Review guidelines
General
This section contains information for our moderators, and for those of you who'd like to contribute to the community, by sharing your creations with other users all around the world. By reading it, you will better understand how the review process works here on BraceletBook, and it will also help you prevent your patterns, photos, or videos from getting declined.
Please also note that the review guidelines are always a subject to change, so it might be a good idea to revisit this page from time to time.
The general and most important thing we look for when deciding whether to accept or decline an item is if it adds a value for the community. Remember that we prefer quality over quantity, and when we see there's some room for improvement, we decline an item with a meaningful message for the user. We sometimes even delete content already accepted to the site, if we find out it's not valuable, duplicate or otherwise redundant.
We are doing our best to listen to our community and know what our users are looking for when using our services. Having a positive and welcoming vibe on BraceletBook is very important to all of us. As made clear in a previous blog post, we do not believe in censorship. However, we do believe that there are a few topics a discussion of which, whatever side of the argument an individual is on, should not take place in our community. One of them being politics, which always is a hot topic, and one that causes a lot of arguing as we have already seen in the past. And because of that, no content supporting/representing a political candidate/party is allowed to be posted to BraceletBook. Whether this is a pattern, forum post or comment. For the reasons mentioned above, pro-life and pro-choice content is also disallowed on BraceletBook. To make all of our services suitable for all the members of our community, the use of swear words and profane language is also strictly prohibited.
All the content that gets approved to the website is still being monitored for review mistakes and duplicates, and these issues are always taken care of when found. This means it could sometimes happen that we have to delete an already accepted item from the database. But don't worry, we always inform the author of the item when this happens.
In case you find any content that's violating our guidelines by being too negative, rude, insulting, not suitable for all age categories or otherwise inappropriate, please report it immediately by messaging one of our moderators.
It should be made clear that while each of our moderators are a valued part of the BraceletBook team and their work is invaluable to the knotting community, they are not BraceletBook representatives. Our moderators are external volunteers. Any views expressed by a moderator, within BraceletBook or otherwise, are their views as a person and they do not reflect the views of BraceletBook as a whole.
We're also keeping track of all users who tend to be nice and helpful to the community for longer periods of time. This information is especially valuable for us when looking for a new member to be added to our moderators team.
Things we consider (all sections):
- item has an added value for the community
- the general feeling about the item
- swear words and profane language
- automated warning messages (e.g. generator warnings)
- quality of the item
- duplicates
- spam
- doesn't mention or otherwise advertise other websites
Please also note that the review guidelines are always a subject to change, so it might be a good idea to revisit this page from time to time.
The general and most important thing we look for when deciding whether to accept or decline an item is if it adds a value for the community. Remember that we prefer quality over quantity, and when we see there's some room for improvement, we decline an item with a meaningful message for the user. We sometimes even delete content already accepted to the site, if we find out it's not valuable, duplicate or otherwise redundant.
We are doing our best to listen to our community and know what our users are looking for when using our services. Having a positive and welcoming vibe on BraceletBook is very important to all of us. As made clear in a previous blog post, we do not believe in censorship. However, we do believe that there are a few topics a discussion of which, whatever side of the argument an individual is on, should not take place in our community. One of them being politics, which always is a hot topic, and one that causes a lot of arguing as we have already seen in the past. And because of that, no content supporting/representing a political candidate/party is allowed to be posted to BraceletBook. Whether this is a pattern, forum post or comment. For the reasons mentioned above, pro-life and pro-choice content is also disallowed on BraceletBook. To make all of our services suitable for all the members of our community, the use of swear words and profane language is also strictly prohibited.
All the content that gets approved to the website is still being monitored for review mistakes and duplicates, and these issues are always taken care of when found. This means it could sometimes happen that we have to delete an already accepted item from the database. But don't worry, we always inform the author of the item when this happens.
In case you find any content that's violating our guidelines by being too negative, rude, insulting, not suitable for all age categories or otherwise inappropriate, please report it immediately by messaging one of our moderators.
