I got a dmail just recently about a user who is posting their own art. Before I sent them a note about it, I wanted to get our exact wording. Well, our wording leaves wiggle room and I'm not sure if it's for the best or not:
"Uploading one's own art is looked down upon. This is because it's generally thought that artists are biased when it comes to judging the quality of their own work. Only in very limited cases are such posts accepted, and posting sub-par creations of your own can result in being penalized. Understand the risks before considering posting your own work. More suitable sites to upload your own art to include Deviantart and Pixiv."
Bolded parts are various indications that the rule is not a yes/no, absolute concept.
I wanted to do this without calling anyone out, but since I have no reason to believe they're doing it maliciously, mentioning them hopefully won't be construed as criticism of the user: user:reef1600
98% of the time, leaving wiggle room isn't an issue because almost everyone who posts their own art is either a mediocre artist or a drama queen regarding criticism, and they get themselves banned quickly enough. But these images aren't bad (unless you hate Touhou, as I know some of you do), putting aside that reef is much too ambiguous to be an unqualified artist tag.
How good is good enough for an exception, though? We don't even define what an exception entails, but the door is left open to their existence. So... whats the call? I've always been in favor of a hard ban, simply because it's one of only two fair ways way to do it, and the only other fair way (complete allowance) has been rightly rejected time and time again as being a drama magnet and conflict of interest (what happens if a Contributor is the one uploading their own art, for example?). But I won't enforce a ban that is seemingly contradicted to some extent by our stated rules, so it needs discussion.
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