So, this is something, I've been wondering a lot in the past because i'm someone who does not add the artist commentary to the uploads. I kinda consider it as unecessary and if there is something to say, I think that the translators would add it anyway.
So I wanted to ask around: What is the benefit of putting an untranslated artist commentary under the uploads, other that is is there? Especially prominent are @dereyoruk , @Sacriven and @RaisingK.
That means: When should I add the artist commentary?

Well there are some reasons (at least for me)

1. I'm quite perfectionist. I just add those commentaries to make it complete.

2. Sometimes, when a certain artist post an image with somewhat incomprehensible / bizarre concept (post #2569847), the artist will wrote the explanation of the pic's concept on commentaries.

3. It helps to promote the artist, for some pictures are just a sample for their sellable goods in big events like Reitaisai, Kouroumu, Comiket etc.

Note: This is why I'm quite often get sniped :P

I frequently add it if the commentary contains some kind of dialogue.

I'm someone else who tends to add untranslated artist commentary into my uploads. I tend to do it for the following reasons:
1.) When I uploaded part of a numbered comic in a pool like pool #10995, pool #6564, or pool #2420.
2.) The commentary is some dialogue that could add context to the picture.
3.) I have no idea what is going on in the picture and the commentary may provide context.
4.) The commentary makes me laugh in conjunction with the picture.

For non-english commentary, I tend to check with google translate or something to see what words appears. If it's just to the effect of "I drew a thing." or "Letty WhiteRock from Touhou.", then I do not add the commentary.

Edit: Er, I somehow made pool #10995 into pool #1099.

So that said, one add the commentary if the image might raise some questions one probably doesn't get by just looking at the image or if it is a comic/has dialogue.
Well, I'll kepp an eye out on that for the future^^.

Mmm... Take my opinion with a grain of salt, since I frequently add (often translated) commentary into my uploads because most of the time it's pretty quick and easy for me to do. I am a little guilty of adding "useless" commentary sometimes though, but it's here and there... I don't consider it that harmful.

Going to add to what Sacriven and Mushroom said, although it isn't much. I add it because in addition to already said reasons, I think it adds a sort of 'life' to an artist's artwork -- like while they draw they have passing thoughts and often include those thoughts into their work. Mundane things about their day or occurrences or just being thankful to their followers/supporters, but things that help artists, curators, and users all connect to each other and start a small conversation, or at the very least spark something in the mind. Here's just some of a number of my own uploads:

post #2570151
post #2567468
post #2566743

The times where I don't add commentary are when I don't think it provides that much, or isn't really of much relevance (as they've echoed). I actually removed the commentary/commentary request from post #2553349 because that mostly consisted of ingame world information that most people who like the image won't be that interested in playing (and if they are, they'll probably find it on some wiki or something).

If I think of more reasons why I'll probably update this post, but this is what I have for now.

I usually do it for Hammer's stuff because it's a habit. Otherwise I tend to not bother unless context is greatly needed.

I add commentaries to posts inconsistently, generally based on whether it looks potentially interesting (using my limited knowledge of Japanese and/or machine translation) or helps to identify the copyright and/or character (if it's something more obscure or there may be a question about that). If the artist deletes the source, then that information is gone forever. So if I even think it's the least bit worthwhile, I tend to lean towards adding commentary.

IMO the commentary should always be added. Even if it's trivial, there's no harm in adding it.

Another thing is that part of Danbooru's mission is to preserve artwork so it's not lost over time (that's my goal at least, I know some people are less anal about this). That's why we stress having the right source, having proper artist tags, ensuring we have the original file rather than recompressed samples, etc. Preserving basic info like the artwork's title and description ought to be part of that too. We have a huge number of bad id posts, including very recent ones, for which we'll never have the commentary now because we never saved it.

Also I just noticed the upload page doesn't include the commentary when the description is blank, which means if there's a title but no description it's ignored. So there are probably a lot of uploads that had potentially interesting titles that were ignored.

evazion said:

Also I just noticed the upload page doesn't include the commentary when the description is blank, which means if there's a title but no description it's ignored. So there are probably a lot of uploads that had potentially interesting titles that were ignored.

So are you planning to create an issue for this on Github? Would be great, if this "bug" would be fixed.

