approver said:

insufficiently anime

so is post #2430440 and fine_art has been approved before.

approver said:

A bit rasist-ish.

rasist??? I don't get it, what does this mean? are you trying to say "racist"?

because if that is what you tried to say then I don't see how defending a city against an attack in a last stand can be considered racist.

flagger said:

Good piece. Unfortunately it falls under Off-Topic content

wrong

upload rules said:

You may not upload any of the following to Danbooru:

Off-topic content (see below).
Poorly drawn content.
Paid rewards.
Commercially licensed anime or manga.
Real photos of any person under the age of 18.
Works containing third-party watermarks (unless the unwatermarked picture is not available anywhere).
Works upscaled or downscaled by third parties, including Waifu2x upscales (unless the original picture is not available anywhere).
Hard translations to non-English languages (hard-translated).
Third-party edits that substantially alter the content of the image, such as nude filters, headshops, fake translations, or meme or joke edits.
Low effort or unoriginal memes, such as motivators (if not done by the original artist).
Fully AI-generated art with no human input aside from prompting.

The following things are considered off-topic:

Real life pornographic photos or videos, such as Western porn actresses or Japanese JAV idols.
Real life photos that have nothing to do with anime, manga, or videogames.
Low effort or unoriginal memes.

Borderline Content

Extreme fetish content. This includes extreme guro, scat, bestiality, vore, "hyper" fetishism (monstrously large body parts), diaper fetishism, and other extreme or unusual fetishes.
AI-assisted content
Explicit furry content.
3D porn or SFM porn.
Cosplay photos.
Hard-translated comics.
Anime screenshots.
Third-party edits not in the "Prohibited Content" section above.
Duplicates.
Bad anatomy.

the prohibition of fine art is not listed anywhere in the upload rules, check fine_art to see the approved posts of art similar to my post.

Danbooru is primarily for anime-related content but that doesn't mean that is absolutely the case, there are exceptions to the rule depending on the quality of the art, I suggest reading the rules the next time you think about flagging a post.

If Hitler's art is on-topic, then this is too.

HyphenSam said:

If Hitler's art is on-topic, then this is too.

what???

HyphenSam said:

If Hitler's art is on-topic, then this is too.

FTFY

winkywonker said:

what???

Yep, there are two Hitler paintings on this site. Honestly I was as surprised as you are to find out about this.

Myony said:

FTFY

Yep, there are two Hitler paintings on this site. Honestly I was as surprised as you are to find out about this.

Neither of those, nor this post are sufficiently on-topic to be approvable IMHO. At least post #2430440 is from a game, which makes it marginally (if also questionably) on-topic.

Also, "something similar has already been approved / not been deleted" is not a valid argument that a new post must be / ought to be accepted. Each post gets judged by each approver on its own merits.

Despite that, I generally won't flag things (or recommend they be flagged) for being off-topic either unless it's egregious. That still doesn't mean they need to be re-approved if they are flagged.

I've said this on Discord and I'll say it again. We have lots of original no_humans painting_(medium) posts that aren't anime related at all, and nobody bats an eye. But the moment someone uploads a fine art painting from 1291, people go "hmmmmm this feels off-topic".

Either it is on-topic or it isn't. There's no in-between. And before someone replies, "but they're made by Japanese artists", why does that matter? Art is art. And there's plenty of non-Japanese artist posts in that search I linked. If you're unable to tell the ethnicity of who made a particular art piece just by looking at it, this point is completely moot.

HyphenSam said:

I've said this on Discord and I'll say it again. We have lots of original no_humans painting_(medium) posts that aren't anime related at all, and nobody bats an eye. But the moment someone uploads a fine art painting from 1291, people go "hmmmmm this feels off-topic".

Either it is on-topic or it isn't. There's no in-between. And before someone replies, "but they're made by Japanese artists", why does that matter? Art is art. And there's plenty of non-Japanese artist posts in that search I linked. If you're unable to tell the ethnicity of who made a particular art piece just by looking at it, this point is completely moot.

A lot of approval criteria (especially on-topic / off-topic) are certainly not strict simply-defined black-and-white yes-or-no decisions. There certainly is a lot of in-between. There are tons of cases where something is arguably on-topic for some reason(s) and off-topic for other reason(s). Just a few illustrative examples: post #3339784, post #5156155, post #5343690, post #5168921, post #1041854, post #4456517, etc...)

