Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Our thirst is never quenched. The site will fall.

@Jacob:

You just explained the reason why the AU gallery was a problem. People ignored the full entries and just posted in AU. Other people saw that and posted in AU instead of the full entries because it’s what they saw. Like I said before in my list of problem galleries, the inherit nature of the AU gallery is just not easy to fix.

But again, how is closing AU going to fix this problem? If people weren't posting in those galleries because they thought it wasn't going to get views, then shutting off the place that it is getting views isn't necessarily going to drive up traffic to those areas. It may just lead to people not posting those images at all, and the site will have less interesting/relevant content as a result.

Of course if you guys would actually tag your images, you could easily add uploads to the galleries they belong into and search up the most recent images that were tagged as “Alternative Universe.” Just throwing that out there…

Indeed, but there's no clear indication that people are supposed to tag images in places they're going to see it. 99% of people who upload images aren't going to delve into the forums for detailed reasons for why tagging is beneficial, they're just going to see an image uploader and use it without thinking too much about it. Again, a clear warning on the image uploader would help.

As for a way to have things posted in all relevant entries, there’s not really a way to do this without a complete overhaul of the current system. Again, since most of you can tag uploads with “Alternate Universe” allowing you to do this I don’t see what the issue is. The Image gallery guidelines that kept being broken that helped lead to the locks already specifically state “-add any relevant tags that might apply to the image. This means that it is easier for users to find the images they want by using the tag system when searching.”

Then maybe an overhaul is what the site needs, because it clearly isn't working how it is if whole sections of the site need to be cordoned off. I don't think it'd necessarily need an entire overhaul anyway, maybe something that detects what tags you're using (again, with clear indications that you should be using tags) and automatically posts it to relevant entries? IDK, but this is the sort of thing you should be thinking about IMO, shutting down whole galleries should be an ultimate last resort.

Incidentally, personally (and I imagine a lot of users are the same), I seldom use the image search by tags – going to a gallery is much more straightforward and intuitive, especially since they're advertised on the front page. If you want that to change then the site needs to point people more towards that instead of galleries.

These two seem very conflicting. PMs to specific problem users IMO are the best way to make sure they actually see them. There’s no way they can miss the rules this way unless the user is deliberately ignoring requests to read them. Once this has happened, I’m very willing to blame users for not knowing the rules, because they didn’t read them or did and are purposefully not following them. Obviously, this only happens after they made the mistake though.

I don't really see what's contradictory about them. It's one of the best ways to make sure they see them, sure, (provided they don't forget about later – people can be quite busy) but what about everyone else? You'd have to send a PM to every person who makes a mistake, and like you say it only happens after the mistake has been made, at which point five other people may have seen it and thought it was okay. PMs are just a bandage on an existing problem – lack of clear communication in the site. What you need is clear indications of what everyone should do, where everyone will see it every time, and before anyone accidentally does something wrong. You can't treat the users as a monolithic entity which automatically knows what everyone else has been told.

We could just have five galleries for all the categories like “meme”, “site”, “event” “person” and “subculture”. Any images about memes would go into the meme gallery, anything about any events would go into the event gallery, etc. since it would technically be examples of those. That would solve the problem, right?

That's why we don't have entries for those things. If something is specific enough to have an entry, then why is it not specific enough to have a gallery? People aren't going to be looking for examples of "meme" or "site" (or if they are then the site itself is a gallery of examples), but people may well be looking for examples of AU or reaction faces or whatever, since they're a specific type of meme that they're interested in.

It’s hard to show documentation of spread when a confirmed entry that already has over 5,000 images keeps getting uploads that should be in a researching entry that doesn’t even have 50 images. If you don’t see what the problem is, then I don’t think I can really say much more to explain it.

I do see the problem, but again, I don't see how closing the original entry will necessarily solve it. Traffic and uploads need to be pro-actively driven towards those entries, not just shut down in other places.

Really? And the thousands of images I’ve tagged and sourced on the site has convinced users to tag and source images themselves? Because I know I’m excelling when it comes to leading by example there. I’m trying to make a better habit of PMing users when they misuse galleries. However, there are often hundreds of images a day we deal with. When we see the same users making the same mistakes, often after just being told not to do the exact thing they continue to do it’s a little difficult not to come off as hostile.

Wasn't talking about that, I was specifically talking about the hostility of the mod/users. Again, I get the frustration, but how is being hostile to the users actually going to help the site? It'll just make people defensive and less likely to follow the rules because they don't respect/trust the mods. Regardless, yeah, when I saw more images being tagged and sourced that led me to try and do it too, because I realized that's probably what I was supposed to do. Clear indications where people will see it would help even further.

This is especially true now that almost every page of KYM has a link to the rules on it, so there’s less of an excuse to just not know.

But it's obviously not working if people still don't know to the point where you have to shut a gallery down over it. It doesn't really matter if they have an excuse or not, the fact is they don't know, and you need to find a way to sort that out. Expecting the users to just be better without enough prompting isn't going to work.

I’m for this. The notion of trending galleries isn’t completely bad, but I’d be fine with doing away with it, as I think that’s what helped lead to the abuse of the galleries (some users have even used this as a way to defend their abuse of galleries). I already just ignore the trending galleries and use the full image feed. I suggest that more people should do the same. You’ll be amazed at what we have entries for.

But again, it's not enough to just suggest it in a out-of-the-way section of the forums, you need to get the site itself to encourage it in how it's designed. Maybe replace trending galleries with trending tags instead? IDK. Point is, again, this is the sort of thing you should be considering before resorting to closing down popular galleries.

Anywho, this thread is starting to get off topic. I’m pretty sure the goal of this was to identify the problem galleries to prevent them from being abused to the point they needed locking. Maybe you guys can focus on helping on that.

