We have considered adding a new rule to the Code of Conduct as either a new entry or an addition to an existing entry. Here is our proposal, the pros and cons, and the explanation behind it.

The Rule

This new rule would make it a punishable offense to upload art without permission, if an artist calls a user out on never having been asked.

I will clarify it further as to avoid any confusion.

The Breakdown

This rule would only apply to new art posted on the site from obscure artists that have no previous posts on our site. That means that (although still recommended) you do not have to ask permission from well known artists that have an abundance of art on this site, as it is assumed by this point they are well aware of it and have not taken any action towards removing it.

This rule will also be applied similar to underage users, in that asking every user on every new post if they have sought permission will not be allowed. In other words, no witch hunts to try and find users that didn't ask permission. However, if you do find evidence that the user did not have permission and the artist more than likely is not okay with it, please report them like you would an underage user, with evidence on hand for further questioning.

Artists are allowed to report someone that did not have permission to upload their art, as it is their art after all and we want to make it known that we discourage users uploading without permission.

In terms of punishment, it would be the same as your standard first tier offenses (first offense, neutral, second offense, negative, third offense, 3 day ban, fourth offense, permanent ban)

Lastly, the suggested length of time that someone can expect to be punished is between two weeks (our normal time frame for holding users accountable), and two months (the artist might not find it in two weeks) after the user uploaded the art. We want to be fair to users and not reprimand them for something months down the road, but also want to be fair to the artists that might not get around to knowing their art is on our site for several days or even weeks in the case of a few new artists.

Expected Pro's and Con's

The good things we expect to happen

• Less take downs (artists will see we are working with them and being harder on people that don't ask)
• More users will ask permission which is always a good thing!
• Artists will feel a sense of justice on our site, instead of it being purely focused on art consumption, which will help our reputation

The bad things that might come as a result

• Users may be upset for being punished weeks after they uploaded something they found
• Some users may report others for posting without permission, when they have no evidence and that wastes our time

These expectations are not to be considered 100% accurate predictions of what will happen, but just our best judgement as to what we think may happen given past patterns and current rules

The Purpose

The purpose behind this rule is to hold users accountable for never asking artists to upload art, which leads to the art being taken down when the artist gets upset, and our general reputation to go down. We also want to be able to tell artists that we truly are doing everything we can reasonably do to ensure their art is not stolen and posted here. Many artists state that they would have given permission if asked, but don't want their art here because they often see the site as being a place where users are not held accountable for it in any way, and can just "steal art". While we have always urged users to seek permission, this rule would allow the administration to actually reprimand users for blatantly not doing it, and help change artists' opinion of us to a more welcoming site for them.

Debate Points

Before we let everyone tear this proposal apart with their opinions on it, we'll highlight the key parts we are focusing more on for feedback, but of course all constructive criticism is welcomed.

Please consider the following debate points

* The number of posts that can be here before an artist is no longer considered new and the rule not enforced (meaning zero, one, two, five? etc) A few examples might be, would we still punish a user if one piece of art was here years ago and nothing said? Or should it be zero posts, once one post is here, and stays for a few months, they are off the hook, permission assumed, so to speak

• Do you think the pros outweigh the cons? In other words, is it even worth doing?

• Do you agree with the punishment scale for this offense?

• What do you think the time frame for being held accountable for this should be? Is two weeks fair or not enough time to allow artists to find their work here and have us punish the user? Is two months fair or is it too long to hold someone accountable for just a post?

Opinions welcome, rants will be removed, and as always, stay classy e621!

