Auto-Approve Descriptions

[GalaxyPassion13]

Someone's probably already commented on this, but honestly it's late and I'm too lazy to fish through all the existing topics on this thread...

Anyways, why not just have something that catches inappropriate words or concepts or word that could potentially be used in a unlikable way? Then, descriptions containing these would be sent for approval, and it clears up the wait for those innocent descriptions. I understand that people could slip around this, but then again there is always that report button.

I don't fully support this, as people could easily slip around the rules, but wouldn't a censor at least discourage that? Anyways, that's just my thoughts.

[CNR4806]

Someone's probably already commented on this, but honestly it's late and I'm too lazy to fish through all the existing topics on this thread...

Anyways, why not just have something that catches inappropriate words or concepts or word that could potentially be used in a unlikable way? Then, descriptions containing these would be sent for approval, and it clears up the wait for those innocent descriptions. I understand that people could slip around this, but then again there is always that report button.

I don't fully support this, as people could easily slip around the rules, but wouldn't a censor at least discourage that? Anyways, that's just my thoughts.

If you mean censors they're already in place to catch blatant offensive content, and censors are not omnipotent to the point that they can be the only line of defense against abuse. I don't necessarily have to use the exact words or phrases commonly in use if I'm to make my way around a censor; a simple euphemism is enough to slip it past the radar.

 

And yes, you can already put things that are normally unacceptable in the names you give to dragons in such ways as long as no one finds out and report them. Now imagine that 32 character limit upped to 1000.

Edited May 5, 2014 by CNR4806

[XiziX]

+1

 

Would love an Auto-Approve thing. I tried to make a silly description that made me giggle that matched the name of my dragon... I think it was to my Dubstep dragon and the description had to do with me writing some "dubstep" bzzzzts in it for how the dragon spoke. Because he was actually crazy and obsessed with the music Genre.

 

...but people who "reviewed" it said it wasn't cannon and didn't make for a good description at all. Told me to be "more creative" and "fitting" in their comments. So I don't get to have something that was completely harmless because others simply didn't find the same amusement in it that I did.

 

Excuuuuse me for not being "cannon" in my descriptions. Geeze. >:[

 

Edit: Sorry, ADP, I removed it 'cause I gave up on waiting for the approval. ;o;

Edited May 10, 2014 by Lyxii

[angelicdragonpuppy]

If it was just users rejecting it, that's not a sure sign the moderators will reject it, too. A staff reject will be clearly differentiated from the normal type and is the only one where you'd have to try again--you don't need to rewrite just because another user disliked it (although, listening to the comments is important because sometimes people do give useful advice and catch typos and stuff )

 

What was the description?

Edited May 9, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Dragonbells]

I am in total support of auto-accepted message.

All these problems the rest of you mention have more to do with the varying degrees of control than real moderation. In dragon names and in the forums, people have a right to post what they wish first and action is taken only when the content is suspect. If a user has a problem with it, the viewer reports, the moderator reviews, then takes action if it is necessary. Innocent until proven guilty, in other words. Can you imagine the backlog that would happen if a user's forum post had to go under review every time they wanted to post? Ridiculous! Absurd! Micromanagement extreme!

 

And yet, for some reason, there is a standard here that is the exact opposite for descriptions - it must be suspect, withheld, nitpicked, and finally judged before deemed "innocent". Why? Why do the users need to exert control over another’s freedom to write as they desire, when it’s already been proven to be an ineffective method in other parts of the site (and most all other forums and games on the internet)?

 

As it stands right now, I can’t even call "Describe your dragon" a site feature, because it isn’t. It’s more of a privilege for forum users, since those are the only ones who get attention from the mods, which makes it incredibly deceptive to users who don’t visit the forums and have no idea what’s taking so long to get their writings approved.

 

As for the strict rules of describing dragons, most of them are wholly unnecessary.

Why do they need to be only third person? As someone else pointed out, we’re not looking at the actual dragon, but a record of it. So why wouldn’t the “dragonmaster” be allowed to put an “I” or “me” in there, say to describe how he/she caught it? Why can’t the dragon be allowed to speak? How can a user describe a dragon correctly when we are now developing an encyclopedia with new information that could make the description incorrect in the future?

