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Review mod abuse (Interest stack deleted)

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Jun 11, 2023 6:49 AM
#1

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Sep 2010
4740
I noticed that one of my interest stacks was deleted without any notice whatsoever. Not just unlisted, deleted. I probably worked multiple hours on it and it's just gone and I wasn't even notified about it. I can already imagine which mod it was so might any of the admins explain to me how a single person can keep abusing his powers and make multiple features (reviews, recommendations and interest stacks) of your website unusable for the majority of the userbase for months in a row without any intervention?

As you probably know this isn't the first time this has happened to me and other users and it also isn't the first time I reported it so what exactly is your plan here? Did you create those features just so abusive mods and excessive guidelines can render them unusable? MAL pretty much only consists of user generated content so what do you think will happen when you drive away all the users who generate content? Think long and hard about how your guidelines, choice of mods and forced updates affect your community and if this "new generation" of users you try so hard to attract will really save this website from the inevitable fate it's heading right now.

This isn't just about one of my stacks getting deleted but about a systematical problem that MAL has built up for years that affects everyone.

If this doesn't get investigated and resolved properly this time I'm gonna leave MAL for good.

@Kineta @tingy @firefractal @Vindstot
ateksJun 24, 2023 11:55 PM
Jun 11, 2023 8:57 AM
#2

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Dec 2019
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Would be sad to see you leave

But when almost everything I had of recommendations etc got deleted as well, probably by that same nod, I had the same thought.

I was planning on one day translate my reviews and post all of them on Mal but I'll no longer do that just to see a mod delete all of thrm
Jun 11, 2023 10:29 AM
#3
(=^・ェ・^=)

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Nov 2013
891
Hi @ateks, thanks for the heads up. I've looked into the case and you should be receiving a message shortly.

Jun 11, 2023 4:24 PM
#4

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Sep 2010
4740
@firefractal thanks for resolving the issue, the stack has been restored.

Still it doesn't solve the problems I was talking about. You are just patching the holes in a sinking ship here. Why don't you sit down together with some of your more active and sane users and work out some new ideas, guidelines and rules that actually benefit the website instead of brewing your own soup that nobody wants? I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people here who are willing to help you if you are open for it.
Jun 11, 2023 8:00 PM
#5
(=^・ェ・^=)

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Nov 2013
891
@ateks

As you've stated, user-generated content like stacks, reviews, and recommendations are an important part of MAL and its community. The moderation team recognizes this fact and we do our utmost to ensure that MAL members have the ability to express themselves with their content, while also contributing to the MAL community as a whole. The stack guidelines in particular were created with the goal of allowing as much flexibility in content as possible without hindering utility, all within the confines of the current implementation of the stacks feature.

I understand that there may be some frustration with the guidelines because they prevent certain types of stacks from being made "Public," but as I stated earlier, the goal of the guidelines is to balance expression with utility. We aim to enforce these guidelines with as much consideration as possible, and make adjustments to our approach when necessary. If you have any concrete suggestions on how we could improve our guidelines, please shoot me a message and I'd be happy to discuss them further.

Jun 11, 2023 8:21 PM
#6

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Feb 2016
13852
firefractal said:
If you have any concrete suggestions on how we could improve our guidelines, please shoot me a message and I'd be happy to discuss them further.
My suggestion is that you simply unlist stacks rather than delete them.
その目だれの目?
Jun 12, 2023 12:04 AM
#7

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Sep 2010
4740
firefractal said:
If you have any concrete suggestions on how we could improve our guidelines, please shoot me a message and I'd be happy to discuss them further.

As I've already suggested before, and this counts for everything including the forum, reviews and interest stacks; content should only ever be modified or removed if it's either illegal, insulting, or spam. Most of the content on MAL is already self-moderating and doesn't need additional moderation. Low quality threads don't get many replies and disappear fast, low quality reviews don't get a lot of votes and have few visibility, low quality interest stacks don't get many restacks and have few visibility.

This could be enhanced by additional measures like an offtopic/spam board where low quality threads get moved instead of locked or deleted, a properly working upvote/downvote function for reviews so downvoted reviews don't end up at the top, and a proper search function for interest stacks so you can filter them by language, genre, personal top lists etc.

