VIP Guide

This article covers tools and work sequences for VIPs. VIPs can help moderate videos and investigate potential abuse if they have the time for it, but there are no expectations for the amount of work or commitment. VIP is a permission level, not a job.

Mandatory informative anti-union propaganda video for all VIPs (this is a joke).

Code of conduct

Don't question VIPs on submitting a segment with a small difference to yours, unless you believe the new segment is worse than the original. In the end it is about creating good segments and not about your stats.

Tools and terminology

• SponsorBlock Browser by Lartza. Short: SBB.
  • Userscripts by Nanobyte. They make SBB prettier and easier to read, as well as add utility.
  • Userscripts by TheJzoli. Small user experience improvements for SBB.
  • Userscripts by Deedit. Locking, category change and voting for SBB. SBB opener for YouTube.
  • Userscript by Maxhyt. Locking, category change and voting for SBB.
  • Explanations of all features at the top of the respective sites. You will need a userscript manager like Tampermonkey. Press raw on the right of the filename and then install.
  • Bookmarklets.
• SponsorBlockControl by Nanobyte. Short: SBC.
• SponsorBlockControl-sveltekit by Nanobyte. Short: SBC.
  • This version is updated more frequently and and has some features not in base SBC.
• sb-slash by mchangrh.
• DeArrow Browser by mini_bomba. Short: DAB.
  • Voting functions are built-in by default. Set your private userID in the settings to enable.
• 👍 is commonly used to show support for a message, supporting a ban or another action taken while ✅ is used to show confirmation. Alt + left click will add an emoji to your favorites.
• For videos in #incorrect-submissions, react with ✅ to indicate that it is done, ❌ if the report is incorrect and ⏲️ to indicate that you are working on the report.
  • Both ✅ and ❌ will trigger a bot to remove embeds on the message.
• A full list of community projects and tools are available at Community.

Moderating users

Warnings

Warnings are intended for users who are submitting in good faith, but whose segments either aren't as good as they could be or who may have misunderstood the rules. To make them sound less threatening, they are called "tips" in the UI and Discord.

What constitutes a warning and when to lift it?

Warnings should be issued to users who misinterpret the rules and can be set straight by simply telling them to review the rules and guidelines. For example, you could recommend the flowchart to users who often mislabel the category.

The point of a warning is to get the user into Matrix or Discord so that we can talk to them, make sure they go over the guidelines, and hopefully learn from their mistake.

Once they have confirmed they have read the guidelines, checked out their previous mistakes and, if applicable, read the corresponding articles, the warning may be lifted. A possible prompt for this can be "Please read the guidelines and confirm that you understand the mistakes, or ask any questions if you have any." Warnings can be lifted with sb-slash or SBC.

In more recent versions of SponsorBlock, warnings can also be dismissed by the user after receiving it.

How to issue a warning?

On SBC, paste the user ID and the warning reason. Select "SponsorBlock" or "DeArrow", depending on where the warning applies best. The message should look like this:

Intro covering content:
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/kTZrV4M5Tcs/
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/BoQU3_4o90s/
 
Sponsor doesn't include segue:
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/NxYPNNftnNQ/
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/Fci_ALdEzGc/

Other unrelated tips...

For more information, see the SponsorBlock guidelines: https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Guidelines

Please include all warning reasons! Yes, they can be quite long. But the user will only see this message, not the logged report on Discord. So if you want to give tips to the user, do it now. Make sure not to include the term "warning" in your message!

In #tip-log (currently called #warning-log), post a message with the warning reasons and link their SBB profile. This message should look like this:

Warning for https://sb.ltn.fi/userid/7a7e6f513cd2a7a9abfd5c3dec7c8e2ea0e5e26f2683a83342ebad0f68d7754e/

Intro covering content:
the rest of the message...

If the user has many wrong segments, but you still feel like a warning is appropriate, consider removing all old segments by banning and unbanning them.

What does the user experience?

When the user is submitting or voting on a segment, a chat window of #questions will open and automatically post a message with their warning reason. They cannot navigate to any other channels, so don't link to a Discord message or other channels. Their username will be set to their user ID and they will see an alert box with the following text:

Submission rejected due to a warning from a moderator. This means that we noticed you were making some common mistakes that are not malicious, and we just want to clarify the rules. Could you please send a message in discord.gg/SponsorBlock or matrix.to/#/#sponsor:ajay.app so we can further help you? Your userID is ${userID}.

Warning reason: ${reason}

Bans

Bans of users with many submissions need approval of one other VIP. Don't hold back on banning users when they submit bad segments. They should be mature enough that their bad segments show up for everyone to see.

What constitutes a ban?

• A ban should be issued to users who break the rules in a way that explaining them to them would not be feasible.
• Their submissions show disregard of the guidelines, in such a way that good faith cannot be assumed anymore.
  • Example: censoring people or stuff shown for pretty much any reason.
• Submissions were created to lessen the viewer's experience.
• It shows that the user never bothered reading the category descriptions.

How to issue a ban?

In #bans, post a message with the ban reasons and link their SBB profile. #bans is a private channel. The message should look like this:

(Recommending) ban for https://sb.ltn.fi/userid/7a7e6f513cd2a7a9abfd5c3dec7c8e2ea0e5e26f2683a83342ebad0f68d7754e/

Intro covering content:
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/kTZrV4M5Tcs/
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/BoQU3_4o90s/

Sponsor doesn't include segue:
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/NxYPNNftnNQ/
https://sb.ltn.fi/video/Fci_ALdEzGc/

Wait for another VIP's support with 👍. After receiving approval, head to SBC and ban the user. You may choose to hide categories. Confirm your ban with ✅.

