Defining On-Topic, Off-Topic, and Danbooru's Scope

I decided we need to have a discussion thread on rigorizing what counts as on and off the topic of Danbooru that was separate from the ToS discussion. Since Tapnek and others have shown interest in a wiki for this, we should work out the nature of what that page should have. For a long time it has seemed that any art that was good but didn't fit into the vibe of the site was stuck into a quandary where some users would accept it and some would reject or flag it.

Key examples:
post #1640707 was deleted, and then later accepted after appeals were filed.
post #1182015 was marked as completely off-topic and deleted.

Neither are japan related, so in that sense neither are on-topic, but both are well drawn. Some tags are filled with western art that is still very good, but technically outside of the bounds of what Danbooru is supposed to have. We need to have a resolution on what to do, so we don't continue to have problems.

I propose that we start defining what should be our exceptions for the new wiki page to state, to see if we should allow exceptions or not, and get a single page together stating what we consider the standard site topics.

To the moderation staff and active users, what do you feel about this?

Keep in mind, the idea is that the ToS will link the Wiki page detailing all this, about:on-topic, so that new users will have a better idea on what and what not to upload.

True, I was just concerned its a very specific (though related) subject and that it merited its own thread.

Between both examples, I'd consider post #1640707 as off-topic while I'd likely consider post #1182015 as on-topic. This is due to my own interpretation of anime-styled art as being more of how characters are drawn as opposed to how non-characters are drawn. So a post with no characters ends up coming down more as to whether the non-character depicted is high enough quality and artistically similar to other content that has been used in anime or anime-related series.

In the case of post #1640707 I'd consider it off-topic because the character is visible and we can readily tell the art style of the character is not done in an anime-like style. The series it is from is also not anime-related and this isn't an example of an anime series being drawn in a western style as parody. These would make me label it as off-topic. On the other hand if the character had their helmet on I'd probably consider it on-topic, as again the character is concealed and the only thing to judge them then is the armor they're wearing, and whether or not it is artistically similar to that depicted in anime and anime-related series (which in my opinion would be it is similar).

I've always interpreted "on topic" extremely simply. Is it by a Japanese person or on a Japanese topic? Yes, to either or both? It's on topic. No to both? It's not.

So for examples to make my point perfectly clear (hopefully):

post #784628 Japanese artist, Japanese property, obviously on topic.
post #368337 Just a Japanese artist, on topic.
post #1697030 Spainish srtist, Japanese property, on topic.
post #1236676 Polish artist, original work, but in "anime style", on topic. This would also apply to non-Japanese people doing a riff on stuff like ukiyo-e or another Japanese art style, artist, or art piece. This is obviously one of the most conscientious points, as there is no actual one anime style and people will interpret what's "anime enough" differently.
post #1208296 American artist, no discernible relation to Japan, off topic.

Halo has an anime adaptation and a manga interpretation by Tsutomu Nihei. I don't know why you would consider Prometheus on topic over that.

I still don't understand why Steven Universe gets posted on this board or Gravity Falls.

If it's in an animesque style, then it's a yes on my board.

So do you want to talk about style, or do you want to talk about topic?

Two mods in this thread were talking about style, which is part of what's on-topic and what's not, so.

I made a comment that I forgot about in the ToS thread a couple weeks ago about Halo and some other things, you jogged my memory about it:

buehbueh said:

Yes, as well as any other Japanese influenced copyrights IF well done. This also includes all western artists whose style fits the Danbooru curated vibe. I make the distinction between Nickelodeon/CN cartoon art and N/CN art with an obvious anime influence. For some examples of western properties with anime influence:

Valerian and Laureline and Oban Star Racers, both of which are French-Japanese consortium productions in a japanese vibe, Transformers (a co-Japanese American brand between Tomy and Hasbro) which has had both anime and regular cartoons. Consider that the co-creator of Code Lyoko, went on to Japan afterward, and worked on multiple real anime productions. This doesn't mean that CL is an anime, but it was intended to evoke an anime style anyway.

This contrasts to most of the other shows on Nick/CN. Spongebob does not fit at all, and I remember the superjail one that was floating around on here. Art in those styles shouldn't automatically be rejected though. I remember the Peanuts-Touhou ones in the classic Charles Schulz style (post #1547563), but its content, not its style, makes it on topic. Whether it reaches the quality bar set here is another question.

