I see daily awards being retired more than I do submission scores, not that I don’t like the idea of the daily awards.

NG's score system is the least issue I've ever taken to a rating system.

Number 1: I'm kind of all up for the idea of removing daily p-bot picks and making the new games and movies bar twice or thrice as long to make up.

Number 2: You could also make a genre like "Pornography-parody/original" and have all movies with that genre be filtered out of daily awards. I don't know if that's easier to do than the former though.

Ratings/Scores are one of the best parts of the website(that separates it from the other video platforms) to balance out too high and too low view counts on submissions, so I hope you never overcorrect and remove them entirely

Seconded, anything to do with scores would be overcorrecting to me.

A-rated content is already automatically filtered out. the entire problem stems from creators not properly rating their content(which they ****ing shouldn't do, it's there to protect the under 18 kids on the site AND the creators themselves from crossing that demographic). The only issue with a daily award being attributed to smut is 1. yea it's a bummer it stole someone else's chance for an award, but mostly mother-lovin' #2. it gets featured at the top of the homepage all day and on the portal legacy page for one full week.

There is also no consequences for the creator using the wrong rating. It's not like A-rated content gets less views, people who look for it, will and do find it. A-rated stuff gets the MOST views on the site. So a mod switches the rating for them, no biggy... except the horny bait problem that started a few years ago has evolved to sometimes ACTUAL ****ING porn on the homepage which exposes the content to underage-users and invites hate to the creator for multiple reasons until they end up doing it again the next time they post.

We have E/T/M/A content filters, we don't need to lose the daily awards, the problem doesn't exist as long as you fill in the radio bubbles correctly:

Fun Fact: When I work on porn it's set to Adult so that the people that don't wanna see that stuff while they browse, won't!!

P-Bot is unhinged today.

Blank slate my sweet buns i can tell exactly what state P-Bot is in right now

Happy memorial day mate

I really like seeing the top 5 of the previous day, and people work hard for those awards. The voting system makes this website. Please don't do that. :(

EDIT: Make seperate awards for the A-rating folks so they can't be tempted to screw around with the system? :/

Yeah, I hope this problem is solved so stuff like that guy's student film can get the 1st place it deserves

I say keep it i really like this part of Newgrounds it expands the popularity of great animations witch is always a win im my opinion and i like to see all the new animations I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise and if i got to see a porn video to keep it that's fine with me

I don't think it's them trying to screw with the system. Maybe they genuinely think their work is "softcore" enough for it to get away with an M rating, and this somehow has the side effect of them beating out SFW submissions.

Case in point: Both Prevrence and Benek and people like them tend to have followings just as big (if not bigger) than people like POSTBOY, HoboGuyCool, pollyanoid, BrandyBuizel, etc and have just as much technical skill in 2D or 3D animation.

They just won't listen. This needs to be an official rule/guideline, and possibly not just for porn authors.

Ah, the nuclear option. Just because it worked (for the most part) with the General/Politics forums, doesn't mean it's the best option.

Horrible idea.

The current numbered score system is the one thing that separates Newgrounds from YouTube in the way they emphasize quality, and removing that would also remove the quality factor. Yes, quality submissions will still be frontpaged by hand, but there's only so much we can feature and there may be some hidden gem that didn't make the cut.

If scores were replaced with YouTube's like/dislike feature (or something similar) it's just gonna be a popularity contest to see who can gets the most likes + comments (reviews), ie. just another YouTube, and it'll just make it harder for smaller creators to break into the spotlight.

And don't get me started with the save/blam system.

Congrats to the winners!

As much as something needs to be done to balance scoring, getting rid of scores altogether would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Being able to sort submissions by score is invaluable when searching for various categories & tags, for instance.

Maybe the problem is that a score determined solely by (albeit weighted) votes is too all-encompassing of a metric to rank submissions by. As it stands, the easiest submissions to raise the score of are precisely the ones that probably shouldn't be winning daily awards: short exploitative videos that are easy to consume and mindlessly vote 5 on. With that said, a naive solution for movie submissions could be making voting power proportional to movie length.

