# What the Heck?



## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

Whats this Hide Comment feature? After all this time of being told that it wouldn't be added, the coders add it. I honesty don't like it. I know it can be a deterent to deal with trolls, but what about when someone decides to abuse it? Why is it here now, get rid of it.


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## Xaerun (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm tempted to just say "NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE US!" and lock the thread, but I'll resist.
It takes a bit off the staff's backs, really- so I think that's okay


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## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

Xaerun said:


> I'm tempted to just say "NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE US!" and lock the thread, but I'll resist.
> It takes a bit off the staff's backs, really- so I think that's okay


 
I love reading through drama filled comments and responces, this will take that away.


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## Verin Asper (Oct 14, 2010)

HA, thats rich, you guys actually gave yourself more work really


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## Zydala (Oct 14, 2010)

Admins can see hidden comments, right? So I don't really see a problem

at least it gives artists the ability to block all those people that post murry-purry comments about how the photo of their pet dog is sexy :V


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## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

Zydala said:


> Admins can see hidden comments, right? So I don't really see a problem
> 
> at least it gives artists the ability to block all those people that post murry-purry comments about how the photo of their pet dog is sexy :V



Yeah, but what about the entertainment value that would come from the comments that are now going to be hidden? I find great enertainment from the drama of comments and the responces. All that could be lost now because of this.


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## CannonFodder (Oct 14, 2010)

It's already being abused, I give it a week before Fa's staff mercy kills it.


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## ryonekochan (Oct 14, 2010)

The way I see it, this has one particular consequence that is bad for the site as a whole. As everyone knows, there's a number of young, reactive artists on the site, and a number of them don't take ANY kind of criticism well. At first.

For example, Artist A is 17 years old, and a budding furry artist. By budding, I mean he's reactive and not receptive to criticism. He exists in the old system, where comments are set in stone. Artist B is largely the same as Artist A, being young and quick to butthurt. He exists in the new system.

Artist A is struck with some scathing comments on his first few pieces, which he refuses to acknowledge at first. Without the ability to remove comments from his submissions, they stay there forevermore. A few submissions later, he finds someone has commented on one of those first pieces. Curious, he checks, seeing that the comment is much more constructive than the scathing one, but seems to take from elements of the scathing comment, building on it and clarifying in fewer "this sucks ass"es. This ultimately contributes, consciously or subconsciously, to the artist's development, and his pieces improve. Even if he doesn't take it as helpful at first, the comment's existence and visibility could prove to encourage others to give constructive criticisms of his work, these people soon becoming watchers, fans and eventually commissioners.

Artist B receives similar comments on a couple of his pieces, which he quickly hides. No comments are better than bad comments, right? Not so much. Future individuals that visit these pieces will either see little reason to provide constructive criticism, or avoid doing it in fear that it will be instantly hidden. Several hidden comments will build up a negative reputation for the artist, who will get fewer comments, and ultimately fewer pageviews. They will have blocked themselves off from the community, declaring any and all even slightly negative comments as "trolling" and blocking them with little thought. There's significantly less hope for development of their art style, resulting in a vast gallery of poor art.

Sure, this is a bit of an extreme example that doesn't allow for many, if any, variables, but it's a bit more likely than you might think. Any artist that wishes to be successful has to learn to take the good with the bad. They have to take a few lumps here and there, but that's just how the game is played. If you're gonna run from the ball, maybe you shouldn't have gone to bat.

If this feature is kept, the quality of new artists will go right down the crapper. This will affect the site, affect the number of visitors, and ultimately affect the ability of the site to keep up with hosting costs.


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## Stratelier (Oct 14, 2010)

Out of curiosity, is it possible for staff members to un-hide comments, or mark them as non-hideable?


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## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

I just though of a wonderful idea. How about a limit to the number of block one can use per submission? It should be enough to allow you to deal with trolls, then block them so they can't comment again. I think 5 would be a suitable number, any more then that and you probably did or submitted something to warrant being trolled.
Does this sound like a good compromise?


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## Trpdwarf (Oct 14, 2010)

I'll have to be with OP. I hate the idea of being able to "Hide comments". Great way to encourage people to be little shits about criticism. ;/


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## Jude (Oct 14, 2010)

CannonFodder said:


> It's already being abused, I give it a week before Fa's staff mercy kills it.


 
I hope so.


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## Grimfang (Oct 14, 2010)

It seems like at least 90% of the people against this are people who enjoy seeking out drama, rather than offering constructive critique. The trouble ticket issues should outweigh this though. It's more about staffers being able to effectively handle their workload. There's a problem either way, and I think running a risk that "critique" being hidden by someone you don't know is the lesser sacrifice, especially since users can clean up spam/trolling/page-breaking comments on their own now.


