the title pretty much says it all.

If I found an image on some random website, what would the prossess be for figuring out if it is illegally posted pay content?? would you need to message the artist themselves or is there another way of knowing?

Find where the artist posts their free work (Tumblr, Furaffinity, Inkbunny etc etc) and see if they have posted the art there. There are sites like SauceNao that can help find the original source, but it doesn't work for every website.

Always get artworks from the artist's official galleries.
Never get them from any third-party websites or some shady image sharing site, chances are that most of them have been resized (shrunk/upscaled) or pirated.

If something was posted freely, it would be posted BY the artist ON the artist's gallery.

TheGreatWolfgang said:
Always get artworks from the artist's official galleries.
Never get them from any third-party websites or some shady image sharing site, chances are that most of them have been resized (shrunk/upscaled) or pirated.

If something was posted freely, it would be posted BY the artist ON the artist's gallery.

In some cases it might be posted as a free post on their patreon, as well. If you can't find it there, contact the artist about the source you found, they might wave it off "it's already out there" or they might enforce the DNP where they still can.

The image you found is literally from a forum thread that is titled "Bonk Patreon" and says in the description "All of Bonk's patreon content, includes HD artworks (mainly commissions) and monthly dropbox rewards.​".

What in the bloody hell do you think this means?

If it's not from an official source it's probably paid content.

NotMeNotYou said:
The image you found is literally from a forum thread that is titled "Bonk Patreon" and says in the description "All of Bonk's patreon content, includes HD artworks (mainly commissions) and monthly dropbox rewards.​".

What in the bloody hell do you think this means?

If it's not from an official source it's probably paid content.

I told you, I didn't go to the actual website. I just grabbed the image from google.

Autumn-Ferret said:
I told you, I didn't go to the actual website. I just grabbed the image from google.

That just makes it worse! You know pirated content is shared freely on the internet because you've probably been on the internet for more than 5 minutes. You got a link to the image from google. Why would you not click that link and follow it, then read the description?

I have no words to describe in a civil manner how incredibly negligent this is by you.

NotMeNotYou said:
The image you found is literally from a forum thread that is titled "Bonk Patreon" and says in the description "All of Bonk's patreon content, includes HD artworks (mainly commissions) and monthly dropbox rewards.​".

What in the bloody hell do you think this means?

If it's not from an official source it's probably paid content.

but. ok then. I am absolutely certain that I have a soild grasp on all the rules this time. and I don't plan on getting in any more trouble with the admins.

1. don't post from third party websites.

2. if you upload an image that does not appear in the artists gallery, provide proof that you got it from the artist directly.

3. tag posts with at least 4 tags BEFORE hitting upload.

GOT IT!

These rules are either explicitly stated or can be easily inferred from the uploading guidelines or the e621:rules which all users should read.

Autumn-Ferret said:
but. ok then. I am absolutely certain that I have a soild grasp on all the rules this time. and I don't plan on getting in any more trouble with the admins.

1. don't post from third party websites.

2. if you upload an image that does not appear in the artists gallery, provide proof that you got it from the artist directly.

3. tag posts with at least 4 tags BEFORE hitting upload.

GOT IT!

You can make things more black and white for yourself if you feel like you aren't fully understanding things, but please don't generalize them to everyone.

1. You can post from third party websites. I have actually done this myself as many sources will go 404 over time. This is actually the reason why e621 is so important, this is also third party site.
Problems with third party sites and why they are discouraged are two reasons: they can actually host inferior versions as those sites goals might not be of archival nature and then of course possible leaked material. Because of this if you are not aware of the situation, you may end up posting content which needs to be deleted, thus increasing everyones work.

2. This is only of interest if artist is monetizing their work, either trough crowdfunding platforms (Patreon, Enty, Fantia, Fanbox, etc.) or commerse sites (gumroad, e-junkie, itch.io, etc.). If artist does not have any of these, that means that they aren't selling anything, thus even if the thing cannot be sourced it can't be paid material.

3. 4 tags is bare minimum required by the rules, so it means you aren't getting into technical trouble for that and with most posts that is seen as lazy and rude, especially when almost every post can have more basic tags than that which are also really commonly blacklisted and if it's post that someone else is posting at the same time, it's middle finger for them for taking their time to do things properly.