I second ^

There are so many works out there with a really nice title that I go out of my way to include anyway since the bookmarklet doesn't catch it, like post #2563016.

I'd say the only things that it should ignore are "無題" and "Untitled", since those are just the default placeholders when uploading something without a title on pixiv.

EDIT: Oh, and to follow up on what evazion said, maybe we could add a minor note to help:upload notice that says something like… "Consider adding the artist's commentary if you think there is some worth in it", something like that? Could convince more uploaders that don't do it that often or browse the forums to start doing it more.

GiantCaveMushroom said:

I'm someone else who tends to add untranslated artist commentary into my uploads. I tend to do it for the following reasons:
1.) When I uploaded part of a numbered comic in a pool like pool #1099, pool #6564, or pool #2420.
2.) The commentary is some dialogue that could add context to the picture.
3.) I have no idea what is going on in the picture and the commentary may provide context.
4.) The commentary makes me laugh in conjunction with the picture.

Most of the time, I add commentaries for reasons 2 and 3. 4 is only when I can actually read the commentary.

The only thing I don't include in commentary is pitches for sales, booths, new books, etc. as they get pretty old and don't pertain to the image itself. Not like there's any harm in adding them and the bookmarklet generally makes the entire effort the clicking of one checkbox.

With that sort of style, though, it kinda irks me that commentary_request gets added to any post with Japanese commentary; if it's something that isn't all that important past "archival" I wouldn't attempt to summon a translator...

OOZ662 said:

With that sort of style, though, it kinda irks me that commentary_request gets added to any post with Japanese commentary; if it's something that isn't all that important past "archival" I wouldn't attempt to summon a translator...

I always thought that commentary_request should be added to all untranslated commentary, similar to translation_request. Was I wrong?

The request tags are (nearly all) bloated. So it doesn't really make a great difference if we add the artist commentary tag or not. But if something is untranslated, then it is untranslated and therefore we neede a request.

As a viewer I prefer utter completion, even if I will never understand it.

Besides if the artist attached it, he or she must have thought it needful.

Claverhouse said:

As a viewer I prefer utter completion, even if I will never understand it.

Besides if the artist attached it, he or she must have thought it needful.

Ehhh... I saw a picture on Pixiv where the artist commentary consisted of "JunkoJunkoJunkoJunkoJunko" for many lines... I don't think that's very important.

I recall there being a "rule" of some sort that said to include artist commentary only if it gives context to the image. But... considering most of us don't know Japanese, it's kinda hard to tell what gives context and what doesn't. As such, I just don't upload the commentary.

Provence said:

So are you planning to create an issue for this on Github? Would be great, if this "bug" would be fixed.

Yes, but now that I'm thinking about it I'd rather make it so that commentary is always included instead of being optional. It's just easier to always include it than to leave it to uploaders to decide whether it's "worth it" or not. That doesn't work well when everyone has different opinions on what's worth it and what isn't. Some uploaders are just lazy, it's never worth it to them. They don't look at the commentary and decide whether it's interesting or not, if doing something takes an extra step then they just won't do it.

I'm in support of that notion. I think it's right to preserve the commentary, even if it isn't very much. It's better having it more often than not. To add to that, I suppose RaisingK should adjust his bot to not add commentary request to everything with an untranslated commentary, and leave commentary request to be applied by users that actually are interested in seeing a commentary translated.

evazion said:

Yes, but now that I'm thinking about it I'd rather make it so that commentary is always included instead of being optional. It's just easier to always include it than to leave it to uploaders to decide whether it's "worth it" or not. That doesn't work well when everyone has different opinions on what's worth it and what isn't. Some uploaders are just lazy, it's never worth it to them. They don't look at the commentary and decide whether it's interesting or not, if doing something takes an extra step then they just won't do it.

Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but you make it sound like everyone can read the artist's commentary, and simply choose not to upload it out of laziness.

When adding commentaries, please make sure it is both relevant and significant. It must add something new and interesting to the image.

This is from help:artist commentary. With a guideline such as this, how can we determine if something we can't read is relevant and significant?

I'm pretty sure this guideline, and the language barrier, are the reasons why many people don't upload the commentary. At least, that's why I don't do so.

I think we should be following this guideline in the first place as far as uploading commentaries. It makes no sense to upload commentary that amounts to nothing. It just takes up unnecessary space on the page.