Is there any kind of process for appealing negative marks? Seems kinda strange to get a full negative when a quick look in the user list thing shows many doing worse for neutrals. I don't deny behind harsh on dumb tags but it seems like a quick knee jerk reaction

CamKitty said:
Is there any kind of process for appealing negative marks? Seems kinda strange to get a full negative when a quick look in the user list thing shows many doing worse for neutrals. I don't deny behind harsh on dumb tags but it seems like a quick knee jerk reaction

Think of it this way
Positive = Good
Neutral = Warning
Negative = Bad

From your record, Princess gave you a warning, and then Rainbow gave you a bad. Sounds pretty fair to me.

TheHuskyK9 said:
Think of it this way
Positive = Good
Neutral = Warning
Negative = Bad

From your record, Princess gave you a warning, and then Rainbow gave you a bad. Sounds pretty fair to me.

Princess warned me about ponies with a neutral, I stopped complaining about ponies.

Dash gives me a negative for being harsh to people tagging stupidly? I stop helping with tags.

And the neg mark would have been warranted if it was about ponies again, so no

Honestly it was merely a strike two for poor commenting, regardless as to what the comments were directed to.

If you feel it was unfair then please appeal it to Char.

-fair warning-

I don't want to see this thread turn into a bashing contest. Camkitty is doing the civilized thing and not ranting, so let's everyone keep it that way.

CamKitty said:
Dash gives me a negative for being harsh to people tagging stupidly? I stop helping with tags.

No one said you had to stop helping with tags, they just said to stop being an asshat about it. It's pretty cut and dry, honestly. Use it as a learning experience.

Neutral mark now for following

"Make an effort to post quality, finished, non-repost images. Avoid crap-quality things like tiny images, grainy images, motivational poster memes, screenshots, image macros, images with absurdly huge and extremely annoying watermarks, etc. Off-topic images and any potential fallout from posting them are subject to the whims of the moderators. In other words, don't post non-furry art if you aren't okay with it being deleted."

Unless I am confused

CamKitty said:
Neutral mark now for following

"Make an effort to post quality, finished, non-repost images. Avoid crap-quality things like tiny images, grainy images, motivational poster memes, screenshots, image macros, images with absurdly huge and extremely annoying watermarks, etc. Off-topic images and any potential fallout from posting them are subject to the whims of the moderators. In other words, don't post non-furry art if you aren't okay with it being deleted."

Unless I am confused

From the flag page that you saw when you clicked flag for deletion:

Valid reasons to flag an image for deletion:

*Duplicate post (please include original post number in flag reason)
*Inferior version of an existing post (smaller, lower quality)
*Drawn by an artist or owned by a site on the Avoid Posting list

As you can see, "screencap meme stuff" is not on that list.

Furthermore, from the FFD guide:

"Do not flag images for deletion for subjective reasons! "Not furry," "bad art," and "irrelevant" are all subjective reasons!

If you consider the image in question to be sick, disgusting, perverse, "Just wrong" or anything similar, do not flag it for deletion. This is an invalid reason, and flagging a post with a similar sort of reason will result in disciplinary action. You have been warned."

In his defense, I see an awful lot of things get deleted for being meme/caption/screencap stuff, but then conversely I also see a lot of things getting a green light as well. It'd be nice if we could come up with a standard for what does and does not get through the filter, as it seems really inconsistent sometimes.

There is a standard.. who approves of it first.

That's been the number one ground rule (if then picture passes the rule of not being on DNP list or Real-Porn) since the longest time.

Actually, the only constant thing you can count on from this site, is that the rules, admins, approval process and so on, will NEVER be consistent.

That does seem to be the impression that I've gotten, that the only subjective criterion permitted is the initial approver, and once it's in, it's in, and subjectivity doesn't matter unless some random admin happens to come across it and finds it in some sort of violation.

Yes, the pony loving moderation is very inconsistent.
Whatever decision is done depends on the current admin, his mood and the weather.
Some of them even actively endorse/enable art that is, without a doubt, shit art and "Screen cap meme stuff."
Just try to stay clear of them unless you need something, blacklist mlp and you will have a nice time.

