ToS Discussion Thread

From topic #11837. Can continue discussing the issue here instead of over there.

If I missed a quote to post or have a better suggestion for the topic title, let me know.

NWSiaCB said:

The problem with this is that now that everyone and their dog has approval rights, nothing can ever actually get deleted ever again.

See this scat guro image that has already been approved by three separate people, including the person who started this "we need to fire some of these approvers" stuff in the first place. Apparently, even when something gets negative scores and multiple flags, it doesn't matter, so long as there's now a legion of people ready to re-approve it who don't give a damn about Danbooru never accepting scat porn or extreme guro.

NWF_Renim said:

That's fine that you're criticizing me, but your example isn't representative of some of the claims you're making. It doesn't have the negative score that you're implying it has and it isn't scat porn, it isn't porn. It is extreme guro though and it does depict scat, and I will not deny that, but I do not arbitrarily approve content like that without taking into consideration on if I consider it (from my perspective) drawn well and subject relevant (is it done in an anime-style, is it not a photo, etc). The rules aren't set in stone as you've frequently treated them.

OOZ662 said:

NWF_Renim said:
The rules aren't set in stone as you've frequently treated them.

That's a big part of the problem here, I think. There's a bullet point in the Terms of Service we all have to agree to that specifically says that under the possible penalty of losing your account, do not post depictions of extreme mutilations. If something that clear-cut isn't going to be enforced, there's no reason to have rules or even approvers, because everyone's going to find their own way to interpret them to fit their personal wants and weasel by anything they feel like.

NWSiaCB said:

It had a negative score (-2) before. Since it's gotten attention, the score has become volatile, based upon who, exactly, is viewing it at the moment. (Which, again, is a reason why score isn't a good indicator...)

Anyway, that's not an attack on you. It's an attack on the system that makes it incredibly easy to upload things, yet nearly impossible to delete them.

Basically, this system means that, to get something deleted, you have to have more people in a co-ordinated tag-team performing focused flagging after every wave of approvers re-approves something to gradually wear them down... while at the same time, those approvers can approve thousands of scat images in a day. And it's only by happenstance that I even saw that one because it was in the comments page after the uploader complained about how it kept getting flagged. The people who actively look for that sort of stuff are going to be inherently more likely to find and upvote/approve it.

As long as there's people approving scat images faster than they can be taken down, there's going to be people who come here for the scat/furry/guro/ultra-deformed breasts porn Danbooru has now apparently said is OK. Those people are then going to up-vote the score, and get more of their own to be janitors/mods.

This is an Eternal September situation. (Or a ring species of users and janitors, to use the argument linked in the previous thread...) You are putting different communities/tastes/copyright fanbases in direct competition with one another, with the losers finding they can't have a place in the website anymore, and the winners changing the de facto rules to whatever suits their own fetish. (This isn't some far off or new threat, either, as Touhou pretty clearly Eternal Septembered the site within about a year of its operation...)

Which is the point: How "set in stone" the rules are depends entirely upon the willingness of the mods to actually enforce them. We're only in this situation because people weren't enforcing the rules against the likes of this uploader of absolutely any random scribble he can find and janitor whose approvals are so lax they have caused several years of turmoil on these forums.

NWF_Renim said:

Quality of something was always the primary focus on determining if something should or shouldn't be approved. The ToS from my perspective simply laid out what wasn't generally relevant to the site and what generally fell afoul of poor quality images. Things like furry, nude filters, and grotesque were things that typically had a lot of poor quality images associated with it. You'd get a lot of western style furry art, poorly done nude filters, and scribbled together drawings of gore and sex. There of course was also the furry and guro communities, which were from my understanding also problematic. Of course furry and guro were also uploaded a lot for shock value, but then again so are things that aren't banned either, say like toddlercon art.

I really don't see how they can all truly be made into hard rules without either banning content that shouldn't be banned or making the rules into jumbles of legal speak that either ends up full of loopholes or still leaving too much for interpretation and leading us back into problems all over again.

NWSiaCB said:

Basically, this system means that, to get something deleted, you have to have more people in a co-ordinated tag-team performing focused flagging after every wave of approvers re-approves something to gradually wear them down...

Or maybe if several people approve an image, that means it should stay.

