ToS Discussion Thread

If we're talking about a reverse chilling effect, where the fear of getting banned kept back bad uploads of scat is gone, then with both an auto-blacklist in effect and an opening into a number of them rolling in, it should remain clear that uploading of scat posts without high merit either creatively or artistically(subjective), and without proper tagging(objective), should warrant the highest degree of scrutiny, to the point of an immediate DM as soon as it happens, and a record with a repeat incident.

For this I recommend a thread for reporting in when mods have sent out warnings so we don't step on each others toes. Actually, this might be useful for all reporting of private DM'ing to warn users, but I can understand if it's a privacy issue, and people would rather not clutter up the Forum more.

But to the main topic, scat is, from what I've seen, the one thing more offensive to most users than guro, and a part of me thinks it's not unreasonable to keep it prohibited, but also accepts that we should be consistent, so with the newer ToS, and standards of uploading, we will have to require that compliance with both high visual standards and preventing visibility by the main base of users that haven't turn off that blacklisting is absolutely necessary before anything else.

Type-kun said:

If guro and furry restrictions are lifted, at least partially, will that also affect scat? Because to be honest, I'd rather not see a tidal wave of shit posts (quite literally) here, on danbooru, even if they are well-drawn. Also, keep in mind that when something is banned for a long time and then allowed, pendulum will swing the other way, so there'll be A LOT of images depicting previously-restricted topics, to fill the gap.

Using I'd rather not see X as an argument basically puts us back at square one. The point several people have been trying to make is that if you'd rather not see something, you should blacklist it, and if you still end up occasionally seeing it, you should summon the mental fortitude to shrug it off (or perhaps report it, if it was contrary to regulations) and move on. Most people have things they dislike, and only allowing things that don't bother anyone will leave us with a very dull site, for very little gain.

Furthermore, I am quite certain that the fraction of posts that deal with any of the previously "prohibited" content won't be much higher than 1% (perhaps temporarily a bit more). Not if the parts of the proposal that mandate strict quality criteria and sanctions against indiscriminate uploaders are properly implemented.

Type-kun said:

If guro and furry restrictions are lifted, at least partially, will that also affect scat? Because to be honest, I'd rather not see a tidal wave of shit posts (quite literally) here, on danbooru, even if they are well-drawn. Also, keep in mind that when something is banned for a long time and then allowed, pendulum will swing the other way, so there'll be A LOT of images depicting previously-restricted topics, to fill the gap.

On another note, if default blacklists are implemented, instructions on turning them off should be very obvious.

Even if uploading of scat increased 1000x what it has been for the past year it would still only account for about 1% of posts being uploaded.

In reality I doubt it would be even close to a 1000x increase, and even if it was default blacklists would mean the only people to see the posts are those that go out of their way to remove it from their blacklist.

Apart from nude filter, should we also have a mention re: other 3rd-party edits in general being frowned upon? Although prior discussion in topic #3568 avoided an outright ban of photoshop, I think we could agree that they should fall under the "more scrutiny than usual" category, because
a) they're more likely to be poorly executed and have quality issues -- even when done with good intentions, e.g. post #895548 (horrid clone stamp), post #1996882 (artifacts).
b) violates integrity of the original, especially joke edits -- no one else really thinks your photoshop is funny, e.g. post #1942667, post #751890

In a sense, these also -- to steal NWF Renim's description -- "inherently damage or alter an image", so they could also fall under the last category of "not recommended, prefer to have a better copy" (namely, the unmodified original).

Like other categories discussed here, this isn't a call to outright ban/nuke content, and there are certainly exceptions of excellent, well-executed edits. But I think we should try to deter random casuals from uploading stuff where they simply "shop this in cuz it'll be funny" or "fix this bit I don't like".

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Dbx said:
Why have the restricted content part in the TOS instead of howto:upload?

I'd say
1. more official/enforceable, for reasons NWF Renim explained -- if you keep doing it, you could get in trouble.
2. (in the hope that) the TOS is more visible? The TOS is inherently part of the sign up process, even if people might skip over without properly reading it. But someone has to actually care enough to want to go look up the wiki page.