Okay, then let's have another thread to discuss it. In lieu of a better place, this was really the only location to give our thoughts where they might be heard.

Final thing I’ll say about the current discussion is that, while I don’t think the Alternative Universe gallery could be saved, I don’t really like how suddenly if was locked after the discussion here. I’d rather at least give users the chance to try and fix the issue before locking. That way, when it (inevitably) locked we could say there were clear warning signs that the gallery would be closed unless the uploaders made an effort to fix the problem.

I agree. I think this is representative of the lack of clarity that's been given about this issue. I didn't even know there was a problem until the gallery had already been shut.

I suggest if any of you actually want to see those galleries stay open, you could help by reminding users about the KYM Image Gallery Guidelines, specifically the part about relevancy (though tagging and sourcing is important as well.)

But surely it shouldn't be our job to let people know about things that the site itself should be clearly conveying? If you have to rely on your users to let people know what they should be doing because they aren't getting that from how the site's designed, you're going to have a bad time.

@ Twee,
There's a lot I need to bring up about your post, but I have to go to work right now. The easiest/quickest one to deal with is the last one

But surely it shouldn’t be our job to let people know about things that the site itself should be clearly conveying? If you have to rely on your users to let people know what they should be doing because they aren’t getting that from how the site’s designed, you’re going to have a bad time.

This is not to convey that this is your job. This is to convey that it would be more useful to actually help than just complain that mods are not doing their jobs. If people started to show they didn't want stupid unrelated/rule breaking posts in the gallery, I think that would do significantly more than one mod trying to tell a user to follow the rules. Besides, we still get complaints that a popular image was removed, even when it was extremely clear it had nothing to do with the gallery.

What everyone seems to have missed is that with all of the recent lockes (save AU to an extent) we have told users to follow the guidelines, the rules were clearly posted where everyone can read them (Random 21 posted a link to the Image Gallery Guidelines in the comments section after we made them), and image mods have moved hundreds of problem images to try and stop the "follow the leader" mentality. After all this, locking was decided. I am trying to make a better point to be even more clear about these rules, but again we deal with hundreds of images daily. Help would be appreciated and is more likely to fix the problem than complaining that the mods aren't babysitting the users enough.

I'd really want to make parts of the KYM Image Galley Guidelines more enforceable, but the other mods seem to think that would be a bad idea. I'm going to bring up the subject again after work because people keep having the mindset that it's the mod's responsibility to clean up after users, not the user's responsibility to read the clearly posted rules and image guidelines.

For those of you wondering about the Childhood Enhanced and AU galleries, here's some recent examples from the Smash Bros. gallery that don't belong there:

What does this have to do with Smash Bros.? Pretty much nothing. It features Nintendo characters that also appear in Smash, but aside from that it has no relation. It would fit better in the Super Mario or Legend of Zelda galleries.

Sure, Brawl in the Family is a Smash comic (in theory, at least; most of the comics just deal with individual non-Smash games), but this comic is about Kirby and only features Kirby characters. It belongs in BitF (where it already exists) or Kirby.

This is a less obvious example. While the Wii Fit Trainer is primarily known for her appearance in Smash 4, a picture only featuring her doesn't belong in the Smash gallery. Why? She's got her own, more specific, gallery for that.

@Jacob:

This is not to convey that this is your job. This is to convey that it would be more useful to actually help than just complain that mods are not doing their jobs. If people started to show they didn’t want stupid unrelated/rule breaking posts in the gallery, I think that would do significantly more than one mod trying to tell a user to follow the rules. Besides, we still get complaints that a popular image was removed, even when it was extremely clear it had nothing to do with the gallery.

I'm not saying the mods aren't doing their jobs. Obviously they're doing their best. My point is that there must be ways of fixing this issue that apparently haven't been seriously considered or we wouldn't be where we are now. I'm not expecting one mod to keep trying to tell users to follow the rules – that's the whole point, there needs to be a better way of letting people know what they should be doing without mods (or indeed other people trying to help) having to individually tell each person what to do. IMO, discussing how the site itself could be improved to deal with this is going to be more productive than a few random people telling people to follow the rules – that carries all the same problems that the mods have been having up to this point.

What everyone seems to have missed is that with all of the recent lockes (save AU to an extent) we have told users to follow the guidelines, the rules were clearly posted where everyone can read them (Random 21 posted a link to the Image Gallery Guidelines in the comments section after we made them)

But it obviously wasn't posted where everyone would see it. Like I said, on this sort of entry I'm not going to consider that I need to keep checking the comment section in case there's new rules about what I can post there, I'm just going to follow the link from the main page to the gallery. I keep saying this – if there's important guidelines, especially new ones, they need to be clearly conveyed in a place people are definitely going to see it before they upload anything, not an just an expectation that people should seek them out.

I’m going to bring up the subject again after work because people keep having the mindset that it’s the mod’s responsibility to clean up after users, not the user’s responsibility to read the clearly posted rules and image guidelines.

Ideally, yes, before using the site people would go out of their way to find the rules/guidelines where they currently are, read them in full, remember them, check them periodically for updates, do everything they say, and there'd be no need for mods at all. But just expecting people to do that clearly hasn't and isn't going to work.

A problem that could be causing the misuse of the galleries is that putting an image in the right gallery is with some images that have to do with multiple things can sometimes be easy to define but sometimes be kind of confusing/lengthy: for example you cant just put any tumblr post in the tumblr gallery, if its about pokemon than it should go to the pokemon gallery, (which makes sense though) but what if its has alot to do with x gallery? then maybe it should go in that x gallery unless etc…It can take a while to find the right gallery with some of this images that have to do with multiple galleries, and relevance can be a bit hard to define sometimes. Not saying they shouldnt take the time to do this, they should, but I do feel this is the source of the problem.

