Wiki: Suggested additions to howto:upload

Since I became a contributing member here, I've had a few conversations with some moderators/janitors about how/what to look for to best contribute to Danbooru. I made a forum post about image quality, and learned a lot from that too. Now I'd like to bring to attention and propose some additional guidelines for newer contributing members like myself.

If I've learned one thing, it's that I have not acquired the Danbooru quality eye yet, but I always have room to improve. I keep returning to the howto:upload wiki page that contains guidelines for contributing and Danbooru quality. I really want to become a better, more consistent contributor so I can upload good quality artwork of copyrights I am fond of that seem to populate the site less than others. But I find that it is helping me less and less now.

I've also come to realize that I keep falling into the trap of uploading images more frequently and ignoring what my gut tells me about some of the images I upload; ignoring my mind when it tells me "well, these images are a bit on the edge, as far as Danbooru quality goes".

One such example: post #1263695 featuring Samus Aran.

My reasons for uploading it:
-Decent anatomy
-Decent lighting
-Other similar images by the same artist featuring the same character were already uploaded and approved on Danbooru (one of my biggest concerns)

What my mind was cautioning me about:
-The outlines are noticeably aliased
-Mouth bugs me a bit
-Hair strands are inconsistent (some outlined, some not outlined)
-I am biased towards Samus, and I find her attractive in the picture (this is neutral as far as picking upload copyrights goes, but negative when trying to judge image quality)

I seem to be able to edit the howto:upload page but I hesitate to add anything else since it's an important guidance wiki page to all of Danbooru's user base, hence why I'm bringing it up here. With that said, I have a few suggestions for the howto:upload page:

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1. Additions/Examples to Image Quality section
I struggle sometimes with image quality issues like aliased lines, or images that have one portion of the image well-drawn but other parts not drawn as well such as in post #1263321. But I have no quick, easy way to get a second opinion on specific issues (good luck searching for concerns about aliased lines on the forums without running into a slew of tag alias posts). There are even some issues that I have only become aware of after I was informed that they were issues (watermarks being one of them, since the upload page states that watermarked images are banned, but the wiki entry for watermark says that only third-party and overly obstructive watermarks are problematic).

I think adding some specific examples to the Image Quality section on howto:upload may help newer contributing members out more. Documenting some image quality concerns or specific issues may aid contributors further.

2. More uploading guides for particular sites
I'll use Deviantart as an example. I had to bug poor Apollyon the other day asking how to properly upload images from Deviantart, because there is nothing on the wiki about how to upload from Deviantart (it's worth noting that a quick search on the forum offers plenty of info including this thread which answers pretty much all questions). There's a relatively roundabout way of doing it and it's inconsistent with how images are normally uploaded and checked for duplicates (using iqdb, you cannot use the Deviantart page URL to check for dupulicates, even though listing the Deviantart page as the source for an image is the rule of thumb for Deviantart image sources).

However, none of that is mentioned on the howto:upload page or a related page linked from the howto:upload page itself. Why not add a page similar to the Pixiv uploading guidelines for Deviantart and other sites?

3. Emphasis on good judgment, not uploading by example
This is probably the most important issue I can think of right now: uploading images by artists that have other images uploaded and approved on Danbooru already, and assuming it's okay.

The best personal example I can think of is Aleron's art. Here are Aleron's deleted images on Danbooru. For the most part, the problems are glaringly obvious: bad perspective, showing signs of being hastily drawn, and not as clean as we would have liked them to be in general. And yet I fell into the trap of noticing other art by Aleron on Danbooru and thinking "oh, since other works by Aleron are on here and have been approved/uploaded by Contributors, that artwork must be 100% okay to upload". Well, I learned the hard way that that's not the right mindset. The correct thing to do is to independently judge each image, not using similar images (even ones uploaded by Contributors) as gold standards for what is and isn't good enough quality for Danbooru. I suggest adding this emphasis to howto:upload.

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I also have a minor suggestion for steering all newer contributing members to these standards: the first time someone uploads an image, send them an automatic dmail congratulating them of their first image upload here, but also refers them to the howto:upload page (and emphasizes using it as the top priority for deciding on image quality). It could also emphasize the importance of the forums if the user has any questions or concerns, or needs to search for answers.

1. There is an automatic problem with giving examples in the howto:upload text, they need to show what is not acceptable but all such examples tend to get deleted. I know it is possible to see deleted images but new members are not (and perhaps should not be) aware of how to do so. If you can find borderline examples go for it but that is probably really hard to do.

I noticed that some examples already given has been deleted.

2. I suspect the main reason is a lack of people with an interest in writing said page. If you want to write one start a new thread on this subject.

3. Write an example on how this emphasis should be written in the current howto:upload text. I suspect the reason it isn't there is once again that no one has the time or interest in updating said page.

Danbooru has a lot of uploaders, many tagers and several skilled translators but there are few wiki writers and most howto pages are constantly in need of updating.

Your suggestion on a welcoming letter also deserve a thread of its own. Posts as long as this one tend to require a lot of work to answer. It is in my experience preferred to have separate threads on different subject, even if they are related.