Kiho said:
Correct. Just because a person is not Japanese does not mean they cannot appreciate anime.....or draw it.
But also, even if they ARE Japanese, that doesn't mean their medium is accepted here.

I got ya.
Wiresetc said:
To me, everything that has visible lips and nostrils is not anime style, but I'm sure that (is) incorrect for most people.
That criteria would flush much of range_murata's work and it cannot be argued that last_exile (post #19605) and blue_submarine_no_6 (post #60780) are not classic anime - range_murata also uses sepia effects as well as for lack of a better word, an antique effect in his works. Claymore (post #107019 & post #37925)has not a few images with high facial detail as well. (Don't you dare go deleting Teresa and Clare :-)

It is the image detail, especially the facial detail that is one of the differentiators of anime images from Disney cartoons for me.

As computer techniques evolve, I expect to see more and more realistic facial details in anime. final_fantasy-viii I think it was, the studio committed over 75% of their computer processing efforts to facial and hair details (post #185948 & post #75838)
Yeah, I know lots of good posts would be deleted if my criteria was added, so please don't take it too seriously ^_~

Now I do agree with level of detail, but it is also something that could be interpreted differently by each mod/user. I have no idea if we could have criteria that is "black or white" like: 'When you see a wrinkle on a knee or face, it is not anime anymore'.
Artists from Japan (approximately) have always had exemption from the required theme, so long as it's not massively out of the demographic.

As it happens, I was reading Gelbooru's ToS yesterday, and it puts it rather neatly:
Prohibited Content
In addition, you may not use the Site to upload any of the following:
Non-Japanese: Anything not drawn by a Japanese artist is not allowed unless given specific exception by the moderation team for quality! Photographs of cosplayers, figures, JAV models, or prominent figures in the industry are acceptable.
Kona is of course more strict on photography content.

As for post #207153, post #207162 & post #207335. I've undeleted the first two. If you want to argue the point, I'll post from the artist myself. I was going to anyway.

Users are reminded, we have an appeals thread - forum #45909 - and it actually works, unlike Danbooru's 90% of the time.
As far as I can remember we've never had a rule against non-Japanese artist. Unless Stahn said something about it long ago. Either way, if the art is anime theme'd the copyright and artist shouldn't really matter. Since I'm seen a lot of anime themed non-anime copyright images before.
There are tons of Korean and Chinese artists who do amazing work, so I don't see why we'd limit it to be ONLY Japanese. Heck, some of our best posts even come from Western artists.

Also, as for anime vs. non-anime subject matter......that gets a little more tricky. Because then you have things like LoL that aren't anime related, but....people still like seeing that fan art.

We have those posts which are based on Disney/MLP/Western fairy tales which aren't remotely anime related either.

Speaking of which, would post #184476, post #184475, and post #184473 be entitled to stay, given that they are both Disney AND done in the same style as the movie (i.e. not really anime styled)?
There is nothing in Kona's upload guidelines restricting an artist's demographics (in fact just the opposite) - if it is anime or anime related or anime like that is all that matters. I strongly support this position.

Excerpt from upload guidelines:

There have been cases of exceptions being made for Japanese artists, but please keep in mind the demographic for this site. I doubt anyone cares what nationality the artist is so much as what the image looks like.

This is reminiscent of another issue we recently hashed out in the tags forum - we tag based on image content, not back story.

We have a number of artists that I seriously doubt are Japanese, or at least based in Japan. arsenixc for example; would you want to delete all those awesome images?
I really don't see why anyone would even consider the artist's nationality...
  • Does knowing the artist is Japanese make the image more appealing?
  • Does realizing the artist isn't Japanese make make the image less appealing?
If you answered "Yes" to either of those, that's just plain prejudice. IMO, ONLY the art itself should be considered.

otaku_emmy said:
..... you have things like LoL that aren't anime related, but....people still like seeing that fan art.
I would and have deleted LoL art for being non-anime, but most of what gets uploaded here seems anime-style. I don't know if that's because of the game's art style or just the game's popularity among anime-style artists.

otaku_emmy said:
Speaking of which, would post #184476, post #184475, and post #184473 be entitled to stay, given that they are both Disney AND done in the same style as the movie (i.e. not really anime styled)?
They use large eyes now? Well, I guess that's not all that surprising.

Anyway, in those 3 posts, only the face seems weird, but it is pushing the limit. It looks to me like someone just failed trying to draw an anime style face. I certainly wouldn't object to deleting them.

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There are many posts that fall into a grey area. There's no fine line between what is or isn't anime style. As I said before, I don't think you'll be able to put neatly into words what is or isn't anime-style such that most non-artists would be able to understand and conform.

