Hi, I spotted that a user has been frequently uploading upscaled images.

I passed this image through waifu2x (Medium, 2x) and it returned the same md5sum as post #820131.

In post #808819 they also state that the image is a "resize", so I advised them to stop and cited two admins' opinions on the matter (comment #2344709).

When they apologised "if resizing is against the rules" I had to concede I couldn't find a officially listed rule disallowing it.

If it is listed somewhere obvious, then please correct me. Otherwise, I recommend putting it somewhere accessible from the upload guide.

Finally, don't make it an ex post facto rule; he is a new user after all.

Robinebra got reproached for it too. Supposedly, they did it to generate lots of post numbers by not having to find new art, but upscale old art and flag the originals as inferior (partially explains how they were able to conquer the no.1 position in terms of uploads).
Not only is this pointless, it's also giving the original uploaders upload penalties.
If it is done for the same purpose, it's considered posting abuse, which is against the rules.

It should be obvious that it isn't allowed.
If it were, people could "one-up" each other by posting upscales, upscales of the upscales, etc. ad infinitum.

Artificial upsizing isn't allowed. The largest or highest quality official version is the one that should be on the site.

If you see artificial upsizing happening, point it out to an admin or use the report feature.

HotUnderTheCollar said:
Robinebra got reproached for it too.

Yeah, that's where I first heard how frowned upon it is.

I do understand why it's not accepted; it's pretty counterproductive for maintaining an archive.

Wodahseht said:
Artificial upsizing isn't allowed.

I have already explained I know that. What I need is something that explicitly states that it is not allowed, so I can show others without using arbitrary forum posts.

e621:duplicate/inferior_version_guidelines

If the images are identical in content, but there is a difference in file quality, the higher quality file is preferred unless it is DNP. Upscaled versions of existing posts are not considered higher quality.

Emphasis added by me.

Wodahseht said:
e621:duplicate/inferior_version_guidelines

Emphasis added by me.

Ah, thank you, I will use this in the future.

I think I'll edit the "Is it already here?" section in e621:uploading to include a link to this, if I have your permission to do so. Otherwise, I can't see a way of easily navigating to it from the howto:upload guide.

Otherwise, sorry for the fuss!

EDIT: I think the small print explains why this article wasn't linked to before:

e621:duplicate/inferior_version_guidelines
This article is based on "informal, somewhat unofficial" guidelines provided by an admin.

I think it's time it be made official.

I think its just sad that people actually artificially up-scale it and upload it again. Pretty big pain in the ass for us! and for once I don't mean anal sex

xXMAGIKzMushroomXx said:
I think its just sad that people actually artificially up-scale it and upload it again.

Back in the day, most people only had the resize tool in mspaint to 'up-scale' images. Nowadays, we have services that use neural network algorithms to make very natural looking up-scales.

As I said before, it makes sense to not allow it on this site. But this is not obvious for new users and so we need to work on prevention of this.

blakashawa said:
Yeah, that's where I first heard how frowned upon it is.

I do understand why it's not accepted; it's pretty counterproductive for maintaining an archive.

I know it was a bitch for the admins to fix.

If a dedicated flag is added for up-scales, then I will personally hunt them down. But for now, I don't how I can counter-flag in a case like this:

Original post #819938
Up-scale post #820422

Reporting the user doesn't work in general, because it's the wrong system for inferior uploads and the user doesn't always know they're uploading an up-scale.

EDIT: I'll be back tomorrow for any updates on this.

blakashawa said:
Reporting the user doesn't work in general, because it's the wrong system for inferior uploads and the user doesn't always know they're uploading an up-scale.

Admins don't automatically give records for everything. Most of the time, especially for newer users or less serious offenses, they start with a private message.

I recommend letting an admin handle it because they actually have the authority to state/enforce the policy. There's also the "no back-seat moderating" rules that are really easy to violate if you do more than say "hey, heads up but..."

If you're really uncomfortable using the report tool, a PM to an admin works. Really should use the tool if appropriate though - it's there for a reason.

blakashawa said:
If a dedicated flag is added for up-scales, then I will personally hunt them down.

How about smaller_version_at_the_source? I added it to DANGERTIM's Twokinds upscales (e.g. post #808830 and post #820131). Can an admin restore the originals?

leomole said:
How about smaller_version_at_the_source? I added it to DANGERTIM's Twokinds upscales (e.g. post #808830 and post #820131). Can an admin restore the originals?

Done.

leomole said:
How about smaller_version_at_the_source?

so, is that tag mainly used for upscaled pics?

leomole said:
How about smaller_version_at_the_source?

