(Possible trolling sockpuppet) repeated posting of overtly politically messaged images

I could have sworn there was a "problematic users" thread somewhere, but I failed to find it with searching... In any event:

A specific user has an account that was apparently created just before the United States Presidential Election. This account has relatively few posts, of which 2/3rds of the ones not still in the modding queue were deleted, and an overwhelming majority of which are overtly expressing political opinions having nothing to do with Japan or anime culture. They are already at the upload minimum, but are still trying to push through every image they can with the deleted uploads penalty dragging their account down.

Whether or not this is a sockpuppet created to protect a "real" account from any backlash from trying to push their politics into what is at least mostly an apolitical website, this is a user that clearly is acting out of line with what Danbooru tries to be. I think some of the mods should have a discussion with this person. At the very least, the moderators ought to get involved when someone is purposefully and knowingly pushing through content that will get deleted just to stir up controversy when the automated discouragements for such things are clearly failing.

Actually I think he doesn't break any rules. Sure, his posts are reek of politics, but every users on Danbooru is free to upload anything they want, where Mods will review those if their posts are acceptable on Danbooru or not.

this is a user that clearly is acting out of line with what Danbooru tries to be.

Out of line? The fact that he still includes Trump parody images with Japanese franchises OR at least use Pixiv as the source means that he is still trying to obey the rules, albeit poorly (like everyone in their first time on Danbooru). He can upload all of those Trump parody images that he want, but in the end it will be pointless if Mods won't approve them. I don't think just because of this, the user is deserve to get banned. Warning is more appropriate for this kind of user.

Of course, if he starts to spew some political bullshits on the Forum, then he will swiftly get rid of by the Mods.

^ got a point. It might be overtly political but if a queue moderator likes the content, then they're free to approve of it just as long as it obeys by the site terms of service. Frankly, being 'apolitical' is sort of a tough thing to do for any website. There's the potential for political and social controversy in a great handful images on this website, it's just a matter of users bringing that out.

A warning would be sufficient. If they start to upload content that's incredibly out of line, then that's time to start consider other options. But as controversial as those images may be, all they do is skirt that line.

Kind of sucks, current events in that sphere of things. orz

A warning is what I'm asking for.

I'm not sure how Donald Duck counts as a Japanese franchise, for that matter...

But still, why is "spewing political bullshits" on the forum, which doesn't really exist as anything but discussion about the maintenance of the site and ways to manage the images, something that deserves swift punishment, but users apparently have carte blanche to do whatever they want with the actual primary content of the site?

Yes, images get deleted after three days, but they still can be disruptive for those three days (just look at the comment chains on some of them - although granted, it's always the same two people going at each other.), and there's little stopping people from posting more and more of the same crap as each one gets deleted. (After all, no matter how many more are deleted, the automatic penalty for deleted posts will never go below the minimum they have already hit... and as it becomes more commonplace, why will it be limited to one person?)

What's more, it sets bad precedent. If that's the standard, we can all now create sockpuppets to spew trolling content that will annoy other users because it's fine if it gets deleted eventually. If that's the standard you set, you're allowing people to start uploading their own personally-drawn MSPaint images of anyone they don't like about to be anally raped.

I express concern because, as I said, I like that Danbooru is at least mostly apolitical, but allowing this kind of open political commentary to stand without comment just begs for left-wingers to respond with images of Trump being anally raped, and from there the shitstorm will commence. It will be much harder to put the genie back in the bottle when you've already allowed this kind of crap to stand just because "it isn't a problem until it is one." Why will some political imagery be allowed, and not others, and so on. Enforcing a clear, universally applicable standard now, when it isn't a problem forestalls far worse ones in the future.

For that matter, it's not as though there aren't already examples of people getting banned for uploading things to flagrantly spite Danbooru.

They don't. Moderators and admins have the power to watch the queue too. They can temporarily ban anyone that's uploading garbage -- I remember Wypatroszony doing that some time ago to a user that kept uploading poor quality 3d CG to the queue. They can also see user IPs in the case that they're sockpuppeting. Assumably, if it does get that bad and such a user has a dynamic IP address they could just do a reasonable blocking range of his or her IP addresses, but I won't delve too much into the specifics I guess.

But the overarching problem I suppose you're getting at is: should political content be allowed if it obeys site rules? Honestly, I think it should be, because to say otherwise would be to draw a line that is extremely sketchy to follow. Take post #2582080. Definitely has a political figure in it, not very political. Is it grounds for deletion? Probably not, given they're caricatures of living and dead historical figures. But you never know who might take a stand against it, given it may very well be an "all or none" issue for some users.

