Hurm ... Question for everyone!

[ichigo]

Okay, everyone paying attention here? Good then!

I'm thinking about making a rather HUGE change to the gallery and want input from everyone involved, not just the staff, all of the people that visit the site should have a say in this. We currently run on vBgallery (from the photopost people.) And after a long term vacation by their development team, they're looking at starting work up on it! Good news I guess... Now for the other things, we're looking at changing the gallery over completely to a danbooru style (all php and mysql for the geeks of the community that wanna know the details.)

So, with that out of the way, here are options.

1: Stick with our current gallery software, and once a new revision is done, get it (possibly new functionality/features, and still the devs haven't given any concrete information about the update/new versions...)

2: Completely change over to danbooru. For the geeks here again, that means exporting the entire database, and reimporting it into postgresql (danbooru runs in ruby+postgresql environment only right now.) The transition time would probably be a fair amount and the results would be questionable. Of all the larger galleries on the web, danbooru is pretty much one of the standards and most widely adopted.

3: Completely change over to gelbooru. Gelbooru is a danbooru clone thats done completely in php+mysql and has a rather large following. Considering Gelbooru's post count is nearly half a million, and has a fairly large following too, it can't be discounted.

Here's where the problems lie with all of this. All 3 options present a large amount of work behind the scenes, database work, file storage/structure, and templates/general interface stuff.

Danbooru and Gelbooru have almost identical functionality, which is a great thing, as they are actually quite easy to navigate around with, searching is easy, and all around more optimized for a gallery the size of dat's.

Additionally, managing both of these are options are quite easy due to their nature. All edits/uploads are tracked and visible, if a user edits an image, it's tag/description history is updated with all the changes to it. So accountability is not an issue. Users are able to view everything. Trusted users are able to edit/re-tag images to their heart's content. And higher ups are able to revert tags/etc, and manage things a bit more. And of course, administrators have full control over the whole thing.

Now for some of the downsides to all of this... Moving over to danbooru or gelbooru would be a difficult process in terms of adjustment, database work, and all around redesigning things. And the biggest issue, is that ALL images will be dumped into one large pool. Because of the heavy reliance on tagging/keywords, it would be an enormous amount of work to maintain, as all of the mods/higher ups would have to maintain ALL images uploaded. This can be avoided by people actually tagging images when they're uploaded, so it's less hassle to manage/moderate. But as we've found, there are usually a shortage of keywords attached to an image even in our current gallery. Which is half of the issue right now with the inability to find specific things in our current setup.

That said, there'll be a higher, lets call it "standard" for people that regularly upload, in the fact that just uploading and putting random (hey, I'm semi guilt of this too with the mass upload category...) but people abusing it (like some currently) won't be able to get away with it anymore really. There will be alot more work for everyone, including the added responsibility of actually having to use sensible keywords, artists, etc when uploading, and the added help by publicly edit-able tags (and the accountability that goes with it) can bring.

Another issue with changing to danbooru/gelbooru is integrating them into our existing forum/user database would be a very difficult and time consuming task, and unlikely to be completed anytime in the even remote future...

So that's a brief rundown of things as they stand. I'll add a poll, and if you vote, it would be a great help to explain why you voted that way. Thanks !~

~ichigo

[Sarah's Knight]

Hurm ... Question for everyone!

Miss Ichigo speaks! Quiet, everyone. ^_^


Well, then, I do not understand much about this "danbooru" or "gelbooru" standards, but from reading what you've posted, changing to either seems like a bit too much hassle to be worth the easier managing in the long run. On top of that, if you also say that doing this will result in all images "being dumped into the same pool", then I understand that to mean that they will no longer be separated into obvious categories, and for people like myself who never have much luck when it comes to searching by keyword, it seems that at least of few of us here can easily end up coming across images that we'd just as soon avoid seeing, ... if you get my drift.

So, basic point: you mods seem to have enough to do already with maintaining the forums in general and choosing option three or four just seemingly adds to your responsibilities in terms of time consumption, and my guess is that it also makes image searching more risky to some of us. Therefore, I vote option two on the poll.

I hope that input was helpful enough, Ichigo.

[Longbowwing]

Originally Posted by Sarah's Knight

Well, then, I do not understand much about this "danbooru" or "gelbooru" standards, but from reading what you've posted, changing to either seems like a bit too much hassle to be worth the easier managing in the long run.

if you go to the search engine and type "danbooru". you will find another anime gallery site. Take a look at their format. their feature allow to have different pools, artists, in which in total different format compare to this site. Also danbooru look like a search engine by itself.
I think thats what Ichigo meant....

I will also choose option 2

[ichigo]

Originally Posted by Sarah's Knight

Well, then, I do not understand much about this "danbooru" or "gelbooru" standards, but from reading what you've posted, changing to either seems like a bit too much hassle to be worth the easier managing in the long run. On top of that, if you also say that doing this will result in all images "being dumped into the same pool", then I understand that to mean that they will no longer be separated into obvious categories, and for people like myself who never have much luck when it comes to searching by keyword, it seems that at least of few of us here can easily end up coming across images that we'd just as soon avoid seeing, ... if you get my drift.

So, basic point: you mods seem to have enough to do already with maintaining the forums in general and choosing option three or four just seemingly adds to your responsibilities in terms of time consumption, and my guess is that it also makes image searching more risky to some of us. Therefore, I vote option two on the poll.

