albert said: As for flagging, my experience is that only 3-4 posts get flagged a day. And unless it's a clear rule violation, you shouldn't delete it. The autodelete just didn't work very well in cases for mediocre art: you're relying on the whim of some random flagger to trigger a deletion. Would an acceptable compromise be requiring at least two flags for an autodelete?
I support this.
With the new 10 upload hard limit in place, making it harder to auto-delete pictures based on a whim is sensible.
Ephyon said: Your feeling would require us all to drastically lower our standards regarding quality. It would imply that even if an image is not good enough to be reapproved, it should still stay if it's not violently awful.
Sub-par art gets wrongly uploaded by Contributors or approved by a slip in judgement from a Mod/Janitor from time to time. The whole reason the system works is that we are each other's security net, and thus can demand a second opinion regarding whether a particular image should or should not be accepted. If we were to limit flagging to only obvious TOS violations, we might as well reverse the entire function of the mod queue and approve everything automatically except for the terribly bad shit.
So, no.
Asking for a second opinion on a borderline sample of art sounds like a perfectly legitimate use of flagging to me. And I agree with Hazuki that submitting an image to the attention of all the moderating staff is a great deal more than "relying on the whim of a random flagger". The only times I have not reapproved an image I judged good enough are those when I was the one who approved it the first time, since that would void the point of asking for a second opinion.
I'm not talking about the mod queue so that whole thing is completely irrelevant to my suggestion. I didn't even suggest anything, flagging is sometimes brought out for things that are simply average. I don't think being "simple average", if it was either approved or sent in by a contributor, is damning enough to require it to be resent into the moderation queue. And I don't think, outside of some very specific cases, you would ever need to reflag an image if its been approved + flagged, and survived it. The deletion request thread has been handling those exceptions pretty well.
If you want to get a second opinion, then go ahead, but the primary purpose of flagging should be those bad images, not getting second opinions.
Will read the other replies after replying to this first:
Added a new builder user level (functionally equivalent to privileged). This is just a way to highlight contributors who shouldn't quite get unrestricted upload rights. - So, use this for non-Contributor merit promotions? And Priv itself is donation only? Makes sense, though Privileged should maybe be called Donator then.
Flagged posts are no longer automatically deleted - I think this is an extremely bad idea. Now deletions aren't a group decision (even if it's just a few who see it in the queue), it's one person's decision. That just exacerbates the problem people had with it.
Flagged posts no longer appear in the moderation queue - And this makes it even worse. I really can't support this change.
Janitors can now search for ip addresses - Good, thank you.
Dtext spoilers now always render as a block (gets around some formatting issues with inline spoilers) - It's a little bulky but properly covering spoilers is the most important part.
Upload limit changes. ... Now the upload limit is just a hard limit. If it's 10, you can upload 10 posts at a time, regardless of how many approved/deleted posts you have. - Good stuff, it seemed silly that users could effectively get around the limits if certain circumstances were met.
albert said: The upload limit changes only affects a few users who have their limit explicitly set. This change is, as Log mentioned, because the old formula just didn't work for people like Mr GT. Trying to change the base limit only worked for a few days.
If that's the case, can someone's base limit be upped a bit, depending on behavior? I'm sure those affected by the upload limit change don't behave like Mr GT.
My understanding before (and if it's wrong, my desire for how it should work) was for the following levels:
Member limited to *at maximum* their base. They couldn't go above their base, which can be manually modified to be higher if I raise it.
Privileged (or Builder now) the same except there was an approved/deleted modifier that could let them pass the base limit. It sounds like this is the part that was lost, and I might not be against reinstating it for Builder. But not for Member.
Contributor and up ignores all limits.
As for Mr GT, his very first reaction to the change was apparently not to discuss it on the forums, but to make a sock puppet account with an immature name and start bypassing the rules.
Advice to anyone considering the same approach: You really might want to think twice about that!
nanami said: If that's the case, can someone's base limit be upped a bit, depending on behavior?
Yes, yours for example has been upped at least twice before I think, from 10 to eventually 25. It's just that doing so didn't mean much in the past because the formula didn't really account for them when someone had a lot of uploads.
Wait I have one major concern with the upload limit change: users can no longer fail themselves into upload oblivion. This was a very important piece of functionality because it made failure eventually self-correcting, in the sense that enough crap eventually cut you off. Yes, sock puppets could be made but most people aren't going to bother.
But now, anyone can upload garbage indefinitely without reprecussion, or at least until they're outright banned or I modify their base to zero.
I can't watch every single bad uploader, though. And rather than letting nature (or statistics rather) take its course, I have to actively intervene and block them all from uploading.
The formula seemed better, but only for decreasing the limit for Members, not increasing it.
