Requested feature overview description.

Often times images which have been on the site for quite a while can be replaced by a newly available version which is either higher quality or has a better resolution. I'd like to see any existing comments on the post which is to be deleted moved to the new version. Preferably, keep the original timestamps intact. If there are potential downsides and it can be coded reasonably then perhaps the comment merge could be at the mod's discretion.

Why would it be useful?

There may not be anything wrong with the original image just because a new version becomes available. It'd be nice to keep the discussion from the original posting.

What part(s) of the site page(s) are affected?

Gallery deletions of duplicate/inferior postings

-1, simply because of the difference between https://e621.net/comment/search?query=&results=fuzzy&user=&date_start=&date_end=&post_id=1048522&status=any&order=date and https://e621.net/comment/search?query=&results=fuzzy&user=&date_start=&date_end=&post_id=1048589&status=any&order=date .

But, more specifically: it would either be coded in and I can't see that working easily or flawlessly; people may comment on an image's flaws that are mended by the superior, to which would make their carried-over comment out of place; in your statement "at mod's discretion", always assume that the admins/janitors should not be relied on for doing things constantly, and your suggestion would make a simple FFD delete lengthened by the amount of comments a post has.

If you care about the comments for deleted posts, you could copy either the (saved links to) direct comments into \

How about a compromise like making comments on deleted posts visible? That way they're not gone forever.

I don't claim to know how the coding works for this site, so my answer doesn't have anything to do with the difficulty of implementing this. If coding would make this extremely impractical, then I understand.

I've had a few of my images replaced after being up for a while, and it was indeed a little disappointing to have all the accumulated scores/comments wiped. This would be a really cool feature to preserve those things. It feels really good as an artist to see comments on your work.

Though there is definitely merit to the idea that comments on a previous version with now-corrected errors won't make sense anymore. So having the ability to toggle the visibility of the deleted version's comments would be pretty neat and help eliminate confusion.

Technically it is still possible to view comments of deleted posts, eg: https://e621.net/comment/index.json?post_id=1073019
As for copying them over, I'd say let that decision be up to the person deleting the post, in a similar manor of choosing to move favourites over, except by default this should be off.
Why I am for it:

• Some comedy gold is in the comments
• Most comments would be the same for the parent and deleted post

Why I am against it:

• It is a opportunity to prune the salt and cring from comments
• People sometimes get bitchy about specific things like typos and it wouldn't make sense to have that comment on a corrected version

Conclusion: i like rocks

wolftacos said:
I've had a few of my images replaced after being up for a while, and it was indeed a little disappointing to have all the accumulated scores/comments wiped. This would be a really cool feature to preserve those things. It feels really good as an artist to see comments on your work.

Though there is definitely merit to the idea that comments on a previous version with now-corrected errors won't make sense anymore. So having the ability to toggle the visibility of the deleted version's comments would be pretty neat and help eliminate confusion.

I agree with this, both the preservation of comments and to allow users to toggle visibility of comments from a deleted post.

This was suggested back in the old feature request thread, but apparently never got its own thread. +1.

-1
Pretty much what Chaser said, plus this would get annoying for flash games. Especially the ones that have dozens of versions with combined comment counts in thousands. Most of which don't even apply to the newest version.

I'm not sure if making it optional is a good idea either, because then that'd be an another step to slows down deletions. And those are slow enough as is. Having to check whether the comments can be transferred for each deletion is too much.

This is kinda in the grey zone, both merging and not merging has its pros and cons. I wouldn't agree on merging old comments from the inferior version to the superior one, but I do agree on the idea of revealing the comments on deleted posts, it would be quite useful in some cases when people want to search back on old comments.

A simple way and solution for old comments on newer pictures that could be done is to color-zone old comments on the newer picture with a lighter, or darker, either really, color to make obvious that the older comments are labelled as "Legacy"

However, for the problem of older comments stacking up from updated Flash games versions, admins could simply decide whenever it's a good idea to transfer comments or not based on if it's a one-time update submission or not

Neitsuke said:
A simple way and solution for old comments on newer pictures that could be done is to color-zone old comments on the newer picture with a lighter, or darker, either really, color to make obvious that the older comments are labelled as "Legacy"

However, for the problem of older comments stacking up from updated Flash games versions, admins could simply decide whenever it's a good idea to transfer comments or not based on if it's a one-time update submission or not

Could also hide "Legacy" comments under a similar link to negative scores.