I've got to agree. I love the Pokémon gallery, and I spend most of my time in KYM looking for new fun images and commenting there. I've even contributed with a little bit of images. But these last few days, the gallery has been flooded with much more NSFW content than usual. One of the biggest problems with the large amount of NSFW nowadays is that it has scaled from the occasional, "questionable" fanart of characters (and Gardevoir), to outright Rule 34 of Pokémon species (this week being Lopunny the favourite target).
Here are two examples: (both feature Lopunny and are very NSFW)
NSFW image 1
NSFW image 2

Again, I love the Pokémon gallery, and I know that posting NSFW content is inevitable. Personally, I don't mind most NSFW, but when things go too far, then you could say I go Melonlord (if you visit the Pokémon gallery frequently, you must know what I mean).

^

To be honest, I am getting tired of that gallery. I will leave a warning on the comments about uploading NSFW/ecchi content.

We are not your personal fap folder.

Here are two examples: (both feature Lopunny and are very NSFW)
NSFW image 1

>Very NSFW

I dunno man, but I've seen a lot worse uploaded onto the site and those examples aren't exactly something I'd rank "Very NSFW".

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if people just downvote the shit out of your post, keep posting NSFW pics, and blame the mods when the gallery gets locked. This all goes back to the comments section issues; the people in the comments don't have any respect for the mods and do whatever the hell they want. Someday, we'll get to the point where simply locking the galleries doesn't but it anymore, and something big needs to be done before that point is reached.

(Look closely at the chest and the crotch, and see what I mean)

Is there a way to post that warning on the image posting page, cause hardly anyone will notice that if you drop it in the entry. Also if we're bringing down "that" hammer now please be fair and enforce that rule for the other galleries as well. Namely MLP, cause they've been doing the same shtick and in some cases worse for a while now. Yet when it comes down to it everything else gets a free pass and Pokemon's singled out.

I went over the gallery a bit, and throughout hundreds of uploaded images, not even 5% was tagged NSFW. And out of the images that were NSFW, some weren't even that hardcore NSFW (most just involved big cleavage on furry Pokemon).

So sure, it has ecchi stuff, but to call this spam to a point of "personal fap folder" isn't really the case imo. That gallery could be a lot worse.

But if we can give a warning to look out for it, as to avoid a future lock, then that's fine. Rather be save than sorry I guess.

I gotta say I'm very worried, upset and scared about this.

I have really rather a lot to say but I want to compose myself and try not to be stupid about this, can I have some time and comment tomorrow?

And I agree with you on that.
(I know you're replying to Loli, but I feel that what I'll say is also relevant).

The Pokémon doesn't have a vast amount of NSFW, but that there's been a substantial increase in the amount of it and in the 'hardcore-ness' of the content in the past weeks. There's quite a difference between a simple image of, I don't know, a character or a Pokémon doing fanservice (wearing skimpy clothes/swimwear) and a Lopunny with a condom on her mouth showing her ass.

I've been visiting that gallery almost every day for the last 7 months, so I think I know what I'm talking about.

As long as the nsfw dont break the rules they should be ok by me. I think we should concentrate in rules and abuse problematic (like cringeworthy was or the multiple images in galleries where they dont belong because they are more popular there.) instead of "quality" problematic, as quality is subjective.

Sure, comment whenever. No one's forcing you to post now.

On the topic of the NSFW stuff, I agree that the more hardcore stuff is a problem, but I agree with NO in that we've got bigger problems to deal with at the moment. If a picture is blatantly breaking the rules, the mods can delete it, and that's that. Right now we don't need any bigger solution to that particular problem.

^Thank you, I'll try and think and focus myself for tomorrow.

Hate to break it to you, Alternate Universe is closed. We've decided it was too abused so the moderators closed it.

Any actual reason to lock the galleries you mentioned? I really hate wasting my time reading stupid posts.

If you are going to contribute then do it, otherwise avoid posting.

@RM

Posting ecchi stuff will become a habit and a problem. I really want to avoid that, I don't want to lock another gallery and I really don't want more users whining and telling us that we are a bunch of idiots because we ruin their fun.

AU too, I hate my shows being mixed with other shows

Great reasoning.

@Loli:

Posting ecchi stuff will become a habit and a problem. I really want to avoid that, I don’t want to lock another gallery and I really don’t want more users whining and telling us that we are a bunch of idiots because we ruin their fun.

What about reasonable constructive criticism like me and Kung Fu Cthulhu have been posting?

There's too little of that and too much of the whining. Look in the Childhood/AU comments and you'll find just a fraction of the many, many examples.

EDIT: Here's some examples.

"Except Cringeworthy actually had a reason to get locked. The key reason here doesn’t seem to be because a few users were abusing it, which is mostly bullshit, but because “it’s too popular”, which is even bigger bullshit." – KFC

"hopefully the idiotic mods will listen" – TA9000

"Worse mods. What I mean is that they lock and cut pages at their own whim and sometimes even remove pages which aren’t subjective and they “vaguely” think may cause flame bait. They often remove any references to things they don’t like and that’s not even counting pornography." – Evilthing

"This is just fucking disgusting, another stupid and extreme measure that hurts innocents as much if not more than the people responsible.
Stuff like this makes me resent the moderation, I always seem to get an all-or-nothing vibe from this crap, no action taken until it’s time to drop a nuke and destroy everything regardless of collateral damage." – CrashGordon

"“Hey, guys! Let’s close all of the most popular Image Galleries! That’s surely going to be good for web traffic!” Pure genius.
The purge continues…. Why didn’t you stop it, RandomMan? You were the best of us, and the guardian of the website! Why did you have to take a vacation!?" – KFC

"All I’ve seen from the Mod Squad is “it was shit”. I haven’t even heard a word of supposed “abuse” taking place. I don’t get it." – KFC

"Is it annual attack on popular image entries week? I was never a big fan of this in the first place, but with all the crap the Mods are doing now, it’s wearing on my psyche. I’m hoping these past few days have just been a Mod Purge day and that the effects will soon be undone…" – MudkipMaster

i just went to check my email and the thing is flooded

Loli wrote:

I really don’t want more users whining and telling us that we are a bunch of idiots because we ruin their fun.

