Keep showing posts by banned artists but still showing nothing in the page/thumbnail as it normally is

Sorry if I explained myself badly and I'm also using a translator. For example, on Youtube when a video is deleted/privated it keeps appearing, but says it has been deleted/privated and the thumbnail is blank. It helps to know that once there was something there, but now it isn't available anymore. I think it would be good because that way we would know if something we favorited has been banned from the site. Also when an artist is banned, their profile is still active on the site (showing his social media etc), which would be nice to know exactly which post was deleted so I can search again elsewhere.

123681631823619327129712983471923 said:

Sorry if I explained myself badly and I'm also using a translator. For example, on Youtube when a video is deleted/privated it keeps appearing, but says it has been deleted/privated and the thumbnail is blank. It helps to know that once there was something there, but now it isn't available anymore. I think it would be good because that way we would know if something we favorited has been banned from the site. Also when an artist is banned, their profile is still active on the site (showing his social media etc), which would be nice to know exactly which post was deleted so I can search again elsewhere.

Banned posts still show up with their thumbnails if you search them (eg post #4574641). Are you suggesting that instead of retaining the thumbnail, it shows just a blank space?

basedheero said:

Banned posts still show up with their thumbnails if you search them (eg post #4574641). Are you suggesting that instead of retaining the thumbnail, it shows just a blank space?

Does it show the thumbnail? Where? Also my favorites don't show a banned post that I've favorited, in any way. If you look at it, I have 5 favorited posts, but only 4 show up and it says "1 post(s) have been removed from this page at the artist's request (learn more)."

Thumbnails aren't visible for users under gold level.

Cattywampus said:

Thumbnails aren't visible for users under gold level.

Ah, so it's my problem. It makes sense now. But in the 'Upgrade' page I don't see the benefit of seeing hidden thumbnails listed, is it an unlisted benefit? Or would it be a complement to 'See Hidden tags'?

123681631823619327129712983471923 said:

Ah, so it's my problem. It makes sense now. But in the 'Upgrade' page I don't see the benefit of seeing hidden thumbnails listed, is it an unlisted benefit? Or would it be a complement to 'See Hidden tags'?

Yes.

It still might be nice to have some sort of placeholder thumbnail for regular members. Not sure how hard that would be to implement though, or if artists might get mad seeing that any amount of data, even blank thumbnails, is still on the site.

Cattywampus said:

It still might be nice to have some sort of placeholder thumbnail for regular members. Not sure how hard that would be to implement though, or if artists might get mad seeing that any amount of data, even blank thumbnails, is still on the site.

Don't see why anyone would get mad at that as long as the source link is one of their official accounts

Cattywampus said:

... or if artists might get mad seeing that any amount of data, even blank thumbnails, is still on the site.

They do. I regularly get artists wanting us to remove their artist tag, their artist profile, the commentary on their uploads, etc. I've even had one artist request that we remove pictures of his OC drawn by other artists. We're not obligated to remove anything but the image itself, but it's difficult to explain to Japanese artists speaking through Google Translate that no, they do not have the right to demand that non-copyrighted information like tags or links be taken down.

Strictly speaking, we don't even have to remove the actual thumbnails. Google won a court case over this. It was ruled fair use for an image search engine to display thumbnails of copyrighted works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com,_Inc.). But again, getting unhappy artists to understand this is a losing battle.

Cattywampus said:

It still might be nice to have some sort of placeholder thumbnail for regular members. Not sure how hard that would be to implement though, or if artists might get mad seeing that any amount of data, even blank thumbnails, is still on the site.

IMO I'm amenable to just such a proposal, but only for those ordinary works by "banned" artists, works tagged loli and shota and paid rewards after the July 2020 cutoff, "banned artist" or no, can remain hidden. To be fair, it's a bit of a pet peeve for me to browse through the "archives" and stumble on the said message about banned artworks so frequently. It sorta spoils the viewing experience when you realize these artists, in a way, suppress exposure on as many avenues as you can think of just because it "infringes on their rights of copyright", which leads me to the next thing...

evazion said:

They do. I regularly get artists wanting us to remove their artist tag, their artist profile, the commentary on their uploads, etc. I've even had one artist request that we remove pictures of his OC drawn by other artists. We're not obligated to remove anything but the image itself, but it's difficult to explain to Japanese artists speaking through Google Translate that no, they do not have the right to demand that non-copyrighted information like tags or links be taken down.

Strictly speaking, we don't even have to remove the actual thumbnails. Google won a court case over this. It was ruled fair use for an image search engine to display thumbnails of copyrighted works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_10,_Inc._v._Amazon.com,_Inc.). But again, getting unhappy artists to understand this is a losing battle.

