Greetings!

Yet another CoC update for you all to enjoy, though this time it's a lot more incremental than the last one. Without further ado here's the general changes.

Introduction

• Clarified that moderator actions can be appealed by contacting an admin
• Minor wording changes

Messages – Private and Public

• Streamlined and simplified the wording of several rules by removing unnecessary lists of examples.
• Clarified some wording regarding rules against harmful medical or legal advice
• Specified that any attempts to contact someone who had indicated that they do not wish to talk to you constitutes harassment, not just repeated ones.
• Specified that purposeful misgendering is always against the rules, not just in regards to other users or characters.

Posts and Tags

• Changed the requirement for minimum number of tags on upload from four to ten.
• Moved note vandalism into a separate rule.
• Added source abuse to the rule against tagging and rating abuse.
• Clarified that source links should normally be publicly available, and specified that using piracy sites as sources is against the rules.
• Added a rule on the handling of dead links.
• Specified that you are not allowed to claim ownership of other people's characters.

Abuse of Site Tools

• Clarified the wording of what we define as "site restrictions", and that none of them should be bypassed by creating an alt account.
• Clarified that you should not commit any actions on behalf of a banned user.

Extreme or Illegal Content

• Separated "Illegal Activities" and "Extreme Content" into different rules, as not all extreme content is universally illegal.
• Clarified that expressing or indicating any degree of attraction to real-life children or animals is against the rules.

As always we welcome all feedback.

While not directly an update to the Code of Conduct we have also raised the amount of versions for bases we allow to 10 versions total.

This includes the "base" version, so one base and 9 extra version for a total of 10 variants.

I will admit, I was shocked to see the tag limit change from 4 to 10 but overall I think it's a good change since when you think about it, it can make it easier for others to find new artwork.

Overall, it's a good change in my opinion.

As for: "Specified that any attempts to contact someone who had indicated that they do not wish to talk to you constitutes harassment, not just repeated ones.", I absolutely love this one cause not everyone will want to be bothered and if you are asked to stop communicating with someone, the general senses it to stop and if you continue it would be a form of harassment, which no one should have to deal with.

Hopefully my feedback is OK, this is my first time on giving feedback, but I don't mind being notified if some areas should be worked on.

notmenotyou said:
As always we welcome all feedback.

• 1) Under the new wording for 2.3 Note Abuse, "correcting spelling and grammatical mistakes in text" was given as an example for a valid note.

Is this an official stance from the mod team in regards to topic #39218? Will trivial note edits, such as correcting "dont" to "don't" or retyping entire dialogues due to it being in broken English, be considered acceptable and actively encouraged?

• 2) Under the new wording for 4.2 Extreme Activities or Content, specifically the line to "not discuss the details, morality, or attraction to such acts."

I understand that the previous wording pertains to discussions about real-life sexual interest or situations that involved children or animals.
However, the new wording now includes the addition of "towards any of the aforementioned subjects." I interpret this new change as in encompassing the subjects already mentioned, in addition to any discussion pertaining to animal genitalia and real-life violence.

Would comments on real-life animal sexual behaviour (e.g., topic #39554) or animal genitalia (e.g., topic #32465, topic #38404, topic #39307) be in violation of this rule?

notmenotyou said:
While not directly an update to the Code of Conduct we have also raised the amount of versions for bases we allow to 10 versions total.

This includes the "base" version, so one base and 9 extra version for a total of 10 variants.

Will I be able to appeal for the restoration of past deletions, due to "Excessive same base image set" when I had exceeded the allowed 4 variants?

Thank you for clarifying "Extreme or Illegal Content". The mention to not remove notes that are "Correcting spelling and grammatical mistakes in text" could be a controversial point, but I'll stay out of that.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Will I be able to appeal for the restoration of past deletions, due to "Excessive same base image set" when I had exceeded the allowed 4 variants?

Yes, you may appeal deleted posts in excess of the previous 4 variant (5 versions including the base) limit.

Changed the requirement for minimum number of tags on upload from four to ten.

I notice you specify this in the post, but the actual diff shows that the line was just removed with no replacement.

Do not upload content that was made when the artist was underage, even if they are of age now.

This one is interesting. When uploading an artist's entire gallery, am I going to have to spend my time worrying about figuring out their age and setting a cutoff point at which I shouldn't upload art beyond?

How much trouble will I get in if I accidentally upload a piece of artwork from 2011 that the artist just happened to be 17 years and 10 months old when they uploaded, even though they're now nearly 30?

faucet said:
I notice you specify this in the post, but the actual diff shows that the line was just removed with no replacement.

It was moved a little lower.
- Do not upload posts with fewer than ten general, non-implied tags.

faucet said:
This one is interesting. When uploading an artist's entire gallery, am I going to have to spend my time worrying about figuring out their age and setting a cutoff point at which I shouldn't upload art beyond?

How much trouble will I get in if I accidentally upload a piece of artwork from 2011 that the artist just happened to be 17 years and 10 months old when they uploaded, even though they're now nearly 30?

As long as you don't do it deliberately, you'll be fine.

The last time changes

notmenotyou said:
Clarified that expressing or indicating any degree of attraction to real-life children or animals is against the rules.

I brought this up last time and received an answer, but in the intervening time that answer was shown to not be correct.

The CoC says:

Do not upload or link to real-life material featuring animal genitalia or animals in sexual situations.
Do not express or indicate any degree of attraction to real-life minors or animals.
Do not link to any content featuring or referring to extreme real-life violence or violent sexual activities.
Do not discuss the details, morality, or attraction towards any of the aforementioned subjects.

The last time, I brought up the fact that, as it is worded here, the prohibition on discussing morality or attraction seems to imply that any discussion of those subjects, either positive or negative, would be prohibited under this rule. Which is to say, someone saying that that they believe the attraction to animals is not immoral would be punishable, and someone saying the attraction to animals is immoral would also be punishable.