NWSiaCB said:

A warning is what I'm asking for.

I'm not sure how Donald Duck counts as a Japanese franchise, for that matter...

But still, why is "spewing political bullshits" on the forum, which doesn't really exist as anything but discussion about the maintenance of the site and ways to manage the images, something that deserves swift punishment, but users apparently have carte blanche to do whatever they want with the actual primary content of the site?

Because the forum is strictly used for technical problems of Danbooru like bugs, tags, posts, reports, etc. It's not the place to do an open, general discussion like "Share your favorite anime here!"

Yes, images get deleted after three days, but they still can be disruptive for those three days (just look at the comment chains on some of them), and there's little stopping people from posting more and more of the same crap as each one gets deleted. (After all, no matter how many more are deleted, the automatic penalty for deleted posts will never go below the minimum they have already hit... and as it becomes more commonplace, why will it be limited to one person?)

Danbooru is a site that favors the Post quality, not Comment quality. Everyone has the equal rights to comment anything that they want AND to downvote any comments that they want. If what you mean is to expand the quality control even to the comment section, it's stretching too far. Freedom of speech, people. And we have downvote system to anticipate this kind of things.

What's more, it sets bad precedent. If that's the standard, we can all now create sockpuppets to spew trolling content that will annoy other users because it's fine if it gets deleted eventually. If that's the standard you set, you're allowing people to start uploading their own personally-drawn MSPaint images of anyone they don't like about to be anally raped.

You're missing my point. I said that it's alright for this user to post Trump contents because it's still have correlations with Japanese, like franchise parody OR Pixiv (this one is still debatable until now). Which means that he is still trying to obey the rules. MSPaints image are downright troll post and breaking the rules, and I don't know why you brought up this now.

I express concern because, as I said, I like that Danbooru is at least mostly apolitical, but allowing this kind of open political commentary to stand without comment just begs for left-wingers to respond with images of Trump being anally raped, and from there the shitstorm will commence. It will be much harder to put the genie back in the bottle when you've already allowed this kind of crap to stand just because "it isn't a problem until it is one." Why will some political imagery be allowed, and not others, and so on. Enforcing a clear, universally applicable standard now, when it isn't a problem forestalls far worse ones in the future.

Refer to my 2nd answer.

For that matter, it's not as though there aren't already examples of people getting banned for uploading things to flagrantly spite Danbooru.

Does Trump content = spite Danbooru? The one that got posted by that user have legal sources, you know. It's not even offending anyone in this site. Only extremist that will react because of that, and if it happens they will simply got downvoted into oblivion.

As long as he isn't starting flame wars in the comments or the forum, then I'm fine with it. He will need to heed DMail warnings that he shouldn't upload off-topic stuff here though. Thankfully, he hasn't done so to a worrying extent.

tapnek said:

As long as he isn't starting flame wars in the comments or the forum, then I'm fine with it. He will need to heed DMail warnings that he shouldn't upload off-topic stuff here though. Thankfully, he hasn't done so to a worrying extent.

If comments flamewars start because of the image uploads they make, should there really be a distinction drawn between whether they actively participated in the commenting? As I said, in more and more of these posts, I'm seeing the same people hash out the same fight in the comments, spurred on by these posts, and it's becoming more frequent.

Mikaeri said:

But the overarching problem I suppose you're getting at is: should political content be allowed if it obeys site rules? Honestly, I think it should be, because to say otherwise would be to draw a line that is extremely sketchy to follow. Take post #2582080. Definitely has a political figure in it, not very political. Is it grounds for deletion? Probably not, given they're caricatures of living and dead historical figures. But you never know who might take a stand against it, given it may very well be an "all or none" issue for some users.

There is a line that can be both drawn and crossed, however. For example, something like MC Axis is a reference to historical figures. It's existence can still be apolitical in the site. When someone starts posting images that are clearly drawn for the purpose of pushing a political agenda, and it's causing the same predictable belligerents off against each other with increasing frequency in the comments section, the disruptiveness starts to show.

Sacriven said:

Danbooru is a site that favors the Post quality, not Comment quality. Everyone has the equal rights to comment anything that they want AND to downvote any comments that they want. If what you mean is to expand the quality control even to the comment section, it's stretching too far. Freedom of speech, people. And we have downvote system to anticipate this kind of things.

Downvoting is practically meaningless. Anytime anyone complains about comments being downvoted, the first response is to just set the threshold even lower. For that matter, it's not like there aren't arguments that continue long past everything in the comment thread being downvoted.

If the response is carte blanche "Freedom of Speech", then you allow for any sort of verbal abuse or harassment. Not only are there plenty of examples of abusiveness triggering moderator intervention, the other moderators in this thread are overtly talking about how they would intervene because of those things.

