Topic: CoC 2.1 - Can a known error in an image be repaired based on child/parent images?

I will be citing examples of this with niche kink content (diapers, messing), but I will try to phrase this in a way that anyone reading should be able to understand.

Code of Conduct Sect. 2.1, Pt. 4: Do not upscale or otherwise manipulate images to artificially create a "better" version of an existing image.

This, as far as I can tell, is about artificial upscaling programs, and other image manipulation that produces pseudo-improvements to images. ie. The pixel count is higher, the image is "better".
However, what is this site's stance on alterations to images to restore original artist intent for an image. ie. Adding back an incorrectly removed body part in an alternate form of an image?

The image that sparked all this is this old Merunyaa piece. The horn on the final frame is clipped.
No big deal, just find the original and see if it's... Oh yeah, that's right, Meru has destroyed all her old fetish art. No problem, go to my stash of all of her old Patreon works and... It's like that there too.
Huh, well, no big deal, artists make mistakes like this all the time, we're all human. Oh, it has a parent post, I wonder if... No, the problem isn't on this piece.

It should be pretty obvious to anyone looking at this that this horn was not supposed to be clipped in the child post.
Because the poses are exactly the same, a splice could be made of the two posts to restore the child image to its original "artist's intent" form.
Would uploading such a splice to replace the image currently in the gallery violate any rules?

https://e621.net/help/uploading_guidelines

This would be a low effort/trivial edit, and thus not accepted
Any edit like this would need to come from the artist themself

Low effort edits (adding stories, changing text, bucket fill coloring, cutting out parts, etc.) are not allowed.

coomdoomer said:
No problem, go to my stash of all of her old Patreon works and...

Paywalled/commercial content would still remain as avoid_posting even if the artist has removed/nuked them from said paywall, so I would not recommend doing that in any case.
The only time that would be appropriate is if the artist publicly released those files for free or if you had acquired special permission from them to post it.

Huh, well, no big deal, artists make mistakes like this all the time, we're all human. Oh, it has a parent post, I wonder if... No, the problem isn't on this piece.

It should be pretty obvious to anyone looking at this that this horn was not supposed to be clipped in the child post.
Because the poses are exactly the same, a splice could be made of the two posts to restore the child image to its original "artist's intent" form.
Would uploading such a splice to replace the image currently in the gallery violate any rules?

It does not violate the rule you had listed, but it will also not replace the artist's original image.
Your edit would technically be considered as a third-party_edit since the artist did NOT post the "fixed" version themselves. In this case, your edited version would be saved as a child to the artist's original.

However, I am not sure if your edit will even be approved under our Quality Standards for Edits.
You can theoretically edit the original image and export it in the "same level of quality as the original", but it may be considered as "low effort edits" since you did not really change much apart from fixing a little mistake.
I believe fixing small mistakes such as this, especially in the case of typos in dialogue, tend to not be allowed and would be deleted over the artist's "flawed" version.

The only way this could be fixed is if the artist had posted the fixed version themselves.

Paywalled/commercial content would still remain as avoid_posting even...

The content was posted elsewhere, I just have a full res copy from when it was behind a paywall. The same resolution as the piece available already in this gallery, as it so happens.

Understood, but for those of you who have now been awakened to this OCD nightmare, you're welcome.

coomdoomer said:
The content was posted elsewhere, I just have a full res copy from when it was behind a paywall. The same resolution as the piece available already in this gallery, as it so happens.

If the version you have is not the byte for byte same as what is available publicly then it will still be paywalled content, it's safer to just use whatever is publicly available rather than run any risk
And if the same resolution is publicly available, what's the point in dipping into a local copy of paywalled content?

I talked with our janitors, and here's what one of them said after reviewing this thread:

abadbird said:
For edits, I mostly go off the wording of the deletion reason itself (Trivial or low quality edit). Low quality refers to the artistic and media quality. The artistic quality of the changes should be relatively seamless with the original and should match or exceed that quality. The media quality refers to upscales, downscales, and new artifacting degradation. All bad. How I treat the trivial part is "could anyone do this? Does this require artistic skill?" And a lot of simple changes fall into place with that, although we do allow things like hard English translations that often do not tap into artistic skill. What I really want to see with edits is "new art." Did the edit add something the original(s) did not have?
...
Usually, the arguments around edit quality are actually black-and-white, and once you see the "bad thing" you should be convinced. [Splicing a horn] is an A + B splice edit that anyone could do[, making it] a trivial edit. Some chan edits are actually respectable, because decent artists do hang out in those threads.

As a general rule, unless you have some artistic chops & are making an artistic & additive edit on top of a corrective edit (or the corrective edit itself is sufficiently artistically additive), I wouldn't bet on your edit being approved.