We appreciate image reports, because it is an important aid in maintaining the site. Duplicates provide no benefit whatsoever and merely waste space. Same with non-porn, non-Rule-34 material, and other pics not on mission for the site.
However, an image report done incorrectly is just a waste of everyone's time. At best, it will simply be dismissed. However, you can get banned if you repeatedly make invalid reports (report abuse) and do not respond to correction by the admins.
The most common image report is for duplicates, so we will discuss those first.
Duplicates
First, make sure it is actually a duplicate. Find the pic it is a dupe of. You may have seen the pic before, but perhaps it was actually on another site. Or was deleted. Or maybe it wasn't exactly the same pic, an edit or variant. Save the image ID, because you will need it in the report.
Actually compare the two pics. Don't just go by thumbnails. Edits are often too subtle to be visible in thumbnails. A good technique is to put the pics in two different tabs and line them up so they are in exactly the same position in the window. Then toggle back and forth between the two tabs. You can see even tiny differences that way.
In any case, at least make an effort to verify that it's actually a dupe. We've often had cases where a dupe was reported with glaring differences like wearing panties or not.
Speaking of differences, alternate versions of pics, such as different colorings or edits, are not considered dupes and should not be reported. However, if the difference is censored or not, report the censored pic and keep the clean one. If one has the original artist signature/logo and one does not, keep the one with the signature.
Breaking apart a pic or combining pics into one is generally allowed, but if someone goes overboard, report it and we'll take a look.
Once you have determined that it is actually a dupe, determine which pic is better quality, because that is the one that should be kept. Do NOT choose the one that you personally uploaded, unless it is actually better quality. Look at the resolution of the pics (number of pixels) and also the file sizes. PNG is considered superior to JPG at a given resolution, because of compression in the latter. All things being equal (though that should never happen), the older pic is kept.
Report the image that should be deleted and place the image ID of the pic that should be kept in the reason box of the report.
For instance:
dupe of >>000000
or
smaller dupe of >>000000
where 000000 is the image ID of the other pic, the one to be kept.
If you are an artist updating a pic with a newer version, use:
artist requests replacement by >>000000
Do you see how the angle brackets make it a clickable link? (It won't go anywhere with this example, because there is no image with an ID of 000000, but with a regular ID the pic will be displayed, saving us time.)
Not Porn
Nowadays the rules for porn on the site are much more rigid than they used to be. Too many people were uploading stuff in the grey areas. We won't go into the actual rules here, but you can find them in Site Rule 8 and in the FAQ.
Speaking of Rule 8, don't report pics as "not porn" unless you check the hit counts for the characters. If the count is less than 60, the character falls under Rule 8 and the rules are less strict. One character under Rule 8 is enough to save the pic.
However, be careful when determining hit counts. Make sure each count is entirely for the character in the pic. If there is just a first name, there may be more than one character with that name, in completely different fandoms, causing the count to appear higher than it really is. Thus the pic may be deleted when it should not be. Do a search of both character name and fandom name to get a true count.
Also make sure the full name is used if the character has one. Using just a first name when a character is normally tagged under full name will also give you an incorrect count. There was a recent example of this. Someone complained when a Veronica Star pic was deleted for "not porn", claiming Rule 8. However, she was incorrectly tagged as just Veronica, throwing the count off. She appeared to be Rule 8, but actually wasn't. Her real name had a count much greater than 60.
Not 34
These are pics which qualify as porn, but not of any known character/person/corporate-logo/inanimate-object/whatnot. Just generic nameless porn. Fan/Original characters and fursonas are included in not-34.
Some people report Not-34 for any pic without porn, which is true, but please use not-porn in that case. If the pic is not porn, it doesn't matter whether it is of particular characters or not.
Fan Characters and Original Characters
Characters which are drawn in the style of a particular fandom, but are not actual characters in that fandom. Also technically can apply to random hentai characters. They can appear in the action with canon characters, but not by themselves. (However, the canon characters must qualify as porn, not just standing there fully clothed watching the fan characters have sex. That is not porn "of" the character.)
Do Not Post (DNP)
If you report the work of an artist on the Do Not Post list, say "DNP, <artist name>" in the reason box. If we don't recognize the style and it isn't signed, we have to check against the list and can't do that without the name. Also, the artist name goes in the image ban.
Underage Content
Be sure you've actually read and understood our underage content policy before reporting images. If there are too many words in the policy for you, well, you probably haven't read this far on this page... but you can just read site rule 1.5 for a tl;dr version.
Administrative Action
Image report can be used for any needed administrative action that is specific to a pic, and is a good way to get in contact with the first moderator online. This includes broken image, comment spam and tag/source vandalism.
For administrative action that is not specific to a particular pic or group of pics, or might require a bit of discussion first, the best approach is to use mail (staff@paheal.net). You can use PMs if you must, but only one person will see it, so it's slow and unreliable. You will get better service with mail.
Invalid Reports
DO NOT report images to express outrage or tell us that you don't like a pic. That goes in comments, not reports. Rule violation and administrative actions only. Disregarding this restriction is considered report abuse and repeated violations will get you banned.
Redundant Reports
Don't report the same image more than once for the same thing, unless you are reporting to correct a mistake you made on the first one. We don't lose reports, we don't forget them. They don't go away until we either delete the image or dismiss the report. Don't be impatient. You can't see how many reports are in the queue. Sometimes there are over a hundred. We'll get to yours when we get to it.
Going overboard with this can be considered report abuse, a bannable offense.
Fill in a Reason
You must put a reason in the image report box. The site software can't force you to put in something helpful, but you should since we aren't Internet-psychic. Don't put in a non-reason like "just look at it", "bad", "um yeah", or "do I even need to explain?" Yes, reporter, you need to explain.
