Weekly Poll: Wallpaper Moderation
Stirring the pot
Monday, February 25, 2008 by Zoomba | Discussion: WinCustomize News
One of the most controversial galleries on WinCustomize is, without a doubt, our wallpaper section. In the past 90% of all work submitted was rejected out-right. Now, more is let through, but still the vast majority is placed on a user's personal page instead of the main gallery. This has met with mixed reactions from wallpaper artists and users alike. Some do not like the relaxed requirements, claiming that it has ruined the quality of the gallery. Others contend that we're being too restrictive and driving away wallpaper artists to other sites such as DeviantArt, Interfacelift etc.
So I thought this week we'd put it to an actual vote. Let everyone voice their opinion on how they would like wallpaper moderation to be handled.
At the moment, moderators look at a wallpaper submission, and decide whether it's personal-page-only, or main gallery material. The general metric we use is if something would be rated a 5/10 or higher (or 2.5 stars), it's good enough for the main gallery, 4/10 and lower goes to the personal page. We only reject broken submissions, submissions with bad preview images, or rips.
So, is our new policy to send some items to the personal page, and others to the main gallery a good one? Is the 5/10 threshold an acceptable limit, or should it be raised or lowered? Vote on the poll, and share your opinion in the comments below.
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Reply #42 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:56 AM
Reply #43 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 3:19 AM
Reply #44 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:27 AM
How about a split wallpaper section. Allow in all walls (including those currently going to pp), if then after 7 days they have a minimum of XXX downloads, they achieve a 'popular' status which can be selected from a filter. That way all the wallpapers are in the wallpaper gallery, but people can go to a select gallery if they only want the most popular wallpapers.
That would satisfy those who want all wallpapers allowed in, and those who only want to see the best.
Whatever you do, someone isn't going to be happy...
Reply #45 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 5:02 AM
If walls were held in the gallery awaiting so many ratings to decide whether it stays or goes, you risk being ganged up on by others: the old drive-by bad-rating thing that used to go on here.
But with Fuzzy's idea, when a wallpaper reaches a given download number (Say 200?), then it could be considered "safe" or a permanent addition to the gallery and if it doesn't reach 200 within a week (2? Doesn't matter: whatever time period) then it goes to the artist's personal page/gallery.
Gosh. Hope I made sense.
Reply #46 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 5:13 AM
I think we all agree that the mods should reject files that are not in the right format, zip status or rips, etc. Beyond that, it is really a question of whether you prefer to decide for yourself what is best or have a group of well intentioned mods do it for you. Now some would point out that you can always dig into the personal pages etc to seek what you are looking for, but that is just not the way it works in my experience as most simply don't have the time for such an effort.
There is already a sorting system to let everyone look for 5 star walls etc. I imagine that the volume of submittals is the reason that walls get the extra scrutiny in selection process beyond proper functioning, TOS and packaging requirements. However, I submit that the wall makers whether novice or seasoned vets are customizers in their own way and are trying to contribute to the community as best they can. Welcome them.
Reply #47 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 6:12 AM
On the other hand, when I opened the wallpaper gallery tonight and was greeted by about 5 pages of terrible fractal images... I think that there should be a higher standard. Actually, the only reason I came to the forums tonight was to bitch about how many shitty fractal wallpapers there were.
This would take a lot of work to implement, but a few fantastic things to do to the gallery would be including a popularity system, as mentioned in previous posts from other users, and then ON TOP OF THAT, add sub-categories within the wallpapers gallery.
I see it with a section for 'recently submitted', 'top rated', and then one for each other logical category like 'fractals', 'minimalist'..... I can't really think of any others (it's 5am and I've been up all night), but someone who knows more about WC wallpapers could do this.
Anyway, my idea would have wallpapers introduced in the recently submitted gallery, they would stay there until they'd been online for xweeks (maybe 1 month would be good?), and that would be plenty of opportunity for them to become 'popular images'. All images, or at least a much larger % would be let through - everybody gets a chance to shine.
As soon as an image leaves the recently submitted gallery, it would be sorted into the category that the user/reviewer marked it as, BUT until it had achieved 'popular' status (whatever your bar is) it would not be visible in the sub-category unless you opted to include all images in the sub-category you were browsing.
Using this method, you could browse by the type of image you wanted to see or just browse through all the categories organized by date submitted/score/whatever-else-the-current-sort-methods-are, but you wouldn't have to look through so many images unless you chose to.