It's very much a fuzzy line that is judged by each individual approver / uploader. I don't have to agree 100% with you where that line is drawn (though the "primarily for anime-related content" should be a strong guideline). If to you 13th century European paintings are on-topic enough, because they are similar to landscapes drawn by well-established and well-accepted artists from Pixiv, I can be ok with that and you can approve them. I'm a big proponent of giving approvers some lee-way in deciding what is and isn't approvable.

At the same time, I don't have to agree with you that the same works meet my own criteria for "on-topic" though. At this moment, it seems the same is true for at least 16 other approvers who have thus far weighed in on this post. It's exactly because of these fuzzy judging criteria that I don't advocate for people flagging for being off-topic unless things are beyond the pale. That said, it's also not against the rules for someone to do so if they think it's too far beyond their own criteria.

so my approved posts & upload limit both take a hit simply because some user randomly decided to flag a post that follows the guidelines enough for it to be approved beforehand all for no good reason but just because?

good to know that at any time my posts could be deleted on a whim by any user who personally believes it to be "off-topic".

winkywonker said:

so my approved posts & upload limit both take a hit simply because some user randomly decided to flag a post that follows the guidelines enough for it to be approved beforehand all for no good reason but just because?

good to know that at any time my posts could be deleted on a whim by any user who personally believes it to be "off-topic".

It's more that it is too far from what's considered acceptable by most approvers, and so far from acceptable that at least one user felt it should be removed.

It looks like it already failed to pass the queue initially, so all approvers that saw it in the first three days passed on it. It was approved two days after appeal the second time through the queue. On the third pass, it's already passed two days again without getting re-approved and 16 people essentially voting against it.

I usually like to say (in my opinion) that if any one approver vouches for a post that it should stay unless there's a pretty good reason otherwise. So by my typical reasoning the pass on appeal should have been enough, but obviously that's just my own opinion. The flagger felt this was far enough outside of what they consider acceptable to flag it and override the approver who accepted it. That is really what the flagging system is for, so I can't really fault them especially since it's outside my own criteria.

The fact that it's had a hard time getting though the queue three times now indicates that this type of post generally isn't the sort of thing approvers find acceptable. Seeing that should give you a better indication of what perhaps shouldn't be posted. Learning that is important to becoming a successful poster.

It's not potentially getting deleted "just because" (for no reason), it's because it doesn't meet most approvers acceptance criteria (aside from the one approver that vouched for it).

There's still a chance it will get in a second time. Any one approver aside from the original one that accepted it on appeal could override the flagger, but with 16 approvers indicating they wouldn't approve that is not a good sign.

It's good to know that the approval system of this site is run on the chaos and anarchy of the opinion of the common man.

winkywonker said:

It's good to know that the approval system of this site is run on the chaos and anarchy of the opinion of the common man.

Man, I usually agree about "borderline off-topic" content (getting high quality pony art deleted is annoying, especially when it's from Eastern artists), but talking like this doesn't help your argument. At the end of the day it's up to approvers and staff to decide what's on-topic, and it's not like unapproved posts are deleted entirely or anything. They're still here even if they fail the queue.

Heartcatcher said:

Man, I usually agree about "borderline off-topic" content (getting high quality pony art deleted is annoying, especially when it's from Eastern artists), but talking like this doesn't help your argument. At the end of the day it's up to approvers and staff to decide what's on-topic, and it's not like unapproved posts are deleted entirely or anything. They're still here even if they fail the queue.

it's just disheartening to me to know that at any time any one of my posts could just as simply be flagged simply because a person dislikes it or is having a bad day, such a system is just too chaotic for me to put my faith in that I won't get fucked over because someone randomly decides to make their bad day someone elses, especially considering the majority of my uploads are western focused.

winkywonker said:

It's good to know that the approval system of this site is run on the chaos and anarchy of the opinion of the common man.

You've been on the site for 7 years now, how could you not know this already? The moderation system here never has been nor has ever been intended to be purely objective. That's why the vetting process for new approvers and for users to earn the right to bypass the queue is so long, to make sure their interpretation of what's acceptable aligns closely enough with the site's standards to itself be acceptable. There are a few well-defined hard rules that you could argue are objective (e.g. no third party nude filters, no real-world photographic pornography, etc), but most of it is subject to interpretation to various degrees. Understanding what subjectively is acceptable comes with interacting with the site and observing how the mod queue works.