Akkira said:
Yes, the pony loving moderation is very inconsistent.
Whatever decision is done depends on the current admin, his mood and the weather.
Some of them even actively endorse/enable art that is, without a doubt, shit art and "Screen cap meme stuff."
Just try to stay clear of them unless you need something, blacklist mlp and you will have a nice time.

Er...just because we allow mlp art on the site doesn't make us "pony loving moderation". If we went around deleting all mlp on sight just because we personally didn't like it, then we'd have a much bigger problem on our hands than a little inconsistency.

Just because a submission contains meme elements doesn't disqualify it for approval. There's still artistic merit, humor, cleverness, or a number of other factors that determine whether or not something stays. It's not something you can just standardize. It would be "disallow everything that has any trace of meme components", or "allow it all." We settle in the middle ground and allow what we think is good enough because that's what will please most people.

Kclub said:
In his defense, I see an awful lot of things get deleted for being meme/caption/screencap stuff, but then conversely I also see a lot of things getting a green light as well. It'd be nice if we could come up with a standard for what does and does not get through the filter, as it seems really inconsistent sometimes.

We don't have specific black and white rules because if we did, people would find little holes to poke in them. We don't even have specifics and look how hard everyone in this thread is trying to prove us "wrong." That'd be many times worse with hard and standardized rules like most sites have. We have loose rules and we let a lot of things that may technically be "against" them to be approved based on individual merit. It allows each admin to judge an off-topic type picture on its own, and decide if it should stay.

I don't think anyone would be happy if we decided to suddenly delete all off topic content (including but not limited to humanized MLP, anything even remotely meme-related such as trollface images and any image sporting an Impact caption, all real photographs pornographic or not, all screenshots regardless of artistic merit, landscapes, abstraction, motivational posters, dildo collection posts, the one bug that looks like a croissant, all "funny" tags, and essentially everything that isn't a straight-up drawing of a furry).

So we don't do that. We have a looser standard because it allows us to effectively moderate the images posted to the site while still allowing the occasional "off topic" image to get through because someone on the administration team thinks that it should be saved. This has been the policy of e621 since time immemorial.

Akkira said:
pony loving moderation

Whoever said we love ponies?

Basically what ippiki and null (or pony0010 now) said above.

We know the approval of meme/non-furry stuff is inconsistent. People keep saying "standardize! standardize!" but I've never seen any real suggestion as to exactly how we're supposed to do that. Literally the ONLY solution I can think of is to just simply not allow that kind of "off-topic" content at all, because ANYTHING else is going to have loopholes, inconsistencies, and will ultimately be abused and just as confusing as what we have right now.

The fact of the matter is that us allowing the uploading of such content is actually a perk that we allow for you guys, with the caveat that each administrator has the ability to decide what stays and what goes (again just for this off-topic content). We try our best to be on the same page with each other regarding what's ok to stay on the site and what's not, but there's just ultimately going to be some level of inconsistency.

Hell, the "Tag What You See" rule is probably the most important rule we have on this site, and even THAT gets complained about all the time. And yes, there are inconsistencies when applying/enforcing it as well.

I assure you we are very open to hearing about ways to actually improve what you guys are concerned about, but we need to hear those suggestions. And I can guarantee that pretty much no matter what you suggest, we'll find an example of a post that wouldn't work with it (just like how things are now).

So again, I'm open to suggestions. Let's hear'em.

Do we loose neg marks over time or with good behavior? Cuz i remember that "do not remove valid tags" mark was due to me removing it from a transformation image that...well to me didn't look like transformation, was just an otter with torn shorts. Since then ive done what i can to help with the tagging and ask for help when i dnt know what to do.

Esme_Belles said:
Do we loose neg marks over time or with good behavior? Cuz i remember that "do not remove valid tags" mark was due to me removing it from a transformation image that...well to me didn't look like transformation, was just an otter with torn shorts. Since then ive done what i can to help with the tagging and ask for help when i dnt know what to do.

You are contributor, you are one tiny step below a mod and could easily cause much mayhem on the site if you'd choose to.

I'm not sure about you but this should tell you quite a bit about what the admins think about you.

Char said:

So again, I'm open to suggestions. Let's hear'em.

