Suggestions for the site

[Grapefruitvenison]

I find it strange that this site has methods for sorting by different tags, or text, and even sorting writing from pictures, however a huge thing that is missing is the ability to sort by ratings, or most favourites, or something like that.
Why not implement a rating system similar to something like what is seen on e621, that way members of the community can find what other members of the community liked, easier.
If anyone knows why this isn't already a thing, or if there is some specific reason for it not being in place, please let me know, because at least it will satisfy my curiosity.

[pureawesome]

Personally, I like the egalitarian edge the site has by not including those features. Reduces the feeling that there are people up on pedestals and makes it feel more like anyone can get involved and post their stuff.

[Riraito]

Well, personally, I know I dislike ideas like that.
You run into an issue with ratings systems like that - where things rise to the top not because they are interesting, or unique,or challenge your preconceptions about what good art should be..

They rise to the top because they do enough, technically well executed, and then that offend the least wide portion of the community.

For example - there are less people that like scat, or hard vore, or furry material, or anal vore... etc...
but straight oral non-digestion endosomatophilia is generally liked by a portion of the community that also enjoys those fetishes. So that specific fetish has a broader appeal. Even non-vore pictures have a broad appeal among voraphiles.

The problem therefore is that those sub-communities are unlikely to rise to the top of a general poll. What you'll find is that a lot of bland, and uninteresting work that only just ticks peoples fetish boxes will rise to the surface of that rankings system.

The other problem is that when you have a rankings system, things that top it gain more exposure... and therefore attract more viewers, and therefore accrue higher rankings... It becomes a circular system of ranking reinforcement. If we were a mainstream site like E621 - our art postings would have been down-voted to hell just for being non-conformative.

Think of the crap that rises to the top of your youtube suggestions listings (if you're not logged in), or reddit threads that hit the main page as suggested... It's hardly ever something of quality.

This is a community that encourages fringe fetishes equally. It's one of the reasons most of us are here.
In some ways, not having such a system, encourages us to sample different art and story styles.
Does a rating system really help the site? Or does it encourage a push towards a self reinforcing popularity contest?

But, hey, I'm a fringe artist that draws extreme content. That's just my take on it.

[Grapefruitvenison]

To be fair, i like the more extreme stuff, however it is hard to find anything when the site is flooded by very low quality work (I'm not trying to offend anyone, but you can tell some people put in more effort, or have more raw talent).

Right now with the current system, I look for stuff by following artists or looking through favourites of people with similar interests, rather than looking through tags, but even then artists tastes change, or it's hard to find new stuff.

The best solution would probably be some sort of algorithm, that weighs a like from a person, so that it only counts for people with similar interests, or something like that. Or polarising the site into furry/non-furry, or fatal/non fat (although that would divide the audience too much)

I don't really pay much attention to the community (best not to put yourself out there on a porn site), but that's a good point about how likes will probably hide what I want to see. Maybe if they had a moderator, so really low quality work was still viewable, but able to be filtered? I don't really know

[Calamari]

The rating/upvote system or whatever is a terrible idea for a site that by and large focuses on a fetish with hundreds of different preferences on characters, styles, and quality of work. Shit’s just way too subjective.

[Tilalumtar]

The rating/upvote system or whatever is a terrible idea for a site that by and large focuses on a fetish with hundreds of different preferences on characters, styles, and quality of work. Shit’s just way too subjective.

I second that.


But I have to say, that these whole tags are a bit messed up. Searching for f/f for example can take several steps: "f/f" ; "female/female" ; "f/female" ; "female/f".
Futher more on other sections. It takes a long time and is complicated to find all things from that 'genre'.

[Riraito]

Art quality is an inherently subjective thing. While there are techniques that are considered generally pleasing to the eye -They are not universally agreed upon.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", as they say.

