Curious, just that I've noticed there's like 6000 posts (25 pages with 250 posts per of status:pending as of writing) to be approved at a time, and that sounds a bit like hell to go through all, ngl, and obviously, you can't just keep hiring new people, that'd turn into a different kind of mess.

So what's there to do in case posts (meeting all criteria) stop getting approved in time? Given that you may not reupload (not that it'd solve anything) it may become difficult to catalogue new artists, characters, etc. I may be a little naive believing boorus are better archival medium than anything else, but eh y'know, sometimes e6 is the only source of art, so it'd be bit of a shame to have more link rot.

If you feel a post failed to get approved in 30 days purely by mistake, you can DM a janitor about it, but I don't know how common that is, not being a janitor myself. It does seem like a low number of Mods/Admins/Janitors vs a massive amount of work to do has always been a perpetually increasing issue, and I'm not sure what the solution is.

difficult to catalogue new artists, characters, etc.

Anyone can change tag types. There are exceptions for changing to a lore tag or changing tags with over 100 posts, but I'm not sure if there are any other restrictions. If a new artist doesn't change their artist or character tags to the appropriate types, I either fix it or DM them to ask them to fix it.

I have two artworks that have been scanned that are still pending,
And Millcore and BitWolfy have stepped down. Not sure if there are enough mods and janitors to approve the pending posts.

https://e621.net/users?commit=Search&search%5Bcan_approve_posts%5D=true

kemonophonic said:
https://e621.net/users?commit=Search&search%5Bcan_approve_posts%5D=true

Ratte can still approve? Huh, that's interesting.

I'm still waiting to upload more Divine Acid comic pages but usually it happens within a week or two, if it doesn't happen overnight/in hours (hey, you can get lucky!). We recently had a recruitment process, and yeah, having too many mods could definitely lead to a DeLorean Problem situation. But I don't see us being anywhere near that end of the spectrum just yet!

If we did have approval-only moderators, we'd likely have to lay in some ground rules:
1) No approving your own posts or those of friends.
2) No circle-jerking approvals to try to bypass rule #1.
3) Having to deal with people that approved stuff that they really, really shouldn't have. :/

Ideally, nobody should have their post deleted for being unapproved for 30 days. It's due to:

A lack of volunteers with the time to do it.

An explosion of the upload rate over the years. Almost double the posts in 2022 than in 2019, and the rate is up 6% so far this year.

A lack of attention given to the posts in the gray zone. The Janitor's brain can tell in milliseconds that something like post #4098364 should be approved. But if we have to spend a minute deliberating over a low quality image, that's a minute we don't get back. We may also be seeking second, third opinions from the disapproval feature or running out the clock to let the post either die or get saved.

alphamule said:
If we did have approval-only moderators, we'd likely have to lay in some ground rules:
1) No approving your own posts or those of friends.
2) No circle-jerking approvals to try to bypass rule #1.
3) Having to deal with people that approved stuff that they really, really shouldn't have. :/

What would be the difference between an "approval-only moderator" and a janitor?

I don't think people approving their own posts is a big deal, considering there's a 215 users who already skip the mod queue. Priv+ gets the option to flag posts that shouldn't have ever been approved with the flag reason "Does not meet the uploading guidelines" - but I'm not really sure what lower ranked users are supposed to do. Message whoever approved it maybe?

faucet said:
What would be the difference between an "approval-only moderator" and a janitor?

I don't think people approving their own posts is a big deal, considering there's a 215 users who already skip the mod queue. Priv+ gets the option to flag posts that shouldn't have ever been approved with the flag reason "Does not meet the uploading guidelines" - but I'm not really sure what lower ranked users are supposed to do. Message whoever approved it maybe?

Well, aren't there other powers granted to janitors besides approving posts? Forgive my noobness since not done it, before. I worry about conflict of interest but I guess that makes sense, too. It's probably a "we'll cross this bridge when we get to it" sort of situation? If it becomes a problem, deal with it? The critical difference is that people have proven that they don't upload absolute garbage. Kind of bias on the selection there if they're already unlimited uploaders. ;)

lance_armstrong said:
running out the clock to let the post either die or get saved.

