Limit Some Accounts to Grouped Uploads :rejected:

[Oeconomist]

Readers have the ability to specify that uploads by some groups do not appear in these readers' Follows list, &c. A work-around for a willfully problematic uploader is simply not to associate the upload with a group.

Right now, there is an uploader whose work is detested by many readers; I am not amongst them, but I have joined them in encouraging him or her to use a group; I have even offered to create a group for this uploader; but he or she has rejected the idea.

I propose that admins be given the power and discretionary authority to configure some accounts so that they cannot make uploads unless these uploads are assigned to groups. In my conception, no account would be locked to just one group, but some accounts could not upload without each upload having a group association.

 

[SlowlyApproachingBear]

I messaged the admins about this but they just ignore the issue.

 

[Oeconomist]

@SlowlyApproachingBear—

In the case that concerns you, right now there is no mechanism for appropriate action. I'm pointing to the more general problem and proposing a mechanism.

 

[zanonyn]

Alternatively, maybe just allow hiding based on uploader rather than merely group? I can't remember if that was considered and rejected in the past for one reason or another, but it's not an uncommon feature on community content sites in general. And it'd be much lower effort, simply leaving things up to individual choice.

To be clear, I don't have any inherent problem if someone wants to do guesslations from another source and/or machine TL and others want to read them. So longer as it's sincere and not purposefully joking/trolling it doesn't seem like it'd violate Rule 2.3.5 either. But not being able to hide them for those who aren't interested is definitely irksome, and when somebody does it continuously and refuses to make a group it's not very community friendly, even if it's allowed. There's no inherent need for drama, everyone can be happy so long as they can ignore it or not.

Anyway, it's not a huge issue, and devs might be very busy with other more important stuff! But I support @Oeconomist that some tweak might be nice if there was time.

 

[Oeconomist]

@zanonyn—

A malicious uploader could provoke blocks, then upload scanlations of good quality by sincere groups. These would not be seen by those who had blocked that account, and would not be uploaded with apparent redundancy by others.

 

[zanonyn]

@Oeconomist
Nah, you're overthinking this. An obviously malicious uploader like that would just get noticed and banned fairly quickly, it'd be clear bad faith. There's plenty of rules and moderation already around groups being able to claim their own releases, people who jerk around, etc. So I doubt it'd be a significant problem. Remember, "preoptimization is the root of all evil" when it comes to development . It's always important to keep down the amount of manual workload. The issue here isn't the purposefully malicious but the lazy right?

 

[Teasday]

_{@Oeconomist posted:}

I propose that admins be given the power and discretionary authority to configure some accounts so that they cannot make uploads unless these uploads are assigned to groups. In my conception, no account would be locked to just one group, but some accounts could not upload without each upload having a group association.

A naive solution, nothing prevents them from just creating a new group for every upload.

Same for user accounts, in case that's where you're going next. Sure, they'd need to wait to be cleared in the upload queue, but we're not going to start blocking any type of content we're currently allowing on the site.

 

[Oeconomist]

@Teasday—

A naive solution, nothing prevents them from just creating a new group for every upload.

Hardly. The recurring challenge with problematic uploaders is distinguishing the malevolent. (This challenge limited action against SteamedBunInvasion.) A problematic uploader who kept creating new groups would be establishing malevolence. Likewise for creating new accounts.

Eventually, MangaDex is going to have to go after those who create new groups and new accounts to get around blocks; it would be naive to think otherwise. And waiting for the problem to become bad instead of getting out ahead of it is not a good idea.

 

[Oeconomist]

@zanonyn—

Nope. First, it won't be easily seen that user X is missing a scanlation, to her invisible, by group Y because it was uploaded by user Z whom she blocked. Second, in some cases user Z will not ever have been malevolent either in creating adaptations greatly disliked by some other users or in uploading scanlations by other groups.