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DO NOT CHANGE MY TAGS. by Kadath
Just don't.
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- General
Comments
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They need an opt out setting. I consider editing my tags to be invasive, and possibly a method of trolling. They may try to defend it as a community feature or something, but not everyone wants to have other people edit their content.
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https://forums.weasyl.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?7738
You can read about their intent with the feature and leave your own comments about it here. They do want users to be able to edit tags because it makes it much easier to find content, but they also don't want it bending content creators out of shape, so the feature is going to be improved upon in the future... so give them any input you've got on how you'd like to see it changed.
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Never mind, seems they've closed the thread. The mods for the site can still be contacted if you have any particular questions or problems and you can report inappropriate or spammed tags on your own submissions though, and I get the feeling a lot of ground has already been covered in those 35 pages.
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They poked me on twitter about it and just said 'we already discussed it' and linked it to that forum. Seems that's that!
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We're not done with tagging, although the forum thread was closed as it had ceased to be productive.
Whilst we have no intention to eliminate community tagging (either directly or by stealth), there's a lot we can do to improve the tagging situation and we're taking the feedback from users on board.
Where we go from here will be making the tagging system smarter (so there's less reason for users to tag things) and minimising the abuse potential if users do tag things.
In the meantime, if users are abusing community tagging by adding tags that are inaccurate, garbage, abuse, etc. let us know. We take this stuff seriously and pride ourselves on running a tight ship when it comes to moderation.
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Unfortunately, trying to correct the tags ourselves makes the mods think the artists are the bad actors. :(
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Not if you're removing abuse/junk. Reporting when it happens helps us though, since we can use that information and revoke the tagging privileges of problematic users.
We do, however, have an issue with artists removing relevant tags. That said, I'm only aware of one instance of administrative action being taken against an artist for doing so.
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I think someone's confusing the two. Maybe commenter submitted tags should be approved by the artist first, in which it's an up/down/report function. You'll get a ton more data that way!
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The problem there is you're getting in to disable by stealth territory. In fact, one of the things we've observed from sites that require artist approval for tags is that people love the control on their own submissions, yet complain bitterly that tag blacklisting is worthless because of other people exercising that control.
I'll also add that we can pull data on the tagging activity of users and removal of tags, but like anything else the best way to get our attention is to tell us there's a problem.
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So... I just learned this is a thing here, and have to admit it's shocking to allow tagging to anyone but the artist. The argument of the accuracy of the tags is really a moot point; if the artist decides to tag something with ONLY the tags he/she feels are relevant, then that's that. No one should be able to change that artist's choice of representing their work. There's good reason for that too; some artists do not wish to be known for drawing certain things, so they will purposely omit those tags from their work to ensure it does not come up in searches. If users then come along and add those tags, the artist starts getting unwanted attention.
It should come down to a simple choice for each user on their profile: Allow users to edit tags? Yes/No. Flickr does such a thing, and I opted out because random users would add tags to my images that I didn't want. Tags are basically part of the art or writing - adding or altering them is no different than drawing a moustache on someone's character because you think it looks good.
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No one should be able to change that community's choice of classifying a work. There's good reason for that too; some users do not wish to see certain things, so they will purposely add those tags from works to ensure it does not come up in searches. If artists then come along and remove those tags, the users starts getting unwanted results.
Tags are basically not part of the art or writing - adding or altering them is no different than describing a work in different terms to show what it contains.
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I can see the merit of that argument as well (as I have, many times, gotten art from searches I would rather have not seen). The problem is the original issue of artists not wanting certain tags is still valid as well. For example, I know an artist who draws amazing paws, but does not want to be known for that.
Perhaps the solution is a hybrid of the two - letting users have the right to modify, while giving artists the right to override or blacklist certain tags?
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There are plenty of abuses either-way. But I don't like the idea of giving artists more power over classifications any more than I like the idea of allowing random users to modify the work itself.
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Therein is the real issue; abuse of the privilege. In this case though (and using the library metaphor again) this is not a public gallery where artists works are simply chosen to host, but rather, one where the artists have control over which works to host and how. Since they have say over all other aspects of how the art is portrayed, they should have final say over the tags as well. That's why sites that allow artists to retain full ownership of the content (like Flickr) allow the artist to also control how their images are tagged. By default, anyone can change them, but an artist can opt to lock them for more control, and's a pretty clean solution.
