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The state of the skinning subforum

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Topic Starter
Kurai
Dear skinners,

The osu!moderation team as of lately have received complaints for the overwhelming presence of mixed skins being uploaded to this subforum and the general lack of moderation.

We will do what we can to actively monitor newly posted skins. Of course you can help out as well by simply contacting a moderator via forum PM or in-game report. Don't be too unforgiving toward mixed skin uploaders though, they probably aren't aware that what they are doing is wrong/didn't read the rules.

If you do not know who to contact, here is a list of moderators who are willing to help:
  1. deadbeat
  2. Flanster
  3. Gabe
  4. Kurai
  5. Nathanael
When contacting a moderator, in order to make it easier and straightforward, include what has been stolen and from where.
If you have any other ideas that can contribute to improving the subforum, do not hesitate to let us know. Your opinion matters!

Thank you for your concern,

Regards,
The osu! staff
h3oCharles
h3oCharles used Send Email! - It's super effective!

Jokes aside, I am very happy that you replied to my email and more moderators are willing to help. Freakin' finally!
EDIT1: Also, huge shout out to MatthewRobo for helping me out with writing that thing
Venix
Sounds nice!
Ryoid
Great! Does doing this can decrease the chance of mixed skin thread?
autoteleology
I don't think this is good enough. I don't believe you that anything will change, even if moderation actually increases. We need structural changes to how this forum works. We need actual change, throwing more people at the problem is only going to mask the symptoms and will do nothing to cure the causes, which run a lot deeper.
Topic Starter
Kurai

Philosofikal wrote:

I don't think this is good enough. I don't believe you that anything will change, even if moderation actually increases. We need structural changes to how this forum works. We need actual change, throwing more people at the problem is only going to mask the symptoms and will do nothing to cure the causes, which run a lot deeper.

Kurai wrote:

If you have any other ideas that can contribute to improving the subforum, do not hesitate to let us know. Your opinion matters!
You are free to suggest ideas too. For now this is all we can do, we will still be discussing internally about what we could do to improve the situation but it requires time.
h3oCharles
Is there going to be a quicker way to communicate with you, guys? while osu! PMing is cool and all, but acting quick might be helpful too.
autoteleology
The fundamental issues with this forum, and their solutions, are simple.

There is no separation of content whatsoever. There are so many different types of content just mashed all together, all fighting for the same front page. We have guides, questions, complaints, rules, skins, skin elements, etc. all in the same space. How is anyone supposed to find anything in this mess? It's total chaos in here.

The little separation that does exist is almost completely pointless. Why are we putting all the support for this forum in a single thread? Does anyone really want to read a six year old, 220 page, 4000 post long thread to find an answer for their question, or expect anyone else to do this to answer their question? When's the last time a mod has looked at the completed skins queue? The completed skins subforum is basically a repository of legacy content at this point.

This community also has no safeguards against the flood of people coming from osu!skinner. There's nothing stopping someone who has no integration with the community from coming in here, ignoring the rules and posting whatever they want. This problem exacerbates the content separation issue - it's already really difficult to find good content when everything is thrown into one big box, much less when you dump piles of random trash on top of said box every day.

So how do we solve these issues? It's very easy. We need to separate different types of content out from each other. Why this hasn't been done already is a mystery, honestly. Look at how other topics are all cleanly sorted out amongst different forums and subforums in this community, and then look at how Skinning is treated. We have just "Skinning". There is no structure or organization whatsoever. It's like we're a sideshow that nobody cares about. No wonder random users treat our forum that way. No wonder users rely on third party websites like osu!skinner or osu! skins instead of the forum in order to get their skinning content. Why would anyone want to come here over those places, really?

This is how I would divvy everything up and organize it to be a structured, efficient forum:

The main forum should be for questions, tutorials, etc. so that it gets more traffic and doesn't languish in obscurity like it would as a subforum since it doesn't have the same draw for traffic as the subforums for skins will.

Then, we need a subforum for incomplete skins - anything from individual element design to partial skins (for people who don't want to go through the trouble of making a whole skin, but don't want to make a mixed skin. Mixed skins will obviously still be banned.

Next, we need a subforum for completed skins - we already have that, thankfully, though there will need to be some changes made to use this forum to its fullest. First, the name should be changed to something along the lines of "qualified" or "approved" skins for reasons that will be made clear momentarily. Then, the forum should be made so that only moderators can post new topics, but users can still post in threads, just as it is now. Then, we make a full subforum for the "qualified skin queue", instead of having just a thread for it, where anyone can post new skins that are looking to be moved into the approved skin subforum. In this forum, moderators either lock/delete/move to graveyard content that breaks the rules, or promote good content to the approved skin subforum.

