e621 Upload Policy (and a brief infodump about tags <3)

I got very kindly asked whether or not I was okay with having my art uploaded to e621. I am! And in fact, I've even written up a profile on the site now! (https://e621.net/users/2027158) :3

I don't think of e621 as an artist site. I don't think it's a place where I would make a gallery that I can curate and control. Posts need to be approved, so I'd be constantly worried about quality, and the site is generally set up in a way that makes it clear that I wouldn't be building my own community - the site is a separate furry community that I can look at and interact with. So I pawbably am not going to be proactive about uploading my own artwork. But, if you're part of that community on e621, you can upload my art.

..with just a few caveats (sorry X3)

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The first big caveat is that I'd like you to get pawmission from either me or from a commissioner before you upload directly commissioned artwork. Commissioners can of course upload art to e621 (and any other site), and as long as the piece isn't tagged as "Young", they can ignore pretty much any other rule I come up with for my own art. So if they're OK with you uploading a piece, go for it. You don't need to ask my pawmission and you only need to follow their tagging rules (aside from not adding "Young" tags).

Similarly, I also retain rights to upload commissions I do to other websites, so if I directly give you pawmission to upload a commissioned piece, you're welcome to do so.

❤❤❤

For non-commissioned artwork, I don't need you to ask pawmission as long as you follow the below rules.

Most of them revolve around tagging. e621 uses (well, pretends to use) a "Tag What You See" system. If you've followed me on more casual social networks like Mastodon or Bluesky, I make no secret of the fact that I think e621's tagging system kind of.. well.. sucks? Sorry, I don't want to be mean about it, I just don't think it's very good or well-thought-out >w<

The idea behind TWYS is that a picture should be tagged based on the visible elements of the picture, independent of any additional context. Again, it's.. well, I've written about my opinions on how that works multiple times in the past. But the short version is, TWYS is not the system I use when I write tags for Aryion, Inkbunny, or Itaku. I use what I would call a "Tag What is Useful" system.

"Tag What is Useful" means that I tag based on which tags provide the best information about the picture, make it easiest to search for, and make it easiest to filter (on sites that support filtering). If I'm trying to decide whether or not to include a tag, I don't ask whether or not its visibly represented or whether it's subjective, I ask whether the tag provides context or information about the picture and whether the average floof would want the tag to be added. Basically, I don't ask whether a tag technically fits based on an arbitrary criteria, I ask what benefit or drawback there is to adding the tag.

I'm not intending to get into a debate about e621's tagging policies, and for the most part the difference in tagging philosophy is fine, even though I do think TWYS makes e621 harder to use and makes it less useful as an archival site. But there are a few areas where TWYS can be a larger problem:

Artwork by me on e621 should not be tagged as "young"
I'm pretty explicit about the fact that my artwork only features adults even in vore artwork that is SFW and wouldn't be out of place on any children's show. This is not some kind of moral crusade, it's a way for me to avoid unnecessary drama. I don't want to have a debate about what vore counts as SFW or sexual, or what the context is of a character, or any of these issues. And I upload to multiple galleries that have policies against underage characters, and I don't want one of those galleries to think a character is underage because of another site's lax tagging standards. The point is that incorrectly tagging a piece that I draw as "young" risks damaging my reputation as an artist and risks opening me up to harassment or abuse on other platforms. Because of that, I take a really hard stance on this. Regardless of what the reasoning is or what e621 says that the tag implies or doesn't imply, if a piece on e621 that I've drawn is tagged as "Young", I'll first try to remove the tag, and if that fails, I'll issue a takedown request for that piece. This is my policy regardless of whether the piece was uploaded with permission of a commissioner or by me. It's just a way of keeping myself safe as an artist.

