[X] My Assistant

We have been discussing adding a new expunge reason targeting works that have been intentionally defaced or degraded by the uploader or someone else in the chain. This was primarily triggered by recent galleries that had ads injected into the content, but it is also intended to address other undesirable behavior that results in content no one really wants.

Previously, expunging such galleries might have made them unlisted and undiscoverable, but after the last expunge and upload system revamps, expunged galleries can only be disowned, not deleted/unlisted, which makes this change feasible.

There are currently two competing definition for this expunge reason:

CODE

Content has been defaced by adding content-obstructing scanmarks, censorship or advertisements beyond what is present in the original artist release. (Scanmarks that do not obstruct content or promotional pages added after the content pages do not qualify.)"

-or-

CODE

"Content has been defaced by adding content-obstructing scanmarks, censorship or advertisements beyond what is present in the original artist release, or has been intentionally downsampled to the point where legibility is an issue. (Scanmarks that do not obstruct content or promotional pages added after the content pages do not qualify. Older low-resolution scans are exempt.)"

I'm leaning towards the former, simply because the threshold for "images for ants" will always be subjective and cannot be defined in hard numbers, but obviously, it will also make it not address some undesirable behavior.

I'd primarily want feedback on whether you think the "intentionally downsampled" clause will cause more problems than it solves, but feel free to discuss the addition in general as well.

(example here)

That certainly would not fall within the second definition, because it is still perfectly readable.

But yes, we probably need to write more detailed wiki guidelines, just so people will have a more concrete understanding of this category.

I have a concern I thought of earlier, given that this would encapsulate cgc uploads and he has a proclivity for dumping in massive batches. As someone who combs through the expunge log I could see having to deal with his batches flooding it quite easily. This would leave much less time for vigs to be able to double check expunges on the log. Would it be feasible to add another page or two to the log to accommodate this?

If the expunge tracker can filter petitions by type, that would also make things more manageable as well.

If the expunge tracker can filter petitions by type, that would also make things more manageable as well.

Think he means to create another page for cgc galleries to avoid defaced petitions flooding the whole tracker, the filter doesn't work with reason type.

Is this type of expunge only for works going forward? I feel like this is the best to prevent a massive wave of it's usage on older galleries. Which will happen as people will try to abuse it for point farming.

If so could we prevent starting an expunge of this type on galleries that were created before the release of it?

This post has been edited by Cipher-kun: Apr 21 2022, 20:12

So if we were going forwards with alternative #2 and a minimum mod power requirement, what would be reasonable? I would guess somewhere between 15 and 25 makes sense.

If the expunge tracker can filter petitions by type, that would also make things more manageable as well.

It would probably take less than half an hour to add such a filter, so if it's desirable it's not a problem.

Is this type of expunge only for works going forward? I feel like this is the best to prevent a massive wave of it's usage on older galleries. Which will happen as people will try to abuse it for point farming.

I don't think it's unreasonable to let it be retroactive, especially with a filter added to prevent drowning the expunge tracker.

So if we were going forwards with alternative #2 and a minimum mod power requirement, what would be reasonable? I would guess somewhere between 15 and 25 makes sense.

Personally I think 15 is enough but I would like to hear others' takes on it.

My main worry is 6MP accounts misusing the petition and a barrier at 15 should do enough to prevent that.

Is this type of expunge only for works going forward? I feel like this is the best to prevent a massive wave of it's usage on older galleries. Which will happen as people will try to abuse it for point farming.

If so could we prevent starting an expunge of this type on galleries that were created before the release of it?

Initial tracker flood might be an issue, but I would rather that than permitting those older "dd dolls" BS to stay.

So if we were going forwards with alternative #2 and a minimum mod power requirement, what would be reasonable? I would guess somewhere between 15 and 25 makes sense.

Most active expungers have 20+ MP. For this subjective expunge category, we probably don't want anyone but the experienced to touch it, so I would say 20 is the optimal number.