NWSiaCB said:

Danbooru never accepting scat porn or extreme guro.

Your vision of Danbooru doesn't match reality:
scat
guro

But I already explained that before: forum #101184.

OOZ662 said:

That's a big part of the problem here, I think. There's a bullet point in the Terms of Service we all have to agree to that specifically says that under the possible penalty of losing your account, do not post depictions of extreme mutilations. If something that clear-cut isn't going to be enforced[...]

Is it so clear-cut that you'd be for nuking all the TOS violating tags? Well, if anyone's up for ironclad rules, I'd suggest providing examples of "extreme guro", otherwise it's too subjective. The guro posts flagged right now (post #2065025, post #2065026, post #2065028) aren't any more extreme than post #1866693. Or maybe now that it's called to attention, people are going to start chain-flagging as109's stuff now.

OOZ662 Said:

NWF_Renim said:

The ToS from my perspective simply laid out what wasn't generally relevant to the site and what generally fell afoul of poor quality images. Things like furry, nude filters, and grotesque were things that typically had a lot of poor quality images associated with it. You'd get a lot of western style furry art, poorly done nude filters, and scribbled together drawings of gore and sex. There of course was also the furry and guro communities, which were from my understanding also problematic. Of course furry and guro were also uploaded a lot for shock value, but then again so are things that aren't banned either, say like toddlercon art.

They were put in place to stop those sorts of things, and when they did arguably stop, they then should be relaxed again so that the problems can come back?

Either way, if they're to be guidelines instead of rules, they should be in howto:upload rather than the document that defines whether you're going to be banned or not under the headings "Rules," "Prohibited Content," and "you may not upload."

Dbx said:
Is it so clear-cut that you'd be for nuking all the TOS violating tags?

Yes, I would. And I would encourage bringing up, discussing, and then properly acting upon (this is the hard part; changes are rarely made to the operations of this site: it's like we're in a golden age right now) proposed changes to the rules. Personally, I'd get rid of the one about manga because it's just silly (I assume it's part of trying to dodge copyright responsibility) and more clearly state the Furry rule to differentiate directly between colored skin/kemonomimi and full-body furry.

"Extreme mutilation, extreme bodily distension" seems to me like an odd one to argue about; it has a dictionary definition to it and I'd find it much harder to point out a questionable edge case than to say an image specifically is or isn't fitting to it.

Saladofstones said:

As far as I understand the rules, nameo is not at the point where he would need nuking on principle.

Additionally, I thought the big breats rule applied to situations where it was at the point of inflation porn. Nameo draws girls with extremely large breasts that can certainly be unattractive, but not grotesque in all cases.

In cases like nameo or the post that's been in a deletion/approval war, thats why we need admins to step in and decide whats acceptable.

Also, as far as scat and guro, its been rules since forever and there are still images under that tag that are uploaded and approved. The point is when they are either so grotesque as to overcome its possible artistic merit, or because they are shittly drawn, but with prolific artists and dedicated fans that will overrepresent it.

Dbx said:

OOZ662 said:

Yes, I would. And I would encourage bringing up, discussing, and then properly acting upon (this is the hard part; changes are rarely made to the operations of this site: it's like we're in a golden age right now) proposed changes to the rules. Personally, I'd get rid of the one about manga because it's just silly (I assume it's part of trying to dodge copyright responsibility) and more clearly state the Furry rule to differentiate directly between colored skin/kemonomimi and full-body furry.

Rather disingenuous to support nuking after changing the TOS. I don't think your views are in the best interests of this site.
watermark order:score
*_artifacts order:score
gigantic_* order:score
furry order:score
guro order:score

"Extreme mutilation, extreme bodily distension" seems to me like an odd one to argue about; it has a dictionary definition to it and I'd find it much harder to point out a questionable edge case than to say an image specifically is or isn't fitting to it.

This dictionary definition sure would've been useful in any of the previous threads trying to iron out the ambiguities of guro.

NWSiaCB said:

Regardless, isn't that a "You shouldn't delete this image, because others are worse" argument?

It should've been clear it was about better defining extreme mutilation, especially if it's going to be auto-deleted.