...the case of Japanese artists getting skewed perceptions on what their "rights" are as content creators just because JP copyright laws are a different world from US/EU copyright laws.
If you ask me, we'd might as well restrict viewing of this site using Japanese IPs if they'll just keep raising red flags at us. Sure, it might be a pointless exercise given they can just VPN their way around it and then post screenshots on Twitter, but it eliminates the one major avenue for them to access the site.

ArcieA said:

If you ask me, we'd might as well restrict viewing of this site using Japanese IPs if they'll just keep raising red flags at us. Sure, it might be a pointless exercise given they can just VPN their way around it and then post screenshots on Twitter, but it eliminates the one major avenue for them to access the site.

Japan is the second biggest country by traffic, so that's a non-starter.

ArcieA said:

...

If you ask me, we'd might as well restrict viewing of this site using Japanese IPs if they'll just keep raising red flags at us. Sure, it might be a pointless exercise given they can just VPN their way around it and then post screenshots on Twitter, but it eliminates the one major avenue for them to access the site.

We primarily host works by Japanese artists, sourced from Japanese websites. In light of this, banning Japanese IPs just sends the wrong signal.

(Making it much harder for Japanese artists to issue removal requests, for one. It's unconscionable to expect them to use VPNs just to do so.)

First rule of the Internet. Anything that gets uploaded to the Internet is almost always immortalized forever. People that don't realize this get burned all the time, whether it be on a social media platform, through e-mail, or even SMS. If those artists didn't want anyone to keep or redisplay their artwork, then they shouldn't have uploaded it in the first place.

BrokenEagle98 said:

First rule of the Internet. Anything that gets uploaded to the Internet is almost always immortalized forever. People that don't realize this get burned all the time, whether it be on a social media platform, through e-mail, or even SMS. If those artists didn't want anyone to keep or redisplay their artwork, then they shouldn't have uploaded it in the first place.

If that were true then there wouldn't be reason for people to make anything that could ever be converted to a digital format. Movies, games, photos, art, anything that can be 3D printed, you can't just say "well, don't make it, then." It's, at the very least, completely fair for people to try to stop their creations from being taken or reproduced if that's their desire.

Regardless of what was just said, which is completely wrong, we're under no obligation to change any behavior. In fact, the most likely outcome of this thread is that nothing will happen, as per usual.

BrokenEagle98 said:

Regardless of what was just said, which is completely wrong, we're under no obligation to change any behavior. In fact, the most likely outcome of this thread is that nothing will happen, as per usual.

I fail to see how people having a right to protect what belongs to them, however futile of an endeavor, is wrong. The "freedom" of the internet doesn't change that. What is this, the wild west where anything goes as long as you never get caught?

Isn't that the whole reason we even have the takedown request policy? Because we're not just petty art thieves stepping all over artists for our own gain?

I don't know where to put this (here, changelog discussion, or make a new thread) so I'll place it here on the original relevant thread.

After some thought put into this, I think my proposal should go as follows:

1. Thumbnails for artworks by "banned" artists be shown to regular users too while still remaining not applicable to unregistered users (I must stress that last part enough to clear out possible violent reactions)
2. Clicking on the thumbnail will still show only a blank page for regular users
3. To identify which are "banned", the red image border be restored for this new task

This proposal will not be applicable to posts tagged loli/shota/toddler regardless if they came from a "banned" artist.
Likewise, this proposal will also not be applicable to paid rewards after the July 2020 cutoff, regardless if they came from a "banned" artist.

The purpose of this proposal is to clear out the viewing experience for regular users because, let's be honest, some of us may feel peeved seeing the same message about "banned" artists when we search through what I'd like to call a de facto library/archive. Being a registered user here should be analogous to a library card: you gain added access as opposed to ordinary visitors.

From this thread alone, there are some (including me) who are amenable to a proposal to allow thumbnails while still keeping the posts themselves hidden, it's a compromise between viewing experience and keeping our "word" on the artists.
The way I see it, "banned" posts carry less severity than posts that are loli/shota so long as the content doesn't involve the aforementioned tags.

Not sure about the others' opinions, though, especially the builders.

The reason thumbnails (and post IDs from the api) were removed was to avoid having third-party userscripts go around the ban of paid rewards. So long as the elements are displayed in the search, the ban can be worked around and be made pointless.

If thumbnails are shown, that means it's also possible to get the original file, because thumbnails and full-size pictures share the same url components and it's trivial to obtain one from the other. So if we showed thumbnails it means anyone could get the original files from there.

It's not possible to change this without reworking a lot of the logic around how files are hosted.