We really want to encourage all users to tag and source their posts properly, not going where the fence is lowest jost to get 'em internet points.

Back in the day, very few artists did paid work so they were easy to keep track of, and the pay sites had watermarks. Now most everything has a Patreon logo, or not even that (blessed are the artists who specify if the pic came from Twitter, Tumblr or whatever), and the amount of artists currently working as astronomical. So, to know if a given pic found in a 3rd-party site is paid requires you to a) identify the artist of a given pic, and b) trawl through every single pic of every single site of theirs to see if the given pic isn't any of them. Yeah, nobody will ever bother with all that shit. And even then you can't be sure, because it can be a paid pic the artist took down.

Frankly, just upload it and hope for the best. Uploading pics from 3rd-party places now is more of a gamble than ever. I just do it, and hope it doesn't get flagged. I presume the mods assume honest mistake on the uploader's part, so you would have to upload a lot of paid pics to get into trouble.

OneMoreAnonymous said:
Back in the day, very few artists did paid work so they were easy to keep track of, and the pay sites had watermarks. Now most everything has a Patreon logo, or not even that (blessed are the artists who specify if the pic came from Twitter, Tumblr or whatever), and the amount of artists currently working as astronomical. So, to know if a given pic found in a 3rd-party site is paid requires you to a) identify the artist of a given pic, and b) trawl through every single pic of every single site of theirs to see if the given pic isn't any of them. Yeah, nobody will ever bother with all that shit. And even then you can't be sure, because it can be a paid pic the artist took down.

Frankly, just upload it and hope for the best. Uploading pics from 3rd-party places now is more of a gamble than ever. I just do it, and hope it doesn't get flagged. I presume the mods assume honest mistake on the uploader's part, so you would have to upload a lot of paid pics to get into trouble.

let me tell you. they DO NOT assume honest mistake. they assume you're an evil supervillain hell bent on the destruction and utter annihilation of everything they've worked so hard to create. admin have mercy on anyone who accidentally posts paid content.

the VERY first time I uploaded something that they THOUGHT was pay content, I got a neutral record added to my account. and the posts that got flagged weren't even pay content! I had actually taken the time to message the artist and they sent me the full res images explicitly so I could upload the here. but the admins demanded absolute proof that I wasn't some kind of art terrorist.

bottom line. assume NOTHING! and in the words of Gravity Falls, TRUST NO ONE!

Why do you have to turn everything into some big drama conspiracy?

Autumn-Ferret said:
the VERY first time I uploaded something that they THOUGHT was pay content, I got a neutral record added to my account. and the posts that got flagged weren't even pay content! I had actually taken the time to message the artist and they sent me the full res images explicitly so I could upload the here.

I'm sure if you had any evidence that this was true the mods wouldn't have a problem reversing the neutral. But i'm sure you don't since you said this earlier...

Autumn-Ferret said:
I told you, I didn't go to the actual website. I just grabbed the image from google.

which seems to contradict your most recent statement.

So, are you just lying to try to slander the mods or what? Because it's not like lying is going to reverse your neutral, if anything what your doing now is going to make it worse.

darryus said:
I'm sure if you had any evidence that this was true the mods wouldn't have a problem reversing the neutral. But i'm sure you don't since you said this earlier...

which seems to contradict your most recent statement.

So, are you just lying to try to slander the mods or what? Because it's not like lying is going to reverse your neutral, if anything what your doing now is going to make it worse.

I was referring to this post #1627242 as the one that they demanded proof. (notice the top comment there)

this was two separate instances. one where I was in the right and they reversed everything, and one where I was in the wrong and I got a neutral record for it.

but what i'm trying to say is: no. they will not just let something like that slide. If you post what THEY "believe" to be paid content they will instantly delete it and give you a record even if what you did was completely within the rules.

Autumn-Ferret said:
I was referring to this post #1627242 as the one that they demanded proof.

this was two separate instances.

Oh hey, it looks like you don't have any records relating to that post on your account at this point, so it seems like the admins did their jobs to the best of their abilities, they saw a post that looked like it was pirated pay-site content so they took it down, and then they found that the original artist was okay with it being up they put it back up.

They're not psychics, how the hell should they have known that what you uploaded wasn't deserving of deletion. It's better safe than sorry, take something down that could be potentially harmful to the artist and then put it back if it's okay, no harm, no fowl. What they did was literally the most reasonable thing possible.