B-b-but, we're mods.

That's what we should be doing. R-right?

MttLoebach wrote:

i just went to check my email and the thing is flooded

Go to the subscription page to unsubscribe yourself from this thread. It should avoid further email flooding whenever a post is made.

@Snickerway:

There’s too little of that and too much of the whining. Look in the Childhood/AU comments and you’ll find just a fraction of the many, many examples.

Tbh I'm not surprised considering the way the mods were acting. There was very little clear explanation as to why closing the galleries was what was best for the site, or encouraging people to discuss this civilly. Instead you have hostility, condescension, sarcastically belittling those who enjoyed the entries and disagree with the change, apparently tricking people into posting in threads to get them banned, etc. When people have been posting constructively it's largely ignored, in favour of those that aren't, and when people feel like their legitimate concerns are being ignored they're naturally going to get angry and less constructive.

Some of those quotes actually have fairly valid points. Sure, they're aggressive in tone, but if the people on the other side of the argument are also being aggressive then obviously they'll respond in kind. People aren't going to respect the mods if they don't feel like the mods are respecting them.

Again, I understand people are frustrated, but if you do want more constructive criticism instead of non-constructive anger then this is the last sort of stuff you should be doing.

Alright, now that I'm back and had time to read everything, I guess I should continue then.

• Twee wrote:
  

  But again, how is closing AU going to fix this problem? If people weren’t posting in those galleries because they thought it wasn’t going to get views, then shutting off the place that it is getting views isn’t necessarily going to drive up traffic to those areas.
  

Ideally, if people really wanted to, they could always use the search feature to see if we have an existing entry, and if we don't have one, suggest one in the meme research section. (stop laughing guys, it could happen.) I have to agree though, that it won't solve the problem 100%. I'm still of the mindset that tagging images as "Alternate Universe" and trying to promote that would help. This would easily allow for users to see AU images like before, as well as knowing that we have full entries for things. Maybe we could get a way to link the AU gallery to recent images tagged as "Alternate Universe" so the gallery still exists in spirit, even if it is just a bunch of results for images tagged as AU in several different galleries. IDK, I'm not a programmer/ code writer. I think it could help address both the users upset, as well as stop images from being sucked from elsewhere.

• Twee wrote:
  

  Indeed, but there’s no clear indication that people are supposed to tag images in places they’re going to see it… …Again, a clear warning on the image uploader would help.
  

In addition to the PMs about images in wrong galleries, I also send PMs to users who seem to have made a habit of no/poor tagging. This has had variable success. We have a thread about it here. and I do feel it is an issue that needs to be addressed, so please leave feedback there.

• Twee wrote:
  

  Then maybe an overhaul is what the site needs, because it clearly isn’t working… I don’t think it’d necessarily need an entire overhaul anyway, maybe something that detects what tags you’re using (again, with clear indications that you should be using tags) and automatically posts it to relevant entries?
  

When I say the system needs an overhaul to do this, I mean that James seemed to say that they system would need to be built from the ground up. This thread deals will it in particular so feel free to talk about it there.

As for the detection system, this is highly dependent on users using tags to begin with, which, as I stated in the thread I linked above, some have made a point to not to. Any system would also need to know shorthand versions of things, catch misspellings, etc. I my experience it's also clear may users have no idea what they are uploading except that they consider relevant to the entry. There's not way to address this without a person who knows what they are doing to clean up. Again.I'm not a programmer, but I think it's more work than it's worth.

• Twee wrote:
  

  I seldom use the image search by tags – going to a gallery is much more straightforward and intuitive, especially since they’re advertised on the front page. If you want that to change then the site needs to point people more towards that instead of galleries.
  

I've used this example before, because it clearly illustrates the reason why searching by tags make sense:
You have an Attack on Titan Poster Parody that you are looking for, would you rather go through the 3,000 images images in the AoT gallery, or the on+Titan+Poster+Parodies">~100 images that are tagged as "Attack on Titian Poster Parodies"? In terms of practicality, there is no comparison. You could even search for something like "Attack on titan Poster Parodies Adventure Time" to get one result. You can't honestly tell me that going through all the images in the Attack on Titan Gallery is more straightforward and intuitive than that. This also will allow you to find said image if it was not posted in the AoT gallery, but some other relevant gallery. I do agree that the site needs to point more focus on image tagging. Again, see the tagging thread for that.

• Twee wrote:
  

  That’s why we don’t have entries for those things. If something is specific enough to have an entry, then why is it not specific enough to have a gallery? People aren’t going to be looking for examples of “meme” or “site” (or if they are then the site itself is a gallery of examples), but people may well be looking for examples of AU or reaction faces or whatever, since they’re a specific type of meme that they’re interested in.
  

My point was that IMO, AU is way too broad: Movie ending differently that what it actually did?: example of AU. Video game mod adding NPCs from another game? example of AU. Troll face that is frowning instead of smiling?: example of AU. Official artwork with colors inverted? example of AU. Dewey actually won the election? example of AU. Famous painting done in MS paint? example of AU. Non-Qwerty keyboard being common? example of AU. Someone else on Mount Rushmore? example of AU. Putting shoes on your hands? example of AU. Animals talking? example of AU. 9GAG being funny? example of AU.

