Topic: Why is This Image Allowed?

https://e621.net/posts/5622928

It's a human in a William Shatner mask and a human in a dead pig mask.
That's 2 humans & 0 furries.

If we go by a VERY loose version of TWYS; Then Amanda being an 'anthro pig' (She's not) means Myers is William Shatner, not Michael Myers.

Basically; We have to apply the same rules to both characters:
Either Amanda is a 'pig' because of her mask, so Myers is Shatner because of his mask.
Or the masks are just masks, and both of them are still human.

And since that IS Michael Myers in a mask, we have to apply the same logic & consistency to Amanda, which means she's ALSO just a human in a mask.

And even under TWYS; It's 2 humans wearing masks.
Meaning it's 'Extreme human focus'.
Which is not allowed on this site, per the rules.

True, a mask does not make a human relevant. I'm guessing the approver saw it as plausibly enough not a mask.
That said, tagging has no impact on approval - what character is tagged as what does not matter for determining human only.

fuzzy_kobold said:
If we go by a VERY loose version of TWYS; Then Amanda being an 'anthro pig' (She's not) means Myers is William Shatner, not Michael Myers.

Characters are the rare case of TWYK since characters can change species and form, be given different designs, or have not enough visible to visually verify. One could definitely argue that William Shatner should be tagged if his likeness is visible, even if he as a character isn't present, but it's also meant to be Michael Myers so he should be tagged regardless.

Whether or not Amanda should count as a humanoid pig is a different question. Michael Myers is clearly wearing a mask, you can see on the neck where the mask is separate from his "real" neck. Amanda is more ambiguous, as you can't clearly see whether the pig head is meant to be her head or not. I can see a case for it going either way, but the moderator that approved it felt the pig head looked "real" enough to count as a humanoid pig rather than a human in a mask.

I will make a case for the approver that at glance it does looks like Amanda is just a very ugly female pig anthro lol, there's no seams for her "mask" there.

Not everyone saw the SAW series and/or played Dead By Daylight so that fumble could happen.

Looks like an anthro to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Going by TWYS, I don't see any indication that that is a mask in the image (despite it being one in lore)

They'll argue that you can suppose it's an animal head based on the image alone. The context barely matters. I don't think approvers really ever go back on approvals/deletions based on user considerations on what is or isn't anthro anyhow.

your main image she looks like she would be a pig humanoid and the Michael Meyers guy you can see a flap where the mask ends but with her being the "furry focus" of the pic it can stay
these two on the other hand
post #5469896 post #5469664
you can see the end of the mask as well as the slight discoloration of skin in the colored post. I myself don't see any tails so these would most like be humans in masks
staff manage this site whenever they can and they can't always be alert to see these tiny details
if you see something wrong then flag it and explain why with the flag details they'll get to it eventually

fuzzy_kobold said:
https://e621.net/posts/5622928

It's a human in a William Shatner mask and a human in a dead pig mask.
That's 2 humans & 0 furries.

If we go by a VERY loose version of TWYS; Then Amanda being an 'anthro pig' (She's not) means Myers is William Shatner, not Michael Myers.

Basically; We have to apply the same rules to both characters:
Either Amanda is a 'pig' because of her mask, so Myers is Shatner because of his mask.
Or the masks are just masks, and both of them are still human.

And since that IS Michael Myers in a mask, we have to apply the same logic & consistency to Amanda, which means she's ALSO just a human in a mask.

And even under TWYS; It's 2 humans wearing masks.
Meaning it's 'Extreme human focus'.
Which is not allowed on this site, per the rules.

Having zero knowledge of the lore of these characters, I would argue that I only see one male human (possibly in a mask due to the line across his neck) and one female animal_humanoid (since it isn't very clear that she is even wearing an animal_mask).

As a matter of fact, the female looks more like she has an animal_head, which would be the most appropriate tag to use as per TWYS.
If you could see any indications that she is in fact wearing an animal_mask instead, then you could argue that she is not an animal_humanoid and is actually a human, and contest the approval.

post #529468

fliphook said:
I myself don't see any tails so these would most like be humans in masks

Pig tails aren't that long so it's easy to hide lol.

