Qpax said:
I say this as a fellow approver/gallery gardener, but you do realize that whether or not the tag exists, people are still going to repost the content here, right? Since patreon rewards from popular artists usually go well beyond what qualifies as acceptable, and they're the type of content many users like. And, as Hillside Moose said before, we can only trust other users if not the uploader to ensure that it is indeed a patreon reward, not some heavily modified/redrawn third-party derivative work.
I'd back tapnek's suggestion maybe 30-50% to make it Builder+, but keep in mind that there are only about 600 Builders on this site total, and about maybe 60-80 of them are routinely active every week to do this sort of gardening. On the other hand, there are about 6200+ Gold+ members, many of whom are promoted through either a monetary upgrade or through contribution (such as feline lump's recent promotion). The less work that any one of us have to do, the easier it is. And also not to mention -- paid users already have an incentive not to mess up stuff on their account (given the possibility for a warning/ban).
Kerasu said:
I don't think Patreon is special in this matter, content from other similar services like enty or fanbox should be treated the same way. As the one that's most familiar to English speakers, I just use "Patreon" as a simple way to refer to them all.
Danbooru exists in a grey zone much in the same way that artists who draw (and/or sell) fanart exist in a grey zone. We are able to draw and sell fanart purely on the good graces of the publishers, and the simple fact that it's not practical nor beneficial for them to pursue each and every artist. So as an artist who does make money off fanart, I think it's wise to keep this in mind and not get ahead of ourselves (like a certain T-shirt company).
Similarly, as long as Danbooru makes the effort to show they do not intend to harm artists, I'm willing to bet it'll improve relations between artists and the site. Not every artist of course, but a good amount for sure.
I agree with a lot of the points Mikaeri brings up, so it would be cool to move in that direction.
Yup. I include them too because, well, there's a handful of very popular Japanese artists that publish their highres work on enty/fantia/fanbox: n.g., sayori as mentioned before, nanahime, komeshiro kasu, kanzaki muyu, the list goes on. Part of the reason why we're sometimes allowed to get away with "removing" content like this is that there's enough of a technical/language/access barrier keeping the East Asian, non-English-speaking artists from pushing it any further. The honest thing to do would be to just contact them and let them know, but no sane uploader would do that -- it would instead be left to volunteer English-speaking users that want to see this site have a more difficult time, in the name of integrity and to increase the number of banned artists.
It's helpful though, to have an English-speaking artist that understands how this site works well contribute their thoughts to this discussion (and not to mention a notable artist with serious leverage). As I mentioned before, we're only curators -- we can't speak on the behalf of other artists unless they come out here and do so themselves. If there are any other users that you can think of to further 'pressure' action to be taken, then I think the site's relationship with other artists will definitely improve for the better.
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As much as I do understand the argument that this site is primarily for fans, and that there won't really be any 'end' to making patreon rewards truly non-uploadable, the best we can do is at least support the artist as much as we can, and if not that, then at least make the content harder to access (even if this sort of pushes the 'paywall' narrative). We can make it harder for repost bots to get those exclusive works by perhaps changing the way uploads work, for example (as Gelbooru and Sankaku have bots that frequently repost content from here).
I think as Danbooru we are perhaps the friendliest site to artists (as we do regularly maintain a banned artist list and we constantly place emphasis on always sourcing a work properly from the artist page whenever possible, not from some third-party site). I'd love for that relationship to continue, but this is a somewhat difficult hurdle.
Basically the only reason I only ever started curating here is because I wanted art I liked to be preserved somewhere where others can find it easier and to support the artists I like. Yes, I do browse obtuse sources and I even have special scripts/tools to extract higher-res images or to bypass DRM on some reader sites -- but I have always kept what I have uploaded here public. That is, if it isn't typically paywalled or licensed content, I share it here in hopes that other users find the candy trail. I have even made the trek through old blog feeds or archives (such as ragho no erika's or karutamo's) to find higher-res works of theirs, at grueling effort.
What I've learned being a pixiv-er for nearly 3 years and one of the main curators here for a mere 3/4's of a year, is that some artists will always find trouble as a result of their work being posted elsewhere. Some of them just don't like the feeling that all their work, old and new, is basically put on record practically permanently on the internet as long as this site is up. Others get irate even as we regularly source the post back to them (whether it's booru, tumblr, twitter) because they think we're 'stealing' exposure from them or something like. There's no helping it, but I think what most of them do appreciate is the fact that their work is liked enough that it does make it to the other side of the internet through a user from another side of the world. I don't think Japan has anything like a "danbooru", and instead Japanese users go here to find content also, even if they don't exactly understand all of the site's workings.
EDIT: I words.