Well, I think the rule would already profit from including what you said, artistic merit, humour/witty, touches it this fandom/site or not, is it of interest to more than one person...

Right now, the rule doesn't say a thing about this, with that stated it at least seems like there is some real consistency behind it.

Of course, it would be better if not one admin alone decides but at least two, kinda like giving it a thumbs up or down and then based on how many say can stay or can't stay.

NotMeNotYouMobile said:
Of course, it would be better if not one admin alone decides but at least two, kinda like giving it a thumbs up or down and then based on how many say can stay or can't stay.

In theory, this would be great. In practice, this is an image database, not the Smithsonian, and there's only so much that unpaid-volunteer admins can be expected to do. Once the basic level of "something worth doing is worth doing well" has been met (which, honestly, it has), we should gently suggest and not worry about it if we don't get it.

ippiki_ookami said:
From the flag page that you saw when you clicked flag for deletion:

Valid reasons to flag an image for deletion:

*Duplicate post (please include original post number in flag reason)
*Inferior version of an existing post (smaller, lower quality)
*Drawn by an artist or owned by a site on the Avoid Posting list

As you can see, "screencap meme stuff" is not on that list.

Furthermore, from the FFD guide:

"Do not flag images for deletion for subjective reasons! "Not furry," "bad art," and "irrelevant" are all subjective reasons!

If you consider the image in question to be sick, disgusting, perverse, "Just wrong" or anything similar, do not flag it for deletion. This is an invalid reason, and flagging a post with a similar sort of reason will result in disciplinary action. You have been warned."

Acceptable Deletion Request Reasons

Note: Flagging a post for anything other than the following reasons may result in disciplinary action being taken against your account. Be wary. Don't be afraid to ask an Administrator if you are unsure.

The deletion request reasons that are acceptable are:
- Duplicate of #postnumber
- Inferior (i.e. smaller, sketch, cropped, or resized) version of #postnumber
- Updated version has been posted (usually applies to a flash)
- Drawn by an artist or owned by a site on the DNP list
- Violates the site's posting rules

(Posting)

Avoid posting things covered by the avoid posting list.
Do us a favor, ASK the artist before you upload their art. Since there is no way to verify if this is actually allowed here or not, it saves us a lot of hassle.
When uploading an image, add at least four tags, try to include species and gender. This is a good list for figuring out what to tag.
Make an effort to post quality, finished, non-repost images. Avoid crap-quality things like tiny images, grainy images, motivational poster memes, screenshots, image macros, images with absurdly huge and extremely annoying watermarks, etc. Off-topic images and any potential fallout from posting them are subject to the whims of the moderators. In other words, don't post non-furry art if you aren't okay with it being deleted.
Only post the best quality, highest resolution version of an image available. If you find a better version of an existing post, for God's sake, upload it!
Source your uploads. howto:source

I sort of consider screenshot memes to fall almost entirely within the perview of flagging because of that, and especially if it doesn't have any insightful comment to add and is of low quality, and if it has an annoying watermark. Granted, there's the small issue of it being subjective. (I know, I've posted screencap image macros before)

Also because of subjective nature, I wouldn't flag it for deletion after it's been approved, only before. After all, if it's approved, it means an admin obviously thinks it's good enough to ascend past the ranks of crap, and that's good enough for the rest of us. (but if necessary, complain on IRC or something)

NotMeNotYouMobile said:
You are contributor, you are one tiny step below a mod and could easily cause much mayhem on the site if you'd choose to.

never really thought about it like that. oh well...its just that one mark ive always been a bit annoyed about since it literally was a tag what you see issue, i still say the image i was looking at didnt seem like a transformation one, it literally had no morphing or anything, just an otter in ripped shorts lol

Kclub said:
No one said you had to stop helping with tags, they just said to stop being an asshat about it. It's pretty cut and dry, honestly. Use it as a learning experience.

I know what he means though. Back around when I first joined I got a negative mark (from the previous regime) for flagging a few reposts without providing a post number. I know now that that's wrong, but at the time I was new and I just didn't realize it. I haven't made that mistake again since, but the negative mark is still there two years later. It's definitely affected how much I contribute to the site, because I figure it's easier to keep a clean record if you just don't do anything. It takes a little mistake to get a negative mark, and a huge amount of effort to get a positive one. It's less of a "learning experience" and more of a "we're flagging you as a fuck-up. Forever." There's no incentive there.