Though, if we're going to be pedantic, we can discuss the fact that things like Animaniacs and other American properties had Animation partially done through Tokyo Movie Shinsha, or Halo Legends/The Animatrix, both of which are anime compilations for non-anime franchises counts. In this we should consider the former not to as its not intended to be "anime" while the later, because those two properties were reinterpreted as anime, leaves some leverage for those topics in the archive.

We have to include consideration on both the relevance of the subject and the quality of depiction if done in a non-anime style. I would err on non-anime having a place when the art reaches the highest technical degree.

Im not sure how to process the Steven U thing other than to say that it invokes many anime references repeatedly, and the creators have explicitly stated they are anime influenced.

My final opinion on this matter is that topic doesn't matter considering the sources used for this board. When I follow pixiv artists, I love their work especially when they draw new video games. If ario decides to draw Destiny or Risk of Rain, that's cool with me.

If you want to retain this board as an anime board, you're going to have to drop that laissez-faire approach and ban topics. There's no getting around that. If "Popular Artists Draw Other Copyrights" on-model that are not anime you really have no excuse to post it. Also as an anime only board you shouldn't post 'realistic' images either even if they're good. What's problematic is animesque and none of you have a definition. I'm just a voluntary contributor, so I'll kick back and watch.

Another large group of images which are imho dancing around the line of on-topic/off-topic are a fairly decent chunk of the landscape cityscape and still_life images. Especially in combination with the no_humans tag.

Some examples are:
post #2083007, post #1935147, post #436968, post #1907135, post #1888965, post #1796305, post #1784189

If we go by the requirements listed in this post from the ToS topic:

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-.

The posts above all don't comply to these points except for the "drawn by Japanese artists" one. But what about for example post #2085251. It's an approved image but drawn by a Chinese artist and would be off-topic considering it also failed all the other points of the proposed guidelines. I'd prefer that posted images are judged by their content, drawingstyle and quality rather the nationality of the artist(s) who created it.

Sidenote:
I do hope that people aren't approving posts merely because they came from Pixiv. I can imagine that long ago Pixiv used to be a website that was exclusively used by Japanese people, but these days more and more western artists are using it as a secondary, or even primary channel to distribute their artwork. I'm not judging the moderation system here, but I do have the feeling that these example posts would've had a harder time getting through the queue if they came from Deviantart/Tumblr/*chan or whatever other source.

Just came up with something for about:on-topic. I'm not that good at writing guidelines so I'm gonna need some help here.

If you don't mind, I'm going to be giving it a shot with a few adjustments of my own. I'm fleshing out the western copyright part right now.

By all means.

There should be some level of explicit terms for east-west-neutral works of high quality that come from artists that reliably make high quality eastern-related works, such as post #1935147. I feel that the line between anime/manga relevance is highly situational and subjective for these works, and that the precedence of the artist reliably making high quality eastern-related works should shift the bias.

If someone does nothing but touhou fanart, and then comes out with a landscape that doesn't explicitly show any anime/manga styled characters, copyrights, or inanimate features (temples or depictions of real life eastern locations, cherry blossoms, traditional eastern weaponry, etc), those works should still be held to a different level of relevance than if they came out of someone who did nothing but western comic illustrations, as the artist clearly has a bias towards our subject, and it would be vigilant to catalogue their works, due to their high quality, influence from their other works, and possibility of having hidden relevance that is not directly depicted. In doing this, we wouldn't be making a precedence towards cataloguing works from artists of utter western focus, and we wouldn't be flooding the site in low quality works of barely relevance.

about:on-topic is missing the "Fanart of a western copyright depicting it anime-style" exemption.

Because"anime" as an art style can have huge variances(e.g. 70s, 80s, Crayon Shin-Chan) I feel that trying to figure out the"allowed" styles would make us very myopic.

I haven't really got the anime style thing down yet. Hence, why the Wiki page is unfinished.

I've added some exemptions based on what I've seen here. I'm not sure what the Still Life part should say though. I've also made sure the point about anime styling as nebulous is noted.