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## Shark_the_raptor (Oct 14, 2010)

CannonFodder said:


> It's already being abused, I give it a week before Fa's staff mercy kills it.


 
Or

Maybe they'll place a limit on the number of comments you can hide in a day.  Like the "This" button.


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## Willow (Oct 14, 2010)

Grimfang said:


> It seems like at least 90% of the people against this are people who enjoy seeking out drama, rather than offering constructive critique.


 And even there, people will still start drama over critique.


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## Grimfang (Oct 14, 2010)

Willow said:


> And even there, people will still start drama over critique.


 
Some people do have a funny way of offering critique to random people. If honest criticism is being offered in a constructive manner, then you can do that still. I don't understand the whole necessity of critique needing to be displayed... other than it eliminates a ton of TT issues and drama. It's not like the critique never happened...

I dunno. I'm not a policy-maker or coder here. All I can recommend is this if you have firefox.


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## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

Grimfang said:


> It seems like at least 90% of the people against this are people who enjoy seeking out drama, rather than offering constructive critique. The trouble ticket issues should outweigh this though. It's more about staffers being able to effectively handle their workload. There's a problem either way, and I think running a risk that "critique" being hidden by someone you don't know is the lesser sacrifice, especially since users can clean up spam/trolling/page-breaking comments on their own now.


 
I don't seek drama, but I find it very amusing when I stumble upon it. Ultimately what gets under my skin about it is that for so long the coders, administrators, ect. kept saying that it wouldn't be done. I gave a good compromise, being able to hide 5 comments per submission, if you need more then that your either A. abusing it or B. did something to deserve being trolled. The rare exception is when you keep blocking comments by the same person, block them, then keep getting comments from them cause they made a new account, at that point it would require administrative action.


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## Grimfang (Oct 14, 2010)

thoron said:


> I don't seek drama, but I find it very amusing when I stumble upon it. Ultimately what gets under my skin about it is that for so long the coders, administrators, ect. kept saying that it wouldn't be done. I gave a good compromise, being able to hide 5 comments per submission, if you need more then that your either A. abusing it or B. did something to deserve being trolled. The rare exception is when you keep blocking comments by the same person, block them, then keep getting comments from them cause they made a new account, at that point it would require administrative action.


 
Well, everything that's been said already aside, that just leaves the room for exploitation on the other end. If someone goes to a recent submission and sees, "Five hidden comments.. welp *finger crack*"

The hypothetical abuse situations go on forever, but with this situation, the only abuse is that a user's critique won't be on open display. It kind of sucks, but the admins are only doing what they can to better the user experience. I haven't even spoken a word with any other staffer about this update yet, so I can't speak for them. I didn't even see the update, or know that it was in the works. I just saw the user reactions.. it really is a logical step for the site though, so that they can handle the more serious issues more quickly without ignoring or forgetting about other users.


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## thoron (Oct 14, 2010)

Grimfang said:


> Well, everything that's been said already aside, that just leaves the room for exploitation on the other end. If someone goes to a recent submission and sees, "Five hidden comments.. welp *finger crack*"
> 
> The hypothetical abuse situations go on forever, but with this situation, the only abuse is that a user's critique won't be on open display. It kind of sucks, but the admins are only doing what they can to better the user experience. I haven't even spoken a word with any other staffer about this update yet, so I can't speak for them. I didn't even see the update, or know that it was in the works. I just saw the user reactions.. it really is a logical step for the site though, so that they can handle the more serious issues more quickly without ignoring or forgetting about other users.



When I talk about a limit, I'm talking about being able to hide just 5 comments. if you reach that limit the site its self will not let you hide another comment on the submission or journal until one of the hidden comments is unhidden.


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## Grimfang (Oct 14, 2010)

thoron said:


> When I talk about a limit, I'm talking about being able to hide just 5 comments. if you reach that limit the site its self will not let you hide another comment on the submission or journal until one of the hidden comments is unhidden.


 
Five would be useful for the average submission, but I've seen griefing over fat people submitting photos. From the particular incident I'm thinking of, the user removed all the photos from her gallery, because a group of people saw something that was lulzy. That was from a single IRC channel, so I guess for what I had in mind, the five-limit wouldn't be very useful. At the same time, this isn't based on what I was thinking.. I guess I just agree with the idea.