Change any tiny little thing about literally anything, and you could argue it's an example of AU. The Fan Art entry had it's gallery locked for the same reason of the definition being overly broad, so it's not like there isn't a precedent for it.

We also have this thread which is trying to convince users to use "reaction tags" that can be used site wide to easily locate specific reactions. Makes finding reactions extremely easy, and is trying to eliminate the need to have to go through all the images in the reaction faces gallery to find something.

• Twee wrote:
  

  It doesn’t really matter if they have an excuse or not, the fact is they don’t know, and you need to find a way to sort that out. Expecting the users to just be better without enough prompting isn’t going to work.
  

Rules linked to almost every page on the site, PMs sent to particular problem users with the rules directly linked requesting users to read them because they are not following them, comments on entries of problem galleries linking to the rules requesting users to follow them. I get that some people are still unaware of them, but I'm not certain what we can do other than have a popup before submitting all images, making sure users have read them. Even then, I'm pretty sure that would be ignored.

The one thing we tried to do was to get the Image Galley Guidelines Frontpagged, when they were first published, which, to my knowledge, despite multiple requests to do so, the Admins never did. Of course, they frontpagged Kirby's birthday (and promptly screwed that up and never fixed it despite the dozens of comments pointing that out. I certainly agree with the lack of communication on the site.)

• Twee wrote:
  

  it’s not enough to just suggest it in a out-of-the-way section of the forums, you need to get the site itself to encourage it in how it’s designed. Maybe replace trending galleries with trending tags instead?
  

Discussion should happen in the part of the site dedicated to discussion. I've been posting links to this thread in the comments section of some of the problem galleries I've listed, so hopefully users will actually listen. I'm not going to try and discuss this in the comment section in part due to the issues stated in this thread As for Trending tags as opposed to trending galleries, I'm really for this. Motivation to actually tag and enables galleries to still get images to show documentation. As I said above with doing this for AU, I think this would help address both the people who liked looking at AU images and the need to have images in relevant galleries.

• Twee wrote:
  

  I’m not saying the mods aren’t doing their jobs. Obviously they’re doing their best.
  

Ah, this may have been me putting words in your mouth, and I'm sorry. As you can tell from Snickerway's comment, many users don't feel that way.

• Twee wrote:
  

  There was very little clear explanation as to why closing the galleries was what was best for the site
  

I'm going to have to agree here. I tried to help explain it in the comments of Ruined Childhood, but there really wasn't too much in the way of other mods spelling out what the problems were. This is especially true when it came to not trying to sound rude about it.

It wasn't until after the locking of AU that I was even aware there were mod discussions about locking those galleries (and I'm an image mod). To be fair, I did voice my dislike of how those galleries were treated, but I think that some sort of very clear advance notice would be better. That way it's easier to show that the users ignored warnings of a lock if abuse continued. Who knows, maybe the problems in those galleries would have improved (stop laughing guys. It could happen.) Again, I posted links to this thread in the comments section of a few of the entries that I think have problem galleries to hopefully make people aware that the same thing could happen to other galleries. Maybe this will work to fix the problem so more locks are not needed.

Pokemon Gallery

@Loli wrote:

Any actual reason to lock the galleries you mentioned? I really hate wasting my time reading stupid posts.

If you are going to contribute then do it, otherwise avoid posting.

Gee, I see, sorry. Okay, so to not waste an another post spot, lets talk about the inevitable topic, which will come up anyway. The MLP gallery. For me to avoid the hate of bronies and an another negative karma bombardment (I can't so, whatevah), I present my opinions in a neutral state (to why and why not lock the MLP gallery). Well, lets begin my last speech.

PROs: (Aka why not) The amount of My Little Pony images was the reason, why the sofware engineers of this site implented the Show fewer ponies button. However even with this button, sometimes I saw some images which are contained pony (or ponies) and/or humanized ponies, only 'coz those pics were not uploaded to the MLP gallery, in my opinion thanks to the Alternate Universe's image gallery, and I think since it was closed this will not occour anymore or at last just few times but fewer than before the lock, so I need to say the current status of the MLP gallery isn't problematic anymore. But I think to prevent any shitstorm, we need to move that button to the account settings and made it into an on/off option, so those who are never wanna see any pony will not rage quiting. So we can say that the My Little Pony image gallery doesn't deserve to be locked. However every coin has an other side.

CONTRAs: (Aka the why) The contras are shorter than the pros but more reasoning than the latter. I hate to do this with my favourite fans (that means I like the bronies) but I must do this, sorry. Maybe I'm just going to say plain stupid things but I can't leave this part with no actual reasons. Maybe it's just me but in most of the time when I see a brony using a pony pic to asnwer something that pic is either from Derpibooru or DeviantArt but not from the KYM's MLP gallery, so I think if we have more than 23k or maybe now 25k or more pony pics, why aren't they using it as frequent as the other sites'? This and the amount of plain stupid, and meaningless pics uploaded sometimes are making this image gallery worth to lock it.

As I said, I'm not going to take any sides, I'm not against or with the locking of the MLP gallery. You decide this, I'm just giving opinions why or why not should be locked. And I will not take responsibilty for the upcoming flame wars and swear filled arguments.