I hope that input was helpful enough, Ichigo.

In actuality, the administrative overhead on danbooru or gelbooru is a good 1/4th of what it is for the mods/staff to work in the gallery. as for seeing content you dont want to, the bigger groups with a specific tag are listed (usually hentai, loli, shota, etc), and you can simply click on the tag list on the left side and see every image with that tag, so not seeing guro, or not seeing tentacle, is actually quite easy to avoid. If you go to danbooru or gelbooru's site and simply search for loli, you get a return of every image with that tag, while you can combine searches to include loli, exclude guro, exclude bondage, and so on. Basically you can see only what you want, in a much more organized manner than we have. If you don't want to see guro or bondage/bdsm now, you can simply avoid those categories yes. But on danbooru/gelbooru, avoiding them is just as easy as searching with those tags omitted. And that includes everything, say you want to see only hentai, no guro, no bondage, and all images that include redheads, etc, you can tailor the search that way, whereas you cannot really do that here.

And honestly, easier management is what I am after. Our gallery staff is very limited, and either booru code base offers us ALOT of options in terms of everyone can publicly edit, AND all edits are tracked, so if a user keeps doing naughty, we can simply remove their permission to edit. And we can have our current staff policing the edits, doing edits themselves, and keeping a more hands on approach to working in the gallery itself.

And I completely understand the concept/hatred towards searching/keywords simply because of the lack of consistency we currently have. a danbooru/gelbooru site is entirely reliant on people inputting keywords/tags for images, and can actually work much better than the existing system. Simply because it would be a community standard that everyone has a say in. Flagging an image as not worksafe, or 18+ is easy, as are editing keywords/tags for images. It stands a chance of being a huge improvement over what we have now simply in the fact that everyone can edit, and everyone's edits ARE logged so if there's issues, we know who/where/what changes were made.

[ssam]

Hmm...I googled danbooru and it seems to be very promising. Giving our gallery section a huge makeover with danbooru is no small feat to accomplish. I would like to see danbooru being implemented.

[Sarah's Knight]

And honestly, easier management is what I am after. Our gallery staff is very limited, and either booru code base offers us ALOT of options in terms of everyone can publicly edit, AND all edits are tracked, so if a user keeps doing naughty, we can simply remove their permission to edit. And we can have our current staff policing the edits, doing edits themselves, and keeping a more hands on approach to working in the gallery itself.

And I completely understand the concept/hatred towards searching/keywords simply because of the lack of consistency we currently have. a danbooru/gelbooru site is entirely reliant on people inputting keywords/tags for images, and can actually work much better than the existing system. Simply because it would be a community standard that everyone has a say in. Flagging an image as not worksafe, or 18+ is easy, as are editing keywords/tags for images. It stands a chance of being a huge improvement over what we have now simply in the fact that everyone can edit, and everyone's edits ARE logged so if there's issues, we know who/where/what changes were made.

Hmm .... Well, in that case, maybe it would be better to switch to delbooru or gelbooru.

[Syn74]

I guess I would vote for option 2. danbooru seems pretty good to me.

[Tsorea]

IMO i think an upgrade of the current gallery software would be ok but mainly because I've gotten used to it and haven't had any problems with it. Upgrades to this software (whatever they may be) sound good to me.
Although I like the idea of danbooru and the tagging like Ichigo said, that it makes it easier to search for images by typing specific words, I think this depends a lot on teh users who upload those images.
In my experience on other forums/galleries this doesn't always work because the users don't always properly tag the images or don't tag them at all, leaving it up to the mods to do this and that's mroe unnecessary work for them.
What I didn't fully understand is regular members can tag iamges uploaded by other members??

[Usimyoc]

I checked out the proposed restructuring, and to be honest, it does have potential.

However, With the amount of work that goes into it...Well, The choice remains with those who will be doing the foot work. I like the way the site is (mostly 'cause I just browse about aimlessly through one gallery or another), but a more search orientated approach might satisfy anyone searching for specific content.

I'm also used to DATorrents current system, so I'm not particularly sure I'd like to have to relearn it. But if ya'll decide to go through the trouble of reengineering the site, I promise to learn how to use it. I'm with you 100% either way.

[Soran]

Originally Posted by ichigo

In actuality, the administrative overhead on danbooru or gelbooru is a good 1/4th of what it is for the mods/staff to work in the gallery.

While it's nice to have different types of loli-friendly galleries around, I'll support your decision to switch to danbooru/gelbooru if it helps you to save your time in the long run.


However if gelbooru offers about the same features and performance as danbooru, I'd choose the former.

Perhaps you'd like to cooperate with other sites that use the same code at some point. Assuming that the features are very similar, who would you like more to talk to : devs affiliated with the site that allows to view loli only to its members with Contributor and higher status (because J-List or whatever other sponsor isn't comfortable with loli H), or devs affiliated with the site that supports the idea to let everyone share (almost) any H content with others just like you do?
Also, who is more likely to appreciate cooperation with you?
Sure I don't know anything about danbooru/gelbooru devs. I'd probably try to talk to the both and see who I get better along with (if I was to administrate/maintain the future datorrents gallery).

Also, by converting datorrents's gallery to gelbooru you would indirectly support the latter because the more sites use the script, the more opportunity there is to test and improve the code.