Why is western art sometimes allowed and sometimes it is a flag reason?

We tried this discussion on Konachan. Unless you want en mass deletions that piss off users and moderators alike, tread carefully.

tapnek said:

Yeah, Overwatch has a more Disney-like art style than even Team Fortress 2.

I find Overwatch to be very anime inspired in its designs - or at least the Disney influences which underlie the initial development of what we'd call anime style are very strong. Tracer and Mei could've fallen out of a Disney movie from the last two or three decades - or some early 2000s anime, for that matter. When Japanese artists give it an even more anime spin (or Thai artists like Colonel Aki in post #2380275), I don't see why it wouldn't fit in. The DooM poster for the reboot, while well done, isn't anywhere near the same "anime" style, nor is it about an anime or manga series... or even a Japanese video fame series, which would fall into the intentionally Japanophile orientation of Danbooru.

Otherwise, we might as well rename the board DeviantArt Box....

Jarlath said:

Otherwise, we might as well rename the board DeviantArt Box....

We already have thousands of images from deviantArt.

We also have a moderation system, and specifically the DOOM image was approved TWICE already.
As a long-time user, that is frustrating as hell to see your art-finding/tagging work undermined like that.

What I consider the most powerful reason for western styled art is buehbueh's last paragraph. I would go a bit further to approve art but that is besides the point here.
The point is this:

@buehbueh saidOn the other hand, the Doom poster is well composed, demonstrating a fine understanding of lighting, shadow, anatomy and color, not built on stereotypes of beauty that most fantasy art east or west tend to fall into.

That is the main part of his post I think. And what we see here is that these criterias are semi-detached to the japanese art style which is mentioned above. It would be contradictory to this psragraph when it would be left to "only japanese style". That's why he mentiones Doom or uses it to explain this point.
What buehbueh mentions are criterias that have to be considered in every post here on Danbooru:
Lighting/Shadow, Anatomy, Color, Perspective and Proportions.
This is what I consider in his post the "What fits in" part, which is a bit squishy, but well explained afterwards if I understand him right^^. And in the first paragraph it's about other styles (western-cartoon, comic and anime style).

So to speak: I like to use the word of OOZ662:

The method I've personally generally (if not always) used to reconcile at least 2/3 of this statement is that art lacking both the "anime style" and a connection to Japanese culture should be held to a much higher standard.

And this makes sense. Danbooru is a place for high-quality art with a focus on anime-style.

And what fo we have speaking against this?
Believing that the Doom Poster doesn't belong here. Not an explanation given.
Renaming into Deviantartbooru...
Seriously. What has the the name of this place to do with this here? It it was Danbooru stands for. And a "cardboard box" doesn't stand for "Here are high quality anime pics". It is just a carton. So I don't see the point here.

Like Kikimaru said, and I'm totally on his site in this matter. It seems to squishy to break these things strictly apart. While on anatomy it is pretty clear what works and what doesn't.
If we separate western-style and non-anime too strictly, we risk running into a state of arbitrairiness. Because seriously...Stanley Lau is a great artist who draws cartoon characters from Marvel or other western copyrights. But with good quality over and over again. And in the same style as he draws his Sailor Moon characters.
As for anatomy, it is much easier to say: "Bad/Good anatomy"

I always interpreted this as 'Western-style' or western copyright art is acceptable as long as it was drawn by a native Asian. Similarly, art for Asian copyrights is fair game no matter what the style or source. This board site is a love letter to talented artists and a way for people who would otherwise not trawl through boards full of foreign language to find great art.
That said, I think some of our current methodolgy with regards to art curation could be relaxed in terms of content. It seems like the community itself decides what copyrights are 'acceptable' en masse. I was very hesitant initially to post any Undertale that wasn't a crossover because I feared it wouldn't be within the userships understanding of the scope. Things like Warcraft and League of Legends seem to slip by due to a high volume of Korean and Chinese artists. Where there is a degree of 'random' in what is accepted and rejected by the community for the matter, I would much prefer a defined tier structure with regards to artists and IP designations like Provence suggested.

Ahem...

I'd like to start by saying that I was the person which contacted Provence regarding the matter at hand. Incidentally, I was the one who initially flagged the infamous Doom picture. Speaking of which...

Kikimaru said:

We also have a moderation system, and specifically the DOOM image was approved TWICE already.

It's worth pointing out that the initial approver of the said image has a positive record for favoring Western-style art... which was given by none other than the second approver, Provence.

Moving on...

Kikimaru said:

And for "Western"-theme art: Japanese artists can look beyond their own borders for media they like, so why should we restrict art here?

As a matter of fact, it has little to do with the media's country of origin - it's about the art style, first and foremost. See also pool #1718.