RlctntFr said:
I know what he means though. Back around when I first joined I got a negative mark (from the previous regime) for flagging a few reposts without providing a post number. I know now that that's wrong, but at the time I was new and I just didn't realize it. I haven't made that mistake again since, but the negative mark is still there two years later. It's definitely affected how much I contribute to the site, because I figure it's easier to keep a clean record if you just don't do anything. It takes a little mistake to get a negative mark, and a huge amount of effort to get a positive one. It's less of a "learning experience" and more of a "we're flagging you as a fuck-up. Forever." There's no incentive there.

Yeah I have no problem deleting that. Punishing people who are just trying to help is not how we roll.

RlctntFr said:
I know what he means though. Back around when I first joined I got a negative mark (from the previous regime) for flagging a few reposts without providing a post number. I know now that that's wrong, but at the time I was new and I just didn't realize it. I haven't made that mistake again since, but the negative mark is still there two years later. It's definitely affected how much I contribute to the site, because I figure it's easier to keep a clean record if you just don't do anything. It takes a little mistake to get a negative mark, and a huge amount of effort to get a positive one. It's less of a "learning experience" and more of a "we're flagging you as a fuck-up. Forever." There's no incentive there.

I kinda have one of those - the "arguing in comments" one.
Granted, the rudeness ones, I want to stay, since I have to remind myself to be SOMEWHAT cordial, but I don't argue anymore.
And those are basically what leave me with a -1 profile. Hrrk.

Maybe there should be a couple month monitoring period after a user receives a negative mark. If he/she has demonstrated significant improvement in that area at the end of the period, the mark is downgraded to neutral.

I don't think mods really consider any single negative mark significant, unless you're getting negative marks over and over again in a short period of time for the same issue. You can have 5 negative marks and not be significantly penalized, while you can have just 2-3 and be banned. (though I'd think mods also usually give verbal warnings before resorting to negative marks regardless, unless it is a very blatant rule breaking, or a repeat offense which one should really know better after the first warning) Not to mention we don't really look at anyone worse unless rules are getting broken; Stay good, and it doesn't really matter how many negative marks you have.

Though I honestly like my "no marks at all" profile.

ippiki_ookami said:
Yeah I have no problem deleting that. Punishing people who are just trying to help is not how we roll.

That is what this new neutral is.

From readin the whole thread I see the admins point, I really do. But I don't think punishments, even neutral "warnings", should be given on something COMPLETELY a grey area, unless it's repeatedly happens.

Neutrals should at least expire, or something

Neutrals exist to let other admins know the user has been warned about a particular behavior. If they vanished after a certain period of time, they would cease to fill that function.

pony0010 said:
Neutrals exist to let other admins know the user has been warned about a particular behavior. If they vanished after a certain period of time, they would cease to fill that function.

Funny, I never heard of a permanent warning :P

Keeping in the spirit of the site, maybe something like a 'record history', separate from the regular User Records section, that keeps a list of both kinds of records (deleted and current)?
That way, records could be quicker removed from accounts (assuming the person no longer exhibits the behaviour they were infracted for of course), and there'd still be a reference to use in case of repeated/revisited behaviour

Though, I could see some people not being too comfortable about that as well

CamKitty said:
Funny, I never heard of a permanent warning :P

I don't know where you live but in my country people often get a 'warning' for minor things like shoplifting, sure recompensation for damages, lawyers and some social work included but if that person steals a second time the next sentence will be much worse.

And a warning like that sticks for the rest of the life.

Bad example aside, why should they expire? So one can game the system by waiting till it's expired and then continue until the next warning?
Seems inefficient.

Think of neutrals as gentle nudges and negs as genuine do-this-again-and-you're-banned warnings. Neutrals really aren't anything to be upset about. And yes, we do delete records from time to time. No, there's no chart or guideline as to when this happens. It just occurs when we happen to be in your profile and happen to have looked at your last record and happen to have the time to investigate your behavior since the time said record was given.

CamKitty said:
Funny, I never heard of a permanent warning :P

You have now.