And on the topic of age ratings, maybe there could be a dispute system to let users vote on what they believe is the appropriate rating for a submission, i.e. to have community-decided age ratings instead of solely author/mod-decided ratings. One way to avoid people gaming this system is to only consider a community rating over the author's if it reaches some kind of consensus, like passing enough votes or hitting a high enough percentage over other ratings people voted for.

@Dungeonation is it?

I would think a fetish would be an "Adult Theme". According to the rating widget even "Lots" of "Adult Theme(s)" still only warrants an "M". I wrote a quick script to cycle through all 243 combinations of all levels of "Nudity", "Violence", "Explicit Audio", "Explicit Text", and "Adult Theme(s)" and the only factor that matters in terms of an "A" rating is having "Lots" of "Nudity". Is there some official clarification somewhere that fetish content is a form of "Nudity"? Is there an official carve-out for certain paraphilias? I see bare feet on the front page all the time and podophilia is easily the most common non-behavioral fetish by a land slide.

I'm not trying to be challenging, you made a very specific claim in a very confident manner, so I want to believe you. However, it seems to contradict the available information including the source code to the website itself?

I've searched the site up and down to find official clarifications on the rating system and found none. Do you have access to information that isn't widely available? Could you share it?

This is not on you to answer (you made Booba Beat and are my hero). This is more a general question for this forum: I've seen lots of confident claims that content has been "mis-rated" but many times that doesn't seem to be the case? Twerkout 2, for example, does not have "Lots" of "Nudity". It has "Lots" of "Adult Theme(s)", but--again--that only makes it an "M" and that seems to be what it is rated at the time of this post. Thonged butts are not generally considered nudity and I have definitely seen barer asses as "M" on entries that were editorially vouched (monthly winners etc.). Is there a post or page I can read that lays out more info than the official widget? Why hasn't the official widget been changed to reflect this hidden criteria? What good is done by keeping this stuff secret if it does exist?

I don’t think it’s a rule put in the books yet on the site but it’s becoming good form to do so, that’s the advice I’ve heard here and there from people on the site

Hi @Royal-Harmonica. I'm pretty new to newgrounds.com, so I didn't even know there was a ranking system by P-Bot. That said, thanks for keeping me in the loop!

I hate to press it, but is "here and there" the staff? The mods? The self-appointed BBS "intelligentsia"? The ratings grid is a pretty objective tool and I'd want pretty strong social proof to go against it. You'd need to basically "lie" and claim to have nudity you don't to get an "A" rating. It seems that would set you up for a whole new set of complaints (ie people asking where's the promised nudity) and they'd technically be in the right to do so.

Hey so uh, creator of the winning animation here.

Sorry that my animation has caused some issues for the folks here. I don't post my content here a lot and most people who follow me don't even know I have an account here, so I couldn't tell you why my animation won. On that note, I do put a considerable amount of effort into the work I create on an aged program and I'm happy folks thought it was good enough to be front paged.

THAT BEING SAID; I noticed there's been a bunch of accusations that I "changed my rating to make sure it wins". In all honesty, I haven't touched the rating since I first posted the animation. I've seen a lot of my content get its rating automatically changed from A to M or M to A, but this is what I personally set the rating as:

I figured M-A were both considered "18+" content due to a bunch of other NSFW videos I've seen also be rated this (even T sometimes). The animation has no penetration, no explicit sexual actions, and no genitalia. Just bare butts, expansion fetish, and a lot of dancing, so I figured it wouldn't need "LOTS" of nudity or Adult Themes as a rating. Sorry that has clearly caused some issues in the long run. Though on that note, would it be more problematic to just have a "this is 18+" box NSFW artists could check off to avoid these types of issues in the future?

On the subject of "opting out of an award to avoid backlash", I don't really see why I should do that because an outside force wanted to award me. The backlash I got feels somewhat warranted since the subject of the video clearly left the target audience, but it seems unfair that I should just automatically disqualify future animations from the sites content because different opinions want to review bomb my animation.

