Suggestions

[Ton]

Because it's not just inappropriate sheets we have to worry about. It's also junk sheets or unusable sheets, or enormous sheets. Just letting anyone upload anything without any checks would ruin the site. We need quality control.

[Kendotlibero]

Because it's not just inappropriate sheets we have to worry about. It's also junk sheets or unusable sheets, or enormous sheets. Just letting anyone upload anything without any checks would ruin the site. We need quality control.

The thing i'm suggesting is not about abolishing quality control, but to let everyone in the comments to actually do it
If a sheet is particulally bad mods can remove it after people starts complaining, if a game has lots of vandalism we could "lock" him and force the normal queue
for dimensions we could put a rule in the system that >15MB sheets are not accepted, for exeample

[Petie]

It's also not about mods not wanting to review similar sheets - it's just that there are a lot of submissions and getting through them takes time. If everyone on the site was capable of properly reviewing content, we wouldn't need the queue but as it stands, we do. This site has a wide range of users and I know for a fact is in regular use in at least a few schools so we can't have a reactionary stance to content here.

[Kendotlibero]

It's also not about mods not wanting to review similar sheets - it's just that there are a lot of submissions and getting through them takes time. If everyone on the site was capable of properly reviewing content, we wouldn't need the queue but as it stands, we do. This site has a wide range of users and I know for a fact is in regular use in at least a few schools so we can't have a reactionary stance to content here.

...i see
It sucks for everybody but the site is in better shape than "insanemariogalaxysonicfan666" spamming his shitty drawings and bad rips
still i'd search for a middle ground, where few mods don't have to put on their shoulders 10 bazillion submissions

[Kendotlibero]

If we could get enough interest in a project of that scale going, I wouldn't mind working out some way to mark submissions that need work and display them to those interested in participating.

Regarding this... There is at least an estimate of how much bad sheets are on the site?

[Dazz]

I had considered a "veteran moderation" idea for a while, but didn't really get anywhere with planning it out. The basic concept would be that, long term users with at least a hand full of approved submissions (not determined yet) would have access to the submission queue. They could then see what is planned to go out, and basically operate a Reddit style up and down vote. Things which seem perfectly acceptable get shifted to the front of the queue, those that need work pushed to the back.

There would then be a "revisions" style system with these pending submissions, where users could modify the submissions before they go out to help users improve their stuff - or create the ever time consuming icons so that approval would be a quicker process.

I'm not saying this system is being planned or anything, but it's been my thoughts for some time in order to alleviate the restrictions of having a small team behind the site. Pete and I have been incredibly overworked and stressed behind the scenes, which I make a very good point of not pushing forward, so I appreciate patience in all of this. We have plans we're already implementing to improve the sites, but again, thanks for being understanding that not everything is going to be rushed into production immediately if at all.

[Petie]

I’d like to point out that a system such as the one Dazz is describing (again, not currently in the works but it’s worth discussing anyway) is something I would be okay with because it does not expose unapproved content to the entire world but only to a small subset of users.

There’s been a lot going on behind the scenes, especially over the last couple of days so work is being done but it’s not always completely obvious to everyone.

Also, to answer your question, there’s no good way to give an estimate of bad sheets on the site. In theory, there shouldn’t be many as that’s the point of the approval system but it’s always possible that some slipped through the cracks. That’s part of the reason why we have the revision system in place though.

[Superjustinbros]

If I could add my two cents to this, many older sheets from years, years back didn't have the same quality control as sheets in general do now, which is why they're incomplete, sloppy, have incorrect colors, etc. Most of the sheets I see getting approved nowadays have at least some level of effort put into them (and if there is a problem with an accepted sheet, the revision and report options serve their respective purposes) so I personally don't see the need to have the whole queue of pending sheets visible to the general public. If anything the only purpose a public queue would serve would be faster approval processes for sheets (plus for people that try to sneak in porn or other malicious content onto the site would not be good to be visible to the public eye, considering how many under-18 users we have visiting and using the site) And even then the admins would still have to go through user-approved submissions to see if something really is good enough to be on the site.

I could also say something about trolls that would deliberately down-vote submissions just for the heck of it, but I'll just leave it at that.

As for improving sheets before/during the submission process, the forums can be used for that purpose- to upload sheets in pre-production and receive feedback. But by this point I'm probably getting ahead of myself.

[Yawackhary]

As usual a bit on the fence, a good idea but could easily go wrong especially a public system. A small controlled quality control/submission team that is trusted enough does sound like a good idea and wouldn't mind at all. It would also help the other sites such as Sounds and Textures have more updates.

I won't mind looking at a few sheets and was thinking about doing something similar recently to not only help get the queue down but also gives something to do and keep to the standards of the site.

As for improving sheets before/during the submission process, the forums can be used for that purpose- to upload sheets in pre-production and receive feedback. But by this point I'm probably getting ahead of myself.

In the older days, before self submissions were possible that's what the submissions threads were used for and if there were mistakes, you could fix them up. Sadly not everyone has the knowledge for it to be possible. Something popular like a Mario game or a cult Japanese game like Dangaronpa, you can get the feedback about missing sprites/wrong colours no problem but with something obscure like a prototype game, a random home computer game or a sports game the only help if available would be the usual correct size/colours/layout. Some of the games that are on the various VGR sites have very little info online or even in a few cases, not emulated or have a common file format. Even then sometimes its the game itself that has buggy sprites (can recall the Mega Drive Sailor Moon game and had to post screenshots showing the glitchy sprites).

Saying that, did get help from the olden days that helped me become a better ripper. Can recall Dolphman and Davias being the two that often helped.

[Dazz]

With the old style of submission, it was much more "one-on-one" in terms of feedback in an open space. We weren't solely in charge of moderation technically, because new stuff was, again; pushed to the top of a list based on user comments. We have done this a long time and know what's good in submissions, but we only learnt that from everybody else establishing that standard too with their own criticisms or comments.

I'm happy to bring more people onto the approvals team when I know they're "good for it" - such as Yawackhary here. I trust him more than I trust myself in many aspects.

This is the origin of my thinking for a system built on veteran users, as in theory, they will be more established and the process of "vetting" is half automated based on just approving their content. With that said; the system has obvious flaws. We would have to set site-based boundaries to make sure that sprite submitters aren't basically being considered "in the know" for 3D models, sounds and textures. They don't cross over entirely. However, somebody can also be fully capable of one style of ripping, such as submitting 40 zip files of portraits, as opposed to knowing how to put together a good sheet.

I think those are little grumbles that could be tinkered or generally just ignored. I feel the more established parts of the idea give a good grounding to then think from at least.

[Petie]

I'd like to also point out that this system of veteran members being invited to this new system is almost entirely unnecessary given that we can just bring trusted members on as staff for the current system. In theory, we could work out a way to limit access to only one or a subset of sites but in reality, if they're already trusted enough to be added to the staff team, I feel like we can probably trust them not to overstep their bounds as well.

[Magma MK-II]

Right now, how many users are able to bypass the queue? Maybe have more trusted users be able to bypass it would be enough.

[Petie]

The point of the instant submission option isn't to cut down on the number of items in the queue. It's to reward those who consistently submit high quality content with a way to get their submissions onto the site faster. We absolutely shouldn't be using it as a way to reduce workload as we'll inevitably end up with a lot of stuff that wouldn't have been approved going up in the end if it's given out too easily.

[Kendotlibero]

Isn't there anything we could do against spambots?

[Petie]

We're already doing everything there is to do but automated measures unfortunately only go so far. I have no idea why we're seeing such a surge of them all of a sudden though.