Danbooru

A Danbooru Tutorial?

Posted under General

phane

Many people on the internet do not catch on very fast. We get a lot of topics on this forum asking questions that everyone who uses Danbooru should know the answers to. We get posts like post #395222 with the "no," "more," and "heroes" tags. We get people like X-sense making scads of practically useless tags.
The conclusion I'm drawing from all this isn't "Boy, users are retards" but instead "Danbooru doesn't explain itself very well." In fact, it almost invites people to draw false conclusions left and right. It's easy for us mods and old-timers to say "Jeez, how could you have been so stupid as to post THAT. The three years of subtle expectations and aesthetic judgments that I have built up on Danbooru clearly mark that as off-topic." Is it okay to post things by western artists? Kinda, maybe, sometimes. How about goofy meme stuff? Probably not, unless it comes from Japan...? What kind of comments are appreciated? I'm not even sure myself.
So, my proposal is that there be some kind of official description of etiquette and 'citizenship advice.' People should learn how to tag before posting anything, they should know not to bitch about their posts not being approved, they should not treat Danbooru like 4chan or like a porn repository, they should learn for themselves the culture and the expectations before barging in with stupid-ass comments on day one.
I'm not 100% sure how to write such a thing, so this is a half-thought out idea. But I think it would improve the place if we had less confusion about what the point of this place is.

Updated by スラッシュ

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LaC

Suggestion: hide rating:explicit from unregistered users, make them read the tutorial (forthcoming), and require them to pass a test on it to complete registration.

eg: Reimu appears in this picture. What do you type in the tag box?
( ) reimu hakurei
( ) reimu_hakurei
( ) hakurei_reimu
( ) hakurei reimu

^- those are radio buttons

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evazion

I highly, highly agree with this. How about creating a forum sticky where we list all the various rules and bits of information people should know? Then we could put a link to it from the upload page and next to the post comment button (preferably in a huge bold font so people might actually read it).

To get the ball rolling, here are some random things I can think of offhand:

Don't:

  • Upload offtopic images. This includes:
    • Photographic porn.
    • Motivational posters.
    • Photoshops.
  • Post useless, poorly written comments. This isn't 4chan.
  • Post spoilers without using spoiler tags.
  • Bump threads to respond to a comment posted months/years ago.
  • Ask for source. If the artist isn't in the tags and no source is listed, then no one knows.

Do:

  • Tag your uploads. Don't expect others to do it for you.
  • Fix incorrect tags. Don't post a comment saying the tags are wrong, fix them yourself.

Other things you should know:

  • Lurk awhile before uploading. We have basic quality standards which are best learned by observing what gets approved and what doesn't.
  • The red tag is the artist. Click the '?' to the left of the tag to find out the artist's website.
Reply
tempo

I agree that a tutorial would be very helpful for newer people like myself. All the time, I'm randomly learning about not-so-obvious rules and guidelines by lurking around.

As an example, I didn't even learn about the 'no motivators' rule until a few days ago, when I looked through the pages of deleted posts. I also don't learn about a lot of the tag policy here until I dig up a topic deep in the forum or do something stupid first.

Reply
aldeayeah

evazion said:
Don't ask for source. If the artist isn't in the tags and no source is listed, then no one knows.

I'm not so sure about that. If someone knows the source, specially if it's an old mistagged post, that's the only way to rescue a post from the limbo. I did that yesterday with post #2796 and post #168506, and only because someone commented on them.

Updated

Reply
LaC

I wouldn't organize the guide as Do's and Don't's, but rather in task-oriented headings.

Posting an image
Posting a comment
Tagging

etc.

Actually, I think the best way to display this information would be in the actual page where the task is accomplished (eg put "what not to upload" in the upload page), inside a box with a "hide" button. The button might be unavailable for the first few days after registration, so the user can't hide the warnings too soon.

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homeless homo

I don't think we need a full blown tutorial. Maybe just some small tips here and there.

Maybe when someone is uploading, it could say somewhere on the page "Tip: Don't forget to use underscores." or something similar.

Have a randomly generated tip on each page and allow users to disable it if needed.

Reply
スラッシュ

I agree that the rules are laid out alright (though they probably should be more accessible, which IIRC they used to be back when I joined).

I would suggest using the wiki for the more informal things. Since these things change over time it would be nice to use a wiki. Write some howto's (Howto:General, Howto:Comment, Howto:Pixiv etc.) or some similar format, and include all the standards and practices that we like in posters that aren't formal rules. Perhaps link people to them before registering, and perhaps also provide links to the appropriate articles at certain intersections (first time uploading something from Pixiv? link to Howto:Pixiv--and so on.)

I don't know, LaC probably already suggested all of this before, more eloquently. Too bad his posts aren't visible to me.

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