"Score" / resolved

This seems like an extremely basic question, but I couldn't find any explanation in the help pages, or in any recent forum posts.

What exactly /is/ "score" and how does it work?

Score is when a user votes on an image. They can either give it +1 or -1. If a user favorites an image its an additional +1.

This feature is only available to privileged and up.

Ah, so no particularly esoteric implications. Thank you for the explanation.

The only real consequence of scores is that they determine what shows up on the popular pages. The other thing they're good for is ordering your searches by score.

Also, high and low scores (≥3 / ≤-3) are specially indicated as such in the moderation queue to help guide janitors, mods, and admins when it comes to approving posts. Of course it's only a guide there and elsewhere.

Shinjidude said:
Also, high and low scores (≥3 / ≤-3) are specially indicated as such in the moderation queue to help guide janitors, mods, and admins when it comes to approving posts.

I never knew that. The powers that be of Danbooru have emphasized so many times that scores do not affect the approval process in any way, I was surprised, frankly.

I imagine he means more that if something is not bad, sorta borderline, but has a high score it has a higher chance of not being outright ignored than something that has a zero score and borderline.

A high score doesn't mean something will be automatically approved.

I don't think scores should affect the mod queue at all.

They're quite unreliable, considering people's tastes and preferences for certain fetishes, copyrights or characters. A Touhou post will probably be upvoted more than a post of equal or even better quality of some other, less popular copyright, while stuff like futa will probably be downvoted immediately after being posted, even if they're good quality posts.

If anything we should be able to rate and blacklist comments.

Fred1515 said:
They're quite unreliable, considering people's tastes and preferences for certain fetishes, copyrights or characters.

Mods are people too, just ones whose tastes and preferences are allowed to matter more.

I didn't mean to open a can of worms. The score in the mod queue only comes into consideration for me (and presumably the other janitors/mod/admins) when an image is borderline and I'm ambivalent about it.

In that case, if there is a high score, I might decide to approve the pic rather than defer the decision to someone else. Since the default position is to defer when unsure (and if everyone does so, let something get deleted), score can only help an image get approved.

If I really like something (meaning it's not borderline), a low score is not going to change my mind when it comes to approval. Of course this is contingent on the pic meeting the baseline criteria for approval (following rules, being on topic, having a modicum of quality, etc.)

I use score in the queue when I have a lot I need to get through. I never really consider positive scores, but I will occasionally run a score:..-1 search on the queue since that has a higher chance to bring up the crap and thus let me get through one chunk a bit more quickly. Same idea with running a rating:e search, I know I'm going to hide 98% of it so I can again go through quickly.

It's when I get down to rating:s images that things slow down a lot. So no, score does not directly influence moderation. I have approved images with negative scores and hidden images with 10+. It's just a way to sort things.