Pillowfort and that whole Tumblr mess

[ideen_elster]

Sooo Pillowfort has clarified their "Policy on Explicit Artwork and Underage Characters" which keeps the definition of "underage" pretty damn vague and leaves it up to individual mods to decide if the art looks "too underage" so to speak. Art which shows characters looking like pre-pubescent is forbidden. Anything involving teenagers is less clear.

In theory I agree with that ban partially. Personally I'm not a fan of loli/shota or anything involving extreme underage, but I'm still wavering on using Pillowfort now that I read their stance. Leaving it all so very vague, not allowing underage-looking (!) characters, their lack of definition what they mean by underage exactly, plus the (in my opinion idiotic) vague semi-ban on anything involving characters that are like... 16 and older and leaving it all up to individual mods to decide... that just can't not backfire. This leaves users open to a whole lot of abuse and smear campains if someone deems their art "too young looking", especially considering such things as "child-coded" exists on Tumblr where grown female characters (drawn and played by actors alike) are called children/child-coded cause they have small breasts or shave, for example.

I don't know. It's just too vague and there are too many options for people to abuse that policy over biases and grudges. In the notes of that post there were already cries to ban fictional abuse and incest and violence, too, and I can't help but think that Pillowfort will give into those demands sooner rather than later. I feel like there are just too many antis and anti-thinking people around. This is even, unrelated to Pillowfort, a reason why I haven't really looked too hard for fandom communities on here as of yet. Just the thought of running into antis or anti-inclined people makes me physically ill. The last few years of Tumblr really weren't much of a positive ones so I rather think I'll stick to my little blog, a few people to follow and AO3 and keep my head down.

Comments

[texelations]

I understand your stance and I think for now all we can do is wait and watch how things shake out fandom-wise. Once again I get the feeling about PF that they don't really know what they're doing, which is disappointing at least.

[ideen_elster]

Yeah they seem a little inexperienced. Well, I'll try to wait and see how this plays out. For any written content there is Dreamwidth and AO3, but I wished there was a good site for Fanart and explicit original art, too. Things don't look too good on that front unfortunately.

[texelations]

DW is still pondering what to do about increasing upload limits. Increased limits may becom a paid feature.

[ideen_elster]

Increased upload limits would be pretty good for sure. So far for the few pics I uploaded, I downsized them so as to not take up so much space. If I can figure out how to send my money to DW I'd probably go for a paid account anyway.

[disartster]

That would be awesome! I wish I could figure it out as well I think you have to buy the points?
I was thinking of having my blog host the pictures and just possibly linking them from there.
I'm experimenting with making the blog private so I can keep my pictures behind a wall in a sense. Or trying one of the picture hosting sites.

[ideen_elster]

Finding a good picture hosting site is so so hard! D: Many of them don't allow hotlinking or embeding pictures on blogs. The safest bet is probably really to have your own webspace, host your pics there and secure them against hotlinking except for the sites you want to embed them on (something something htaccess file, I haven't figured it out yet)

And agreed, you have to buy points but it seems you need a credit card for that? I don't have a credit card and I don't want to get one if I don't really need it :/

[disartster]

And yeah I was thinking of moving my stuff from a blog to like a website so I could have a bit more control but server hosting can be an issue and I am not really up to setting up my own. I get far to nervous about firewall stuff to have a server running off my home internet ya know?
I am sure I will figure it out lol, just a matter of time tbh
I have a credit card but misplaced it months ago. I still haven't found it so I should probs get it replaced but *shrug * I don,t normally use it
I actually have been using just my regular debit card cause my bank gave me a Visa debit? Which is just a normal card but it can be used like a debit. Before that I used the prepaid ones but they are a pain.

[ideen_elster]

Yeah I still don't know if my hosting site (all-inkl.com) would actually allow me to just put my pics on my webspace and link to them from another site (dw)?? I should probably read their ToS.... but I'm kind of worried about the answer xD

Also same, having your own server sounds rather neat but getting it secure and set up and maintained and all that stuff... that sounds more like a nightmare. ^^'

True! Just a matter of time. If you find any good way that works let me know ;)

I have to admit, I haven't really looked into anything regarding credit cards or anything similar. I have my regular debit card and that's it xD

[disartster]

I posted mine on my blog on blogger.
I realised that I could do that and it would give me a URL. Not much better but I can actually set that to private (mostly their private function is odd) if I need so I am gonna work on that. We shall see I suppose how this goes I suppose.

[ideen_elster]

That sounds pretty good tho. I know some host their art on livejournal and set it to private. I used a password-protected sideblog on Tumblr once, but I don't even know if the links still work...

[sodium_amytal]

Just the thought of running into antis or anti-inclined people makes me physically ill.

Hard same.

I'm not interested in loli or shota, but I get a bad feeling from a site that isn't "all or nothing (within the bounds of US law)." Especially when PF has built-in blacklisting and NSFW filters so people can block the content they don't want to see. This comes across as a morality play, appeasing the antis who conflate cartoon drawings with actual CP (it's sad they've watered down the term so much I have to put "actual" in front of it but damn sometimes it be like that).