Why would the dragon descriptions have to be cannon when the names do not? Some of them have names that are not spelled correctly, that have nothing to do with the dragon, they have lineages based on song lyrics and phrases, entirely unrelated to the DC universe. And that’s okay. We love those kinds, because they can be clever and unique. To be clear, I'm not against descriptions being about the dragon, but I am simply pointing out the lack of consistency in other aspects of the game, so enforcing it so tightly here seems pointless and rather unfair.

 

Please, make dragon descriptions the fun, creative feature they were intended to be, while at the same time still giving veteran players an extra something to do:

 

+Auto-accept all dragon descriptions

+ On the dragon’s page, a note in bold letters will explain to viewers that the information below is a user-added description.

+ Veteran users can still browse descriptions, only instead of accepting/rejecting descriptions for public posting, they can make advisement to better the writing, and the user can take or leave it. OR they can just browse for offensive language/non-English descriptions and report it, hopefully with a mandatory explanation, which can then be reviewed as it normally would.

 

I think you will find, when you let go of your need to control what others write because of your paranoia that someone could say something that’s offensive, this isn’t nearly as important as you thought it was. Will people make idiotic descriptions? Of course. Will it hurt you? No. Does it affect the game? No. Can you report it? Yes. It's so simple, guys. Don't let what should be an excellent feature remain the big, complex, judgmental problem it's been for too long. Just let it go....❄

 

[AppleMango]

Alright so I have skimmed over this topic and not completely read it but yeah.

 

I agree with TheCompleteAnimorph's idea of auto-approved descriptions for people with at least 20 approved descriptions.

 

Also I have this suggestion; Instead of being auto-approved they get approved if say maybe 10 users approve it? Or with a rating system like if one person says no, 11 have to say yes for it to appear, but then the moderators have to let it be permanent. Does that make sense? It seems like a win-win.

 

The people get their descriptions "approved" so that they can be read, but they are still moderated.

 

Also, ones with higher amounts of rejections would be put to the top of the priority list for moderators to review?

 

I'm not sure if I make sense completely so I'll give a few examples.

 

Example One

A description gets approved by 9 people, then someone rejects it, so it needs 2 more approvals to be shown.

 

Example Two

A description gets 9 rejections, it goes to the top of the list for the moderators.

 

Example Three

A description gets 10 approvals, it is shown but will still needs approval to be permanent, however it will be lower on the list for the moderators than one with 12 approvals and 2 rejections.

 

 

I hope I make sense so if I don't please pm me so I can try and explain again.

[bluesonic1]

I would have thought that there was already some sort of sorting system that the mods had available when approving/rejecting descriptions, such that those with high numbers of approvals or rejections get attention first, whilst at the same time descriptions with low approvals/rejections get shown most often to normal members. This way the descriptions are being filtered by many members by the time they reach the mods, making their job easier and essentially making them faster.

 

I also strongly agree with TheCompleteAnimorph's idea of auto-approved descriptions for people with at least 10-20 approved descriptions. I also agree with others who have disagreed on descriptions being accepted based solely on reaching a set number of member approvals- just because as many have pointed out, members tend to like those naughty descriptions that shouldn't be getting through in the first place.

 

Other thing that many have raised that I strongly agree on, is getting more staff dedicated to just this job involved. It's a bit unfair that the regular & global mods have to tend to the forum and descriptions on the site- it's a huge job.

[CNR4806]

[stuff about how moderation is evil, the description system is elitist and so on]

If you're having a problem with descriptions having to reach a certain standard of writing instead of being an FFA 1337 textspeak LOLCAT dump, you're having a problem with the description guidelines, which is AFAIK not why this suggestion exists.

 

The biggest problem with the current description system, and why this is suggested in the first place (along with introducing dedicated description mods), is the lack of moderators to adequately deal with the snowballing description queue, not with the standards of descriptions that we have to follow, which this thread has been trying to strike the balance to preserve and with people wondering whether it can be preserved without moderator approvals.

 

I am also fairly certain that I have said more than once why descriptions and names are not alike despite the temptation to think that way.

Edited November 14, 2014 by CNR4806

[angelicdragonpuppy]

On the dragon’s page, a note in bold letters will explain to viewers that the information below is a user-added description.

