Changing the pool creation process

I had this idea long ago, but this has only recently become possible with the addition of pool categories.

The idea is the following:

Users (Member level? Gold level?) can no longer create (public) collections.
Everyone can still create as many series pools for comics as they want.
Strict separation between series and collections.

Users can request a new collection pretty much the same way you request an alias/implication. (with forum thread and everything).
A request consists of title/description/example posts.

Goal:

Every pool is discussed and given a proper purpose, non-joke/meme title and actually useful description.
Collections reflect the opinion of more than one user (creator).
No fights with the pool creator over definition changes. (public collections are not "owned" by the creator)
Pointless pools are not created in the first place. (topic #9501 -> pool #7073 can no longer happen)
The existance of a pool is no longer dependant on a single user/mod.

+1

Good Idea. Honestly I've always thought some people made 'public' pools that were pointless because it was like 'extending' your subscriptions (like a 6th category). Stuff like that should be not possible. Also making a nice divide between simple picture albums and comic pages would enable more unique things between the two new categories.

But then those users would just label their junk collections as series...

RaisingK said:

But then those users would just label their junk collections as series...

Neutral record/dmail if done once, negative record(s), leading to a ban, if notorious. It's not that hard, is it?

Wypatroszony said:

Neutral record/dmail if done once, negative record(s), leading to a ban, if notorious. It's not that hard, is it?

Why not just do this for people creating junk collections in the first place?

Gotta side with RaisingK here. It sounds like something we'd really want, but users just bypassing the whole thing and going back to making pointless series pools is a fatal flaw in this idea. Reminds me of "the evil bit" (google it).

However, I do like the idea of doing more to separate the idea that the pool a user creates isn't "theirs".

Other ideas:

• The creator has no more control over the pool than other users.
• Removing creator name from the pool index table and from under the title on the pool's page.
• At this point creating pools becomes a liability, since you don't get any special control over the pool, yet it's your name in the history should the community decide your collection was dumb.
• This could require something like setting pools to unactive (can't be added to) builder+ (actually is that even still a thing?)
• Pool comments (displayed below the page index) might help to facilitate community decisions.
• Perhaps instead, displaying the last-updated time alongside the creation time instead (this point sounds ++useful to me).

Also, I too am in favour of a 3rd pool type, "album", where it's objective like a pool, but doesn't strictly have an order (to help the reader distinguish whether they're going to be reading a multi-page story, or a chain of only vaguely-related one-off 4komas).

RaisingK said:

Why not just do this for people creating junk collections in the first place?

Because some of the people creating junk collections don't realize they're making junk collections. They think they're actually enhancing people's Danbooru experience by giving them an easy way to find "the canon interpretation of Kaguya", or whatever.

In part, this is inevitable, because it's orders of magnitude easier to find pools that already exist on Danbooru than to find (and correctly interpret) guidance on what pools should be about. No matter what we decide the boundaries of "appropriate pool material" to be, there are going to be boundary cases, and there will be people whose ideas of "oh, so that's what a pool is for" are informed by those boundary cases, and guess wrong about "hey, you know what would make a great pool?" We don't want to punish people for trying sincerely to help. It's kinder and wiser to make them submit their idea, enact their idea if it's good, and correct their misconceptions if their idea is misguided.

On the other hand, if it's carefully explained that a series is united by more than just a theme and someone tries to make a "series" pool to conveniently group their favorite "perfect/stunning <x>” pics, we can be pretty safe in saying that they should've known better, and deserve at least a mild slapdown.

RaisingK said:

Why not just do this for people creating junk collections in the first place?

The mislabeling of pools is a simple to identify issue with no need for interpretation.
Judging whether a pool is junk or not means posting in the "pointless pools" thread and waiting ....................
People also won't accidentally abuse the mislabeling, but they will create junk pools thinking they're not junk.

Wholeheartedly agreed! Even though I didn't read everything in the first post...

My earlier objection stands, but I'm fed up enough with these junk pools right now that I'm bumping for additional discussion anyway.

So, for a user below a given level, attempting to create a Collection instead creates a forum thread in the style of the alias/implication threads, with a /pools/new URL encoded with all of the form's information so that a user who does have permission can create it on the original user's behalf. Throw in a notice about this when a user below that level selects Collection at /pools/new, and add the ability for users who do have permission to force the pool to still go to the forums for review, like how posts can be forced into the mod queue.

Does that sound right?

But what is the exact process for dealing with mislabeled pools?