I asked if my interpretation was correct, and the response I received said fairly clearly that yes, you wanted users to avoid all discussion of the morality of such attractions. However, in the time since then, it has become clear that the rule is not being applied in that way. Even when I reported individuals who brought up the subject out of nowhere in a way clearly commenting on attraction and morality (in a negative light), they were not punished, where those who did not actually directly discuss the subject were instead banned very casually.

As a result, it is clear what the intent of this rule is. The intent is to ban anyone from discussing attraction to animals in any sort of positive light, while allowing anyone who wishes to to discuss the subject in a negative light (as long as doing so doesn't violate other rules, such as refusal-to-blacklist or whatever else).

Additionally, users have been banned for discussing the subject on other sites, or under other names, which are not linked to their e621 account. This seems to be unique among rules. I have not seen any other rule applied in such a way as it bans people for off-site behavior. This is a substantial difference, and yet is not specified anywhere in the rule or anywhere else in the CoC.

As a result, I suggest that either admins and moderators should be given additional guidance to bring their actions in line with the CoC, or the CoC should be updated to reflect the actual way in which these rules are being applied. Or, of course, we could revert back to previous policies which seemed to cause far fewer problems, but I doubt that is in the cards. Either way, the current combination of rules as written and rules as applied is sort of a "worst of all worlds" situation.

i like all the new changes and everything, glad that the new clarifications viewing in a angle as a very new user who doesn't know about the website is very... well.. clarified as some of new users i either encountered here and some friends have been a bit confused, somethings in the new CoC i feel like it could be tweaked a bit more but that can wait for a future where the tweaking will be needed
the only thing i feel like its a bit of stretch is for the minimal requirement of tags being 10 now, it could have a message to be "recommended to at least have 10 tags" while the actual minimal requirement could be either 6 to 8, there are times that posts doesn't contain that much information, an example being cover pages or comic pages that doesn't contain as much information

Do not upload content that was made when the artist was underage, even if they are of age now.

This is utterly ridiculous.
Nobody in their right mind should have to spend time figuring out how old an artist was when they created a piece.
And even less so if their artwork contains provocative and/or explicit content.

clawdragons said:
The last time changes

I brought this up last time and received an answer, but in the intervening time that answer was shown to not be correct.

The CoC says:

The last time, I brought up the fact that, as it is worded here, the prohibition on discussing morality or attraction seems to imply that any discussion of those subjects, either positive or negative, would be prohibited under this rule. Which is to say, someone saying that that they believe the attraction to animals is not immoral would be punishable, and someone saying the attraction to animals is immoral would also be punishable.

I asked if my interpretation was correct, and the response I received said fairly clearly that yes, you wanted users to avoid all discussion of the morality of such attractions. However, in the time since then, it has become clear that the rule is not being applied in that way. Even when I reported individuals who brought up the subject out of nowhere in a way clearly commenting on attraction and morality (in a negative light), they were not punished, where those who did not actually directly discuss the subject were instead banned very casually.

As a result, it is clear what the intent of this rule is. The intent is to ban anyone from discussing attraction to animals in any sort of positive light, while allowing anyone who wishes to to discuss the subject in a negative light (as long as doing so doesn't violate other rules, such as refusal-to-blacklist or whatever else).

Additionally, users have been banned for discussing the subject on other sites, or under other names, which are not linked to their e621 account. This seems to be unique among rules. I have not seen any other rule applied in such a way as it bans people for off-site behavior. This is a substantial difference, and yet is not specified anywhere in the rule or anywhere else in the CoC.

As a result, I suggest that either admins and moderators should be given additional guidance to bring their actions in line with the CoC, or the CoC should be updated to reflect the actual way in which these rules are being applied. Or, of course, we could revert back to previous policies which seemed to cause far fewer problems, but I doubt that is in the cards. Either way, the current combination of rules as written and rules as applied is sort of a "worst of all worlds" situation.

We could try to spiffy it up to make it more clear but there is literally no point. It's very clear the intent of the rule is to prohibit discussions of zoophilia. We may be harsher on comments that glorify it, but we honestly just don't want any part of the conversation here.

As for your tickets, there are only two that are younger than 2 years. One was dismissed, the other was acted upon by yours truly. I would hardly call that a trend.

cinder said:
It was moved a little lower.
- Do not upload posts with fewer than ten general, non-implied tags.

I see it now, those diffs hurt my eyes :(

faucet said:
I see it now, those diffs hurt my eyes :(

Here's a marginally better one that we've been using.
https://etc.cnd.pet/cocdiff/3-7.html

e6's diffs are... something else alright.

lilyanida said:
the only thing i feel like its a bit of stretch is for the minimal requirement of tags being 10 now, it could have a message to be "recommended to at least have 10 tags" while the actual minimal requirement could be either 6 to 8, there are times that posts doesn't contain that much information, an example being cover pages or comic pages that doesn't contain as much information

If you read the actual rules, they say this:

• Do not upload posts with fewer than ten general, non-implied tags.
• This restriction will be eased if the post does not have ten distinct tags that are reasonably applicable to it.

We are not going to punish you if there weren't ten reasonable tags you could have added to the post.

Oh god I'm not looking forward to three YCHes taking up an entire page.

Do not upload content that was made when the artist was underage, even if they are of age now.

was this a change in policy or just a change in the wording? because when I reported art made by a minor who is now an adult a few years ago and it got denied.

sipothac said:
was this a change in policy or just a change in the wording? because when I reported art made by a minor who is now an adult a few years ago and it got denied.

Wording. From a small internal discussion, it was said that artwork that was made by minors regardless of their current age is not allowed, and has not been allowed. It's only been clarified now.

sipothac said:
was this a change in policy or just a change in the wording? because when I reported art made by a minor who is now an adult a few years ago and it got denied.

I see zero reports or flags from your account. Art made by minors has always been deleted.

donovan_dmc said:
Wording. From a small internal discussion, it was said that artwork that was made by minors regardless of their current age is not allowed, and has not been allowed. It's only been clarified now.

Piggybacking off of that, what’s the policy on voice actors in animated art? Or rather: if one has evidence that voice actor/actress was underage during their work in a post, what is the policy? Is there not a difference depending on the rating of the post?

sipothac said:
was this a change in policy or just a change in the wording? because when I reported art made by a minor who is now an adult a few years ago and it got denied.