I've gone through your deleted uploads (and even reverted a few). You have a good eye for quality, and no one is disputing quality in this case. You also have a bit of a tendency to push the envelope a bit towards western works. Personally I think that's perfectly fine, but when pushing envelopes you have to accept the fact that not everything on the cutting edge of what you're pushing is going to pass muster. That's true for approvers and unrestricted uploaders too and is where you need to accept that you start running into the risk of things getting flagged.

Shinjidude said:

I've gone through your deleted uploads (and even reverted a few). You have a good eye for quality, and no one is disputing quality in this case. You also have a bit of a tendency to push the envelope a bit towards western works. Personally I think that's perfectly fine, but when pushing envelopes you have to accept the fact that not everything on the cutting edge of what you're pushing is going to pass muster. That's true for approvers and unrestricted uploaders too and is where you need to accept that you start running into the risk of things getting flagged.

I understand this, but I feel anyone in my position would eventually have this same reaction I'm having because of how frequently my uploads get deleted, not because it is shit art, but because it's not eastern enough, something like this would grate against anyone's patience and eventually provoke a reaction, so as much as I understand the position I put myself in, you must also understand that I am not a perfect being with infinite patience.

but with that being said I do understand that it is I who put myself here and your wisdom has reached me, you'll have to forgive me as I have only recently started uploading considering my nearly 8 years being on the site, I was a lurker for the longest time so I'm still adjusting to the changes, but with that being said as much as I understand your point of view I do hope you at least see mine.

That's all completely understandable, I feel the same way if and when things I post or approve get flagged. It's annoying, but at the same time, you have to detach yourself from the situation and look to understand why the flag happened. In almost every case you can pretty clearly see in which direction you overstepped the bounds of acceptability (quality, focus, etc.). Understanding that, and using it to guide your future uploads is important. If it happens to be that the flagger really was just having a bad day, it will almost always get re-approved pretty quickly. Its the other cases where 20 some people look at the flag and go "this really doesn't pass my own acceptance criteria either" that you run into trouble.

In cases like those, especially when you *know* you've pushed the bounds a bit that things are really annoying, given it got through or past the queue at least once already. You think to yourself, "yeah I know this might have been fringe, but I post things like this frequently, and they've generally been tolerated or accepted", or "I know no one else is going to approve this, but it would have been fine except for this one person who flagged it". The problem is that this sort of situation is indicating that the flagging system is working appropriately. You only need one approver / unrestricted person to agree for a post to get (back) in. When all of the approvers currently active that see your post say "no", you have to learn that you've stepped a bit too far and are treading over that fuzzy line of acceptability. It's a good idea to re-assess your own version of that line at that point and use it to guide yourself in the future.

I personally think people should be very sparing with flags and trust the vetted approvers and uploaders that allowed the post through or past the queue. Doing so allows for greater variety of content on the site and allows us to archive, preserve, and curate more works. Despite that, the flagging system does have a point and it needs to be understood and accepted.

Shinjidude said:

A lot of approval criteria (especially on-topic / off-topic) are certainly not strict simply-defined black-and-white yes-or-no decisions. There certainly is a lot of in-between. There are tons of cases where something is arguably on-topic for some reason(s) and off-topic for other reason(s)...It's very much a fuzzy line that is judged by each individual approver / uploader.

It's annoying, but at the same time, you have to detach yourself from the situation and look to understand why the flag happened. In almost every case you can pretty clearly see in which direction you overstepped the bounds of acceptability (quality, focus, etc.). Understanding that, and using it to guide your future uploads is important. If it happens to be that the flagger really was just having a bad day, it will almost always get re-approved pretty quickly. Its the other cases where 20 some people look at the flag and go "this really doesn't pass my own acceptance criteria either" that you run into trouble.

In cases like those, especially when you *know* you've pushed the bounds a bit that things are really annoying, given it got through or past the queue at least once already. You think to yourself, "yeah I know this might have been fringe, but I post things like this frequently, and they've generally been tolerated or accepted", or "I know no one else is going to approve this, but it would have been fine except for this one person who flagged it". The problem is that this sort of situation is indicating that the flagging system is working appropriately. You only need one approver / unrestricted person to agree for a post to get (back) in. When all of the approvers currently active that see your post say "no", you have to learn that you've stepped a bit too far and are treading over that fuzzy line of acceptability. It's a good idea to re-assess your own version of that line at that point and use it to guide yourself in the future.

