Requested feature overview description.
There was already change made so that users had to select rating when uploading content to avoid false ratings which already caused slight amount of annoyance from the power users and doing any further suggestions have resulted into "guess I would stop uploading then". So rather than proposing just updating current upload form, why not just have both? Put the current upload form next to regular upload link as "Express" upload. This way the power users who know what they are doing, can still do their things without too much friction in the process. Also I would imagine this being trivial to achieve considering that the information send with the form to site should be similar, so most of the changes would be for end user.

As for regular upload form, simplest way of saying what needs to be done is to take what's in the wiki and provide that information to user when it's needed and guide them in the process.

This would mean stuff like following, but not limited to:

• Have warning if direct URL upload matches sample version. There has been cases where people have even uploaded furaffinity thumbnails because direct URL upload allowed it, then thinking that the feature is busted.
• Sources being five input fields instead of textbox (or one input field with + to add more) messaging that users can put in more than single source. Checkbox under source input field if there's none available, this would stop the upload and notify user to add in source if they didn't provide one or verify there being none.
• Instead of huge textbox input for tags, have multiple steps for specific kind of tags. This would include stuff like artist input field with checkbox for unknown and anonymous (cut down posts with no artist tagged or anonymous tagged falsely as anon), genders and amount of characters as chechbox, etc. and lastly have "others" as textbox with link to checklist on wiki. This would be similar to inkbunny approach on things.
• On rating, explain most common examples right then and there, then provide link to larger page on wiki. Right now there's nothing else than three choises which are identical to many other sites, but which usage isn't.
• Include fields to add post into pool, set or as parent post and give option to create new one if needed. Right now it is possible to include post into pool, set or parent, but requires knowledge of specific metatag. Having ID input or dropdown field for pools would already make things easier for majority of users without inside knowledge of things, which would cut down "can someone pool?" questions I constantly see.

Why would it be useful?
Problem with current uploading form is that it demands users to have knowledge of many things. How this is currently given to users is with textbox telling them to go to wiki and figure things out there. After this, it relies on users memorizing these things or manually checking on them every time they upload. This can and most likely will cause some users to go where the fence is lowest, doing only the minimal amount of job because all they want is to upload the content, even if tagging and sourcing are the extremely important aspects.

I see a lot of same mistakes made over and over and over again, to the point that it's not just about users being stupid half of the time. Some of these mistakes are of nature that they will take a lot of time from other users to explain and fix.

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

• Upload form
• Top panel under posts

Actually nvm.

But I wouldn't want multiple textboxes for tags.

+1 honestly, especially in regards to fields allowing you to add things directly to pools/sets/etc. It makes uploading pool series images much easier.

Also the rest of the details sound great to me, especially in regards to anonymous artists/unknown artists/etc.

Only thing I disagree with is multiple textboxes for tags, feels like it might make things a tad tedious

Where do I sign? Is there a kickstarter? ;)

I, in contrast to others, think multiple text boxes for tag input would be useful At the VERY least for the artist...

That said, the more fields we put in here, the more simplistic people might get-- like going down a checklist rather than generating their own ideas.. . but people often forget basics like gender and species because there are SO many other things on the 'checklist' that people SHOULD add... so... there's benefit either way, to me <3

SnowWolf said:
Where do I sign? Is there a kickstarter? ;)

I, in contrast to others, think multiple text boxes for tag input would be useful At the VERY least for the artist...

That said, the more fields we put in here, the more simplistic people might get-- like going down a checklist rather than generating their own ideas.. . but people often forget basics like gender and species because there are SO many other things on the 'checklist' that people SHOULD add... so... there's benefit either way, to me <3

Fair enough! Rly for me it has its ups and downs; on one hand, it'll make tagging the "basics" easier and more accessible. On the other hand, it might make tagging everything harder so ppl will shy away from tagging as much as they can

AoBird said:
Actually nvm.

But I wouldn't want multiple textboxes for tags.

