3.1.4 Abuse of Site Tools

Do not indiscriminately downvote posts based on their content. Blacklist the offending subject matter instead.

What reason would you have to downvote a post except based on it's content? Are there any valid reasons to downvote a post?
Sorry if this is a stupid question.

sanestvaporeonfan said:
3.1.4 Abuse of Site Tools
What reason would you have to downvote a post except based on it's content? Are there any valid reasons to downvote a post?
Sorry if this is a stupid question.

You can downvote a specific post for just ... not meeting your standards of quality etc.

But if, for example, you don't like scat and you go on a downvoting spree of all images containing scat rather than just adding scat to your blacklist so you will never see it, that is a Problem.

It's talking of mass downvote 'attacks' some folks will do to controversial tags (i.e the ones related to the lgbt and pride are often targeted). It's nothing small and petty either, they will dislike hundreds of posts at large scale.

As long as you downvote posts from certain tags no more than occasionally and because the artwork in the post is mediocre and not due to the themes in the art (that's what the blacklist is for).

Maybe somebody can explain it better than me, but there is not much to be concerned over with this rule. Just don't go on downvote rampages and you won't be in trouble.

Because it's just an excuse to hand out records for no reason.

it's to stop users from just mass downvoting posts on a single subject, or made by a single artist.

down voting any individual post is fine. seeking out posts to downvote, or consistently downvoting art you could instead blacklist is not.

sanestvaporeonfan said:
3.1.4 Abuse of Site Tools
What reason would you have to downvote a post except based on it's content? Are there any valid reasons to downvote a post?
Sorry if this is a stupid question.

You can downvote base on its content, such as an artist taking a comic plot to a completely opposite direction. You can also downvote if they had posted content that did not suit your taste.

Downvoting once or twice shouldn't be an issue. However, it becomes an issue when you mass-downvote posts all at once.
At that point, you are being abusive with your votes and could have easily avoided it all if you had blacklisted the artist/content instead.

I think I get the idea. So if I come across a post I think is gross (say, scat) every once in a while and I downvote it, that's fine, but if I search through the scat tag and downvote every post I see, that would be in violation of the rule.

you may also find a comic / pool you really like but one page really puts you off. you can downvote that one page but leave the rest alone.

The way I would summarize this in my head is;

It's okay to downvote one post by an artist if you came across it in a tag you frequent and it's not in a style you like or you feel as if the art quality itself is subpar. It's not okay to then go to the artist's tag and downvote everything in sight.

It's not okay to camp out in tags you know you don't like just to mass downvote out of spite.

It's also okay, in my opinion, to downvote something if you feel it breaks other rules by tagging maliciously or simply tagging poorly (although in this case there are other methods to react to that which are more constructive than a downvote).

Also it's obviously okay to downvote something in a specific tag but if you're, for example, downvoting every single post tagged "scat" that you see, at that point there are features better suited (the blacklist) when you're tired of seeing something over and over. For example I might blacklist fanart of something if it's a popular IP that I'm tired of seeing constantly after it comes out.

This rule is intended to prevent this and other forms of downvote abuse, as others have already pointed out. In addition, I believe there have been problems in the past with specific tags related to minority groups (such as LGBTQ+ tags) being mass downvoted. That's not fair because if you don't like it you could simply blacklist those tags, therefore this kind of downvoting comes off as unnecessary and petty.

sanestvaporeonfan said:
I think I get the idea. So if I come across a post I think is gross (say, scat) every once in a while and I downvote it, that's fine, but if I search through the scat tag and downvote every post I see, that would be in violation of the rule.

Mostly yes, but at that point, you are expected to know what you don't like and add them to your blacklist.
If an admin had combed through your downvoted posts and found a common theme around them (that could not have been coincidental), then you'd get into trouble.

I only downvote posts that get through my blacklist because the uploader didn't tag them properly.

kemonophonic said:
I only downvote posts that get through my blacklist because the uploader didn't tag them properly.

That's what you shouldn't do, you should add the missing tags to the post so that your blacklist gets it and move on. Downvoting a post because the uploader happened to miss some tags you personally have blacklisted is indiscriminately downvoting based on content, and isn't fair to the post.

I'm curious how often people who do these get caught/a record for it. i don't think i've seen a record for this offense.

benjiboyo said:
I'm curious how often people who do these get caught/a record for it. i don't think i've seen a record for this offense.

I'd be interested to know also. Sometimes I see posts being uploaded freshly all getting downvoted at once, to the same amount of downvotes. I wonder if those people just get bored of it and leave or if they get caught somehow

benjiboyo said:
I'm curious how often people who do these get caught/a record for it. i don't think i've seen a record for this offense.

vubbyshark said:
I'd be interested to know also. Sometimes I see posts being uploaded freshly all getting downvoted at once, to the same amount of downvotes. I wonder if those people just get bored of it and leave or if they get caught somehow

They do get caught all the time, either under Abuse of Site Tools or Refusal to Use Blacklist.
If you see the front page being bombarded by downvotes for no apparent reason, report it to the admins and they will look into it.