Of course, howto:upload should be updated to reflect the changes when we're done here.

r0d3n7z said:

Apart from nude filter, should we also have a mention re: other 3rd-party edits in general being frowned upon? Although prior discussion in topic #3568 avoided an outright ban of photoshop, I think we could agree that they should fall under the "more scrutiny than usual" category, because
a) they're more likely to be poorly executed and have quality issues -- even when done with good intentions, e.g. post #895548 (horrid clone stamp), post #1996882 (artifacts).
b) violates integrity of the original, especially joke edits -- no one else really thinks your photoshop is funny, e.g. post #1942667, post #751890

Would the cleaning, color-balancing, and crease-fixing of scans fall into this category? Because the majority of the scans I upload have been run through photoshop to be cleaned and/or fixed.

CodeKyuubi said:

Would the cleaning, color-balancing, and crease-fixing of scans fall into this category? Because the majority of the scans I upload have been run through photoshop to be cleaned and/or fixed.

No, I meant to include only posts where the content is changed - joke edits, changing character proportions, editing things in or out. Not intended to cover scan-fixing.

Here's what I managed to whip up for in regards as to what's on-topic.

• Off-Topic: Anything not related to anime or manga, the anime and manga industry, or influenced by a Japanese copyright is prohibited. e.g. Photographs of American porn actresses are not allowed. Photographs significant figures in the industry (often voice actors) are allowed but only if accompanied by a piece of drawn art they are connected to.

Flopsy said:

Using I'd rather not see X as an argument basically puts us back at square one. The point several people have been trying to make is that if you'd rather not see something, you should blacklist it, and if you still end up occasionally seeing it, you should summon the mental fortitude to shrug it off (or perhaps report it, if it was contrary to regulations) and move on. Most people have things they dislike, and only allowing things that don't bother anyone will leave us with a very dull site, for very little gain.

I never thought Danbooru was a "very dull site" up till now. Also, I don't support "look away if you don't like it" mentality, sorry. Restricted content was restricted in the first place because majority of lurkers can't handle it.

Anyways, I don't have any interest in content that is currently considered unacceptable, so I have no real reason to support proposed changes. Blacklists are fun and good until you see 90% pictures on a front page blacklisted, and all it takes is one contributor bulk-uploading furry/scat/guro/whatever collection. If I had the ability to hide these posts without leaving any blanks, it would be another story, but that's too heavy on the database.

All I'm trying to say is that once changes like this are made, it'll be very hard to revert them, even if they will turn out to damage the site in some way. My position is that things should be thought through beforehand. Most users don't actively participate in forum discussions, and even among participating ones the opinions are somewhat split. Given that, I don't think that other users will accept the changes readily. For example, most previously-banned content is almost bound to get downvoted to hell. I myself will downvote most disturbing examples when I stumble upon them by some chance, and so will many others; some users will likely go on a carpet downvoting spree, as they do already with doujinshi and certain artists. Sure, system will probably balance itself in a couple weeks, but we're getting ourselves ready for some drama, especially since post scores will be used to promote/demote contributors and janitors.

Type-kun said:

Blacklists are fun and good until you see 90% pictures on a front page blacklisted, and all it takes is one contributor bulk-uploading furry/scat/guro/whatever collection.

Keep in mind that it still has to be high quality. A contributor might be able to find enough high quality of that stuff to flood the front page once, but it's not like it's something that could happen consistently from now on. There just isn't enough high quality on topic art of these things in existence for them to account for 90% of all posts uploaded to Danbooru for a noteworthy period of time since ~900 posts are uploaded to Danbooru a day. Also, I don't think it's likely that any contributors would do that.

Toks said:

Keep in mind that it still has to be high quality. A contributor might be able to find enough high quality of that stuff to flood the front page once, but it's not like it's something that could happen consistently from now on. There just isn't enough high quality on topic art of these things in existence for them to account for 90% of all posts uploaded to Danbooru for a noteworthy period of time since ~900 posts are uploaded to Danbooru a day. Also, I don't think it's likely that any contributors would do that.