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Only thing I disagree with is multiple textboxes for tags, feels like it might make things a tad tedious

The idea is that this way you have checklist as you go, rather than blank canvas to fill. Also like I said, inkbunny does this similarly and they do also have guidelines towards tagging, so I can only assume that it's working for them at least to some degree. (And of course the one textbox solution would be kept with express upload form which would look like current one)

Also the idea is that some things, like genders for example which should technically be in all images (if none then ambiguous_gender or zero pictured), would be checkboxes, meaning it's much easier for user to simply select what they want with something that they most likely should be tagging regardless of what's uploaded.

Another example would be artist tag, there should always be one, so giving option to write it or check either unknown/anonymous, because there has been posts without any artist tags applied, not even unknown/anonymous. Because any kind of artist tag, even non-romanized japanese one, is better than nothing.

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
+1 honestly, especially in regards to fields allowing you to add things directly to pools/sets/etc. It makes uploading pool series images much easier.

Funny thing is that you can already do this, pool:1234 during upload and it puts the post into pool ID 1234. That's why implementation of this system sounds so trivial to me.

SnowWolf said:
Where do I sign? Is there a kickstarter? ;)

Donate shekel to noot.

Mairo said:
Funny thing is that you can already do this, pool:1234 during upload and it puts the post into pool ID 1234. That's why implementation of this system sounds so trivial to me.

Huh! Had no idea, thanks for the tip!

I feel implementing it as a feature tho would still be good even if technically possible, cause I feel the more casual users might not know this.

You could always just only use the normal tag box and ignore the checkboxes, right? So it'd just be an optional feature.

I might try to make a mockup of this

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Huh! Had no idea, thanks for the tip!

I feel implementing it as a feature tho would still be good even if technically possible, cause I feel the more casual users might not know this.

You can also do child:1234 which is great for bvas reposts.

+1. A more detailed upload page would improve tagging by a lot.

URL checking: very helpful. Getting the best version can be tricky and most users have not read and mastered howto:sites and sources.

Smart source fields: very important. Ideally it would detect direct links only and prompt for a link to the actual submission.

Guided tagging: yes! Tag categories and clickable tags make things so much easier. I suggested something similar here: https://e621.net/forum/show/255964.

Pool/set/parent fields: I don't think this is critical but if its a common issue then sure.

SnowWolf said:
the more fields we put in here, the more simplistic people might get

I think you're right but it's still worth it. Some uploaders will start tagging less but most uploaders, especially new ones, will end up tagging more.

+1 This seems like it'd be pretty helpful. I support it, so long as the current upload form remains available and unchanged from how it is now (besides being called the 'express upload').

Yes, please

Actually bit glad how much this idea is liked. I though this was only me because I see so many small mistakes which are constantly repeated and taking up my time I could use elsewhere.

darryus said:
You could always just only use the normal tag box and ignore the checkboxes, right? So it'd just be an optional feature.

Reason why we have 4 tag minimum in rules is because there are posts where it can be near impossible to figure out more than 4 tags to insert. Preferabely all posts would have way much more tags than 4 and we have so absurd amount of tags that it should also be really easy thing for anything that isn't just pure white image.

So because of this and because we are talking about changing the form alone, it would be pretty impossible to make any automation to this, other than just giving as much information as possible. So basically you with the current idea, you should be able to just input all the tags into other tags textbox and upload or use the currently in place uploading form instead.

Lance_Armstrong said:
I might try to make a mockup of this

Shared mockup with staff on discord yesterday, which I made in few minutes:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/432280999293091872/446424959376687104/chrome_2018-05-17_00-21-29.png

Do keep in mind that this really was just something made in few minutes, so there are mistakes and things that most definitely still need changing/improving, but that's the basic vision.

leomole said:
URL checking: very helpful. Getting the best version can be tricky and most users have not read and mastered howto:sites and sources.

Smart source fields: very important. Ideally it would detect direct links only and prompt for a link to the actual submission.

Would need to check these things with Kira on what's actually even possible in this reality. Checking patterns in real time inside input field should be and site does have some level of automatic filling based on given source URLs, that's why if someone uploads from furaffinity using direct URL field, the source field does also have artists gallery link, but is missing submission page because that cannot be reversed from direct URL.

So how would smart source field work exactly? It detects direct URL being from inkbunny and starts flashing with example of needed URL in source section?

