The skinning forum is a wasteland of spam posts that seemingly none of the staff team seem to care about. Despite me, atturbo555, and a handful of other active users constantly reporting these kinds of posts, there is no visible, positive outcome to our labour. Even though a member of the GMT will occasionally come through, their actions aren’t exactly helpful in most cases. Some of them are locking the threads, while others are moving threads to the wastelands, which is, at least from our points of view, a total miscommunication on their side. Sure, they are moderating and doing their best to help out, but in the long run, this will not mend or help any of the issues we are experiencing.
The biggest of these issues that we are facing is mixed or skins taking up the entire front page, pushing all high quality and high effort skins to the second page to never be seen by the average user. Unless your skin is being actively bumped by supporters of it, you are almost certainly doomed to get bumped to the second or third page by mixed skins. Locking does very little to amend this issue aside from discouraging that user from doing the same thing again.
To elaborate even further on these issues, here’s an email I wrote to the support team regarding them:
I did receive a reply, which will be shown here:
However, despite this reply, we have seen little to no changes on the matter. We are not shaming the GMT in any way, nor do we wish for this to be some sort of “callout” or “exposed” post. They simply do not want to/do not have the time to focus on the skinning subforum, there are bigger issues for them.
How do we suggest going about fixing this? Well, if the GMT simply does not have the time or want to help fix this issue, we have more than enough willing volunteers. We propose the addition of a “Skinning Moderation Team” of sorts, a team that will only have permissions to remove or lock posts/threads on the skinning subforum. Perhaps there could be a leader/head of said team, such as deadbeat if he is willing to. Obviously more work and thought needs to be put into their exact role and permissions, but a dedicated team of volunteers willing to nurture and moderate the skinning forum could help bring it back to life and weed out spam posts faster.
We would like to nominate the following people to join:
atturbo555
CBullet
EmanuelAlcon
Garin
h3oCharles (myself)
Haskorion
MatthewRobo
MaxM12
My reasoning behind nominating these members is that they are active within the skinning community and/or subforum. They understand the issues happening within the forum and care greatly about the health of the skinning community.
Regards,
h3oCharles and many other active members of the skinning community.
The biggest of these issues that we are facing is mixed or skins taking up the entire front page, pushing all high quality and high effort skins to the second page to never be seen by the average user. Unless your skin is being actively bumped by supporters of it, you are almost certainly doomed to get bumped to the second or third page by mixed skins. Locking does very little to amend this issue aside from discouraging that user from doing the same thing again.
To elaborate even further on these issues, here’s an email I wrote to the support team regarding them:
email
Dear osu! Support Team,
The skinning forum is a mess. There is rampant rule-breaking and a massive lack of organization.
1. Mixed Skins
People post mixed skins, despite the rules (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/318193) saying otherwise.
If you are unaware of what a "mixed skin" is, it is a skin that is compiled of multiple skins. Some cases also use 3rd party websites to compile skins, mainly http://osuskinner.com/.
Mixed Skins are a large issue in the forums due to how prevalent they are, especially since the distribution of a mixed skin on a forum intended to share original skins is akin to art theft. The majority of mixed skin posts contain no original artwork and do not credit the original creators.
2. Clutter
There are skinning questions posted on the forum, but once solved, they just... sit there. There is no section for these solved questions to be moved towards. This clutters up the skinning forum and takes attention away from skinners sharing their original skins.
3. OP Quote Spam
There is a spamming issue occurring right now. People are reposting OPs without bringing any discussion whatsoever. (See here: t/205453/start=15). Notice how the OP quoters only have that post as their only post.
4. Lack of Moderation
The main skinning moderators would be deadbeat and Stefan. From what I have seen, Stefan has not been on the skinning forum at all. deadbeat did appear, but he quickly disappeared again. He told us to PM him links to threads in need of inspection. I sent him the following:
t/612502
t/612418
t/332072
t/612074
t/612573
t/612579
t/613642
t/612643
t/614226
t/614298
t/614266
t/614482
t/614709
t/614821
t/614966
t/615407
t/613766
t/615465
t/615283
t/614822
t/614673
t/616133
t/615283
Deadbeat's replies included:
"Technically I can now But holiday
"
"I'll deal with it later"
"Can it wait I really wanna try Shadow of Mordor DLC"
"I'll get to those soonish"
"I'll just leave it then"
To give him credit, he did do SOME moderation, but it was only for couple threads. In comparison to the wall of links, he is only scratching the surface.
5. No Progress in Complete Skins Queue
deadbeat made a Complete Skins Queue thread (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/136162) where skinners could submit their skins that already appear in the forum to be moved into Completed Skins subforum for them to be noticed there. However, with his inactivity and not telling anyone how to do this sort of stuff, the queue just filled up to the point, where it's just sad.
