This is a huge topic I had in mind to to write since months, after noticing a bunch of questionable staff decisions and behavior, but went on being lazy and forgot about it. However I've now decided it's time to get typing and talk about I've noticed a lot of questionable staff decisions over the last months.
To be clear one one detail. I'm not calling out the staff over those decisions, at least not with a "You did that to be an jerk" reason but only because I noticed how frequent they would happen for a while and I mostly want some insights to why. I also personally don't get mad or cry over a deletion when I upload something. Worst case, I say out loud "Whatever" and don't think about it, and annoyed when I know that shouldn't have happened, but I don't hold a grudge on the person that deleted the picture because that's stupid.
And obviously most of the cases are ones that happened to me personally, since it's the easiest way to see that happen, but I do have my share of incidents that happened to other people too.
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[Does not meet quality standards]
The issue with that is not how e621 doesn't like some sort of pictures and I'm completely fine about it. The real problem about this whole subject is how RNG it is and how there is a huge pick-and-choose bias over some pictures that clearly should be fine to be uploaded but gets deleted anyway, most of them time for very stupid subjective reasons.
A long time ago, I uploaded a bunch of traditional art from Tatwuyan ( http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=61232783 ) and a bunch of those got deleted four hours after I have uploaded them, while three of them have been approved by a different person ( post #1125233 post #1125234 post #1125235 ) and when I asked to why they got deleted, I got three different reasons :
- Those only contain lineart/no shading
- They have really bad contrast
- Those are pictures, not scan
forum #222580
First, let me call bollocks on that first one. I've mentioned The Weaver's stuff many times before (focusing on the very doodley ones) because those drawings, consisting of constant thickness squiggly lines that took 3 minutes to draw, no color or anything, get the e621's stamp of quality award, but when it is done on paper and with actual effort in, nope not good enough. Um, okay, why ?
Second one is, okay let say that is actual legit. Bad contrast (gradient tone in the background) is really bad and evil. Problem is, only three pictures in the batch had a really bad contrast and the ones deleted, about eight of them, is more than three. But then, why is this picture just fine post #1218607 even though there is a clearly visible contrast problem in the background ? And this doesn't seem to be done artistically : The other pictures done in this style by the artists don't have the same gradient to the same degree. I am not going to give more examples because the whole contrast excuse sounds dumb honestly.
And the third one, probably the most hilarious excuse I got : They are apparently photos. Alright, first of all : Where is the damn proof that those are actual photos ? They look pretty good for being photos, and why wouldn't they be fine even though they're photos ? This whole photo rule is about clearly taken photos of pictures on a table or holding them, for that I can understand. What's the big deal about well framed photos that could be mistakenly be seen as scans ? There has been a ton of pictures photos of sketches that have been accepted before ( post #1210644 post #1203151 ) so why are the ones I uploaded not worth e621's stamp of approval ? Is the "being scanned" detail so important anyway ? There are scanned pictures where the quality is really bad, even worse than photos ( post #1239149 post #821310 ) This whole "racism" about photos/scans just sounds completely pointless to me. Again, I get it for bad (framed) photos where you can clearly see it's taken from a camera, but nitpicking on the fact the lens was attached to a portable device rather than on a printer to take a really well framed shot sounds pretty pointless.
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Another recent case that happened with me is with this picture post #1225147 ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/23618387 )
This got deleted quite quickly for being low quality. Again, I question the validity of it, and I'll refer to The Weaver's squiggly lines stuff one more time. Is the picture fantastic quality ? Of course not, but it looks just fine for what it is. If this isn't enough for e621 to be approved, then why is stuff like post #1226783 just fine then : A 700% zoomed in JPEG picture with a similar composition, not counting a lot of other similar pictures that have been accepted in the past too.
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This is very recent and not something that happened to me. https://e621.net/takedown/show/6216 and https://inkbunny.net/journalview.php?id=281626 It even got to the point of making the artist leave from e621.
I've looked at the pictures, and they look sort of cheesy, but nowhere looking really bad. Clearly the anatomy isn't perfect, but no one's is. I looked at the 4 pictures that apparently got deleted and I clearly don't see any reason beside anatomy nitpicking and maybe because one of them has a close up of bovine titties (Yeah, point me to how you define anatomy on boobies by the way) If anatomy and close-ups are such a big deal on e621, then why is this post #1260650 deemed completely fine, a cropped close-up face with questionable, face anatomy, clearly done as advertisement by the way. I could give more examples but I really don't want to make more artists leave e621 because someone said their art doesn't look as good as they thought.