Furry/scat/guro are exactly why blacklists exist. There's no reason to delete images for having certain types of content as long as they're still "high quality" and "anime-related" as specified by the rules.

If we start nuking all types of content that 51% of users don't like it will only hurt the diversity of content on Danbooru.

Like I said, this entire debate is an exact analogue of the one about same-sex marriage. (Except that it's ultimately less significant, of course, and there actually is a God who, in my opinion, has and should have final say.) Anyone who refuses to recognize the analogy has their head just as far up the we're-the-victims-here creek as those who wouldn't let people marry without their permission. IMHO. YMMV.

Dbx said:

Rather disingenuous to support nuking after changing the TOS. I don't think your views are in the best interests of this site.
watermark order:score
*_artifacts order:score
gigantic_* order:score
furry order:score
guro order:score

I don't support nuking after changing the ToS, except nuking what doesn't fit the ToS at that point. I suspect you read my post as one piece; if you think the ToS should change and then not be enforced, that seems more disingenuous.

"[...]if they're to be guidelines instead of rules, they should be in howto:upload rather than [in the ToS]." I don't support them moving to howto:upload, but if they're not rules, they shouldn't be called rules. If.

Then, the second part. I support nuking posts that are against the ToS. I also support making changes to the ToS to better fit how the site is going to behave and perform (and, if need be, un-nuking posts that then fit those guidelines). You can't have rules sitting there and just say "weeellll, that's what the rules say, but we're going to allow X in just because." Those aren't rules, and the result is just chaos.

Danbooru needs to decide if it wants to be an unregulated jumble of everything, or a structured site with regulations. Then it needs to write the result down for everyone to see, and then enforce what is written (if it needs enforcement at all; the former wouldn't). And, if I were still a Mod at that point, I'd be glad to enforce (or not) whatever it is in the end.

Dbx said:

This dictionary definition sure would've been useful in any of the previous threads trying to iron out the ambiguities of guro.

I'm going to have to go find and read these threads to understand how the subject can be at all grey. The only one I've personally seen contended is the Furry rule, as it's both a bit open in its wording and doesn't fit with what the site has evolved to be. And is a great example; as it stands, do I think posts with furry or scaled skin should be nuked? Yes, because it's against the rules. Do I want it to be nuked? No, I think the ToS should be discussed and made solid in what is allowed to be here, whether by user consensus or admin dictation, then enforced.

Toks said:

Furry/scat/guro are exactly why blacklists exist.

I somewhat agree, though I don't believe Danbooru should move to being completely unregulated. I didn't even know the post that flamed this all up existed because I have it blacklisted. But, if that's the way Danbooru's gonna be moving forward, then the ToS needs to reflect that, and be enforced.

Flopsy said:

Like I said, this entire debate is an exact analogue of the one about same-sex marriage.

You're comparing attempting to control people's very lives to what a website accepts into its databases. I buy that about as much as someone incorrectly saying their Free Speech is being violated when a business won't let them put signs up on their property.

Toks said:
Furry/scat/guro are exactly why blacklists exist. There's no reason to delete images for having certain types of content as long as they're still "high quality" and "anime-related" as specified by the rules.

Those are specified as 'do not upload' probably because the owner doesn't want them here. Does anyone even think about that?

Toks said:
If we start nuking all types of content that 51% of users don't like it will only hurt the diversity of content on Danbooru.

Banning 4 out of two hundred thousands of things is not hurting diversity.

Dbx said:

It should've been clear it was about better defining extreme mutilation, especially if it's going to be auto-deleted.

Except that's not what you're arguing. You're arguing that if there are any examples of something that can qualify under a tag, that it's perfectly acceptable to upload anything relating to it.

With a parade of new approvers coming in constantly, this basically ensures that almost anything will be capable of being approved at some point.

If someone gets temp janitor ability, and photographs his own shit and uploads it here, and auto-approves their own image, by your logic, that means Danbooru now accepts people uploading pictures of their own shit. Now it's an established rule that shit pictures are perfectly acceptable, because "that's how Danbooru works".

You're using completely circular reasoning that says if there is any artwork with a guro tag at all, there are no rules regarding guro at all, anymore. (And the guro tag is often applied to relatively minor -for guro- things like cuts where you don't see internal organs, and then specifically states that what has that tag already are supposed to be the limits.)