RaisingK said:

add the ability for users who do have permission to force the pool to still go to the forums for review, like how posts can be forced into the mod queue.

So basically the ability to flag collection pools, for the times they are mislabeled?

Would the flagged pools be auto-deleted after 3 days like posts are too? If they aren't auto-deleted, flagging pools wouldn't be much different from posting in the pointless pools thread.

Toks said:

So basically the ability to flag collection pools, for the times they are mislabeled?

No. I speak only of pools that have not been created yet: the ability to cause a forum topic to be created (with the encoded /pools/new link) instead of creating the pool.

RaisingK said:

No. I speak only of pools that have not been created yet: the ability to cause a forum topic to be created (with the encoded /pools/new link) instead of creating the pool.

Oh, so you're talking about a pool equivalent of the contributor's "upload for approval" checkbox.

Then there's still the issue of users creating pools that should be collections but labeling them as series, having the effect of bypassing this pool creation limit. Bans and such don't seem appropriate as this wouldn't always be something done intentionally, since there are plenty of users who don't understand the difference between the two and mislabel them by mistake.

Why not make the user interfaces for creating and editing the two pool types different in such a way that it is hard to (genuinely) misunderstand their respective purposes? The serial pools shouldn't need to have posts added or removed all that often, so a slightly more roundabout procedure for doing so would probably be acceptable.

For example, editing a serial pool might only be possible from the main pool page (e.g. pool #2265), via a select/add/remove/move up/move down feature, possibly even with fancy copy-and-paste and/or drag-and-drop functionality. If desired, editing of serial pools via the sidebar in the post view could still be enabled for Janitor+ users, or something. Restricting the ability to add-to-serial-pool from the sidebar to the post's uploader might also help.

To me it seems that you would need to have a +/- vote on each pool so if a pool is too far in the negative it would get deleted . You would only get a vote once per pool on it once every 3-6 months to keep each pool current. Also give more members a say in what gets deleted or not.

Flopsy said:

Why not make the user interfaces for creating and editing the two pool types different in such a way that it is hard to (genuinely) misunderstand their respective purposes?

More user interfaces won't help.

tutcat said:

To me it seems that you would need to have a +/- vote on each pool so if a pool is too far in the negative it would get deleted . You would only get a vote once per pool on it once every 3-6 months to keep each pool current. Also give more members a say in what gets deleted or not.

Pool voting is a silly idea period, and tying automatic deletions into that is an absolutely terrible idea.

Toks said:

Then there's still the issue of users creating pools that should be collections but labeling them as series, having the effect of bypassing this pool creation limit.

Indeed. If this issue can't be dealt with, then the OP's proposal is dead.

Toks said:
Then there's still the issue of users creating pools that should be collections but labeling them as series, having the effect of bypassing this pool creation limit.

RaisingK said:
Indeed. If this issue can't be dealt with, then the OP's proposal is dead.

Would users really do this if we went through with S1eth's proposal though? IMO people create all these collection pools simply because they see a shit-ton of other similar pools and every member is free to create them. Is there anything to indicate to them that pools aren't for themed favorites?

I don't think they'd be so eager in bypassing a restriction by mislabeling pools if it was made clear to them in the creation process that pools should be taken more seriously.

RaisingK said:

Flopsy said:

Why not make the user interfaces for creating and editing the two pool types different in such a way that it is hard to (genuinely) misunderstand their respective purposes?

More user interfaces won't help.

Toks said:

Then there's still the issue of users creating pools that should be collections but labeling them as series, having the effect of bypassing this pool creation limit.

Indeed. If this issue can't be dealt with, then the OP's proposal is dead.

The point of my suggestion was that if the user interface made it clear, by its functionality or a big fat notice or whatever, that serial pools are for serial images and nothing else, then there would be few unintentional cases of "users creating pools that should be collections but labeling them as series". Those cases that did occur could be handled with a friendly clarification or, when the "mistake" is repeated or otherwise appears deliberate, a record/ban. I agree with what S1eth said before the bump:

S1eth said:

The mislabeling of pools is a simple to identify issue with no need for interpretation.
Judging whether a pool is junk or not means posting in the "pointless pools" thread and waiting ....................
People also won't accidentally abuse the mislabeling, but they will create junk pools thinking they're not junk.

Edit: ...and with what Fred1515 said while I was writing my post.

Fred1515 said:

I don't think they'd be so eager in bypassing a restriction by mislabeling pools if it was made clear to them in the creation process that pools should be taken more seriously.

How should that be made more clear, specifically?