What does the user experience?

The user will not notice they have been banned, as we issue only shadowbans. As long as the user still uses the same IP address, they will continue seeing their segments, but no one else will. Their views will stay at zero, so their time saved and related stats will stop changing.

How can I recognize a banned user on SBB?

Banned users will have an ❌ in the shadow hidden column of their segments on SBB.

Temporary VIPs

Permanent VIPs can grant temporary channel-specific VIP voting powers to users. This permission only lasts for 24 hours and can only be granted for one channel at a time.

Temporary VIPs can:

• Add / remove locks on segments,
• Bring back downvoted / shadowhidden / hidden segments,
• Remove locked segments,
• Instantly remove any segment,
• Instantly change the category of any segment.

They cannot:

• Submit on locked videos,
• Do anything non-voting that other VIPs would be able to do.

Temporary VIPs will have their reports show up as "Report by Temporary VIP User" in #submission-downvotes.

This can be done on sb-slash and SBC.

Moderating videos

Knowledge of categories

Read the guidelines and feel free to ask in the Discord after checking the wiki.

Manipulating segments

Voting and category changing can be done with SBC, Deedit's userscript or on YouTube.

• Upvoting a segment will lock it. This means that it will always be shown and immune to downvotes, even from the submitter.
• Downvoting a segment will immediately remove it, no matter whose it is.
  • Locked segments are marked yellow as a warning that this segment was approved by a VIP. If you aren't sure, search for the video ID / UUID on Discord or ask. Not all decisions are well documented.
• Undoing a vote will revert the segment's votes to what they were before your downvote or upvote. It will also remove other VIPs' locks.
• If a segment is in the wrong category, you can change it directly on YouTube, SBC or sb-slash .
  • Locked categories are colored yellow in the category selector. Be careful when changing to a locked category or submitting in one.

Locking categories

• Review the entire video and make sure that all displayed segments are correct.
• Make sure to include the reason why segments should not be there, if applicable.
• You can lock videos if you are concerned that segments will be spammed, before or after working on a video.
  • It is explicitly allowed to lock popular videos at release to prevent spam.
• The most recent lock reason will be displayed.
• This can be done with sb-slash, SBC, SBBCool and sb.ltn.fi.lockCategories.

When users try to submit a category that is locked, they will receive the following message:

New submissions are not allowed for the following category: {category}. A moderator has decided that no new segments are needed on this video and that all current segments of this category are timed perfectly.

Lock reason: {reason}

If you believe this is incorrect, please contact someone on discord.gg/SponsorBlock or matrix.to/#/#sponsor:ajay.app

If the locked category is sponsor, the previous prompt will be expanded by this:

Maybe the segment you are submitting is a different category that you have not enabled and is not a sponsor. Categories that aren't sponsor, such as self-promotion can be enabled in the options.

Submitting segments

Your segments should be perfectly accurate and follow the rules. This is because normal users cannot remove your segments and VIPs don't want to remove other VIPs' segments. If you are unsure, feel free to ask.

Abuse

Don't go around downvoting established segments. Odds are you probably misunderstood the rules and could lose your VIP status if you are incorrigible.

Clearing cache / purging videos

Videos that have segments that are erroneously displaying even after they have been downvoted might need to have their cache cleared. Feel free to do this whenever you need to, but only if it does not resolve itself in a few refreshes. This can be done with SBC and sb-slash.

Videos that have been changed post-upload by the submitter (usually to remove a part of the video) and consequently have their segments offset should be cleared with "purge video". This can be done in SBC and sb-slash. If there are segments that are still accurate enough, they can be un-hidden with a VIP upvote.

SponsorBlock VIP UI

Shortly after becoming a VIP, your UI will highlight locked segments, similar to SBB.

Locked segments are usually submitted by VIPs or locked by VIPs. When submitting over a locked category, make sure that it wasn't purposefully excluded, either by checking the lock reason or asking the locking VIP in the Discord.

Locked segments have a yellow downvote.

Locked categories are highlighted in yellow.

Searching segments

When searching for segments en masse, SBB is recommended, but has an update delay of 60 minutes.

This can be mitigated with sb.ltn.fi.forceupdate.user.js by TheJzoli to force get new segments and update existing ones and sbltnfi-refresh.user.js by blab to force update a single segment.

Alternatively, sb-slash can be used to search for segments on videos:

• /searchsegements: get all segments on video, regardless of votes or hidden status.
• /skipsegments: get segments displayed on video.
• /segmentinfo: look up information from the segment UUID, including user agent.

For quick and convenient moderation, sb-slash's /vip command can also be used.

Reviewing other users for permanent VIP

Applicants should have the Requesting to be a VIP role, otherwise approach them privately.

The most important thing for VIPs is to be consistent and receptive to feedback.

• When looking at their segments, we shouldn't give them a warning - see the guidelines.
• They know what's good in their submissions.
• They know what's bad in their submissions.
• They're involved and consistent.
• They should have at least 25 submissions.
• They have to have submissions dating back at least a month.
• Their segments should be consistently good.
• They should have a good grasp on any category they've made a submission with.

Tool feature matrix

Tool feature matrix

Tool name	Voting	Change category	Locking category	Warning	Unwarning	Banning	Temp VIP	Clearing cache	Purging videos
Browser extension	✅	✅
SponsorBlockControl	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
sb-slash	✔️*	✅	✔️*		✔️*		✔️*	✅	✅
SBBCool	✅	✅	✅						✅
Deedit's script	✅	✅	✅					✅	✅

* Actions done with sb-slash are not as anonymous, as they are logged to a VIP-only channel.