My opinion on this is:

• I think it should be zero posts, meaning if there are no posts at all, then someone reported for not having permission will not be punished if at least one post was on the site beforehand. The question I know they'd ask would be "well did that person that have permission or get punished? No? then that's unfair" Which is rather true

• I think it's worth doing because we lose a lot of art because people never ask and it makes our site look like we are okay with art thieves, despite it being impossible to have verified permission from everyone

• I think since it's a relatively minor offense, this scale is appropriate; we don't want to discourage people just wanting to contribute too much

• I personally think two-three is about right. Anything under would make the rule pointless as we'd never catch anyone, while still allowing what I'd consider a reasonable amount of time for artists to be notified their art is on our site. Anything over three weeks sounds a bit unfair to the users to be punished that far down the line, and it really doesn't give artists much more than "justice"

Peekaboo said:
Sounds very good. I'm just worried about derpy artists, it's happened quite a few times to me that an artist have changed their mind about having their art reposted on here, and in some cases, denies ever giving permission in the first place. (Thank you jeebus and allah for dem screenshots). Just wondering what'll be the end result of an artist misleading about whether they said yes or not to having their art reposted.

If you have screen shots and an artist claims you never had permission, then I would not issue a record in that case as that is good evidence

I'm for it, but what about artists that just flat out don't respond? I've asked a few artists for permission and just never got a response. There's also the issue of a language barrier when dealing with foreign artists, and the fact that many uploads have no idea who the artist is.

Seems like someone could easily circumnavigate this rule by just adding the unknown_artist tag and claiming they found it on derpibooru, r34, or some other image base.

I'd kind of like it if evidence had to be presented upfront before uploading from an artist, so it's recorded with the admins that permission was given and an artist later can't say "I NEVER GAVE YOU PERMISSION :(((((((((((" when they're really just angry about somebody insulting their art or not recognising their character with fifty-five and a half penises as female.

Overall, seems like a good change. Would certainly improve the reputation of this site.

But I'm a bit worried that it might lead to some artists constantly being bothered for the upload permission. After all, there's no way of knowing if somebody else has already asked them..

Genjar said:
But I'm a bit worried that it might lead to some artists constantly being bothered for the upload permission. After all, there's no way of knowing if somebody else has already asked them..

I'd imagine if this rule happened, there'd be a list of who can be posted, and who can't.

Seven_Twenty said:
I'd imagine if this rule happened, there'd be a list of who can be posted, and who can't.

Hmm... kinda like a publicly accessible DNP list?

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
Hmm... kinda like a publicly accessible DNP list?

This could potentially be worthwhile thing to do for those that are actively posting regularly. We cant control everybody and who said what and all that good stuff, but a database of some sort stating that an artist allows posts on e621 would be most useful.

SirAntagonist said:
I'm for it, but what about artists that just flat out don't respond? I've asked a few artists for permission and just never got a response. There's also the issue of a language barrier when dealing with foreign artists, and the fact that many uploads have no idea who the artist is.

Seems like someone could easily circumnavigate this rule by just adding the unknown_artist tag and claiming they found it on derpibooru, r34, or some other image base.

Lack of knowledge, and lack of response do not override copyright, they shouldn't override a rule not to post without permission.

Genjar said:
Overall, seems like a good change. Would certainly improve the reputation of this site.

But I'm a bit worried that it might lead to some artists constantly being bothered for the upload permission. After all, there's no way of knowing if somebody else has already asked them..

My suggestion was that if there is one post that makes it here for more than the time this rule would be able to affect them, it is safe to assume they don't care or permission was given

Halite said:
Lack of knowledge, and lack of response do not override copyright, they shouldn't override a rule not to post without permission.

I know. The problem is that artists may not care if we post them here, but also may not care enough to respond.

And the lack of knowledge would probably just be used as an excuse. Or we could just punish via Ignorantia juris non excusat.

How do I ask for permission to, say "hukuro unagi", when I don't understand a word of japanese?

A set of templates in several languages would be useful.

Lizardite said:
How do I ask for permission to, say "hukuro unagi", when I don't understand a word of japanese?

A set of templates in several languages would be useful.

translate.google.com

SirAntagonist said:
I know. The problem is that artists may not care if we post them here, but also may not care enough to respond.

And the lack of knowledge would probably just be used as an excuse. Or we could just punish via Ignorantia juris non excusat.

No response means you didn't get permission.
That's kinda the definition of permission.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
translate.google.com

Sorry but the google translator is really a poor choice as most of the times the translated message makes no sense.

Fluttershy said:
Sorry but the google translator is really a poor choice as most of the times it the translated message makes no sense.