However, an image report done incorrectly is just a waste of everyone's time. At best, it will simply be dismissed. However, you can get banned if you repeatedly make invalid reports (report abuse) and do not respond to correction by the admins.
The most common image report is for duplicates, so we will discuss those first.
Duplicates
First, make sure it is actually a duplicate. Find the pic it is a dupe of. You may have seen the pic before, but perhaps it was actually on another site. Or was deleted. Or maybe it wasn't exactly the same pic, an edit or variant. Save the image ID, because you will need it in the report.
Actually compare the two pics. Don't just go by thumbnails. Edits are often too subtle to be visible in thumbnails. A good technique is to put the pics in two different tabs and line them up so they are in exactly the same position in the window. Then toggle back and forth between the two tabs. You can see even tiny differences that way.
In any case, at least make an effort to verify that it's actually a dupe. We've often had cases where a dupe was reported with glaring differences like wearing panties or not.
Speaking of differences, alternate versions of pics, such as different colorings or edits, are not considered dupes and should not be reported. However, if the difference is censored or not, report the censored pic and keep the clean one. If one has the original artist signature/logo and one does not, keep the one with the signature.
Breaking apart a pic or combining pics into one is generally allowed, but if someone goes overboard, report it and we'll take a look.
Once you have determined that it is actually a dupe, determine which pic is better quality, because that is the one that should be kept. Do NOT choose the one that you personally uploaded, unless it is actually better quality. Look at the resolution of the pics (number of pixels) and also the file sizes. PNG is considered superior to JPG at a given resolution, because of compression in the latter. All things being equal (though that should never happen), the older pic is kept.
Report the image that should be deleted and place the image ID of the pic that should be kept in the reason box of the report.
For instance:
dupe of >>000000
or
smaller dupe of >>000000
where 000000 is the image ID of the other pic, the one to be kept.
If you are an artist updating a pic with a newer version, use:
artist requests replacement by >>000000
Do you see how the angle brackets make it a clickable link? (It won't go anywhere with this example, because there is no image with an ID of 000000, but with a regular ID the pic will be displayed, saving us time.)
Not Porn
Nowadays the rules for porn on the site are much more rigid than they used to be. Too many people were uploading stuff in the grey areas. We won't go into the actual rules here, but you can find them in Site Rule 8 and in the FAQ.
Speaking of Rule 8, don't report pics as "not porn" unless you check the hit counts for the characters. If the count is less than 60, the character falls under Rule 8 and the rules are less strict. One character under Rule 8 is enough to save the pic.
However, be careful when determining hit counts. Make sure each count is entirely for the character in the pic. If there is just a first name, there may be more than one character with that name, in completely different fandoms, causing the count to appear higher than it really is. Thus the pic may be deleted when it should not be. Do a search of both character name and fandom name to get a true count.
Also make sure the full name is used if the character has one. Using just a first name when a character is normally tagged under full name will also give you an incorrect count. There was a recent example of this. Someone complained when a Veronica Star pic was deleted for "not porn", claiming Rule 8. However, she was incorrectly tagged as just Veronica, throwing the count off. She appeared to be Rule 8, but actually wasn't. Her real name had a count much greater than 60.
Not 34
These are pics which qualify as porn, but not of any known character/person/corporate-logo/inanimate-object/whatnot. Just generic nameless porn. Fan/Original characters and fursonas are included in not-34.
Some people report Not-34 for any pic without porn, which is true, but please use not-porn in that case. If the pic is not porn, it doesn't matter whether it is of particular characters or not.
Fan Characters and Original Characters
Characters which are drawn in the style of a particular fandom, but are not actual characters in that fandom. Also technically can apply to random hentai characters. They can appear in the action with canon characters, but not by themselves. (However, the canon characters must qualify as porn, not just standing there fully clothed watching the fan characters have sex. That is not porn "of" the character.)
Do Not Post (DNP)
If you report the work of an artist on the Do Not Post list, say "DNP, <artist name>" in the reason box. If we don't recognize the style and it isn't signed, we have to check against the list and can't do that without the name. Also, the artist name goes in the image ban.
Underage Content
Be sure you've actually read and understood our underage content policy before reporting images. If there are too many words in the policy for you, well, you probably haven't read this far on this page... but you can just read site rule 1.5 for a tl;dr version.
Administrative Action
Image report can be used for any needed administrative action that is specific to a pic, and is a good way to get in contact with the first moderator online. This includes broken image, comment spam and tag/source vandalism.
For administrative action that is not specific to a particular pic or group of pics, or might require a bit of discussion first, the best approach is to use mail (staff@paheal.net). You can use PMs if you must, but only one person will see it, so it's slow and unreliable. You will get better service with mail.
Invalid Reports
DO NOT report images to express outrage or tell us that you don't like a pic. That goes in comments, not reports. Rule violation and administrative actions only. Disregarding this restriction is considered report abuse and repeated violations will get you banned.
Redundant Reports
Don't report the same image more than once for the same thing, unless you are reporting to correct a mistake you made on the first one. We don't lose reports, we don't forget them. They don't go away until we either delete the image or dismiss the report. Don't be impatient. You can't see how many reports are in the queue. Sometimes there are over a hundred. We'll get to yours when we get to it.
Going overboard with this can be considered report abuse, a bannable offense.
Fill in a Reason
You must put a reason in the image report box. The site software can't force you to put in something helpful, but you should since we aren't Internet-psychic. Don't put in a non-reason like "just look at it", "bad", "um yeah", or "do I even need to explain?" Yes, reporter, you need to explain.