There’s nothing in the image showing Amanda as a human here.

Amanda is fine to post when she’s depicted as a pig or if the mask blends in and cannot be determined to be a mask.

(Also funny this came up today… I’m actually dressing up as Amanda for Halloween lol)

notknow said:
Pig tails aren't that long so it's easy to hide lol.

Therefore it's definitely human because unless you can see it then it don't count
For those two images:
can't see tails, can't be anthro

manitka said:
There’s nothing in the image showing Amanda as a human here.

Amanda is fine to post when she’s depicted as a pig or if the mask blends in and cannot be determined to be a mask.

(Also funny this came up today… I’m actually dressing up as Amanda for Halloween lol)

fliphook said:
Therefore it's definitely human because unless you can see it then it don't count
For those two images:
can't see tails, can't be anthro

Had a similar issue too, that was just like the post above with this post
post #5868779
https://x.com/Notkastar/status/1971846615045755284

I said in the post it's self that the Roobin' 'ood wasn't human and
it got removed anyway. Since, it was unanimously agreed upon with the
other Janitors that my character was just a guy in a hood. And having
ears pointing from under the hood wasn't enough and text doesn't count.

'Brought up examples on hooded characters that matched my characters
vibe but were actually human and were allowed here:

post #771456 post #5535879 post #4981788

and got back that they were tempted to delete the example posts
I cited above. So, not in a mean way, where's the line if you
don't mind me asking, Dood?

Ah, yes. One of the many banes of a Janitor's existence. Another one along these lines is [[king_(tekken)|King) from Tekken. How many times have we scratched our heads over characters like these on the staff Discord?

Thankfully, we have the Fursuit Rule to help guide us. Basically, is that obviously a human in a costume or can it plausibly be the actual character? Lore doesn't (or shouldn't) guide us. We go by TWYS as many of us don't know or care about the lore. Things to look for include expressiveness of the mask's face, a lack of any separation between any visible human-like bits and what would normally be the costume, and even the artist interpreting the character as being whatever the costume is, thus making it a case of an alternate species. So, we've got to ask ourselves, "Is this a woman in a pig mask or could she be plausibly interpreted as a pig anthro? Is this guy an overly muscled human in a bird mask or did the artist decide draw him like the ancient Egyptian gods, as a human body with an animal head?" Sometimes, the decision boils down to a judgement call.

Also, remember, we're not a hive mind. Each of us on staff have different tolerances on what is acceptable, and our own personal tolerances can shift over time, both in the long term and the short term. What Manitka might be okay with, I might not, and vice versa. Something that might not fly with Strikerman yesterday could squeak in tomorrow. Something Mairo would have accepted back in 2020 could very well be a no-go with him next year. But we've gone through hundreds, if not thousands, or these sorts of pictures, so we've gotten a pretty good idea where the line might be. Yet, we can still get stumped at times or make mistakes, but usually, we just have to decide and move on. Can it be changed? Yes. But in the end, the important thing is that a decision was made.

Someone trying to "gotcha" us is not really helping anyone. Someone genuinely trying to understand our rationale can. But you've got to remember that these pictures aren't "slipping through" because we're incompetent or have a secret hankering for pig-masked women.

fuzzy_kobold said:
Basically; We have to apply the same rules to both characters:
Either Amanda is a 'pig' because of her mask, so Myers is Shatner because of his mask.
Or the masks are just masks, and both of them are still human.

And since that IS Michael Myers in a mask, we have to apply the same logic & consistency to Amanda, which means she's ALSO just a human in a mask.

And even under TWYS; It's 2 humans wearing masks.

This is e621. A human in a mask doing the naughty on an anthro isn't all that unlikely of a scenario. We still have to judge both characters on their own. She doesn't look like she's wearing a mask, and our ultimate goal is to include rather than exclude, so abadbird decided on including.

oneohthrix said:
They'll argue that you can suppose it's an animal head based on the image alone. The context barely matters.