Clawdragons said:
Why do you have to turn everything into some big drama conspiracy?

cause it is a conspiracy I tell ya! ye admins are mad, they is!

and because it's fun to be over dramatic. the admins and I are on good terms now, they know I'm just being dramatic for the sake of theatrics.

darryus said:
Oh hey, it looks like you don't have any records relating to that post on your account at this point, so it seems like the admins did their jobs to the best of their abilities, they saw a post that looked like it was pirated pay-site content so they took it down, and then they found that the original artist was okay with it being up they put it back up.

They're not psychics, how the hell should they have known that what you uploaded wasn't deserving of deletion. It's better safe than sorry, take something down that could be potentially harmful to the artist and then put it back if it's okay, no harm, no fowl.

I was just telling that guy that the admins are not going to forgive something like that. I did it once and they lost their shit over it. yes, it was all worked out in the end. but it still works as an example of the admins jumping the gun and expecting the worst rather than honest mistake.

Autumn-Ferret said:
I was just telling that guy that the admins are not going to forgive something like that. I did it once and they lost their shit over it. yes, it's all worked out now. but it still works as an example of the admins jumping the gun and expecting the worst rather than honest mistake.

What??? What are you talking about? They fucking did forgive you. You don't have a record and the image is back up. They didn't jump any guns, what if it WAS paysite content, what should they have done then, huh? Just fucking leave potentially pirated content up it so they could ask you "umm... hey, umm... d-did you steal this?" and leave an indeterminate amount of time before you respond to actually take it down?

darryus said:
What??? What are you talking about? They fucking did forgive you. You don't have a record and the image is back up. They didn't jump any guns, what if it WAS paysite content, what should they have done then, huh? Just fucking leave potentially pirated content up it so they could ask you "umm... hey, umm... d-did you steal this?" and leave an indeterminate amount of time before you respond to actually take it down?

er mer gersh.... I'm just sayin! hes gonna get a record no matter if it was intentional or not. they don't care if you were unaware that it was pay content. you get a record either way. no warning no slap on the wrist. instant record!

yes. mine happened to be removed, but like I said before, it still works as an example that the admins instantly gave me a record for the very first time I did what they though was breaking the rules.

darryus said:
What??? What are you talking about? They fucking did forgive you. You don't have a record and the image is back up. They didn't jump any guns, what if it WAS paysite content, what should they have done then, huh? Just fucking leave potentially pirated content up it so they could ask you "umm... hey, umm... d-did you steal this?" and leave an indeterminate amount of time before you respond to actually take it down?

and if you wanna know what I think they should have done instead, or rather what I would have done in there place.

I would have deleted the posts without a second thought. (just like they did). AND THEN, I would have messaged the uploader and informed them that posting paid content is not allowed and any further violation of that rule would give them a record. Thereby, giving them time to explain themselves.

Autumn-Ferret said:
er mer gersh.... I'm just sayin! hes gonna get a record no matter if it was intentional or not. they don't care if you were unaware that it was pay content. you get a record either way. no warning no slap on the wrist. instant record!

yes. mine happened to be removed, but like I said before, it still works as an example that the admins instantly gave me a record for the very first time I did what they though was breaking the rules.

Neutrals *are* slaps on the wrist, though. They don't do anything unless you break the same rule twice in 6 months, in which case you get a negative, since you should have known better than to break the same rule twice.

It's funny how someone who has over 1000 approved uploads and has been here for at least a year doesn't understand how the site works and thinks he can just boss around and be passive-aggressive at the admins.

It's been one heck of an entertaining train-wreck, that's for sure.

It's really simple.

1.) Read the rules.
2.) Don't piss off the guys who can kick you out forever.
3.) If you have any doubt if something you upload will violate any of the above, then just don't upload it.

If you can't do those simple things, then maybe you shouldn't be here.

LoneWolf343 said:
It's funny how someone who has over 1000 approved uploads and has been here for at least a year doesn't understand how the site works and thinks he can just boss around and be passive-aggressive at the admins.

It's been one heck of an entertaining train-wreck, that's for sure.

It's really simple.

1.) Read the rules.
2.) Don't piss off the guys who can kick you out forever.
3.) If you have any doubt if something you upload will violate any of the above, then just don't upload it.

