Danbooru

Western art + ToS

Posted under General

Since there seems to be some confusion about WWW, a standard I originally forwarded, I'll clarify:

WWW is a red line. It isn't to determine what should be allowed on Danbooru, it's to determine what should not be allowed. In order to be objectively disallowed a work must have all three Ws. The most contentious of the Ws, 'Western artist', should then only come into play when the other two Ws (western style, western copyright) are already in place. In most cases these distinctions are clear and easy to determine. Someone who is drawing Overwatch comics with english dialog on tumblr is obviously in violation. If someone we well know to be culturally eastern suddenly decides to draw a western property in a western style, that is obviously an edge case but it can be settled with proper care. If you don't believe there is such a thing as culture and style, that it's impossible to tell the difference, then you can't even draw simple distinctions to start with, so you have no business assuming the responsibility of making them.

In making this argument you are saying that, because the proposed system has 1% ambiguity, it is inferior to the current system of 100% ambiguity. This places all power in the hands of the moderators. Users should have concrete rules they can refer to if they get into squabbles with the moderators. That's the difference between a site I'll contribute to and a site I won't.

The other nuance I see being lost is the requirement that it be of a 'Western property.' Original western art is not fanart, and so it isn't disallowed by WWW. The Mona Lisa is permitted under WWW because the Mona Lisa is OC. It lacks the third W. People pointed to original works as if to say they 'violated' the WWW standard. They didn't. In fact original western works by western artists are allowed under WWW. So it's actually quite permissive.

But it is a standard.

I agree on the point that the copyright W shouldn't apply to original works. I the arguments @NWSiaCB and myself have put forward we were pretty clear about that. And yes, the artist W isn't the main point of contention, it's something that should be considered if the other two points aren't made. If something is western in style, it's IP and the artist it's flagrantly off topic in my opinion. As WWW stands, for serving this purpose I think it should have been adopted.

Now regarding my promotion of WWW I have adapted it some bit to incorporate the absolute cut-off function and also make it a score system for moderators to use. If you attach a point value of 1 point for each W, then a post that fails all three gets a score of 0. If all three are met than it has a score of 3. If one has a 2 then it's generally not a flaggable offense and 1 scores should be subject to higher scrutiny as per the TOS and could be flagged. So let's say a post is by a western artist, eastern IP, and western style then it could be flagged for off topic and if it shows exemplary value it could be approved under some criteria that now one has put forth.

The Mona Lisa is permitted under WWW because the Mona Lisa is OC.

I actually disagree that it would be permitted under WWW. It's illustrated by a Western artist using a Western style, no? I think fine art parodies of it are fine but this isn't a fine art gallery.
@aceofspudz

Whether the Mona Lisa would be permitted on Danbooru or not is, ultimately, not the purpose of WWW. That decision occurs downstream from WWW. WWW is an absolute cutoff point. Mona Lisa is permitted by WWW because it doesn't have all three Ws. All three Ws are required for cutoff under WWW.

Which is why it's a negative standard. Things that are permitted on Danbooru under WWW may still fail due to other criteria downstream. The idea that Danbooru isn't a fine art gallery is orthogonal to WWW. That's the realm of subjectivity and argumentation, or of other rules entirely. WWW was an attempt to articulate, as far out as possible, an absolute cutoff. The reason that 'western artist' is included at all is, then, actually not to disallow Western artists. It's to allow established eastern artists to draw western properties in a western style without being removed.

Edit: Or I should say at least these were my original thoughts. What's thought of it now, or what evolutions have happened, I can't speak to.

I was, am and always will be firmly against any move that ignores how ,Danbooru and fandoms, have evolved to be artistically & topically multi-cultural, without problem; until some shit stirrers decided they didn't like it.

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