after poring through the help topics i haven't found a response for what the description box is actually for.

sometimes it's the artist's notes, sometimes something added by a user. sometimes it's a user-written story, sometimes that story is written by the author. once in a blue moon we actually get a description of what happens in the image. it's inconsistent, i would say.

so what is the description box for?

silly example below, where Trixie's love of peanut butter crackers is alleged by the original uploader and does not reflect anything the artist posted.

post #373599

I dont mean to be rude but isnt this a bit pedantic?

i ask this question because i did not find the answer. that's a good enough reason to ask, as it's always better to know more.

All of the above.

As long as it refers to the image, and it's not hateful or hurtful, it's fine.

It's just a space to write stuff about the post itself.

Like how @Furrin_Gok had said, you can write anything there that is related to the post (even ads that promote the artist) as long as it's not spam, hate speech or has malicious purposes.

For me, the description box is just a copy-paste from the artist's original description with credits mentioned below.

I have no idea what's allowed. Originally you were only supposed to copy-paste post descriptions and such from the artist for the description. And if you put in anything else, you used to get slapped for it.

But now they're full of user-written self-insert stories that often don't even have much to do with the post, and random comments that'd fit better in the comment section. It's got quite difficult to figure out if it's something official written by the artist or not.

I'm still not convinced that there hasn't been some miscommunication about what's allowed in there and what's not. Because letting users write creepy stories of someone else's fursona seems like a bad idea. We don't allow those in comments, so why do we allow them in descriptions?

TheGreatWolfgang said:
It's just a space to write stuff about the post itself.

Like how @Furrin_Gok had said, you can write anything there that is related to the post (even ads that promote the artist) as long as it's not spam, hate speech or has malicious purposes.

For me, the description box is just a copy-paste from the artist's original description with credits mentioned below.

Wait, you're allowed to post ads in descriptions? I had no idea.

Would linking to the artist's Patreon be something that's allowed?

I consider post #1202620 to be improper use.

BlueDingo said:
I consider post #1202620 to be improper use.

That description was added by the artist. Complaining whenever an artist adds a comment in the description box rather than the comment section might be a good way to increase our DNP list...

Now, if the artist said please tag this female, then that would be a problem...

wolftacos said:
Wait, you're allowed to post ads in descriptions? I had no idea.

Would linking to the artist's Patreon be something that's allowed?

I have been doing that with posts that artists had linked their Patreons to.

As mentioned under Advertising in the Code of Conduct(Site Rules),
"If you are the content creator of a given post, it is acceptable and encouraged for you to advertise products or services you may offer, in the 'description' field of your post."

Genjar said:
I'm still not convinced that there hasn't been some miscommunication about what's allowed in there and what's not. Because letting users write creepy stories of someone else's fursona seems like a bad idea. We don't allow those in comments, so why do we allow them in descriptions?

Under Posting Abuse of the Code of Conduct,

• Editing/creating post descriptions (if you are not the artist, uploader, character owner, or commissioner) to create information

I guess that self-written stories of random users would fall under this field, but I wouldn't be sure if the story was to be written by the uploader him/herself.

Deh-tiger said:
That description was added by the artist. Complaining whenever an artist adds a comment in the description box rather than the comment section might be a good way to increase our DNP list...

Now, if the artist said please tag this female, then that would be a problem...

It's something I'm tempted to rewrite into a "For lore buffs" section. People are still going to refer to the character as a he regardless.

TheGreatWolfgang said:
I guess that self-written stories of random users would fall under this field, but I wouldn't be sure if the story was written by the uploader himself.

I feel like that should depend on how the uploader is related to the image. If it's the uploader's character and/or own art? Their story is going to be relevant to the image. If the uploader is just some dude who got a stiffy looking at the image their personal fantasy isn't relevant just because they happened to upload it here before someone else did.

TheGreatWolfgang said:
Under Posting Abuse of the Code of Conduct,

• Editing/creating post descriptions (if you are not the artist, uploader, character owner, or commissioner) to create information

I guess that self-written stories of random users would fall under this field, but I wouldn't be sure if the story was to be written by the uploader him/herself.

I'm sure that I've seen at least one admin say that user-written stories are okay to add to the descriptions. And this recent quote from NotMeNotYou seems to also contradict that rule: forum #227881.

The description field is basically FFA and has very little actual rules on what is allowed or forbidden attached to it (on purpose).

That said there are some rules and some internal guidelines:

Rules:

• The contents inside can't be malicious, derogatory, or insulting towards anyone is probably the biggest rule.
• Artists/character owners/publishers are allowed to advertise their products or patreon(s) inside "their" description fields
• Contents inside the description do not affect the tags and do not have to adhere to TWYS, this means giving information that the tags can't (or aren't allowed to give) is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged
• Made up stories by the uploader are bad and should be reported / nuked from orbit
• They are okay if the uploader has permission to do so or is the artist/character owner themselves
• We should probably make this part more clear in the actual rule section and/or explicitly add it

Guidelines:

• Copypasta of the artist(s) description from the source is encouraged but not a hard requirement
• This may be hard to enforce because multiple sources often have different descriptions available
• sometimes they change over time
• Changing an empty or outright pointless description to an official one is encouraged, unless the uploader is the artist/character owner/commissioner themselves
• fixing grammar and spelling inside descriptions is always fine

I might be forgetting something smaller but those should cover all larger bases.