Yes, this seems like a rather significant change. Previously it was we couldn't upload a minor's art because they couldn't use the site to issue a takedown, and we could upload their art as long as they're of age now since they can. If we're not allowed to post someone's art they made when they were a minor despite being an adult now, even completely SFW images, that puts a notable restriction on what can be uploaded that wasn't there before (and somewhat concerning since it's often not clear how old someone may have been when they made an image, despite knowing they're an adult now; if we see a hint they may have been under 18 for a given image, how diligent/nosy do we need to be to find out? comics that someone may have started when under 18 but are still making it now in their late 20s or early 30s would have to have the beginning pages deleted?).

rainbow_dash said:
I see zero reports or flags from your account. Art made by minors has always been deleted.

oh, sorry this is an alt, I have two accounts for custom CSS reasons.

it was ticket #98478

edit:hmm, I think when I made that ticket there was still some source remnants of when exactly the art was created, he changed his name a bit after turning 18, so, at this point it's probably best to just purge all of the stuff under the old name.

checkup said:
This is utterly ridiculous.
Nobody in their right mind should have to spend time figuring out how old an artist was when they created a piece.
And even less so if their artwork contains provocative and/or explicit content.

This has already been answered: https://e621.net/forum_topics/40585?page=1#forum_post_377824

In summary, the rule puts into writing existing policy that art made while an artist was underage will be deleted. If you accidentally post art made by someone who was underage, the post will be deleted, but you will not receive a record.

Clarified that moderator actions can be appealed by contacting an admin

Can there also be some clarification on how to contact an admin? Is it done by sending eg. Rainbow Dash a private message out of the blue, or is there some 'Contact Admin' link buried somewhere that I've been unable to find and thus gave up on contesting a recent strike against my account out of fear that I'd just receive another strike for contacting an admin directly?

calydor said:

Clarified that moderator actions can be appealed by contacting an admin

Can there also be some clarification on how to contact an admin? Is it done by sending eg. Rainbow Dash a private message out of the blue, or is there some 'Contact Admin' link buried somewhere that I've been unable to find and thus gave up on contesting a recent strike against my account out of fear that I'd just receive another strike for contacting an admin directly?

Well, the easiest way to deal with that record would be to report the DMail you received when the record was applied to your account.
An admin would review it, and remove it if necessary.

If you just want to ask a question, just sending a DMail directly to an admin is okay too.
I would recommend picking one of the three listed under "Record Decay" here, as others are either busy with other things or inactive.

donovan_dmc said:
Wording. From a small internal discussion, it was said that artwork that was made by minors regardless of their current age is not allowed, and has not been allowed. It's only been clarified now.

Requiring users to doxx artists before archiving their galleries seems like a really poorly thought through idea.

What if an artist was underage when they produced a (for the sake of argument let's say safe for work) piece, then they re-upload it while of age?

wat8548 said:
Requiring users to doxx artists before archiving their galleries seems like a really poorly thought through idea.

Literally no one is saying to do that, and we already explained that we aren't going to punish those who didn't know. You are overthinking it. When we discover it, we must delete it.

wat8548 said:
Requiring users to doxx artists before archiving their galleries seems like a really poorly thought through idea.

looking at someone's profile for their age is not doxing lol

oldfashionedhurgus said:
looking at someone's profile for their age is not doxing lol

Assuming they have their age in their profile. But if we only know, for example, someone is in their early 30s, and they say they made some image(s) about 15 years ago, that would suggest they could have been made when they were underage, or maybe not, depending on their exact age and what they mean by "about 15". How far deep do we need to look into it, to find information they may or may not intend to be public, or do we just go with willful ignorance?

But even if they do, say they list their age as 21, and they say they made some images 3 years ago. That could very well make them 17 when they made the images depending on when exactly their birthday is in relation to the time of year they made the images. Do we need to go snooping for info they may or may not intend to be public, or is willful ignorance in the face of potential evidence okay?

Or if we know they made art the same year they turned 18, do we give more credence to them having been underage when they made it if their birth month is December instead of January?

watsit said:
How far deep do we need to look into it, to find information they may or may not intend to be public, or do we just go with willful ignorance?

Did this thread contain a memetic agent that caused people to start being deliberately dense?
Or maybe it's something in the water. Hell, an ancient demonic curse is an option.

You were already told that none of this is true, why are you psyching yourself up to be mad about it?
This policy had already been in effect – it was just internal, since it wasn't that big of a deal and barely affected any posts.

cinder said:
You were already told that none of this is true, why are you psyching yourself up to be mad about it?

Where? All you said earlier was

cinder said:
As long as you don't do it deliberately, you'll be fine.

If you have reason to suspect someone may have been underage for a particular image and post it anyway, isn't that deliberate?

Either way, I'm not mad. Just concerned, since I like to avoid getting in trouble.

Specified that purposeful misgendering is always against the rules, not just in regards to other users or characters.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any talk about this yet.

somerandomvoir said:

I'm surprised there hasn't been any talk about this yet.

what is there to say? just don't be a transphobic ass (not to accuse anyone, just a general statement)

I don't think asking for set-in-stone boundaries and expectations is being "deliberately dense". Beyond that, when alterations to guidelines, rules, or other such terms and regulations are made you must, must, always try to approach them from the least charitable standpoint when considering end user perception of them. What seems like it should be obvious, may not be, or in the case of language barriers, may be easily misread. Users are not asking questions out of malice, or stupidity, they are seeking clarity. You do not need to be hostile, asking questions, no matter how stupid they may seem to you, helps users understand these guidelines better. If it is proving to be irritating, take a step back, take a breather, and let another answer inquiries that you do not wish to for a while.

votp said:
I don't think asking for set-in-stone boundaries and expectations is being "deliberately dense".

Would adding the words "knowingly or repeatedly" to that line help?
It seemed redundant after the line right above it.