Most of the work mods have here is self-inflicted and not needed. MAL doesn't magically get better just because you lock every thread and unlist ever interest stack. Let people do what they like and want and only intervene if it's really necessary.
ateksJun 12, 2023 5:09 AM
Jun 12, 2023 1:48 AM
#8

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Sep 2010
4740
@Frostwork talk to firefractal he's the only sane person in that mod team. But I fully get your point why you don't bother anymore. I also mostly stopped working on my stacks and only add things once in a blue moon when I really got nothing better to do. Why would anyone want to create free content for this website if it gets deleted all the time. I made one of the most restacked stacks on MAL and it got unlisted multiple times so I guess they don't care what users really want and just enforce their pretentious guidelines. It could be a much better stack if I actually finished it but I lost all motivation to do so.
Jun 12, 2023 6:27 AM
#9

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Feb 2016
13852
ateks said:
low quality interest stacks don't get many restacks and have few visibility.
High quality stacks also have poor visibility, to be fair. As you acknowledged, we have only a limited search function.
その目だれの目?
Jun 12, 2023 6:29 AM

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@Frostwork Has it occurred to you that you may be in the wrong?
その目だれの目?
Jun 12, 2023 7:22 AM

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Lucifrost said:
@Frostwork Has it occurred to you that you may be in the wrong?

To be fair it's hard to tell what is right and what is wrong because every mod decides differently despite already having super strict guidelines. Technically half of my stacks also partly violate the guidelines if you lay them out exactly as they are written but it's simply not possible to create anything remotely useful if you lay them out like that which is why they don't make sense in their current state and mods will always find something to complain about depending on who you ask.
Jun 12, 2023 9:47 AM
ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

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Aug 2014
8057
firefractal said:
@ateks

As you've stated, user-generated content like stacks, reviews, and recommendations are an important part of MAL and its community. The moderation team recognizes this fact and we do our utmost to ensure that MAL members have the ability to express themselves with their content, while also contributing to the MAL community as a whole. The stack guidelines in particular were created with the goal of allowing as much flexibility in content as possible without hindering utility, all within the confines of the current implementation of the stacks feature.

I understand that there may be some frustration with the guidelines because they prevent certain types of stacks from being made "Public," but as I stated earlier, the goal of the guidelines is to balance expression with utility. We aim to enforce these guidelines with as much consideration as possible, and make adjustments to our approach when necessary. If you have any concrete suggestions on how we could improve our guidelines, please shoot me a message and I'd be happy to discuss them further.
A bit off topic to the original point of the thread (it can be taken elsewhere if you prefer), but this gave me an idea; instead of deleting recommendations/reviews, could there be an option to set them to unlisted? I'm not a huge fan of unlisting in the first place, but at least this would save content being deleted and allow people a chance to have a discussion with the moderators afterward (of course, users should always receive notification if something is unlisted for transparency). I was pretty discouraged when half of my recommendations were deleted for reasons I thought were trivial, but to honest, I would have been ok if they were just set to only be visible on my profile because they're ultimately more for me to help remember connections between different things I saw.
KwanthemasterJun 12, 2023 9:50 AM
Jun 14, 2023 12:30 PM

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Jun 2021
3190
I'm also somewhat opposed to deleting stacks and recommendations. Just unlist/hide them or have them only be viewable in user profiles.

firefractal said:
If you have any concrete suggestions on how we could improve our guidelines, please shoot me a message and I'd be happy to discuss them further.


Maybe just diligently check the Support and Suggestions boards. No real need for us to send PMs. Those boards have plenty of suggestions, ideas and critique already which are repeatedly brought up every now and then.

There are also suggestions and ideas in other boards and subboards such as the Updates & Announcements, Anime DB, Character & People DB and Manga DB.