I personally think people should be very sparing with flags and trust the vetted approvers and uploaders that allowed the post through or past the queue. Doing so allows for greater variety of content on the site and allows us to archive, preserve, and curate more works. Despite that, the flagging system does have a point and it needs to be understood and accepted.

This is all really good advice and a really fantastic summary of how flagging and approving borderline content should be approached. I think I'm going to point people to these comments in the future when this topic comes up again (as it always does).

The trials and tribulations of being an uploader aside, I don't see why it's necessary for us to archive digital scans of classical fine art? Dozens of places, both irl and on the internet, are already dedicated to the preservation and archival of most of these pieces. Why does an anime focused art aggregator site need to include centuries old fine art buried amongst a mountain of exaggerated titties? Who among our thousands of lurking coomers are ever going to search for these?

I think things like this are off-topic. I think those works from Hitler are off-topic. There's no reason for us to have them, and 99% of our users are never going to care if we have them or not. This one is literally sourced from a site that sells copies of fine art. There's no point in it being here.

It may not be literally against the rules to upload, but it has nothing to do with our primary focus nor our primary demographic, and that sounds off-top to me.

blindVigil said:

The trials and tribulations of being an uploader aside, I don't see why it's necessary for us to archive digital scans of classical fine art? Dozens of places, both irl and on the internet, are already dedicated to the preservation and archival of most of these pieces. Why does an anime focused art aggregator site need to include centuries old fine art buried amongst a mountain of exaggerated titties? Who among our thousands of lurking coomers are ever going to search for these? ...

I agree with you 95% of the way.

Now that we have the ability to embed references as media assets, I think it's a good idea to upload fine art where it gets parodied to be embedded in either the specific parody posts' comments, or in the tag wiki for the parody when the parodies are frequent enough to warrant a tag. Even in those cases though, they should probably stay as just a media asset and not get completed as an actual tagged and submitted-for-approval post.

I rather disagree with the sentiment that if something doesn't appeal to 99% of our users (especially those here primarily just for pornography) that it shouldn't be posted.

Yes, fine-art (at least for fine-arts' sake) is largely off-topic (at least in my opinion), but there are tons of arguably on-topic niche works that don't appeal to very many users, but are at a very real risk of getting lost if we don't make efforts to archive them.

I actually think we should go out of our way to include and not flag such things. The "arguably on-topic" part is admittedly important there though.

Shinjidude said:

I agree with you 95% of the way.

Now that we have the ability to embed references as media assets, I think it's a good idea to upload fine art where it gets parodied to be embedded in either the specific parody posts' comments, or in the tag wiki for the parody when the parodies are frequent enough to warrant a tag. Even in those cases though, they should probably stay as just a media asset and not get completed as an actual tagged and submitted-for-approval post.

I rather disagree with the sentiment that if something doesn't appeal to 99% of our users (especially those here primarily just for pornography) that it shouldn't be posted.

Yes, fine-art (at least for fine-arts' sake) is largely off-topic (at least in my opinion), but there are tons of arguably on-topic niche works that don't appeal to very many users, but are at a very real risk of getting lost if we don't make efforts to archive them.

I actually think we should go out of our way to include and not flag such things. The "arguably on-topic" part is admittedly important there though.

Oh, no, we're actually in complete agreement. The way I worded it made my opinion on what is or isn't on-topic sound much stricter than it really is. It's just, as you've already said, it's not really something that can be given a black and white criteria. There's lots of things that aren't anime related or interesting to a majority of danbooru users that I think are perfectly fine to have here. It's not an issue of it being niche, as much as just completely outside the scope of what we're trying to do.

What I was referring to, just as a general statement, is 200 year old fine art. Things that are probably sitting in a museum somewhere. Things that have zero relation to anime or any kind of modern media. It's hard to really define the line, but essentially if the only criteria it meets for approval on danbooru is "high quality art" then it probably doesn't belong here.