The policy is the same as it had always been towards content made by underaged artists.
If you know that an artist is a minor, don't post their work. If you know that the artist was a minor when the artwork was created, don't post it. It's really as simple as that.
The part about "repeatedly" is there to curb people who claim that they didn't know about the artist being a minor, despite stumbling into that very same situation over and over and over again.

Again, it's an incredibly fringe case. This part of the rule was barely even applied, I only remember a couple of cases where people got records for this stuff.
Only like 3k posts were deleted for either being made by underaged artists or having minors as character owners: delreason:*underage*, out of millions.

Why this is causing such an uproar I do not understand.
Which part of that are y'all not getting?

thanks for the misgendering rule, im in the middle of making a yiffsona and he's a trans guy like me and i don't want him getting called a "she" or an "it" or something. thank u again

cinder said:
Why this is causing such an uproar I do not understand.
Which part of that are y'all not getting?

Because it is a pretty significant change. This isn't how the policy used to be, clearly evidenced by ticket #98478, and isn't how a number of us understood it. It used to be clear, if the artist is 18 or older now it's okay as long as it meets the uploading guidelines and they aren't DNP, but now there's a whole bunch of questions and gray areas to contend with (if they started a piece as 17, finished it at 18, is that good or not?), especially for new young skilled artists as they reach adulthood.

I'm really not trying to be antagonistic toward this, but it leaves me with a lot of questions on what's acceptable. Sure, I may not get a record for posting someone's art they made when they were 16 and I didn't know, but that comes across as an excuse on my part if I could've been more careful. If I remember someone saying they don't like their art being reposted, I won't post it here even when they're not on the DNP list (which I technically could). I'll even look at their socials to see if they have a "do not repost" statement in their bio, and also check if they've had art taken down from here previously with a clear "I don't want my work reposted" reason despite not being given DNP status. So with a rule like this, if I see something suggesting an artist was under 18 for a particular piece I'll be really hesitant to post it, even if technically I won't get a record because I didn't know for sure.

Man I dunno what world I got transported into where questions are "uproar", this reaction to questions/criticism to policy changes from the staff is giving me Aurali flashbacks.

faucet said:
Man I dunno what world I got transported into where questions are "uproar", this reaction to questions/criticism to policy changes from the staff is giving me Aurali flashbacks.

Ouch. But you are right. Sorry about that.
I'll let someone else take over the questions on this subject from now on.

cinder said:
The policy is the same as it had always been towards content made by underaged artists.
If you know that an artist is a minor, don't post their work. If you know that the artist was a minor when the artwork was created, don't post it. It's really as simple as that.

You've already been presented with proof that this statement is untrue.

Millcore said, 2 years ago:
Little late to report the artist as a minor when they aren't a minor

cinder said:
Why this is causing such an uproar I do not understand.
Which part of that are y'all not getting?

It was previously perfectly clear both exactly in which situations this rule applied, and the practical reasons why it applied (currently underage people cannot access the site, therefore cannot issue takedowns). You have now chosen to upend both of these principles, and are mysteriously denying that you have done so.

People have many legitimate reasons not to make their exact date of birth public, up to and including "it's none of your business". Finding out whether they are an adult right now, as well as being a lot more justifiable, is much more likely to be information voluntarily given for practical reasons (access to other artists without getting blocked). Yes, they could be lying, but that could equally be lying about their birthday (and are more likely to). We can deal with that on a case-by-case basis, just as we already are.

The funniest part is that this isn't even the first time the staff have lied about this rule specifically. The main rule, against uploading works by currently underage artists (or featuring characters with underage owners), was not added to the CoC until March of this year, despite being enforced for some years before that. If you got sanctioned by it, you could legitimately claim ignorance as an excuse, since literally nothing on the site told you it was banned.

EDIT: BTW, to go with sipothac's example, I'm pretty sure I've found the first ever example of the rule being enforced as newly written:

ticket #133439

Six days ago.

I'm fully in support of having as many cases of what is essentially child porn (by method of it being porn created by a child) removed from the site as possible.

I don't get why this would be a contentious rule.

screamoshaymin said:
what is there to say? just don't be a transphobic ass (not to accuse anyone, just a general statement)

Well firstly, misgendering doesn't only apply to trans it can be applied to anyone, secondly, this is a website that takes it's tagging very seriously and logically. It doesn't matter if a character is feminine or masculine, goes by different pronouns, or simply doesn't identify with their actual sex, if they have specific parts, they're labeled accordingly. I understand this sites efforts to make this a more inclusive place, however, rules like these not only feel unnecessary, but are made to purposely protect a certain kind of people only, as well as go against people that do not wish to participate with this.

I am entirely for rules against harassment, no one should be attacked or targeted by other people, however it feels just as wrong to force people to comply to something they do not believe in, in a context such as this. If someone can have the freedom to identify as whatever they like, then the freedom to acknowledge or refuse this identity should be equally as free. If you think they are wrong, then that's entirely valid, however forcibly silencing them for it feels unfair.

sipothac said:
I don't get why this would be a contentious rule.

It's not just adult work, but any art that was made when someone was under 18 regardless of how old they are now.

post #29637 and post #29649 for example need to be deleted¹, along with any other earlier pages of the comic, since it was published in 2003 and Tom lists his birthday as 1987, making him 15 or 16 at the time of actually making the pages (and 36 now).

¹ Maybe? I actually know that these earliest pages were redone or touched up after the comic started getting a following. I don't know if the date on the comic site is for the original page or the redone one, and if the former, how old he was when they were updated. The very earliest pages were redone, and later ones only got a touch up. It's all very confusing and unclear what runs afoul of the rule or not.

somerandomvoir said: ...

Think about it like this.

Deliberately referring to someone in a way that they dislike is pretty rude.
We would prefer if you weren't being deliberately rude to others on this site. It's not really any different than if you insisted on calling someone by the name they disliked.
And if you have a problem with that, it does not take a lot for you to just... not say anything if you end up in a situation like that.

