I've noticed recently there's a lot of tag alias and implication suggestions that have been on here for a long time without being approved or denied. Some of them have been on here for more than a year (forum #182611, forum #191047, forum #204444, forum #11347, forum #203350, forum #189069, forum #181411, forum #205786).

I'm wondering what solutions are available to fix this problem. I figure this backlog is due to lack of staff available to review suggestions and the large backlog of suggestions not yet reviewed, but this is a guess on my part and wasn't sure if this was the case; the only solution I can think of is hiring more admins who are assigned to review the alias/implication suggestions to approve/deny them. Is this a tangible solution or is it not feasible? And does anyone have other possible solutions?

And to be clear, I'm not specifically pushing for the above suggestions to be approved or denied. I'm trying to seek out a long-term solution to permanently reduce this tag suggestion backlog.

For reference:
Unapproved aliases currently number ~1000

Unapproved implications currently number ~720

Short answer: the aliases/implications (AIs) must be absolutely correct before we hit that Approve button, otherwise there will be a mess with no easy, automatic fix.

This has been a long time coming. Speaking for myself, here's the long answer:

We don't know everything

• We are not familiar with every franchise, character, artist alias, sexual act, biological classification (and that's a whole can of worms that needs to be addressed later), etc. We have to do our research.

Practicality

• Will the AIs actually be helpful for searching? To be blunt: some of these AIs are the most pedantic suggestions I have ever seen. In other words, they are (technically?) correct yet impractical. These suggestions are the lowest priority to me.
• Some AIs, because of the large number of posts they are tagged on, will lag the hell out of the site if approved. These have to be run through @Kira, lest I temporarily kill the site.

Documentation

• Sometimes, I have to follow a paper trail to determine why a decision was made.
• Likewise, I try my best to explain my decisions for future reference. Many decisions are made based on my understanding of precedents and consideration that I will be setting a precedent. When precedents are reversed, I feel obligated to explain even more.
• Sometimes there is no documentation.

English is hard

• Homophones, puns, slang. Don't forget the number of non-English tags or the terminology that is imported from other sites. Every possible definition must be considered.

Every problem reveals more problems

• I coined the term "Bad Tagger Syndrome" a couple years back.
• Pick any "bad" tag.
• Open its posts.
• Check their tags. Odds are there are more ambiguous tags or outright mistakes.
• Repeat until you have 30 tabs open (different tags) and executive function shuts down.
• This is the process I go through. Which leads to my next point...

It will drive you crazy

• One day, I pushed 60+ (2-3 pages of unapproved AIs? Maybe more? I don't remember the exact number) AIs out of the queue. Implication trees, umbrella tags, disambiguation pages (does anybody even look through these?), trying to give equal consideration to every post in a suggestion's thread and its related suggestions/previous discussions, wondering whether or not dicknipples should imply penis/nipples - it fries your brain.

• post #428489

Real life gets in the way

• Speaking only for myself, I recently moved across the country, among other major life changes and ongoing personal issues. Should I have the discipline to push through and set a quota for AIs? Yes, I really should. I wish telling myself "suck it up, buttercup" would magically fix everything and turn me into Superbird, but it takes much more than that. The day I am no longer able to joke and laugh will probably be a very bad day.
• In short, admins are people too. The majority of us are volunteers - volunteers who willingly log on and deal with Character Owner #9562 throwing a fit that their non-explicit, monochrome, butt-focus picture can't be tagged with their species/gender under TWYS. Not to dismiss anybody, but I do wish my life circumstances were so simple so that I could complain over such issues.

The rest of the site gets in the way

• I hate to admit this, but the AI queue does not hinder the site.
• If the ticket queue went unmanaged, the community would be outraged (Admins don't care!).
• If the approval queue went unmanaged, uploaders would be outraged (I can't upload anything!) (Why is this human-only post still on the site?)
• If the flag queue went unmanaged, we would be hit with DMCAs.

Would AIs help with blacklists and searching? Yes. But without a community of both artists/consumers that believes its administration cares about them, the site is nothing. AIs are a convenience, not a necessity.

e621 is blessed with a community of obsessive taggers who are able to handle the worst tag problems (tagme, disambiguations) manually. We don't always notice exactly who contributes to what, but we do appreciate you as a whole.

I inherited this AI queue, and someday it will be smashed. It won't be today, it might not even be this year, and I am sorry for that. I'll draw up a plan and try to implement my own quota; completing 5-10 a day, I might be able to get through half by the end of the year.

In closing, this.

basically theres metric fuckton of aliases and implications and it would require metric fuckton x 10 of work, be patient.

Actually , that makes me think -- if you can search for status = "all" "unapproved" or "approved".. is it possible to search for rejected aliases or implications?

