Western art + ToS

Don't know if this alright to open a new topic because of this issue, but it came again up under the infamous Doom image (post #2430440), which was discussed in topic #13037, which got locked by @albert and there are also more flags against western posts in general. And since some users apparantly thought a new forum topic would be good, it might be a good idea to re-open this issue again (if it gets locked again, then ok).

So far it seems that there is a reason against WWW: Western artist, western style and western copyright.
And then we have the fairly open ToS:

The following may be uploaded, but will be put to a higher level of artistic and qualitative scrutiny than normal, and (if applicable) you must tag them with the corresponding tag. Please do not upload more than 20 a day of these works:
Western: Drawings of characters from non-Japanese comics, games, and other properties.

So the question what should be done: Re-write the ToS and disallow western art or keep the ToS like it is right now?

To summarize my views on this subject:

-I'm against the idea of factoring an artist's origins into whether a piece of art should be allowed here or not - thus I am against WWW in its current form.
-Should the ToS be changed (regardless of reaching a consensus or not), then I'll uphold the new ToS; also, should a ban on western art + western style happen, then no exceptions should be made for popular franchises.
-Until then, I'll uphold the current ToS and status quo, which is that Western art is allowed but discouraged and held to higher standards.
-There's a clear difference between current-days digital art relating to contemporary pop culture (such as games, movies, comics, etc) and classical pieces, the latter of which to me do not belong here because of that.

It just seems to me like there's a lot of people that confused "will be put to a higher level of artistic and qualitative scrutiny than normal" to outright "forbidden from uploading it here". Like this is what causing this NEW WAVE of flagging western arts right now, cause people are being confused.

Flandre5carlet said:
-Until then, I'll uphold the current ToS and status quo, which is that Western art is allowed but discouraged and held to higher standards.

what is this "higher standard" exactly? that requirement is so nebulous that it sounds meaningless.

cd_young said:

what is this "higher standard" exactly? that requirement is so nebulous that it sounds meaningless.

Stuff that doesn't look like shitty Family Guy art I guess.

cd_young said:

what is this "higher standard" exactly? that requirement is so nebulous that it sounds meaningless.

As far as I'm concerned it means I'm much less likely to overlook certain errors or other things that would make me reconsider approving something.

Flandre5carlet said:

As far as I'm concerned it means I'm much less likely to overlook certain errors or other things that would make me reconsider approving something.

So, personal opinion. got it.

Provence said:

So far it seems that there is a reason against WWW: Western artist, western style and western copyright.
And then we have the fairly open ToS:

So the question what should be done: Re-write the ToS and disallow western art or keep the ToS like it is right now?

I favor WWW modified as a scored check. SEA/EA Artist origin, Eastern IP/original, Anime/Anime-influenced style, each amount to one point if true. A score of 2 or above in my opinion should mean an image is on topic. A score of one should be what we consider Western art and subject to a higher scrutiny which needs to be clarified, while 0 scores are blatantly off topic.

Flandre5carlet said:

-I'm against the idea of factoring an artist's origins into whether a piece of art should be allowed here or not - thus I am against WWW in its current form.

So then, you think if a Japanese artist makes a style parody image such as that Touhou Powerpuff girls one that it should be off topic? Considering national orign (not racial) gives us a good idea of where someone is coming from culturally; it's not that the Japanese have an anime gene, it just comes naturally from being exposed to it and having the strongest anime culture. Also an Americanized or Westernized Asian could still be considered a "western" artist. Think of this in terms of cultural, not racial profiling.

-Until then, I'll uphold the current ToS and status quo, which is that Western art is allowed but discouraged and held to higher standards.

What standard. Part of the problem is when someone flags an image because they believe it's not sufficient quality it typically just gets re-approved. This is a problem in that approvers assess such images by the same criteria as any other rather than by superlative quality. Mediocre or acceptable doesn't seem strong enough to me.

-There's a clear difference between current-days digital art relating to contemporary pop culture (such as games, movies, comics, etc) and classical pieces, the latter of which to me do not belong here because of that.

This line of argumentation was only deployed in order to reach some sort of idea of what Western art is not allowed. It's good to see we at least agree on that however. I however think we need to be more specific: a Western artwork should be illustrated in an anime style. If however it's illustrated in a predominantly western style, some elements or characters in the image should be in an anime style (i.e., East Meets West). Besides that as we have seen people are approving clearly classically styled works in spite of some agreement on this.

Stan_Miller said:

It just seems to me like there's a lot of people that confused "will be put to a higher level of artistic and qualitative scrutiny than normal" to outright "forbidden from uploading it here". Like this is what causing this NEW WAVE of flagging western arts right now, cause people are being confused.

Likewise people have interpreted it as carte blanche to upload anything Western. Either position is untenable. Also I've not seen anyone argue for a ban/mass purge of all western art. That's certainly not what I'm in favor of.

cd_young said:

So, personal opinion. got it.