Tags do not factor into this at all. They are used to run the search engine, and pretty much nothing else.
I wish we had a better name for "gender tags", because they are not describing gender at all. They describe physical appearance.
The only reason they aren't being referred to as "sex tags" is because that would create more confusion regarding tags that describe sexual activities.
Let's just call it a limitation of the english language and leave it at that.

wat8548 said:
EDIT: BTW, to go with sipothac's example, I'm pretty sure I've found the first ever example of the rule being enforced as newly written:

ticket #133439

Six days ago.

~smrtka769 ~negaposi ~kingcreep105 ~tuckerboo_(artist) ~pupto delreason:*time* the earliest explicit example I can find of of the rule being enforced is post #3115462, 7 months ago. that is, with the "time of creatuon" deletion reason, at least, there might be other examples but if there were it'll be hard to find.

sipothac said:
I'm fully in support of having as many cases of what is essentially child porn (by method of it being porn created by a child) removed from the site as possible.

I don't get why this would be a contentious rule.

For starters it's not just NSFW artwork and there's also a big difference between a literal child and someone who's a few months away from being an adult.

But I think the big problem here is that we don't understand why the rule is there in the first place. I get not wanting to have something SFW created by an actual child on a site that has lots of adult material. I also get not wanting to host images by someone who isn't even allowed to view the page per the TOS. But I don't understand why works created by a now-adult artist must be off limits forever. Maybe a mod can clarify?

Just indulging in hypotheticals, but how would art uploaded by the artist when they were a minor be handled? They can't claim ignorance since they probably know when they made the artwork.

cinder said:
Think about it like this.

Deliberately referring to someone in a way that they dislike is pretty rude.
We would prefer if you weren't being deliberately rude to others on this site. It's not really any different than if you insisted on calling someone by the name they disliked.
And if you have a problem with that, it does not take a lot for you to just... not say anything if you end up in a situation like that.

Tags do not factor into this at all. They are used to run the search engine, and pretty much nothing else.
I wish we had a better name for "gender tags", because they are not describing gender at all. They describe physical appearance.
The only reason they aren't being referred to as "sex tags" is because that would create more confusion regarding tags that describe sexual activities.
Let's just call it a limitation of the english language and leave it at that.

If I were referring to someone by something that didn't at all describe them, or worse, purposely insults them such as calling them names, then I wholly agree. However, I disagree with the notion that calling someone by their actual names and actual genders is rude. If you preferred to be called something else, then that's entirely fine, everyone is entitled to have their own preferences, where I have a problem with it is forcing others to comply with that preference. As for your solution, that actually proves a prevalent point that this rule is primarily to silence people that do not comply with these preferences, which treads onto the rights of individuals ability to speak freely. It takes just as much effort to not make this a bigger issue than it actually is, it only takes one letter to violate this rule and that feels rather ridiculous.
I understand that some people are offended by such things, but adding rules to stop people from being offended only limits freedom and may even offend other people, either leading to dissatisfaction or a cycle of rules being added over and over again.

Can we make the gender field a must have when upload? Could avoiding a lot blacklist failure based on gender

watchdog22 said:
Can we make the gender field a must have when upload? Could avoiding a lot blacklist failure based on gender

There are occasions where zero_pictured is valid, so wouldn't have any of the tags.

somerandomvoir said:
If I were referring to someone by something that didn't at all describe them, or worse, purposely insults them such as calling them names, then I wholly agree. However, I disagree with the notion that calling someone by their actual names and actual genders is rude. If you preferred to be called something else, then that's entirely fine, everyone is entitled to have their own preferences, where I have a problem with it is forcing others to comply with that preference. As for your solution, that actually proves a prevalent point that this rule is primarily to silence people that do not comply with these preferences, which treads onto the rights of individuals ability to speak freely. It takes just as much effort to not make this a bigger issue than it actually is, it only takes one letter to violate this rule and that feels rather ridiculous.
I understand that some people are offended by such things, but adding rules to stop people from being offended only limits freedom and may even offend other people, either leading to dissatisfaction or a cycle of rules being added over and over again.

I'm gonna go ahead and stop you right there. You seem to be confusing freedom with being able to say whatever you want despite who it hurts. Your "freedom of speech" does not override the fact that this is private property and you agreed to our terms of service by being here. Our rules prohibit you from misgendering people. If it's too much for you to be considerate of others gender and identity, then you can leave. If this stance offends those "other people", they can leave too, or be shown out.

watsit said:
There are occasions where zero_pictured is valid, so wouldn't have any of the tags.

Could be a chained option to omit this requirement when 0 characters was selected

xipeho said:
For starters it's not just NSFW artwork and there's also a big difference between a literal child and someone who's a few months away from being an adult.

But I think the big problem here is that we don't understand why the rule is there in the first place. I get not wanting to have something SFW created by an actual child on a site that has lots of adult material. I also get not wanting to host images by someone who isn't even allowed to view the page per the TOS. But I don't understand why works created by a now-adult artist must be off limits forever. Maybe a mod can clarify?

I agree. This rule is confusing and the reasoning is unclear. There's simply no easy way to verify how old someone was when they drew something. Anyway if the artist is an adult now, then what's the issue with posting something they made in the past?

watsit said:
There are occasions where zero_pictured is valid, so wouldn't have any of the tags.

could just add a none option to the gender field no?

iamaverypotato said:
could just add a none option to the gender field no?

or a option for how many characters there are, but that would be problematic with large orgy images

hjfduitloxtrds said:
I agree. This rule is confusing and the reasoning is unclear. There's simply no easy way to verify how old someone was when they drew something. Anyway if the artist is an adult now, then what's the issue with posting something they made in the past?

One of the moderators said that it's basically for legal reasons.

notmenotyou said:
While not directly an update to the Code of Conduct we have also raised the amount of versions for bases we allow to 10 versions total.

This includes the "base" version, so one base and 9 extra version for a total of 10 variants.

I've actually got 2 I need to upload, then. It was a series of 7, but I was kind of sure the rule limited it to 5.

Hmm, feature request: Diff on the rule changes (Are they supported with the Wiki's diff function?) And of course in reply: https://e621.net/wiki_page_versions/diff?otherpage=140444&thispage=130332 It is supported. I guess posting the diff link on announcements for those wanting exact changes is a modified feature request.