I actually use this when I work with Ali baba. It's not perfect, no, but it beats not having any idea.

In addition, it's what people who don't understand English when they send me tickets. It's not perfect, but it does work.

Lizardite said:
[...]A set of templates in several languages would be useful.

This could come in handy. I'm just limited to english and spanish, so this could be hard for me (not that I follow artists whose language is not in the ones mentioned before) and/or some of us.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
In addition, it's what people who don't understand English when they send me tickets. It's not perfect, but it does work.

Because most people know at least some basics in english since it's pretty known, but compare that to someone who tries to contact a japanese artist using the translator, would it be that hard to make a set of templates in different languajes? :S

What good is it to be the best-coded, most-reliable, easiest-to-use art site on all of the Internet, if literally everyone else ends up having more actual content than you because you are the one preserving your principles or pride or whatever the fuck by snapping your own spine while bending over backward to lick six thousand assholes simultaneously all belonging to artists with far more ego than common sense?

Sounds good

Users may be upset for being punished weeks after they uploaded something they found

I feel like the reporting comments rule should apply to this. If someone reports a bad comment but the comment was post a month ago, no action is taken. Same should apply for this new rule

Foobaria said:
What good is it to be the best-coded, most-reliable, easiest-to-use art site on all of the Internet, if literally everyone else ends up having more actual content than you because you are the one preserving your principles or pride or whatever the fuck by snapping your own spine while bending over backward to lick six thousand assholes simultaneously all belonging to artists with far more ego than common sense?

This is what I got from that quote: "Why are we doing what the artists want instead of what we want?" Correct me if I'm wrong

TheHuskyK9 said:
Sounds good

I feel like the reporting comments rule should apply to this. If someone reports a bad comment but the comment was post a month ago, no action is taken. Same should apply for this new rule

That's what we do, and it's two weeks, anything after that and we give verbal warnings

This is what I got from that quote: "Why are we doing what the artists want instead of what we want?" Correct me if I'm wrong

That's why I think two weeks is the most I'd want it to go, just enough so that frequent offenders that cause instant trouble get hit, but we aren't catering to artists by punishing users when we are already taking down their stuff

SirAntagonist said:
I'm for it, but what about artists that just flat out don't respond? I've asked a few artists for permission and just never got a response.

You can say that you at least tried.

Foobaria said:
What good is it to be the best-coded, most-reliable, easiest-to-use art site on all of the Internet, if literally everyone else ends up having more actual content than you because you are the one preserving your principles or pride or whatever the fuck by snapping your own spine while bending over backward to lick six thousand assholes simultaneously all belonging to artists with far more ego than common sense?

You do realize that most artists say "Yes" or "No" if they are asked and that this rule will (currently) always only hit the first person ever, basically the dude who breaks the seal, everybody after him will be spared.
And it was basically from the very beginning of char's reign in the guidelines, it's just pointless to say "We expect our users to ask, but we will never do anything if we have proof that they didn't", this is just hypocrisy, with that rule this will just set into stone and a handful of people will be held responsible.
I highly doubt that we're going to see many records that'll contain that rule.

TheHuskyK9 said:
This is what I got from that quote: "Why are we doing what the artists want instead of what we want?" Correct me if I'm wrong

Because at the end of the fay it is turtles all the way down, with the problem that the lowest turtle who is holding all other turtles up is also the artist, e621 without art would be quite worthless.

Also, this rule will likely only see use on new or otherwise unknown artists, at least if we keep the catch in there that any previous upload of them means we have permission.

Basic idea is good, but this can and WILL be abused by some artists and users alike. Especially with the time frame you want to allow.

Also apparently if you ask permission someone should screenshot it and hold it for a good while in case a hunt goes out on asking?

All just seems so over sweeping. Saving grace is that it's really just new artists I guess

CamKitty said:
Basic idea is good, but this can and WILL be abused by some artists and users alike. Especially with the time frame you want to allow.

Also apparently if you ask permission someone should screenshot it and hold it for a good while in case a hunt goes out on asking?