If you can't do those simple things, then maybe you shouldn't be here.

I do understand the rules. might not agree with a few, but whatever. I just had one little fuck up. and I created some forum posts to just clarify some things.

and I'm not trying piss off or boss around the admins. like I said, we're on good terms now. I recognized my fuck up and they recognized theirs. everything is good between us now. I'd even go so far as to say we're besties now. <3

Autumn-Ferret said:
I do understand the rules. I just had one little fuck up. and I created some forum posts to just clarify some things.

and I'm not trying piss off or boss around the admins. like I said, we're on good terms now. I recognized my fuck up and they recognized theirs. everything is good between us now. I'd even go so far as to say we're besties now. <3

When I got a neutral record for using a tag wrong a while back, I didn't start at least four forum threads about it. I just apologized, stopped using that tag, and the record was gone in a few weeks.

LoneWolf343 said:
When I got a neutral record for using a tag wrong a while back, I didn't start at least four forum threads about it. I just apologized, stopped using that tag, and the record was gone in a few weeks.

yeah. I may have went a little overboard....

Autumn-Ferret said:

and I'm not trying piss off or boss around the admins. like I said, we're on good terms now. I recognized my fuck up and they recognized theirs. everything is good between us now. I'd even go so far as to say we're besties now. <3

[Citation Needed]

OneMoreAnonymous said:
Back in the day, very few artists did paid work so they were easy to keep track of, and the pay sites had watermarks. Now most everything has a Patreon logo, or not even that (blessed are the artists who specify if the pic came from Twitter, Tumblr or whatever), and the amount of artists currently working as astronomical. So, to know if a given pic found in a 3rd-party site is paid requires you to a) identify the artist of a given pic, and b) trawl through every single pic of every single site of theirs to see if the given pic isn't any of them.

This is only a problem if you are browsing from a 3rd party location that does not adequately source it's images. If you upload directly from the artist's gallery, this isn't a problem :P if you're browsing piratedyiffbooru, then you're probably gonna shoot yourself in the foot.

Yeah, nobody will ever bother with all that shit. And even then you can't be sure, because it can be a paid pic the artist took down.

See above. Also, many of us do because we respect the artists :P

Frankly, just upload it and hope for the best. Uploading pics from 3rd-party places now is more of a gamble than ever. I just do it, and hope it doesn't get flagged. I presume the mods assume honest mistake on the uploader's part, so you would have to upload a lot of paid pics to get into trouble.

For your record, from a quick observation of the very public user records: First time is a neutral warning. Second time is a negative. Third time is a suspension. and by the looks of it, time number 4 is a ban.

Why? Because the rules are very clearly stated. We tell you about the rules every time. The rules are the rules for a reason. it's not 'for fun'.

The only time I've seen an honest mistake waved off without a record was when the artist had changed usernames recently. Accidents happen, and I'm sure that if you do have an *honest mistake* that there MIGHT be some adjustments made, but being purposefully negligent and defiant of the rules is not an honest mistake.

Autumn-Ferret said:
and because it's fun to be over dramatic. the admins and I are on good terms now, they know I'm just being dramatic for the sake of theatrics.

Please don't. While it is and can be fun to be over the top, a lot of people are over the top and totally serious. There are.... many people who have stated that they felt like they're the target of a conspiracy, because they can't post/comment/whatever without someone criticizing them, and since the problem couldn't be what they're posting, it MUST be that we have personally decided to hate them and are coordinating a secret campaign of hatred against them. Yeah.

There have also been death threats. There have also been several concerted attacks on the website in various ways.

If you're going to be over the top, please try to keep it cartoonishly hilarious and tuck in a disclaimer. We're all pretty good at reading in between the lines, but we put up with Some Shit Around Here and at the end of the day, it can be hard sometimes. (I'm not saying any legalese or anything... more WOE! The foul NotMeNotYou has thwarted my EVIL and most CUNNING plan once again! BLAST IT ALL! TO THE CAVERN OF SORROW! (... though srsly, whoops! ^^;) )

Autumn-Ferret said:
and if you wanna know what I think they should have done instead, or rather what I would have done in there place.