It should be made clear that while each of our moderators are a valued part of the BraceletBook team and their work is invaluable to the knotting community, they are not BraceletBook representatives. Our moderators are external volunteers. Any views expressed by a moderator, within BraceletBook or otherwise, are their views as a person and they do not reflect the views of BraceletBook as a whole.
We're also keeping track of all users who tend to be nice and helpful to the community for longer periods of time. This information is especially valuable for us when looking for a new member to be added to our moderators team.
Things we consider (all sections):
- item has an added value for the community
- the general feeling about the item
- swear words and profane language
- automated warning messages (e.g. generator warnings)
- quality of the item
- duplicates
- spam
- doesn't mention or otherwise advertise other websites
Patterns
In the administration, this section also encapsulates variations, because in the generators, variations are treated exactly the same as patterns are. The only difference is in the way they get added to the site when they are approved. The pattern has to be automatically identified as a variation of an existing pattern by the generators. It cannot be assigned to a pattern manually by the users, moderators or admins. It can sometimes happen that a variation is not recognized correctly, e.g. when a normal pattern has a different knot structure, but the end result looks exactly the same. In this case, the pattern has to be declined, because it should be added as a variation instead. If such an issue is not catched by one of our moderators during the review, it's highly probable that your pattern will get deleted from the site in the future, for being duplicate. The next thing we consider during a variation review is that we don't want to have patterns with a high number of variations, so we only accept nice looking variations which are valuable for the community, and distinct enough. Pattern series (patterns derived from user's existing patterns) are allowed, but only a few of such patterns can be approved. They also have to be distinct enough and have as many changes as possible, otherwise such patterns will have to be declined for being extremely similar.
Although we're doing our best to keep our database as clean and streamlined as possible, it can happen that a duplicate or an extremely similar pattern sometimes gets approved to the site. With the number of patterns that we currently have in our database, it's impossible for our moderators to catch each and every single one, and that's why we're giving rewards for every pattern that gets reported, and deleted from the database. So if you'll come across a pattern that you think is a duplicate, please let one of our moderators know, so that we can take a look at it. Also, I would like to point out that for now, we're not deleting flipped versions of normal patterns. Alpha patterns that have been made from other patterns are also treated as unique, if they add some more detail to the original pattern. Regarding similar patterns, I would like to note that different sizes of those are also treated as being unique, because it's not that trivial to resize a pattern, and there's always some additional work that needs to be done for it to look good. Usually we're only removing duplicates if there's basically no, or very little difference compared to the original pattern, or if the pattern is an exact subset of the original. But there are some exceptions which our moderators will take into consideration when reading your messages.
When it comes to stolen patterns, we always follow the copyright laws very strictly and try to be as straightforward to the community as we possibly can. If you know about any pattern that was copied over from a different website without a permission from the original author, please report it to one of our moderators with a link to a publicly available website where the name of the author and the date of posting are present.
Creativity is a huge part of the whole process, and we all are taking this into account during our reviews. Our moderators should not ask the users to change any aspect of a pattern that might be the result of their creativity. If we really think that anything could be made better, we always kindly ask the user if that's their intention, before making any suggesions regarding anything other than the quality of the pattern. We always first try to understand the user before declining a pattern, and think if the argument might be subjective, or if it's a general and objective problem. All the things like the shape of a head, skin color, arm length, teeth size, or font weight might be the creative decisions of the user.
Keywords play a pretty big role in this section. Users are frequently using them to search for patterns, and they are also being used by some of our algorithms to provide a better experience. Keywords should be unique enough and characterize the pattern as good as possible. The minimum required number of keywords is 5, but it's always better to have more if the design of the pattern allows it. Using bad, or less than 10 keywords might be a reason to decline a pattern. It's also very important for keywords to be correctly separated by whitespace. Connecting multiple words together makes them a lot less likely to be searched for.