Kikimaru said:

Look at a property like Overwatch.

Naturally, Overwatch fanart can be drawn in Anime style (e.g.: post #2387700, post #2400824). But not necessarily (e.g.: post #2374815, post #2435987).

Elfaleon said:

I always interpreted this as 'Western-style' or western copyright art is acceptable as long as it was drawn by a native Asian. Similarly, art for Asian copyrights is fair game no matter what the style or source.

Not to sound rude, but this is nonsense. Nothing stops an Asian artist from drawing Western-style pictures of an equally Asian copyright. Not to mention that Asia doesn't consist of CJKV only.

As for my thoughts on the matter, I'll just quote a part of my recent correspondence with a certain staff member:

D'Eye said:

[...] the terms of service state it clearly:

Prohibited and Restricted Content

You may not upload any of the following:

Non-anime: [...]

Cut and dried. Howto:upload, on the other hand...

Art Style

Danbooru is an Anime Art Gallery first, and a high-quality gallery second. Only anime-style art will be accepted. Art which are done in other styles are highly likely to be rejected.

Houston, we have a problem...

1. "Only anime-style art will be accepted" basically means that all non-anime-style art will be rejected; it's an exclusive statement.

2. The very next sentence reads: "[a]rt which are done in other styles are highly likely to be rejected". This plainly contradicts the previous sentence which makes it clear that no art which are done in other styles will be accepted.

Personally, I believe that the former, exclusive statement should take precedence, as it's in agreement with both the terms of service, and about:on-topic.

@Provence, now, to answer the question you posed in the topic title: Western art was never allowed. But, as time passes, compromises grow, and the rules slowly turn into mere guidelines. And then, one day, Danbooru becomes a "Mass Effect" wallpaper gallery...

That is, unless we finally draw the line.

D'Eye said:

And then, one day, Danbooru becomes a "Mass Effect" wallpaper gallery...

More like a Mass Effect porn gallery, just more top notch than what Paheal would give you.

But just remember

SciFi said:

Unless you want en mass deletions that piss off users and moderators alike, tread carefully.

The proverbial camel's nose has already been let into the tent...

Like D'Eye said, at what point do we draw the line and say "no farther"?

IMO if you upload non-anime/animesque art, you accept the risk that others on this site may not like it despite the quality of the image which may lead to it being deleted.

If the community likes it and it becomes accepted, then great... if not, then don't take it personally and just move on to the next upload.

D'Eye said:

now, to answer the question you posed in the topic title: Western art was never allowed. But, as time passes, compromises grow, and the rules slowly turn into mere guidelines. And then, one day, Danbooru becomes a "Mass Effect" wallpaper gallery...

That is, unless we finally draw the line.

You are including logical fallacies in your argument now (slippery slope) but we've included "Western" IPs since years on a case-by-case basis (e.g. post #605397 posted 2010-01-26); the same case-by-case used for ALL art.

Didn't hazuki and others approve classic baroque art awhile back?

European art made hundreds of years ago? They approved that?

I had no contact with Provence over the image or his positive rating of me. I did give him a positive rating - almost a year ago, for good uploads. And I'll approve non-anime works - if they're good, and that's something he noticed. If my approvals get flagged, I understand, but I've followed the rules to my interpretation of them, and agree with the reasoning of OOZ662, where there's room for variance to the code.

As for the topic, I've made my case for the art in question, as well as other non-anime art that meets the standard for at least being high quality work. I'm not saying that we should allow literally everything, but if a piece in question is good science fiction or fantasy art, and indistinguishable between Japanese and Non-Japanese artists, then there's no reason to say "This looks just like this but this second one doesn't have the same corporate or national source even if it's similar."

Part of the problem is that we didn't resolve fixing the ToS last year, as we made a lot of changes quickly, and not everyone who had an opinion could show up at the table then. A new consensus has to be brought back to bear. Most of us can agree the rules are a guideline to prevent these fights, and be flexible in running things as we see fit. The non-anime rules don't address the core concern either from that time, that the gallery is getting watered down by bad art. Attempting to set tighter restrictions on the ToS in order to improve it will not raise the standard, as long as uploaders/approvers are biased toward putting up generic art, especially from fandoms where they are encouraged to post whatever they like as long as its on topic.

This shows our ideas of quality are different. Everyone has their own approach. I asked for approver status to encourage a focus on artistic merit over copyright/source/subject, skipping explicit images and popular copyrights. Has merit become the focus here? From my observation of this past year, I'd say so, since the lion's share of uploaders in that era are now unrestricted, well rated people, who have earned their status, and coming in daily this past year to approve stuff, I find the uploads superior to how it was before, especially from the past 2 years.