All in all though, I don't really plan on posting more here due to how this whole situation went (along with a bunch of my stuff getting mass reported right after). I apologize if I caused some type of major disruption to the status quo here, but I don't want to be the reason why the site has to discontinue the long running tradition of Daily Picks just because I posted some ass.

Alright, I try to be nice-nice most of the time, but today, I gotta stand up for ass.

I don't think you should leave, Prevence. I think it's time to find out why the mods are being inconsistent in their re-classifying of posts. I've had it happen to me several times now on art that has tits in it, like re-classified from T to M or E to T, when freaking tits on display artwork marked as E-RATED are Frontpaged, and STAYED E-rated. Now, as anyone who goes to my profile will know, I love tits. I draw them constantly, and I feel they should be on the Frontpage. But I don't understand why some people get to put tits and ass in their projects, and they're marked at E or T, and others have their stuff re-classified to M and A while vote brigading goes on.

Also on P-Bot, P-Bot picks what is actually popular. I have noticed things have gotten pretty slow around here recently myself, and maybe that is allowing more titty content on the P-Bot picks on the frontpage. But to those who don't like it, be the change you want to be. Make more stuff. Make it quality. That's how you change things. Not freaking changing the rules, or making up rules that don't exist, like you're some kind of evil party in a country in decline that has unpopular opinions/platform. And if people don't want your stuff, ask yourself why you make it? To just get P-Bot picks? That's kinda hollow.

Stay here, Prevence. Let's make titty and ass content that the people are telling us they want when we win P-Bot Picks.

Please don't go. I was unaware of you until the P-bot pick (the whole purpose of P-bot really) and your stuff is fantastic! I realise it's not on you to fight in every online battle, but please understand the unconscionable way you and your work have been treated is not the site at its best and doesn't happen often. As you rightly point out, the ratings system on NG is extremely fair and objective. There's no way your video could be considered to have "Lots" of "Nudity".

There is a minor but organised contingent of sex negative users on the site that either wishes the rules were different than what they are or already believe them to be so based on hearsay "from here and there". There's also another small portion who simply use "rule violations" as just another tool in their box of tactics to promote their in-group work over all others. Both of these things happen on any site with a social component and usually aren't a huge deal. Unfortunately for you, you found yourself in the overlap of both of witch-hunting and brigading because of the nature of your work and the fact that a group of students thought the slow Memorial Day weekend would be a good time to post their final project films, most of which are--frankly--technically inferior in terms of animation and also much less sexy... :)

There are open wounds on this site regarding the treatment of adult content, I'm not going to lie, but you... well you really had the stars align against you and that sucks. Totally selfishly, I really want to see your stuff come up in my feed. I also think that the general adult content battle is a passing fad and must eventually settle with titties winning. It's just too incongruent for a Neo Geo fansite that became famous worldwide for mocking school shootings to go any other way.

Thirded and so fourth.

Plus it's a collective community vote. It puts emphasis on the community, both on their contribution and their reward; their ability to impact what's chosen and applauded. I don't think taking away more and more community-related functions is the right way to go, that's the route most mainstream sites seem to follow, and as I see it it rarely goes well, it eventually makes a place feel impersonal; mechanical; there's little incentive to get involved...

Plus it's a long-standing tradition, and traditions (good ones, that allow for anyone to be involved) generally enforce a sense of belonging; purpose; longevity. Good things for such a place to have IMO.

I'd hate to see both P-Bot selections and scores overall go, to me they're defining factors in what make this place special; appreciably open and creator-driven. If anything it'd be great with more, for all content forms...

This seems to me like possibly a more ideal solution? Would clear out some confusion in regard to what different ratings imply, and any subjectivity on what 'some' and 'lots' mean for different people. The rating system never was that obvious.

It'd be sad to see you leave though. :(

Personally, I feel like whatever gets into a P-Bot post is (usually, unless the system's intentionally abused to allow it) simply a reflection of what users enjoy, and if some content forms ought not be showcased for a portion of the audience there should be a better way of filtering out those things than make for a backlash like this, everyone ought feel at home on NG, I do believe.