In some ways - you already look to moderators who share your passions when you look at artist's favourites lists. You're choosing a person who selectively weeds out things that they enjoy for display, based on the art you already like.
Who decides what is 'Low Quality' in your system? (I guarantee you that relying on user based upvoting / downvoting is a mistake) How do you algorithmically identify 'low quality' work?

Attempting to weight the results based on tag is a more functional idea... but I suspect you'd find it insufficient (based on my current youtube suggestions list - which is weighted and still crap)

Part of the greatness of this site is that it encourages people to post their art regardless of quality. You think I'd ever had posted any of my artwork if I'd had to pass a quality test, or been subject to a 'most popular' suggested ranking system?
Hell No.

Not having a ranking system of any sort, is probably a good thing in encouraging new artists to try their own thing. It's hard enough putting your work out there, without being graded for your percieved effort.

Maybe you could consider putting yourself out there more? I know I have things shared to me by the guys and gals I RP with, that have helped me to find new artists I like. And by hunting through the Favourites of people who have watched or favourited my artwork. (Making art of the things you like - is a great way to attract people who are interested in similar things to you.)

[sweetladyamy]

Now, having that as an option rather than forced sounds like a decent idea in concept, but every single last person that replied basically reflects how I feel about the idea in general. Oh and with YouTube being a pile of ass (no thanks to the bitch that runs it now), I don't want Eka's Portal to become Eka's Tube, no thanks.

Good Idea in Concept almost never works out in a Practical Sense, though exceptions exist.

[Chameleonette]

A rating and popularity system would be an absolute trainwreck here. There are a lot of spiteful people (that you can find putting down things they don't like in art/creation comments alone) who would purposely give low ratings on things they don't personally like. And the resulting imbalance would bury the folks doing niche or less popular content beneath everything that's more sought and has bigger fanbases. Which is absolutely awful for lesser-known artists/writers/creators on the site who don't create for or delve into the more mainstream vore categories.

I much prefer the current system. It puts everyone on the same, equal level and still allows people to search based on the tags of what they would like to see. You can also easily dip into a person's favorites on their page to see content that lines up with what that person likes (if you like the same/similar thing(s)).

[Sydney]

This proposed system would result in any M pred art getting dumpstered by the multitudes of people on this site who seem to get personally offended whenever they happen upon it. People already harass artists who draw it as is.

[Aleph-Null]

This proposed system would result in any M pred art getting dumpstered by the multitudes of people on this site who seem to get personally offended whenever they happen upon it. People already harass artists who draw it as is.

If there was a down vote type option then yes, however, if it was based off of a like system then no. The real problem is that such a feature would benefit very few people.

I am kind of curious if a most likes or most views feature could be useful under certain circumstances, like limiting to a single artists uploads.

Edit:
I think a more useful feature would be automatic linking/consolidating equivalent tags, and automatically adding tags that necessarily apply. Like Male/Female could default to M/F, and if something was tagged Macro/Micro, it would have size difference added.

[ItsSongxing]

Yeah, as everyone else has said above, browsing by ratings is a bad idea. Not only will certain works inherently get better ratings/favs/views based on their content alone (stories will almost always do worse than images, mpred stuff will almost always do worse than fpred of similar quality, etc.) But there will be a stagnation of content as big artists only get bigger while small creators only get smaller (innuendos not intended). It's already easy to tell who some of the most renowned content creators are - NitroTitan/ModeSeven, Bigbig, Karbo, etc. - but a browse-by-rating system would utterly bury newer folks on the scene, like VeryBatty or Toyamura (before the latter deactivated). Eka's "Browse by newest" system means it's much easier for a new artist to garner a following, and enhance diversity of content and the creation of niches that "Browse by rating" inherently, if not intentionally, suppresses.

[Sydney]

This proposed system would result in any M pred art getting dumpstered by the multitudes of people on this site who seem to get personally offended whenever they happen upon it. People already harass artists who draw it as is.