(Tbh, even 25 MP could still work just fine, since the expunge thread is always a thing if people don't have enough power)

We can also start this gig with a higher MP (i.e. 25) initially, just to test the water. If misuse has proved to be not a frequent occurrence, then we can drop it to 20 then 15.

25 is high if 15 was considered sufficient the last time a power requirement was needed to prevent abuse mere months ago, will the next tag/feature with potential for abuse require MP35?

This post has been edited by Glovelove.: Apr 22 2022, 01:33

Expunges have much more weight than tags, since they effect gallery visibility for everyone. That said, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on the mp requirement.

Fair enough, not sure if escalating is really the way to go though.

Expunging is a part of vig that doesn't seem to be as understaffed as the rest (probably in part because you rarely need more than 100 power to get one through, where bad tags can require more than that on top of the MP cap being less harsh than the -50% cut given to downvotes) but that becomes harder to sustain this way. Actives come and go as schedules and interests change but setting a high bar of entry makes it pretty hard to refill that pool.

This post has been edited by Glovelove.: Apr 22 2022, 06:03

Would seem this thread has already made waves, CGC is trying to adapt his search for the boundaries on suggested rules and just have the scanmark encourage mistagging (assuming "Sample" follows the same logic as "Tankoubon" and "Soushuuhen" in only being valid if content was officially distributed in that state) to just create more problems somewhere else.

Got to say, if it takes more than a year to get a counter to his practises and similar people this far and a loophole is found/attempted before the discussion is even over, it leaves me the impression we'll play this cat and mouse game for another decade if he doesn't cross any lines that would result in a ban before that. (perhaps even if he is, even an IP ban isn't exactly watertight when it comes to disposable alts)

This post has been edited by Glovelove.: Apr 22 2022, 09:01

Expunges have much more weight than tags, since they effect gallery visibility for everyone. That said, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on the mp requirement.

Possibly but it's a petition no? An abuser still needs to convince 5-6 others to vote on it so it might not ultimately be an issue.

Though on the flipside maybe this might be a simpler solution to the issue I was describing before. It feels that the subjective nature of this type of expunge should in most cases require the use of the vigilante thread, so requiring someone with veto power or a mimimum of 6 votes or 2-3 peopel with veto powers to pass a petition might achieve that aim.

The main downside with that might be that it might take a lot of time to clear the waves of this kind of spam we tend to get. (and tracking petitions can be kind of tedious in the first place, it might be nice if we had a "my petitions" tab but that's an unrelated point)

E: And the point GloveLove is making about the available pool of people to start these kinds of petitions going off a cliff might also be worth considering.

This post has been edited by Theonik: Apr 22 2022, 08:36

I don't like making a MP requirement for this type of expunge, but if it needs to be, I say 15 MP is better.

My concern is that we don't really know how well/awful the community can handle this subjective expunge category, so setting it to 20 or 25 is kinda the test-the-water threshold.

This kind of petition will be used against galleries that make people... very "passionate" about things, and we already know from "poor grammar" that this kind of things require a high MP requirement to prevent mass-scale abuse. We could tone it down later if misuse proved to be not an issue, but not setting a MP requirement is just asking for troubles.

There is also the concern of multi/sockpuppetry votes, this is especially true when this category is directly targeted at stuff that makes people *very* angry. It's probably not that difficult to summon a bunch of +15 MP friends to blindvote your angry petition, but definitely more challenging (if not outright unfeasible) to get a set of +20/+25 clones.

Combined with the issue that the tracker will almost certainly be flooded by defaced petitions once it is live, there is bound to be some petitions that slip through the QC/expunge mods' cracks, so I would rather address potential abuses on the mechanical level. Again, 20/25 MP meant that no one but the experienced can touch these petitions, so even without any admin/mod supervision, things are *hopefully* unlikely to go wrong.

Bottle-line is this: This is an uncharted territory we are trying to dive into, and I would rather be safe than sorry atm.

Would seem this thread has already made waves, CGC is trying to adapt his search for the boundaries on suggested rules and just have the scanmark encourage mistagging (assuming "Sample" follows the same logic as "Tankoubon" and "Soushuuhen" in only being valid if content was officially distributed in that state) to just create more problems somewhere else.