 

Actually something like this would be pretty neat. It could even be as simple as putting "Notes:" before the description part. Just a little thing to distinguish where breed text ends and description text begins. This would both allow for more variable tenses (a change to 1st person wouldn't seem so out of place when it was broken off from the rest of the text, allowing for "I am the owner" or "I am the dragon" type descriptions), and would make it clearer which dragons are described and which aren't. Right now it's very easy to overlook described dragons, because on top of them being so rare to begin with, one can't always tell with a swift glance if there's custom description after all that text or not. X___x

 

@CNR: I haven't read through this for a while, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the reasons were 1) much longer character length and 2) possibility for 'minor' issues like grammar / spelling mistakes which, while not bad in any way, ruin the feel of the site, right? In terms of the former I still don't really think it's a huge issue--I mean, we had those little awesome VDay cards earlier this year, which could fit enough text for people to be jerks (and not just on their dragon's pages, either, but to /other people/ directly), and I don't remember hearing of much chaos. As far as grammar and spelling goes, even mods make mistakes--just this week I resubmitted one or two older descriptions where a typo had been approved and needed to be fixed. So while it's a good way to catch things, it's not the perfect fix. Besides--if the above "notes" thing was added--hopefully it'd be clear that any such mistakes are user error rather than site error. ;o;

 

Overall though (as always!) anything that gets descriptions moving faster, whether it be this, description specific mods, or something else is good to me! Actually on top of that I wish there was a way to see descriptions integrated into the site more as a whole...

[morningglory17]

I think this is a good idea. The reason I was looking through this part of the forum was to see whether there was a thread about making the description rules less strict. I actually just tried to use the describe action for the first time today, and the threats to kill the dragon or burn your scroll were probably more harsh than some of the descriptions that people could make that break the rules. And really, if the description has minor spelling mistakes, codes, or is in first person, it isn't going to hurt anything. Neither would your dragon's description going against the breed's description or having it set in modern times. Making the description separated from the rest of the info on its' page is a good idea also, so people understand it was made by the owner of the dragon.

[CNR4806]

I think this is a good idea. The reason I was looking through this part of the forum was to see whether there was a thread about making the description rules less strict. I actually just tried to use the describe action for the first time today, and the threats to kill the dragon or burn your scroll were probably more harsh than some of the descriptions that people could make that break the rules. And really, if the description has minor spelling mistakes, codes, or is in first person, it isn't going to hurt anything. Neither would your dragon's description going against the breed's description or having it set in modern times. Making the description separated from the rest of the info on its' page is a good idea also, so people understand it was made by the owner of the dragon.

Dragon death and scroll-burning are restricted to extreme and blatant attempts to break description guidelines. Normal users are unlikely to get anything more than a moderator reject (meaning you have to submit again after correction).

 

Again, this is not a thread about whether the description guidelines are appropriate. It just suggests turning the description system from the current mod approval system to a "display first, report and remove/punish later if it violates the rules" system like names.

 

I'd strongly suggest making a seperate thread if you're having a problem with the guidelines.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

The fact that I made this thread in 2011 and we're still having the exact same backlog issues now is pretty indicative of how failed the current system is. :T

 

The last few events on DC have increasingly included message sending elements, with the ability to report naughty ones. That system seems to have worked quite well. I would like to see it added here.

 

(Plus maybe some type of normal description / written description indicator, like a line in between both sections, and the ability to save and comment on approved descriptions... but I digress)

[Pixxelation]

If this is to happen, then I think the entire description system needs an overhaul. DC is the only adoptables site I'm aware of that requires descriptions to be approved before appearing, but it also is the only one where the descriptions appear as the rest of the site's text does without indication that it is user-created, rather than in a white box or with some sort of indication that users wrote the info given. This makes them seem more official, and if the approval process is to be done away with, I think something should be done to make it clear that descriptions are not official site text.

 

The system does need fixing in some form, however. The description backlog has returned; I have descriptions that have been waiting months now to be approved.

Edited January 1, 2015 by PieMaster

[MessengerDragon]

One of my description is going to hit 1 year unapproved soon. I agree that an auto-approve after a set number of 'approved'-s would be useful, and would make people more interested in writing descriptions.

[Pixxelation]

Personally, I'd rather see the introduction of a large team of description moderators. I feel that would better retain the site's description system, and also streamline the process.

[Lurhstaap]

If this is to happen, then I think the entire description system needs an overhaul. DC is the only adoptables site I'm aware of that requires descriptions to be approved before appearing, but it also is the only one where the descriptions appear as the rest of the site's text does without indication that it is user-created, rather than in a white box or with some sort of indication that users wrote the info given. This makes them seem more official, and if the approval process is to be done away with, I think something should be done to make it clear that descriptions are not official site text.