The context is what's visible in the picture, not the lore. Remember to think like someone who has no clue what the lore is.

fliphook said:
post #5469896 post #5469664
you can see the end of the mask as well as the slight discoloration of skin in the colored post. I myself don't see any tails so these would most like be humans in masks

In both pictures, it's difficult to say that's the edge of a mask or not. In #5469896, that could be the edge of a mask or a neck wrinkle caused by the raising of the left shoulder. It's hard to say with how the hair covers it. In #5469664, is that a neck wrinkle among neck wrinkles or the edge of a mask? The angle doesn't make it very obvious, but an argument could be made. Regardless, Spe decided to include rather than exclude. In any case, we can always delete the latter if staff decides it wasn't relevant after all.

fliphook said:
Therefore it's definitely human because unless you can see it then it don't count
For those two images:
can't see tails, can't be anthro

Anthros don't always have tails. Witness Goofy. Tails are only one of many possible indications of non-humanness.

Can't see tails; look for other indications.

notkastar said:
So, not in a mean way, where's the line if you
don't mind me asking, Dood?

It's a very wiggly and sometimes fuzzy line. Trying to nail it down as much as we have so far still encourages some Users to dance about the line as much as they can. The line can never be defined well enough to nail it down. Once we do or try to, someone will always come up with another "but what about this?"

clawstripe said:
The context is what's visible in the picture, not the lore. Remember to think like someone who has no clue what the lore is.

Yeah, I meant context outside the image itself is what's not relevant, including lore, artist's intent, etc. You already brought up the fundamental issue though. What should be allowed on the site is ambiguous and staff have different tolerances despite following the same guidelines, so there's really no point in asking why any particular art was approved. Sure, post #4981788 looks like a dude in a mask... but it's pretty furry-coded, maybe it isn't a human.

And that's good - most prob prefer a "assume anthro / non-human unless proven otherwise" approach in those cases. Less dealing with 1000 "Why is X approved and Y deleted?" for janitors too.

clawstripe said:

It's a very wiggly and sometimes fuzzy line. Trying to nail it down as much as we have so far still encourages some Users to dance about the line as much as they can. The line can never be defined well enough to nail it down. Once we do or try to, someone will always come up with another "but what about this?"

If you don't mind me saying, The "but what about this?" is
a great and VERY important part of the rule making process.
That's the point in where you Really start Making the rules, Dood!

Rules are constantly evolving with the times, For better or for
worst, The rule doesn't become a rule until someone tries to play
jump rope with it. It exposes flaws, cracks and circumventions that
shouldn't be given up on, but patched and discussed.

"What should we do about this if that?", "Where does this fall?",
"if that is o.k, what about this?"

All great questions that janitors should talk about and discuss.
If the current rules of-

Needs work since this
post #5622928
clearly doesn't follow it and was still allowed, then Ya' gotta make the rules dynamic.
Regularly talking about the rules, Bringing it up to the proper superiors for further
discussion with the refined topic. And to see if we can make a change to prevent more
grayness in the area going forward for now, Until the next time comes to update it.

If we leave it static and vague, we'd ultimately force Janitors to work alone on the
iffyness, instead of as a team of dedicated peeps tackling hard topics together, to
make things better. Working alone in this particular way only makes chaos in all
sorts of ways, like infighting over what's human and making every post that doesn't
strictly have an anthro animal in it a game of Janitor roulette.

Maybe it's fine, maybe it's not, maybe one janitor is confused why
it was deleted, another confused why it wasn't deleted sooner.

Getting together and making rules about it could do wonders for the sites
long-term health and take a lot of RNG out of the equation; When there's
a evolving rule list on what's human "At the time."
something to refer to and that can be collectively refined and
isn't as messy and subjective as a personal opinion on that day,
Dood ╹‿╹)

To me it doesnt look like a mask. but imo i can see it being a edgy image for whats allowed here to some.

Rules aren't perfect. Neither are people. considering that a few staff members have seen this and the post hasnt been deleted. it must me ok to be here.