Most users that visit the site, even for the first time, can be reasonably assumed to have a general idea of what kind of art they're going to find here. Dominique Papety's "The Siege of Acre" isn't it. Things like that are so far removed from what we're doing that it almost feels like something that gets uploaded just to criticize the approvers when they reject it because it doesn't technically break the rules. "Not technically against the rules" isn't the same as "appropriate for danbooru."

yet it seems what's appropriate for Danbooru is decided by any random person who's willing to give it a chance, and judging that a pic shouldn't be uploaded here based on its age, whether it's archived in a museum or not, or because it's just a scan are not reasons to reject the pic, quality art is quality art no matter what era it's from, and this is one of the few archives if not the only archive that not only allows but also strives for more than just ass and tits, which is exactly why I upload these scans of historical pieces in the first place.

this isn't just a site geared towards porn like every other booru, it is also a site that doubles as an archive for humanity's greatest artistic achievements on the canvas, and this is exactly why I push for & post only quality art regardless on whether it's eastern or western or fine art or whatever else doesn't fit the norm.

winkywonker said:

yet it seems what's appropriate for Danbooru is decided by any random person who's willing to give it a chance, and judging that a pic shouldn't be uploaded here based on its age, whether it's archived in a museum or not, or because it's just a scan are not reasons to reject the pic, quality art is quality art no matter what era it's from, and this is one of the few archives if not the only archive that not only allows but also strives for more than just ass and tits, which is exactly why I upload these scans of historical pieces in the first place.

this isn't just a site geared towards porn like every other booru, it is also a site that doubles as an archive for humanity's greatest artistic achievements on the canvas, and this is exactly why I push for & post only quality art regardless on whether it's eastern or western or fine art or whatever else doesn't fit the norm.

Danbooru is an anime focused booru first and foremost. It was originally created to combat the loss of modern Eastern digital art, and to make it more accessible to English speakers when sites like pixiv, which didn't even exist at the time, lacked dedicated English language support. Museums are already dedicated to archiving "humanity's greatest artistic achievements." Let Danbooru be Danbooru. Just because we don't accept exclusively anime related art does not mean anything and everything not explicitly listed in the rules is fair game. Some things, no matter how "quality," are simply outside the scope of Danbooru's mission.

the majority of the posts I've uploaded aren't anime-focused and yet they're approved regardless.

Way to miss the point

did I though?

the majority of my posts go against the ideologies you have for the site, and the reason why my posts are slowly becoming more acceptable on this site is because of the great boon Eastern art has had in the West in recent years, big enough to where sites like this no longer need to cater strictly towards eastern art only, and with so many other boorus around on the net these days, I believe taking a step towards relaxing just how strict we need to be on quality art will, in the long run, distinguish us from the rest of them.

Yes, you did, and I honestly assume it's intentional, given your track record.

"The Siege of Acre (1291)" has nothing to do with a bunch of Elden Ring fan art. There's an obvious reason one is fine and the other isn't, and someone who isn't constantly trying to rules lawyer their off-topic posts into being on-topic can easily see why.

The Elden Ring and 40k things you upload don't go against my idea of what this site is for, besides some of them looking like crap. If you knew how to read you would have figured that out from my other replies.

blindVigil said:

temper tantrum

yet "The Siege of Acre (1291)" WAS approved just like my shitty "off-topic" Elden Ring & w40k art. and looking at the fine art tag I see more than just this piece has been approved throughout the years.

winkywonker said:

yet "The Siege of Acre (1291)" WAS approved just like my shitty "off-topic" Elden Ring & w40k art. and looking at the fine art tag I see more than just this piece has been approved throughout the years.

Did you just call someone's comment explaining the situation a "temper tantrum", while responding like this

岩戸鈴芽 said:

Did you just call someone's comment explaining the situation a "temper tantrum", while responding like this

I don't think that's what anyone would call "explaining the situation", it was a temper tantrum.

winkywonker said:

yet "The Siege of Acre (1291)" WAS approved just like my shitty "off-topic" Elden Ring & w40k art. and looking at the fine art tag I see more than just this piece has been approved throughout the years.

This is why I'm convinced you're being obtuse on purpose. I literally said your Elden Ring and 40k art isn't off-topic. If I was an approver I would approve most of them myself. Even some of the ones that were deleted look fine to me and I would approve them. But a lot of the deleted ones don't look that good, and I'm not surprised they didn't get approved. Those ones aren't good enough, but they're not off-topic.