 

The system does need fixing in some form, however. The description backlog has returned; I have descriptions that have been waiting months now to be approved.

Pie basically said what I wanted to say. I think DC ought to switch to a description system more akin to the industry standard. It would be less work and confusion for ALL involved, both users and DC staff.

[MessengerDragon]

Personally, I'd rather see the introduction of a large team of description moderators. I feel that would better retain the site's description system, and also streamline the process.

This could work too.

[Obscure_Trash]

At this point in time, I support auto-approving over description moderators. xP

[Fuzzbucket]

At this point in time, I support auto-approving over description moderators. xP

I'm with Sock. But with a report button added.

[whitebaron]

Having seen the actually pretty low numbers of descriptions currently active and pending compared to the userbase/total amount of dragons, I'd rather have no auto-accept system, but more mods.

 

The reasoning is, that with human mods, its a lot less likely to devolve into something like "This dragon is very fat and eats a lot." being approved, just to get something described, but still means something. Also, the system could well self-sustain itself, if users with a high amount of approved descriptions (herk, dimar, theres quite some more...?) could opt-in to become mods just because they have many descs approved.

Edited January 2, 2015 by whitebaron

[Fuzzbucket]

Having seen the actually pretty low numbers of descriptions currently active and pending compared to the userbase/total amount of dragons, I'd rather have no auto-accept system, but more mods.

 

The reasoning is, that with human mods, its a lot less likely to devolve into something like "This dragon is very fat and eats a lot." being approved, just to get something described, but still means something.

And what's wrong with that as a description, if that's what its owner wants to put ?

[annageckos]

I have a few approved descriptions but I've been putting off writing more because I do not want to add to the backlog. I don't know what the best suggestion is but I do support almost anything that will take some of the work off the too few mods that are currently doing descriptions.

[pinkgothic]

I have a few approved descriptions but I've been putting off writing more because I do not want to add to the backlog.

I just want to second this. I still have a lot of dragons I'd like to describe, but the idea that I'll just make the backlog even worse has dampened that for months.

 

I think PieMaster makes a good point (though I'm sure it's been made before by someone else, but I'm about to disappear and can't check back until later; so if you were the first person to mention it, sorry! I'm not ignoring you intentionally Socky even said something similar earlier in this thread).

 

Maybe the user-submitted text could be separated from the dragon description in two ways (simultaneously):

 

1) a blank line between the two blocks of text,

2) a little line of text reading For this particular dragon, additional notes seem to have been compiled by the scroll-owner: or something along those lines.

 

 

I dimly recall there were mentions about a year ago that there were description-related changes in the pipeline for updates to the site, maybe that's related to this suggestion. (Does someone have a link to that post at hand - or can conversely tell me I'm finally going insane and it doesn't exist ?)

 

[ Edit: Found the first (in-thread) mention of the user description labelling. ]

Edited January 2, 2015 by pinkgothic

[Laura-Borealis]

And what's wrong with that as a description, if that's what its owner wants to put ?

There shouldn't be anything wrong with it. It meets the description guidelines.

 

This is just an aside, but I've sometimes felt there are invisible hoops we're supposed to jump through with descriptions. The guidelines are there; it's easy enough to write a description that works within them. I have an unapproved description myself that is something similar to "This dragon is fat and eats a lot," in that it's short and simple like that. But I have two rejections (with no comment), one abstention with the comment "Do you have anything more to say about her?" and nine accepts, one of which has a comment including "Some more detail or personality would be good." (The other comments are along the lines of "Haha, funny" so at least some checkers appreciated it. )

 

There's no guideline that says a description has to be a certain length or give a specified amount of detail. I don't know why I got two rejections, since my grammar is fine, there's nothing offensive, etc. but I suspect they're for the same reason as the two comments - it's not long enough or detailed enough to meet the invisible standard. Which is, frankly, annoying to me...

 

As far as the topic at hand, I fully support auto-approval, with a report button and a more clear indication that the descriptions are user-written (to protect DC).

 

I imagine that moderators will have a much easier time checking reported naughty descriptions than going through the vast backlog.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Maybe the user-submitted text could be separated from the dragon description in two ways (simultaneously):

 

1) a blank line between the two blocks of text,

2) a little line of text reading For this particular dragon, additional notes seem to have been compiled by the scroll-owner: or something along those lines.

Either of those would be great!