I was actually wondering why the UI implied 10 minimum tags (including general) was required. It makes it clear that even 20 tags is likely leaving out a lot of metadata on complex posts. I've had a very small number of posts where there simply wasn't anything else I thought made sense to tag. Making it a specific rule for 10 (if enough applicable) is logical if that was the intent. Thanks Cinder for making that obvious interpretation clear.

"* Do not indiscriminately downvote posts based on their content. You should blacklist the offending subject matter instead." Uhm, this seems not feasible? I mean, for unpopular content the thing people do now is deliberately downvote content they like, to mock the haters. Like, an ironic high (negative) score. I guess this is technically not using it as intended, meh.

thegreatwolfgang said:

• 1) Under the new wording for 2.3 Note Abuse, "correcting spelling and grammatical mistakes in text" was given as an example for a valid note.

Is this an official stance from the mod team in regards to topic #39218? Will trivial note edits, such as correcting "dont" to "don't" or retyping entire dialogues due to it being in broken English, be considered acceptable and actively encouraged?

You mean like that neigh-incomprehensible fluffy pony baby talk? Minor typos being corrected didn't seem harmful.
[/quote]

checkup said:
This is utterly ridiculous.
Nobody in their right mind should have to spend time figuring out how old an artist was when they created a piece.
And even less so if their artwork contains provocative and/or explicit content.

Given that sources go dead, how would I even be sure, most of the time? I have enough trouble sourcing years on posts with dead links. :( I guess doing it on purpose after being told not to? Doing it when it was mentioned to you seems feasible to enforce. I can't imagine it being very common but the descriptions on sources have caught up people breaking other rules. i.e. Artist says right in the source link's description to not put it on e621. That's pretty dumb, but saw a case like that a few months back. I've also seen false accusations that seem to be intended to try to get an artist unfairly banned. Even cursory examination shows said individual couldn't possibly have made that (earlier, rating:safe, we're talking a complex animation) art something like 10 years earlier while that much younger, not to mention they had birthday celebration mentioned on their wall. Even better, they kept spamming the exact same 'disclaimer' on invalid reports. Sigh... Again, already covered, nvm. XD

song said:
This has already been answered: https://e621.net/forum_topics/40585?page=1#forum_post_377824

In summary, the rule puts into writing existing policy that art made while an artist was underage will be deleted. If you accidentally post art made by someone who was underage, the post will be deleted, but you will not receive a record.

Right...

Some good questions there, actually, by Watsit and Wat8548: https://e621.net/forum_topics/40585?page=1#forum_post_377870 https://e621.net/forum_topics/40585?page=1#forum_post_377873
I thought the point was to keep minors off the site, and thus their work (for obvious takedown issues as well). Rating:safe stuff posted by the artist as an adult, is also a good question as to what happens.

sipothac said:
I don't get why this would be a contentious rule.

I'm imagining trying to enforce it retroactively, and in cases where there is literally no way to verify. Others had different issues with it.

xipeho said:
For starters it's not just NSFW artwork and there's also a big difference between a literal child and someone who's a few months away from being an adult.

But I think the big problem here is that we don't understand why the rule is there in the first place. I get not wanting to have something SFW created by an actual child on a site that has lots of adult material. I also get not wanting to host images by someone who isn't even allowed to view the page per the TOS. But I don't understand why works created by a now-adult artist must be off limits forever. Maybe a mod can clarify?

snpthecat said:
Just indulging in hypotheticals, but how would art uploaded by the artist when they were a minor be handled? They can't claim ignorance since they probably know when they made the artwork.

Yeah, this part is why I'm confused. It feels like a huge change in practice, if it works that way. If Tom posts his own work (Twokinds) now that this rule is specifically forbidding it, then he could get banned?

watchdog22 said:
Can we make the gender field a must have when upload? Could avoiding a lot blacklist failure based on gender

I thought for explicit images it already was? Like bodily fluids, cub, feces, gore, human, penis, etc. tags? Hmm, I believe I had a link to a list of mandatory tags. I make damn sure to get all those when posting, but mistakes can happen. If it really goes wrong, you get non-explicit rating accidentally added to a post with balls. :(

hjfduitloxtrds said:
I agree. This rule is confusing and the reasoning is unclear. There's simply no easy way to verify how old someone was when they drew something. Anyway if the artist is an adult now, then what's the issue with posting something they made in the past?

it's not really any more difficult to know how old someone was in the past as it is to know how old someone is now. if anything the more time someone's been online, the more likely they are to have stated their current age and, potentially, birthday.

sipothac said:
it's not really any more difficult to know how old someone was in the past as it is to know how old someone is now. if anything the more time someone's been online, the more likely they are to have stated their current age and, potentially, birthday.

the source of an artwork usually states when it was posted rather than when it was made, therefore it is impossible to tell how old the artist was when they made the art.

hjfduitloxtrds said:
the source of an artwork usually states when it was posted rather than when it was made, therefore it is impossible to tell how old the artist was when they made the art.

well, if the art was posted before the artist was 18 it was certainly created before they were 18.

Whoa, minimum tags four to ten.

I did an upload for the first time in a while, and was surprised at how complex the upload page is now. I'm pretty familiar with the system, so it wasn't a problem for me, but are new users dumped in the deep end? Is there an onboarding flow, or is it assumed that the supermajority of e621 users won't upload anything? Danbooru seems to be moving in the direction of a neural net autotagger...

I won't apologize for tagging a cub character as cub because certain lore to the character is ignored, I will continue to fight against yuppie tyranny from a site that's owned by a company that sells sub-par products and carcinogenic lube.

sipothac said:
well, if the art was posted before the artist was 18 it was certainly created before they were 18.

Well I'm just saying someone could create something when they're 16, then just not upload it anywhere until they're 18, then how do I know it wasn't created when they are 18 rather than 16 for example? Why is it even relevant how old they were when the artwork was created, if they are over 18 when it is posted?

salebrous said:
Whoa, minimum tags four to ten.