This piece looks great. It's good art. I don't think anyone would sincerely disagree. But it's off-topic.

You're just arguing with me for the sake of arguing.

Edit: And why don't we give those fine art posts you're so obsessed with a closer look. I know you didn't.

fine_art approver:none status:active: 32
fine_art approver:any status:active: 10
fine_art approver:any status:deleted: 6

Most of fine art didn't get approved at all. They were uploaded by Contributors, with 22 of the currently active ones coming from a recently demoted contributor. On top of this, 6 of the deleted ones were flagged after being approved, with two of them even specifically cited as being off-topic.

I wonder what the chances are anyone would be interested in approving the currently active fine art posts if they got flagged?

*sigh* I leave for a few hours thinking everyone was on the same page and that things were more or less settled, and then it just devolved into bickering again for some reason...

EDIT: Also, please don't start flagging things just to prove a point. That's really not cool either.

Shinjidude said:

*sigh* I leave for a few hours thinking everyone was on the same page and that things were more or less settled, and then it just devolved into bickering again for some reason...

EDIT: Also, please don't start flagging things just to prove a point. That's really not cool either.

I flagged the five fine art posts, dunno who flagged the Hitler pieces. I flagged them because I think they should be deleted. I intend to flag all of them. If someone approves them, then c'est la vie. Please don't just assume it's for the sake of "winning" an argument. But I would prefer they get approved because someone actually thinks they should stay, not because they were "wrongly" flagged. What's even the point of wasting a flag at that point?

I re-approved a couple of ukiyo-e posts that just went under the chopping block, because they have at least a very tenuous and marginal connection to being "on-topic" and aren't so different than modern still art that does get approved. I passed on the remainder that I saw because they really didn't.

It's kind of petty to go through and flag things though mostly because they support an opposing view. I agree that most of them really don't belong (and probably shouldn't get re-approved), but going on a targeting flagging spree is also directly in opposition to what I argued for above saying that people should be sparing with flags and mostly trust vetted approvers and uploaders (even if the user in question might be demoted today). The demotion didn't even have anything to do with upload quality or focus.

Plus it just kind of escalates the situation and stirs the pot. Neither of which is helpful or appreciated.

I started with that user specifically because it's not like the hit to their deletion count will matter, and they didn't exactly have the best interests of the site in mind so I figured they were fair game.

I don't agree with the idea that there's a right time to flag a post and during an argument is wrong. Yeah, it'll prove my point if they get rejected, but that doesn't make it less valid. What, should I wait a week so everyone forgets I was heavily in support of them being considered off-topic? I don't think that would've looked any better for me to any moderators who saw this discussion and have a half decent memory. If they're off-topic then they're off-topic.

And, yeah, it's in opposition to the idea of just trusting Contributors and Approvers, because I at least partially disagree. They have a better feel for what fits and what doesn't, but they also make mistakes. All but one of the deleted ones were tagged off-topic. Igoring the fine art posts that have an anime girl in them somewhere, which are obviously on-topic, most of the active ones skipped the mod queue, so we have no idea if anyone besides the original uploaders agree with them being on site, which is precisely what flags are for. If no one else wants to approve them, then they rightfully get deleted. That's why we have 40+ Approvers.

I strongly disagree with the mindset that users shouldn't exercise their right to flag posts when they feel it should be used, just because "Approvers probably know better than you."

I can't stop you, and wouldn't directly even if I could, but it's still petty. It also doesn't really help to resolve the matter amiably. It just serves to rile people up and perpetuate the bickering. This is a special situation given the circumstances, but targeting any user specifically for flagging is pretty much wrong and people have suffered mod feedback for it in the past. I'm also really not a fan of mass targeted flagging in general. Again I can't stop you, but I don't find it helpful.

Shinjidude said:

This is a special situation given the circumstances, but targeting any user specifically for flagging is pretty much wrong and people have suffered mod feedback for it in the past.

I really do want to stress that I only started with one user in particular because I knew they weren't around anymore, and wouldn't be welcome even if they came back. I wouldn't have even considered doing that if they were active.

I also had originally intended to save the ukiyo-e posts for last, if not just pass on them entirely, because I don't totally disagree that they may be at least tangentially relevant. I just missed the tag on those two posts when I was looking through them.

