Auto-Approve Descriptions

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Hiya!

I've been away for a while, but upon returning to the cave recently noticed that description approval is apparently massively, massively backlogged. This had always been a problem before, and I guess it's not gotten any better!

 

So my suggestion: make descriptions auto-approved but add a line before user descriptions to make it clear they are unique addition written by users.

 

Alright, look. When you look at a dragon, what's the first thing you see? The name, usually. Most of the time when I view dragons I don't even bother scrolling all the way past the generic age/species text to check if there's a description to go with the name. For that reason, I'd say nasty names are a lot more likely to be seen by poor unwitting people then unpleasant descriptions.

 

And yet, even though names are usually the first things seen (and can be linked into quite long strings of naughty words, if wished...), they are auto-approved while descriptions, the usually lesser-viewed parts, have to go through month-long approval processes.

 

So my suggestion is: make description approval automatic. Treat it the same way names are treated: if someone gives a naughty description, their dragon bites the dust for it. Or even if approval isn't automatic, at the very least make it so that a set, low amount of other user's approvals can put it into accepted status, rather than having to wait for one of a very small, very overburdened group of moderators to be able to get to it and hit 'approved'--something a half-a-dozen other regular users have probably done ages before them.

 

Would auto/user-controlled description approval stand a chance of raising the amount of naughty or grammar-failed descriptions? Yes. But again, IF THOSE DESCRIPTIONS ARE FOUND THEY CAN BE REPORTED. And while obviously the naughty ones have to go I'd say the grammar ones aren't even that big a deal, I mean, I see dragons daily that have names like 'i liek cheeze' that lack capitals and proper spelling at all and they're totally acceptable, so if some youngster who can't spell properly or some goof who wants to make his dragon have horrible grammar for the lulz wants to make a poorly written description then... what's the big deal? Ok, so it's not pretty to read, but it's not going to traumatize/offend/scar any of the little kids that use this site.

 

The one big reason I can think of to keep the current system might be that what's offensive in descriptions is somewhat more variable then what's offensive in names. I mean, you can't really write a story about suicide or some other mature, not-kid-safe topic in names, but you can in descriptions. But AGAIN, these types of things could be reported if they seem risky--without having to approve every single description that comes in, the current description moderators could be left open to serve as a sort of judging panel to determine if descriptions reported for being too mature are acceptable or not.

 

And there's my prolonged fifty cents. Now, considering how long descriptions have been around (and how long they've been painfully slow), I'm assuming something like this was proposed before, and rejected. If that's the case then I guess I'll just have to bite my tongue and accept it, but unless someone can provide good logic for keeping the current system I'm going to have a sad about it. ;___;

Edited June 1, 2015 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Infinis]

The biggest issue with auto-approval, and the main reason it has been shot down before, is those naughty descriptions you mentioned.

 

You say they can be reported. But why would they be reported if users like them? I've seen some very inappropriate descriptions rated very highly. And how many people go around to dragon pages reading descriptions to report them from there, should one make it through an auto-approval system?

 

Meh. That's my two cents. ^^ If you are really wanting your descriptions approved faster please feel free to PM myself, Nix, or Sock your scroll name and we can go through them that way.

[HeatherMarie]

Agree with Infinis.

 

And really, it's not just naughty stuff that make descriptions not be approved. If they were auto-approved, you'd see TONS of "descriptions" that are actually song lyrics, or "cl*ck my ...", or things are are against description guidelines. There's no easy way for an automated system to check for all of those things.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

You say they can be reported. But why would they be reported if users like them? I've seen some very inappropriate descriptions rated very highly.

Well, isn't the same true for names? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure I've seen some mildly inappropriate names that have made me giggle and thus not made me inclined to report them. By your reasoning names should have to pre-approved to for the fear of people liking the bad ones.