If there was a down vote type option then yes, however, if it was based off of a like system then no. The real problem is that such a feature would benefit very few people.

I am kind of curious if a most likes or most views feature could be useful under certain circumstances, like limiting to a single artists uploads.

Edit:
I think a more useful feature would be automatic linking/consolidating equivalent tags, and automatically adding tags that necessarily apply. Like Male/Female could default to M/F, and if something was tagged Macro/Micro, it would have size difference added.

Well OP said "like e621" which has a downvote option, which is why I mentioned it.

I agree with you about tag consolidation. That'd be quite an undertaking to catch all the variations though.

[Aleph-Null]

I agree with you about tag consolidation. That'd be quite an undertaking to catch all the variations though.

I think the only way to get that done would be as a community wide project. There are far to many tags for admins to go through.

[Artemis]

Tags are already consolidated. It's just not something that's ... mentioned anywhere? To my knowledge? Eka happened to mention this to me while I was seeking help troubleshooting a problem a while back, is the only reason I know.

[sweetladyamy]

Tags are already consolidated. It's just not something that's ... mentioned anywhere? To my knowledge? Eka happened to mention this to me while I was seeking help troubleshooting a problem a while back, is the only reason I know.

Not all tags, only the ones commonly used.

For example...

'Transgirl' tags will not be automatically assumed as 'Herm', since the latter is more commonly used, and 'transgirl' is much less of a fetish-based tag.

[Grapefruitvenison]

I find it pretty stupid that people would harass other subsets of their niche fetish. I wonder how someone's life must be going that they have to do that to feel good about themselves.

My other main issue with the current system is it makes it harder to search for older work. So you are either stuck looking at the newest, or the oldest.

You guys make really good points though. The system right now is probably the best.

[Artemis]

Tags are already consolidated. It's just not something that's ... mentioned anywhere? To my knowledge? Eka happened to mention this to me while I was seeking help troubleshooting a problem a while back, is the only reason I know.

Not all tags, only the ones commonly used.

For example...

'Transgirl' tags will not be automatically assumed as 'Herm', since the latter is more commonly used, and 'transgirl' is much less of a fetish-based tag.

Well... One of those doesn't imply a dick. I would imagine some people probably find that pretty important, so I could see why it's not acceptable to treat them as the same tag. That being said, you could always PM--I'm honestly not sure whether Eka or Leshana that actually handles that, but maybe you could PM them with suggestions. The only problem being I don't know that what tags are consolidated is publicly viewable, which makes it harder to suggest things without fear of "This might already be consolidated" plaguing your thoughts.

I find it pretty stupid that people would harass other subsets of their niche fetish. I wonder how someone's life must be going that they have to do that to feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, I can think of multiple threads with intolerance for your fellow Eka's members being the central theme within the last few months. In fact, there's a decent chance I'm gonna piss someone off just by mentioning them, but look at this free speech I'mma do it anyway. There was the vitriolic discussions surrounding the temporary underage ban. There was the thread shitposting about how lame Same Size / Human content was. A big ol' thread talking about the annoyances male predator fans face that ran the gamut from actual harassment to not wanting to be reminded that people with other preferences exist.

Personally it still kinda amazes and offends me a little when awful threads like that second example don't get moderated, but eh. The point is, it would definitely be a problem if we instituted voting.

[kaneruNTchan]

What about a spanish and english support or other "well-knowed" languages?
Also something more easy, what about custom times, and finally what about something like a mobile apk?

[Aleph-Null]

Tags are already consolidated. It's just not something that's ... mentioned anywhere? To my knowledge? Eka happened to mention this to me while I was seeking help troubleshooting a problem a while back, is the only reason I know.

I think some tags are, but not all. I honestly never really search for something like F/F so I wouldn't know in that case. However, searching some other synonymous tags shows a lack of consolidation, for example: Dungeons and Dragons, dnd, and d&d all come up with different lists (with cross content due to cross tagging.)