All just seems so over sweeping. Saving grace is that it's really just new artists I guess

That's why I suggest two weeks like everything else

Rainbow_Dash said:
That's why I suggest two weeks like everything else

If we go for a two weeks limitation, sounds fine to me. It was worrying me reading this for the possibility of a much wider range of abuse (and there are plenty of artists who will do such a thing, since artists are people too, and they can throw a hissy fit as well as the next person).

DasaDevil said:
This could potentially be worthwhile thing to do for those that are actively posting regularly. We cant control everybody and who said what and all that good stuff, but a database of some sort stating that an artist allows posts on e621 would be most useful.

This has been brought up more than a few times in the past. We are talking about a list of thousands upon thousands of artists. Who can change their minds at any time. Who would be in charge of asking? Would we ask artists who already have art on the site? And how would we confirm that they've given permission other than screencaps? It's just not feasible and would take too much time for too little payoff. Let's just stick with our policy of 'if they aren't DNP, assume it's fine'

ippiki_ookami said:
This has been brought up more than a few times in the past. We are talking about a list of thousands upon thousands of artists. Who can change their minds at any time. And how would we confirm that they've given permission other than screencaps? It's just not feasible and would take too much time for too little payoff.

Hmm that makes me think, about taking a screencap how do you know it's real, what if -it is/artists claims that is- photoshopped?

ippiki_ookami said:
This has been brought up more than a few times in the past. We are talking about a list of thousands upon thousands of artists. Who can change their minds at any time. Who would be in charge of asking? Would we ask artists who already have art on the site? And how would we confirm that they've given permission other than screencaps? It's just not feasible and would take too much time for too little payoff. Let's just stick with our policy of 'if they aren't DNP, assume it's fine'

+1 to this. "If it works, don't touch it".

What about old art?
I have a lot of old stuff on my HDs that I haven't got around to posting. In many cases, reverse image search turns up nothing and even if I can figure out who's the artist...the chances are that they've vanished off the net. So those can't be uploaded at all?

Seems consistent with this site's direction. Not too strict.

Might be worth considering a punishment for "repeat" offenses outside the immediate range too such as three artist complaints within three months per user. To be clear, one artist complaint within two weeks of posting (seems to be the suggested time) results in a punishment, AND three artist complaints within three months results in an equal punishment. I'm just thinking about the artists who are not aware that e621 even exists. For instance, a good new furry artist may start posting art just on their blog while remaining ignorant of the various art hosting websites. I doubt a punishment for this offense would actually occur, but it's something to keep in mind.

If you want to ratify the text in the OP, I would reword the following for clarity:

Lastly, the suggested length of time that someone can expect to be punished is between two weeks (our normal time frame for holding users accountable), and two months (the artist might not find it in two weeks) after the user uploaded the art.

My gripe is that the specified time could be mistaken for the duration of the punishment (even though that's mentioned immediately before). I'd use something like:

Lastly, a user who violates this rule once within two weeks of submitting art (our normal time frame for holding users accountable), or three times within three months (the artist might not find it in two weeks), will be punished.

For the CoC text, I also suggest encouraging or recommending users to keep a record of their artist permissions if called upon. Screenshots are easy with Windows's built-in Snipping Tool (Vista onward).

123easy said:
If we go for a two weeks limitation, sounds fine to me. It was worrying me reading this for the possibility of a much wider range of abuse (and there are plenty of artists who will do such a thing, since artists are people too, and they can throw a hissy fit as well as the next person).

The other side of the coin is that we have new people to the fandom who don't know about e621, will learn about it only later and then we have to tell them that we'll ignore this rule because they didn't know they had to check on here within 2 weeks, which is still a very big possibility as well.

But besides that, most places where you can ask either don't allow to retroactively destroy sent notes or have the possibility to CC the body of the note directly into your linked email account.

Also the reason why I'm still in favor of a rule to ignore any and all demands from somebody who is currently having a fit, they can come back once they are done behaving like a twat and requesting action again.

