Since there's considerable confusion over the whole "flagging image samples for review" thing I've decided to instead open up a topic since I think it's important users have some agreement over how to tackle these things. And the sooner this happens, the better.

When I set out to write the image sample wiki I wrote it with what I thought best described how to handle image samples, and it wasn't pointed out then. Perhaps because it "just made sense" or because it was a menial enough thing to shrug off. But nobody has disagreed with it until now, and it's been made clear that there's differences in the guidelines for what to do in both image sample and howto:flag regarding samples that deserve review. And I think it's pretty confusing/unfair that the fact I wrote it myself without considerable review has gotten us to this point.

What's confusing about this whole ordeal is that users with approval privileges don't necessarily have queue skip privileges (as users with unrestricted uploads do). The strangely offhanded thing is that currently, when you upload something as a Janitor, you put your own uploads more at risk of being flagged and deleted because you have no say in the moderation process for that post aside from appealing (which by far doesn't seem to be that effective except in a few cases). This goes double if you don't have the aforementioned unrestricted uploads.

Anyways, going by the way of "if a sample is not thought to fit the quality guidelines then it should be flagged", this creates trouble for Janitors that do want to see the fullsize on the site (since again, no queue skip privileges). Another side effect would be the fact that currently in the queue, anything highlighted as red in the queue (tagged with 'bad' tags, image sample, md5 mismatch, etc) is pretty much skipped. But on the positive, we don't have to keep a potentially deleted full-size and nobody has to waste any effort retroactively uploading content just to eventually have it deleted past the queue in its current state.

On the other hand, there are complications if it was required that a sample be replaced with its original before being flagged for quality. First off, a flagger would have no intention of uploading the original image if he thought it to potentially require deletion (unless, of course, it's just an innocent "quality check"). Second, it basically requires that anyone volunteering in sample cleanup would basically have to sacrifice their upload record. On the positive side this does mean that we don't have to worry about reuploading something... but in my opinion it's a pretty bad tradeoff.

So there are two changes that I'd recommend as of now:

• Give users with approval privileges ability to skip the queue while still enduring an upload limit (the typical 40-50 or what have you). Clearly they can be trusted to approve good posts, why can't they also be trusted to upload their own? This would aid very well in replacing image samples. I've approved NWSiaCB's posts for the same reasons also.

• Review image sample and howto:flag to be both consistent with each other. We can't trust uploaders to always be active or even make an attempt to replace the images they've uploaded as samples (comment #1673278), and neither would any sane Janitor approve something that is bound to be deleted once replaced, as that would look pretty bad on their record.

Clearing these up would help immensely with the project at topic #13646 since I assert that if things go as they are, eventually what will be left of all the image samples remaining active is stuff that nobody wants to bother replacing, which seems really contrary to the goal being achieved. I see image sample much in the same vein as tagme and think those posts should be cleaned up as soon as possible, but given that most users interested in replacing them will only pick what is of more than safe quality it would inevitably come to some stop without Janitor-aided review and replacement. That, or users with unrestricted uploads would have to play pseudo-Janitor, in which I doubt some will want to deal with.

EDIT: stuff

@reiyasona @sweetpe​ɐ @NWF_Renim @Nitrogen09 @BrokenEagle98 @CodeKyuubi @NWSiaCB

Pinging for opinion, apologies if this may be a bother.

Well, DO people just automatically skip anything which has a "red background" in the mod queue? I generally at least stop to identify what actually causes that border (which I wish would be better highlighted in the mod queue without having to just go down searching for "sample" somewhere in the blob of tags) I usually don't overtly act to save those things (although I have done so,) but I generally do at least look at anything that's getting a deletion flag. I've seen a few other images that had someone else upload an image, such as that animated megaman one that likely sparked this.

I don't think there's a real problem with the de facto system that had been going on up until now, with people not being required to upload a replacement. Say that it's a sample but also identify other quality issues in the flag, and that IF someone thinks it's worthy of saving, they can upload the replacement, themselves. A good share of those flags specifically say that it's flagged for some quality-related issue as well as being a sample. As you said yourself, this is basically something concerning those who are already trusted to be using their judgement about what is and isn't going to pass the moderation queue in the first place, so asking them to trust their judgment on what another janitor will approve doesn't seem unreasonable in and of itself.

I try not to, especially when I think a post looks really good quality-wise. I usually just write a detailed rejection or PM the user who uploaded it a headsup. But I say 'skipped' as in they usually don't approve it unless they're on the actual post page (which has no special highlighting of the sort). And yeah, tag highlighting would help a lot but I wonder if that'd be difficult to implement.

The way I've been writing flags for posts that I think need a double check is that I usually indicate it's a sample without trying to explicitly include that as the flag reason, basically as an aside. I feel like not including that would mislead Janitors as when they do see the red, either they skip it altogether (because it's a nest to find the one tag that highlights it as such), or they mistakenly approve it and subsequently harm their record over the QC.

And I will generally approve whatever users with approval privileges and without queue skip privileges upload -- but I do think it would be of much help to grant them the same privileges that we with unlimited uploads get regarding moderation. It makes sense, since really the only way those approvers would want to see something uploaded here without deletion would be to ask someone else to upload it for them (whether that be a friend or another uploader).