Bottom line: Dealing with tagging abuse from artists would be a tiny fraction of tagging abuses from users, and thus a lot easier on staff.
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Just look at the worthless FA tag system for an idea of how bad artist-controlled tagging is. (For a great tag system, see e621 [though artists go flipping crazy over something as simple as 'tag what you see'].)
As far as artists having a say, you're pretty wrong there. The artists don't have that level of control. E.g.: they can't change the background to "go with" the art piece, nor can they modify the layout of the page where it is displayed to emphasize the work. There is the artwork; it is artist controlled. There is the description and title; likewise, natch. Finally, there's the website and database that hosts the art, which is not supposed to be artist controlled, as it should be setup for users. The tags are part of that website, they're there for the users.
An artist who wants complete and total control of tags, website layout, etc., isn't looking for a gallery like Weasyl, they're looking for their own website.
Just look at the artist who blocked me because, while their work contained X and Y and was tagged as such. It should have been tagged X_Y as well to be blacklistable and searchable, as X Y is a phrase. They didn't like when I added that tag though, for some unintelligible reason (I can't even ask them).
The situation is so bad that I've given up on tagging, most people have. It's really hurting Weasyl's userbase. Artists complain that it is not as busy as other websites, but they seem to get REALLY up in arms about anything that makes the site easier for a user to find/not find art on.
Bottom line in response: Tagging abuse isn't a problem, but broken and useless artist-controlled tagging systems is.
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Irbisgreif... you are arguing as if I don't understand or see your point here - I do, honest I do. And in a perfect world, either your idea of how tagging should work, OR mine would work great. The issue is that it's not a perfect world, and that people (artists OR users) are going to tag incorrectly. There IS no perfect fix here, and thus neither of our ideas is really a good one. I stand by mine because I believe the number of artists who would inappropriately tag an image is a far smaller number than the number of users that would inappropriately tag an image. In your argument or example (and good example, by the way), the user is always good guy. Just keep in mind that the user can be the bad guy too.
This isn't about right or wrong, it's about opinions, so myself or anyone else thinking as I do is not "pretty wrong" - we are simply one side of a multi-sided argument for which there IS no clear right or wrong. How YOU personally feel is just another opinion in the bucket.
I feel the pain of the administrators here on this one because it's not easily fixed. And look at the incredible feedback one journal has created! It's one of those things where there are always going to be opposing views.
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Consider that the majority of the arguments against community tagging come down to the following, all quotes from this thread:
if the artist decides to tag something with ONLY the tags he/she feels are relevant, then that's that. No one should be able to change that artist's choice of representing their work.
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"Community Tagging" is a pseudonym for "Authorized Trolling" I think. What the hell were they thinking?
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Seriously though, thats either super Naive or super dumb of the site creators.
Anyway, I stand by my view that a portion of the system intended for users should serve the users. Tagging should be community based.
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And those are all just as valid as your point. :) That's what I mean - it's not a clear or easy issue because opinions vary so greatly.
Likewise, I still stand by my opinion of the matter. It's up to the mods to decide where to put the dividing line, and that could mean less users, or less artists depending on which group it offends.
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Say, here's an example.
Archie the Artist feels that a picture with a person being shot in it shouldn't be tagged snuff, murder, or shooting, because it's not a fetish piece. They remove these tags, block anyone who adds them, and prevent them from going up. This kind of thing happens all the time on a site where the artist can control the tags completely.
Sammy the Soldier loves furry art, but he got shot at in Afghanistan and gets triggered by seeing art depicting guns and gunshots. He solves this by blacklisting snuff, murder, shooting. That way he won't see that art and can be a member of the community.
Sammy the Soldier has a really shitty day when he runs across Archie's picture.
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Make a tag change submission like a pull request in Git. The artist gets to approve the suggested tag changes. Users can still have an effect, but at the artists' comfort. If you already posted a suggestion, then you merely edit your suggestion until it has been accepted or rejected. If rejected, the tag suggestions would be destroyed so they aren't wasting space in a database.
Suggestions would be a separate page apart from other submission updates like comments, in order to prevent spamming other pages. If a user updates their tag suggestions, it should not send an additional update.