I did an upload for the first time in a while, and was surprised at how complex the upload page is now. I'm pretty familiar with the system, so it wasn't a problem for me, but are new users dumped in the deep end? Is there an onboarding flow, or is it assumed that the supermajority of e621 users won't upload anything? Danbooru seems to be moving in the direction of a neural net autotagger...

Wasn't the new system meant to make it easier by highlighting whatever needs to be added? I've started uploading recently and I didn't have any problems with the upload page, but I have no reference to compare to.

Alright so I’ve been tasked with handling this one, so here I am…! Everyone’s favorite lizard-mod here to attempt to explain things

Alright, so the main thing for you all to understand here is that this rule is handled on a “what we don’t know can’t hurt us” policy. That is, we are not going to, nor do we expect our uploaders to verify the age of every artist and cross-reference that with the upload date of the post. We will only delete artwork when we know for sure that it was created by someone who was a minor at the time of creation. If there’s no solid proof, don’t worry about it. We can’t be held liable for that kind of information if it is not readily available, and we won’t hold you liable for it either. You won’t get in any trouble for unknowingly uploading something that was made by a minor. The only “punishment” you might face would be a deletion, but you won’t get in trouble unless it is clear to us that you were doing it knowingly or deliberately. We’re also not going to go out of our way to vet every artist here. That’s not even logistically possible with what resources we have. Essentially, if we don’t know the age of the artist at the time of creation, we’re going to leave it alone. Only if that information is readily available, or if someone presents us with proof, will we actually do anything about it.

Regarding the twokinds situation, posts that have been remade by the artist as an adult are fine. We only care if the finished product was made by a minor, but an artist fixing up their old work as an adult isn’t really a problem for us. At that point, it’s essentially just new artwork made by an adult.

Regarding ticket #98478, I will point out that this does not reflect the official position on the subject. Millcore frequently handled things in a way that goes against official policy, so as a general rule of thumb, do not take anything she said or did as an admin as official staff policy.

As for the takedowns issue regarding underage artists, this is an additional issue with hosting work made by minors, but it is not the primary reason for this policy, and obviously doesn’t apply to people who are now adults. The reasoning for this policy is simply to avoid any potential legal gray areas as much as possible. This is a site with a lot of adult content, and minors and porn do not mix. Even if they are an adult now, we don’t want to potentially skirt any legal gray areas. Now, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I officially speak on behalf of Dragonfruit, but this is the reasoning for the policy to the best of my knowledge. Whether or not it is explicitly illegal to host content made by a once-minor is irrelevant. There are still laws in Arizona and the US in general around pornographic content involving minors that we would prefer to stay as far away from as possible. So, even if there are things that we would technically be allowed to host, we’re choosing not to because of that association. It may run up against legal gray areas that we don’t want to touch. Essentially, if it has anything to do with a minor (at the time of creation), we don’t want it. That way, we avoid potential legal issues entirely without having to get a lawyer to make sure we aren’t skirting any boundaries.

yellowrose said:
I won't apologize for tagging a cub character as cub because certain lore to the character is ignored, I will continue to fight against yuppie tyranny from a site that's owned by a company that sells sub-par products and carcinogenic lube.

whut

Mainly curious if yall intend on re-moderating any content uploaded prior to the change, and how much, if so.
I'm sure there's plenty of stuff here with less than 10 tags right now, lol.

rainbow_dash said:
We could try to spiffy it up to make it more clear but there is literally no point. It's very clear the intent of the rule is to prohibit discussions of zoophilia. We may be harsher on comments that glorify it, but we honestly just don't want any part of the conversation here.

Not wanting any part of that conversation here and not wanting that conversation to occur anywhere else on the Internet (and being willing to give records or bans to users over it) are two entirely different things. I tried to ask about that directly regarding those moderator actions and received what felt like a very pointed lack of response to both question and followup question.

If the CoC in general applies to offsite behavior, it should make that clear, perhaps in the introduction. If only that singular section applies to offsite behavior, that should likewise be made clear. Either way, having read through it multiple times just now, I don't know to what extent the CoC applies to offsite behavior. I find it unlikely that the entirety of it does, but obviously at least some parts do because it has been applied in that way more than once. Where's the cutoff point for that, and how would a user reading it know? I've read it multiple times now and it is not clear to me.

As a long-time user of e621 who at least sometimes looks through tickets and records to understand how moderation decisions are being made and what should and should not be reported, I think I can often make educated guesses on many subjects related to what should be reported. The fact that I am unsure about the reach of these policies despite that extra effort I try to put in to ensure understanding likely means that other users would also not understand these things.

clawdragons said:
Not wanting any part of that conversation here and not wanting that conversation to occur anywhere else on the Internet (and being willing to give records or bans to users over it) are two entirely different things. I tried to ask about that directly regarding those moderator actions and received what felt like a very pointed lack of response to both question and followup question.

If the CoC in general applies to offsite behavior, it should make that clear, perhaps in the introduction. If only that singular section applies to offsite behavior, that should likewise be made clear. Either way, having read through it multiple times just now, I don't know to what extent the CoC applies to offsite behavior. I find it unlikely that the entirety of it does, but obviously at least some parts do because it has been applied in that way more than once. Where's the cutoff point for that, and how would a user reading it know? I've read it multiple times now and it is not clear to me.

As a long-time user of e621 who at least sometimes looks through tickets and records to understand how moderation decisions are being made and what should and should not be reported, I think I can often make educated guesses on many subjects related to what should be reported. The fact that I am unsure about the reach of these policies despite that extra effort I try to put in to ensure understanding likely means that other users would also not understand these things.

How can the CoC apply to offsite content? I don't think e621 has jurisdiction over the whole internet, or parts thereof, which are not owned by or associated with the site itself.

hjfduitloxtrds said:
How can the CoC apply to offsite content? I don't think e621 has jurisdiction over the whole internet, or parts thereof, which are not owned by or associated with the site itself.

there have been cases where actions off-site have resulted in, generally this is in response to users who are known to have committed/shown interest in committing child grooming, zoophilia, targeted harassment/doxxing, or similar. just generally unsavoury individuals that aren't wanted on the site.

yellowrose said:
I won't apologize for tagging a cub character as cub because certain lore to the character is ignored, I will continue to fight against yuppie tyranny from a site that's owned by a company that sells sub-par products and carcinogenic lube.