I didn't get pinged by the way. I believe if you add names through an edit it does not work.

The "bad" background color is a good point. It's also something not really explained in the queue. There should be a list of the different tags that trigger backgrounds. For a parent-less md5 mismatch/image sample maybe no color should be triggered.

As per the main topic of this thread I'm a bit confused what you are asking about. Is the problem borderline art that could plausibly flagged but also happen to be image samples or, people contributing to replacing image samples with the original but may be dealing with borderline art that could hurt their upload reputation?

going by the way of "if a sample is not thought to fit the quality guidelines then it should be flagged"

this creates trouble for Janitors that do want to see the fullsize on the site

Isn't this just more than one janitor (actually, approver) disagreeing on whether it should be on the site at all? If someone wants the full size uploaded I am guessing they don't see qualitative problems with it.

All that aside. You make the point that contributors generally have replaced art they like that's not objectionable or risky and that sample gardeners are faced with the rest. If that's the principle problem I'd agree, there should be some sort of amnesty since this is work that puts an uploader's reputation at risk. I agree in some special permission to be used only for the narrow scope of replacing sampled images with originals. Obviously they'd skip on uploading clearly bad stuff but I don't think they should be expected to apply mod queue standards to this job. And the longer we go without replacing them the more images are lost to time. Danbooru is an archive after all and we've already lost some sampled content due to artist removing their pages or what have you.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Flag only if the larger has been uploaded.

2. If you don't like it but it makes your OCD flare up, then upload it to the moderation queue. If it's good enough, it'll pass a second time. If not, then it won't.

3. Privileges should be kept separate. Period. Full-stop.

4. Don't obsess over records. Any moderator worth their salt would do a thorough check and see what you're trying to do.

Or maybe a bot account can be used to do all this job instead. RaisingK have already created an alternate account that used to reupload the full-size posts and have the sample ones flagged afterwards. I'm not sure why it hasn't been active lately though.

^ This was what I was hoping for. I think it would help immensely if no one actual user had to be responsible for uploading all the borderline/below borderline content that current janitors will likely be skeptical on uploading. RazingK doesn't have a perfect track record but that's not its job. I happen to think that account should get unrestricted uploads, although that's up to a Moderator+.

Still sticking to my stance that sample posts should still be flagged for review even without their original. And if Janitors without queue skip privileges are replacing those samples, then other Janitors should be able to cover for them regardless of their taste or preference for that content. That's what I think, and I'll generally help out on that front.

The other way has its own complications since we can't really trust every flagger to upload the original even if they wanted to. Hell, a flagger might not even notice an image is a sample when flagging for review, and the fact that it is will only help it towards deletion without a fair shot at moderation.

Nitrogen09 said:

Or maybe a bot account can be used to do all this job instead. RaisingK have already created an alternate account that used to reupload the full-size posts and have the sample ones flagged afterwards. I'm not sure why it hasn't been active lately though.

It's as active as it can be, given that I only use it (invoked through a program, but still invoked manually) for (commented) pixiv sample posts that have already been approved. ("Commented" meaning someone complained to Albert about me re-uploading samples that had the same dimensions and larger filesize than the original image, so I stopped commenting/re-uploading those.)

Mikaeri said:

^ This was what I was hoping for. I think it would help immensely if no one actual user had to be responsible for uploading all the borderline/below borderline content that current janitors will likely be skeptical on uploading. RazingK doesn't have a perfect track record but that's not its job. I happen to think that account should get unrestricted uploads, although that's up to a Moderator+.

RazingK doesn't need that permission now that its upload cap is ~50 and the backlog is cleared. If an image is going through that account, then I wasn't really fond of it anyway.

If I'm reading this discussion correctly, the primary concerns are:

• 1. A user uploads a sample knowing the original exists, but they don't bother to find and upload it. These samples deserve to get flagged and deleted.
• 2. A user uploads a sample not knowing the original exists. In fact, one may not exist at the time of uploading. When the sample gets flagged and deleted, the sample uploader will be credited with a deletion, which maybe is unfair.
• 3. A user preemptively flags a sample, even when the original hasn't been uploaded.

To be honest I don't think the current situation is that bad. I think (1) is fine. Given that deletions are not permanent, I also think (3) is fine.

Maybe to alleviate (2) and (3) the best answer here is to exclude sample deletions from reports. And replace the red border of flagged posts with a yellow border if it has one of the image dup tags.

Hmm, perhaps -- that's kind of a novel solution, changing the border for duplicate/sample images to yellow. Or maybe orange? Since the yellow border is already used to indicate that a post is a child of some parent post.

I think (1) is expected behavior and that shouldn't change. (2) might be a little bit unfair, but I think it's necessary to avoid users repeatedly uploading samples without any discredit to their record just to 'take a piece of the pie', so to speak... For older posts though, this makes sense, so maybe we could consider wiping sample deletions from a user's record after the last 100 days?

As for (3), well, that's where the main crux is. If the border is changed to indicate that, then I think it might lessen the current effect that flagged posts (for quality) will go deleted because they are samples.

Just my 2c for now. Currently issue #2949 is being discussed in topic #13646, so there might also be another route present (albeit at a fairly big change).