What do you mean get saved? I can get running out the clock to die. but how does it save a post?

benjiboyo said:
Ratte can still approve? Huh, that's interesting.

Yes, though I pretty much never do it. Most of what I do instead is base deletions.

Janitors are something we can never really have enough of here as the place grows, but there just aren't many standout users who would also be willing to do the thankless work associated with the role.

ratte said:
Janitors are something we can never really have enough of here as the place grows, but there just aren't many standout users who would also be willing to do the thankless work associated with the role.

I tried to apply for the position when the site was looking for new staff but I never heard anything back because I refused to create a Discord account.

kemonophonic said:
I tried to apply for the position when the site was looking for new staff but I never heard anything back because I refused to create a Discord account.

But sir, you need to be hooked into the system directly, to efficiently manage the network! (joke)
Actually, wasn't it not mandatory? If it was, that could explain some things with Discord no longer being the cool thing you can't live without. The hipsters all use carrier pigeons! Typesetting messages 100 words-per-hour.

I could actually see a group use something like Discord, even though they already had a forum, because of habit, if it's convenient. Fragmentation is a legit issue, though.

I've had uploads expire due to being unapproved for 30 days. Three were, uh, very controversial and given the quality standards, it's understandable why no one would be comfortable approving them. One was Strong Sad, which is, generously, of debatable relevance.

My assumption is that the staff knows what they're doing when it comes to janitorial work and they'll just appoint users as needed. They've been doing this for a while, after all.

alphamule said:
But sir, you need to be hooked into the system directly, to efficiently manage the network! (joke)
Actually, wasn't it not mandatory? If it was, that could explain some things with Discord no longer being the cool thing you can't live without. The hipsters all use carrier pigeons! Typesetting messages 100 words-per-hour.

I could actually see a group use something like Discord, even though they already had a forum, because of habit, if it's convenient. Fragmentation is a legit issue, though.

Just too many normies to deal with on Discord. They can be exhausting.

benjiboyo said:
What do you mean get saved? I can get running out the clock to die. but how does it save a post?

Somebody approves it very late, but before the cutoff.

kemonophonic said:
I tried to apply for the position when the site was looking for new staff but I never heard anything back because I refused to create a Discord account.

Ditto, but you're still privlidged at least.

But honestly, i only really want replacements and nothing else.

Edit: WHAT!? WHEN!? WHO!?

honestly, im in the same boat with you guys. some of my posts are on 27 days and STILL not approved. its high quality art, and i just dont want to have it deleted :/

i hope this whole threal allows everyones unappproved pics to be herafter aproved! lol

benjiboyo said:
Ditto, but you're still privlidged at least.

But honestly, i only really want replacements and nothing else.

Granted.

kemonophonic said:
I tried to apply for the position when the site was looking for new staff but I never heard anything back because I refused to create a Discord account.

I wont' lie, this will always be a deal breaker for us. Staff function by interacting with each other each day, throughout the day, in real time. This really helps us all stay on the same page and work as a cohesive unit. Janitors have their own channel where they post borderline cases, questions, etc. and we discuss it. It functions like a police dispatch and new staff get to see and learn, and no decision is solely on them to make if they don't feel comfortable with it.

alexyorim said:
I have two artworks that have been scanned that are still pending,
And Millcore and BitWolfy have stepped down. Not sure if there are enough mods and janitors to approve the pending posts.

Wolfy has a replacement (me) as I've stepped back into a more active role on the site, although admittedly my focus area is moderation, as was his. I shall try my best!

We are always hurting for people as our site grows, but it's a fact of life that quality staff members cannot be mass produced. We are extremely selective.

Janitors have their own channel where they post borderline cases, questions, etc. and we discuss it.

post #2290875

rainbow_dash said:
I wont' lie, this will always be a deal breaker for us. Staff function by interacting with each other each day, throughout the day, in real time. This really helps us all stay on the same page and work as a cohesive unit. Janitors have their own channel where they post borderline cases, questions, etc. and we discuss it. It functions like a police dispatch and new staff get to see and learn, and no decision is solely on them to make if they don't feel comfortable with it.