May also be worth replacing the Report link with an "Mark as Irrelevant" one. This would require adding a new area for our Janitors and up, but also make it easier to clean out the old comments that weren't relevant to the new version.

Furrin_Gok said:
May also be worth replacing the Report link with an "Mark as Irrelevant" one. This would require adding a new area for our Janitors and up, but also make it easier to clean out the old comments that weren't relevant to the new version.

This creates more work where once there was none.

Allowing old comments to be seen on deleted images is my preferred solution.

BismuthGalaxy said:
Alright, then can we please revive this discussion without locking the thread? The comments don't need to be "merged" persay, but a link to the old comments should be provided by default. Also, this thread doesn't address the upvote issue.

The upvote issue isn't an issue. Not every inferior/duplicate post has upvotes, this search is a good example. Votes at all would carry over, so suddenly a fine 1280x900 res image has -5 score because of a 480x300 inferior image.

BismuthGalaxy said:
But what about those that do? How is that not an issue?

You can't allow judgement carry over so easily. If positive judgement exists on father, it does not represent their son. This analogy represents how the deleted system works: the superior image does not get judged as if it was the inferior, in any regard. If it did, the flaws will hamper judgement, represented by a -tag score search.

BismuthGalaxy said:
The analogy is flawed though, because they are basically the same image. Time and time again, I've seen great posts fall from grace just because people are too lazy to re-upvote the image themselves. This fixes that issue.

They are not the same, though... I did use "superior" and "inferior" for a reason. Even duplicates get deleted.

Furthermore, have you thought about how this would effect existing posts? Like, a older post getting downvoted because of an edited image, or a more recent downscale unintentionally uploaded... you do know how the deletion system works for parent/child posts, right?

I am lagging like hell, give me a second...

Edit: major rewrite for clarity. Should be easier to follow.

Aaand fixed it again. I'm going to try taking a break from this for a least a full 24 hours. :/

There's a philosophical argument about whether it's right for a new post to inherit the votes from a deleted version of the same post, especially if the deleted post had major issues that the new post resolved. Supposedly, the reverse won't happen, where the new post introduces issues while reaping the acclaim of the deleted post, because the newer version is always superior. Counterexample: an artist's paywalled high res art gets uploaded to e621, artist wants it taken down in favor of an inferior or even censored version, and both posts get "merged". The new version is inferior to the deleted one yet reaps its acclaim.

Although I am sympathetic to this concern and do see the problem, I maintain that good old posts (GOP) deserve to have their original positive acclaim carried over to higher quality versions of the same post. High-scoring posts that have been soaking up upvotes for years should not have that progress wiped out because a better version was found. Since I want to see this kind of score-merging, I'll attempt to lay out some solutions.

1. To counteract negative score from an inferior post dragging down the score of a "fixed" or "good" version, this is the one time I would be okay with ignoring downvotes (on transfer). This would discard all downvotes and is the simplest "solution".

2. In any event, prevent multi-voting across deleted and current posts, but still allow users to change their vote from the deleted post if they decide to reverse or retract it. If a user voted on both posts before the merge, then the vote on the non-deleted post should be used. Alternatively, score a single user's votes across deleted and new versions like this: -1-1=>-1, +1+1=>+1, -1+1=>0, -1-1-1=>-1, -1-1+1=>0.

Of course, voting on deleted posts should be locked to anyone who hadn't already voted on them, but be kept open for those who had voted (and not retracted it) before the deletion.

3. Instead of #1, randomly (?) discard downvotes from the deleted post (i.e., purge from the database) if the net score change from the merge would be negative until it is zero. This isn't fair to users whose downvotes get discarded and the discrepancy would be confusing, but the vote tallying would be mathematically sound (i.e., all votes add up properly).

4. A middle ground of #1 and #3 would be to carry over all upvotes and downvotes from a deleted post, but then only apply the deleted post's final score (i.e., the net score from the old upvotes and downvotes) to the new post if it's positive. If it's negative, show something like +0(-15) to indicate that a deleted post had -15 final score but that it doesn't count toward the current version's score. With #2 to handle multi-voting, this preserves the legacy and final state of deleted posts.