Mass flaggings are down too, since the glut of enforcement removed a massive swath of poorly drawn images, leaving uploaders with less excuses to upload images that do not match the design standards of today's approver base, thus changing the site for the better. This is where our current commotion gets baffling, not as a matter of rules being ignored or flouted, but of the intent of wanting Danbooru to be an "anime-only" database to the point of needing to delete images for not being "obviously animu" pictures with criteria that aren't reasonably enforceable.

Resolution for this can be done by hard adherence to rules, a master list of exceptions to those rules for us to quibble over, or by a willingness to vet images for their demonstration of the quality traits set in precedence from a decade of this sites existence, sculpted by hundreds of curators agreeing that we wanted a mix of moe art, epic sci/fantasy, and things in between for different audiences. I seriously doubt this site will slip down if we let some high quality western videogame art be posted here and there, and claiming that will happen invokes a slippery slope as Kikimaru said. It's not like posting and/or approving old fine art, which is a whole other and much more significant deviation from the style consensus.

That is, unless we finally draw the line.

Like I said: The line could be pretty easy. OOZ662 mentioned a good approach: Same thing as we treat furry uploads: they will be put to a higher standard. Now every approver looks at this different, of course. And some of them are really strict, but that is ok. We have around 50 approver and there are some of them who are more open to other art styles. Even in the moderation team with Saladofstones.
And about: This was "Never allowed". Well, I can go back nearly 10 years ago. I will also find art that is drawn in the style Saladofstones (baroque). So this seems kinda meh^^.
And again buehbueh seems to make a good point. Where to draw the line between this post #24718 and the Doom poster? It seems fishy when we go by the art style alone.
Oh, and the Doom poster got approved a third time now. This time by Not One Of Us.

Now I don't get what the artist's nationality has to do with anything here, though^^.

I'm a bit short on time right now, so this response isn't going to be exhaustive.

Kikimaru said:

You are including logical fallacies in your argument now (slippery slope)

Uh... That was a hyperbole, actually, which is a figure of speech. Cute website, though.

but we've included "Western" IPs since years on a case-by-case basis (e.g. post #605397 posted 2010-01-26); the same case-by-case used for ALL art.

Alas, but the sheer amount of Western-style pictures on Danbooru indicates otherwise.

buehbueh said:

I had no contact with Provence over the image or his positive rating of me. I did give him a positive rating - almost a year ago, for good uploads.

I'm not saying there's some sort of conspiracy taking place. I'm just pointing out that it's no wonder that two people sharing similar interests would approve the same image.

Provence said:

Oh, and the Doom poster got approved a third time now. This time by Not One Of Us.

/me sighs.

I'll just leave this here: topic #11667, topic #11837.

That Doom poster is really nice. That Doom poster would also generally be a better fit elsewhere. I wouldn't approve it just based on that. It's not a loss if that doesn't get approved, is deleted, or is flagged.

At the same time, I'm not sure where to stand about keeping it. But people need to understand why people would flag it at all or don't think that it doesn't fit Danbooru in the first place.

tapnek said:

Oh man, this is hard to explain what is considered on-topic and what isn't here but I'll tell you what I saw before. There used to be a bunch of art by an artist named Budd Root here. They were here for years until someone flagged them all for "being outside of the purview of this site" and they were deleted. It was pretty well drawn art, mind you.

I flagged those posts. Not because of their quality (the quality was fine, and I also like Budd Root's artwork), but because I didn't think they fit the site. I still don't. Like with the Doom poster, there's other places his artwork can go.

No one took issue with me flagging the posts, so I assume there was just as little care towards that as there was towards approving them in the first place.

Jarlath said:

Otherwise, we might as well rename the board DeviantArt Box....

Let's stop bringing up DeviantArt in this fashion. It should be well-known by now that the site isn't just used by Western artists.

D'Eye said:

I'll just leave this here: topic #11667, topic #11837.

Still been waiting on Phase Three for over a year.

Alright, time for a more thorough response...

Provence said:

(<-moderator)

Since you are still relatively new here, I believe that a concise history lesson is in order...

Once upon a time, there was an administrator called @jxh2154. He was extremely hardworking, and quite objective, even when decisions he had to make were in conflict with his own preferences (e.g., topic #7520). But, eventually, years of hard work started to take their toll, and he decided it's time for an indefinitely long hiatus. This, and the growing discontent for decreasing quality of both uploads and approvals, prompted albert to take measures: he started promoting people left and right, in hopes that quantity would compensate for the now-gone quality...

I'd like to point out (without pointing the finger at anyone in particular) that quite a few of those people were literally promoted on the spot - not because they had the required qualities, but simply because they either were at hand, or suggested their own candidacy themselves.