Everything else below, commissioners can ignore. You may upload your pieces anywhere with any tags. <3

But for pawsonal artwork that I draw:

Characters I draw should not be misgendered
e621 rather famously requires characters to be tagged as male or female based on subjective criteria and/or the presence of genitalia - regardless of context and even if text and actions visible within the picture state the character's correct gender. After considerable backlash, the site added transgender tags, insultingly labeled as "lore". The lore category is pretty much only used for transgender tags and incest, despite the fact that contextual information is used for many other tags on the site - making it clear that lore tags were only added to ease the controversy and that they're not part of e621's broader tagging policy. e621's stance is that sex/gender tags are not misgendering, they're simply describing what gender a character "appears" to have. My policy is that I'm not calling e621's gender tags transphobic, I'm simply pointing out that they "appear" to be transphobic to the average visitor, and that they "appear" to be misgendering characters, and that the wiki can say whatever it wants about e621's intentions, but the wiki is just lore. I'm just describing what I see X3

You may upload artwork that I draw with transgender characters to e621, BUT those characters may not be misgendered (ie, a trans male character should not be labeled as "female"). If they are misgendered, I'll issue takedown requests for that artwork. In practice, if e621's rules about gender tagging are enforced, that means you won't be able to upload personal artwork that I draw that includes transgender characters because there is no way to avoid having those characters misgendered. Most notably, that would include Sam and Vicky from the Forest and Max the Eevee.

But if e621 ever bends on its tagging rules for gender/sex, or if you find a way around the problem - I want to be clear that my rule here is not that you can't upload transgender characters. You can upload those characters.. as long as they are not misgendered.

Ask me about custom content warnings (if you can't tag a piece with a CW that it needs)
The final consequence of TWYS is that some pieces that need to be tagged with certain content warnings like fatal vore, digestion, scat, or rape can't have those tags applied because those outcomes are only obvious from the character context, description, accompanying story, or in other pages within a comic. There are two outcomes of not being able to tag those pieces correctly - the first is that the piece gets shown to a lot of critters who would like to be able to filter it and can't. This clutters up feeds and annoys potential clients or fans who's first experience with my art is now negative. The second directly follows; those pieces will get mass downvoted because there is nothing else that floofs can do to get it out of their feeds. It's silly for me to be bothered by that, but I am a silly fox.

Basically I'm talking about a situation where users on e621 want a tag applied to the piece, but due to the site rules, that tag can't be applied.

If you think that a piece you are uploading is going to fall into this category, let me know, and I will either upload (or send you to upload) a custom version of the piece at a higher resolution than my normal exports that includes visual content warnings along the bottom of the piece that are compatible with TWYS. That way, you get to upload a higher-resolution picture than normal, users on the site get proper tags applied that allow them to filter, I don't have to watch a piece get excessively downvoted or irrationally worry that a bunch of users hate me as an artist now, and best of all no site rules are broken.

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I realize it would be simpler for me to set up a Conditional DNP flag or handle uploads myself, but I want to try and give as much freedom as pawsible about e621 because I do think the site is a useful outreach tool, and I'm happy for my artwork to show up in multiple places - especially inside communities that I'm not a part of. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to sit down and type up a list of policies, and I am really grateful both that critters reached out to ask me about it, and that they've like some of my art enough to upload it. It really does mean a lot <3

Viewed:	25 times
Added:	9 months ago 02 Dec 2024 04:20 CET

4 Comments on this Journal

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SamytheDragon

8 months ago

link

Edited 8 months ago by Owner

You use a lot of tags for one Image, I saw it on Eka's Portal, maybe you not have that issue.

FA & IB have the same rule for "TWYS" as e621, different, but same base.
Yesterday contacted me an FA Mod, he sent me a Warning and I should change my D28 from General to Mature, and remove & add tags.
It is a SFW in normal. It describe the scenario, not what you see as Tags.
Dati and Fukano are naked, both are happy, and Fukano use the crank at the well.

Fukano's dragon penis is visible, it is strange other SFW having more General ages and genitals visible.
So I had to remove SFW and add NSFW plus terms for male genitals.