Not acceptable keywords:
- usernames
- pattern numbers
- number of strings, colors
- broad color names (like red, purple, dark, light, bright, pastel)
- sizes (like big, small, tiny, large, skinny)
- difficulty levels (like simple, easy, beginner, hard, difficult, advanced)
- keywords that can apply to any pattern (like aesthetic, beautiful, awesome, amazing, cute, pixelart, pixel, color)
- not applicable keywords (like diamond if the pattern doesn't have any diamond shapes)
Acceptable keywords:
- shapes (like diamond, square, triangle, rectangle, flower, star, zigzag, wavy, squiggle, dash, dot, stripes, holes, gaps)
- style (like tribal, celtic, aztec, boho, geometric, nordic, colorblocking, outlined)
- technique (like straight edge, 1212, shaped, holes, gaps)
- specific color scheme terms (like rainbow, gradient, ombre)
- symmetrical / asymmetrical
- other specific and general terms describing content relevant to a pattern (specific breed of dogs like corgi and general words like puppy)
- logo (only for official logos)
- font (only for complete alphabet patterns)
- word, text, letter, phrase (for patterns not containing the full alphabet)
- keychain, bookmark, wallhanging (only for alpha patterns)
- repeating (only for alpha patterns, since all normal patterns naturally repeat)
- different forms of words (past, present, plural, singular)
Generator warnings are also taken into account during reviews, but they're not always a reason to decline, and have to be checked on a case-by-case basis. For example, using a very dark color in your pattern could be fine, if it doesn't make the pattern hard to read, or the grid hard to see. Similar color warnings are also sometimes not completely accurate. If the colors look distinct enough on the pattern, or they're used to create a gradient for example, it's completely fine.
Decline message behaves a bit differently in this section. It's not being sent to the user in a notification, but stored with the pattern itself, and displayed when the user opens it up again for editing. It's also being preserved between reviews, which means that if we're reviewing a pattern that already got declined with a decline message, the original message is visible and could be edited. Moderators should always try their best to include all the issues they can find, to prevent patterns being declined too many times unnecessarily.
There also is a review notes field that users can use to communicate with the moderators. It's editable only by the users, and should contain relevant notes which are taken into account during our review. Moderators can then use decline messages to communicate back to the user.
Remember we only approve 100% finished patterns, so if we think a pattern needs tweaking, it definitely can be reason to decline, also if it contains only 1 misplaced knot. We also always try to think if it's likely for people to actually use the pattern, or if it's not easily replicable.
Patterns we generally decline:
- chevron, simple fishbone chevron and candystripe
- simple plaid patterns with one row f and one row b knots
- striped patterns consisting of fb and bf knots
- simple zigzag and horizontal stripe patterns
- simple diamond patterns
- existing patterns with added borders or straight edge technique
- simple text patterns
- scrambled or randomized patterns without a clearly repeating pattern
- duplicate patterns which should be added as variations
- extremely similar patterns which are very easy to derive from the originals
- similar variations
- cow print patterns
- QR codes and Spotify codes
Things we consider:
- review notes
- generator warnings
- keywords
- duplicate or very similar colors
- simple (mostly word) patterns
- clearly repeating pattern (asymmetrical patterns are allowed)
- size (related to the complexity of the pattern)
- patterns which need tweaking
- border (should be even, if present)
Although we're doing our best to keep our database as clean and streamlined as possible, it can happen that a duplicate or an extremely similar pattern sometimes gets approved to the site. With the number of patterns that we currently have in our database, it's impossible for our moderators to catch each and every single one, and that's why we're giving rewards for every pattern that gets reported, and deleted from the database. So if you'll come across a pattern that you think is a duplicate, please let one of our moderators know, so that we can take a look at it. Also, I would like to point out that for now, we're not deleting flipped versions of normal patterns. Alpha patterns that have been made from other patterns are also treated as unique, if they add some more detail to the original pattern. Regarding similar patterns, I would like to note that different sizes of those are also treated as being unique, because it's not that trivial to resize a pattern, and there's always some additional work that needs to be done for it to look good. Usually we're only removing duplicates if there's basically no, or very little difference compared to the original pattern, or if the pattern is an exact subset of the original. But there are some exceptions which our moderators will take into consideration when reading your messages.