Furthermore, bulk-rejection of tag suggestions should be allowed. If the feature isn't present, it won't stop people from bulk-deleting tags.-
And this suggestion is just a mode followed if the artist submitted with the option to audit tags.
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Tempted to add "bro" to the tags on this journal.
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You make cool stuff, it should be easier to find - that's what the tags are for!
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Tags are fine! However I don't like people adding stuff to my tags. I prefer to have control over my submissions.
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You could, through tags, imply something false. Such as adding transgender to an image of a cis person, and make you think they might be transgendered. Tags can be very subversive. You must use this power only for good.
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Oh
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It's also very important that it be possible to NOT find art if people want to blacklist certain things they don't want to see.
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You can prevent people from removing your tags, but people are free to add theirs, the idea is to add more so it is easier to find, for you know those artists that refuse to tag any of their art.
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I understand the intent, and appreciate that my tags aren't removable, but I still don't like people adding their own tags to my stuff.
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Also to the comment below from Feilen, the tags get sort alpha numerically. Although I fail to understand what the problem is if it helps people find your stuff. While yes it can be misused, you can always go in and delete those added tags and I doubt it will get misused, this is not exactly FA
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Don't forget, it also helps blacklist users avoid things they don't want to see, that's a big part of why it's important to have community tagging and for tags to be complete and accurate, regardless.
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Agreed because I really like to avoid things like vore, rape, and etc. and if an artist doesn't tag well, then it can come up in the thumbnails, and sometimes the thumbnails are not large enough to get a super clear image of what is going on :3
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Yeah. As someone who creates those things, I hope that people /don't/ come across it who don't want to. The better the filter, the less problems we all have.
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Current tags for this journal: "change don't my tags"
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I actually typed it up as 'don't change my tags' and I guess the system got confused, as don't had the apostrophe removed and got jumbled in there. shrug
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Tags are sorted alphabetically
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Tags are always displayed in alphabetical order and punctuation is stripped. To create multiple word tags you'll need to use underscores instead of spaces.
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See, that's an issue, too. Spaces in tags (with commas to separate them) isn't that novel a concept, and it just looks weird every time I go to tag something (you know, since my girlfriend is a sugar_glider and I'm a white-throated_woodrat. Or is it white_throated? Which brings us to....)
Then again, tags in general are almost entirely useless so long as they're as badly segmented as they are anyway. When searches for (for example) foot, feet, paw, footpaw, footpaws, feetpaws, and foot_fetish all turn up completely different results and the only way to find anything is to hope the artist tagged it the exact way you're searching for it, well, no one is ever going to find anything, and at some point you just give up on trying. I guess it's good that we're trying to get the community tagging thing figured out before unveiling a new and improved system, but it still kind of feels like a lot of drama over something no one even uses anyway.
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The main reason it appears like we're only concentrating on community tagging is that it's what users are most vocal about at this time, but it's not the only aspect of the system we're reviewing. We're still taking feedback about other things on board, including your comments here.
I do hope this doesn't sound like empty PR speak - as an admin my involvement is limited to collecting feedback and internal discussion, I'm not one of the folks implementing changes to the site software (or managing the development).
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An opt out feature seems like the obvious path... That way they can go on with their vision for it, and those who dislike the ability for public tagging can go on without it.
That way, the people that don't care about it probably won't even know the feature to turn it off exists, but the people that want it (off) can turn it off.idk
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And I imagine the default is that tag edits are allowed, and most may not care, but for those who do, they have the option. Win, win I'd say. Dunno why there's seemingly a lot of resistance to it.
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There's a couple of problems with an opt-out system:
- Tags are used to describe content for other systems on the site (currently search and blacklisting, possibly other things in future).
- Some artists do a good job of tagging their works descriptively, some artists don't.
Omitting a tag on a submission has the obvious implication that you can't find that submission using that tag. It also has the less obvious implication that you can't block that submission either.
Say you watch an artist and enjoy most of their works, but occasionally they post subject matter you don't like. They're also not one of the artists who do a good job of tagging. Normally community tagging picks up the slack, but they've opted out.
That leaves the following options:
1. Viewer has to suck it up (not good for the viewer).
2. Ignore the artist (not good for the artist).
3. Dump it on the mods (not good for anyone).The system as it currently stands is far from perfect - it has glaring limitations that we're well aware of. But solving them not as simple as an opt-out.