Genjar said:
What about old art?
I have a lot of old stuff on my HDs that I haven't got around to posting. In many cases, reverse image search turns up nothing and even if I can figure out who's the artist...the chances are that they've vanished off the net. So those can't be uploaded at all?

That is a good question as well, I don't think we should slap people when the thing in question is on the internet for over a year (or an other, shorter timeframe) because at that point tracing back the original artist can become anything from hard to impossible.

In that case I'd simply do a quick reverse image search and see if I would be able to dig the artist up, if I can't I'd simply tell him that we don't slap people for things they have no chance of discovering.

Genjar said:
What about old art?
I have a lot of old stuff on my HDs that I haven't got around to posting. In many cases, reverse image search turns up nothing and even if I can figure out who's the artist...the chances are that they've vanished off the net. So those can't be uploaded at all?

I would probably say that like anything, if the artist can not be found, or the art is old, they probably won't mind. What exactly is considered old art? Perhaps six months to a year

Rainbow_Dash said:
I would probably say that like anything, if the artist can not be found, or the art is old, they probably won't mind. What exactly is considered old art? Perhaps six months to a year

I'd say... anything older than three years. More recent than that, and it can still usually be sourced.

I was mostly talking about older stuff. I have been saving furry art off the usenet and internet since early 90s, and it's kind of tough to find sources for twenty years old art.

Genjar said:
I'd say... anything older than three years. More recent than that, and it can still usually be sourced.

I was mostly talking about older stuff. I have been saving furry art off the usenet and internet since early 90s, and it's kind of tough to find sources for twenty years old art.

I'd rather it be consolidated with paid art- two years before it can be posted freely. That keeps it simple and standardized.

If the artist's unknown, how can we reliably tell how old the art is?

Seven_Twenty said:
If the artist's unknown, how can we reliably tell how old the art is?

If it can be reverse image searched, it's not unknown, and age can be told. If it can't, then it is legitimately unknown, and no punishment.

I agree with both of the things 123easy has said, and will be making a note as to what we have all agreed on so far to make into a revision

Rainbow_Dash said:
This rule will also be applied similar to underage users, in that asking every user on every new post if they have sought permission will not be allowed. In other words, no witch hunts to try and find users that didn't ask permission. However, if you do find evidence that the user did not have permission and the artist more than likely is not okay with it, please report them like you would an underage user, with evidence on hand for further questioning.

People often post preview versions of images.
When I see this happening, I like to post the full version.

Can I assume that the original uploader asked for permission?

If not:
When I ask the artist for permission to upload the bigger version, should I also ask if the original uploader contacted them?
(I know that the uploader's username on e621 might not be the same as their username on whatever site the art was originally on, but it might be enough to ask the artist "Has someone already contacted you and asked if they can upload your pic to e621?")
Or would that count as a "witch hunt"?

Lizardite said:
How do I ask for permission to, say "hukuro unagi", when I don't understand a word of japanese?

A set of templates in several languages would be useful.

You'd still need to use machine translation to understand the reply, though.
And hope there's no misunderstanding :)

What I like about this new rule:
If people don't source their posts, and I can find the source in 5 seconds, that's pretty much proof they didn't ask for permission.

Munkelzahn said:
What I like about this new rule:
If people don't source their posts, and I can find the source in 5 seconds, that's pretty much proof they didn't ask for permission.

You are the source king of e621

I'm really not in favor of this new rule, but that is because I am an offender of it, so I suppose I don't really deserve a voice here.

LOL What is permission? As far as I'm concerned if you put it online and don't charge money for people to see or use it, it's free domain as long as you source it.

Wait... this isn't in the rules anymore?

Aurali said:
Wait... this isn't in the rules anymore?

It got never enforced while it was in the rules, your point is?

Aurali said:
Wait... this isn't in the rules anymore?

It was? I don't remember this being in there unless it was put in way before I was here

You should start with removing all the art on E621 that hasn't been verified.

TheHuskyK9 said:
It was? I don't remember this being in there unless it was put in way before I was here

https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=e621%3Arules&version=35

NotMeNotYou said:
It got never enforced while it was in the rules, your point is?

