Last summer, in response to a steady increase in the number and the complexity of submissions, we announced that we were working on some new tools and processes to help deal with the intertwined topics of moderation and user progression. We are happy to announce that all of the pieces of the new system are in place.

More of the moderation process is now visible to the public. You may notice a new category on the menu bar called "modq". Here, you can view all recent submissions that require moderation. You can also see the most recently accepted and rejected submissions. In addition, all rejection comments and questions from staff are publicly visible in the forums, and the notification system is used to keep users updated.

The new system is also more streamlined to make it easier for staff to moderate submission. You will notice a new information block at the top of album or artist page whenever it has pending changes.

Finally we are no longer limited to the old binary Trusted/Not Trusted. We can fine tune submission settings for any user. You can read more about how user progression works in this post. The baseline submission limits are fairly small now, but our intent is to keep the queue times to a maximum of 3 days.

Much thanks go to Illidan for development, cal for graphics and testing, nstz for storyboarding and testing, and the rest of staff for additional ideas and testing.