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[Irrelevant]
This is a problem that mostly concerns myself and doesn't happen this often overall. I know how e621 doesn't want anything human looking (if solo) to be uploaded and wants to stay focused on furry stuff like hairless crocodiles and dragons *shot* Here again, the problem lies with RNG and picking-and-choosing by the approvers, where pictures with the same kind of character styles were completely fine to be uploaded but for some mysterious reasons are not for a split second.
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post #1210303
You know what ? I actually agree about the character being a little too human-like for e621. But then why is this completely fine for e621 then post #828685 There is 0 furry theme on that humanoid, human-like character. Not even mentioning that 621 is usually completely fine with humanized/anthrofied/morph characters like Pokemon, flora fauna and many more. e621 has always been fine with robots and humanized robots in the past post #797647 post #1139155 Yes, it can be argued that they do have more mechanical parts on the design, but again, referring to this Tumblr image which has nada furry theme.
How about Toadette pictures, basically a human with a mushroom cap post #1227194 or Shy Girl/Guy, a clothed human with a mask post #1237908 post #1253905 or even a robot that is very human-like post #1242937 (Yes again, the legs do show some more mecha theme, I know) or a humanized doll post #1252575 and the grand finale, a human with colored hair post #1253554 This is what mostly annoys me : To know that it should have been fine to be posted because it was before, but they ended up being deleted nonetheless.
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In the same theme, it always has been fine to upload less furry themed characters like desserts and fruits with the tons of pictures from mah good man Plantpenetrator and many other artists.
But in the past, some pictures with the same theme got deleted for being irrelevant anyway, such as post #1086750 ( http://thelatenightcafe.tumblr.com/post/128090966150/i-was-thinking-about-doing-something-a-little-bit ) and post #1087693 ( https://screwroot.tumblr.com/post/154911770296 ) What is the reason here ? Because they're not popular artists ? Because to be honest, I have no clue why those are not fine but Plantpenetrator's and many others are just fine with e621.
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[Ban reasons]
A long time ago, an artist posted a picture of a butt horse that was drawn in such a way that it almost looked like it was an actual photography post #1078860
It was apparently deleted for not meeting the quality standards of e621. I've seen the picture on InkBunny on the featured section and talked to the artist about it ( https://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=1340503#commentid_4098925 ) and the picture first got deleted under the "Contains real-life pornography" and once the artist said to the staff that no, it isn't a photo, they changed it to "Does not meet minimum quality standards"
While the incident overall is pretty dumb, I understand why the picture got deleted : e621 doesn't want to have anything to do with beastiality and the picture really could be seen as it by authorities. However, changing the ban reason to low quality is, honestly, a jackass move.
I don't know if the ban reasons can be custom made. If not, it really would be a good idea to make them so because misunderstandings and bad moves like this one shouldn't be happening, like how it happened with Edo Nova's pictures, deleted for quality standards and had me post on the forums about it since the pictures looked really good, to then be told that they were traced pictures of official work forum ( https://e621.net/post/index/1/edo_nova%20status:deleted ) and forum #231165
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[Favoritism and gender tagging]
I know I shouldn't really be talking about this issue, but it happened so many times before, I just can't ignore it.
There has been, at least one user to my knowledge, that has been notorious for adding female to the slightest feminine detail the guy could find on a picture, to the point that wearing a dress and making a sissy pose is enough to trigger the action to tag a character female. The way the admins respond to the gender backlash when it happens post #943442 really gives the impression this particular user is getting special pleads for that. At first, okay maybe the guy really just wants to help around with tagging and such, but it clearly is hard to believe that by how every time I see that happen, it is for female related tags, and how huge the blacklist is, containing a ton of tags about females forum #193159 It also doesn't help how every time the guy has to add the female tag on a picture, there is only that : Female tag added, and nothing else on what makes the character female, like those obnoxious eyelashes that are apparently a female trait only for that guy. It got to the point to have someone banned on e621 for that, more on that very soon.
The funny part is I pointed many times before how a pose and clothing shouldn't have any weight for a character's gender and that's how e621 is supposed to judge genders with this whole tag what you see policy, but with this guy, it's like an exception, and with the admins being completely fine with the nitpickings, it really makes it seem like there is a huge favoritism with that guy. I really hope that isn't actually the case are just a big coincidence.