The enforcement was built into take downs through ever shrinking posting privs, unless someone removed or forgot about it.

Anyhow, so what I'm choosing to take from this decision was it WAS intentionally removed, so who's bright idea was that anyway?

Aurali said:
https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=e621%3Arules&version=35

The enforcement was built into take downs through ever shrinking posting privs, unless someone removed or forgot about it.

Anyhow, so what I'm choosing to take from this decision was it WAS intentionally removed, so who's bright idea was that anyway?

Non-constructive post, please stop.

Moving on....

I've seen people who like this "on paper" but with the application, there is a few problems that have been noticed. In an attempt to stop artists from issuing takedowns because they get butthurt (for one reason or another), we are trying to think of ways that the artist can know that their stuff is being put up and be okay with it.

Yes, as we all know, there are SOME artists that become sensitive to feedback or commentary (along with other various reasons) and want their art taken down, and many of them cite that they never received permission. While it is very daunting to request permission from EVERYONE, it is still something we expect from our users because, well, our main product is artist work. Would be nice not to steal their work.

So, as a simple rule, we could say that it is against the rules to post art without permission and hit anyone with a record for doing so, if the artist complains. The obvious problem, and has been mentioned already, is that the artist "forgets", and complains. Likely, if this is something we do, the admins will deal with it on a case-by-case basis (ex. artist is continually forgetting that they told uploaders that they have permission).

In short, this is a fundamental change to a major part of e621. Simpler is better, and it may be easier to just go back to the old ways, but the question is which one is better for the site?

We could even put a checkbox on the upload form that says "Did you get artist permission?" but it still would have the same problems with uploader honesty and artist memory.

FatherofGray brings up a valid point. Many people feel that posting art is free domain, or otherwise the right to publish works so long as you do not collect money for it. Unfortunately, when applied to creative works (art, written works, sculpture, etc), it doesn't work that way. Without crediting the art to the artist, getting/acquiring permission from the artist to display their works, or trying to claim it as your own/someone else's, are all tantamount to art theft. It's a mentality that I've seen on here a few times, and it's not cool.

In short, it's a valid concern and it has been an issue for a while. Considering everything that has been posted thus far, do we want to go back to the status quo with all the problems that we are having with it, or develop a new process in which we hold uploaders accountable for their actions, and deal with a set of new problems?

YES you should bring that rule back, and YES you should start making holders MORE accountable. This really should have been expanded upon years ago.

Artist memory isn't really a factor here, if they forget, just have a user show proof, digital age, and I REALLY doubt anyone is asking in person. And of course people will lie about it, but they won't have the proof necessary.

Genjar said:
What about old art?
I have a lot of old stuff on my HDs that I haven't got around to posting. In many cases, reverse image search turns up nothing and even if I can figure out who's the artist...the chances are that they've vanished off the net. So those can't be uploaded at all?

Also, uploading an image without knowing the artist is part of why you should upload to e621. Once you identify the artist, then by all means, get permission. On the off chance they say no, then you can always delete your own upload.

Aurali said:
YES you should bring that rule back, and YES you should start making holders MORE accountable. This really should have been expanded upon years ago.

Artist memory isn't really a factor here, if they forget, just have a user show proof, digital age, and I REALLY doubt anyone is asking in person. And of course people will lie about it, but they won't have the proof necessary.

So I should keep that screenshot of proof forever on the off chance an artist forgets?

CamKitty said:
So I ahould keep that scrrenshot of proof forever on the off chance an artist forgets?

I keep mine in a dusty folder and it takes up so little space, and after like a year if you say you had permission and the artist argues that, I'm pretty sure we will have seen enough of both person's character to handle case by case who is telling the truth and even then no records will ensue that far down the line

Ive had some time offline to consider, and I wanted to put forward this idea- instead of causing unneccesary spam towards the artist asking for permission from multiple people, have new artists' work held back from public release and have an automated message sent off to them asking for permission from e6 to host their art. Have it only check when a new artist name is added to an image, and when it doesn't find an already existing artist tag it requests a method of contact to send out the message- be it Pixiv or FA or DA or email.

