Mod queue discussion

Does it work? Is it inefficient? Ideas for improvement?

I just ran through the entire queue and it took me about 10-15 minutes of work. It's hard for me to imagine how to further optimize the process, other than sorting. Maybe sort by user? Does the unapproval system allow for additional janitors to be recruited?

I know people have criticisms about the new unapproval system but I much prefer it to the old flagging system because bad posts are more likely to get marked. And they're usually clustered together so ignoring a bunch of obviously bad art doesn't take much effort.

I find the new unapproval system fine, it just has a tendency to flood the mod queue. Like I suggested before, it should probably take up slots the same way an upload would (although their deletion shouldn't hurt the unapprovee, of course).

There is always room for improvement, but it works for now. There have been some really major unapproval floods though, so maybe that could be throttled a bit.

My main issue is that there's just so darn much in it. I can usually knock out 15-20% by filtering to rating:explicit and quickly hiding almost all of them (rarely does a post I would ever approve or even inspect beyond the thumbnail appear there). Then I do questionable, which takes a bit more care.

The biggest, of course, is safe, because I have to open the full image for far more of those, and they make up the bulk of the uploads.

I also do a crtl+f on "flagged: " and highlight all so that as I'm going down the queue, they stand out from normal uploads.

So I guess I have two suggestions that I know others have mentioned here and there:

1) Make unapproved images stand out somehow on the queue from regular pending uploads, so I can have something better than that ctel+f+highlight workaround.

2) Note on the individual post page that an image has been unapproved. We can hide/approve from that page now, but there's no banner up top that tells you it's in the queue again.

Sounds like you need more janitors.

Well it's really more the current flood of unapproving the older images, usually to remove those that don't meet up with today's standards. I really have to wonder about some of those images that are unapproved though. Sometimes the reason for flagging just seems purely based on "I hate that fetish, delete it"... though of course they wouldn't say that instead just lumping it as "grotesque" or "poor quality". Uh... Anyways, in theory the number of flagged images should decrease as they burn through all the content that is blatantly bad. So increasing the number of janitors might not be necessary in the longer sense, as the number of images in the queue returns more or less back to previous levels.

We need to be able to see who flagged the post.

As was said there is a lot of it...which makes it take a while to load even though it's just thumbnails. Is there anyway to get maybe the flagged posts on like a separate page or something? I think that would lighten it up considerably.

I have my doubts about the effectiveness of unapproving posts that were not uploaded by contributors. In this case, it's basically a pointless exercise since the same guy that approved it in the first place will simply approve it again (unless, by some chance, he happens to miss it).

Fencedude said:
We need to be able to see who flagged the post.

I must agree with this.

Fencedude said:
We need to be able to see who flagged the post.

Why would anyone flag for deletion then?

The point of the unapproval system is so that posts can be flagged much more easily since they are not in immediate danger of being deleted without a consensus. It seems that an unapproved post gets back into the system quickly if its of good quality, so its nearly impossible to vandalize danbooru using this new system.

Removing anonymity would make the unapproval system nearly useless because everyone will argue that the reason is frivolous, no matter what post it is. The unapproval system is a quick and drama free way to ask for a mod's approval, an appeal to a higher decision making power like the deletion unapproval thread.

Granola said:
Removing anonymity would make the unapproval system nearly useless because everyone will argue that the reason is frivolous, no matter what post it is.

I 100% agree with this.

But on the topic of hiring janitors: I don't think more janitors are really a necessary addition to help deal with the mod queue issues. While it may ease the burden a bit, it'll still be a lot of work for everyone. I like jxh2154's suggestions about the highlight etc system, but then again I've never seen the mod queue.

A small amount of the current staff members are rarely around, I'm not sure if they tend to the mod queue but I can point out a few that appear to be inactive. I guess what I'm getting at is that if you decide to hire more janitors/mods/etc, you should be sure that they'll do their job~

We do need to see who flagged what for abuse reasons. You'll just have to trust us.

Also, more janitors won't help as long as the mod queue keeps getting flooded, either by mass poor quality uploads (we have gone a long way towards fixing this with the new upload system) or by mass un-approving of posts.

Soljashy said:
I have my doubts about the effectiveness of unapproving posts that were not uploaded by contributors. In this case, it's basically a pointless exercise since the same guy that approved it in the first place will simply approve it again (unless, by some chance, he happens to miss it).

I would think it over before I re-approved something that I had approved before and got sent back to the approval queue, but you do have a point.

Also, has the "hidden posts stay hidden when sent back to the queue" bug been fixed? Like I said, the way I work with the mod queue includes hiding all posts, even those I approve (because I open those in a separate window before I actually approve them).

スラッシュ said:
We do need to see who flagged what for abuse reasons. You'll just have to trust us.

Oh, I didn't realize Fencedude was refering to mods/janitors. That's fine with me. Carry on then!

Ah, looking back I guess I just sorta assumed that's what he meant. I sure hope I was correct in that assumption. :D

スラッシュ said:
We do need to see who flagged what for abuse reasons. You'll just have to trust us.

If mass flagging is actually a problem, just set a limit on how much a person can unapprove in a certain timeframe. Actually seeing who causes the trouble is much less important than preventing it from happening.

You could make a case that keeping a system in which a mass flagging is actually warranted but then again anyone could make a case that they're all frivolous and it will annoy at least one mod/janitor.

It all comes back down to the point that "is this system being used for what its designed for?" and punishing those who are using it inappropriately (though the system should have been foolproof before being implemented). Personally I think its working perfectly: I see a lot of good posts get reapproved quickly and its much more community friendly and responsive than the old "Why was this approved?" pool.

This:

jxh2154 said:

1) Make unapproved images stand out somehow on the queue from regular pending uploads

and this:

Fencedude said:
We need to be able to see who flagged the post.

Granola said:
Why would anyone flag for deletion then?

Because I'm not saying that YOU should see who flagged them, just that Janitors and above can.

Obviously.

Fencedude said:
Because I'm not saying that YOU should see who flagged them, just that Janitors and above can.

Obviously.

And I'm saying the same thing. What counts as a "frivolous unapproving spree?" How do you set a standard for someone who has been unapproving too much, how can you tell if content is being flagged maliciously since art is subjective? Why should people be punished for voicing opinions?

Simply limit the number of flaggings that people can have.

Granola said:
Simply limit the number of flaggings that people can have.

Why limit what could be legit? I'm sure the janitors aren't completely retarded and going to call legitimate flagging "frivolous".

Granola said:
how can you tell if content is being flagged maliciously since art is subjective?

By this logic, you might as well put into question why punish someone for posting a lot of really bad shit as well.

It's not really that hard: If a user continuously flags stuff that s/he should not, and continuously fails to understand what is and isn't acceptable for the site, the mods should deal with that person accordingly. Maliciousness isn't the only possible flaw, honest but constant failure to understand standards of quality is another way to fuck up enough to warrant punishment. It's already done like that regarding posting, why should it be any different with this?