 

And again--if less people are reading the descriptions to catch the bad ones, then that means they're not being seen/causing harm anyway, and isn't that the whole reasoning behind the approval process--to prevent harm? Can't really hurt people if nobody ever notices the descriptions in the first place. I mean yes they're still BAD, but if nobody's even seen them to report them in the first place, then, uh... well, nobody's seen them. X'D

 

As for the other poster's concerns about song lyrics/'go view my whatever' things--again, report if you find them and they're bad, just like you would with names...? Not sure why song lyrics are off limits anyway, unless copyright issues are somehow a big concern (although lots of sites post up lyrics...), considering people use snatches of lyrics in names often. And the 'check this out' things are only bad if they link to something truly hostile, in which case forget just killing the dragon, take down the jerk's whole scroll.

[Dolphinsong]

Names are a ton easier to report than discriptions as often times they are discovered by looking at lineages. Descriptions are not so easily found.

[KageSora]

I figure names are better for auto-approve because, honestly, what's the worst damage you can do with a single name? A few naught words, some slurs? If you get a bunch of names you can write out something very naughty.

 

But with a description, that gives you a lot more freedom to write out something very against the rules. You get a lot more room to do that.

 

 

And, with names really the biggest thing is that the name might contain something offensive. There are so many more rules for the descriptions.

 

I often see descriptions that break those rules but aren't nasty or anything. Those should be rejected because they go against the guidelines, but they don't technically have anything nasty in them.

 

 

Auto-approve would just never catch all the potential ways to abuse them...

 

 

 

tl;dr: It's a lot easier to abuse descriptions than names.

[Nine]

I've always supported the idea of some users having the power to approve of descriptions, but auto-accepting them would make me really nervous.

 

I think people would be a lot more harsher on what an appropriate description is if they were auto'd; I can see overly sensitive fellows reporting all my dragons in one fell swoop and getting them all deleted in a day. Then they'd want my scroll burned. And me along with it.

 

While "good" and "bad" descriptions vary according to opinion, with a (unfortunately long) wait time I can at least gauge reactions based on comments and try to streamline the description to appease those who would be offended. If things were auto-accepted, people would be marching me straight to the shooting gallery so to say =p

[TCA]

See, I suggested auto-approving descriptions for users who have 20 approved descriptions, because they're likely to know the guidelines and less likely to abuse the system. I still support that. But not just autoapproving right off the bat.

[coltzen]

I LOVE the idea of having descriptions auto-approved, or approved after a certain amount of users approve it. Maybe a description would have to have a certain number of points (with a approval adding a point, a rejection taking away a point) before it automatically gets put up.

 

I also think the guidelines are a bit strict. I mean, as long as the description isn't rude, inappropriate, is advertising and is actually about the dragon what does it matter? Who cares about spelling/grammar/etc. Hardly anyone looks at dragon descriptions apart from the owner, and personally I wouldn't throw a fuss if someone else's dragon's description has a spelling mistake in it.

[lightningsky]

agree with the poster above me.

 

this would be nice if there was something to control it in some way. like with some kind of points system or people who have a certain number of descriptions already. just would make things move faster and give more people a chance to have them i guess.

[Lythiaren]

Just going to post in here to point out one thing on the subject of "oh just report offensive names!":

 

I've seen an entire scroll full of dragons with sexually suggestive names (using words that got past the auto-filter) before and reported it directly to a moderator. I was informed that it was pointed out to TJ. Examples I remember off the top of my head were "she's always wet" and "big black [er... part]".

 

The scroll remained untouched until it auto-namewiped for inactivity several months later.

 

So the name reporting stuff isn't working very well, unless someone in the very short chain dropped the ball in this particular case. So putting descriptions into that same kind of system? Eeeeeeeeeeeeh.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Lythiaren

[KageSora]

I also think the guidelines are a bit strict. I mean, as long as the description isn't rude, inappropriate, is advertising and is actually about the dragon what does it matter? Who cares about spelling/grammar/etc. Hardly anyone looks at dragon descriptions apart from the owner, and personally I wouldn't throw a fuss if someone else's dragon's description has a spelling mistake in it.

Uh, most people who don't want to break their brain reading something that looks like a brain-damaged monkey tried to write?