And the problem is, this is hardly isolated to one person. Danbooru really does just go by whatever has already been approved, and with a stream of new approvers and users following what has been approved in the past, you create the exact sort of negative feedback loop that's been creating all these problems on Danbooru for years.

OOZ662 said:

I agree. In fact, I didn't even know the post that flamed this all up existed because I have it blacklisted. And if that's the way Danbooru's gonna be moving forward, then the ToS needs to reflect that, and be enforced.

I'd also like for the rules page to reflect reality. I tried to start a discussion on that a while ago but it didn't go anywhere.

OOZ662 said:

I support nuking posts that are against the ToS. I also support making changes to the ToS to better fit how the site is going to behave and perform (and, if need be, un-nuking posts that then fit those guidelines). You can't have rules sitting there and just say "weeellll, that's what the rules say, but we're going to allow X in just because." Those aren't rules, and the result is just chaos.

I also agree with this. A ToS that presents itself as iron rules but is actually treated as loose guidelines is mostly a source of trouble. Like users believing that those and only those posts that violate it should be kept off the site. Anyone who watches the Flags and Appeals listings can see that kind of thinking in action.

OOZ662 said:

You're comparing attempting to control people's very lives to what a website accepts into its databases. I buy that about as much as someone incorrectly saying their Free Speech is being violated when a business won't let them put signs up on their property.

That is to control people's lives, just to a much smaller degree. Same-sex marriage is basically about what the authorities accept into their marriage records. Danbooru is Albert's property, from one point of view. Another point of view is that it belongs to all its users. The point of view that it belongs only to those users who don't like guro is one that I don't buy.

This is a complete joke. Who the hell cares? If the art is good it gets approved. If you don't like it blacklist it.

Wypatroszony said:

Those are specified as 'do not upload' probably because the owner doesn't want them here. Does anyone even think about that?

Banning 4 out of two hundred thousands of things is not hurting diversity.

If Albert cared then he would of done something about it over the last 6-7 years?

Rastamepas said:

This is a complete joke. Who the hell cares? If the art is good it gets approved. If you don't like it blacklist it.

If Albert cared then he would of done something about it over the last 6-7 years?

If no-one cared, this thread would not exist? If he didn't ever care, he'd not ever put it in there?
I'm losing hope in this site. And fast.

The upload guidelines say that guro is against the rules. If guro is not, in fact, against the rules, then the guidelines should be modified to stop saying it is. If it is against the rules, then approvers should stop approving it, no matter how well-drawn it is.

If the rules get changed, it would probably be nice to have guro automatically blacklisted for all new users until they proactively remove it from their own blacklists.

Wypatroszony said:

Those are specified as 'do not upload' probably because the owner doesn't want them here. Does anyone even think about that?

If Albert hated furry/guro that much, would he really be saying that he's fine with Not One Of Us remaining an approver? (Not One Of Us is one of the biggest approvers of those things.)

Wypatroszony said:

Banning 4 out of two hundred thousands of things is not hurting diversity.

Yes it does.

Toks said:

If Albert hated furry/guro that much, would he really be saying that he's fine with Not One Of Us remaining an approver? (Not One Of Us is one of the biggest approvers of those things.)

He's probably saying that in scope of 'fishing the 'good' posts that'd fall through, not the exact content he exactly fishes up. Finding those specific things in that sea of garbage without specified looking for them (I doubt he did) is rather difficult.

Toks said:

Yes it does.

No it doesn't. 199996 things are sufficient to mask the 'missing' four. And if you are so fanatical about the missing four, you go looking for them elsewhere, where it is (and potentially always have been) served in better amounts anyway. Don't even try to bring up te most popular copyrights, stay real. The scope of bans is far, far tinier.

Toks said:

Furry/scat/guro are exactly why blacklists exist. There's no reason to delete images for having certain types of content as long as they're still "high quality" and "anime-related" as specified by the rules.

If we start nuking all types of content that 51% of users don't like it will only hurt the diversity of content on Danbooru.

Wanting content on danbooru that it wasn't intended for then telling people to "deal with it" is being selfish. Would you go to bulbapedia and demand they start allowing pages for touhou games? Demanding that everything cater to your interests is very self-centered. Not everything needs to "diversify" to suit everyone's desires.