All of these problems are still there and they are coming back like Hydra heads. Cut one - two more grow. Also, Garin (the Skinner behind the popular skin YUGEN) started a thread (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/611098) about some of these issues. The effects of this thread did not last long.
I am not the only skinner who wants this situation changed.
Please, I only want to help the skinning community grow.
Sincerely,
h3oCharles#5397 (https://osu.ppy.sh/u/8712289)
The skinning forum is a mess. There is rampant rule-breaking and a massive lack of organization.
1. Mixed Skins
People post mixed skins, despite the rules (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/318193) saying otherwise.
If you are unaware of what a "mixed skin" is, it is a skin that is compiled of multiple skins. Some cases also use 3rd party websites to compile skins, mainly http://osuskinner.com/.
Mixed Skins are a large issue in the forums due to how prevalent they are, especially since the distribution of a mixed skin on a forum intended to share original skins is akin to art theft. The majority of mixed skin posts contain no original artwork and do not credit the original creators.
2. Clutter
There are skinning questions posted on the forum, but once solved, they just... sit there. There is no section for these solved questions to be moved towards. This clutters up the skinning forum and takes attention away from skinners sharing their original skins.
3. OP Quote Spam
There is a spamming issue occurring right now. People are reposting OPs without bringing any discussion whatsoever. (See here: t/205453/start=15). Notice how the OP quoters only have that post as their only post.
4. Lack of Moderation
The main skinning moderators would be deadbeat and Stefan. From what I have seen, Stefan has not been on the skinning forum at all. deadbeat did appear, but he quickly disappeared again. He told us to PM him links to threads in need of inspection. I sent him the following:
t/612502
t/612418
t/332072
t/612074
t/612573
t/612579
t/613642
t/612643
t/614226
t/614298
t/614266
t/614482
t/614709
t/614821
t/614966
t/615407
t/613766
t/615465
t/615283
t/614822
t/614673
t/616133
t/615283
Deadbeat's replies included:
"Technically I can now But holiday
""I'll deal with it later"
"Can it wait I really wanna try Shadow of Mordor DLC"
"I'll get to those soonish"
"I'll just leave it then"
To give him credit, he did do SOME moderation, but it was only for couple threads. In comparison to the wall of links, he is only scratching the surface.
5. No Progress in Complete Skins Queue
deadbeat made a Complete Skins Queue thread (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/136162) where skinners could submit their skins that already appear in the forum to be moved into Completed Skins subforum for them to be noticed there. However, with his inactivity and not telling anyone how to do this sort of stuff, the queue just filled up to the point, where it's just sad.
All of these problems are still there and they are coming back like Hydra heads. Cut one - two more grow. Also, Garin (the Skinner behind the popular skin YUGEN) started a thread (https://osu.ppy.sh/forum/t/611098) about some of these issues. The effects of this thread did not last long.
I am not the only skinner who wants this situation changed.
Please, I only want to help the skinning community grow.
Sincerely,
h3oCharles#5397 (https://osu.ppy.sh/u/8712289)
I did receive a reply, which will be shown here:
reply
Hi,
We've raised this issue with the rest of the GMT and expect them to start picking up the slack on the issue very shortly. Thank you for sending in such a detailed report - we really do appreciate the level of detail you've put into this. You should notice some positive change within the next few days (if not immediately) - please let me know if you don't.
Regards,
osu! support
We've raised this issue with the rest of the GMT and expect them to start picking up the slack on the issue very shortly. Thank you for sending in such a detailed report - we really do appreciate the level of detail you've put into this. You should notice some positive change within the next few days (if not immediately) - please let me know if you don't.
Regards,
osu! support
However, despite this reply, we have seen little to no changes on the matter. We are not shaming the GMT in any way, nor do we wish for this to be some sort of “callout” or “exposed” post. They simply do not want to/do not have the time to focus on the skinning subforum, there are bigger issues for them.
How do we suggest going about fixing this? Well, if the GMT simply does not have the time or want to help fix this issue, we have more than enough willing volunteers. We propose the addition of a “Skinning Moderation Team” of sorts, a team that will only have permissions to remove or lock posts/threads on the skinning subforum. Perhaps there could be a leader/head of said team, such as deadbeat if he is willing to. Obviously more work and thought needs to be put into their exact role and permissions, but a dedicated team of volunteers willing to nurture and moderate the skinning forum could help bring it back to life and weed out spam posts faster.
We would like to nominate the following people to join:
atturbo555
CBullet
EmanuelAlcon
Garin
h3oCharles (myself)
Haskorion
MatthewRobo
MaxM12
My reasoning behind nominating these members is that they are active within the skinning community and/or subforum. They understand the issues happening within the forum and care greatly about the health of the skinning community.
Regards,
h3oCharles and many other active members of the skinning community.
.