When it comes to stolen patterns, we always follow the copyright laws very strictly and try to be as straightforward to the community as we possibly can. If you know about any pattern that was copied over from a different website without a permission from the original author, please report it to one of our moderators with a link to a publicly available website where the name of the author and the date of posting are present.
Creativity is a huge part of the whole process, and we all are taking this into account during our reviews. Our moderators should not ask the users to change any aspect of a pattern that might be the result of their creativity. If we really think that anything could be made better, we always kindly ask the user if that's their intention, before making any suggesions regarding anything other than the quality of the pattern. We always first try to understand the user before declining a pattern, and think if the argument might be subjective, or if it's a general and objective problem. All the things like the shape of a head, skin color, arm length, teeth size, or font weight might be the creative decisions of the user.
Keywords play a pretty big role in this section. Users are frequently using them to search for patterns, and they are also being used by some of our algorithms to provide a better experience. Keywords should be unique enough and characterize the pattern as good as possible. The minimum required number of keywords is 5, but it's always better to have more if the design of the pattern allows it. Using bad, or less than 10 keywords might be a reason to decline a pattern. It's also very important for keywords to be correctly separated by whitespace. Connecting multiple words together makes them a lot less likely to be searched for.
Not acceptable keywords:
- usernames
- pattern numbers
- number of strings, colors
- broad color names (like red, purple, dark, light, bright, pastel)
- sizes (like big, small, tiny, large, skinny)
- difficulty levels (like simple, easy, beginner, hard, difficult, advanced)
- keywords that can apply to any pattern (like aesthetic, beautiful, awesome, amazing, cute, pixelart, pixel, color)
- not applicable keywords (like diamond if the pattern doesn't have any diamond shapes)
Acceptable keywords:
- shapes (like diamond, square, triangle, rectangle, flower, star, zigzag, wavy, squiggle, dash, dot, stripes, holes, gaps)
- style (like tribal, celtic, aztec, boho, geometric, nordic, colorblocking, outlined)
- technique (like straight edge, 1212, shaped, holes, gaps)
- specific color scheme terms (like rainbow, gradient, ombre)
- symmetrical / asymmetrical
- other specific and general terms describing content relevant to a pattern (specific breed of dogs like corgi and general words like puppy)
- logo (only for official logos)
- font (only for complete alphabet patterns)
- word, text, letter, phrase (for patterns not containing the full alphabet)
- keychain, bookmark, wallhanging (only for alpha patterns)
- repeating (only for alpha patterns, since all normal patterns naturally repeat)
- different forms of words (past, present, plural, singular)
Generator warnings are also taken into account during reviews, but they're not always a reason to decline, and have to be checked on a case-by-case basis. For example, using a very dark color in your pattern could be fine, if it doesn't make the pattern hard to read, or the grid hard to see. Similar color warnings are also sometimes not completely accurate. If the colors look distinct enough on the pattern, or they're used to create a gradient for example, it's completely fine.
Decline message behaves a bit differently in this section. It's not being sent to the user in a notification, but stored with the pattern itself, and displayed when the user opens it up again for editing. It's also being preserved between reviews, which means that if we're reviewing a pattern that already got declined with a decline message, the original message is visible and could be edited. Moderators should always try their best to include all the issues they can find, to prevent patterns being declined too many times unnecessarily.
There also is a review notes field that users can use to communicate with the moderators. It's editable only by the users, and should contain relevant notes which are taken into account during our review. Moderators can then use decline messages to communicate back to the user.
Remember we only approve 100% finished patterns, so if we think a pattern needs tweaking, it definitely can be reason to decline, also if it contains only 1 misplaced knot. We also always try to think if it's likely for people to actually use the pattern, or if it's not easily replicable.
