Change Submission File

To be honest I'm surprised it wasn't already something implemented..

already a post about it with many votes :3 http://support.furrynetwork.com/topics/49-change-submission-file/

Ahh thank you! I'm very sorry about that, I searched different terms and couldn't find it...

Agreed. I made a few edits to a piece I uploaded recently and was very surprised to find that you can edit everything about the submission accept the submission itself.

Deeefinitely would like to have this right now. I tried to be so careful about the order of the submissions I was posting, but accidentally uploaded the wrong version of a file for an older piece. I don't really want old work right at the top of my page.

Would love this because FA scales stuff down, and I have higher-res files available

That too! Also it seems like imported GIF files import as a GIF, but don't actually have the animation going

Yeah, I can't change it without messing up the submission order.

This is very important, even critical feature, and I'm really shocked it is not there already. Should have been among the first features to implement.

Yeah this is pretty straightforward and uncontroversial; its pretty basic functionality so would be nice to have ^^

Hey all!

This one's getting a lot of votes, and I have some questions for you all before we consider adding this to the todo list:

1) There's a number of 'abuse' use cases which are cause for concern to me, with the ability to change out a submission file after it's live. The first is simple abuse: upload a great image that people like and favorite/promote heavily, then swap it out for something substantially different and - say - obscene or offensive, but technically within the Acceptable Upload Policy. A bunch of users would potentially have something undesirable in their feed - and indeed, some of those users (if they were <18, and thus not able to view mature and explicit content) might not be able to delete or unfave it if the content rating changed after they fave it.

There's a lot of technical 'edge cases' with allowing submissions to be changed out, that could result in undesirable things. Many of these could likely be solved by policy - but does that mean we'll have to also build an admin interface so staff can see every iteration of the image that's ever been present for that submission?

2) One of the use cases mentioned here has been uploading an updated picture, without disturbing the order of images in a gallery. One feature we're implementing soon is the ability to reorder submissions in your gallery (by moving them to draft, and then 'publishing' them again in the order you want - with the ability to turn off notifications to your users). This admittedly is a slightly clunky workaround to a bigger issue - and wouldn't be as elegant as being able to change out the submission file mid-flight.

3) Another reason given for wanting to change the submission is to "change it out for a higher resolution one". Given that on other sites the fact that changed submission files were not resized was actually a bug, and that changing the submission on Furry Network would not result in any quality increase in the file users get to see (download button excluded from this) - I'm not sure if that's a valid use case?

I'd like some more information from everyone as to why you'd like this feature, so I can be sure that we're judging it based on its merits and solving the actual problem!

Putting as "Under Review" for now, so we can gather more information :3

Mainly to upload higher resolution for download, but also to update a piece of art if an error was corrected later.

1- I feel as tho this is a non-issue. It's like fearing being strangled by a shoe string by a store clerk who thinks he's Robert Downy Jr. Sure it can happen and is entirely possible, but the likelihood of such a thing occurring? Very small. Every other website gives you the option to do so and as Chicago-Lollie pointed out, I've also never seen this happen maliciously.
As Chicago-Lollie also pointed out, if someone did do it just to be sneaky they can just as easily be reported.

2- Eh. I guess? Sounds a bit needlessly complicated to me. Tho the ability to silently upload without notifying watchers is always nifty. But that's just one chick's opinion.

3- What?? Why wouldn't switching out the original downgraded file with the original quality image not work on FN if they don't have the same downsizing thing as FA?? I'm not sure If I'm sleep-deprived or what but I don't quite understand the issue with this point either.

Glad to see you guys are still shifting thru requests and complaints graciously. [:

This ability is already there @ DA and FA, I don't see why we can't have it here! I just had to delete my submission with favs and comments on it, because i've added a few minor details to the background as a last minute change. So i've changed it at FA and DA easily and here I had to delete whole the submission! This is sad.

Oh that's a great point - faves, promotes and comments are tied to an image; definitely don't want to lose them!

I feel 1) is a response to a problem that is more hypothetical than it is widespread. I personally can't think of any cases when an artist has purposely switched a popular image with a completely different piece. If anything, the fact that an image is super popular would be more likely to discourage an artist from switching it. It'd only be more likely to happen as an April Fools joke, which is generally a harmless nuisance and would probably end up being reverted before the day is out anyway.

And besides, if anyone truly abuses the ability to switch a submission file by picking something obscene or offensive, wouldn't that serve as justification for Furry Network's moderation team to take action?

One case to look out for though: Maybe an artist has a particularly rough night and makes the ill-advised decision to mass-replace all submission files in their gallery with another image. This could feasibly be detected and countered automatically though, like maybe it'd be worth only allowing a certain amount of replaced submission files per half-hour — Chances are, this replace limit wouldn't be encountered during casual use. Throw an error if it happens.

