How to confirm character submissions or become a moderator

This format is no longer taking submissions. Please use one of the submission threads, thanks!!



Anime-Planet moderates character submissions to ensure we show accurate info you can trust. As moderators have only seen and read certain titles, we’re asking for your help to confirm the submissions that come through.

It’s not enough, however, to simply reply to a thread and say ‘I confirm’. Moderators are trained to understand the guidelines in and out, and we need to know that confirmers do as well. By following the below steps, you’ll not only quickly be deemed as a trusted confirmer by the mods, you’ll also make your own character submissions get accepted more easily, AND, you’ll be on your way to becoming a character moderator, if you choose to take that step.

Read the guidelines

We need to be sure that confirmers, and moderators, understand the guidelines, including how we mark a character main vs secondary vs minor, or how tags are implemented. If you haven’t already, please:


1. Read the guidelines on how to add characters in general, fully

2. Read the guideline for any tag you plan to add, or plan to confirm.

We ask that moderators read and understand all tags, but it’s a bit of a daunting task. If you plan to either submit your own character updates, OR if you plan to become a moderator, read the full set of tags and refer back to the definitions as needed. If you just want to confirm tag submissions, read the tag guidelines before doing so.


Tips for confirming information

• Any confirmations must be based on personal experience. Wikipedia, other sites or any other source is not enough. Meaning you need to have read the chapter the character shows up in, seen the series in question, etc. Moderators generally ignore any submissions from a person who has not marked a series in their list, for example.
  
• Confirm all pieces of information in a submission, so we know you’re paying attention to the full picture. For example, the naming order, url string, tags, etc. When replying to a submission thread, please mention which content is correct and which is incorrect, and why.
  
• Give specific details about why a change is or isn’t correct. This applies to submitting your own updates, as well - always give detailed reasons in the ‘Comments’ field.

Examples of ‘giving specific details’ for different types of content:

TAGS

Use the guideline definitions to confirm or deny the update, with specifics:

Example: "This character qualifies for the Child Genius tag because they are still a child and is a better piano player than most adults (she wins national competitions against people three times her age!)"

Example: "This character should not get the cat tag, because your guidelines say only regular household cats should get the tag. This is a tiger from space."

Example: The Monster tag, while technically correct, is not applicable for this character because their true identity isn't discovered until later into the story and is hence a spoiler.


Use screenshots, specific episodes or chapters to prove or deny the tag:

Example: "As stated in chapter 8, this character is 15, so she gets the teenager tag."

Example: "As you can see in this attached photo, the character is smoking, so they should get the Smoker tag."


RELATIONS

Use specific details about the anime or manga to agree or deny:

Example: "They only appear in one episode (episode 80), so they are minor."

Example: "Although the character appears in most episodes, his role is not very important other than a few scenes. He is therefore secondary."


NAMES

We use official names as the main names, rather than fansubs as the main name. If you can confirm this information or have more details, let us know:

Example: "I own the officially translated manga and it is spelt Toho, not Tohou. You can also see this spelling on Funimation's website."

Example: “The official manga spells the name Toho, but Crunchyroll spells it Tohou.” (note: this is a case where moderators will need to decide which one to add as main)


Next steps

If enough people confirm with detailed information, or if one or more ‘trusted’ confirmers helps out, the information will be added, even if the moderators are not familiar with the anime/manga. If 10 people post “I confirm” with no details/reasons, it will not be added. For this reason, we’d love your help in confirming submissions (and hopefully, becoming moderators someday!)

How to become a character moderator

Character moderators demonstrate that they understand the guidelines in and out. They bring up potential edge cases and problems that the guidelines might not cover. They brainstorm ways to update the tag definitions to be more complete. Most of all, they follow the mantra ‘when in doubt, leave it out’ and ask questions, rather than add things on their own.

We welcome any new would-be moderators, as the more character moderators we have, the more we can fill in, faster.

• The first step is to focus on confirming submissions from other users in the way described above, or submitting changes to characters, using the same level of detail in the Comments section of the form
  
• Then, start submitting your own new characters. To help ensure we get the content up faster, and that we can get you any feedback on better submissions, it’s helpful to focus on short series (such as manga that are 1-3 vols, or short anime). Submitting tons of characters from a massive franchise tends to be overwhelming for the moderators, unless they’ve seen or read the series. It’s more likely that the mods will pick up the short manga or anime and read/watch it just for the purpose of confirming, and giving you feedback.
  
• We will actively approach frequent/trusted submitters/confirmers to take the next step for becoming a character moderator (just a bit more training one on one with one of the existing mods, and then you’re good to go)

Thanks for your help and support of Anime-Planet!