Radioactive said:
Is there any reason why we want to keep P/C & Pools as separate solutions? I can see some positives if P/C was only an option for Pools (As well as some negatives...)

I'm not entirely sure what you meant, but I've thought about P/C for a bit, so I'll just dump my thoughts.

P/C is used for:
1. associating dupes, fixed's, etc
2. hiding posts from the index, including
2a. content that some people may not like (eg. rating:e loli)
2b. content that's just not useful in the index (post #18530)
2c. some batch posts
3. associating similar posts (eg. photoshops, CG variants)

#1, #2b are good uses of P/C.

#2c is very infrequently used now; most of these should just be pools now, and most are. I think admin2 posted a monochrome batch and did it, but that's all I can think of. We should probably do a quick check for any posts with more than three or four children, to see if there are any leftovers that havn't been converted to pools yet. (Can't search for that, probably need to do it in SQL...)

#2a I don't like, because it means even people who want to see that content can't: it's never on the index, it's very easy to miss a parent with many children, and if you're adding a new post to an old parent, it won't show up on the index at all.

Right now, there's no good alternative, but hopefully "advanced blacklists" will be a solution once they're implemented. We can set the default blacklists to exclude these things, and then people who want it (who remove the blacklist) can see it normally on the index.

Post #18603 is #3--a photoshop. It doesn't make sense to make a pool for two posts. P/C makes sense, since it should be associated with the original, and I think that photoshops like this should be child posts (this isn't a fix, this is just playing with the image), but these shouldn't be hidden from the index.

Maybe these shouldn't be P/C'd, and instead just mention the original post in a comment (or two comments, in both posts, since the association goes both ways). This is very rarely needed, so I don't think any special code solutions are worth it.

One final semi-issue: when batch posting larger sets to a pool, it only partially makes sense to hide them from the index. If I posted a 50-page artbook, I wouldn't want the first five pages of the index to be full of it, but I wouldn't want pages hidden, either. In that case, I'd be more likely to stagger the batch--post it over the course of a few days. Less overload that way, anyway; it's probably more likely for people to vote and favorite and edit properly (even people who really like it), rather than seeing a huge batch and going into skim-mode or just downloading it all and viewing it offline.

Nice response. Good to see you've thought through the consequences.

Here is my slightly-less thought through reply. Let me know what you think.

(SuperPools are what I am referring to on the OP. Single solution Pool with a P/C switch)

1. Can be done with SuperPools even if it is only for 2 posts. P/C switch is active.

2. You can hide from the index with a SsperPool, but you can still be seen in the Pool section.

2a. Unique naming of the pool should warn the viewer.
2b. As 1
2c. Retired.

3. P/C switch is inactive on the SuperPool.

Your final semi-issue could be resolved with a 'completed' switch for the Pool. Your viewers will know when it is ready for download.

Negatives:

I can see a problem with unique names for the Pools.
Legacy Pools & P/Cs - How would you deal with them?
It will be harder for the general users.

Do you mean a toggle to make pools hide posts in the index?

That might be a simplification in some ways, but I think the only case it'd really improve is #3 (pairing without hiding), which is sort of a niche case. The rest are sort of a lateral move. It could probably handle the same things, but it'd be a bunch of new UI and user education, and a lot of design questions to figure out.

For example: it'd bloat the pool list, which right now functions as a list of interesting post groups; need some mechanism for purging empty pools, eg. if a duplicate is deleted; using the "order" mechanism to indicate which is the conceptual "parent"; some equivalent of quick parenting with tag scripts.

Your final semi-issue could be resolved with a 'completed' switch for the Pool. Your viewers will know when it is ready for download.

The batch issue is that, while I don't care if people download the batch, I do prefer that people who like it to actually spend the time to use vote and/or favorite each one appropriately, which is less likely to happen if a large batch is posted at once. Staggering posts (posting 5-10 images of a set a day, say) probably helps that. It also means there's no need to hide them (there's not that many at once). I don't care if other people do or don't do this--I'm not suggesting it as policy--it's just something I try to do.