Patterns we generally decline:
- chevron, simple fishbone chevron and candystripe
- simple plaid patterns with one row f and one row b knots
- striped patterns consisting of fb and bf knots
- simple zigzag and horizontal stripe patterns
- simple diamond patterns
- existing patterns with added borders or straight edge technique
- simple text patterns
- scrambled or randomized patterns without a clearly repeating pattern
- duplicate patterns which should be added as variations
- extremely similar patterns which are very easy to derive from the originals
- similar variations
- cow print patterns
- QR codes and Spotify codes
Things we consider:
- review notes
- generator warnings
- keywords
- duplicate or very similar colors
- simple (mostly word) patterns
- clearly repeating pattern (asymmetrical patterns are allowed)
- size (related to the complexity of the pattern)
- patterns which need tweaking
- border (should be even, if present)
Photos
The quality of the photo is very important here. If the photo is too small, or too blurry, it is a reason to decline, asking the user to try fixing the problem. We also don't accept screenshots of any kind. Please remember we prefer quality over quantity also in this section, and always try to educate users to upload high-quality content.
Duplicates aren't allowed, the same as in all the other sections, but the rules for duplicates here are a bit specific. A same photo is not allowed (across the whole database), a different photo of the same bracelet is only allowed for a different pattern, but multiple photos of distinct bracelets are allowed also for the same pattern.
For each photo uploaded to our official challenges, we give each user 1 reward, if the photo is accepted. Please remember the photo is required to have a watermark with the word "challenge" written or typed nice and tiny somewhere in it. The watermark is only allowed for photos posted to our official challenges. Unofficial challenges or patterns not belonging to a challenge should not contain it.
Things we consider:
- photo matches the pattern
- state of the bracelet (enough of the bracelet needs to be finished)
- quality of the photo (small, blurry, ...)
- visibility of the bracelet on the photo
- borders of any color are not allowed on the photo
- text containing the pattern ID is not allowed on the photo
- obtrusive elements on the photo (big text, emoji, ...)
- same photos (even for different patterns) are not allowed
- multiple photos of the same bracelet are not allowed (for the same pattern)
Duplicates aren't allowed, the same as in all the other sections, but the rules for duplicates here are a bit specific. A same photo is not allowed (across the whole database), a different photo of the same bracelet is only allowed for a different pattern, but multiple photos of distinct bracelets are allowed also for the same pattern.
For each photo uploaded to our official challenges, we give each user 1 reward, if the photo is accepted. Please remember the photo is required to have a watermark with the word "challenge" written or typed nice and tiny somewhere in it. The watermark is only allowed for photos posted to our official challenges. Unofficial challenges or patterns not belonging to a challenge should not contain it.
Things we consider:
- photo matches the pattern
- state of the bracelet (enough of the bracelet needs to be finished)
- quality of the photo (small, blurry, ...)
- visibility of the bracelet on the photo
- borders of any color are not allowed on the photo
- text containing the pattern ID is not allowed on the photo
- obtrusive elements on the photo (big text, emoji, ...)
- same photos (even for different patterns) are not allowed
- multiple photos of the same bracelet are not allowed (for the same pattern)
Videos
This section is very similar to the Photos section, with one key difference. Along with a photo, which will be used as a thumbnail, there is a youtube video attached to every submission. Most of the rules that apply to the Photos section also apply for the photo in this section.
Duplicates aren't allowed, the same as in all the other sections, but the rules for duplicates here are a bit specific. A same video and/or photo is not allowed (across the whole database), but multiple videos and/or photos of the same or distinct bracelet are allowed also for the same pattern.
Videos have to be informative, have to use the pattern and be mostly related to the pattern, and should not advertise any other party except for the related youtube channel itself.
Things we consider:
- video matches the pattern
- advertising in the video
- quality of the video
- quality of the photo (small, blurry, ...)
- visibility of the bracelet on the photo
- borders of any color are not allowed on the photo
- text containing the pattern ID is not allowed on the photo
- obtrusive elements on the photo (big text, emoji, ...)
