Art in the mature discussion area

[spark]

I'm probably going to have my ex admin hat on for this, since i'll have to bring up some decisions that were made during my time when seeking clarifications about this issue.

At some point, we decided to have a board for art (formerly known as the fridge door, now known as the gallery), and while there was some opposition to it - after all, werelist isn't an art site, we implemented it since so many of us *are* artists of various sorts, and there was an implicit understanding art stays there.

I noticed that someone posted a piece of artwork which wasn't PG in the mature discussions board. While I don't have an issue with the artwork itself, i personally think it falls outside the scope of the board - its not really discussion of serious topics - its more of "look what i have drawn". It also seems to be a way to sidestep the PGness of the offical art board.

As a result, I'm wondering what's the official stance on this?

[Savage]

That's largely what the Mature area is for, so people can legitimately share on-topic adult stuff. We don't want to turn WL into a porno site (we're just not equipped to deal with the kind of attention this would draw), but hey, if a member drew something that they are proud of that is on topic for a therian site, and they want to share, I don't see any big issue with it. It just needs to go in the Mature area if it's not PG rated.

If people keep posting naughty pics there frequently, we might have a formal discussion re: what we can do to avoid turning WL into a porno board while not suppressing our member's freedom of expression too much. I'd probably suggest they move the adult artwork over to DeviantArt and post occasional links in the Mature area, since WL is not DA and isn't intended for that kind of use. Once in awhile if a member really wants to share something, it's not going to be a problem. More than once in awhile and we may need to enforce the "don't post ANY pictures bigger than thumbnails outside the Gallery" policy and ask people to only post links.

Size is an issue. and not just in porn. If they are posting giant pictures in a discussion forum, Mature or not, they need to pull that down and post a thumbnail and a link to a larger image.

In the past (specifically, dating back to when I was co-admin with Coyote and before), it simply hasn't been an issue, because even the Mature section stuff has to be on topic and relevant to therians to be posted on WL at all. Also, no posting other people's copyrighted stuff. So we're very unlikely to ever see random porn, just stuff drawn by members that is actually relevant to therianthropy. If someone posts random porn there (non therian, not personally made by them), then it's just spam and we'll baleet it. And probably them, too, as that's seriously inappropriate.

So I don't see it becoming a big problem. If it does, we'll open the discussion again. I do really appreciate your keeping an eye on things and giving this heads-up. Thank you.

[TheWolf]

Hmm, interesting idea. Im not sure how vBulletin works but I think you can make a fourm in a fourm like other sites (example: Invisionfree) have. If you did that then we wouldnt really have to worry about corrupting the main page. The second fourm would have its own space limit only dedicated for that.

[copb.phoenix]

Space isn't the only issue (Puts on software engineer/videogame designer hat, hey, why not?).

Part of the problem comes in bandwidth and another part comes in the physical resources of the server itself.

Bandwidth is expensive. Even when it isn't expensive, it still sucks to have to pay out. More people only drives that up. Think of it as the upload/download meter in your favorite P2P, except every last nibble you upload and every last nibble you download costs you cash. I may be a bit off-base; some hosts do provide un-metered bandwidth, so it's more important to get the general idea then to take some random member (me) and treat them like they know the entire site inside and out.

The other half, which is going to be correct, because it's just common sense if you study these things enough, is the physical limitations of the server. Mentioning one - space - yeah, alright, but every single request to the server uses ram and a certain amount of "thinking" (cycles) for the CPU. When you reach the top of what either of those can do, watch out! ~On top of this is the internet connection speed for the server which, while usually one of the last problems, is still one of the random things you have to consider.

[Anuolf]

Originally Posted by TheWolf

Hmm, interesting idea. Im not sure how vBulletin works but I think you can make a fourm in a fourm like other sites (example: Invisionfree) have. If you did that then we wouldnt really have to worry about corrupting the main page. The second fourm would have its own space limit only dedicated for that.

Sorry, but Werelist has never been an art site, and never will be. We have the Art Gallery by popular demand for discussion, critique, and so forth and it has to be therianthropy related as far as I know [I don't haunt that section often, just no time].

Even though the sub-board will have it's own space, that doesn't mean it won't use up bandwidth and necessary server resources to implement. Art takes up a lot more room and resources than text does, so adding more art sections just probably won't be feasible. Plus, on top of that, it just creates more work for the already overwhelmed staff. The staff is entirely volunteer, so we use our free/down time to do Werelist tasks. Adding a whole new art board will just mean one other thing to stretch into our personal time.

Besides, there are sites that you can use to host your artwork, like Deviantart, Sheezyart, FurAffinity, etc. There's really no reason for art to be hosted here. In fact, I would almost prefer it if people linked their artwork, or used a thumbnail, rather than simply putting the image right into their post. But that's just me.

[DragonicWolf]

Actually, scene as this is on the topic, apologies if there is supposed to be another way to do this but, I am a legal adult, where can i gain access to the mature discussions?