It would be nice to prevent the abuse of hiding decent critique (even though we're also talking about the fun and drama), but if someone's so desperate to hide constructive feedback, how's the critique worth being offered? If you see that someone's obviously not welcoming critique, it just becomes an issue of badgering.

Anyway, it's getting pretty late here, so that's the last real question I can pose on this tonight. It's just an effort to make things run more efficiently, _as far as I know_.


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (Oct 14, 2010)

i think people should be able to block offensive or bad comments because some times people say bad things about other people and then it makes them hurt for example someone says "you are not nice your art is bad" then they should have the right to be removed
in order for them not to get hurt they should be able to do something about it other wise this just turns into a giant another america again


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## Objection (Oct 14, 2010)

i think this is a better aspect to the site.  i think it's good to be able to hide drama off your pictures. you may think it's amusing when you stumble upon a picture with it, but really you should be there for the picture and not some bitchfight in my comments. 

and i'm not quite sure people are pushing critique on people who clearly don't want it. yeah, it is a very positive quality of an artist to welcome critique, however, if they don't want it they obviously aren't going to synthesize it and just find you're being obnoxious.

i'm not really sure why anyone cares if a random person improves or not. what's it to you?


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## CannonFodder (Oct 14, 2010)

Grimfang said:


> Well, everything that's been said already aside, that just leaves the room for exploitation on the other end. If someone goes to a recent submission and sees, "Five hidden comments.. welp *finger crack*"
> 
> The hypothetical abuse situations go on forever, but with this situation, the only abuse is that a user's critique won't be on open display. It kind of sucks, but the admins are only doing what they can to better the user experience. I haven't even spoken a word with any other staffer about this update yet, so I can't speak for them. I didn't even see the update, or know that it was in the works. I just saw the user reactions.. it really is a logical step for the site though, so that they can handle the more serious issues more quickly without ignoring or forgetting about other users.


 FA is starting to look like a censored US military document.
If you ask me by the end of the month almost every last comment will have been hidden.


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## Catilda Lily (Oct 14, 2010)

I don't think I am going to use it.


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## quoting_mungo (Oct 15, 2010)

I think it's a step in the wrong direction, honestly. There's the fact that staffers have consistiently been saying "not gonna happen" about it in the past, and then there's the fact that some people get their panties in a knot over any opinion that doesn't match their own, and catering to that group may not be a good idea. It's not like use of this is going to stop at hostile criticism, nor would I trust that only people new to the fandom and community would use it. I can think of at least one popular artist who I wouldn't be surprised to see using it to silence dissenters.

I appreciate that this may take some work off admins' backs; I'm just not convinced that everything that gets hidden is stuff that would've been reported before, so the comparison doesn't seem entirely fair to me.


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## Grimfang (Oct 15, 2010)

FrancisBlack said:


> i think people should be able to block offensive or bad comments because some times people say bad things about other people and then it makes them hurt for example someone says "you are not nice your art is bad" then they should have the right to be removed
> in order for them not to get hurt they should be able to do something about it other wise this just turns into a giant another america again



Exactly what I was trying to say. I got all tripped up over my periods and commas.



CannonFodder said:


> FA is starting to look like a censored US military document.
> If you ask me by the end of the month almost every last comment will have been hidden.





quoting_mungo said:


> I think it's a step in the wrong direction, honestly. There's the fact that staffers have consistiently been saying "not gonna happen" about it in the past, and then there's the fact that some people get their panties in a knot over any opinion that doesn't match their own, and catering to that group may not be a good idea. It's not like use of this is going to stop at hostile criticism, nor would I trust that only people new to the fandom and community would use it. I can think of at least one popular artist who I wouldn't be surprised to see using it to silence dissenters.
> 
> I appreciate that this may take some work off admins' backs; I'm just not convinced that everything that gets hidden is stuff that would've been reported before, so the comparison doesn't seem entirely fair to me.


 
I guess time will tell. Users can hide or remove comments on many popular sites though, and not just art sites. Maybe Web 2.0 has just made me used to this, but those sites don't look like blacked-out documents.

Or maybe FA could implement something else in combination with this.. there was a feature on dA that I liked. It's an old one! It was way before it "went downhill". Users, when submitting whatever, could decide if they wanted to have

comments completely disabled
comments disabled, critique discouraged
comments enabled, critique encouraged/wanted

It was an option in the submission process, so I don't know how difficult that could be to put in. Maybe the idea's too far, but then every submission would be marked as to how critique will be received. I doubt people who are either acknowledging that they're not opposed to critique, or are your friends, will feel the need to hide all their stuff.