Seems so!

I've largely stayed out of this discussion because I'm generally not really fussed by it. But I do want to say that I too disagree strongly with an artist's nationality (be it based on culture or race) being relevant to whether or not an imae is approved. An image's approval status should be dependant on the image itself, not with where the artist happens to come from. The same art should have the same chance of approval whether it was drawn by a Japanese buddhist from Kyoto or a Pakistani muslim from Bradford.

kuuderes_shadow said:

I've largely stayed out of this discussion because I'm generally not really fussed by it. But I do want to say that I too disagree strongly with an artist's nationality (be it based on culture or race) being relevant to whether or not an imae is approved. An image's approval status should be dependant on the image itself, not with where the artist happens to come from. The same art should have the same chance of approval whether it was drawn by a Japanese buddhist from Kyoto or a Pakistani muslim from Bradford.

Can you suggest an alternative formulation? Also it's not an absolute but rather contingent requirement, at least as far as my formulation goes. I can understand if you don't want to give one because of lack of interest but that makes it no less useful.

It allows first of all for style parodies by Japanese artists. Also artist origin is wrapped up into the cultural and artistic baggage that inevitably has a hand in the art they produce. Can you see how someone who grew up with anime versus one who grew up with Disney will have different ingrained approaches to style and anatomy, particularly what emphasis they give to facial anatomy?

Chances are if an image is anime-influenced and also really good it should be on-topic even if the artist is from outside the Orient, so I really cannot see where potential damage would occur. If you can demonstrate how this could lead to negative social consequences I will change my mind but when it comes down to it it's more about the art and artist origin plays a minor but useful role.

sweetpeɐ said:

So then, you think if a Japanese artist makes a style parody image such as that Touhou Powerpuff girls one that it should be off topic?

I'm not sure how you got that from my post, but uh.. No?

What standard. Part of the problem is when someone flags an image because they believe it's not sufficient quality it typically just gets re-approved. This is a problem in that approvers assess such images by the same criteria as any other rather than by superlative quality. Mediocre or acceptable doesn't seem strong enough to me.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you think subpar posts have been approved then take it up to the specific approvers concerned with specific examples, myself included.

This line of argumentation was only deployed in order to reach some sort of idea of what Western art is not allowed. It's good to see we at least agree on that however. I however think we need to be more specific: a Western artwork should be illustrated in an anime style. If however it's illustrated in a predominantly western style, some elements or characters in the image should be in an anime style (i.e., East Meets West). Besides that as we have seen people are approving clearly classically styled works in spite of some agreement on this.

The absolute requirement for some sort of eastern element is something I disagree with but would be okay with upholding should it come to that. That said, classical works are something I don't approve myself (eg. that one particular post that was flagged not too long ago.)

Seems so!

I think it would be a bit asinine to pretend that subjectivity isn( a big part of approval work, considering the standard option not to approve something literally says "did not like it enough." Each approver has their own standard and their own tastes which is why there needs to be variety in approvers in the first place. If every approver was purely objective in judging artworks then there would be no need for more than a handful.

Artist nationality does not matter. Approvers are selected based on their ability to select good art regardless of where it comes from. The rules are deliberately murky to allow for this fudge factor.

If some people keep flagging western art, then they need to pick the most egregious examples because they're limited to 1 flag a day (10 for gold+ users). Approvers will either accept or reject flags based on whatever sensibility they were selected for.

If approvers feel overburdened with the amount of flagged posts coming into the system, I can further decrease the daily flag limit for gold users.

(note: this post was written very slowly whilst doing other things - it thus doesn't take into account either of the two posts above it)

I'm afraid I don't have an alternate formulation to offer, and doubt I will do as anything I came up with would inherently mean putting forward a position on the broader debate which I just don't have.

The proposal you put forward, though, can make good art be treated as borderline art, and borderline art as rejected art, solely on the basis of the artist's cultural background. If whether or not it's drawn by a western artist doesn't do this then there is no point even mentioning it.

Can you see how someone who grew up with anime versus one who grew up with Disney will have different ingrained approaches to style and anatomy, particularly what emphasis they give to facial anatomy?

Of course. But this falls completely under the already existing "w" of style. After all, someone who grew up with Western culture can still draw stuff in anime style, just as someone who grew up with Eastern culture can draw stuff in a Western style. Not to mention the fact that I watched far more anime in my childhood (without even realising it) than I watched Western cartoons, despite having never been outside of Western Europe in my life, and am by no means unusual in this respect.

I have no objections to the style of art used being a determining factor. But someone from a Western cultural background drawing a Western IP in an anime art style should be treated in precisely the same way as an East Asian person drawing the same Western IP in the same anime art style.