To be fair, 90% of the front page is less than 30 images. I've uploaded upwards of 40 images at once before.

Type-kun said:

All I'm trying to say is that once changes like this are made, it'll be very hard to revert them, even if they will turn out to damage the site in some way. My position is that things should be thought through beforehand. Most users don't actively participate in forum discussions, and even among participating ones the opinions are somewhat split. Given that, I don't think that other users will accept the changes readily.

People who make it to contributor or moderator status do so (mostly) because someone else observed they had good judgement and taste and weren't likely to slap anything people didn't think was good enough to be here onto the queue. I doubt any of the current base of contributors would muddy up the waters with large waves of scat and guro to begin with, and any user who decides to upload pictures that are awful is doing it because they don't know better and don't have the experience or taste to know what does and doesn't fit on this image board.

I do wish more of the people who were against the changes right now would speak up so we could reach a compromise or consensus faster. Of course, there will always be a few people who want no change whatsoever. I found the original shift from Db1 to Db2 jarring but didn't say anything at the time. The question is what can we do that protects quality while preserving the right to upload content with enough leeway.

But on another of your statements, I noted your statement on blanks and maybe it would be possible to have blacklisted images not show up as blank on the front page, so that they're not noticeably affecting the user experience. What do you all think? Sometimes I have to select status:active to get around blank images during searches in tags with heavy numbers of deletions, and it is annoying and needs to be addressed in some way.

tapnek said:

Here's what I managed to whip up for in regards as to what's on-topic.

I'm starting to think there should be a wiki help page on what is and isn't on-topic, and it should link to both the ToS and howto:upload pages, so that it keeps the original statement on the ToS clean and gives a rigorous and thorough answer on its own page separately, and should be also easily visible in the site map under either users or posts under the header help:on-topic; then it could be slipped with a link next to the "you have read the tagging guidelines" part.

buehbueh said:

I'm starting to think there should be a wiki help page on what is and isn't on-topic, and it should link to both the ToS and howto:upload pages, so that it keeps the original statement on the ToS clean and gives a rigorous and thorough answer on its own page separately

The Wiki page is something I was thinking about but I was afraid that a lot of newcomers just wouldn't bother to read it. Also, coming up with a good general and terse statement on the ToS page is harder than creating a pedantic list of guidelines on a Wiki page.

See, I agree with you. That is the thing about attempting to have too many exceptions covered by a single paragraph, in a page full of short paragraphs. Here's how I tried to word the off-topic section, including the exceptions:

• Off-Topic: Do not upload content beyond the focus of Danbooru - to show art related to Anime, Manga, Japanese culture and science fiction, fantasy, video game and comics, or works by Japanese and other artists whose work fits the site. This includes no real-life porn, irrelevant western cartoon art, western political comics and real life photos of people (not including cosplay or some other situational uploads).

The problem is squeezing in the exceptions onto the paragraph, and the possible scenarios. Attempting to demonstrate all the exceptions at once within the ToS is a mistake as it could discourage some readers from actually reading through the whole thing, and least, the impatient ones.

You could word it as...

• Off-Topic: Do not upload content beyond the focus of Danbooru - to show art related to Anime, Manga, Japanese culture, science fiction, fantasy, video game and comic art, and works by Japanese and other artists whose creations fit Danbooru's -on-topic guidelines-.

In the dashes I'd slip the link to a help:on-topic page, and the new users would be able to click it and have completely visible what exceptions are made and not made, as defined by us. Keeping the extra sentence of exceptions in its own space keeps the ToS short and sweet, and orients the users to what is acceptable first instead. Though, this is my personal preference, and I'm sure many of you all would disagree, and would prefer we include the exceptions.