- same videos (even for different patterns) are not allowed
Duplicates aren't allowed, the same as in all the other sections, but the rules for duplicates here are a bit specific. A same video and/or photo is not allowed (across the whole database), but multiple videos and/or photos of the same or distinct bracelet are allowed also for the same pattern.
Videos have to be informative, have to use the pattern and be mostly related to the pattern, and should not advertise any other party except for the related youtube channel itself.
Things we consider:
- video matches the pattern
- advertising in the video
- quality of the video
- quality of the photo (small, blurry, ...)
- visibility of the bracelet on the photo
- borders of any color are not allowed on the photo
- text containing the pattern ID is not allowed on the photo
- obtrusive elements on the photo (big text, emoji, ...)
- same videos (even for different patterns) are not allowed
Links
Only really useful links should be posted to the site. The general rules for advertising third parties also apply.
The title should be short and informative, links should not be too long, and the description has to clearly state what users will find on the linked website.
Things we consider:
- all properties of the link
The title should be short and informative, links should not be too long, and the description has to clearly state what users will find on the linked website.
Things we consider:
- all properties of the link
Comments
This section encapsulates both pattern and tutorial comments. All comments are being read carefully by our moderators, and considered. The ones that are considered rude, inappropriate, insulting, too negative, or misinterpreting / misleading will be removed. One of the most important things for us here at BB, is having a positive and welcoming vibe all around the website. We also take the demographics of our users into account very seriously, and thus all the content posted to the site should be appropriate also for our younger audience. Posting inappropriate content to the site might even result in your account getting banned.
Things we consider:
- comments which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative comments
- spam (similar comments from the same user)
Things we consider:
- comments which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative comments
- spam (similar comments from the same user)
Forum
All the rules for comments also apply to this section, with a few additions.
The title of a forum topic has to be descriptive, and clearly state what a topic is about. Titles like 'Please help', 'Please click' or 'Please answer' are not considered as descriptive. Before asking a question, please check both our FAQ section and the recent forum posts. Chances are that your question has already been answered, especially in the newbies section since most beginners run into similar issues. When asking a question, please make sure you provide all the necessary details for others to help you out in a satisfying way. When replying to somoene who is not the author of the topic, make sure to mention them (@username) in your post, so they get a notification and see your reply.
Creating challenges by users is also allowed, but you should not create them too often. There should not be more than 1 challenge from a user running at the same time. And it's important for the 'Challenges' thread not to contain any non-challenge related topics, nor challenges unrelated to friendship bracelets.
Things we consider:
- title is descriptive
- topic is posted to a correct thread
- posts which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative posts
- spam (similar posts from the same user)
The title of a forum topic has to be descriptive, and clearly state what a topic is about. Titles like 'Please help', 'Please click' or 'Please answer' are not considered as descriptive. Before asking a question, please check both our FAQ section and the recent forum posts. Chances are that your question has already been answered, especially in the newbies section since most beginners run into similar issues. When asking a question, please make sure you provide all the necessary details for others to help you out in a satisfying way. When replying to somoene who is not the author of the topic, make sure to mention them (@username) in your post, so they get a notification and see your reply.
Creating challenges by users is also allowed, but you should not create them too often. There should not be more than 1 challenge from a user running at the same time. And it's important for the 'Challenges' thread not to contain any non-challenge related topics, nor challenges unrelated to friendship bracelets.
Things we consider:
- title is descriptive
- topic is posted to a correct thread
- posts which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative posts
- spam (similar posts from the same user)
Chat
All the rules for comments also apply to this section.
To report a misbehaving user, please tag one of our Super Moderators or Moderators in the chat.
Things we consider:
- posts which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative posts
- spam (similar posts from the same user)
To report a misbehaving user, please tag one of our Super Moderators or Moderators in the chat.
Things we consider:
- posts which can insult or upset someone, or are otherwise inappropriate
- too negative posts
- spam (similar posts from the same user)