Mairo said:
So how would smart source field work exactly? It detects direct URL being from inkbunny and starts flashing with example of needed URL in source section?

Pretty much yeah. The Upload from URL example should be a direct URL like https://data.site.com/file/#####.png. The Source URL example should be https://www.site.com/post/###. If the user enters a direct URL (https://data.site.com/file/#####.png) or gallery URL (https://www.site.com/artist) instead of a proper source URL it should automatically add a source field and emphasize the example https://www.site.com/post/### by changing text color or something.

An even smarter system might be site specific, for example if the user is uploading from https://d.facdn.net/art/artist/#####.png it could change the Source URL example to https://www.furaffinity.net/view/###. This makes it very clear what kind of source we're looking for.

Thank you for this idea.

In my opinion, sources are the single most important thing on a post.
You can always add new tags quickly (even if lack of tags makes posts hard to find later), but finding the source after a year can be a real bitch.

In addition to requiring a post URL like https://www.furaffinity.net/view/###
it would be nice if the direct image link were *also* required for some sites.

Like Tumblr.
When a Tumblr post gets deleted, the direct image link remains active.
So you can still upload the BVATS even if the post has been deleted.

It's the same for Deviantart.

When it comes to sources, there's got to be more automation.
Especially when you have the ability to upload via an image's direct link.
It's been proven that it can be done, direct linking an image from furaffinity adds the artist's page and submission link to the list of sources.

Why can't it be the same for Pixiv, etc.? It really doesn't help that, on top of the sourcing not yet being automated, the direct link is purposely munted to give you a 403 error.

Untamed said:
It's been proven that it can be done, direct linking an image from furaffinity adds the artist's page and submission link to the list of sources.

Why can't it be the same for Pixiv, etc.? It really doesn't help that, on top of the sourcing not yet being automated, the direct link is purposely munted to give you a 403 error.

It does not. Furaffinity is one of those pages where you have to remember to add source manually.

Automation right now is based on information available from URL. With furaffinity URL, the direct image URL does contain artist account name, but not submission ID, so that's why it only autofills artists gallery link, where something like pixiv doesn't have any information like this.

Pixiv also has hotlink protection that will give 403 error, but e621 upload form has referral set correctly and accepts those links.

Also if you are already using direct URL upload, changes are that you are at the very submission page which will only take a second to copy as well, where manually doing that afterwards can more than several minutes and coding something that would crawl the URL would take not only insane amount of effort but also insane amount of computing power for something that everyone uploading should be doing.

And this was kind reminder that I and others need to manually fix all and every source of your uploads.

Mairo said:
But thou must do it manually
Here is a good explanation why

Thats a very good explanation
I'll see to it that the rest of my pixiv uploads are sourced to the expected standards.
Have a nice day

Just so everyone knows, they can try this fabulous new form at https://e621.net/post/upload?use_new=true right now. Feedback is welcome.

KiraNoot said:
Just so everyone knows, they can try this fabulous new form at https://e621.net/post/upload?use_new=true right now. Feedback is welcome.

Does upload from URL work with that form? I had a pixiv image I tried to upload earlier with that form and it just sat on that page never uploading. Worked fine with upload file though.

KiraNoot said:
Just so everyone knows, they can try this fabulous new form at https://e621.net/post/upload?use_new=true right now. Feedback is welcome.

To me, it's an atrocity.

Blind_Guardian said:
Does upload from URL work with that form? I had a pixiv image I tried to upload earlier with that form and it just sat on that page never uploading. Worked fine with upload file though.

I'll take a look. I forgot to test that again before pushing the latest iteration so I may have broken it. Thank you for the feedback.

KiraNoot said:
Feedback is welcome.

I'm not a huge fan.

First things first; holy shit, is this form daunting, over two pages tall filled with six different textareas. First thing you see when you open this form is a big red warning box before you've even done anything, and below that seventeen buttons clumped together. That red warning section should not be there from the start, it should only pop up if a user tries to upload without first adding a source. As it is it's very distracting making it feel like you've done something wrong before even choosing the image you want to upload.

Second I'd probably get rid or at least collapse of some of those textareas I assume the first five all do the same exact thing other than maybe putting the aritst: or species: prefix.