I would have deleted the posts without a second thought. (just like they did). AND THEN, I would have messaged the uploader and informed them that posting paid content is not allowed and any further violation of that rule would give them a record. Thereby, giving them time to explain themselves.

Well, here's the thing.... For every five messages we send? we maybe get one back. I have sent dozens--if not hundreds--of long long helpful messages off to people, and gotten nothing in reply. I've asked questions and gotten silence.

So how long do we wait for a reply? A day? a week? and in the meantime, we've got to keep up with that. Like, write it down somewhere that user number 636 was messaged about a DNP and check back in a week?

Here's a funny story for you: when a record is changed or deleted, you get a message about it. a lot of people don't even read the message and see that it's being removed, they jsut go full on into angry mode about it. I can basically promise that there would be people who take the message as being scolded, then get upset if they require a record.

Plus, it really leads to a negative feeling when interacting with the staff:

"Hi, you posted a picture from ARTIST that was DNP"
"Oh sorry, I didn't notice."
"Okay, please don't." *neutral record*
"I said I was sorry :( WTF.."

pluuuuus we also have to spend that much more time writting messages. You could form fill the first one, but you can't predict how people will reply. You'd end up either not replying, or typing a response manually to everyone. this would be great, but we're volunteers and we're already very busy. :(

This change owuld make the once-in-a-blue-moon honest mistake easier on the user, but add about 5-10 minutes to every 'work day' for us staff.

Autumn-Ferret said:
and I'm not trying piss off or boss around the admins. like I said, we're on good terms now. I recognized my fuck up and they recognized theirs. everything is good between us now. I'd even go so far as to say we're besties now. <3

Respectfully, I would argue that we didn't fuck up. We were running on incomplete information. With as many images as are posted here every day, we have to make assumptions about the content being posted-- most people aren't making mistakes. They're either ignorant of the rules, or purposefully disregarding them.

I'd say that there was a misunderstanding between you and the staff. That seems a lot more fair to everyone involved.

SnowWolf said:
if you're browsing piratedyiffbooru, then you're probably gonna shoot yourself in the foot. (and you get a neutral record regardless of honest mistake or not)

(obviously i'm paraphrasing there) but thank you! that's all I was trying to say in my other comments that people were content to argue to the death over for whatever reason.

SnowWolf said:
I'd say that there was a misunderstanding between you and the staff

lets not argue semantics here. call it whatever you want.

SnowWolf said:
If you're going to be over the top, please try to keep it cartoonishly hilarious

but of course.....

https://youtu.be/7wGr3-je9B0?t=13

SnowWolf said:
So how long do we wait for a reply?

I'm not saying you should wait for a reply and then give them a record based on their response. I'm saying you message them as a warning in place of giving them a record.

SnowWolf said:
we're volunteers and we're already very busy. :(

*evily twirls mustache* extremely busy you say. sounds like you could use some assistance. perhaps I should become a janitor myself. that was my original plan when I joined e6 after all. perhaps e6 could benefit from someone like myself. someone more directly involved with the populace rather than sending little copy and paste messages to people when the screw up. a more personal approach to discipline and certainly without the condescending attitude that seems to accompany every interaction with the current higher ups...

yes... perhaps I should make this my mission...

Autumn-Ferret said:
I'm not saying you should wait for a reply and then give them a record based on their response. I'm saying you message them as a warning in place of giving them a record.

The record is the warning. It's in public form so the other staff can see that the person in question has received a warning. As an example, if Ratte warns someone via dmail, and a few weeks later I come along and see them doing the same thing again how will I know that they have received a warning already and are now due a negative record? We can't search dmails of other users, which includes other staff, so the only option would be to ask Ratte If they warned X before. Repeat that for 20 different people daily, and then remember we'd have to ask more than one person that could have given a warning.

Warnings are given in record form so we have a paper trail that's easy and convenient to follow, that we, as staff, have all relevant information at hand without having to rely on someone else being around.

Autumn-Ferret said:
and I'm not trying piss off or boss around the admins. like I said, we're on good terms now. I recognized my fuck up and they recognized theirs. everything is good between us now. I'd even go so far as to say we're besties now. <3

SnowWolf said:
Respectfully, I would argue that we didn't fuck up. We were running on incomplete information. With as many images as are posted here every day, we have to make assumptions about the content being posted-- most people aren't making mistakes. They're either ignorant of the rules, or purposefully disregarding them.