Now of course some users would skip it, but what can you do? Having an external master list of those exceptions allows users to have a document that expands on the ToS's wording on this subject so they can get a full and complete understanding of what "on-topic" means, without having to amend the ToS again in the future. Our interpretation may change, so cleaning up what that interpretation leaves, gives clarity for the new user base.

For that reason, I still think a wiki is worth a try, and I might try creating and posting a version of what I had in mind, and see what everyone says. As long as this particular part isn't addressed, we may not be able to move forward with the new ToS. We should aim for a ToS that's complete and still simple enough, and to me that may mean having a separate article for the defining of what is on-topic and the exceptions made.

buehbueh said:

Sometimes I have to select status:active to get around blank images during searches in tags with heavy numbers of deletions, and it is annoying and needs to be addressed in some way.

You can do that for deleted posts already, it's under settings - advanced - deleted post filter, set it to "yes" and blanks for deleted images won't show. The thing is, blacklists are another story. I'm pretty sure it's possible (just fetch more records until N-per-page posts without blacklisted tags are found), but it would actually require sequential pagination and will not work together with order queries; also, intentionally searching for blacklisted tag will cause high database load until query times out. So I'm not sure this is a viable option.

If the ban is going to be lifted after all, then I strongly support the notion to create and describe "restricted" category in the ToS and require much stricter quality control for the posts falling under it - i.e. it should actually be better than average. Otherwise, you know, there'll be a neverending stream of appeals with "you can't delete post just because it's furry, I've seen worse on this site!".

I wasn't aware of the stresses that blacklisted tags put on the server, so I guess its not a viable option for removing blanks from everyone's searches, unless somehow a workaround that was elegant and efficient is possible.

Maybe we can agree on a rule for no image dumps of restricted content, including furry, guro and scat, and make that a punishable offense? It's still uploadable then, but users would be forbidden from sequentially uploading more than a few at a time on any given day, so that the staff can efficiently handle reviewing it.

eidolon said:

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.

I agree. But there are times that people just don't approve for many reasons. Approval chance is even harder can be related to the timezone of each user...

Which I hate being in the Pacific and I feeling those people are in the other side.

One thing I would personally like kept in mind are the basic-member-hidden tags; IE loli, shota, and toddlercon. Any discussion about auto blacklists or banned content or content under greater scrutiny should include them, I feel. Certainly they're certainly a good example of tags a large number of users might find the content of distasteful, tags that need to be sure to be applied to posts so they don't slip past filters, and tags where it takes a judgement call whether to apply them or not (there wouldn't be the check thread otherwise).

Though, that brought up, it feels odd that furry/guro/scat are fine for basic members, but there's all this worry about them slipping past blacklists or floods of posts if they're not called out in the ToS... While loli/shota/toddlercon are hidden from basic members but deserve no extra worry or upload scrutiny mentioned for gold+ members.

T34/38 said:

Approval chance is even harder can be related to the timezone of each user...

Which I hate being in the Pacific and I feeling those people are in the other side.

Approval chance is completely unrelated to timezone, the only thing it would affect is which posts get approved in the first hour after being uploaded.

Type-kun said:

...some users will likely go on a carpet downvoting spree, as they do already with doujinshi and certain artists.

Yes some people already do this and I really hate it.

Currently the ToS mostly consist of rules for uploading. I think they should be extended with some general rules as well:

• You have read the howto:comment guide and you follow it.
• Downvoting / Upvoting all images by a single artist or with a certain tag disregarding the actual quality of the images is considered vandalism and is a banable offense.

(This should also apply to those that think it is a good idea to open all images by a certain artist and downvote all comments on them. I suppose they do this because regular members can only downvote comments but not the images themselves.)

Also, I noticed that the ToS say you can post up to 1 comment an hour but the howto:comment guide you can post 2.

Type-kun said:

...also, intentionally searching for blacklisted tag will cause high database load until query times out. So I'm not sure this is a viable option.

The server should be able to detect that you search for a blacklisted tag and error out without ever querying the database in that case.

With all this mind I just want to make sure, is albert the only one able to change the ToS page itself?