The anonymous_artist tag is added when the artist allows posting their work here, but doesn't want to be connected with it. Mostly because they don't want to show up on Google.

The first time I brought it up, I was told that those should be unsourced and all instances of source_request tag should be removed from them. I got as far as doing that to a single post, before getting a warning for 'removing valid sources'. Haven't dared to touch them since.

So I want to reaffirm: should we still do that? From what I've understood, since the artists don't want to be identified, then clearly those shouldn't be sourced. Because sourcing the post often makes it simple to figure out who made it.

But in any case, even if that's still the case and the sources can be removed... there's nothing to stop users from re-adding those. So I'm proposing that the sources on those should be changed to something like 'Anonymous artist (Do Not Source)'.

How does that sound?

I think that there is a better option - add "lock source" feature to existing "Lock Notes" and "Lock Rating". Though it doesn't erase sources from tag history.

Sounds like whoever warned you wasn't in the know.

Looking at this again, I want to elaborate on what I said earlier:

It sounds like a communication problem. Tell whoever warned you (I'm assuming a mod) what the policy is. If it was an admin who told you how to handle anonymous_artist and sources, and they told you this on the forum, great. Link whoever warned you to that exact post. Don't worry about any action against you, because whatever happens can be easily repealed.

tl;dr communication solves everything