Hope you stick around; maybe the rating system does get a proper overhaul eventually, otherwise there is at least temporarily that 'opt out' option... users definitely do enjoy your work here, as following and feedback seems to show, may you see more relevance in that preferable reverence and prevail through this prevalence Prevence hence!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY NABELLA!

Wonder if P-Bot posts ever got any spotlight space there when General was active... interesting.

You have 4.7K fans, on a site where even 1K fans is considered popular enough to win high-ranking awards. (example: 9Hammer has 2.9K fans and regularly wins daily and weekly awards).

Technically it wasn't frontpaged.

This is frontpaged. These are hand-picked by the site's administration. Pornographic or erotic submissions (like Twerkout) are never awarded this honor. There are only a few examples of A-rated submissions getting frontpaged, which I've documented here (Movies, Games, Art).

Usually they're for reasons other than just being full-on smut (ie. creativity), things that most pornographic or fetish content fails to deliver.

That's all just speculation, easy mistake to make.

I guess various members of the NG community flagged them as "improper", myself included, and I think they probably have valid reasons for that. I'm guessing either the other side were re-flagging them (who may also bring valid points), or the mods thought they made a mistake. IDK this is all just speculation. No one actually knows what happened behind the scenes except the mod team.

So you draw the line at Actual, hardcore sex? You're probably stretching it. Most would draw the line at the "bare butts and expansion fetish".

There is literally a rule here, that's been here for quite some time, that says the following:

"If your animation is fetish content, please just mark at as adult; people get unhappy when fetish content appears in the non-adult listings."

In other words, softcore porn is still porn. If you intend to make something erotic or fetishize something, it qualifies as porn.

No it wouldn't. That's actually a really useful and thoughtful solution. I've suggested something similar, but people found that to be too confusing. This sounds much much simpler. Why didn't I think of that before?

Hate to break it to you, but you're the outside force. Isn't it weird that you joined in late 2018, around the same time Tumblr cracked down on porn?

(IDK that's just my assumption.)

Do note that Minors use this site too!. While they are not your target audience per se, they are the audience that Newgrounds always represents and are featured on a regular basis.

A clear line of separation is obviously needed. Late last year they set it so only registered accounts can view A-rated content.

You know how bad this problem is? The state of Utah introduced a law requiring stricter age verification, and Pornhub recently restricted itself there in protest. Other states are also trying to pass similar laws regarding age restrictions/verifications, and some of them are passing. Newgrounds itself could potentially put itself on that chopping block if we don't properly restrict adult content to adult users, which can severely impact our reach online. When something like Twerkout 69 gets Daily 1st or 4th, it doesn't help our case.

Easy fix: Make it an official rule. Use that "this is 18+" you yourself suggested.

On a closing note, I hope this situation improves, even if we have no choice but to get rid of the "hornies" to resolve everything.

Come on! The last thing Newgrounds need is a bloody war on our hands that'll only help divide the two sides even more than they need to me.

It's a fact. Literally everyone loves tits, Or if you don't, we all love dicks, or feet, or vagoos, etc. But it's also well-established in society to keep that sort of stuff away when it's not appropriate (such as work, hence "Not Safe for Work".), and it's also established that porn shouldn't be in reach by anyone under 18, ie minors, kids, children. This is something that's getting harder to moderate these days with the Internet being mainstream. Hard for the government, hard for parents, and hard for sites like NG who don't have a lot of money.

Agreed. Would be complete hell.

That could help solve a completely different problem, but not the one addressed here. Completely on board with this.

But do note that someone could cheat this system by looping the video several times (example), or by adding filler content. Also how would this affect pure SWF movie submissions where length can't be calculated?

This is just confusing. We already 'ave something like that, it's called the whistle system. Flag the movie as improper if you think it's too risque. We just need mods to take quicker action before the daily picks are announced.