Some users even compose essays. But only get caw, caw, kru, kru, kru, chirp, chirp... 🦗

---

I'm just gonna quote myself again (from: [Update May 24] Interest Stacks: New feature for custom theme lists and challenges):


Some threads related to interest stacks (There are way more. These are just some in my watched topics.):
Interest stacks sorting exploit
No Entry Minimum for Draft/Unlisted Stacks
adding to interest stack search by author and artist
Something about Interest Stacks that you might not know
Add in the ability to comment on interest stacks and also add an infinite number of anime and manga on there as well
Let us include Anime and Manga in the same interest stack
Notes for stacks
Create public Interest Stacks
Swap features in interest stacks only allows 3 images on some entries
Interest Stacks: Sort by popularity (restacks)
Interest Stacks: ongoing manga or not full scanlated
Comments on Interest Stacks
FAQ on Interest Stack Page
Is there a way for me to Swap photos in my favorites the Same way I can swap photos for interest stacks?
Interest Stacks
Searching for interest stack
Interest Stack's Restacking is Badly Explained and the Button is Not Labeled
Figure out badges and challenge interest stacks

P.S. Don't focus too much on the titles, read the comments by users.

---

It's getting harder to look for my old posts as the 'Watched Topics' limit is too low at 600 topics!

And how could we even PM when there's also an inbox limit (1,000). I wanna keep receipts of my approved submissions. If we can view our contributions page (https://myanimelist.net/profile/USERNAME/contributions) then I'd be fine deleting stuff in my inbox. It's also getting difficult to respond to PMs from other users because of the limit.

Related topics:
Increase the maximum number of watched topics
Watched limit
How to see all your forum posts
Forum Index Redesign and Notifications for Forum Quotes/Mentions!
PM: Increase the inbox/sent messages limit [Approved]
Browsing and Locking Inbox Messages
Bookmarking post
I'm not getting notified on my watched topics. (More thread links inside.)

P.P.S. I'm getting tired of repeating my suggestions and composing paragraphs or essays so I just pasted links to threads I already commented on or follow here. If anyone wants to bump some of the threads then feel free. Hehe.
Jun 24, 2023 7:01 PM

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Sep 2010
4740
Glad to see that the admins @Kineta and @tingy had enough time to answer on this matter. Funny to hear how the responsible mod said he wasn’t sure if stacks about dubs are allowed or not so he just deleted it lol. At the same time there exist dozen other stacks about dubs which have been online for much longer and are worse than mine quality wise. Why was especially my stack targeted here? Do I get mass reported by some clowns or do the review mods just genuinely hate me? Can’t imagine this is always just a coincidence and even if it was why did it get deleted instantly and not just unlisted anyway. Well I don’t think I will be getting any reply here anyway so I take consequences on what I said in my initial post.
ateksJun 24, 2023 7:10 PM
Jun 24, 2023 11:50 PM

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Jun 2015
3265
Im about to post my mod abuse, its obscene the level of power they must have
To have you, Id give a billion lives A-Chan best girl
Jul 21, 2023 9:16 AM

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Jun 2021
3190
@firefractal, I appreciate the response via PM. Thank you. But I couldn't respond to tell you that in PM... because as I stated before I already reached the inbox limit; I can only receive messages but can't send replies. Sorry, it took me a month to respond with a thank you. Also, I'm not really keen on commenting on user profiles; I only use that to respond to posts posted in my profile page.
Jul 21, 2023 10:04 AM

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Dec 2019
3500
gaussian_ will soon make MAL an empty blank page hahahah
Jul 22, 2023 6:52 PM

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hacker09 said:
gaussian_ will soon make MAL an empty blank page hahahah

Soon? Everyone who made good reviews and interest stacks already left.
Jul 22, 2023 10:12 PM

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Mar 2020
301
This reminds me of how there is much discourse about what should be allowed on fanfiction website archiveofourown. Some people think that some things should be censored on the website, but the rule is and always will be anything goes, because if you're allowed to ban one thing, you will soon be allowed to ban whatever you want. MAL not allowing people to be "controversial" is censorship and censorship is killing the site.

I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death you right to say it---no matter how disgusting, uncomfortable, or "controversial" I find it so long as nobody is in any actual danger.