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[GameManiac's ban]
Now this very big touchy topic. First of all, I don't even know the guy, I never talked to him, and I'm not here to say how e621 is stupid and please boohoo unban him. But I've looked at the ban reason and the multiple links with all the mistagging he apparently did, and to be honest, for the most part it's borderline insane. ( https://e621.net/user/show/174059 )
He has been banned for using an automated tagging process before. Here, I completely understand the reason and that was completely stupid from him. However the way the ban is handled makes it look like e621 wants every uploaded to be perfect with their taggings. But we are human, we can sometimes forget a tag or mistagged something by accident without any bad intention in mind, but seeing him being banned for from what I've seen human mistakes, legitimately scares the fuck out of me that would happen soon enough. For him it was even worse since he uploaded a ton of picture, amplifying his mistagging rate compared to the average user.
Like I said, I looked at all the links on his ban reason, and I looked on the tags history, and concluded that at least half of those are completely bollocks. I've grouped them together under four "severity of crime" to see how bad it was overall and congluded the admins were way too harsh on the guy's "tagging abuse".
-Absolutely nothing wrong at all
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183306
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183120
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1181917
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1181743
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1181532
I clearly cannot see anything wrong on those. Maybe the tag history is glicthing on me and/or I am not properly seeing what is the problem, but I looked 3 times for each : I cannot see what's the deal for them
Hilarious enough, the last one got him banned because he tagged furred_dragon. Later on, one staff noticed that, yeah, it is actually a furred dragon. Oops ?
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- A clear human error - He is not a machine
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1182483
I would have rated this questionable myself here and ended up doing the same bannable mistake. The picture is more about emotion/atmospheric nudity rather than just plain sex, and the sexual parts are not visible. Sexually suggestive yeah, but in good taste, so I would also have rated that questionable
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1184109
That got him tagged because he tagged bra for a design that's, designed like a bra of some sort. Come on now
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1182103
The pussy line is kind of hard to notice at first glance.
Funny is I did this sort of mistake a long time ago, where the picture was tagged safe on FA but noticed that there is actually a pussy line. I'm freaking glad I noticed that before I got banned by the admins post #801983
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183374
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183376
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183360
"Gender mistagging" here, because they all have eyelashes. The guy had the courtesy to tag them all as female but couldn't even bother to add the eyelashes tag for those. The latter one is especially hilarious because the guy nitpicked a line for eyelashes. A freaking line was enough to trigger a reaction and add more ban reasons on top. You know what's really hilarious about that ? There isn't even anything about eyelashes being a female trait on the gender tagging wiki ( https://e621.net/wiki/show/howto:tag_genders ) It's only because one guy clearly hates anything remotely feminine and cannot stand those.
What is hilarious (and sad) is how nobody understood my stupid complaint on how silly this whole eyelashes nitpicking is that I did on post #1219637 - There are two Goodra, one with a deek, then one with a puss. BUT in some, really disturbing turnout of events, the "male" has eyelashes while the "female" doesn't have any. Shouldn't they be transgender then ? I mean, aren't eyelashes a female only trait ? I thought that was the case with all of those female tags added with eyelashes.
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Alright, moving on...
- Mistakes were made, but clearly without any malicious intent
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1182437
He forgot to deleted the signature related tags because he copied the tags from a similar looking picture. An extremely severe offense right there
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1184111
Same kind of deal here, copied the tags again but forgot to remove the clothing mentions
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183337
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183332
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183331
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1183330
Those are humanoid/humanized, not anthrofied
I had no idea of that humanized tag existing before and I even did that same mistake sometimes before someone corrects myself. I really hope that didn't raise my ban threshold too high since.
- Legitimate fuckups
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1185060
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1185072
https://e621.net/post_tag_history/index?post_id=1181544
There are the only ones where I have nothing to say here. He clearly did wrong taggings and he should have looked much better for those. I absolutely have no clue what happened. However the first one, the peen does kind of look invisible at a first glance.
I am not here to tell e621 when to ban people or not, but the way it has been handled here and how the ban reason is labelled as Tag Abuse over for the most part, human mistakes a very active user would do from time to time, really scares the shit out of me with how many times I see some pictures with those tags, but some don't, then some users change the tags around : Am I right, did I use a wrong tag, or are they ? It is bound to happen, to disagree with a tag or simply make mistakes, but the staff labelling that as us being malicious and abusing the tag system makes it seem like they want us to be perfect otherwise you're out, being even worse for extremely active users that upload a lot and are more prone to human mistakes. I really hope this form of "tagging abuse" will get relaxed because I fear that will very likely happen to me soon, and even slowed down my posting by how I really don't want to take any chance and mistag something by mistake, to then get a "tag abuse" warning followed by a ban months later
Updated by NotMeNotYou