Ponybooru Moderation Feedback

Ive made additional progress on the pending rule change/streamline as well as the moderation policy draft using many of the suggestions given here in the thread.

I guess that my feedback would be how much something would enter in the DNP zone of some artwork when the pic edited is so different from the creator. I will leave these example  
 
 
 
 
The artist of this still call these pics art theft, but that would still be considered when it’s so different from the original and when the PSD archive is actually avaible for everyone actually creating more options to be added to the original PSD? https://u.smutty.horse/mbhsdhkwvpj.psd

@Anonymous #2E10  
She claims it’s theft because of the fact that those were paid for, but unless Peeps made any kind of profit from the super straight pride edit or is boasting that he’s the original creator of the template he used to make it, I’d argue that it doesn’t count as theft of any kind.

@Anonymous #2E10  
It is a fairly thin line theyre walking ( the person who made the generator). The base of the YHC is certainly “theft” or whatever you wanna call. However, just the effort involved to create a generator and unique assets for the gen, would likely be upheld as fair use in court. Hell if you wanna be technical about it, fan art depicting characters/species/etc from MLP:FiM are technically derivative works based on the copyright that hasbro and its subsidiaries own. Trying to sue or file a legal take down of fan art likely wont go anywhere in court unless you are also willing to take on hasbro and have them grant you legal rights over their IP.
 
But im not a lawyer, so dont ask me.

In the recent twittermite raid, the mods’ decisions regarding the reported images seemed to change multiple times in quick succession. In my opinion, this severely reduces the trustworthiness of any given decision and creates uncertainty in what does or does not break the rules. Or, rather, it leaves the precedent unclear.  
@Anonymous #2E10  
If that’s your concern Adan’s remake is pretty similar, if he doesn’t mind.

@Anonymous #B8DB  
Admittedly it was quite confusing on our end as well. A multitude of reports came in quick succession and our discussions quickly lost form so we were getting very confused as to which image or comment was being discussed half of the time.
 
As we started working through things more carefully, one problem at a time, the decisions that were made we believe are in fact consistent with decisions we’ve made in the past and intend to in the future. Original artwork such as the image which was left up does not violate our rules.
 
Editing ones artwork and posting it however is covered by our rules in specific instances, and as mentioned before, we believe the image which was deleted violated those rules in that it was not transformative or sufficiently different from the original aside from a primarily thematic change, which as quoted below, would mean it would be deleted under Rule 2.
 
https://ponybooru.org/forums/meta/topics/mod-audit-log?post_id=42953#post_42953

@ArchiveAnon  
in summary, it was a shit show, and we know it.
 
The only thing we can do, is work toward doing better and we will.

Related to this comment I did in the mod log thread
 
I was just browsing Twitter and saw plenty of reactions related to the edited ych that the artist ranted did here, meaning this site will get attacked in every possible way because of one image.
 
But how can I trust you all gonna handle all this tension is going on? With all the sudden deleted/reported images, locked threads, etc.
 
I know most of your intentions for this site to not fall into Derpi’s decisions from almost a year ago. Clearly this booru ain’t the perfect and some flaws have been rising from time to time.
 
Just want to know the rest of the staff on addressing this issue that is been going on and it won’t stop soon.

There’s proof that the artist in question stole/traced the art itself, so do they even have claim over it? https://ponybooru.org/images/2858688

@Anonymous #7B08  
Decided to visit their profile and you know what? Nothing of value was missed. Guy’s already being an asshat.

@Anonymous #7B08  
Crawling through their twitter it looks like it’s a trace of an sfm model

@Dried Pasta  
care to share? Im blocked.

@Luzion  
 

@Adan Druego  
neat.

Since it’s clearly a trace job of a basic sfm model, even though they lie through their teeth like how it’s ‘based on’  
then there’s no justifiable claim to ownership over copyright, DNP or whatever and the deleted files of the edits should be restored.
 
You gain absolutely nothing by giving them an inch when they hated the site in the first place, and actively harm the real community who are uploading the edits, which put more effort into it than tracing anything she did.

Does Rule 11 apply to images on this site? Recent events have got me to wondering whether or not that’s the case. If so, where would the line be?