I will bring this up again
A few of the mods, myself included, acted this way in retaliation. I have said this before, I'll say it again, I refuse to be the user's verbal punching bag who can't respond to the stupid hate comments because I should be some paragon of justice or whatever. We locked the first gallery and gave our reasoning, that's when users started acting childish, the condescension from the mod side really started after the fact, and when AU was closed. The entire AU comment section was more a retaliation to Childhood. Take a look at Hentai Quotes, a gallery we don't even want to lock, Loli gave a totally needed warning in response to certain images, and users responded angrily over it. Over a warning. Maybe if people didn't want us getting antsy, they shouldn't do the same to begin with. When you give serious comments, we respond with serious answers, as proven here. If you're going to tell us we suck and we ruin your fun, then expect a reply on a similar level. Don't act like the condescension is entirely our fault, and don't act like that's the only response you're getting. Civil arguments should come up after both sides act mature, not just one side

@Jacob: Thanks, I agree with most of this. That said, some comments:

(stop laughing guys, it could happen.)

Well, that kind of illustrates the point. :P If you're having to hope in vein that people are going to do the right thing there's a problem somewhere.

I’m still of the mindset that tagging images as “Alternate Universe” and trying to promote that would help. This would easily allow for users to see AU images like before, as well as knowing that we have full entries for things. Maybe we could get a way to link the AU gallery to recent images tagged as “Alternate Universe” so the gallery still exists in spirit, even if it is just a bunch of results for images tagged as AU in several different galleries. IDK, I’m not a programmer/ code writer. I think it could help address both the users upset, as well as stop images from being sucked from elsewhere.

This makes me think, and hear me out, maybe it might be better to get rid of the gallery system entirely, and replace it with just tags. All images in whatever gallery they are now would be automatically tagged with the gallery's entry name, as would subsequent images added to that entry. The gallery page and the section at the bottom of the entry would be basically turned into a glorified search page that displays all images tagged with that entry name, so that way images could be posted in multiple "galleries". Perhaps in the uploader there could be automatic tag suggestions based on what tends to be put (so e.g. if there's lots images tagged "reaction face" and also, IDK, "batman", then "batman" would appear in the list of suggestions and you could click it to automatically add it to your tag list). This would also fit the "trending tags" idea.

I'm not a programmer either (though I have dabbled a bit), so I don't know whether any of this is feasible, and like you say it might require rebuilding for the ground up, but again, IMO this is the sort of thing that should be seriously considered before shutting down parts of the site as a semi-permanent attempt at a solution.

In addition to the PMs about images in wrong galleries, I also send PMs to users who seem to have made a habit of no/poor tagging.

But again, PMs do little to solve the larger problem. I think you get this, though.

In terms of practicality, there is no comparison. You could even search for something like “Attack on titan Poster Parodies Adventure Time” to get one result. You can’t honestly tell me that going through all the images in the Attack on Titan Gallery is more straightforward and intuitive than that.

It's more practical and straightforward once you know what you're doing, sure, but not necessarily intuitive. Like I said, I've been using the site for a long time and I've barely used the image search, as I didn't really think to use it. Galleries are much more prominently featured in the site's design, so people are naturally going to gravitate towards them first.

My point was that IMO, AU is way too broad:

Yes there's a lot of different things that could fit into it, although I think some of those could just be removed as they don't actually fit the entry as it's described – it should be specifically about altering fictional works (I may have fallen into this trap myself at times >_>). But at what point the broadness is too much is rather subjective – like you say, it's your opinion. To me, there's still a reasonably specific quota, that is something about an existing work must be change, similarly to how stuff in e.g. GIF or FAIL (galleries that weren't in your problem list), have to be an animated image or some kind of bad failure, respectively, but what those are could be literally anything. I don't think the broadness of it necessarily means it isn't worth documenting, within reason.

In one of those other threads you disagreed with the OP that AU was more specific than Batman, but I think they've got a point. If someone's looking for all Batman images, sure, they want to see all instances of Batman and not other stuff, so the Batman gallery is more relevant and specific. If someone isn't looking for Batman in particular but alterations to fictional works instead, seeing a bunch of other Batman images isn't relevant to them – they want to see something like the AU gallery instead. The fact that you and the OP took opposite positions on this goes to show it's all a matter of perspective, and ideally the site should cater to both perspectives.

I get that some people are still unaware of them, but I’m not certain what we can do other than have a popup before submitting all images, making sure users have read them.

Well, like me and KFC have suggested, having clear warnings of the pertinent rules on things like the image uploader would help. I think the Rules list is a bit like an End User License Agreement – it's quite long and not all of it is relevant to what people are doing at any given moment, so people are likely to skip it and pick things up as they go, even if they know they really shouldn't. If rules that were relevant to what you're doing were displayed next to to where you're doing it (with perhaps a link to the full list so you know it's legit), people might be more likely to pay attention and know what's going on.

I’m going to have to agree here. I tried to help explain it in the comments of Ruined Childhood, but there really wasn’t too much in the way of other mods spelling out what the problems were. This is especially true when it came to not trying to sound rude about it.

It wasn’t until after the locking of AU that I was even aware there were mod discussions about locking those galleries (and I’m an image mod). To be fair, I did voice my dislike of how those galleries were treated, but I think that some sort of very clear advance notice would be better. That way it’s easier to show that the users ignored warnings of a lock if abuse continued. Who knows, maybe the problems in those galleries would have improved (stop laughing guys. It could happen.) Again, I posted links to this thread in the comments section of a few of the entries that I think have problem galleries to hopefully make people aware that the same thing could happen to other galleries. Maybe this will work to fix the problem so more locks are not needed.

Yeah, this kind of goes to show that the real problem here seems to be a lack of communication, be it between the mods and admins, mods and other mods, and critically mods and users. From what I saw a common attitude seems to be that the problems are all caused by the users, which I think is unfair given it's really a site-wide problem, and at the end of the day the site is supposed to be for the users. I'm reminded of this story with bunch of college professors discussing how much more efficiently the university would run, if only they could get rid of those damn students!