This works much better than the current system for a bunch of ways:
  1. It acts as a filter and a highlighter for all of the new content so that it gets the attention it deserves if it is good, and the different attention it deserves if it isn't.
  2. It holds moderators accountable for processing or not processing content because in a properly working system, the subforum should be close to empty - it is very difficult to accomplish the same effect with a thread because there is no way to tell how up to date the moderator processing on it is.
  3. When it is empty, as it should be, it should serve as an even better highlighter for new content.
  4. The kinds of people who don't read the rules or integrate into the community will post their garbage into the main forum, where it obviously doesn't belong, so it will stick out like a sore thumb and be dealt with quickly instead of blending in with good content as it does now.
  5. Different types of content will no longer have to fight for the same limited space on the front page, improving not only the readability of the forum, but also the amount of topics and discussions the forum can sustain at the same time.
So there. This is a comprehensive solution to the woes of the forum.
Charre

Philosofikal wrote:

stuff
You have a lot of great ideas. Another thing that needs to be dealt with is newcomers entering a helpful topic and quoting the WHOLE first post or even a random post without stating why or whether they agree or disagree with that post etc. Just leaves me scratching my head to see that and not see it get deleted.
h3oCharles

Charre wrote:

Philosofikal wrote:

stuff
You have a lot of great ideas. Another thing that needs to be dealt with is newcomers entering a helpful topic and quoting the WHOLE first post or even a random post without stating why or whether they agree or disagree with that post etc. Just leaves me scratching my head to see that and not see it get deleted.
I already mentioned that. Notice how most of these have single post counts which that derp
Charre

h3oCharles wrote:

I already mentioned that. Notice how most of these is have single post counts which that derp
My bad, didn't see it directly addressed in this thread. Also thanks for sending the mods the email that inspired this thread to be made
autoteleology
be negative: moderator response is immediate
be helpful: moderator response is nonexistent

And people wonder why I am negative. In my opinion, better to be disliked than ignored.

Kurai wrote:

We will do what we can to actively monitor

Philosofikal wrote:

I don't believe you that anything will change
Thanks for proving me right. You kept your promise for a solid one day. If you're not monitoring the announcement as the first post on the forum set up explicitly to help deal with the problem how could you possibly be monitoring the problem?
Nitrous
So in a nutshell of what your wall of text says, make it similar to Beatmapping and Beatmapping Subforum. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
It all depends if the staff would agree to your idea.
autoteleology
I mean, it's similar in that there's some progression and organization, which this forum currently lacks entirely.

As far as I can tell, Beatmapping is an example of a forum that is very well organized and managed, and it must be doing something right with all the quality fruit it provides for the community. I'd really like to see the same love and attention given to the skin forum as the beatmap forum considering that skins are virtually just as important as beatmaps in this game (how many people do you know that use the default skin?) There are a lot of systems that could be adapted from the beatmapping community - it would be pretty cool to give and get kudosu for skins, or have some sort of engine for collaboration, or have a way to integrate a skin browser to the game through osu!direct.

I'm also just saying that if I took the time to think and write all of that, even something as small as an acknowledgement that I exist would be nice. I don't seem to have any issue getting that when I am being rude, so why not when I took several hours out of my day to make a plan to improve the quality of this forum for everyone when it is being explicitly solicited?
deadbeat
I never responded because I have my own ideas for what needs to happen.
autoteleology

Kurai wrote:

Your opinion matters!

deadbeat wrote:

I have my own ideas for what needs to happen.
And these plans are...?
h3oCharles

Philosofikal wrote:

Kurai wrote:

Your opinion matters!

deadbeat wrote:

I have my own ideas for what needs to happen.
And these plans are...?
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell that, but still...
he wants to revive skins.ppy.sh

And yea, that is a perfect example of lack of communication between these moderators.

EDIT1: Oh, and CBullet is also preparing "something"
Lyawi
I appreciate that something happens here now, thanks for taking care~
h3oCharles
I've just talked with deadbeat, he said to wait and see if we're going to get a new site when lazer is done.
So I think for now they only thing we can do now is to struggle with those "newbies" lurking about for questions

Now... my question is, should I e-mail peppy about this situation as well and consider this option?
Lyawi
no
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