Regardless, there is an Eternal September effect in every website or other clique. Places where polite discussions take place welcome others who want to have polite discussions, and hives of antisocial assholes welcome other antisocial assholes while driving anyone else away. At least informal pushback (I.E. a warning) needs to be applied against those who are causing tensions to boil.

Danbooru is a site for anime images that attracts people that want to see anime images, who then upload more anime images that attract people that want to see anime images... at least up until the point where you start letting in content that attracts different types of people, who post more of the type of content they want, attracting more of their kind, and suddenly it's never October again.

Hell, you can already see this apply with people asking to have ways to block flagged images just because they're tired of seeing comment arguments about recent changes in the trends of flagging.

Again, you can say that it's fine because it's not a problem yet, or that it's fine if the admins take care of it down the line, but that's just punting responsibility off onto someone else rather than having any coherent policy.

Sacriven said:

You're missing my point. I said that it's alright for this user to post Trump contents because it's still have correlations with Japanese, like franchise parody OR Pixiv (this one is still debatable until now). Which means that he is still trying to obey the rules. MSPaints image are downright troll post and breaking the rules, and I don't know why you brought up this now.

I disagree with the point, for as far as the point even stays in one place. For one, I don't believe a few lines of katakana make a post on-topic. You're saying these posts are fine and comply with site rules on the one hand, but then saying it's no problem so long as eventually they all get deleted since they're not following site rules on the other. This, again, seems to be a line of reasoning that, reductio ad absurdum, justifies not taking any action on any front for any reason.

For another, as I said in response to Mikaeri, there's a line being crossed between mere reference to the political in a crossover between Eastern and Western content and propaganda that has a little bit of Japanese on the side. That causes problems even beyond the issues of Eternal September - is it OK if people upload clearly off-topic western art if it coincidentally has one anime character sketched in on the side? It's hardly as though there aren't giant threads where the boundaries of what constitutes "on topic" aren't being hashed out constantly floating around Danbooru's forums.

Sacriven said:

Does Trump content = spite Danbooru? The one that got posted by that user have legal sources, you know. It's not even offending anyone in this site. Only extremist that will react because of that, and if it happens they will simply got downvoted into oblivion.

Again, downvoting is useless and downvoted comments will set off the same firestorms that will just encourage the extremists to move in, and the moderates that don't want to see political fights leave Danbooru - Eternal September. Again, I'm warning that you take the dangers of the extremists too lightly.

And if you say it's a matter of how long they take to learn, then I guess I just have to ask you for a time: If someone is "still learning the rules" and still gets the large majority of their posts deleted after four months but still tries uploading the exact same things, when does the question of whether or not it's deliberate start to set in? If not four months, is six months of constant, unchanging behavior ignoring all feedback enough to prove willfulness? Then do we wait eight to make up our minds? A year? A decade? Do we ever make a judgement at all?

NWSiaCB said:

If comments flamewars start because of the image uploads they make, should there really be a distinction drawn between whether they actively participated in the commenting? As I said, in more and more of these posts, I'm seeing the same people hash out the same fight in the comments, spurred on by these posts, and it's becoming more frequent.

Then we deal with the people participating in those flame wars, not the person posting the image that hosts said flame wars.

tapnek said:

Then we deal with the people participating in those flame wars, not the person posting the image that hosts said flame wars.

This. Up until now, there are no big problems regarding posts with political parody on it. Well, some users said stupid stuffs on those images, but it's still tolerable.

The fact that you suddenly bring this up makes you look like an anti-politics (no offense). I know what you propose is a safety measure against political stuffs, but a warning to the offender is sufficient for this case. No need to think that far, that is just a downright paranoid.

Have to agree with what tapnek and Sacriven are saying. It looks like you're against political discussion altogether, which I don't think is the right way to go about all this.

It's a given that users should know better to hash out their arguments in a comments section of an image, but so they will anyway. There's no stopping it -- we're an inclusive community to begin with, not an exclusive one. If users are breaking rules, then we settle those on a case-by-case basis rather than just putting the whole thing under wraps. It would be unfair to the users who actually do want to have a meaningful political discussion, regardless of whether others feel like they should or shouldn't.

But petty flame wars are subject to happen on any image, anyway. Call it a Godwin's law of sorts. It may happen more frequently with politically charged subject material, but the images aren't the sole originator of this sort of discussion -- the users are. The rules for comments and discussion are not the same for uploads. Nobody has to mention anything on such an image, after all. But it is their choice and their privilege, just as long as it is within acceptable bounds.