I've had four posts deleted all for this reason and I'm a tad confused as to why they were removed.

The first few I could understand as they were of a lower resolution than the ones that were removed, that is a fair reason to delete them.

But my most recent one was of the exact same size and resolution, had all the same tags, and had MORE proper links than it's counterpart and yet it was still removed despite both being flagged. I may be missing something but I'm pretty sure mine was the superior version and only got removed because it was flagged first (https://e621.net/posts/3110385).

Is there any way I can prevent my posts from being removed for this reason in the future? I don't want my upload limit taking a hit because of it.

actually that post is a lower resolution then the replaced image. 1200p vs 2000p

Your post had 1200x1200 resolution while the post that superseded it is 2000x2000. Read this https://e621.net/wiki_pages/26055#twitter to understand how to get the best quality version from Twitter, yours was "medium", it's in the source URL.

gameguy82 said:
But my most recent one was of the exact same size and resolution, had all the same tags, and had MORE proper links than it's counterpart and yet it was still removed despite both being flagged. I may be missing something but I'm pretty sure mine was the superior version and only got removed because it was flagged first (https://e621.net/posts/3110385).

Your image: 1200x1200 (171 KB)
The replacement: 2000x2000 (875 KB)

It looks like the link you used for uploading was https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIgNqKFWYAcyzP2?format=jpg&name=medium - if you change the medium at the end to orig it'll give a better quality image. Orig is a little bit of a misnomer though because it's not actually the original, it's still converted into a jpg and I believe caps at something like 4096 pixels.

Is there any way I can prevent my posts from being removed for this reason in the future? I don't want my upload limit taking a hit because of it.

gameguy82 said:
But my most recent one was of the exact same size and resolution, had all the same tags, and had MORE proper links than it's counterpart and yet it was still removed despite both being flagged. I may be missing something but I'm pretty sure mine was the superior version and only got removed because it was flagged first (https://e621.net/posts/3110385).

Your image: 1200x1200 (171 KB)
The replacement: 2000x2000 (875 KB)

It looks like the link you used for uploading was https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FIgNqKFWYAcyzP2?format=jpg&name=medium - if you change the medium at the end to orig it'll give a better quality image. Orig is a little bit of a misnomer though because it's not actually the original, it's still converted into a jpg and I believe caps at something like 4096 pixels.

Is there any way I can prevent my posts from being removed for this reason in the future? I don't want my upload limit taking a hit because of it.

It's a lot of knowing the posting habits of artists (do they post to one website first then post a better version somewhere else a week later?) and the knowledge of how the websites they post on work (maximum filesize, file conversion, the medium/orig thing). If the artist posts in multiple places you've basically got to check all of them. As another example, Twitter usually beats FurAffinity as a source because FA caps the sizes to 1280px resolution, but also any image that doesn't meet the 1280px maximum on FurAffinity will retain its original file type rather than be converted to jpg.

it's also noted that archiving the best file doesn't always relate to a particular website. A post could theoretically be replaced multiple times with superior files because the first image was an FA 1280p upload, replaced with a twitter 4096, and then replaced again with a deviantart 4500 png

always making sure you get the content from the artists archive that maintains the best quality files is how you greatly reduce the odds of BVAS.

I always use https://saucenao.com/. Sometimes the commisioner uploads uncompressed to FA or the artist also uses DeviantArt/Pixiv, which you can find with this. Unfortunatly this doesn't index all sites though, namely Twitter, Sofurry and Inkbunny are missing.

First of all, no, post #3110385 is smaller than post #3110626 – 1200p vs 2000p.
Second, posts don't simply get deleted because one is flagged before the other, that would be ridiculous. Nor are they deleted because one has more tags or sources than the other.
We look at the visual quality of the image. Generally speaking, the version that is bigger and less compressed is kept.

To answer your question – you should look for the best version of the image available.
First of all, check the similar image search. If the post is already present on e621, check that the version you are trying to upload is better than the existing one.
Then, run it through SauceNao to find any other versions of that image. The results are not always 100% correct – for example, you would rarely see results from Twitter, so you might want to check that manually, but it's fairly reliable for finding sources on FurAffinity, DeviantArt, and Pixiv.

earlopain said:
I always use https://saucenao.com/. Sometimes the commisioner uploads uncompressed to FA or the artist also uses DeviantArt/Pixiv, which you can find with this. Unfortunatly this doesn't index all sites though, namely Twitter, Sofurry and Inkbunny.