As consequence I loose one Watcher and one fave, plus had a long discussion about arts with "Tag what you see" per Notes and Discord.

On IB I choose "Nudity" direct and add all FA tags.
Like Eka's Portal, on IB I became tags by user requests, not for the whole scenario and expression and moods, only for what you see.

foxyoreos

8 months ago

link

@ SamytheDragon

Inkbunny/Furaffinity have some rules around tagging visible elements, and they may have some platform-specific categorization of pictures, but e621 differs in that it both takes it to the extreme and blocks you from tagging any non-visual information.

For example, if I have a comic with scat on it, on FA/Inkbunny I can add content warnings and tags to each page to help with filtering even if that specific page doesn't have scat - but on e621 I need to add a content warning bar and draw a little picture of a poop, otherwise I can't tag the piece as scat even if users asked me to. It's the silliest thing - it's a situation where users want a tag to be added, I want a tag to be added, but the site blocks it >w<

I don't think that any tagging system is perfect and there are always going to be differing philosophies about how to approach tags. There'll be conflicts between users and artists and admins, that's never going to go away. But e621 feels unique to me in being a step in the wrong direction from other galleries I've used - it has a rigid tag system that makes unnecessary problems even when nopony disagrees about what the tags should be.

But it is what it is, I'm less trying to complain about e621's tagging system with this post and more trying to clarify which of those problems I can ignore (stuff like fatal_vore not being applied to a piece) and which ones I don't want to ignore (stuff like young or misgendering).

I have site-specific upload policies I use for every website that my art is on, but e621 is the only site where I have to be public about it, because it's the only site where non-commissioners are re-uploading my art :3

SamytheDragon

8 months ago

link

Edited 8 months ago by Owner

Edit: Excuse me, my fault. I thought I quote you correct under your post. ^^"

"	foxyoreos wrote:
	I have site-specific upload policies I use for every website that my art is on, but e621 is the only site where I have to be public about it, because it's the only site where non-commissioners are re-uploading my art :3

Yes, I do.
I use Young if I must for scenarios.
You are on many Sites, maybe not full or nor active, but I found your art reuploaded by non Commissioners.
The Usernames who post them are well-known, they call themselfe "Art Collectors", but they are near Thieves, in some cases they remove the (c) when it is placed out of the comic in white bars.

One of joykills commissioned I order was on the website by them re-post, I never post it there, nor joykill, and one of my concepts too.

The Art Collector taking Arts without asking from InkBunny, Eka's Portal, Pixiv and Rule34.xxx, post them with taggs I never would choose or you choose, currently are female scat arts created by human artists and A.I. IN.

Cathrin

's animations and commissions are on the site, animated with black-white bar over the Username "Cathrin".

foxyoreos

8 months ago

link

Edited 8 months ago by Owner

@ SamytheDragon

"	You are on many Sites, maybe not full or nor active, but I found your art reuploaded by non Commissioners.

Hah! X3 In some ways it's flattering that anypony cares about my art enough to reupload it places, although obviously sticking it into AI databases or stripping out copyrights are both pretty big no-nos. >:3

Reuploads to sites I'm not following or aware of are a tricky area - in theory I have nothing against it, but in practice the critters that do it tend to be extremely careless or do other things to the pictures/tags that I object to. So I've tried to stay relatively neutral on it when I can - I'm not actively policing it because it can be done respectfully and well, but I'm also not saying that it's OK or giving permission.

I guess I should have been more specific that e621 is the only reupload site that shows up in Internet searches that I actively monitor X3 I don't go out of my way to police other re-upload sites (of course that's not to say I approve of them or that I wouldn't have similar restrictions about them that I have about e621) :3

Stripping of artist credit.. to me that makes no sense, in my experience the first thing that an audience says who sees a picture that they like is always "what's the source/artist?" It's just antagonizing an audience to try and hide that from them. But I believe you that some critters would do it.

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