Seconding this. Being able to work together as a team requires a lot of communication, between multiple people at a time, and also in real time. When situations happen (and they do, at all hours and in all different sorts of ways), then you need to stay informed about what is going on and who is doing what. Or when information needs to be compared or compiled, then you can't just rely on one-at-a-time dmails between a dozen people and hope to make sense of it any time soon. And then of course, some things really need a second pair of eyes or to have a group discussion on it. So there's just a lot of work that gets done on there.

Not everyone is comfortable with discord (or maybe they just don't want to deal with yet one more website/account/app in their life), and we get that. But the fact remains that is where so much teamwork, collaboration and communication happens. Anyone trying to moderate without being in there with us would be severely crippled and flying blind... and there really is no good reason for someone to be stuck at that level of disadvantage while trying to do this job. It would only cause unnecessary mistakes too.

So this is just a key part of working along with a big team of people.

We are always hurting for people as our site grows, but it's a fact of life that quality staff members cannot be mass produced. We are extremely selective.

Adding onto this: we're probably not done adding people from the last staff drive. But we also have been doing it gradually. Those who have been watching will have noticed that a few new moderators and a few new janitors have been added since the applications window was closed. And they also will have noticed that we did not add those staff members all on the same day or even in the same week. This gives us a chance to see how well people work together, to handle any new questions and training, and to let newer staff members get more support while everything is newer to them, etc while still keeping everything else running. Rushing it tends to backfire a lot more.

Of course, normal life means that there will always be some fluctuations in existing staff activity and even some rare retirements can happen. That's just life though. So there's a lot to constantly keep in balance on a site like this.

But when we're ready, we'll probably continue to reach out to people that we think would be a good fit or that we wish to learn more about. It's very much part of an ongoing process.

Has a Telegram group chat been in consideration for those who are not/barely/rarely using Discord?

alexyorim said:
Has a Telegram group chat been in consideration for those who are not/barely/rarely using Discord?

Of course not.

Previously, the staff team used Slack.
I wasn't there back then, and I've heard that it wasn't a great solution.
But if push comes to shove, and Discord is no longer a viable platform for some reason, we can go back to that.

Having multiple platforms for staff chats isn't a good idea, though.

cinder said:
Of course not.

Previously, the staff team used Slack.
I wasn't there back then, and I've heard that it wasn't a great solution.
But if push comes to shove, and Discord is no longer a viable platform for some reason, we can go back to that.

Having multiple platforms for staff chats isn't a good idea, though.

Before Discord we used Slack. We probably won't be able to go back to that though because of the message limit.
Before Slack we had Skype of all things, and before Skype we used the IRC. Before IRC we just walked to each other's houses and wrote it on sticky notes.

Telegram may be an option if Discord were to die, but nothing out there has the public and private setup that Discord has, as much as I hate Discord.

gusta_cz said:
post #2290875

We actually have a lot of dedicated channels to certain roles and functions. Our "ops center" would be overwhelming otherwise, so mods get a feed to focus on, janitors get their own feed, etc. Admins that don't specialize just get to wade through it all.

Retirements are always heartbreaking, but understandable. Real life eventually takes us all. I won't lie, some hurt more than others when their workload and collaboration was high (Wolfy and I handled much of the recruitment/onboarding process and moderation, for example). I have every confidence the new blood will rise to the task though.

'anyhow, 's bit funny with that "gray area" talk, as I'm here making slop and struggling to pick the next 3 things to upload.

That and I did poke fun at how inconsistent approvals of my stuff is, like *that one* post got approved instantly despite being probably the worst I've ever drawn lmfao.

rainbow_dash said:

Retirements are always heartbreaking, but understandable. Real life eventually takes us all. I won't lie, some hurt more than others when their workload and collaboration was high (Wolfy and I handled much of the recruitment/onboarding process and moderation, for example). I have every confidence the new blood will rise to the task though.

I'm gonna miss wolfy, "sometimes i can still hear his voice"

Also, thanks so much for the replacements. I'll be using this for something eventually.

benjiboyo said:
I'm gonna miss wolfy, "sometimes i can still hear his voice"

Also, thanks so much for the replacements. I'll be using this for something eventually.

I hear his voice every night before I go to sleep.