Shinjidude said:

*sigh* I leave for a few hours thinking everyone was on the same page and that things were more or less settled, and then it just devolved into bickering again for some reason...

EDIT: Also, please don't start flagging things just to prove a point. That's really not cool either.

I know I am partly to blame for biting the bait but I think you know why this devolved into bickering like manchildren.

The definition of what exactly constitutes off-topic vs on-topic is left nebulous on purpose.

The upload rules have gone through many iterations over the decades of danbooru's existence, and at times the types of forbidden content were so extensive that people would regularly flag things like male focus, furry, gigantic breasts or overwatch 3d porn just because they "technically" fell under one category or the other of forbidden content. You can see a version from 14 years ago here. You'll notice that furry, for example, was explicitly forbidden and doujinshi were discouraged:

<li>Furry: Any image or movie where a person's skin is made of fur or scales.</li>
[...]
<li>Manga: Uploading entire manga or doujinshi chapters is discouraged. Individual pages can be uploaded if they meet the quality criterion.</li>

On the other hand, JAV actresses were acceptable:

<li>Non-anime: Photographs of American porn actresses, for example, are prohibited. Photographs of cosplayers, figures, or prominent figures in the industry are acceptable.</li>

When we rewrote them a few years ago we ended up simply removing the bulk of the upload rules because at the end of the day, the only two criteria that should matter are 1) whether it looks good, and 2) whether the community considers it on-topic.

What the community considers on-topic has significantly shifted over the years. Originally danbooru was just for albert & friends, and it was a repository of random anime-related stuff they wanted to archive. That's why there were a lot of cum on figure pics or IRL japanese porn actress photoshoots in the early days of this site. But the target audience of this site is significantly different nowadays, because even weebs have changed, and most users of this site don't have a problem with video game art from western franchises like Team Fortress 2 or Teen Titans anymore. As an example, a post that raised significant controversy ages ago, the infamous Doom post #2430440, hasn't been flagged in over 3 years, despite the crazy fight between flaggers and approvers a decade ago.

Is this picture off-topic? Why is it off-topic while post #3447114 is not? What about actual japanese fine art from non-modern artists, such as post #6325266?

I'm not gonna state whether I think it's acceptable to have this here or not, to avoid having the usual effect where an admin's opinion is mistaken as site policy, but I think what matters more here is whether the community wants this post to be active. This post is in an area that's grey enough that there's no need for us to intervene and overrule flaggers or approvers. To paraphrase a quote, the invisible hand of the danbooru queue will decide.
Flaggers are more powerful than approvers because one is an infinite group of people while the other is a handpicked elite, but on the other hand few people flag and the average user is only going to flag a post if it's REALLY off-topic or poor quality. If the community doesn't like this post and it's really as bad or off-topic as blindVigil claims, then it'll end up deleted, otherwise it'll keep getting reapproved. Any debate on whether it's objectively off-topic vs on-topic is pointless imo, and I see it as a way to hide personal opinions behind a mask of objectivity.
At the end of the day danbooru is a community effort, and that effort includes whether a post is deleted or active.

My personal advice if you're an approver or flagger and looking at a dubious post: approve it if you like it, flag it if you think it doesn't belong here. That's it. Any other argument is unneeded and redundant.

nonamethanks said:
That's why there were a lot of cum on figure pics or...

Bionicman76 said:

Don't look at cum_on_figure status:deleted.

nonamethanks said:

Don't look at <search link>

Providing the warning not to hang yourself while also handing them out the noose.

nonamethanks said:

Don't look at cum_on_figure status:deleted.

The ones with visible dicks have been banned for everyone's sanity.

I feel so gay looking at these posts

approver said:

"20+ disapprovals a few days ago + poor appeal reason"

there are more than 20+ approvers on this site that the post may appeal to, and no appeal reason was stated so your judgement has no foundation to stand on.

approver said:

I still don't find this on-topic enough for re-approval"

yes but it may appeal to an approver who hasn't seen it yet.

if you're going to leave feedback for the uploader/appealer at least try to give a sensible and well-thought-out reason that isn't just regurgitated slop like "not on-topic" or "number of approvers didn't approve so I won't either" or "the majority of the artist' posts are deleted therefore all of their art is forfeit to deletion", such comments aren't necessary and the message you try to convey through said comments can be gathered by your simple refusal to approve, actions speak louder then words after all.