 

I would be annoyed as hell if decent spelling/grammar/punctuation weren't required, and I don't even read them that often. It drives me, and plenty of others I'm sure, NUTS to see ppl tring 2 typ3 pargafs eik dis.

 

If we had no rules for spelling/punctuation/grammar, you can bet that there would be descriptions written entirely like that just because the owner wanted to write like an idiot.

 

 

Now, really, I don't see a huge problem with a typo or two myself, those happen! But I figure the rules about spelling/punctuation/grammar are more to prevent entire descriptions written in chatspeak or something.

 

I've seen descriptions when I review them where it's like they have no idea what punctuation is or that certain words need to be capitalized. They also seem iffy on what a space bar does. And it looks like they didn't eve try to spell anything correctly.

 

 

 

 

Personally, I'd rather see some 'description mods' who are basically regular members but who have the power to approve/reject descriptions over an auto-accept system.

 

 

Or maybe members who have X number of approved descriptions could get bumped to the front of the line to get looked at first?

 

But I just would NOT want to see them auto-approved...

 

 

And you can bet that it'd only be a matter of time before we'd have dragons with descriptions that look like something out of a porn story getting auto-approved--some of them that looked like they came out of a badly-written porn story, the kind written by 12 year olds who have no idea what they're talking about.

[Lythiaren]

badly-written porn story, the kind written by 12 year olds who have no idea what they're talking about.

The funniest part about this is that ~Link Removed~sometimes they will steal porn and rearrange it.[/url] :V

Edited September 26, 2011 by _Z_

[elynne]

I submitted two descriptions and gave up on the process, after waiting -months- to get them approved. It's disheartening to hear that the process has not improved. -Something- needs to be done. Reducing the number of approvals needed would probably help. Allowing people with X number of approved descriptions to need fewer approvals for later descriptions would help (5 approved descriptions = 10 less approvals needed; 10 approved = 15 less, or something like that).

 

As it is, it's a nifty idea that is essentially -worthless- because of the ridiculous backlog.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

this would be nice if there was something to control it in some way. like with some kind of points system or people who have a certain number of descriptions already. just would make things move faster and give more people a chance to have them i guess.

Haha, yes, this. I have I kid you not well over 500 dragons with approved descriptions on my scroll. Can't I be trusted to know what's ok in descriptions or not at this point? l'D

[Shanthaia]

While I have tons of not yet approved description and do see that we have an issue here - I do not think ,even if all the bad word, inappropiate content and horribel grammar issues could be worked out with an automated system, that the breed specifics in descriptions can be handled by a machine. A description fitting perfectly fine for a whiptail may not be a suiting description for a stone. A description for a water dragon does not necassarily fit for an ember dragon - how would a machine be able to disdiguish what would be completly against breed description?

[purplehaze]

To someone new to the site or just casually visiting, it is not immediately apparent that the dragon description for each dragon is written by the user. So I can understand why TJ wants to set the kind of standards he does.

 

I know that description approvals have been a problem ever since I joined the site -- and there were far fewer dragons then! I think there needs to be something done, but for all the reasons mentioned above, plus this one, I do not think auto-approvals are the answer.

 

I think having moderators whose only job is to approve descriptions makes much more sense.

[ThatDeadGirl]

I don't think it's just bad words that make up the "naughty" ones. I just saw Socky post something the other day about people that make their dragons rape other dragons. So it's not just boo-boo- words that they're trying to avoid. And relying on people to report stuff like that isn't a reliable way to make sure that stuff doesn't go up.

[Fengari]

I agree that completely auto-accepting should not be done. Relying solely on reports after something is published is no good, because, even if people did report everything that should not be, the only possible punishments (killing dragon, burning scroll) are only worth anything against people who actually care about the game, not against random trolls. As the descriptions, to an outsider, look like an integral part of the site (no obvious disclaimers) it is logical that TJ wants to have control about what is put into the descriptions.

 

Still, I think it should be possible to make a system with enough safeguards that it keeps away the trolls.