2) is a cumbersome solution. If anything, maybe submission order could be determined by an index number rather than date, to allow for easier reordering? Surely it's easier to tell a system that 3 comes after 2, right? (famous last words, watch out for negative and "null" index numbers)

If 3) already isn't an issue on FN, then uh.. well, that's discussion on that.

As for why: Sometimes, artists goof up! Sometimes we don't spot a mistake until it's already online. Sometimes, we get our magnum opus all figured out, we dot our i's and cross our t's, and then we stupidly upload "Submission FINAL 2-1 FINISHED.png" instead of the clearly correct "Submission FINAL 2-2 FINISHED FOR REAL THIS TIME.png".

Sometimes, we don't spot our goofs until a day later, after tons of people have favorited and promoted the image, and left adorning comments all over it. And it sucks to be left with an ultimatum:

• Live with the error and accept that the wrong image will stay in your gallery forever, OR
• Delete the submission and start over, and watch in agony as all those lovely comments turn into confused variations of "Huh?? Didn't you already upload this??"

So like, yeah it'd be nice to avoid all that, hey.

This is a big one for me in case errors need to be corrected, such as for a commission or a character with a missing detail. :/

As a musician, when I upload a chiptune recording to FurAffinity, I frequently repeatedly change the submission file as I notice things that need fixing after I've already uploaded it. If I can't do this on FurryNetwork, it would turn my music publishing here into a bit of a nightmare as I would have to keep deleting and resubmitting the same submission just to make fixes.

1) To what end? What does the user gain by switching it out for a completely different submission? I was trying to come up with a good reason why someone would want to do abuse the system in this way and I honestly couldn't come up with one. You're correct that they could do it, but I can't see why they would. All they would be doing is driving people away from their content which means less and less people will be looking at their stuff until there's no one watching for them to mess with. Also, as Chicago mentioned already, this is feature that most art sites like this have and to my knowledge none of them have a problem's like what you're describing.

2) Being able to reorder your submissions is a nice feature, but the main thing is that re-uploading wipes out all the comments, likes and promotes that that picture has already gotten. If you have to do that often enough it will discourage your viewers from ever commenting on your stuff when it first comes out and there's a good change they won't come back and add a comment later. I already uploaded a picture that I made some changes to and wanted to update.

3) While that is certainly a thing that people do do on Furaffinity, in this case I think it could be a simple situation of after they uploaded the picture, people in the comments asked for a higher resolution image. Rather than add a redundant entry into their gallery or, like in #2, delete the first submission and lose all the comments likes and promotes the picture has already they could simply upload the higher resolution image and be done.

I am accustomed to using a single submission to show all of my characters at once with the one I'm using presently indicated. I want to be able to modify the submission as needed without having to duplicate any of the information or send pings to everyone.

Additionally, if I'm linking to the image either through markdowns or QRcodes or what not, I want my links to continue to work, which they won't if I have to create a new submission each time.

Literally every other gallery on the internet that isn't for throw-away items allows editing of the original post. Sometimes errors are not spotted until a minute after the file is sent. None of these other galleries have issues with people swapping a completely different picture for one that they originally favorited.

Why? Well for one, anyone who would do that kind of obvious troll tactic isn't someone who is going to get very many favorites in the first place. For two, I am PRETTY SURE that doing so, on all these sites, is against acceptable upload policy and can be reported as such.

Also the people talking about uploading a higher-resolution image onto FN are BECAUSE FA resized the images. So an imported image would be lower-resolution. I was one of the people who employed the resize glitch but not everyone did.

I uploaded a piece of animation that has a single frame that needs fixing. The mistake went unnoticed until after submission.

I'd rather not have to resubmit and re-tag everything but I do understand the concern for abuse.

Double post. Haven't read everything in this thread but have an out of the blue suggestion.

How about a 24 or 48 hour window of allowing the submission file to be modified?

This is very curious and interesting suggestion. I like that.

A week perhaps of grace period to change/fix submission.

Many other art-sites allow for submission files to be modified at any time, regardless of how long a submission has been online for. One of FN's primary functions is an art gallery, and artists should have complete control over their gallery's submissions, including the submission file. Even if it means allowing the ability to silently fix a submission after a week/month/year has passed.

No limit would be ideal in my opinion as well, with any abuse of the system punished adequately (I.E. abuser's edit capabilities revoked). But if that's ultimately not a possibility, I'd like to at least have a window of time to make changes.