(Double posting because it's a different topic and my previous post was already huge)

@Random 21:

I'm not saying it's entirely your fault. The way you responded was completely understandable in the circumstances, but that doesn't make it right. If you believe the mods being snarky and condescending to the users improves the site, then by all means explain. But for me personally I don't see how it helps the situation at all.

The users aren't a monolithic entity, we don't all know what's been going on and what you've been dealing with. If someone likes me who semi-frequents one gallery and not so much the others comes to it one day, and first and only thing they see is it locked and the mods being hostile and belittling people, they're not going to think it's a reasonable response to what's going on, they're going to think "wow, these guys are assholes", and may either retaliate themselves or just not use the site at all anymore.

Take a look at Hentai Quotes, a gallery we don’t even want to lock, Loli gave a totally needed warning in response to certain images, and users responded angrily over it. Over a warning.

A warning that was phrased in a rather hostile way. The underlying tone was "You idiots, why are you posting this stupid shit that doesn't belong? I'm going to have to clean up your mess now, so get used to it."

If it had been more like "Hey guys, mods here, we expect you mean well, but after discussion we've come to the conclusion that the gallery isn't being used for what it's intended for, that is quotes and not full pages etc. If you could try and keep the images relevant as described in the entry, we'd really appreciate that, and it'd save us having to remove more images that aren't appropriate. If you want to discuss this see [this thread], as this comment section isn't really the place for it. Thanks!" I expect people wouldn't have been as angry.

The mlp gallery seems to have like a shitload of reposts. This due to the fact that a lot of the people who upload there don't tag there images. And at this point I think its too late to, because no one in their right mind is going to attempt to tag 200,000 images, but i don't think it should be locked. Just something should be done about all the reposts.

I don't think there's any realistic justification for locking the MLP gallery – both because of its popularity and its general unobtrusiveness (if you have "less ponies" turned on). But I do agree that it could be dealt with better, especially insofar as tagging and reposts are concerned.

Part of the problem with the latter stems from the sheer number of images. The fact is, if someone reposts an image from, say, two years ago, the odds of a mod remembering the original image (much less finding it) is pretty slim, especially if the image wasn't particularly interesting or popular. So, at that point, if the automated system can't catch it, it probably isn't going to be caught.

I mean, if we had the capability to do that, one solution would be to create something similar to Google's reverse image search, or perhaps adapt Google so that it only searches the KYM galleries. Then we could have access to the "similar images" function, which could supplement the metadata issue. But that would probably be a lot of work.

In any case, the harm done by reposts doesn't really justify closing the whole gallery, and the metadata problem is a site-wide issue not limited to MLP. So, yeah, +1 not closing.

@Platus
I think your idea isn't bad but need a helluva lot work, so imo better if we just make the image tagging a require to post it (no tags, no pics).

Random 21 said:

A few of the mods, myself included, acted this way in retaliation.

…then expect a reply on a similar level

I feel as though this is probably the absolute worst possible way for the mod team to respond. A few users act like douchebags, as will happen in a comment section, the mods respond tit for tat and formerly neutral users (who don't use the forum and have never seen the "serious debate") see the response and think "wow, the mods really are douches". They join the hate train and the whole situation escalates. Repeat a couple of times and you have the present circumstances with both sides firmly entrenched, with "evidence" that the other are jackasses.

The only thing further provocation is going to do is further escalate things, further entrench both sides, and and further widen the schism on KYM.

So to me it sounds like the biggest problem with the galleries (out side of NSFW stuff) is images are being uploaded into the "wrong" gallery. And this brings up a problem I've had with the image upload system ever since I started uploading images 2+ years ago; some images fit into more then one entry, but images are only allowed to be under one entry. I don't understand why there has yet to be a way implanted so one image can be linked to more then one gallery. And I don't mean uploading the image multiple time into more then one gallery, I mean having one instance of an image being linked to more then one gallery so if you were to go into each gallery and click on the image you would see the same image host page and comments regardless of which gallery you found it in. I personally believe that any image in a subentry should also be seen in the main entry's gallery, but that's just my opinion.

Another issue I've seen are other entries just don't get enough attention. We see 20 top galleries on the front page each day and for most users those are the only galleries they view that day. And users that upload images want their images to be seen, they want likes and comments. And the best way to get those are to upload to a top gallery, even if it's not the "right" gallery. Maybe one way to fix this would be to make a "trending galleries" spot on the front page. It would be like the trending images, where it show galleries getting high views (but not ones already in the days top galleries) but would change what's shown constantly so every time a user refreshes the home page a new list of trending galleries would be shown.

These are all just my ideas, I'm not a web designer or coder so I have no clue how hard implementing stuff like this (I assume that if it were easy, it would already be on the site). I honestly don't have any issues with any galley still open but then again I didn't have an issue with cringeworthy before it closed either, so maybe I'm just the wrong person to ask about this.

I love this website, but i'm honestly very worried. I mean, I agree to the locking of various galleries, but I feel not too many do. Which causes me to believe that many would leave, resulting in KYM becoming a ghost town. I know it's a slim chance, but still.

Honestly, I think that locking should be a very, very rare exception, basically the site's nuclear option.

We have to remember that Cringeworthy had problems going way beyond the usual issues one finds in a large gallery – it was a persistent nightmare to moderate, and it just got worse the longer things kept up. 99% of the time, even a large gallery won't get that bad.

And just like the A-bomb, locking is most useful when the threat of the thing prevents you from using it. Now that it has been demonstrated that we mods can, and do, lock problematic galleries, perhaps the threat of that might be enough to keep people from escalating things to that level.