 

What if there are two seperate approval systems?

A 'faster' one which relies on the approval of other players, and the system like it is now for people who don't qualify for that system.

 

To have your description go through the faster system, you should first have had 10 descriptions approved in a row (so no disapprovals in beween them). That should keep away the random trolls, too much work...

Then, your description needs to get a score of 10 where a positive review is +1 and a negative is -3 and needs to have been up for review for at least 24 hours. This to avoid that people get their friends to be online the moment they submit the description to all approve it before anyone else sees it.

There should also be a report system built in so the really nasty and bad can be stopped and acted upon.

 

People are only able to approve descriptions in the 'faster' system if they also qualify for it, of course.

[Xythus]

Don't forget about people who aren't quite english users and don't know any better. So they will accidently break a rule when they try to describe a dragon (as the guidelines say it must be in English) so we might have some weird symbols / languages as descriptions...

[KageSora]

The funniest part about this is that sometimes they will steal porn and rearrange it. :V

...Wow, that's... I thought I'd seen some bad stuff on DA, but wow. I'd snip that link if I were you...

 

What if there are two seperate approval systems?

A 'faster' one which relies on the approval of other players, and the system like it is now for people who don't qualify for that system.

 

To have your description go through the faster system, you should first have had 10 descriptions approved in a row (so no disapprovals in beween them). That should keep away the random trolls, too much work...

Then, your description needs to get a score of 10 where a positive review is +1 and a negative is -3 and needs to have been up for review for at least 24 hours. This to avoid that people get their friends to be online the moment they submit the description to all approve it before anyone else sees it.

There should also be a report system built in so the really nasty and bad can be stopped and acted upon.

 

People are only able to approve descriptions in the 'faster' system if they also qualify for it, of course.

The problem, though, is what Infinis mentioned--sometimes, descriptions that very much break the rules get high approval from users. Probably because they find it amusing or something, but don't reject it despite it breaking the rules...

Edited September 26, 2011 by KageSora

[Fuzzbucket]

I think autoapprove would be REALLY risky. And I do try and review descriptions whenever I have time, and I too am sick of

this iz mi first dragon and i luv it it is blue

Or even better, not long ago:

This is a waterhorse dragon

Well - yes. And?

But this may make a BIG dent. I think it got to be a backlog thing more than anything.

 

IF there were to be ANY sort of autoapprove, I think 20 consecutive approves would be a minimum level. But heck - who would ever get one ? I am pretty dull and harmless - but I got a mod reject once, because Socky didn't understand my description....

 

You'd also probably need a "report" button on the description page on the scroll - and can you IMAGINE the number of people who would abuse that ?

Edited September 26, 2011 by fuzzbucket

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

See, I suggested auto-approving descriptions for users who have 20 approved descriptions, because they're likely to know the guidelines and less likely to abuse the system. I still support that. But not just autoapproving right off the bat.

 

I over all support this idea, because I have so many descriptions backlogged. But of course there are all of the people who would use it to make fun of other users, or put inappropriate language in them. Or even the inevitable, "This dragon is very purple," as Fuzzbucket mentioned. There's a balance we haven't figured out yet, but the system we have now really isn't working. The only real way to get it done quickly is to go bug a mod. But if we have certain restrictions like TheCompleteAnimorph suggested, then that would rule out the immediate spamers.

Edited September 26, 2011 by HawktalonOfRiverClan

[Oddsoxdi]

I was all excited about writing descriptions when I first joined, but seeing the backlog THEN discouraged me on it, but NOW???

 

I'm voting for auto-approval after a certain number of approved descriptions. If 'voting' really means anything.

 

@Lyth - uhhhm just

[Renorei]

I think the one thing that would do the MOST good for the description backlog is to give us more space to write comments, or to allow us to edit the user's text and save it. Right now you can edit the text but it won't be saved. The reason I don't review descriptions more often is because frequently I run across a description that honestly needs a lot of help, but there just isn't enough space to tell them all the things they need to fix, and if I simply edit the text, it isn't going to be saved.