As for how to handle posts in or past the grey area, I would suggest:
  • If a mod is sure an image should be deleted, delete it even if it was approved.
  • If it's in the grey area but you want to approve it, consider it carefully before doing so.
  • If it's in the grey area and you don't want to approve it, leave it for the 3-day rule. If it get's approved, let it stay. If too many start getting approved, bring it up in the forum.
When I said "Of all of ilya_kuvshinov's works here, only post #207162 and post #207153 seem to be pushing it too far IMO. But since someone approved them, I don't mind so long as images like this are rare.", I didn't mean for them to be deleted. Those certainly are in the grey area, unlike post #207335. Having them approved by one mod was good enough.
Zolxys said:
They use large eyes now? Well, I guess that's not all that surprising.

Anyway, in those 3 posts, only the face seems weird, but it is pushing the limit. It looks to me like someone just failed trying to draw an anime style face. I certainly wouldn't object to deleting them.
This is what the girl looks like in the movie.

If no one objects, I shall delete them.
.... That's even weirder than those 3 posts... Rather freaky actually...
No, no. I'd rather them get deleted. I really don't need to provide any argument, as Emmy already linked her face.
Now that we're discussing this grey area. I like to bring up world_of_warcraft. What about the posts by chenbo?
About half are perfectly fine. The other half are in the grey area.

I don't think there are any that we need to delete as violations... But IMO, the worst 5 are: post #202006, post #197673, post #197672, post #197670 and post #197674
The posts I brought up have been officially purged.
You brought a proposal in front of said body. None have brought valid arguments against it (people favoriting it counts little to nothing in image deletion). And in this situation, there are people who wish them 'burned'. Simply put, they don't abide to the 'anime' style. They abide to the 'fantasy' style.
Zolxys, I suggest waiting a maximum of three days on this. If none have brought a valid argument that hasn't been countered, proceed with the deletion. Would people rather see action be taken or continue walking a 'politicians career'? I'd favor actions being taken.

This post was more on pushing away the 'never ending argument' that's been going on. I'm kind of sad when topics are brought up that were previously discussed but no action has been taken on them.
@Tensa
I'm not clear on what you're commenting on... The chenbo posts I assume? All of them? Or just the half in the grey area? Or just the 5 I mentioned?
Woo, now we for a discussion going, great!

To be completely honest, you all know what anime art looks like. I believe there's a pretty clear definition to that. We all love our 2D girls with (at least) slightly bigger eyes, not much lip, next to no nose and in many cases eyebrows that show through their bangs.

We may define it differently here but that is overthinking, in the end og the day. We're making it more complicated than it has to be.

The issue could be easily Solved by saying that we only accept classic anine art-styles regardless og the artist.

Another thing we could do is to start accepting everything and just let the mods delete whatever they see fit, perhaps including a proper reason why they think it shouldn't be om Konachan.

In reality, Stahn is not here anymore so does the upload/deletion ratio really matter. We just have to manually promote active uploaders to contributer status.
How much (if any) difference is there between a RPG and a VN, or between some Anime such as to_aru_kagaku_no_railgun or Claymore and fantasy?

We should be evaluating the images without consideration of the back story - if the image is anime-like and otherwise meets our quality criteria and upload guidelines, that is the primary measure we should be using.

Tensa said:
(people favoriting it counts little to nothing in image deletion)
If an image clearly violates the upload guidelines - certainly.

However, images in the gray area, those that generate a lively positive/humorous/informative comment thread and/or quickly garner a lot of votes, Imo, Mods should take this into consideration. It is such images that draw users to Konachan after all.

VF said:
The issue could be easily Solved by saying that we only accept classic anine art-styles regardless og the artist.
What is "classic anime"? I can refer you to Only Yesterday (omoide_poro _poro) no images on Konachan btw. This film is comprised of a present day story with extensive flash backs to the protagonist's childhood. Interesting, the flashbacks are what you might call in the "classic anime style" but the present time is considerably more detailed - exquisitely so with many scenes with full facial details (detailed nose, lips and proper eyebrows). This is a Studio Ghibli film (never released in the USA) produced in 1991 btw. Can you get more classic anime than that?

It is easy to say what is Not Anime, but not so easy to say what Exactly IS Anime.
Then why don't we just say that only anime/vn related images are allowed? Then we don't have to care about the art-styles.

Or we could just continue as it is. This whole issue is based on the fact that uploaders don't want their images to get deleted but once again, does it really matter?

I never really Minded the art issue, I'm more concerned about all of those completely un-related images.
@VF: What you are recommending again is to take the back story into account. There is no reason an image Must be from an anime or a VN or even need to be related to "something" to be an acceptable anime style image. There are many great anime style images on Konachan that are related only to the artist's imagination.

What is anime will always be a subjective decision. The 3 day rule and the "shaun of the deleted forum" are the best ways to handle this - imo. If an image otherwise compliant to our guidelines gets deleted, and no one is willing to make the effort to post a decent plea in the forum for reconsideration, then the image is deleted. Usually, I have seen that if someone is willing to make a decent plea for a compliant image, it gets re-posted.
Right, so I take it that from now on, if anyone complains about why one of two images gets deleted and the other doesn't even though they are similar to each other, we'll direct them to the proper forum and leave it to the user.