I've also been of a mind lately that we should enforce the artist label being filled before the art gets posted, and unknown_artist being used to just dump posts without actually attributing the real artist should be a bannable offense. I know some people do prefer to drop a ton of posts then fill out the tags, but at the very least the artist tag SHOULD be filled on all images first and foremost.

1) Artists changing their mind: Could lead to difficult problems: Furries are a fickle bunch.
2) We must remove all art by unknown artists to fully and consequently enforce this rule.
3) Making a numbered bulletin list with less than 3 items is weird. I often do things like that at work because I know no one reads past the first one anyways. When we deploy a new version of our software we are forced to enter a reason since a few months ago. Every time I upload a new version my reason is: "The one reading this is allowed to slap me if he ever reads it."
No one ever noticed.

I'm honestly surprised this isn't already a rule. All for it.

Der_Traubenfuchs said:
1) Artists changing their mind: Could lead to difficult problems: Furries are a fickle bunch.

They could very well change their mind, and request it be taken down, but if someone already had permission then I'd believe them when they'd say it, especially if they have screencaps of it like I do

2) We must remove all art by unknown artists to fully and consequently enforce this rule.

"This rule would only apply to new art posted on the site from obscure artists that have no previous posts on our site."
This rule also never mentioned anything about us removing art. It directly says that it only disciplines users that do not ask for permission when the art is taken down by the artist in a takedown, not us taking down art because we don't know if they had permission or who the artist was

3) Making a numbered bulletin list with less than 3 items is weird. I often do things like that at work because I know no one reads past the first one anyways. When we deploy a new version of our software we are forced to enter a reason since a few months ago. Every time I upload a new version my reason is: "The one reading this is allowed to slap me if he ever reads it."
No one ever noticed.

Having one list be bulleted and then the next one in the sequence of the same grammar style is inconsistent, regardless of the number of bulleted items. The number of pros and cons is the number of pros and cons and I can't just add one more to make it three when I don't have another con. Bringing grammar into the debate is pointless

123easy said:
Ive had some time offline to consider, and I wanted to put forward this idea- instead of causing unneccesary spam towards the artist asking for permission from multiple people, have new artists' work held back from public release and have an automated message sent off to them asking for permission from e6 to host their art. Have it only check when a new artist name is added to an image, and when it doesn't find an already existing artist tag it requests a method of contact to send out the message- be it Pixiv or FA or DA or email.

I've also been of a mind lately that we should enforce the artist label being filled before the art gets posted, and unknown_artist being used to just dump posts without actually attributing the real artist should be a bannable offense. I know some people do prefer to drop a ton of posts then fill out the tags, but at the very least the artist tag SHOULD be filled on all images first and foremost.

I foresee potential problems with this and the new rule in general, that this would make the "risk" of uploading art, even by an artist who is already who is already ok with his/her art here too high. I can see less and less uploads happening and this place turning into a ghost town like fchan.
This also doesn't account for older art especially if the artist no longer is making new art and has dropped out of the fandom entirely. How can one be required to include an artist tag when it's an old picture and nearly impossible to find out who the artist is. I think the current DNP list is more than enough and the staff here already goes out of there way to make artists happy.

If this is some sort of attempt to improve the image of this site I think it won't have the effect you are looking for
Artists who don't want their art shared anywhere still won't want their art here.
Artists who already have art here aren't really going to care due to the fact that their art's here. as EDFDarkAngel1 pointed out, it's a huge change and I think you'll see less and less uploads and community support here.
Anyways that's just my 2 cents

pc-king said:
I foresee potential problems with this and the new rule in general, that this would make the "risk" of uploading art, even by an artist who is already who is already ok with his/her art here too high. I can see less and less uploads happening and this place turning into a ghost town like fchan.
This also doesn't account for older art especially if the artist no longer is making new art and has dropped out of the fandom entirely. How can one be required to include an artist tag when it's an old picture and nearly impossible to find out who the artist is. I think the current DNP list is more than enough and the staff here already goes out of there way to make artists happy.