Also if you just want to see fractals (for example), you can just see what the community thinks is good by default, but if you just really love fractals and want to get all of them (or something like that...), you can tell the site not to sort out images that haven't made it to 'popular'.
Sorry for the long post. I hope it makes sense.
Reply #48 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 7:45 AM
Aside from The OD icons and Docks needing to be seperated..the cut and pastes and truly 'rough' looking icons that fill the OD gallery never seem to come into question.
Are the personal galleries ever going to be truly 'personal' where we can customize them with themes or how they are laid out? Adding a journal? I think sending these wallpapers to the personal gallery is what really makes them 'personal'. Don't change anything. If you must, then be harder on the moderating, but don't go back to the old way.
Reply #49 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:26 AM
Reply #50 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:36 AM
One thing I've always wished I could do is show people some of the wallpapers that don't make it. When I say MS Paint scribbles with Lens Flare effects, I'm not kidding. I've seen people submit solid black walls with a cut-out photo sitting off-center. Walls where people just went down the effects list in photoshop and applied them all etc.
You also don't see the volume of this level of work submitted to the site. Imagine going to the Newest Skins page, and having to dig through 3,4,5 pages of bad wallpapers to find a single actual skin. If you think it gets tough sometimes with BootSkins and LogonVista screens, imagine 3x that number.
We moderate wallpaers more heavily in part to keep the site easier to use. The other alternative would be to remove wallpapers entirely from the Newest Skins page like we do Screenshots, but that wouldn't make things any better really.
Reply #51 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:39 AM
Also, I want to add how happy I am with how this discussion is turning out. Two years ago it would have been filled with screaming, complaining and foot stomping, and little rational discussion. There are a lot of great ideas in this thread (and more to come, I'm sure) that I will be keeping in mind when we next revise how the galleries work.
Reply #52 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:46 AM
USED to go on???? Do you think it still doesn't go on? I can assure you it does.
Reply #53 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:58 AM
I prefer the old style of moderation.
I do however, like the idea of sending non-approved submissions to the personal pages.
Maybe the next site rendition could have a "Personal Page of the Day" to highlight those with substantial galleries. Have it automated so an individual could request being highlighted and that would add him to the que.
Personal issues............
I don't like seeing ten variations of the same wallpaper even if it's good. If all you do is change the color, add or remove a logo, orb, dolphin or Britney, include all variations in the same submission.
If you offer multiple sizes of a wall, put them ALL into one submission.
Reply #54 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:01 AM
I appreciate what you and the other mods go through. Honestly. I've had stuff rejected and, like I have said before, it's pushed me to try harder. On a few rejections, I went back over and tweaked and such. I haven't had a problem with rejections. My frustration has been in trying to be better.
I don't know, on your end, if it would be easier just to reject the bad walls as opposed to sending them to the personal gallery. I wouldn't want to make your job or any mods job harder. I just feel that the personal gallery option is a 'good' option, especially for noobs. Complete rejections are tough. They hurt. But that aside, without 'explanations' for the rejections (Acknowledging that the mods do not have the time to explain each and every decision) the person may become discouraged and stop. By putting it in the personal gallery, you're giving them a 'bar'. It's like saying "You almost had it. Keep trying."
I think that would be helpful and 'hopeful' to a lot of noobs and anyone dabbling in wallpapers/skinning for the first time.
Reply #55 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:17 AM
Acknowledging that to a degree, wallpapers are a matter of taste, there clearly is a scale of acceptability.
Does returning to a position that takes a firmer grip on the balance of styles entering the gallery, mean that unsuccessful entries would no longer go to personal pages?
Reply #56 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:25 AM
Reply #57 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 10:48 AM
I believe that is surely the intent. Yet if you look at two fractals and decide this one is good enough and that one is not good enough, you are surely making a decision reflecting you personal preference. If three other mods agree with you then that is the total of their personal preferences. I do not mean to convey any evil intent here, just the reality of what it is.
I too like the PP idea rather than rejection.
Reply #58 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:15 PM
Reply #59 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:15 PM
Reply #60 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 12:38 PM
Simply because too many wallpapers are submitted, they would flood ALL other content off the site. It would become impossible to find anything else in the newest page list. Without totally separating wallpapers from the rest of the site, we have to exercise a degree of quality moderation on the main public gallery.
I'm not going to make someone slog through 100 MS paint/clip art/bryce walls to find a single skin, cursor or icon package.
I guess that's another interesting question:
Should we remove wallpapers from the "Newest" and "Recently Updated" pages, and allow them through unmoderated?
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Reply #41 Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:41 AM