[ideen_elster]

Yeah I thought the blacklisting and filtering was for that exact sort of thing?
And agreed! I hate that they watered down the terms so much to include fictional stuff and characters that are way too old. *sigh*
Well I'm taking a step back from PF for sure. That policy is way too vague not to be abused.

[delphi]

I feel the same. There's a lot of material that I'd personally be happy to never encounter, but I also do not trust the "I know it when I see it" model of defining obscenity or banned content. It's just too open to personal biases and subjectivity, and more often than not results in action against material that just so happens to contain other things that make the moderator uncomfortable. Heck, I follow a webcomic with hobbit/halfing characters that regularly gets accusations of being crypto-pedophilia...on scenes where the alleged "child-coded" character is a forty-year-old mother with full breasts, wide hips, body hair and crow's feet wrinkles.

[ideen_elster]

I agree with you on all of that. If they'd be more clear on what the ban is and isn't it would be less of a problem, but this way it's too much a case-by-case basis to the point it leaves the door wide open for abuse and harassment.

Also JESUS I HATE THE TERM "child-coded"! It's so stupid. Just cause someone is small or a fictional character has big eyes doesn't make them a child.

That webcomic sounds interesting though, what's it called? :D

[delphi]

It's Alfie by InCase - a smutty adult comic about a younger halfling who runs away to see the world, and her mother who goes looking for her and does some finding of herself along the way. And it is so massively NSFW that I had to scroll back several pages to find something SFW to link to: http://buttsmithy.com/archives/comic/p-670-2

[ideen_elster]

Nice! I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the link :D

[disartster]

I really don't like underage characters in sexual stuff and personally I would prefer not to see it, ever. but like that much should Not be left up to mods. Thats just ripe for abuse. Especially having appearance/ drawing style taken into it can be tricky. def not something that should be left to random mods.
This is just asking for reporting abuse by antis, People who aren't liked having Everything taken down, ships being attacked for no reason other than them not being liked, etc.
It's to much power for mods. And everything would be subject to whatever mod happened to stumble across it which is far to random for my liking.
I'm in a discord chat where they have a similar rule where the mods get to decide what counts as nsfw and 80% of it is based on if the mods like you or not and the other 20% is unclear. So you basically have to act like your in a church group with a bunch of conservative old ladies. Not a great environment for adults of any sort.
(They're all young and one person got a strike for making a joke about a character getting laid.)

Like don't get me wrong. In Canada we actually have a very similar law regarding artistic depictions of sexual situations.I don't have an issue with it.
I just think that the giving mods that much power is gonna backfire. Though they did say they weren't going to take into account other stuff so it should be fine there for like violence and all that.
Maybe they'll rethink a lot of mod stuff or at least get a better way of screening for it? Or maybe a way to make sure a mod isn't abusing power etc.

[ideen_elster]

Yeah I agree. I don't personally have any issue with underage characters in sexual stuff, but that depends on the ages of the involved characters (underage is being used as a very very vast term in these cases which imo sucks) and I think it's a cultural thing at which character age you're fine with it. In my country the laws about artistic sexual things are different and do not cover fictional characters, plus our age of consent is lower. But anyway, as you said, it's left way too vague and it can be used to abuse users, both by the mod and by other users (especially antis).
They can ban underage stuff for all I care, but to leave it so vague that you have to walk on eggshells? Hell no!
They better improve that policy and say what's allowed and what isn't, with less gray spaces where you're at the mercies of the mod. (That discord chat sounds kind of horrible in that regard ._.)

Bottom line: I agree xD They'll have to improve that policy if they don't want it to backfire.

[disartster]

Different cultures have different ideas of whats acceptable. Our consent laws are different from our laws around pictures as well. (Its a graduated consent thing where if you are these ages you can have sex with people up to this much in difference kinda thing until you reach like 18 Then the upward age restrictions are removed. Sounds complicated but is easy when you are used to it and protects teenagers from like angry parents and such who are pissed about who their kid is dating. For pictures, any sexual depictions of someone under the age of 18 is illegal. So the 18 thing would apply even though our consent age starts lower if that makes sense.
The discord chat is something. The joke was like "did you do this just so you could get laid?" It had context but that was the only sexual thing and I can't remember the exact phrasing but its wasn't explicit. I still looked at the chat today cause I ignore it for the most part, to find mostly naked pictures of other characters that are apparently fine. So its def a "if we like you" thing. Which is why I am cautious of letting mods have that much control with no over-site.

Long story short. They need someone watching the mods at the very minimum to double check. Like someone outside of the site or something. Or maybe a group separate that just checks it when people say something was wrongfully removed.

[ideen_elster]

Agreed. Now we'll just have to watch and see how that particular decision works out for Pillowfort. Right now neither side seems too happy, like there are people who think they don't ban enough, people who think they banned the wrong thing and people who don't agree with how the policy is supposed to be enforced or who are just critical of it.

Edit: I wouldn't want to be in their shoes right now ^^