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thumbs up Thank you, someone that understands the aggravation of an artist not tagging things well if at all and not being able to avoid the content.
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At first I was annoyed at bad tagging from a database standpoint, when I realized the effect that bad tagging could have on blacklists, I lost all patience for artists who don't like tags being added.
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I both like an hate e621's method to tagging, because the tag what you can see causes problems when a character is a herm and it gets changed to shemale or something simply because those bits are not seen, which I find disrespectful to the characters creator, so I think that tags should be required to submit a piece like they are on SF, and only certain tags can be added by users, for things in such example when it comes to gender identity/sex of a character.
So there is definitely some trade off, in general I am for community tagging, when it reasonable. It is like gun control laws, people flip out we are taking their guns away, and all a lot of people are asking for is reasonable and rational laws, I think that should go for a lot of things people get worked up over <_<
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As much as e621s system annoyed me (and as much as it really tends to reward some nasty tag-names) I still find it better than the "well, I call my character a herm so I don't care how we're categorizing it here!" stuff~
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See that is where a trade off and compromise should be made simply because there are a lot of characters that are herms, but are improperly labeled because of the "tag what you see" phrasing, it is mostly effective, but definitely not perfect. Like labeling something as intersex, fine, but if the character is designed as a herm, then the character is a herm period. i don't stop being a male because my penis isn't showing, and same for females with small breasts.
That is my thing, so I avoid posting art that is ambiguous to e621.
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Thank you for taking time to respond to this. I can see you guys put a lot of thought into the current system. However, I kind of feel like the system is focused on the concern that artists won't use the tagging feature properly (if at all), and is less focused on the idea of users abusing tagging, or encroaching on what an artist feels is proper terminology for tags. I understand there's reporting to mods for tag abuse and such, but I still am not happy that anybody can go in and add tags to my work. Ultimately I feel like this is a system that favours users over creators. I'm not trying to come off as high and mighty, but I personally do not like people adjusting how I describe my work in my own gallery. To me it feels invasive, and potentially insulting depending on the terms used. Seeing the staff response on here and twitter, I can tell a lot of thought went into how the site is currently run, and that there will unlikely be a change made in the near future. I understand your reasoning, but respectfully I'm not too comfortable with the current system.
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Beyond "We're not removing community tagging completely", nothing is set in stone. We're in the process of drawing up plans to improve the system because we know it's not good enough as it currently stands. This is why we opened up discussion on the forums (until the thread went south), it's why we're engaging with users when they raise concerns about the system.
The tagging system as it currently stands isn't really focused on anything, it's just a dumb metadata feed for other systems to use. The staff mention things that affect the viewers a fair bit because the detrimental effects of poor tagging are less obvious to artists than "people can't find your stuff", but we're also collecting data on how community tagging is used in the wild, and we're trying to work out why seemingly innocuous tag alterations result in backlash (several of our staff have more technical backgrounds, and we may not think the same way as the artists using our site do). To some extent we're also dealing with culture shock, because tags have varying degrees of usefulness on other sites artists use or have used.
What we've been able to work out so far:
- The rate of abuse of community tagging seems to be tiny (with the caveat that what seems innocuous to the techs may not be considered as such by the artist).
- Synonyms being added using community tagging is an annoyance for various reasons, and particularly to artists like yourself who go to the effort of descriptively tagging their works. There should be no need to add synonyms at all, this is a failing of the tag system and we'll openly admit it.
- Some things simply have no place being added by other users, such as slurs and profanities.
- Some artists don't want other users to be able to add tags at all, regardless of the effects this has on viewers.
- Many submissions on the site aren't tagged very well, for any number of reasons. Having closed around 13% of the content reports filed on the site, I can definitely vouch for this one.
The outcome we're looking to achieve is one where community tagging only occurs if it adds value, and cannot easily be abused. Now this isn't an official announcement, roadmap or anything of the like, but the way I could see us achieving this goal is something like this:
- Make it as easy as possible for artists to descriptively tag their works, and implement "related tags" to take care of the synonymous tags issue.
This would likely require a mixture of UI improvements for the submission process in addition to policy and documentation work, but it wipes out low value community tagging that only occurs because of system deficiencies.
- Identify the easiest and most common abuse vectors, and where possible prevent their use.