I can live with that conclusion. Do we all agree on this?
Zolxys said:
@Tensa
I'm not clear on what you're commenting on... The chenbo posts I assume? All of them? Or just the half in the grey area? Or just the 5 I mentioned?
I'm commenting on arguments being repetitive, in general.
Otherwise, yes. I criticize chenbo's fantasy style art.
The difference between fantasy and anime style might be blurred to some, but it's quite obvious to others.
Fantasy style much? post #197668, post #197669, post #181749, post #132466.

Look, I know many of you absolutely LOVE images that are not anime style. But think this: we accept anime styled images. When speaking of anime style, we look at the characters. Because the surroundings can look exactly the same in every image. Look at the characters. And to that 'love' part? Yeah, I see subjective approaches here.

Look at this piece of trash post #132466. Now look at this beautiful piece of art post #149887. Is it not clear enough? I would clearly like to see a mug like in post 149887, rather than that fantasy bull from post 132466.

Rather, what the hell are you even discussing?
The 'artist' part? It's quite obvious that most Japanese artists will draw anime styled images. Point. That doesn't mean that just because he's Japanese, it should be allowed.
This place... 真剣に俺頭痛を与えよ。
Tensa said:
.....The difference between fantasy and anime style might be blurred to some, but it's quite obvious to others...... Yeah, I see subjective approaches here.

When speaking of anime style, we look at the characters. Because the surroundings can look exactly the same in every image.
I don't see any benefit to our user community to overly restrict the art style. We would eliminate many great images and probably most of the sfw scenic and landscape posts with nobody in particular.

The line between whether an image is anime style or not, is drawn in sand, not in stone and it is constantly shifting even for an individual and depends on more than one aspect of an image. There is more than one boundary.
Kiho, I said that the background doesn't matter. What matters is how the characters are drawn.
@Kiho: the benefit would be that the users would know exactly what to and what not to upload. < Which is also the initial issue I adressed.

In my eyes, the sole reason why we're discussing this is because users are complaining that their posts get deleted when others don't. The only answer to that is that we're a large team with different opinions.

If all else fails, we could contact Alaron and let him make the final decision.
vf.nightcore said:
@Kiho: the benefit would be that the users would know exactly what to and what not to upload. < Which is also the initial issue I adressed.
We could ban all original work and require that any image must be from and in the exact same style of an anime or VN listed on ANN or VNDB.

Would that really benefit users? I would think that members would rather have a wider range of good content available then to know that every image is a "genuine" anime image.

Our current approval process works very well nearly all of the time as does the appeals process. Moderators and contributors come and go over time, what is considered an acceptable/desirable image changes and so there is a need for periodic re-calibration which is what this discussion is about. I have made some personal adjustments and I am sure others have too.

.
Kiho said:
We could ban all original work and require that any image must be from and in the exact same style of an anime or VN listed on ANN or VNDB.
That was not what I said.

Our current approval process works very well nearly all of the time as does the appeals process. Moderators and contributors come and go over time, what is considered an acceptable/desirable image changes and so there is a need for periodic re-calibration which is what this discussion is about. I have made some personal adjustments and I am sure others have too.
Then there's no more to discuss.
post #102144

Requesting replacing said upscaled image with a better one.
I've used waifu engine to upscale it once, but the result is a bit lacking. There are a lot of artifacts.
So I did it again with noise reduction and the result was much more satisfactory.
Funnily enough, I was told to not bother with deleting/replacing older posts.
This is getting a bit ridiculous...

vf.nightcore said:
In my eyes, the sole reason why we're discussing this is because users are complaining that their posts get deleted when others don't. The only answer to that is that we're a large team with different opinions.
Users (plural)? There was only one such complaint that I know of and that was regarding an approved image that very clearly should have been deleted. The image was promptly deleted after the complaint. So what's the problem?

There will be times when mistakes are made. If someone comments on it and we correct the mistake, that should be just fine. There's no need to change our system because of that.

Tensa said:
Look at this piece of trash post #132466.
Agreed. *deleted*

If you think an image should be deleted, flag it. That's what the flagging system is for. That puts it on the same moderation page the pending posts are on.
  • If a mod agrees that it should be deleted, it will be.
  • If a mod believes it should be approved, it will be unflagged.
  • If it stays flagged for an extended period of time, it will be treated the same way as a pending post that wasn't approved for 3+ days.
If a mod unflags it, so be it. Not every post here can be to everyone's liking. So long as images like that are rare, it shouldn't really be a problem.

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*Edit
otaku_emmy said:
Funnily enough, I was told to not bother with deleting/replacing older posts.
Any time you can replace a post with a higher quality post that would be approved today, by all means, go ahead. There's no need to try to apply our ever changing standards to 200000 older posts, but the existence of an older post shouldn't stop you from uploading something that meets our current standards.