"Youuuuu leftt theeee stooooove onnnnnn"

alexyorim said:
And Millcore and BitWolfy have stepped down. Not sure if there are enough mods and janitors to approve the pending posts.

Funny fact about Millcore: she's the one that gave me the unrestricted upload permission back in November 2021 (was it because I was a good uploader or something?).

And then in late February 2023 she decided to remove my unrestricted upload permission because of the human only deletions (The human only deletions are the one involves a non-human alien character I like) and she would added back in June, only for her to retire before June.

thekonigstigorii said:
Funny fact about Millcore: he's the one that gave me the unrestricted upload permission back in November 2021 (was it because I was a good uploader or something?).

And then in late February 2023 he decided to remove my unrestricted upload permission because of the human only deletions (The human only deletions are the one involves a non-human alien character I like) and he would added back in June, only for Millcore to retire before June.

Millcore's a she.

alexyorim said:
Millcore's a she.

Fixed.

Also, I didn't know that Millcore is a she until you told me about it now.

Bridges exist, hmm. For people that don't want to give their phone number to Discord. Or want to access it from their Apple II (joke). ;)

Having a janitor-only forum suffers from the problem of not being nearly as fast of feedback as live chat channels where the latency is like... seconds. Even though it doesn't have the "DM tag" problem, it's still slow. Weirdly, I've seen this thing on AGN.PH where it scrolls a copy of the main Discord/IRC channel. Not many use the web interface.

Being locked to a specific app or site is kind of a solved problem for *insert walled garden chat*.

As a fellow Discord refusenik, I wonder if a self-hosted Matrix instance might be viable? The way I understand it, even beyond my own personal distrust of Discord as a company, there are two major problems with the Discord right now: you have to jump through hoops to join because Discord accounts aren't linked to e621 accounts, and you can't post (or even talk about?) certain images which are hosted on the main site. Plus there's the general principle that having your essential site functions under the control of an external company is just a bad idea in general, especially when you're a site that hosts porn and the company in question can and has been known to nuke entire channels from orbit in a fit of puritanism. What are the mods' backup plans if that ever happens?

There was a time I was messaged about possibly helping out with things. I don't recall the role proposed, though I could look back. I asked a question or two and just never heard back about it.

That said, I'm not sure the site would want me anymore, both given my own step back from active tagging and helping out, and given other directions of the general climate / attitude of the site in other contexts. Likewise, given all that, I'm not sure I'd still be willing to help out. I don't want to be somewhere where I have no support.

I do wish sometimes I were able to pick up some of the work that seems to be piling up. It seems like as sites grow, in general the proportion of users who would be suitable for positions tends to decrease, even if the raw numbers increase. I hope things do work out though.

wat8548 said:
As a fellow Discord refusenik, I wonder if a self-hosted Matrix instance might be viable? The way I understand it, even beyond my own personal distrust of Discord as a company, there are two major problems with the Discord right now: you have to jump through hoops to join because Discord accounts aren't linked to e621 accounts, and you can't post (or even talk about?) certain images which are hosted on the main site. Plus there's the general principle that having your essential site functions under the control of an external company is just a bad idea in general, especially when you're a site that hosts porn and the company in question can and has been known to nuke entire channels from orbit in a fit of puritanism. What are the mods' backup plans if that ever happens?

Matrix is likely on the list of replacements if Discord doesn't work out. Like Discord was for Skype (yay, Microsoft! Didn't even EEE that one this time!).

The Discord just has way, way too many people. Huge servers are more stressful to be in than anything else, and it drastically increases the possibility of an asshole or two you need to deal with. Better to stick with servers that have like <300 users.

peacethroughpower said:
The Discord just has way, way too many people. Huge servers are more stressful to be in than anything else, and it drastically increases the possibility of an asshole or two you need to deal with. Better to stick with servers that have like <300 users.

I kinda feel like that's like saying the forums here are unusable because we have too many members, high user counts doesn't necessarily equate to high active userbases. I have roles in a sever with over 5000 users and I still only interact with maybe just over a dozen users in a month, most of them of them being a few familiar faces, and the rest are new users that need technical help with something. I've had like a total of two bad interactions over the past 5 years.

darryus said:
I kinda feel like that's like saying the forums here are unusable because we have too many members, high user counts doesn't necessarily equate to high active userbases. I have roles in a sever with over 5000 users and I still only interact with maybe just over a dozen users in a month, most of them of them being a few familiar faces, and the rest are new users that need technical help with something. I've had like a total of two bad interactions over the past 5 years.