I'd say that there was a misunderstanding between you and the staff. That seems a lot more fair to everyone involved.

Autumn-Ferret said:

lets not argue semantics here. call it whatever you want.

No, let's do it. You're arguing we made a mistake, specifically you're arguing we made a mistake after I told you that you missed the part of the protocol that tells you to supply all relevant extra permissions at the time of posting.
We were following publicly visible protocol, you didn't. You could have avoided getting that record in the first place, but you didn't.

That's entirely not a mistake on our part.

Autumn-Ferret said:
perhaps e6 could benefit from someone like myself.

You mean someone that reacted passive-aggressive to a warning, made 4 threads on the same issue (then called out admins in two of them), reacts incredibly poorly to being chastised, and paints themselves as a victim in public for forgetting to do something they should have done?

No, no we would not benefit from someone like that.

NotMeNotYou said:
We can't search dmails of other users,

huh. well I suppose that does poke a pretty big hole in my idea. I guess I always assumed the admins worked as some kind of hive mind. or at the very least were able to see literally everything without restriction, dmails hidden comments, ect...

Autumn-Ferret said:
huh. well I suppose that does poke a pretty big hole in my idea. I guess I always assumed the admins worked as some kind of hive mind. or at the very least were able to see literally everything without restriction, dmails hidden comments, ect...

No, dmails are private. We can grab them from the database, but that requires developer access and is only done if we have to hand over something to authorities.
We only had to do that about 4 or 5 times since I've been a moderator.

This thread is certainly interesting

Autumn-Ferret said:
lets not argue semantics here. call it whatever you want.

I argue it because the words you use matter. saying that *we* fucked up means that you believe we were in the wrong. *I* don't believe you were in the wrong, just made a small oversight. and saying that we were in the wrong basically .. well, it's disenhearteneing for one, but more than that, it jusit looks bad. Like I said, a lot of people are looking for any reason to explode into a rabid froth at the slightest reason... and that kind thing could be fuel to a fire.

I mean. .. I'm married. Love my husband dearly, but one thing we've learned is that word choice is very important. 2-3 times a week one of us has to pause and confirm "when you say X... what you're meaning is blah blah blah, right?" because sometimes "whatever" doesn't mean whatever, and sometimes "In a bit" means "soon, please" and some times it doesn't. and some times "I"m fine" means it isn't.

But, let's not argue about it. I've said my piece on why I think different words would be better to use there, it's up to you want words you wanna use in the future :)

but of course.....

https://youtu.be/7wGr3-je9B0?t=13[/quote]

perfect :D

I'm not saying you should wait for a reply and then give them a record based on their response. I'm saying you message them as a warning in place of giving them a record.

Y'know, once upon a time, we only had negative records and positive ones. The result was we let a lot of people get away with a lot more problematic behavior, or gave out more negatives. We implemented neutral records so that we could give people a gentle "hey, watch it" ... plus, it lets everyone know what other people have already said. No user should receive 3 different dmails all saying "Stop that" :P it's why it's a public record. (edit, Man, Nimmy said that better than I did. whoops. this is what I get for being a slowpoke)

*evily twirls mustache* extremely busy you say. sounds like you could use some assistance. perhaps I should become a janitor myself. that was my original plan when I joined e6 after all. perhaps e6 could benefit from someone like myself. someone more directly involved with the populace rather than sending little copy and paste messages to people when the screw up. a more personal approach to discipline and certainly without the condescending attitude that seems to accompany every interaction with the current higher ups...

We've got rules to follow too, friend. Even more so in ways because if we fuck up, it looks bad on all of us, y'know?

Also, I didn't think I sounded particularly condescending. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I try to be friendly and approachable whenever possible. :(

yes... perhaps I should make this my mission...

Stranger things have happened. Here's your roadmap to success: Do the best you can everything you do on e6. Post pictures, tag posts, give feedback on tag discussions, clean up. Be proactive. Report rule breakers... be a shining star and a joy to be around and maybe one day it'll happen :)

SnowWolf said:
Also, I didn't think I sounded particularly condescending. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I try to be friendly and approachable whenever possible. :(

I didn't mean you... you're probably the nicest person I've met here. I literally thought to myself as I read your original reply "now here's someone I can relate to and really understand where they're coming from."