5. Regardless of the how score would be transferred, it's absolutely possible and simple to convey that a post has an aggregated score. Underneath Score: # (vote up/down), add something like Total Score: # + # = #. Total Score could easily indicate inherited score(s) a few different ways while also showing how a user voted on the deleted post(s) if they did. That is simple enough to also show under the https://e621.net/post/index thumbnails, and that even gives users an extra bit of information at glance, that hey, this is a reupload.

6. One more dumb thing... The Cheese Grater Question. What would the system do if the cheese grater post, or any post with massive downvotes, got replaced with a superior version? Artists could game the system that way, not that any of consequence should care. Maybe showing 0(-1151) on Cheese Grater V2 (+1 pixel height) is shame enough and hilarious in itself.

#4 should be better than #1 and #3.

Counter-proposal: merge new posts into old, retaining the original post ID. Not the other way around.

This way new posts would be short-lived and flagged from the start, hopefully preventing vote and comment split from happening to being with. In fact, most of the issues listed here would be gone, and it would be much easier to implement. No need to move anything around, comments, faves, all that stuff.

One way to implement it, formatted as a feature request: forum #235492

hslugs said:
Counter-proposal: merge new posts into old, retaining the original post ID. Not the other way around.

This way new posts would be short-lived and flagged from the start, hopefully preventing vote and comment split from happening to being with. In fact, most of the issues listed here would be gone, and it would be much easier to implement. No need to move anything around, comments, faves, all that stuff.

One way to implement it, formatted as a feature request: forum #235492

"Minor issues"

Vote counts is a non-issue. Currently the new superior post starts with 0, effectively making votes meaningless. Like there's a post with 200+ faves and score +2, does it meant -100 +102 (highly controversial) or is it -0 +2 (strictly positive) because it was just re-uploaded? Uploads that significantly improve quality are rare, more often than not it's like 1280 to 1350, but re-uploads of highly upvoted posts are rather frequent.

Merging to parent would retain the uploader. That's better than changing the uploader, though maybe somewhat worse than retaining both ("Posted by ... updated by ..."). Users who upload better versions are usually more experienced, less numerous and less likely to come complaining. They are also aware that a better version is being uploaded, unlike what happens now. No tagging also makes their work easier.

Deleted counters is a non-issue. The way it's handled right now is just wrong, and it won't become any worse. The right way is to add a new counter, "Better versions uploaded", for deleted posts flagged as "better version". And do not count them into Deleted posts for either user.

Different versions of a flash game, so different that it affects comments, should remain separate posts either way.

-1 to that. The old posts may have had a serious flaw (artifacts, too small to see the important details, etc) that got it downvotes, which wouldn't exist in the new post.

Furrin_Gok said:
The old posts may have had a serious flaw (artifacts, too small to see the important details, etc) that got it downvotes, which wouldn't exist in the new post.

How often does that happen, and how many downvotes we are talking about?

For comparison, post #1030400 (post #1250594) effectively got like 100 downvotes solely because of merging to child. And this happens with every single re-uploaded post that gets merged to child. No may-s or flaws.

To make this work, the system could reset the score of the deleted post if it's negative. That was a major point of my big, long post. I just explored how that could be done in detail. It would not be a change from the current system for all intents and purposes.

I honestly don't care how score/vote transfer is done, just so long as it's done. hslugs suggestion seems less messier than my suggestions, at least on the public-facing side. Site staff would still need to be able to find deleted posts, so some new site functionality for admins may be needed to accommodate ID-sharing. The upside to merging to parent/an older ID would be shuffling reuploads off the foremost /post/index/ pages. My feature request for a reupload metatag would need a major rewrite though...

in pseudocode-

If score >= 10(abs) OR total votes >= 20,
set child post score to parent score
else reset child score

Posts that have just a few positive or negative votes get reset, posts with high positive or negative score are preserved, as well as controversial posts with a lot of both pos+neg.

Actually you might be able to just use the 'total votes' value and get about the same effect.

Idea Good? Bad? Potential issues or adjustments?

Yeah i was just thinking about this earlier and thought it'd be good if comments and upvotes/downvotes carried over from an inferior post to the superior post, then i stumbled accross this thread.

+1 Support for this feature.