Draft Submission Limits FAQ
From The Unofficial Discogs Wiki
About The FAQ
I am proposing this as a potential sticky post for the Discogs Announcements forum. If posted there, we can simply reply to any posts about the submission limit system with a link to the FAQ. After a couple hundred such links, maybe people would start to get the message.
The FAQ
What happened to my old submission limit?
The old submission limit system allowed you a fixed number of pending submissions. This number was based on the number of submissions you had successfully contributed to the database.
The new submission limit system works along the same lines but takes more factors into account. Your new limit is calculated based on:
- Submission Weight: How complicated your submissions are. Once it has been approved, a complex submission (lots of credits, etc.) will affect your limit more than a simple submission (updating the format field, adding a catalog number).
- Submission Skill: How much extra work your submissions need. If a submission needs lots of changes before it can be voted in, you'll get less credit for it. If your subs always get approved as submitted, your limit will rise faster than it used to. If your subs always needs lots of work, your submission limit may actually drop.
- Current Queue Size: How many submissions are pending in the queue site-wide. When there are more submissions pending in the queue, individual submission limits are lowered in order to slow down submissions. When there are fewer submissions pending in the queue, individual submission limits are raised in order to encourage submissions. This adjustment is made on an ongoing basis.
Why did the submission limit system change?
- To make your submission limit reflect the value (in quantity and quality) of your contributions.
- To keep the queue at a reasonable size, allowing submissions to be moderated more quickly.
I had twenty subs pending last week, with room for more. Today there's just one and I'm over my limit! What the hell?
Your submission limit isn't measured as a number of changes anymore -- it's measured as the amount of change you are making to the database. Your twenty pendings last week were all minor changes, each of which changed the database very little. The one pending you have now is very detailed, and will change the database a lot more. The bigger the change, the more of your submission limit it will take up.
Keep in mind that larger submissions are worth more towards your sub limit. Over the long term, continuing to make detailed submissions will raise your submission limit much more quickly than making small ones, even though you can have fewer detailed submissions pending approval at any one time.
I'm over my limit, but I wasn't yesterday, and I haven't submitted anything since then! What happened?
Your submission limit went down because the submissions queue is filling up. Your limit will go back up again as submissions are voted out of the queue. Nobody's picking on you; everyone's limit is affected in the same way.
This is stupid! I can't submit anything now! What good is this site if nobody can submit anything?
It doesn't do any good for people to submit things if they're just going to sit in the queue. When you do submit something, it should be voted through the queue in a reasonable amount of time instead of sitting there for months on end before a moderator even sees it. That's why the new rules are designed to keep the queue size down.
Discogs values the quality of the database over the quantity of items in it. We know this decision leads to fewer additions being made to the database, and are happy to pay that price to keep the site accurate.
If submissions are taking so long to moderate, why don't you just add more moderators?
Discogs is constantly adding new moderators; how many depends on the candidates available. Any user with the "Willing To Moderate" box checked in their user profile can become a mod. Users who consistently make high-quality submissions while interacting smoothly with others on the site are nominated for mod status by the existing moderators. When there are fewer qualified users available, fewer mods can be added.