An obvious way to do this would be to have a list of tags that can only be added by artists, it may also help to allow artists to tag submissions as not containing something.
- If all else fails, call in the mods.
I know people don't like doing it, and I know many of our users have had poor experiences trying to do so on other sites. But it's what we're there for, and we do take the job seriously.
Any improvements to the system won't happen immediately (we only have finite developer resources, and things like consultation and writing policies/documentation take time too), but the status quo can't continue indefinitely - and it won't. And always feel free to give us your feedback on this or any other aspect of how the site operates.
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I kind of feel like the system is focused on the concern that artists won't use the tagging feature properly (if at all)
This is a huge problem on most art sites. It makes life a pain for the users.
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Could there possibly be a verified taggers program or something? That to change tags you need to be accepted by an admin and sign somewhere that you would not abuse your tagging privilege? I could see that working, a few hundred people dedicated to tagging stuff, I'm sure it wouldn't solve the problem, but it'd be a big step. I think the biggest thing is worrying about what other people tag and having to maintain it on a post that you're done with. You created it you shouldn't have to police it as well.
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A thought I had on this:
Giving artists the option to verify and accept/reject suggested tag edits to their works. Give you a scenario:
-Someone sees one of Kadath's pics with Diamond and Puzzle in it.
-They notice that Puzzle isn't tagged.
-They try to add a Puzzle tag.
-Tags remain the same (or maybe get a temporary Puzzle tag), but the site informs them that a PM gets fired off to Kadath informing of the attempted tag change.
-Kadath gets the PM showing that someone's trying to add a Puzzle tag to that pic, with an option to Accept or Reject the added tag.
--Accept: The Puzzle tag gets added to the pic.
--Rejected: The tags stay the same (or revert if the temporary tag idea was used). Poor Puz! D:-
You're forgetting something important.
- Someone hates Puzzle, they just... hate seeing them. They blacklist Puzzle.
- The above occurs.
- The person gets upset that they can't actually stop seeing Puzzle even though they blacklist.
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So yeah... just learned this is a thing. I've always viewed tags as part of the art/writing - modifying them is no different than modifying the artwork.
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Do you complain when librarians move things to the right Dewey Decimal Number?
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No, but then I haven't used one of those things in 20 years. :P It's also not really a like for like comparison. Libraries are public institutions which house published works. Weasyl and other furry sites are hosting sites where an artist chooses to host their work, but retain full control of how it is hosted and presented (within the confines of the respective site's capabilities). It's more akin to an private art gallery, in which case the artist does retain most control of how their things are presented.
At any rate, as I said to your other comment, a hybrid system that satisfies both sides would be the best solution.
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"Community Tagging" is a pseudonym for "Authorized Trolling" I think. What the hell were they thinking?
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They were thinking of all the artists who don't tag their work, or tag it poorly, and the effect this has on things like blacklists.
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Like Irbisgreif said, let's say someone has a lot of emotional trauma from an abusive relationship, so they want to block it, but an artists refuses to tag any of their art, which often times contains abusive and gruesome "horror" art, so it slips through and makes the user no longer wish to participate in the site because they can't avoid it while on the site, so avoid the site all together.
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Holy shit I didnt even realise that was a thing here! To be fair I only use this place as a mirror for my other galleries so I dont usually play around with features too much. Seriously though, thats either super Naive or super dumb of the site creators.
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Many artists tag badly. The creators are trying to make sure that important features like blacklists actually work.
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I know many artists who tag every last thing in their image (myself included) - and someone still feels the need to tag something so irrelevant, it's borders on the ridiculous.
then you get the folks who just have to add tags that they feel better represent the image, even though there's a tag already present for that element (ex - I upload a herm image and tag it as herm. I get some user who insists that a hermaphrodite tag must be added. Why do that when herm is the shortened name for the same term?)
Sure, there are some artists who may forget a tag here and there, but that does not give a user the right to abuse the tagging system to better meet their own specifications.
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Well, tagging hermaphrodite when herm is there helps ensure that blacklists that may not be 'perfect' work. The best solution to that, however, is tag aliasing, where one tag implies a bunch of other synonyms.
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I wasn't aware that people could
Link
Mander
I REALLY wish there was a way to make it moderator only or something, because I really don't like randos adding tags in my stuff. =/