Browsing FA though, I rarely see constructive criticism that anyone would want removed. I just don't see the concern, other than with the people who are going to play around with the feature for lulz.


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## Stratelier (Oct 15, 2010)

dA used to have those three options (disabled/no critique/critiqueplz), however they more or less dropped the "critique" option when they implemented an _actual_ critiquing system (for paid members only, that alone helps prevent abuse).  They also make clear that site staff can view _all_ comments visible or otherwise, and if a user is found to be "manipulating" the appearance of feedback site staff will know.


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## Grimfang (Oct 15, 2010)

Ah, okay. At some point, I had stopped submitting to dA, and so much has changed..

I can't fully stand behind that last suggestion of mine.. I'm just questioning/suggesting to see what else can be done.

Anyway, yesterday I had said I'd rest my ideas in one thread, yet continued in this one. If people still have other ideas than what the main staff is doing, I'll let the discussion carry on with the main site admins.


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## CannonFodder (Oct 15, 2010)

Grimfang said:


> If people still have other ideas than what the main staff is doing, I'll let the discussion carry on with the main site admins.


 Oh oh, I got a idea, I gots an idea.
In the search, why not add all the tabs from browse artwork.  Add the category, the type, species and gender to it.
So like if someone wants to for example search traditional, general furry art(tame), bear dude they'd be able to do that.


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## anthroguy101 (Oct 15, 2010)

Does DA allow you to do this?  If not, then I don't see why FA should.


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## CannonFodder (Oct 15, 2010)

anthroguy101 said:


> Does DA allow you to do this?  If not, then I don't see why FA should.


 Actually DA allows you too.


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## Summercat (Oct 15, 2010)

This comment has been hidden.


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## Fendras (Oct 15, 2010)

My turn.

I post a submission. I get a few nice comments. Then someone double-posts with the same comment twice in a row, and replies to his comment apologizing for double-posting. I hide the extra post, spare the redundancy, and the person who double-posted no longer appears to have done so. I couldn't do that before.

I post a submission. I get a few nice comments as usual. Then someone comments to my submission, "waaah when are you coming back to your level 80 priest waaah." This has nothing to do with the submission, has no interest to anyone else, and belongs in a note or an IM. I hide the comment and prevent potential embarrassment.

I post a submission. I get a few nice comments, just as expected. Then someone I upset in IRC by disagreeing with his opinion gets his buddies to slap some stupid comments on my page, obvious trolling. There's no reason to leave these up. I can hide them.


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## Willow (Oct 15, 2010)

As I said in another thread about this same thing. 

If you have to ask yourself if it's a good idea to submit something, it probably isn't. 

Doesn't apply all the time, but most of the time. 

Basically, this button is just a cover up for some people who don't want to just get over themselves. People are not always going to love what you do, and some people like to tell you why they don't like it. 

Happens all the time.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Oct 15, 2010)

Apparently, something fishy is going on with the new feature....

http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/84623-Troll-disgruntled-admin-or-hacked-admin-hiding-harmless-comments

EDIT: And now it seems we're in read only mode....


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## InuAkiko (Oct 15, 2010)

OP, you need something else to do with your life besides read drama on the internets. Having said that, I do think your idea of numbering the limit of hides per post  would be useful.


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## Rossyfox (Oct 16, 2010)

I am strongly in favour of this new feature. I especially like the _hackers being able to hide anyone's comment, making it look like admins hid it_ aspect. That was a great idea.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Oct 16, 2010)

And now we're in admin mode. Joy.

=>.>=


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## Frenzee (Oct 16, 2010)

quoting_mungo said:


> I think it's a step in the wrong direction, honestly. There's the fact that staffers have consistiently been saying "not gonna happen" about it in the past, and then there's the fact that some people get their panties in a knot over any opinion that doesn't match their own, and catering to that group may not be a good idea. It's not like use of this is going to stop at hostile criticism, nor would I trust that only people new to the fandom and community would use it. I can think of at least one popular artist who I wouldn't be surprised to see using it to silence dissenters.
> 
> I appreciate that this may take some work off admins' backs; I'm just not convinced that everything that gets hidden is stuff that would've been reported before, so the comparison doesn't seem entirely fair to me.



Its kinda ironic you'd of all people say this as you've blocked me for reasons far beyond me. But my guess is you just don't agree with me in general because i cant see any other reason. That aside, i actually fully agree with you.


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## redfoxnudetoons (Oct 16, 2010)

Well, I guess this is what we get when the FA staff gives us a feature that wasn't even needed, and said that they were not going to do it in the first place....

=>.>=


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