@Knotty: well, I suppose if I were to encounter someone who likens tagging ontologies to law, it would have to be on e621. A lot of people here seem pretty literate.

In regards to "we are not familiar with every ..franchise, character, artist alias, sexual act, biological classification. [...] We have to do our research" :
Could alias/implication proposers (or respondents on the corresponding forum thread) simplify this task by providing more or better citations?

@Knotty: Could it be that you just have a bunch of people tagging random stuff as what they think is correct? For instance, a person sees a character in a drawing, or what-have-you, with five fingers. They tag it as such, and then move on. Another comes along and tags it "many fingers." Then they move on. Another comes along and tags it "odd hand."

MrKranberryJam69 said:
@Knotty: Could it be that you just have a bunch of people tagging random stuff as what they think is correct? For instance, a person sees a character in a drawing, or what-have-you, with five fingers. They tag it as such, and then move on. Another comes along and tags it "many fingers." Then they move on. Another comes along and tags it "odd hand."

This isn't really how the system works, And tag abuses are dealt with pretty fast.

Although a lot of people still have yet to understand TWYS. I keep finding pictures tagged with what's outside-sourced information rather than what's plainly visible. (IE: Characters marked as herm despite being depicted as 'male only' in a particular picture, Just because said character has the ability to change genders in its canon.)

FoxFourOhFour said:

This isn't really how the system works, And tag abuses are dealt with pretty fast.

I'm new here member wise. But I have been reading all the code of conduct and other such things about this site when I joined. So I'm still learning the layout per say.

Although a lot of people still have yet to understand TWYS. I keep finding pictures tagged with what's outside-sourced information rather than what's plainly visible. (IE: Characters marked as herm despite being depicted as 'male only' in a particular picture, Just because said character has the ability to change genders in its canon.)

That's Wiki Syndrome and the Every Canon Fever. It's become an epidemic.

MrKranberryJam69 said:
I'm new here member wise. But I have been reading all the code of conduct and other such things about this site when I joined. So I'm still learning the layout per say.

That's Wiki Syndrome and the Every Canon Fever. It's become an epidemic.

I really don't see why it's so hard to understand that people who don't know the character are going to want to find the image by what it looks like.

Furrin_Gok said:
I really don't see why it's so hard to understand that people who don't know the character are going to want to find the image by what it looks like.

I blame the exact likeness between the actual character and the fan character. Because I've seen the confusion they cause on deviant art and elsewhere. "Oh this was my original version of Krillin with hair before GT." Sometimes the excuses are highly unlikely. Especially the "my friend of a friend's brother worked on the show" spiel. But those gullible enough to believe it, will run to the Wiki. Where they will spam a bunch of articles based on hearsay and eyesay.

Knotty_Curls said:
...

Wow, that's a long answer. Had other folks asked about this before me (apart from the old threads getting bumped)?

Knotty_Curls said:

It will drive you crazy

Real life gets in the way

The rest of the site gets in the way

This is why I suggested getting more admins. I know everyone on here is a volunteer (including the admins) and that there's only so much each of us can do to contribute to this site, simply because we all have real life obligations and problems that also takes up our time. Having more admins can lessen the workload distributed among each admin and hasten the rate at which tags get reviewed and approved/denied.

And sorry if getting more admins isn't a tangible solution. I'm not sure what processes go into hiring new admins, so I don't know if I'm giving a bad suggestion.

Knotty_Curls said:
In closing, this.

But y'all don't need to be sorry for anything! :)

Ledian said:
basically theres metric fuckton of aliases and implications and it would require metric fuckton x 10 of work, be patient.

But I don't have the patience!

D.D.M. said:
Wow, that's a long answer. Had other folks asked about this before me (apart from the old threads getting bumped)?

This is why I suggested getting more admins. I know everyone on here is a volunteer (including the admins) and that there's only so much each of us can do to contribute to this site, simply because we all have real life obligations and problems that also takes up our time. Having more admins can lessen the workload distributed among each admin and hasten the rate at which tags get reviewed and approved/denied.

And sorry if getting more admins isn't a tangible solution. I'm not sure what processes go into hiring new admins, so I don't know if I'm giving a bad suggestion.

The problem with that is if we go with that solution, we'd have to find users that are "admin-ready" and are deemed responsible enough to not misuse the site's functions (that includes being accessible to bans, locks, private information, etc.) There's only like, 2-4 peeps that I would consider becoming an admin.

Also, sometimes the peeps don't want to be admin. Some would rather avoid the responsibilities it comes with, some are content with their current status, etc.