Might as well just

This. I was trying to be nice about the way I originally approached this problem in the thread, but I honestly think that it's a moderator's job to be the better person in the situation, no matter how stupid the users are being. xTSGx perfectly describes how the whole shitty cycle works out on a practical level (I've been through a fair share of forums, and have seen this come to pass). Showing more assertion and anger is fine if you want to get a point across, but stooping to their level is a terrible decision.

"There’s too little of that and too much of the whining. Look in the Childhood/AU comments and you’ll find just a fraction of the many, many examples."

Again, I should bring up that you'd probably end up with more constructive posts if there were actually announcements about policy changes that were easy to access instead of buried under hundreds of threads. That's what the blog's for, IIRC, and you can actually Frontpage that instead of a Forum thread, which only a fraction of the community actually uses. I think that you probably should have closed the comments section along with the Image Gallery if you didn't want to hear people complain – at least then, people would have taken it to the Forums, where there would have been more of a discussion akin to this one.

Also, I don't think you're being fair in your assessment of my comments coming across as "whining". The first one was made due to an absence of an official statement – it was based on what I could tell from what the moderators that were responding were talking about. The second one was largely facetious – however, my concern about alienating the site's audience was a legitimate one, however bluntly it was stated. The third one, however, shouldn't be dismissed as simple bitching, because nobody posted a reason for the page getting locked. All I saw were just coy remarks from the moderators that mocked users that enjoyed the Image Gallery – which, as I mentioned, wasn't a good idea if you didn't want to hear people complain.

Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:

if there were actually announcements about policy changes that were easy to access instead of buried under hundreds of threads. That’s what the blog’s for, IIRC, and you can actually Frontpage that instead of a Forum thread,

We wanted that to happen. we tried to get it to happen Link on the off chance you don't believe us. Why it didn't get frontpagged is beyond me, because all the mods felt the it was important and needed to be read by everyone.

Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:

because nobody posted a reason for the page getting locked.

I thought I did for ruined childhood at least

Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:

that it’s a moderator’s job to be the better person in the situation, no matter how stupid the users are being.

Agreed. We do have this in the rules still: "Be friendly. We want our forums to be welcoming place for both old and new users. Please keep your comments and posts constructive and considerate in tone. If you observe a user breaking a rule, try advising the user in the right direction instead of posting insults or harsh criticisms. If the user persists, contact a forum moderator." While I'm personally more in favor of Bob's "Be constructive" (which means you don't have to sugar coat anything, and can be a bit mean if you clearly show ways to improve), many of the comments I saw from both sides were not either. I don't think it's wrong to have higher expectations of mods on behavior. It's easier to suspend users who act terribly when the mods don't act terribly.

–––

Also, I feel the need to address Snikerway's post where he talks about what should/ should not go into the Smash Bros.gallery. Well, actually, no, I don't need to address his post. He's 100% right and clearly demonstrates how the images in that gallery are abused/misused, and what galleries those images should be placed into. What I want to address are the downvotes. I'm not one for saying votes really matter, but they are indicative of people disagreeing. Can you guys say why you disagree with his post? I'd understand if he was trying to be rude, or something like that, but his post is a bit more on topic about showing why a certain gallery is problematic, as well as showing a way to fix it.

Kung Fu Cthulhu wrote:

if there were actually announcements about policy changes that were easy to access instead of buried under hundreds of threads. That’s what the blog’s for, IIRC, and you can actually Frontpage that instead of a Forum thread

As Jacob said, that whole thing is on the admin's side, not ours, we very much agreed with you. We've re-written the rules more times then you can count, and I linked the guidelines in the comment section of the popular umbrella galleries, linked it to users who broke the rules via PM, included it as part of the general rules which we've already mentioned in this thread. You can argue whether the way we advertised them was effective or not, but you can't say we didn't try. On the contrary, we tried to the best of our abilities. There was literally nothing else we could do to make them more known.

Jacob wrote:

What I want to address are the downvotes. I’m not one for saying votes really matter, but they are indicative of people disagreeing. Can you guys say why you disagree with his post?

comment-karma.txt. The downvotes link into what I was saying about that we could make the nicest most comprehensive post about our actions but no one would listen to it and just downvote it because it disagrees with their line of thinking. I could turn around and argue here that posting a constructive post on AU wouldn't have helped anything because it would've only received the same reaction, but I digress

One last thing on the subject of AU and the mod response, this isn't really a thing you can blame the entire mod team for. This was really just 2 or 3 of us in the irc who had too much fun (I said as much on RM's wall). But I still don't think we were in the wrong, at least not entirely, but we should probably just drop that conversation anyway, since arguing 'who started it' isn't helping anything but shifting the blame to one particular side.

Real talk though, I don't think shutting down these galleries were the best choice (as many have said already), but at the same time it's not like you guys were going to go through every single gallery and send them all to the correct gallery. I just feel like if there was either a front page message warning would have made people more aware and as such this wouldn't have happened.

But like I said…

For cheddar cheese and fried rice, I really do live under a rock. Now that explains the lack of new images on enhanced/ruined and AU galleries.



See more on Know Your Meme

Now on actual topic, I am sorry for not noticing most of your changes, mods. Now what could be done to make sure that it goes through everyone's heads, is to place a warning and advisory to view the rules before posting a picture/video beside the "submit image/video" button, on any entry that is in risk of being closed. Again, sorry for being a thickhead, but I hope this gets other thickheads to know the rules. =\

Judging by the looks of the comments, it seems that a disclaimer on the image/video upload section would be a good idea on some of the galleries.

So, the galleries are locked until this all blows over, or I shouldn't hold my breath?

most (yes I said most) parts of this site should be treated like a fine museum,

would you let 12-year-olds be in charge of what gets displayed in a museum?

would you?

Depends on the kind of museum. If you arrange things properly, that could be kind of amazing.

same with putting typewriters in a room full of cro-magnon cavemen

no homo