List of common warning reasons

A compilation of common phrases that can be reused in warnings (also known as tips).

Note that this page obviously cannot include details about the actual segments / titles the user might have submitted, but it's still a good practice to include those and give individual feedback. This can help a lot in their understanding of what they can improve.

SponsorBlock

Accuracy

Include any segues (phrases or skits that exist solely to transition the topic) in your segments.

Do not round your segments to the nearest second as it makes for jarring skips.

Be more careful with your timing. Start the segment before the screen transitions to the thing you want to cut, and end after its content has completely ended, including transitional phrases such as “but anyways”. A good segment should leave no trace of the cut whatsoever.

Your timings could be improved. If a visual change is present, start your segments a few frames before this change, unless conflicting audio is present. This ensures smooth skips when SponsorBlock is slow to skip. Subsequently, end your segments after a visual change if possible. Use the , (<) and . (>) keys to move frame by frame for precision.

When submitting a sponsor, include the segue/buildup to it.

When submitting segments that begin at the start of the video, time them at 0:00.000 (you can do this by clicking the “start” button in the segment submission edit menu) for a seamless skip.

Your segments are mostly accurate, but adjacent segments should be timed independently to ensure smooth skipping for each one. Timing them separately should create a slight overlap between these segments.

Categories

Intermission / intro animation

You have mostly misused the Intermission / intro animation category. It's for skipping sections with zero content, such as livestream waiting screens and intro animations. Do not use it to skip greetings or get to the video's main topic.

Hook / greetings

Spoken greetings are not Intermission. Goodbyes are not Endcards/credits. The correct category for both is Hook/greetings.

Spoken greetings are not Intermission. Overviewing topics covered in the video is not Preview. The correct category for both is Hook/greetings.

Music: Non-music

Do not use the sponsor category to trim off parts of music videos. There is a dedicated category for that: “Music: non-music section”. Make sure to enable the category if you haven't already.

Don't submit non-music or any category to create your own mixes of songs by skipping parts of songs in music videos. Non-music is only for silence before/after a track and additions not part of the song, like isolated SFX and skits for a music video.

Chapters

Chapters must be timed to the exact frame for the best skipping experience – integer timing is not good enough. If you use timestamps from the comments or description, you must verify and adjust them before submitting.

Highlight

Submit a Highlight, not a skip segment; to jump to the “good part” of a video.

DeArrow

Casing and other formatting

Titles are required to be submitted in ‘Sentence case’. This means formatting it like you would a sentence, only capitalizing the first word and proper nouns.

DeArrow titles must be submitted in sentence case (only the first word and proper nouns capitalized) instead of title case (every large word capitalized). You may configure the DeArrow formatter to display titles in title case, but you must submit in sentence case in order for the formatter to function properly for everyone.

Titles shouldn't be full sentences with a full stop at the end.

Series format

When submitting titles for videos in a series, make sure to use the series format as defined in the guidelines.

[...]

This ensures series are named in a consistent way. For more information, see the wiki: https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/DeArrow/Guidelines#Series_format

You should usually avoid putting videos into a series when that's not intended by the uploader.

Information

In general, try to keep titles concise, describing the topic of the video instead of summarizing what happens in it.

When submitting titles, please follow the DeArrow guidelines. That means accurately describing the video without bias or spoilers, and in the same language the video is in.

Try to keep titles short. A title is not meant to be a complete description of the video, but just a teaser for viewers to have an idea what the video is about.

The title you wrote is basically a question that answers itself, which makes a really bad title.

Removing the word “why” from the title would slightly mitigate the issue, but the title would still be quite bad, as it sounds like the entire video summarized down to a single sentence – titles should not replace the video, you may summarize the premise instead.

Do not use DeArrow to inform others of a video containing AI-generated content, as all information in a video must be presented neutrally.

Please do not submit titles just to inform other people of things, especially if they're unrelated to the video at hand. Similarly, do not infer what a video will be about just from its original title and thumbnail (you have to watch the video to know), and don't add information you've heard from elsewhere.

Context: “YouTube's experimental server side ads are breaking SponsorBlock and other extensions” was submitted on a video about an unrelated change.

DeArrow titles aren't a discussion board – do not submit “titles” that are intended to be messages to other DeArrow users.

If you'd like to discuss submissions made on a specific channel, or the DeArrow guidelines in general, don't use DeArrow titles for this – join the Discord or Matrix space instead.