isn't this listed in the header like flag/appeal reasons when chosen?) and these counts were added to each pending or flagged post.

I admit I wasn't able to follow the discussion of this feature particularly well originally, but I'm under the impression this was done to alleviate the concerns of users who thought their uploads simply weren't being reviewed at all in three days. If so, the feature has basically inverted the problem; users now see two or three approvers have "disapproved" of their posts and they get moody and rebellious over it (and these comments generally end up at +3 to +5 score) even when it ends up approved in the following hours. It seems to me a better method for this would be to show the page as it was before while the post is pending; non-approvers just see "this post is pending approval." Once the image passes into deletion the header updates to show the numbers as it does now to give feedback that the post was reviewed and a bit on why it was deleted but without causing the initial "panic" that the first approvers to get to the image didn't like it.

+1 to the above.

It seems that with the current "reviewed by X moderators" display on pending posts, somehow there's an impression that Danbooru added a "snub image and persecute uploader" button for approvers, when AFAIK that display itself is the only change from before.

Perhaps the "Danbooru is Subjective" section of howto:upload could be duplicated on about:mod_queue, as well? It seems relevant to both pages anyway, but at least about:mod_queue is directly linked from the "reviewed" display. A lot of the complaints seem to take issue with the fact that the queue is subjective (although I don't know how it wouldn't be). While I think at times that's just a nice-sounding cover for "I like this and it's still got a blue border", with the benefit of the doubt, this gives me the impression that some might not be aware of what's explained in that section of howto:upload.

+1 to OOZ662, I'd modify your idea with "this post is pending approval and has been reviewed by one (or more) moderators." I think preserving the sense that images are still getting looked at is critical to the original purpose of the change. Keeping those extra details for the deletion phase leaves such things for the user who uploaded it to think about it.

Responding to 279okshap's post, maybe making it clearer that approval is subjective will help a little. No matter what though, some users will always be unhappy, so there's no use in chasing their satisfaction. Just making sure users know that their images are being looked at is enough.

What about removing the “don’t think it’s good enough” wordings ?
It gave impression that the judge has given final decision, while in reality the juries are still discussing.

There’s a discreet statement when the mods actually think it’s “bad” rather than “I’ll leave it to the others”

Seika said:

What about removing the “don’t think it’s good enough” wordings ?
It gave impression that the judge has given final decision, while in reality the juries are still discussing.

There’s a discreet statement when the mods actually think it’s “bad” rather than “I’ll leave it to the others”

I'm agree with this. Everytime I see my unapproved posts with "not good enough" as reviewer's reason (or whatever it is), it hurts me a little. It gives me the impression (read: misunderstand) that "this post isn't qualified for this site, please try again or upload better pictures".

Don't worry, the hurt part is nothing personal.