I'm sorry for reviving this but it should be a feature, I don't see how it's abusive in any way, if anyone deletes a submission all favorites, views and comments on it will go back to zero, now this is not the cause in my case because I just imported everything from FA and noticed my animated icons don't work, no option to change the submitted / imported file makes me unable to upload a working version, result, I'd need to rewrite the submission info and tags, it's too much of an hassle right now but I might do it sometime later if those submissions don't get any favs and comments that is, I would love for this to be available, as far as galleries I've uploaded my art on, FA, IB, they have that option and despite rarely having a need for it I did use it for some pieces that I only later noticed where missing little details.

Reggie, I completely agree with you here. Other websites use it, and it's very helpful - it does open up opportunities for abuse, but we can add language to our rules. I have this on our list of improvements, and I'd want it out before the full site launch if possible. We have some other improvements we're working on now, but once those are finished, I'll check with the dev team to see what would be required to do this.

Thank you very much for replying, I don't know how FA and IB work about submitted file change, if there are people out there abusing these that's just dumb, what's even the purpose, at first I deleted submissions and reuploaded on FA and IB, after noticing said option to change submitted file that made it so much easier, although I may have used it about 7 times it's still something I know it's there just in case something is wrong with any submitted art I may upload.

This is not really an optimal solution and would require moderators, but on e621 only 10 uploads can be done, a moderator will have to check them and clear, that said submission once cleared frees up one of the 10 upload slots again making the flood impossible, this could be applied to submitted file changes, again would require moderators.

Lastly, thank you for checking with the dev team, I barely started here with my actual character and already see you all care, keep up the good work, the site has a very clean and organized feel to it and I'm loving it so far.

I appreciate it, Reggie! We do have quite a few things that we're working on, and I'm excited about some of the future changes and features.

Thinking about e621, it's a pretty practical way to deal with the flood there, but it might not be needed for us. I'm just speculating, but e621 has art that's not always uploaded by the creator; it's a rule on FN that people have permission to upload art. If art theft accusations became much larger on FN, we could look into this option, but I think having a round set of rules would be enough to keep the peace for the time being.

Exactly why I don't like e621 much, that should be a rule everywhere, only artists and character owner may upload said art, I did read FN rules and I was expecting that to be one of them, good thing too, all art I upload I paid for, offered a friend, got as fanart, also noticed the Request Take Down option which is nice, I wish FA had this, they really don't care, they'd rather let it slide than deal with it.

Good to know, I can't way to see how FN can become better, thanks again for you time and glad to be here ^^

So, two and a half years along, and where is this? Is it stalled? Is it never coming?

I've only started using this site relatively recently, but the lack of an option to do something literally every other curated gallery site has to update images is bothersome. I like to update sketches to inked lineart, and WIP posts to finals as I'm able to do so. On FA, I can replace the file. On SF, I can replace the file. On IB, I can add a new file to a submission gallery and sort them as I like. But here, I have to make a brand new submission or stick with the old sketch or WIP image.

You guys have a wonderful interface, and I like this site, and this would just be a great option to tie the whole thing together in terms of letting users curate their galleries.

Yeah, the fact that it is a feature on nearly every other art site should be enough, but we not only have to request it but then basically get ignored for 3 years. That feature being absent is the primary reasons I didnt make FN the main place I post art.

This thought came to mind as well, FA is literally a broken website for and I really wish I could make this one my main gallery but the lack of this option and others not joining for either that reason or just lazy as had me have IB as my main, here still hoping one day FN will be the main place for all furs to be, replacing how broken FA's website, community, moderation and management is.

This would come in really handy as I've had friends refuse to create an account here after asking me the pros and cons, the only con really is the lack of this option.

And yes, I can see the interface being a bit scary at first for newcomers but it is the most elegant and intuitive for me.

Wow, I forgot I made this thread some 3 years ago. I thought they'd implemented it already and I hadn't noticed. 

I'd still very much like to have this feature implemented along with other features that seem to still be stuck in limbo from around when I first made this suggestion thread. 

Please communicate with us, FN.

Just an update on this one: I'm gonna be looking into this one now and wondering what the implications are. 

Would be very nice to know what (if anything) is happening with this. I just had to delete an image and re-upload TODAY because I made an error and published the thumbnail file instead of the actual final image. Thank goodness I caught it quickly and didn't loose anything on it, but becauase I posted it with PostyBirb I had to make the same change on the other sites I use (Weasyl, FA, and DA) and all of them allowed me to just quickly and easily update my file. This site is the only one I had to actually delete my submission, reupload it and all of it's tags, description, and folder sorting. A major inconvenience to say the very least.

I had to fully redo a submission because for some reason the picture didn't load anymore, just the preview worked, I was amazed how did that happen since in the previous day it was fine, but yes, again, it would be great if I could just reupload the picture.

I need to make things more complicated...

I need to make things more complicated...

I need to make things more complicated...

I need to make things more complicated...