Most of the time though, for people to be reprimanded for abusing the site tools or refusing to blacklist, it is because they had complain in the comments about how they don't like X or Y and got reported.
Less commonly is when a user/artist suspects that they are the victim of targeted harassment (i.e., everything they post gets downvoted), then they can request for an admin to look into it and the culprit swiftly caught.

The modactions is the absolute worst way to view records
https://e621.net/user_feedbacks

Thank you mods for keeping the site clean! Whenever I see the mass downvoting on the front page it seems to end within minutes. I'm honestly kind of surprised everything runs so smoothly here with such a small amount of staff especially since you guys only get 30 days to clear everything for being permanently posted.

sipothac said:
it's to stop users from just mass downvoting posts on a single subject, or made by a single artist.

down voting any individual post is fine. seeking out posts to downvote, or consistently downvoting art you could instead blacklist is not.

LOL, we all know why this rule came out in 2023. It was a meme that people deliberately downvoted certain posts they liked to get a 'higher' (red) number because so many people were blanket downvoting certain tags.

alphamule said:
LOL, we all know why this rule came out in 2023. It was a meme that people deliberately downvoted certain posts they liked to get a 'higher' (red) number because so many people were blanket downvoting certain tags.

it's not that new of a rule, people have been getting dinged with abuse of site tools offenses for targeted downvoting since at least 2019, it just wasn't given as an explicit example until recently.

sipothac said:
it's not that new of a rule, people have been getting dinged with abuse of site tools offenses for targeted downvoting since at least 2019, it just wasn't given as an explicit example until recently.

Oh, really? I guess it was just made explicit last year, then.

thegreatwolfgang said:
They do get caught all the time, either under Abuse of Site Tools or Refusal to Use Blacklist.
If you see the front page being bombarded by downvotes for no apparent reason, report it to the admins and they will look into it.

Most of the time though, for people to be reprimanded for abusing the site tools or refusing to blacklist, it is because they had complain in the comments about how they don't like X or Y and got reported.
Less commonly is when a user/artist suspects that they are the victim of targeted harassment (i.e., everything they post gets downvoted), then they can request for an admin to look into it and the culprit swiftly caught.

I’ve also handed out a few records for this myself without anyone reporting it, just because I happen to notice a post getting a negative score for no obviously good reason. I look into it, I inevitably find some people targeting a certain tag with downvotes.

It’s far less common, but I’ve also found people who just downvote everything. No common theme to the votes (except that the posts were all posted sequentially), and no upvotes in their entire history either. So they just go to the new posts page and click downvote on everything. I cannot imagine why anyone would waste their time doing something so pointless, but they get records for it anyway.

watsit said:
you should add the missing tags to the post so that your blacklist gets it and move on.

Fair enough but it should also not be the users' job to do what the artist should have done in the first place when they uploaded the content. I'm tired personally of having to ad tags like 'cropped' or 'preview' to obvious examples of these, I know artists want to get as many eyeballs as possible on these sort of posts to encourage those so inclined to visit whatever paywall site they point to and spend money. I'm not one of them, these need to be tagged accordingly when first uploaded. Sorry if that's coming off harsh but I'm frustrated with the situation. For the record I do make use of my blacklist.

demeterkitty said:
Fair enough but it should also not be the users' job to do what the artist should have done in the first place when they uploaded the content.

Most art here is not uploaded by the artist themselves. It quite literally is the users' job to maintain the tagging system, that's like the entire point of e6's tag system.

demeterkitty said:
Fair enough but it should also not be the users' job to do what the artist should have done in the first place when they uploaded the content.

"artist"? 90+% of content on this website is mirrored here by 3rd parties, not the artist.

tagging is a croud-sourced effort, do your part or don't complain. _{I mean, 80 edits in 15 years, jeeze.}

demeterkitty said:
I'm tired personally of having to ad tags like 'cropped' or 'preview' to obvious examples of these, I know artists want to get as many eyeballs as possible on these sort of posts to encourage those so inclined to visit whatever paywall site they point to and spend money. I'm not one of them, these need to be tagged accordingly when first uploaded. Sorry if that's coming off harsh but I'm frustrated with the situation. For the record I do make use of my blacklist.

sometimes users just forget tags, or don't know that they exist. stop treating it like there's some malace behind the act of undertagging something as banal as preview.

also, your most recent rant was on a post that literally had preview and advertisement on it at the same time you made every one of your comments, so...

sipothac said:
stop treating it like there's some malace behind the act of undertagging something

You're right, I do have to stop, I've gotten way too used to seeking out people's ulterior motives from the work I do that it becomes part of my thought process and it's not doing me any favors. As to contributing I will try to fix tags where appropriate but not maliciously as that's not the intent, I don't want me tagging something to seem like I'm calling out someone, if I see something obvious I'll tag it if it's not already done, and try to keep posts to a less spicy tone.

Above all I'm appreciative that this site exists at all