If this is some sort of attempt to improve the image of this site I think it won't have the effect you are looking for
Artists who don't want their art shared anywhere still won't want their art here.
Artists who already have art here aren't really going to care due to the fact that their art's here. as EDFDarkAngel1 pointed out, it's a huge change and I think you'll see less and less uploads and community support here.
Anyways that's just my 2 cents

If it's older art or a reverse image search doesn't bring it up, there is no punishment. That has been said repeatedly. If you add unknown artist because it's legitimately an unknown artist, that's perfectly valid. There are people that tag unknown artist though the artist IS known, and that is what that is targetting.

I think the automated message thing is a bit overkill for our purposes, we don't want to turn this into a nazi regime, we want to make sure that a little bit more respect towards the wishes of the artist is shown.

I think what you are going to find out rather quickly after implementing this new rule is that less art, especially from new artists will be posted because most other than a select few dedicated and/or privileged users will even bother to ask permission first. So either this site will become less active or the content coming in will all feel samey because it's all work from the same artists.

A little less art would be ok, especially pony art.

DOOM!!!
DOOM I say!!!

NotMeNotYou said:
I think the automated message thing is a bit overkill for our purposes, we don't want to turn this into a nazi regime, we want to make sure that a little bit more respect towards the wishes of the artist is shown.

Nazi regime? o.O How does the idea of sending an automated message to the artist, something along the lines of, "Hey, we're E621.net, and someone just recently posted art that tagged you as an artist. Just wanted to make sure that permission was gotten before the art, (link here), was posted. (Polite stuff about takedown requests if they would prefer not to have it up). Ciao!", become Nazi regime?

Just because it's friendly and polite doesn't mean it isn't a nazi regime.

Wyvrn said:
Just because it's friendly and polite doesn't mean it isn't a nazi regime.

I'm fairly sure that "Murder all the jews" is unfriendly regardless of context, or tone.

Fair point

123easy said:
Nazi regime? o.O How does the idea of sending an automated message to the artist, something along the lines of, "Hey, we're E621.net, and someone just recently posted art that tagged you as an artist. Just wanted to make sure that permission was gotten before the art, (link here), was posted. (Polite stuff about takedown requests if they would prefer not to have it up). Ciao!", become Nazi regime?

The problem is simple, we potentially annoy people who have already given their consent and we would directly place a figuratively guillotine over the heads of everybody who wishes to upload something new, that is, in my opinion, like having an obligatory NSA agent standing behind you in an internetcafe because you could plan on opening the Al Kaida Homepage.

There is absolutely no way we're sending automated messages to artists. I am baffled that this notion was even brought up.

NotMeNotYou said:
The problem is simple, we potentially annoy people who have already given their consent and we would directly place a figuratively guillotine over the heads of everybody who wishes to upload something new, that is, in my opinion, like having an obligatory NSA agent standing behind you in an internet cafe because you could plan on opening the Al Qaeda Homepage.

Potential annoyance I can see, but it's a one-off message for the first time arts is posted; I think that more artists would be appreciative of it when art is first posted under their name (Just in case you're thinking I meant EVERY time an image is posted, because just no). Having people say when they ask permission that there's going to be a notification sent to their email isn't anything worse than lords knows how many other sites that do that for verification anyways. I don't see how informing the artist that someone did indeed post their art and confirming that they got permission first is equal to nazism, or even the NRA example above.

Regardless, if the decision is to not do it, then don't do it- It was just a suggestion to keep people in the loop and provide artists a method to confirm, deny or remain silent on the matter if they so chose.

Fluttershy said:
Hmm that makes me think, about taking a screencap how do you know it's real, what if -it is/artists claims that is- photoshopped?

Can happen. I have done that before. I edited scree caps to cause all sorts of mischief, before I was 18

NotMeNotYou said:
The problem is simple, we potentially annoy people who have already given their consent and we would directly place a figuratively guillotine over the heads of everybody who wishes to upload something new, that is, in my opinion, like having an obligatory NSA agent standing behind you in an internetcafe because you could plan on opening the Al Kaida Homepage.

*Al-Qaeda sorry had to correct that.