As for the moral of the story... don't put too much trust in someone just because they happen to don a police uniform.

Saladofstones said:

Didn't hazuki and others approve classic baroque art awhile back?

Now that's a rather dubious authority to cite... Especially considering that Hazuki was demoted around a year ago.

Here, Kikimaru-friendly version: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

Provence said:

Danbooru is a place for high-quality art with a focus on anime-style.

Actually, Danbooru is a place for high-quality Anime art. That's what howto:upload says.

Provence said:

Believing that the Doom Poster doesn't belong here. Not an explanation given.

Did you even read the replies in this topic? It doesn't belong here because it violates the rules. And there's nothing extraordinary about it to make an exception.

At the end of the day, what do we have?

• Against uploading Western-style art: terms of service, howto:upload, about:on-topic; Danbooru itself.

• In favor of uploading Western-style art: personal preferences of several users.

tl;dr: Website rules v. John Doe's "But me wanna!".

With contradictory rules it's hard to say that it violates the rules, don't you think?
forum #117729

So we need an admin here, since this discussion is running in circles.
So @albert @NWF_Renim @Hillside_Moose @Type-kun

But D'eye: When you bring up the TOS then you should quote the whole paragraph and what "Non anime" means in the sense of the TOS.
"Photographs of American porn actresses, for example, are prohibited. Photographs of cosplayers, figures, or prominent figures in the industry are acceptable."
This section talks about photos, not about drawn images.

I originally wrote up some of, and debated several of those newer rules last year with Tapnek and a few others, including the "restricted" wording which NWF Renim put in place, and Tapnek's and my own contributions, I'm a little amused. I was an initiator of a large part of that discussion, including helping start that wiki on on:topic and topic #11956 as a way to prevent having to repeatedly edit the ToS at the time, and worked to develop a more rigorous view of what should qualify or not as relevant, but unfortunately it fell quiet. This discussion is the result of having not finished that discussion.

I get it, there's a risk in uploading stuff that could dilute the curation of the site. But I can look at the current of fitting art in the original, landscape, realistic, science fiction and fantasy categories and see that there's plenty of reason to let non-anime digital works of sufficient merit in. Some of the best uploaders here, including Tsumanne, upload great landscapes, ones that have nothing to do with anime at all. Kronnang Dunn also uploads classic mecha, and many of the other contributors go out of their way to parse Deviantart for works that would have never been brought here for not having a doe-eyed moe girl, but have something else to offer. Can't we have artwork that reflects something beyond a doe-eyed cliche over and over? Cause if not, then this board will have a worse problem than mass effect wallpapers. Sure, the Doom wallpaper is very much a western work, but what makes it distinguishable from many other images in the epic tag? Are we seriously going to say "Image A and B look the same, but B is not from japanese copyright, so it must go," regardless if B is from a seriously talented artist?

If you choose to police every single upload for not including an obvious copyright or design trope, and do that regardless of design or technical quality, the section of the site that suffers the most is those original uploads that don't obviously look like something that belongs in an anime. I will not force people to skip on great pictures or say you can't upload works unless they have all the obvious trappings of something that looks like it came from Gainax/KyoAni/Sunrise over and over. The rules were not fully completed, and even in their current state, do not side with that position as much as it seems.

You're not the first person to insist on an absolute interpretation, but it's pretty obvious coming in here and peeking daily, only a few would agree with it, and even if I don't speak for everyone, it's obvious what the feeling of the past several forum posters was on it. Even the moderation staff and albert haven't followed those rules to the letter. The debate on those things is not complete, and there's no reason to act like they're fine as is, until an actual consensus is reached. And, when I say "most of us," remember to note the rest of the sentence's context. It's an obvious point among the staff to say the rules have a degree of enforceability and flexibility, and at least one mod and several regular users have spoken up about this point in their posts in this thread so far.

If non-anime works do not belong here, then lets say all non-anime art should be deleted, at least for the sake of consistency. Should we delete ALL non-anime uploads? Cause that leads to SciFi's point really well, which is still is beside the point: An adherence to such a version of the rules means thousands of stunning, beautiful artworks get deleted....because they don't have a copyright or obvious animu/mango ref. Even approving images for looser rules such as if by a Japanese person, or posted on a Japanese site, about a non-anime but japan related subject is too loose in that interpretation. If Danbooru is defined as only an anime board, then those posts should be brought to higher scrutiny per those rules.

No one's going to do that, and judging work on source, subject and style without the 4th mitigating point of quality, on the basis of weeding out non-anime, is inconsistent and totally myopic.

^ +1

Didn't want to quote that monster just to say I agree

Are we just going to ignore the fact that "anime" is literally Japanese for "animation"?