Danbooru has apparently done just fine with a no scat/guro ruleset for the last 10 years and I don't see any reason that should be eroded.

Toks said:

Furry/scat/guro are exactly why blacklists exist. There's no reason to delete images for having certain types of content as long as they're still "high quality" and "anime-related" as specified by the rules.

Flopsy said:

I also agree with this. A ToS that presents itself as iron rules but is actually treated as loose guidelines is mostly a source of trouble. Like users believing that those and only those posts that violate it should be kept off the site. Anyone who watches the Flags and Appeals listings can see that kind of thinking in action.

I second this. Up till now the prohibited content part of the TOS has just been guidelines and not hard rules, and I think we should make that official by axing that part of the TOS and moving it to howto:upload. I think Danbooru can continue being about decent-quality anime art without that part of the TOS, and no one would be able to cite the TOS in order to remove decent-quality anime art because they didn't agree with a picture's subject matter.

It's hard to define what counts as a minimum level of quality, so it should be noted that howto:upload is mostly for new posters to have a high chance of having their posts approved, should they not have time to lurk and discern for themselves what'll be approved.

Hoobajoob said:

Danbooru has apparently done just fine with a no scat/guro ruleset for the last 10 years and I don't see any reason that should be eroded.

Yeah, it's done fine with those rules not being enforced and guro being uploaded anyway. Let's make things better by removing those rules so people don't call us out on not enforcing them.

NWSiaCB said:

Except that's not what you're arguing. You're arguing that if there are any examples of something that can qualify under a tag, that it's perfectly acceptable to upload anything relating to it.

No. Care to show me exactly where I argue that? What I will argue is that if it's anime-style and drawn well, it can stay even if it's guro. That's not to say any post with guro can stay.

I think that the problem is too many people:

• Not understanding that they should LURK MOAR
• (after the former) thinking the rules are hard-set
• (because this is the internet) getting offended on other's behalf

Whatever. It's all a fucking joke anyway.

Is this really that hard to enforce? Set rules as to what level of scat/furry/Gyro is acceptable and anything beyond that isn't allowed. For example: Nothing sexual for furry, which includes panty shots that would be labeled Safe and nothing that exposes the internal organs or severed body parts for guro. I can't come up with anything for scat though because literal shit just disgusts me.

Or you can just make those tags for Gold only members like the loli and toddlercon tags.

If we change the ToS to say that they're "guidelines" rather than rules then we would just be opening the door for a lot of bad art. People would just assume that because it says they're guidelines, that it's means it's okay for everything. In the other direction, if we set very specific rules and forbid exceptions, we'll still end up with bad art uploaded AND potentially delete good art.

I'm in favor of leaving things the way they are. If there are posts that you feel should or should not be on the site, flag/appeal it. That said, clarifying the rules with it stating that exceptions in certain circumstances are allowed may be needed however.

eidolon said:

...

+1

The ToS should be changed, at least for guro. Picking on images based on a trait, instead of an artistic and technical quality problem is saying that a subject should be banned because the topic of that depiction is the problem, even though its really a matter of the portrayal quality of that depiction.

Saying that the quality of the site will go down because of graphic violence in pictures, conflating that and other subjects and topics to some of the blatantly and very technically poor uploads that do come onto the site, is an absurdly imbalanced set of criteria and pretty short-sighted. That is saying that a great piece of art that so happens to have a graphic violence depiction should be taken down, simply because the offensiveness of the content, versus considering the technique of the illustration or its accuracy in its visual portrayal of its subject, which should mean more. I can see this rationale as valid when it comes to off-topic western art assuming the problem is relevance, but beyond that, it makes no sense and doesn't seem reasonable at all if we're talking about what only a minority of users actually think is offensive.

Furry, guro and scat are not the real problem anyway: poorly drawn pictures are. Yes, many images depicting those are bad, but many pictures with those traits are just fine, or even great art. I think, the real change in the ToS's wording should say that such tags will be judged more specifically for a higher standard of quality, instead of banning them outright, and encouraging uploaders into placing the focus on finding technically good illustration more, and have a basic guide for showing people how to get a feel for technical quality, regardless of subject.