The Sex, Count, and Pairings section should probably have the count buttons first and, in fact, before selecting solo, duo, or group the buttons for sex shouldn't be visible. Same thing goes with parings except either duo or group would need to be selected for these options to appear. Similarly the intersex/male, intersex/female, and intersex/intersex should also expand other options since these tags probably shouldn't be used on their own.
This will cut down on visual clutter, making only the options that the uploader might need available. It might also be wise to put alt-text on the buttons to give a brief description of what they mean when you hover over them.

The Ratings section buttons should probably be radio buttons, it'll make it clear that these options aren't the same as the other ones and since the function of radio buttons is so ingrained in pretty much ever computer user's mind that it's understood that one of these options needs to be pressed. Also probably have alt-text on these things too.

As it is the Fetishes and Themes section seems superfluous as it is. I'd say put some buttons there but have them collapsed into a few different categories.

KiraNoot said:
Just so everyone knows, they can try this fabulous new form at https://e621.net/post/upload?use_new=true right now. Feedback is welcome.

This is way too daunting.

I could see it working if there were either collapsed "suggestion" sections that users could expand by clicking on a "+" or "?" or something. But ideally you want all of the different text boxes to fit on the same screen with no scrolling, at least while the help boxes are compressed.

i think that having everything spread out in different boxes and buttons makes it harder to estimate if im using enough tags or not. also the separation between the sections is not exactly clear so at least for me its very easy to miss a box or two. like i was about to press upload when i noticed that i had missed the rating

It might be good if everything was organized into separate collapsible sections, so that the page doesn't feel as crowded.

I like it. I think it will ultimately improve tagging quite a bit. Here's some feedback:

• The floating preview is very nice!
• The upload page is too long. I suspect that anything beyond one page (like Clawdragons said) will intimidate new users.
• You can save some space by removing the lines about the Avoid Posting List, Guidelines, etc. Those are all in the upload guide.
• Combine the first two sections into "Upload" (from files or from URL).
• The descriptions below "Sources" and "Fetishes" should be hover over to make things cleaner.
• The Sources field should have grey suggestion text like "https://www.furaffinity.net/view/########/".
• Change "Character and Artist Names:" to just "Artist". That's much more important.
• Change "Character Sex, Character Count, and Sexual Pairings:" to just "Characters". Ask for number, then sex, then pairings. This hierarchy makes more sense because if there's no_characters then they don't have to tag sex. Add "character_name" to the suggestion text.
• Add hover over text for the Species section or a link to the wiki page.
• Change "Fetishes and Themes" to "Contentious Content". Add not_furry to the suggestion text. Maybe add rape, too.
• Decreasing the size of the buttons would buy us some space.
• Does anyone use the Related Tags etc links? Are they worth the space?
• Please don't sort quick tags alphabetically. I had them in a useful order.
• Use hover over text to explain how a parent post is used (or maybe there's a wiki page?)
• Unlike the other sections, Parent and Description are used a minority of the time. Is there a way to indicate this? Collapsed by default maybe? An expandable Advanced section?

darryus said:
That red warning section should not be there from the start, it should only pop up if a user tries to upload without first adding a source.

I agree with this.

But I think we should all try to remember how daunting the current upload form looked at first. There isn't much guidance. It's easy to leave out the artist or body type. There's no reminder to tag contentious content. The new form may seem overcomplicated to those of us who know why male/male replaces gay and how to use artist: but for new users the new upload form will be helpful.

Thanks for making improvements, Kira. I think this will make e6 an even better archive.

Before this goes too far and people get the impression that I'm discarding their feedback unfairly, I think I need to lay down what the requirements of the new page are so that everyone can work towards the same goal. This is not a drop in replacement of the old page with a few minor quality of life changes, or that's what it would have been.

Requirements of the page are as follows:
- Allow uploading from files and direct URLs, both with preview.
- Provide feedback about direct upload domain being allowed or not.
- Provide feedback about direct upload URL being a known bad pattern, such as a sample image.
- Allow for entering source information, and explain what should be there.
- Introduce the user uploading to the core categories of the uploading checklist without requiring them to leave the page or read a distinct document(this has been proven to be ineffective over and over again.)
- Give reasons and examples of the core information presented so that users are thinking about these topics, why they exist and whey they are important to have upon upload.
- Present the most commonly used options to the user in a manner that makes them as easy to add and remove as possible.
- Allow for entering arbitrary tags.
- The page should work both on desktop and mobile devices, this eliminates the use of tool tips and hover text as valid options.