I can already tell that I'm being limited by the new upload limit system imposed on me. I asked if someone's base limit can be upped because the new formula has already limited my choice which posts I should upload. I wanted to upload more, but currently I can't.
Anelaid said: If you want to get a second opinion, then go ahead, but the primary purpose of flagging should be those bad images, not getting second opinions.
Why exactly? You're redefining things and claiming it's the only valid interpretation; I don't quite see why it should be so. If contributors or whoever upload average art, it certainly doesn't hurt to have it reviewed. I don't see why you'd want to defend some uploads, when accepting the general premise that a moderation process is necessary to uphold certain standard of quality.
Nanami: Yes, I know. What I'm saying is that 1) yes we can modify limits and 2) your limit is already 2.5x higher than almost every other user in your position. The only difference is that it's actually enforced now. You can upload more when your pending posts get approved or deleted, which is how upload slots were originally envisioned as working.
Now, if albert wants to reinstate a formula[*] for Builder members, I would tentatively support that. But only for Builder level, not Member.
[*] Maybe +1 base per 100 Approved up to a cap of 50, or +1 per 300 Approved, with no cap.
Do you have a list of who has donated? Can you run some script to modify all non-donation (merit) Privs over to Builder? If Builder ever gets rights independent of Priv, it'd be good to know exactly who is which level.
葉月 said: Why exactly? You're redefining things and claiming it's the only valid interpretation; I don't quite see why it should be so. If contributors or whoever upload average art, it certainly doesn't hurt to have it reviewed. I don't see why you'd want to defend some uploads, when accepting the general premise that a moderation process is necessary to uphold certain standard of quality.
I'm going off the statement given by JXH in the deletion request thread, which went against using flagging to target average art.
Regarding the old formula, I thought it was supposed to have a fluid cap up to a certain maximum (20 or so, with the possibility of an administrative raise). I'm surprised to see that was not the case, since I'm pretty certain it was that in the first iteration of the system after スラッシュ has proposed it. When was it changed?
But in general, I have to repeat what Fencedude said: albert is fixing things that aren't broken, and most importantly haven't been discussed at all. The dashboard and more reporting capabilities are all changes in the right direction, but I really dislike the bundled sweeping changes.
Anelaid said: I don't think being "simple average", if it was either approved or sent in by a contributor, is damning enough to require it to be resent into the moderation queue.
The problem is that you can't possibly assume that other people share your opinions to such a precise degree. "Average" doesn't mean jack. What someone thinks is passable might be unacceptable for someone else and vice-versa. Borderline cases are problematic precisely because people will draw the line at different points, and what might be so-so for someone might be clearly unacceptable for someone else. That's why second or third opinions come in handy, we need to act as checks on each other.
"I don't agree this is acceptable but it's not a revolting violation of TOS" is not a good reasoning to either approve or let a post be. If you have an argument for why an image should not have been approved, then it should be flagged and submitted to the staff's judgement again. That's what the system is for. That's all the criteria needed to justify flagging a post, you seem to be treating it as if it were a personal threat or a severe punishment. If the whole staff passes it, then that just means that they agreed with the flagger.
Anelaid said: And I don't think, outside of some very specific cases, you would ever need to reflag an image if its been approved + flagged, and survived it. The deletion request thread has been handling those exceptions pretty well.
If you want to get a second opinion, then go ahead, but the primary purpose of flagging should be those bad images, not getting second opinions.
You want a second opinion because you believe the post is bad. What the heck would you think a second opinion would be for?
The deletion request thread is good for lower-level users who have valid opinions yet not access to the flagging option. That way they can be heard as well. "As well", because the people primarily meant to be doing this kind of pruning already have access to tool to do so: FLAGGING.
Anelaid said: I'm going off the statement given by JXH in the deletion request thread, which went against using flagging to target average art.
Pay more attention.
jxh2154 said: Generally speaking, I would use this thread not to single out utterly "average" art like post #252480 but rather clearly bad art that many people agree violates quality standards and that has been reapproved inappropriately.
This is the opposite of what you said. He said the thread should be used to single out the severe violations, not the other way around.
葉月 said: Regarding the old formula, I thought it was supposed to have a fluid cap up to a certain maximum (20 or so, with the possibility of an administrative raise).
Sounds familiar, yes. At the very least I'm quite sure the ability to essentially get infinite uploads despite not being a Contributor wasn't intended. My guess is that it's a bit of logic that just got lost somewhere along the way.
But in general, I have to repeat what Fencedude said: albert is fixing things that aren't broken, and most importantly haven't been discussed at all.
The only thing that bothers me, although it's a big issue, is the change to flagging. The rest is either a positive all around, or something that trades positives and negatives with the old way and comes out even or slightly ahead.