FYI: Even if he removes the scanmarks entirely, they are still expungable because it is intentionally sabotaging a gallery into an incomplete work.

Gonna be blunt, there's only so much MP you gain get from tagging, forum activity gets slow after a while, grinding HV absolutely shouldn't ever be something necessary to unlock power that comes with responsibility and experience using the site itself, toplist awards are given out once per year.....

I'd love to help out but I'm not going to pay real money for the privilege of being a janitor before 2024 just because people decided only the upper crust can be expected to understand the rules.

there's only so much MP you gain get from tagging, forum activity gets slow after a while

More reasons why it would be an effective countermeasure against sockpuppets.

(But yes, I do agree that HV probably shouldn't play a role in the user's MP)

I personally wouldn't be too concerned about the lack of manpower either. Many of the expunge petitions have quite a few +20 juggernauts voting on them, if not entirely voted by them. And when we do see petitions driven by a bunch of +6-15 people, it often is either wrong/multi, or look suspiciously like someone left a "hey, vote on this petition plz friends!" message over some secret discord server.

To be completely honest, I have 21 mod power now, but I am not good at evaluating expunge and rename petitions. I focus in tagging. Only recently I am trying to help with these cases, starting slow so to learn without causing trouble.

What I mean to say is: mod power is not synonym of capacity of evaluation.

This post has been edited by romanicyte: Apr 22 2022, 09:55

mod power is not synonym of capacity of evaluation.

Yes, but that's the closest (and only) quantitative indicator we have now. A whitelist is fine and all, but we probably don't want to waste too much time manually reviewing the applications.

FYI: Even if he removes the scanmarks entirely, they are still expungable because it is intentionally sabotaging a gallery into an incomplete work.

I don't think the existing wording mentions deliberately incomplete galleries but that should be easy to add explicitly. Otherwise, an easier approach, especially if you basically restrict expunges to users with veto power is to simply revent to simpler but more inclusive wording and then explain in the wiki with examples but add something to the effect that the list is not exhaustive. Maybe something like this?

CODE

"Content has been defaced in a way that significantly reduces the value to the community, by either the addition or significant negative alteration of core content. The addition of Non-Content in a way that is not currently exempt and/or is excessive is also forbidden."

It also strikes me that some of what is covered in this new role is partially covered by FC so that might also be worth re-writing and rolling those here (intentional censorship for example)

More reasons why it would be an effective countermeasure against sockpuppets.

I agree that it would certainly prevent bots, duplicate accounts and other measures of gaming the system. I am not sure how much of a benefit that is in practice though. in theory this issue exists with current petitions as well as any gallery can be expunged for any made up reason if one can get enough votes and indeed I would imagine this does happen but if this was a significant concern it probably would already apply, and indeed the core MP restrictions and banning for repeat bad petitions probably already largely mittigates against bad actors in this form.

I personally wouldn't be too concerned about the lack of manpower either. Many of the expunge petitions have quite a few +20 juggernauts voting on them, if not entirely voted by them. And when we do see petitions driven by a bunch of +6-15 people, it often is either wrong/multi, or look suspiciously like someone left a "hey, vote on this petition plz friends!" message over some secret discord server.

I think a crux of this issue is that currently, for MP accrual, expunging has practically zero direct contribution. (with the exception of awards) All the top expungers got their MP by completely unrelated activities to expunging some even partially paying for the privilage, you can get to 20MP purely via donations, hentai verse and keeping an inactive account for ~3 years, with enough seed minutes you could even get to MP 29 in that time simply via the EH Tracker again not even necessitating reading the rules, let alone applying them.

E: This is an extreme example mind and I don't exactly have a suggestion for what might be better other than a whitelist and I kinda agree that might be somewhat tedious though I would argue that the new whitelist tags offer sufficient precedent that this approch could work, and since you already have the comparison and expung vig threads to go for you probably have enough information to go for when deciding if someone with say 15 mp should be allowed to make subjective expunges.

This post has been edited by Theonik: Apr 22 2022, 10:46