Danbooru

A little bit of a complaint over your moderation/approving system.

Posted under General

Hi, as you can see my name is KrystalBen. That isn’t my actual username but I would like to complain about this website’s horrible moderation/approving system. I uploaded on an another account (I will not tell which account.) and it didn’t get approved for “poor quality” which is okay since the art doesn’t really look good anyway but, I once checked the not approved/deleted section and when I saw the art… I was confused and shocked, some of them were really high quality and detailed, and the reason why it got deleted was because the approvers didn’t like it? It’s so unfair and I hope you understand why I am complaining. And also I am not here to make an argument, just explaining why you need to fix your moderation/approving system.

You expect human moderators to be impartial? The entire system relies on users uploading art they like and other users approving what they like from that. It's biased from start to finish, it's silly to expect otherwise. If you disagree with an image not being approved, you can appeal it, just like you can flag art you think should be deleted.

The "It has been reviewed by X approvers. X did not like the post enough to approve it" message is a default text, it's not given by an actual person. If you want to see actual reasonings the Upload Feedback Thread has more information. (you can see that uploaders especially lower their standards on nsfw works so what some see as "high quality" could be biased)
I've noticed that the approval team has been slower and less active on the mod queue (compare to a few mouth ago), perhaps because of summer breaks? A lot of arts that would've been quickly approved before missed their golden hours of approval and got flood into the mod queue and ended up getting deleted after 3 days due to lack of active approvers. I'm not on the approval team and I don't upload as often so I might be wrong, this is just what I've been noticing.
And as blindVigil said, you can always appeal them, which is what I do. And in rarer conditions, some approvers will go through deleted posts to reapprove good ones that were missed.

Updated

KrystalBen said:

Hi, as you can see my name is KrystalBen. That isn’t my actual username but I would like to complain about this website’s horrible moderation/approving system. I uploaded on an another account (I will not tell which account.) […]

Don’t create sockpuppets to post “anonymously” or to upload more things. You won’t get banned for questioning the mod queue using your main account. However, we get posts like this basically once a month and the answer is always that it won’t be changed because it’s pretty much what works best for us any all alternatives are worse.

There will always be “good” deleted posts for various reasons. Maybe they didn’t get approved because they had flaws you didn’t spot. Maybe they were simply boring, like just another single character with a random pose and no background like we already have thousands of. Or maybe it’s really just that many approvers are on vacation and don’t check Danbooru at all or just sometimes (like me right now).

As was already suggested, feel free to appeal posts that you think are good. Wait at least until one month after deletion if you want more approvers to see them.

kittey said:

As was already suggested, feel free to appeal posts that you think are good. Wait at least until one month after deletion if you want more approvers to see them.

That was actually changed recently, now disapprovals are cleared when the post enters the queue again.

Unbreakable said:

That was actually changed recently, now disapprovals are cleared when the post enters the queue again.

Good to know. Might still want to wait until summer vacation season is over.

magcolo said:
And as blindVigil said, you can always appeal them, which is what I do. And in rarer conditions, some approvers will go through deleted posts to reapprove good ones that were missed.

Well, I will say one thing:

When you appeal a post - even if it's high quality - sometimes it isn't noticed by the mod team within the timeframe. And you can't go back and appeal it again, you just get a message basically telling you that you can't appeal any more times.

Go through https://danbooru.donmai.us/post_appeals?search%5Bstatus%5D=rejected. You'll notice that many appeals were rejected for the default reason, and that many of them aren't "low quality" or anything. This can get frustrating at times. Maybe allow us a few more appeals rather than only 1? I don't know a good solution, but it's something that happens often

KrystalBen said:

Hi, as you can see my name is KrystalBen. That isn’t my actual username but I would like to complain...

If only...

Nah, but on a serious note, the mod team appears to check IP logs frequently and can tell your primary/former account. Happened to me too, was very surprised when it turns out my IP was recognized or something like that.

I never appeal(ed) my own posts because if nobody else sees value in them enough to appeal, then they obviously didn't have enough community value to merit being undeleted. If you appeal a post and it fails (for whatever reason, it doesn't really matter), and nobody else bothers to appeal it... what does that say about that post?

magcolo said:
The "It has been reviewed by X approvers. X did not like the post enough to approve it" message is a default text, it's not a reasoning given by an actual person.

Their wording makes it sound like their posts were deleted *before* the three-day queue period's end - that is, manually deleted for poor quality.

As for why high quality artworks might not be accepted:

  • Bad sourcing - the source is not the link to the artist's original post featuring the artwork, but, for example: a repost site, a direct image link, just a filename, or no source whatsoever.
  • The artwork already existing on Danbooru. Especially if the newly uploaded version is worse quality than the already-existing post, like lower resolution or with more JPG artifacts.
  • Being off-topic - that is, not "looking" like anime/manga.
  • Breaking the rules in other ways - see help:upload_rules for more information.

You can also ask in topic #7934 to see what exactly is wrong with such posts.

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Also,

[...] and it didn’t get approved for “poor quality” which is okay since the art doesn’t really look good anyway but [...]

A tip: if *you* don't think something is good quality, don't upload it - generally, approvers will have even stricter standards. You're wasting both your and their time uploading something you don't think is good.

BrokenEagle98 said:

I never appeal(ed) my own posts because if nobody else sees value in them enough to appeal, then they obviously didn't have enough community value to merit being undeleted. If you appeal a post and it fails (for whatever reason, it doesn't really matter), and nobody else bothers to appeal it... what does that say about that post?

Many aren't low quality, though.

BrokenEagle98 said:

I never appeal(ed) my own posts because if nobody else sees value in them enough to appeal, then they obviously didn't have enough community value to merit being undeleted. If you appeal a post and it fails (for whatever reason, it doesn't really matter), and nobody else bothers to appeal it... what does that say about that post?

Tbh i think many people are worried about their own posts i typically don't go through a strangers posts and appeal because appealing eats up my own spots.

And if ones going for unrestricted, an appeal for someone else doesn't help the appealer decrease their overall deletion ratio and what's over, i now lose three spots!!! And also the moderation for approvals can be slow. Like painfully slow sometimes.

You shouldnt wait for someone else to appeal your deleted stuff. It doesn't serve a regular members benefit to do that and it actively hurts said members to do so.

jay19 said:

Tbh i think many people are worried about their own posts i typically don't go through a strangers posts and appeal because appealing eats up my own spots.

And if ones going for unrestricted, an appeal for someone else doesn't help the appealer decrease their overall deletion ratio and what's over, i now lose three spots!!! And also the moderation for approvals can be slow. Like painfully slow sometimes.

You shouldnt wait for someone else to appeal your deleted stuff. It doesn't serve a regular members benefit to do that and it actively hurts said members to do so.

Not to mention, probably 99% of the userbase doesn't use appeals/flags either because they don't know they can, don't think they're allowed to, or just don't care to bother, not because they actually think any of those posts should've been deleted. Most people aren't skimming status:deleted and aren't looking for things to appeal even when they do.

Most users that aren't regular uploaders aren't going to be appealing things, there's no incentive to do so, and those that would, as you said, only hinder themselves by appealing uploads other than their own.

Yes, there's no immediate benefit/incentive for it. Be a dogooder and you just lost 3 upload shots for three days on a post that already failed?

I guess it's different for an unrestricted member. But most of them don't seem to be looking to appeal any posts that's not there own either. Sooo

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