The resulting page is a rough draft that encompasses those requirements. It being slightly daunting is okay if the quality of initial tagging goes up as a result.

Now to address the common concern that I'm seeing here, which is that the page is large and appears cluttered. Would some sort of step system or pagination help to alleviate this? Personally I think it will likely make the process more cumbersome than being able to scroll, but would clean up the initial impression of the page and the information contained therein.

Does anyone use the Related Tags etc links? Are they worth the space?

I think these are an underrated system, and it often brings up tags that you would otherwise miss that are more specific or less specific than what you've entered. Maybe explaining them a bit and working on making the system faster would make people more willing to use them to explore tags they otherwise wouldn't have thought of.

The new form may seem overcomplicated to those of us who know why male/male replaces gay and how to use artist: but for new users the new upload form will be helpful.

There is a hidden "advanced mode" that you can access by clicking/tapping in the blank area immediately above the file upload area, this reverts the page to how it used to look more or less. I have not forgotten about users that are used to tagging and just want a tags field and nothing else. This is not a permanent solution to how you might access this, just an easy way to add it for testing.

KiraNoot said:
I have not forgotten about users that are used to tagging and just want a tags field and nothing else. This is not a permanent solution to how you might access this, just an easy way to add it for testing.

That's a great idea. Could we have a toggle in our settings for an old/minimalist upload form? Like the same URL but have it show up differently (something like this) for power users?

KiraNoot said:
Now to address the common concern that I'm seeing here, which is that the page is large and appears cluttered.

Mostly I'm worried about users having to scroll. How about an extra column for the alternate tags? I mean something like this.

KiraNoot said:
The page should work both on desktop and mobile devices

What proportion of users upload from mobile? I know it's nonzero but surely it's not that high?

KiraNoot said:
I think these are an underrated system

I'll have to try it out.

leomole said:

• Change "Fetishes and Themes" to "Contentious Content". Add not_furry to the suggestion text. Maybe add rape, too.

This sounds really good one.

One thing I was thinking, is there any sort of list of really commonly blacklisted tags? This would most likely allow having list of items on "fetish" section, instead of leaving it as blank textbox with only handful of examples.

leomole said:

• Change "Character and Artist Names:" to just "Artist". That's much more important.

Users disregard character names almost always unless they are extremely big names, which have gotten problematic in many cases. Especially if character owner doesn't want them to be featured in here, without tags they have harder time realizing we are hosting content againts their will.

leomole said:

• Does anyone use the Related Tags etc links? Are they worth the space?

There's new feature Preview Final Tags which uses same space, so even if nobody uses related, it doesn't actually take that much extra space.

Seems like an awesome idea...here is my feedback.

First off I find it odd that copyrights, which I consider to be nearly as important as artist/character tags are crammed in with the fetishes in the "Fetishes and Themes" section...they should have their own field, and it would be really cool if the copyrights auto-generated from implications. Like if I type "mickey_mouse" the character field then the copyright field would auto-populate with "disney". This would be a great way to make it clear that certain character tags have implications to those who don't know...even for people like me who do know it's nice because you'd know for sure that a character does have their copyright implied...not every character does.

The page length is an issue, perhaps it would be taken care of with a few simple UI tweaks...like many of the text boxes are 5 lines tall, but they really only need to be like 2 or 3...many times there's going to be one or two characters/artists any given image...it doesn't need to be 5 lines tall.

Another way to deal with page length would be to basically have sections and every section is collapsed to begin with except the very first one. As you fill out the sections you click "next" and the next section is revealed. Something like that.

Finally I think users should only have access to "advanced mode" (the old upload page) after they have uploaded a certain number of times using this new page...maybe like 25 times or something. That way they have learned how to tag from this new page first before you let them loose on the other page.

Suggestion:
Put a list of permitted file types and size restrictions on the new upload form