AO3 is flourishing because it allows no censorship, because censorship killed fanfiction.net. And it's killing MAL too. Nobody even wants to he here anymore.
In the end, all girls are like the rose bride
Jul 23, 2023 12:24 AM

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16075
hacker09 said:
gaussian_ will soon make MAL an empty blank page hahahah
Sounds like his name should be uniform_ instead of gaussian_

I don't know what ateks's issue was, but suppose a famous Youtuber makes a list of "This is my definitive top 10 for newbs". Given that communities are human-centric, that there's a face behind every review and stack that people come to trust, I feel like such a stack would probably be more useful than many of the stacks that follow the rules for being not too personal.

In addition, I hope everyone is aware that it is easy to reframe any stack by renaming it to some arbitrary grouping that's less useful for people to search for.

Also, highly technical groupings that are not personal at all (e.g. "anime with shy imoutos as a main plot device") would probably be considered as "personal" by some mods just because the rigor of the stack author exceeds the tolerance or imagination of the mod, so it is deemed subjective or whatnot.

To be honest, when I started making stacks when the feature first came out, the vague language of the rules intimidated me. I became unsure what I was allowed to make public, what counted as a spoiler, etc., and decided that it was only a matter of time before a mod goes rogue and deletes something that takes hours making. It's happened before with my reviews, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't happen with stacks. So I stopped.

The best solution to all these problems is to stop drawing invisible divides in the sand, and I doubt any member would be inconvenienced by just having more stacks. If that is a concern, then there could be organizational tags such as "personal", "technical", etc.
My subjective reviews: katsureview.wordpress.com
THE CHAT CLUB.
Jul 23, 2023 12:31 AM

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Curlybrace101 said:
no matter how disgusting, uncomfortable, or "controversial" I find it so long as nobody is in any actual danger.

It was a stack about German dubs there is nothing controversial about it, it's not against the guidelines or anything, that thing was simply deleted because a mod felt like power tripping and he will continue to do that because the admins don't give a fuck.
Jul 23, 2023 12:33 AM

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ateks said:
Curlybrace101 said:
no matter how disgusting, uncomfortable, or "controversial" I find it so long as nobody is in any actual danger.

It was a stack about German dubs there is nothing controversial about it, it's not against the guidelines or anything, that thing was simply deleted because a mod felt like power tripping and he will continue to do that because the admins don't give a fuck.
I meant that in general but that's so funny lol. God forbid German speakers want an easy resource to find anime dubbed in their language.
In the end, all girls are like the rose bride
Jul 23, 2023 2:37 AM
Heavy Sleeper

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Jun 2009
60
ateks said:
low quality interest stacks don't get many restacks and have few visibility

Doesn't seems like the number of restacks affects visibility in any way.
On stacks page all I can see from user-generated content is "Recent Interest Stacks" where 9 stacks out of 10 are breaking guidelines, trolling, spam or "I like this / You must watch that / the BEST anime" and other types of garbage. Even if I use the search feature it is almost impossible to find anything in this dumpster because the results are sorted in incomprehensible way.

For example, if I search the word "Summer" right now then the first result would be Crunchyroll Summer 2023 हिन्दी (Hindi) SimulDub with 1 restack, while  A Summer Out of This World (9.9k) and Midsummer Mermaids (5.2k) will be on page 2. How and why?

So, the only usable thing left there is MyAnimeList Interest Stacks that was created and pinned by admins themselves.
feo_sanJul 23, 2023 2:42 AM
Jul 23, 2023 2:51 AM

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feo_san said:
ateks said:
low quality interest stacks don't get many restacks and have few visibility

Doesn't seems like the number of restacks affects visibility in any way.
On stacks page all I can see from user-generated content is "Recent Interest Stacks" where 9 stacks out of 10 are breaking guidelines, trolling, spam or "I like this / You must watch that / the BEST anime" and other types of garbage. Even if I use the search feature it is almost impossible to find anything in this dumpster because the results are sorted in incomprehensible way.

For example, if I search the word "Summer" right now then the first result would be Crunchyroll Summer 2023 हिन्दी (Hindi) SimulDub with 1 restack, while  A Summer Out of This World (9.9k) and Midsummer Mermaids (5.2k) will be on page 2. How and why?

So, the only usable thing left there is MyAnimeList Interest Stacks that was created and pinned by admins themselves.