All of this headache would be avoided if we just had cub_(lore) and child_(lore) tags. We have an adult_(lore) tag, don't see why we're making exceptions on what gets lore tags and what doesn't when that'd avoid further drama. Nevermind, you're talking about the exact opposite of what I'm saying. The adult_(lore) tag exists there for a reason still, if people have a problem with mistagging due to lore, they can add the adult_(lore) tag themselves.

TL;DR This post is about wanting optional displayed genders/pronouns on user bios, and to have it displayed in the users' header in the comments section.

What is the expected amount of work for someone to put in before commenting? I say this as someone who has been and continues to be afraid to comment based on how spontaneously bans seem to occur here, and not just on controversial topics.

Making an effort to have respect and courtesy is a given, even if it isn't always gotten. Is it reasonable to expect to look, for each account involved of a thread, for similar or matching profiles on this or other platforms as to identify them, and what information they prefer, before commenting? I think holding someone to that standard is unreasonable, but please state the expectation.

While "Purposeful misgendering is always against the rules", and it's nice to see it written so clearly, I've seen many users permabanned for what, on their records, is one infraction, and doesn't appear to be intentional. I don't have access to all the information on this site, nevermind others since that's also used to determine bans here, but what I do see repeated makes me afraid to post.

As someone with no gender, it's not obvious to me, ever. I known it's a fervent topic, and I WANT to be respectful and courteous without a rigorous opportunity cost. With this in mind, what's the lift and possibility of implementing an optional gender and/or pronouns field in users' bios, and letting it be displayed in comment headers after their name if populated? If feasible, I believe the 'obviousness' of it would be more obvious.

Nothing here is sarcasm, but said with respect. Thank you.

Since I'm finally under the living again let me chime in on a few things:

@hjfduitloxtrds @wat8548 @watsit: As scaliespe said US law has a wrinkle in it that criminalizes porn made by minors, but generally doesn't specify that it only covers real life porn. As such it stands to reason any art they produce that fails the Miller Test might also fall under that and that's possibly a problem for us if we knowingly host pieces like that.
With that in mind the decision has been made a good while ago that we will remove content created by minors from the site. This wording "created by minors" is especially important, because it covers things made while underage in perpetuity.

What does that mean for users? Not much. We will delete things as we find them and have proof it was made while the artist was a minor, but we will only hand out records for malice or criminal levels of negligence. In effect unless the artist directly states somewhere in the about section of the source, or the post itself, that they are underage we will not be giving out records. Other than that it would effectively need to be on the level of something like someone gets a commission together with a minor, posts that here, and we'll learn that they knew the other person was underage at the time, or learns about it later and keeps it under wraps instead of requesting the piece to be deleted. Or someone points it out in a comment here and the response from the uploader is trying to sweep it under the rug or respond some shit like 😉. The latter would earn two bans, one for clearly knowing what the fuck is going on and the other for making me read bottom.

But other than that, no, we don't expect anyone to dox artists, we don't expect anyone to know about every undisclosed private alt account of the artist, we don't expect anyone scroll through a thousands of tweets to maybe find a date. But if someone does do any of that and brings it to us, we'll delete the art. Nothing more, nothing less.

clawdragons said:
Not wanting any part of that conversation here and not wanting that conversation to occur anywhere else on the Internet (and being willing to give records or bans to users over it) are two entirely different things. I tried to ask about that directly regarding those moderator actions and received what felt like a very pointed lack of response to both question and followup question.

If the CoC in general applies to offsite behavior, it should make that clear, perhaps in the introduction. If only that singular section applies to offsite behavior, that should likewise be made clear. Either way, having read through it multiple times just now, I don't know to what extent the CoC applies to offsite behavior. I find it unlikely that the entirety of it does, but obviously at least some parts do because it has been applied in that way more than once. Where's the cutoff point for that, and how would a user reading it know? I've read it multiple times now and it is not clear to me.

As a long-time user of e621 who at least sometimes looks through tickets and records to understand how moderation decisions are being made and what should and should not be reported, I think I can often make educated guesses on many subjects related to what should be reported. The fact that I am unsure about the reach of these policies despite that extra effort I try to put in to ensure understanding likely means that other users would also not understand these things.

Off-site behavior only ever applies for egregious shit like arson, kidnappings, murder, abusing animals (including having a blog dedicated to sexually abusing your pet), that sort of thing.

watsit said:
It's not just adult work, but any art that was made when someone was under 18 regardless of how old they are now.

post #29637 and post #29649 for example need to be deleted¹, along with any other earlier pages of the comic, since it was published in 2003 and Tom lists his birthday as 1987, making him 15 or 16 at the time of actually making the pages (and 36 now).

¹ Maybe? I actually know that these earliest pages were redone or touched up after the comic started getting a following. I don't know if the date on the comic site is for the original page or the redone one, and if the former, how old he was when they were updated. The very earliest pages were redone, and later ones only got a touch up. It's all very confusing and unclear what runs afoul of the rule or not.

scaliespe said:
Regarding the twokinds situation, posts that have been remade by the artist as an adult are fine. We only care if the finished product was made by a minor, but an artist fixing up their old work as an adult isn’t really a problem for us. At that point, it’s essentially just new artwork made by an adult.

Speaking of the colored comic, is that still being discussed?

girlfreak said:
Mainly curious if yall intend on re-moderating any content uploaded prior to the change, and how much, if so.
I'm sure there's plenty of stuff here with less than 10 tags right now, lol.

Considering that minors and their content legally can't be on the site, it affects all content since grandfathering them in isn't exactly an option.

It's already mentioned in the CoC that they'll be lenient when adding the minimum amount of tags on a post is a challenge. Take this post for instance and just try coming up with 10 tags.

yellowrose said:
I won't apologize for tagging a cub character as cub because certain lore to the character is ignored, I will continue to fight against yuppie tyranny from a site that's owned by a company that sells sub-par products and carcinogenic lube.

what?