Of course, as we've talked about, score isn't everything--in fact, isn't much at all, in some cases, even range_murata is largely 0/1, wtf?--but at least that avoids making it worse.

Do you mean a toggle to make pools hide posts in the index?

At the end of the day that is what we would get. Posts with visibility in the index should get coloured borders. I'm torn between letting the first post from a non-visible SuperPool showing in the index, or keep it in the Pool area only.

but it'd be a bunch of new UI and user education, and a lot of design questions to figure out.

This is where my idea falls down. It would need time and effort to test, and implement. Is it even worth doing this?

Of course, as we've talked about, score isn't everything

Score is meaningless on moe.imouto. It is n't like we get extra 'papers' (Thankfully) or anything like that. At the end of the day we should be making scans available to all, and a 'completed' checkbox for a SuperPool would allow the users to know when to grab the Pool.

Score isn't completely meaningless, but it's not very helpful. It's nice to know if *someone* cares about what you're posting, though. I do wish danbooru tracked all votes; then it could be a bit more intelligent about score. For example, heuristically, "score among people who tend to vote for S/Q posts"; "score among people who vote like me". This could help the "Similar Users" be less dumb, too (right now it just uses favorites--not enough information), and maybe allow doing "recommended posts".

I don't think pools need a major redesign. I agree there's redundancy in the feature set; I had that impression, too. We can deal with it by just choosing their uses where they make sense, though.

I don't like the idea of pools being something that you post and that people then just grab en masse. At that point, we may as well just be posting torrents. For the "completed" purpose we could just put "completed", "incomplete" or "ongoing" (for open-ended pools) in the pool description. Of course, most pools are never truly completed; someone might always update a post.

Posts with visibility in the index should get coloured borders.

This is the major issue I have with P/C. In my opinion, *all* posts should be visible in the index, excluding only dupes and variants (eg. fixed fixme's), and maybe batch posts at the poster's discretion (eg. that monochrome batch by admin2).

In other words, with the current system, I think the only things that should be P/Cd are those exceptions.

Put another way, if a post isn't shown in the index, it's so rarely going to be seen, why post it?

I think advanced blacklists are the only thing missing for this to be reasonable in general.

It's nice to know if *someone* cares about what you're posting, though.

It seems that a lot of the visitors only vote if they see her tits. Very disappointed that safe/questionable images are not appreciated.

I do wish danbooru tracked all votes; then it could be a bit more intelligent about score. For example, heuristically, "score among people who tend to vote for S/Q posts"; "score among people who vote like me". This could help the "Similar Users" be less dumb, too (right now it just uses favorites--not enough information), and maybe allow doing "recommended posts".

Agree with you about this.

I don't think pools need a major redesign. I agree there's redundancy in the feature set; I had that impression, too. We can deal with it by just choosing their uses where they make sense, though.

Maybe not a redesign, but a serious think about what would be better for a Danbooru board like moe.

I don't like the idea of pools being something that you post and that people then just grab en masse.

Not the idea behind my suggestion. It is just to inform the visitors that you won't be updating it in future.

This is the major issue I have with P/C. In my opinion, *all* posts should be visible in the index, excluding only dupes and variants (eg. fixed fixme's), and maybe batch posts at the poster's discretion (eg. that monochrome batch by admin2).

I have to disagree with you here. I collect images on a day-by-day basis. As and when I visit. If someone was to dump everything in the index, I would be well annoyed.

At least there is some organization of the index if you use P/C

Why not make hiding P/C from the index a user-selected option then? Would that work for you? Is it do-able?

Almost everything's being "dumped" in the index anyway. I don't like the idea of making it an option; that doesn't solve the problem, it just gives two bad options: either you see everything in the index (including useless things like dupes), or you never see lots of interesting posts because they're hidden (unless you happen to search to it, which is bad odds).

I don't think it's a big deal, in general. Personally, I don't care for many of these batches (the Eva, Sailor Moon stuff, this Fushigi Yuugi stuff... eh [ed: actually not much of the latter at the moment, just a bunch of random stuff that looked similar in the thumbs; shrug]), but it's not like it affects my use of the site at all.