One thing many (American) users forget is that anime has been HUGELY popular in many "Western" countries, e.g. France, Italy, many countries in South America.
Their artists have been watching new(ish) shows DECADES before anime became popular in the USA, so to think they all grew up on "Disney" cartoons is downright ignorant.

albert said:

Artist nationality does not matter. Approvers are selected based on their ability to select good art regardless of where it comes from. The rules are deliberately murky to allow for this fudge factor.

If some people keep flagging western art, then they need to pick the most egregious examples because they're limited to 1 flag a day (10 for gold+ users). Approvers will either accept or reject flags based on whatever sensibility they were selected for.

If approvers feel overburdened with the amount of flagged posts coming into the system, I can further decrease the daily flag limit for gold users.

I think curtailing the rights of paid users will be ineffective in this case. Upwards of 95% of flags in the past month have been created by approvers, particularly recently-promoted ones. While I don't have the permissions to personally confirm it, I think there's reasonable suspicion that most of the flags in question came from an approver.

Kikimaru said:

One thing many (American) users forget is that anime has been HUGELY popular in many "Western" countries, e.g. France, Italy, many countries in South America.
Their artists have been watching new(ish) shows DECADES before anime became popular in the USA, so to think they all grew up on "Disney" cartoons is downright ignorant.

I don't think anyone has gone as far as to argue that the Western artists on this booru have no stylistic influence from anime. However, people in non-Japanese cultures who watch anime will inevitably interpret what they see in the context of their own culture. This is why people create distinctions between East Asian artists and Western artists. Countries like South Korea and China are very culturally proximal to Japan, so much gets shared and relatively little is lost in the process. People outside of that sphere are more distant, and are therefore more likely to incorporate artistic elements that are distinctively Western in origin. Since Western traits are selected against in moderation, Western artists are effectively held to a higher standard of craftsmanship.

That said, seeing quite a number of edge cases being brought up over the course of this discussion, I've come to the conclusion that while artist nationality is a good predictor of booru viability in most cases, strictly selecting based on it misses the bigger picture. Overwatch in particular has such a strong international fanbase that national differences are blurred quite severely. Instead, the artist's portfolio should be reviewed overall to see how close that artist is to Japanese anime culture. For instance, on its own, it'd be difficult to determine the topicality of post #2489635, but after seeing that the artist normally draws things like post #2071480, most people would have no problem letting it through. If it turned out that that artist made a living drawing covers for American sci-fi novels instead, it would more than likely be determined off-topic.

I have noticed there's been conflict over this concept already (see post #2629682), and it likely isn't a perfect way of going about things, but I think it's worth being put on the table for discussion.

sweetpeɐ said:

Seems so!

Janitors always played by their own opinions and subjectivity. Why do you think we have over 70 :3?

Still, the whole process and tradition of nearly all present Asian manga/anime art, as seen on this board owes more to Western models of representative realistic art than to previous Asian painting and drawing.

Claverhouse said:

Still, the whole process and tradition of nearly all present Asian manga/anime art, as seen on this board owes more to Western models of representative realistic art than to previous Asian painting and drawing.

The written English language may owe itself to the Greeks, but δεν θα ήταν σκόπιμο, αν άρχισα να γράφω όλα δημοσιεύσεις μου αρέσει αυτό.

Anime has had plenty of time to develop from simply copying Western ideas to reinterpreting them in a way that best suits Japanese consumers. I think 50+ years is long enough for the style to be "naturalized".

Provence said:

Janitors always played by their own opinions and subjectivity. Why do you think we have over 70 :3?

Yes but how is this different from a non-west image going through the queue? There is no "higher scrutiny." People won't even agree on what western art is. The score check or WWW is to figure out which art to treat different, not on the basis by which to purge art.

sweetpeɐ said:

The score check or WWW is to figure out which art to treat different, not on the basis by which to purge art.

Is that so?
Like I said: Subjektivity is your power, the ToS is only setting the basic conditions. What it sees as allowed. If you yourself want to approve these images is a whole different story. That's why this WWW is a good choice for your approving style. But I have a different approving style. Is that bad? Well, I have contacted you and asked you if you want to become Janitor, right? Becaue it is good to have a good amount of different thinking Janitors who approve different things. Some Janitor might not want to approve explicit art or rape, loli, although these things are allowed. For example @Saladofstones said that they won't approve posts that don't look anime-esque, but I doubt that they will ever flag this very Doom picture..(if I read your comments wrong, please excuse^^)?
So if these things get approved, then this doesn't mean that these Janitors should go out flagging that stuff :P.
So you are right: There is no general higher scrutiny. It was never there and will never exist. Is that good? Yes, it is. At least as long as those Janitors don't receive to many succesfull flags, but for that these flags have to go through other Janitor's hands who might think similar (same with Contributors).