I will admit that I, in principle, have sympathy people who see posting rights as essential, even if I am not sure of I agree that it is a good thing for society and culture overall in copyright rights for a long list of reasons that would take too long to go into right now. That is the rule of law on Ponybooru. I don’t think having that belief is a moral folly like some act even if I disagree with a lot of that myself sans patreon art theft, that is where I personally lean in drawing the line … not that is even a issue right now of course
 
For this artist, I will need to go through the evidence, but if all this artist uses is SFM models and even possible trances artwork from them or stuff like this >>2858688 I am not sure how much ground she has to stand on from a moral standpoint.
 
As for the image, it is a separate concern and I do support in principle, within reason, some extra care given for OCs that represent people. I do think harassment and antagonism is a issue, for reasons I have stated here There is something to be said for parody and legit mockery over harassment and I don’t think this image crosses into that, just possibly unnecessary antagonism, as much as I hate that phrasing for how the million ways such a principle could be seen used for so much BS. I am far too tired to type much more and I will examine this all better later.
 
I understand the staff struggling to respond to this, though I do think locking down the thread gave everybody Derpi flashbacks.

@Anonymous #2E10  
@Humble Oriathan  
@Anonymous #95AD  
No monetary profit has been made from those. They’re not art theft, what Marci is/was doing with said trace is a scam instead.  
Лох не мамонт, не вымрет as Mavrodi (famous russian pyramid schemer who managed to pull his shit off twice over) has said.

@Anonymous #DE1B  
Technically, I guess it does, but we prioritise art over it. If that recent image had been an edit, things might have been different. As it stood, though, the fact that it was original art made us go “we don’t delete art (unless the artist wants it deleted).”
 
I’ve been thinking exactly about what to do exactly, because our two principles of “art is art” and “don’t be a dick” can conflict in situations like this. We’d need to get precise policies if we ever do delete art attacks, or risk going down the derpi route and deleting anything that offends someone hard enough.
 
As it is, though, I don’t think we’ll back down on our “art is art” stance; we’re just thinking about it (taking Perplexia’s criticism into account). If the pb userbase is against changing that rule, we obviously won’t change it.

@Sapphie  
Not even Derpi deleted art over OC owner being _offended before they went full clout goblin (previous summer, Derpi sinking with Milky Way pic).  
In my opinion, it’s basically does this image have some minimum artistic value? It stays, with OC tag removed so it doesn’t show up in the primary listing - which is what you’ve already done.
 
Also, apply administrative action to people, not artworks. Deleting art because artist is misbehaving is like breaking a potter’s vase because said potter called you a dodo head.

@Barhandar  
I very much agree
 
It’s just that some of our users suggested otherwise, and we want to keep an open mind.

@Barhandar  
I’d go at least one step further and establish a new administrative tag, “OC removed” or something of the like, with a wiki page describing its purpose/meaning. Tag removal as an action tool on a site where users can edit tags can lead to confusion, and I hate confusion.
 
Note: I’m staying neutral here. I have no dog in this fight, any response short of heavy-handed censorship could be valid to me. I just try to accommodate the average users that tend to be forgotten in the fallout of such events.

@TheBridge  
here’s the evidence, provided by the ‘artist’ themselves.  
 

 
The entire thing is a joke, this is like taking screenshots inside smashbros then tracing over that and claiming you have the rights to remove edits of it. SFM is the equivalent of people playing with dolls, they are not artists in the slightest so they cant DMCA anything. Ponybooru should have grown a spine and told them to shove off, instead caved multiple times to their incessant tantrum, what a disgrace.
 
An OC tag should not be removed either, it defeats the purpose of a booru. You think this kind of art is new? maybe you’re newfags who havent seen nyxabuse since the early days, and that was actually ongoing with people shitting on an OC, which included edits and original drawings of hate for the oc. Get over it and stop being such limp-dicked weaklings who try to appease twittermites at every turn shooting yourselves in the foot.

 
try telling me that this is an original piece of art, claiming it’s “based on a sfm model” is just an outright lie when its a 1:1 trace with zero variation. this is who you listened to over people who did more work and made their own variations?

@Anonymous #95AD  
Thank you for your input. As I said previously, we’re not planning to actually change that rule, just gave some thought (I mentioned it in mod chat) to one of our users’ complaints. So far the feedback is “nope lol”, and I’m pretty happy with that.  
And we’re not really trying to appease twitter users. The user who suggested it was an active user of ponybooru.
 
As for the edit: It’s an edit of an artist with a dnp. We’d be breaking our own rules if we left it up. We’re not going to treat an artist differently just because they happen to not be on our good side.
 
Arguably, the YCH being a trace of a SFM model does change things, but I’m not sure if it makes the artist waiver their rights on it.