The overview and search page are useless either way doesn't matter how much gets unlisted or not. The way you find good stacks is to go to an anime entry and then click on interest stacks there you can actually sort it. Or you use this top list which had to be made by an user because MAL is too dumb to do that.
Sep 19, 2023 1:50 PM

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Feb 2019
10823
Had the same issue with the same mod. Glad to know I’m not alone. It’s like they want to remove all life from this site. The users are the people who make the forums. Recommendations, interest stacks, reviews and more should not be subject to such petty removal reasons. I agree that the community should be the final arbiter unless something is illegal or violates the terms of service of the website. An upvote system would be nice kind of like what Reddit has.
Marinate1016Sep 19, 2023 1:53 PM
Sep 26, 2023 3:40 PM

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Jun 2021
3190
I'm gonna quote this before it gets deleted (as I've seen this mod delete their posts several times in multiple threads). Not letting this one slip...

ACasualViewer said:
We want interests to be narrowly defined, we also mostly would prefer not seeing franchise stacks as that information can be easily researched using the database as is.

(Thread: time to increase the maximum number of entries in a stack?)

I hope they don't delete watch order and reading guides! Come on! Some people put effort in creating those. Not everything is in the DB. Maybe check the article stacks first before unlisting or deleting. Watch order and reading order stacks that are article stacks are much better than other random stacks out there...

It feels like they're gonna purge some guides, eh? Now, I hate that! 😡 People make those stacks to make watching and reading more convenient. Would you want to keep searching the DB every time you wanna complete a franchise? Those stacks are helpful. Well, maybe if MAL has something similar to Chiaki on their site then users wouldn't find the need to make such stacks.
Oct 7, 2023 10:42 AM

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Jun 2015
3265
Mod abuse is still happening, I just got back from a two week ban due to my sexuiality and posting as such. It was butter up as trolling but everyone quoted I know and the one post which was my own and not quoting was me talking about what I like.
To have you, Id give a billion lives A-Chan best girl
Nov 23, 2023 5:00 AM

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Jun 2021
3190
Here's another one:
Please delete all my reviews

Editing users' reviews? Uhm, I don't think that's right... Why not just advice or ask users to edit their own reviews instead of acting as proofreaders and editors? Some might just want their reviews taken down than be heavily edited by someone else.

Perhaps there could be something like the 'Unlisted' option similar to interest stacks for reviews and recommendations. So users can still view their "unlisted" reviews and recs on their profile page.
Jan 22, 2024 9:44 AM
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Jun 2017
1
I seem to be having some issues with mods as well, this is how you ruin a website.
Apr 10, 11:42 AM

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3190


Anyways, here's another complaint (although a different one): https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2209596

---

Edit:
Ugh! Never mind! It's set to draft. 🤦 Pasting the URL on my browser gave me a 404 error and I also couldn't find it on my 'Recently Added' stacks on my profile. I had to go to 'My Interest Stacks'. From there, I saw it was set to draft. Okay, my bad...

Honestly, there should be a better way to manage our stacks. Like have separate tabs for anime and manga stacks as well as the ability to set things to private and not just drafts and unlisted.

Sorry for the panic. My initial thought was my stack got deleted after reading these threads:
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2209596
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2201403
IridescentJauneApr 10, 1:23 PM
Apr 10, 12:22 PM

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Jul 2016
5107
I have never heard of interest stacks before, cool feature
Apr 28, 1:33 PM

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Apr 2011
60
Reply to IridescentJaune


Anyways, here's another complaint (although a different one): https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2209596

---

Edit:
Ugh! Never mind! It's set to draft. 🤦 Pasting the URL on my browser gave me a 404 error and I also couldn't find it on my 'Recently Added' stacks on my profile. I had to go to 'My Interest Stacks'. From there, I saw it was set to draft. Okay, my bad...

Honestly, there should be a better way to manage our stacks. Like have separate tabs for anime and manga stacks as well as the ability to set things to private and not just drafts and unlisted.

Sorry for the panic. My initial thought was my stack got deleted after reading these threads:
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2209596
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2201403
I still haven't been able to get any explanation on my stacks being deleted. I've sent messages to a few different staff members, but haven't received a single response.

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Jun 12, 2:38 PM
It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
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