I'd really rather something that wasn't ambigious. Maybe something like artificial_upscale instead. Smaller_version_at_the_source could also apply to images where the commissioner/artist themselves has uploaded it to e621, using a downscaled FA image as their source. Having artificial upscales and images like that under the tag would be hard to keep track of. It won't be as easy as just checking whether the uploader's name matches the artist/commissioner either, because I've uploaded full-size images on behalf of artists (ie post #837437)

Note: I've updated the main tag to be smaller_version_at_source, and wrote a quick wiki for it. Let me know what you think. :3

Tuvalu said:
Maybe something like artificial_upscale instead.

We generally avoid tags like "breaks_this_rule" or "needs_to_be_deleted_because_x", but in this case I think that would be fine. At the very least I think it would make it less annoying to find them. :/

treos said:
so, is that tag mainly used for upscaled pics?

It's mainly used for images where a large version is uploaded to e621 (by the artist or the commissioner), and the version on the artist's website is smaller.
The point of having a source with a smaller version:
So people can like/favorite/comment on the pic in the artist's main gallery.
And because the artist's main gallery contains information, like the backstory.

waifu2x is pretty amazing algorithm, you actually need to research if image is upscaled with it or not. Guessing automatically generated MD5 hashes to possible future upscales would be insane job to do. Of course users should keep it in their personal use instead of trying to raise their e-penis with bigger post count. But then again, I can see situations where user didn't realize their version was upscale either.

treos said:
so, is that tag mainly used for upscaled pics?

Along with that and what Munkelzahn said (artists upload stuff directly here to avoif limitations of other sites), I can also see it for stuff like where user accidently uploads content that's behind paywall (I hate to use the word because of such negative ring, even though most paywalls are fine for me) e.g. patreon or paid site and artist have decided to have smaller version available publicly or if content was previously posted somewhere where it 404'd.

Tuvalu said:
I'd really rather something that wasn't ambigious. Maybe something like artificial_upscale instead.

Problem with that tag is that upscaling isn't allowed so all images under that tag would be deleted and tag be useless at that point.

It says in the smaller_version_at_source page "if the post is artificially resized, the unedited version should be uploaded" but a user can't reupload the original once it has been deleted.

Do admins or moderators regularly go through the smaller_version_at_source search to restore them?

I ask this because both post #851804 and post #841595 are resizes of post #47760 and post #832426 respectively. This is confirmed using the same method as in my original post (with setting 2x, None).

Actually it just occurred to me; I could just flag the resize as inferior and point to the deleted original post.

Would that suffice?

blakashawa said:
Actually it just occurred to me; I could just flag the resize as inferior and point to the deleted original post.

Would that suffice?

Message an admin directly, include a link to the proper one and the upscaled one, define which link is which.

i found a whole bunch of artificially upscaled uploads from this specific user..

comment #2454476 comment #2454409

i do not know if any of them has been used to replace other uploads but anyways

Mutisija said:
i found a whole bunch of artificially upscaled uploads from this specific user..

comment #2454476 comment #2454409

i do not know if any of them has been used to replace other uploads but anyways

best thing would be to upload the originals
imho

Mutisija said:
i found a whole bunch of artificially upscaled uploads from this specific user..

comment #2454476 comment #2454409

i do not know if any of them has been used to replace other uploads but anyways

Urgh. Large chunk of what they're uploaded seems to be more or less edited. And they've got some of the originals deleted, such as post #47760. What a mess.

How the heck are we going to sort all of those out? Can't just outright delete them all, in case that there's some actual unscaled/unedited ones among them. Guess we'll have to check them all one by one, all hundreds of them.

Genjar said:
Urgh. Large chunk of what they're uploaded seems to be more or less edited. And they've got some of the originals deleted, such as post #47760. What a mess.

How the heck are we going to sort all of those out? Can't just outright delete them all, in case that there's some actual unscaled/unedited ones among them. Guess we'll have to check them all one by one, all hundreds of them.

We just have to gather a collection of the posts, sort out which ones are inflated, and send the list to an admin. Unfortunately, that does mean one-by-one.

I'll start helping out tonight, but it would speed things up if I could just flag them as inferior and link them to the original deleted posts. If I do it that way, I could make sure they're correctly sourced so that an admin can quickly restore the original.

Mutisija said:
i found a whole bunch of artificially upscaled uploads from this specific user..

comment #2454476 comment #2454409

i do not know if any of them has been used to replace other uploads but anyways

I ran harry.lu over all of those images. Anything not yet deleted is missing the original file on our servers.

There's more, such as post #823829 (here's the original) and possibly post #821091 (smaller at the source, but not 2x like the others). Can't really check or upload 'em at the moment, with all these timeouts.

Genjar said:
and possibly post #821091 (smaller at the source, but not 2x like the others).

its 1.6X of the original and waifux2 has 1.6x upscale option which kinda proves that its artificially upscaled