I would say it's a PR problem...you guys need to better communicate to the user base what you are doing. For instance...one thing that baffles me is when an alias is approved...why not append the thread title with "[Approved]"? That would be an easy way to communicate to any forum-goer that yes...shit is being approved...even if it's not your shit at least you know SOMETHING is happening.

Knotty_Curls said:
To be blunt: some of these AIs are the most pedantic suggestions I have ever seen. In other words, they are (technically?) correct yet impractical. These suggestions are the lowest priority to me.

Great, but instead of ignoring those suggestions completely I think it would be a good idea to simply come out and tell them "no, that's really pedantic, we will not be doing that". Again...it's showing your work. You were in the thread...you considered the alias...and you deemed it unworthy. Going back to my first suggestion...you could even append bad alias suggestions with a "[DENIED]" at the end of their thread title.

So...yeah...those simple changes would probably help this problem immensely.

TheHuskyK9 said:
The problem with that is if we go with that solution, we'd have to find users that are "admin-ready" and are deemed responsible enough to not misuse the site's functions (that includes being accessible to bans, locks, private information, etc.) There's only like, 2-4 peeps that I would consider becoming an admin.

Also, sometimes the peeps don't want to be admin. Some would rather avoid the responsibilities it comes with, some are content with their current status, etc.

Yeah, I figured that could be a problem. Admin worthiness is something that takes a while for individuals to build up. And finding someone willing to take on the admin responsibilities would certainly limit things. I know I wouldn't want to be an admin; those responsibilities would be way too much for me to deal with on a regular basis.

Dyrone said:
simple changes

My response in this thread gave birth to a daily alias/implication report, which I intend to keep up with.

Other admins who do aliases/implications are free to edit in (or even create separate posts of) their own actions for review, but so far no one else has taken up the offer. I could see the format being annoying anyway; keep in mind that the thread is purely to keep me in the habit of dealing with the queue. I chose a method that works for me.

I would edit in other admins' actions, but looking through Mod Actions is a pain in the birdbutt and I don't want to take credit for their work.

As for appending the titles with [APPROVED] or whatnot, that could work. Dunno why I never thought of it before, as I am trying to phase out bumping ancient threads with Approved comments. I might include [SEMI-APPROVED] for threads with additional suggestions that are still being reviewed.

However, there's the possibility of threads being revived with new concerns that weren't considered at the time of approval/denial. These could be appended with [DELETED] once handled. A reply detailing what happened would be necessary.

This boils down to having to rewrite the procedures for AIs, and I would need every participating admin to be on board with it.

While it may be a pain in the birdbutt to you, looking through Mod Actions is not a pain in the ratbutt for me. On the contrary, it is something I do regularly whenever I am not on the site for a period of time, to "catch up" on what I missed.

Would you like me to keep tabs on aliases/implications made, by whom, when, etc., and give them to you?

TheHuskyK9 said:
we'd have to find users that are "admin-ready" and are deemed responsible enough to not misuse the site's functions

I have a stupid idea: add a "Tag manager" (or any better name) member rank, where the user only have access to the A/I.

Siral_Exan said:
Would you like me to keep tabs on aliases/implications made, by whom, when, etc., and give them to you?

No. Putting one's actions out there for review should be their own responsibility.

If others want to perform actions "under the radar," then they do so at their own risk. I don't mean to put down anyone who does this; some AIs are obvious, like artist aliases or formatting errors. But some AIs only seem obvious. I'd hate to pass/deny an AI and - after all the damage has been done - have to undo it 6 months later once someone points out something that's obvious in hindsight.

I'm damn good at what I do (when I decide to do it), but, as much as my jokes and persona say otherwise, I am not perfect. If we're going to destroy this queue in a timely manner - that is, with minimal research time and no clean-ups - then I believe we must submit ourselves to review.

I should also write a thorough guide for current admins and our eventual successors. This will include a list of precedents (singular > plural, proper tag syntax, etc). It will hopefully speed up the queue tremendously. But that's for another day.

I'm also not sure if bumping old suggestions is helpful or not. I don't want suggestions that are 8+ months old to be overlooked, but at the same time I'm unsure if they're already on an admin's radar and bumping them would just be a nuisance.

Sorry about bumping this thread, but I felt it better than starting a completely new forum post since it pertains to the original subject of this forum post.

I noticed tasteful_nudity has gained several dozen posts after getting nuked and the wiki description changed. I was going to bump the invalid_tag alias suggestion on forum #235247, but before doing so I realized two things. (1) The invalidation suggestion was pretty old (6 months) and might be considered spamming if I bumped it, and (2) I didn't know if bumping old alias/implication suggestions helped or hurt the rate at which they are approved/denied. Hence I'm heading here for advice on these old alias/implication suggestions... To Bump or Not to Bump?