Forums are also not in real time. Hell, if anything, I'd like to see more activity here. The dynamics between real time and post based systems are totally different. And I've been in the Discord before so I have an informed opinion.

I also just don't like dealing with normies and all their dumb interests. Easier to avoid it here. It's like when people start talking sportsball. I instantly stop caring.

peacethroughpower said:
I also just don't like dealing with normies and all their dumb interests. Easier to avoid it here. It's like when people start talking sportsball. I instantly stop caring.

I don't know exactly how e6's Discord is set up because I like to keep my stuff seperated and using an alt on Discord is a nightmare, but you don't need to use the entire server, you can just mute #general and #off-topic and whatever other bullshit social channels there are, that's allowed.

peacethroughpower said:
Forums are also not in real time. Hell, if anything, I'd like to see more activity here. The dynamics between real time and post based systems are totally different. And I've been in the Discord before so I have an informed opinion.

I also just don't like dealing with normies and all their dumb interests. Easier to avoid it here. It's like when people start talking sportsball. I instantly stop caring.

how many normies do you think are in the furry chatroom

strikerman said:
how many normies do you think are in the furry chatroom

Too many.

strikerman said:
how many normies do you think are in the furry chatroom

I think it's pretty common with zoomers to know what furries are and end up places like the e621 Discord while pretty much still remaining a normie, especially compared to the people who have been places like this for 10-20 years already. I have everything on the Discord muted except the channels in the "Important" category, because pretty much every other channel is just shitposting from a generation I don't understand.

Remember when comics and scifi went mainstream? Boomers remember! Yeah, George Carlin references as well for extra irony. I guess the people born 1975-1985 would remember the Eternal September meme the strongest?

Stable Diffusion is probably this generation's equivalent where the thing just opens up to more and more people.

faucet said:
I think it's pretty common with zoomers to know what furries are and end up places like the e621 Discord while pretty much still remaining a normie, especially compared to the people who have been places like this for 10-20 years already. I have everything on the Discord muted except the channels in the "Important" category, because pretty much every other channel is just shitposting from a generation I don't understand.

Ok, if normie non furry zoomers end up on e6 somehow. That sounds alot like a normal cord server to me. Maybe more furry themed shitposts, but i'm pretty sure just stolen from reddit or somehing.

Might aswell just have a seperate server for staff instead i feel.

peacethroughpower said:
Forums are also not in real time. Hell, if anything, I'd like to see more activity here. The dynamics between real time and post based systems are totally different. And I've been in the Discord before so I have an informed opinion.

I also just don't like dealing with normies and all their dumb interests. Easier to avoid it here. It's like when people start talking sportsball. I instantly stop caring.

I think being a furry automatically precludes you from being considered a "normie". Furries can like "sportsball" too. 😜

benjiboyo said:
Might aswell just have a seperate server for staff instead i feel.

the staff isn't communicating about all the staff things in public

maplebytes said:
On a related note, how do you get approved for

I think being a furry automatically precludes you from being considered a "normie". Furries can like "sportsball" too. 😜

I strongly disagree on that one. There's certainly tons of normies out there who just want to see some porn. And sure, they can like sportsball. It's still boring crap.

there are some uploads ive made that are about to run out of time, any chance of getting them approved?
is there any way forthis to not happen in the future? am i doing anything wrong on my end?
sorry if this is answered anywhere else

starshiptrooper797 said:
there are some uploads ive made that are about to run out of time, any chance of getting them approved?
is there any way forthis to not happen in the future? am i doing anything wrong on my end?
sorry if this is answered anywhere else

You should probably ask a janitor in private message next time. They might be more likely to see it there than here.

starshiptrooper797 said:
there are some uploads ive made that are about to run out of time, any chance of getting them approved?
is there any way forthis to not happen in the future? am i doing anything wrong on my end?
sorry if this is answered anywhere else

There's also a backlog of pending replacements. Be patient.