I've also recently started using FuzzySearch as well, its Twitter indexing doesn't seem to be great but it often gets me good results. The Telegram bot is useful too.

faucet said:
I've also recently started using FuzzySearch as well, its Twitter indexing doesn't seem to be great but it often gets me good results. The Telegram bot is useful too.

Very cool, I'll try that out sometime. To bad you can only do local file uploads, it's very convenient with saucenao to just right click and an extension handles the rest for you. I wonder how they select which twitter accounts to scrape.

gameguy82 said:
Is there any way I can prevent my posts from being removed for this reason in the future? I don't want my upload limit taking a hit because of it.

First, check whether or not you are posting something that already exists. The Upload page will help you detect existing posts that have the exact same image as to the one you are posting. However, they won't pick up images that are differing in sizes/quality. That's why duplicates happen. When two posts are found to be of the same source image, the (larger) more higher quality version is kept while the (smaller) more inferior version is flagged and deleted. I will explain more about finding the highest quality version in the next section.

Second, get the highest quality version of the image out there. Check ALL of the artist's official galleries and download the image from each of their posts. SauceNAO would be helpful in finding posts from mainsteam art galleries like FurAffinity, DeviantArt, Pixiv, and so on; however, it fails to retrieve from sources like Twitter, Inkbunny, or personal websites which may contain higher quality versions. Once you have downloaded from the artist's galleries, compare the quality of each of the images and pick the one with the highest resolution and/or file size. That should be the highest version you can get publicly on the artist's accounts (apart from pirated/leaked commercial content which would be against the rules to post). If you want to be absolutely sure that you have got the best version out there, ask the artist respectfully if they could send you the original images (provided that they are not using it as commercial content). It helps to actually have the artist's permission to repost beforehand here, otherwise it would seem really out of place for you to make such a request.

Thirdly, learn from your mistakes. If you have tried hard to get the best quality version of the post, you shouldn't have to fear it getting deleted/replaced. If your post still got deleted for being inferior, examine the new post's source. The artist may have posted the better version on another gallery that you have missed, or the version you had downloaded was not ideal (see favourable and unfavourable sources, click on the site's name to see the appropriate download method). Learn the artist's posting behaviour, what you have now may not be the best quality in the future. They may at any time change or release higher quality versions when they feel like it (e.g., posting on more favourable galleries on a later date, releasing high-resolution files as part of an announcement/watcher appreciation, etc.). Again, if you had acquired the originals in the second step, you wouldn't have to fear about posting inferior posts.

Fourthly, on the rare occasion your upload limit reaches zero, you may request from the admins to restore your limit. Sometimes, there are things that are out of your control such as artists taking down all of your reposts. In that case, your upload limit can be restored for you if you contact one of the admins. However, if your upload limit reaches zero from your own doing such as constantly posting inferior or bad uploads, your upload limit may be kept at zero to deter you from ever posting again.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Check ALL of the artist's official galleries

Most famous artists already have that information gathered in a dedicated page here. If the artist whose works you want to upload does not have one yet, please take the time to create it. Everyone benefits from having the links readily accessible.

You can access any given artist's e621 page by clicking on the ? next to their tag as it is displayed on any given post or search.

gattonero2001 said:
Most famous artists already have that information gathered in a dedicated page here. If the artist whose works you want to upload does not have one yet, please take the time to create it. Everyone benefits from having the links readily accessible.

You can access any given artist's e621 page by clicking on the ? next to their tag as it is displayed on any given post or search.

in regards to checking all sources that's not always going to help you either because then there is also the pro-gamer move of getting the best quality content directly from the artist for archival purposes, and in some cases the artist maintained sources doesn't host those files of the same quality. Basically the best way to make sure there is no deletions in regards to file superiority is to just ask the artist if you can archive content for them on the website. From my experience, it's got like a 50% ratio of yes/no which is pretty decent considering.

versperus said:
in regards to checking all sources that's not always going to help you either because then there is also the pro-gamer move of getting the best quality content directly from the artist for archival purposes, and in some cases the artist maintained sources doesn't host those files of the same quality. Basically the best way to make sure there is no deletions in regards to file superiority is to just ask the artist if you can archive content for them on the website. From my experience, it's got like a 50% ratio of yes/no which is pretty decent considering.

That feeling when you add smaller_version_at_source in your posts.

thegreatwolfgang said:
That feeling when you add smaller_version_at_source in your posts.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/008/781/65d.png
though I've def added it to a few posts, though admittedly forgot about the tag rip