You are being willfully obtuse and misrepresenting both the rules and Prevence's actions. Prevence did indeed mark his content as adult. He marked his content as having "Some" "Nudity" and "Some" "Adult Themes". *Marking* your content as adult is not the same as having your content receive an adult *rating*. You and other prolific sex negative posters here intentionally blur and mislead about this distinction to such an extent you cannot possibly be arguing in good faith.

Look. Let me spell it out for you. This is the actual code that is used to rate submissions based on how they are marked:

if (nudity == excessive) {
    suitability = "a";
} else if (
    nudity == mild ||
    violence == excessive ||
    explicit_audio == excessive ||
    explicit_text == excessive ||
    adult_themes == excessive
) {
    suitability = "m";
} else if (
    violence == mild ||
    explicit_audio == mild ||
    explicit_text == mild ||
    adult_themes == mild
) {
    suitability = "t";
}

It is only 20 lines long and could not be easier to read. This code would be trivial to change and has remained the same for *years*. The staff's position is clear: content is only to be rated adult if it has excessive nudity.

You can disagree with the staff. You can advocate for change. But please, stop *lying* about the current rules.

In this same thread you have said:

Come on man. You can't suggest the complete removal of a group you disagree with and then within paragraphs of that suggestion throw your hands up at someone "being divisive". 

This is Motte-and-bailey and you know it. No one in this thread has suggested distributing porn to minors or changing anything in a way that would increase the likelihood of that happening. The "M" and "A" system combined with the need to be logged in already does that to the level the staff is obviously comfortable with. We are talking about what can receive what level of featuring/awards and nothing that would change who has access to what.

Without looking at the code, I can already fully understand how content ratings work. And I can also see why this Guideline can be confusing for a lot of people. To you, "Marking as adult" could just mean adding "adult themes", while for many (such as respected authors like Dungeonation) this simply means rating the whole submission as A (ie. "Nudity" set to "Lots"). It's all up for interpretation, it's not fully clear, and that's what causes situations like this. Just make the rules clear and stick with them.

If you can define "mark as adult" as "adult themes", ie. rate it M, then how do you define "the non-adult listings"?

This could mean typical search results, the Best New Games & Movies section, or most likely, the P-Bot's Daily Picks, note the "people get unhappy" part.

Where do we see people complain? Directly in the Daily Pick thread after it's won an award.

Newgrounds does not need more drama within its community. Just two months earlier they closed down the General and Politics forums because of some drama regarding a couple of forum users. Threads were deleted, users were banned, and a lot of people weren't happy.

This P-Bot situation is only asking for a similar action to take effect, whether it's adding a new rule to prevent this from happening again or making existing rules or mod views easier to understand, or in the worst case, completely removing the daily awards system. If that means that a lot of "hornies" end up leaving the site, then so be it.

Unless something happens, nothing's going to get resolved.

Most people on NG (at least on our side or under 18) would have these filters on. E,T,M are on, and A is off. Yes, there are age restrictions in place for the A filter, requiring a registered account and such. but no such filter exists for M (that I know of). This makes the M-rated submission a lot more accessible than the A-rated submission and intentional or not, it increases the movie's accessibility by completely nullifying the need for logging in, potentially allowing minors to view them freely. Ranking said submission in the Daily Picks would only make it more accessible, since it's in a specialized spot on the front page for 24 hours in all it's pseudo-prestigious glory.

Even if this isn't about distributing porn to minors, it's not my fault that respected creators like Dungeonation, YendorNG, BrandyBuizel, even Tom Fulp himself have expressed disdain for this type of content in the Daily Picks, and even he suggests they should opt out of awards. One of the reasons why the feature exists is because people get unhappy with certain uploads. Debate them all you want, that's their thoughts.

TLDR: The "fetish content" guideline is easy to misinterpret, we're trying to keep drama out of NG, no matter the outcome, and nobody wants hornybait to win awards except the 'hornies' themselves.

Bottom line: This hornybait stuff already get thousands of views and don't need to leech the awards from legitimately talented, creative, and deserving creators.

I think putting "lots" of "adult themes" should result in an A rating as well, might be a welcome change

good research!