mia-fou
please tell me you're joking 💀 i was fully prepared to give the adminstration full benefit of the doubt, but if they ban discussions of their rule changes on one of the recommended platforms where to contact the mods, I really don't know what to think. Like. wow.
(also discord mods, it's incredibly easy to make age restricted channels on discord, if and when you need to talk about subject matters where you don't want minors present, and discord takes care of filtering minors out for you.)

I've been playing art fight since 2014 so I'm familiar with yearly rule updates, and I immediately understood what was being said in re: fetish art (90% sure it's in place to combat fetish mining, which is when someone requests art from people without disclosing its intent for kink), however I do agree that the rules are too vague, especially when suggestive art is still allowed. I'm a veteran who's very familiar with the rules and the overall attitude towards topics like this within the context of art fight, but newer players are going to be very blindsided by the vagueness of these rules.

I also understand the low effort ban, I know it has always been in place, however I think it needs to be worded more explicitly that it's targeting people who draw a two minute doodle of a character that's beyond recognition just to mine for points. Honestly, when art fight was in its early days I understood this rule, especially since it was much easier to monitor quality, however there's so many users onsite at this point that I believe the little amount of points they earn wouldn't even contribute much to the team, though I can get the concern about highest number of attacks per year being awarded.

Tl;dr I think these rules are easier understood by long time players which many of the staff are, and should have been run by newbies who don't know much about the site. I see on the tumblr that you're taking in feedback so I'm sure there will be an update that's better worded. Thank you, new staff, I know this is hard but you'll get the hang of it soon

Whoever is in charge of these new rules / guidelines they gotta replace because we need context. Like wtf would be deemed as ‘low effort,’ the fetish thing is also balls. It’s as if they’re saying ‘whimsical & silly art styles only’. ☠️ artists who draw detailed anatomy or exaggeration of natural bodily features banned!!!

Good Lord, why not just add a filter or something?

The new rule really makes me wonder if participating in this will be worth it, since I can already see people getting banned over the stupidest things because "the drawings are low-effort" and "That looks too much like it's catering to a fetish" even though the person who drew it might not even know that fetish existed.

God forbid people want simple meme art of their characters or have a sona with bigger thighs.

Really don't love the vagueness on the new rules. What defines "low-effort art"? What defines "fetishes"?

This creates some easy avenues for moderator abuse.

mia-fou im not surprised, im not fond of their server tbh 

The low effort art rule isn't a new one either, guys. It's been there for years. That one may be there to prevent some like. Stick figure only attack or something to that effect to farm points. (like it has to look like some kind of care was put into it, and even meme attacks have some form of that)  Since we know it's entirely subjective, and there are alot of people on this website that choose a more simplistic and quick style to get alot done as well as many beginner artists, I'm sure there's a lot more leniency given than you think.

yo uhhh no idea where to send this but

the link to the Eye Strain Filter Category that's above the basic description of that filter takes people to a 404 page

@lionysys Actually the new filler/ban rules were briefly brought up in the discord server and quickly shut down by the mods because “discussing NSFW topics is not allowed in the server where minors are present” 

@Keileon
Based on webarchive, the change made just changed Twitch to Youtube as the streaming platform of choice

@lionysus
Only place outside this section I've seen these new rules being called out has been, weirdly enough, a comment on r/hobbydrama weekly hobbyscuffles thread.



Also I've been thinking about this but didn't want to be the one to bring this up, but no one else is doing it either... I'm reasonably sure "overly-exaggerated proportions" is meant to refer to like... hyper art. The mod who wrote the rules just didn't want to use the term because they'd have to explain it to those who haven't encountered the term before, and also didn't realize that "overly-exaggerated" and "hyper" are not synonyms at all. And while hyper art usually has kind of a. specific look to it. it's still pretty vague outside like... hyper breasts or genitalia... the latter of which would be ruled under bulges anyway i'm pretty sure. Like... I'm pretty sure whatever is going on in Baki the Grappler falls under someone's definition of hyper muscle, but again, it's suitable for teenagers and not mature. 


I'm pretty happy that people are overall looking into AFs rules more critically now. I know some of the rules brought up are old, but I think people just kinda didn't know if bringing them up was worth the potential backlash. The brush rule, for example, is weird. I know it's probably? meant to stop people from using just couple of slaps of a stamp brush and calling that a full background, but also, the fact is... most people doing digital art use premade brushes (aren't all brushes techncially premade 🤔??? really makes you think), premade textures, photobashing etc. and it's not generally considered low effort because color palettes, composition etc. are also require effort. So I think I get the spirit of the rule, I think examples or wording clarification is needed.
FAKE EDIT:  Ok scratch most of what I said above, I went to check artfight tumblr and there was a question about premade brushes. The answer was:
 "Generally, premade brushes refer to object brushes that were built-in to art programs, such as grass blades or leaves, etc. Excessive use of premade brushes must be rated under No / Minimal Background!"
My brothers, do you think the example picture for this brush pack is "no background" despite the obvious effort gone to choosing colors so the depth perspective works, and to the overall composition???


I don't really know what to think of the low effort rule. I personally wouldn't want stick figure art of my characters (but I can just say so on my profile and permissions! also by stickfigures i dont mean beginner artists' art, i mean literal stick figures), but I also can see how low effort rule is hard to write out in a way where it doesn't hit harder against newbie artists (2 min doodle from someone whos been drawing for decades vs from someone who started last week) and also still allows sketchy art etc... So I dunno, I leave the discussion about this to people who have better formed views on the matter. FWIW I also don't think I take the fight part of Artfight as seriously as some other people here, I just wanna draw ocs and get my ocs drawn in a low stages situation, so I don't even "get" why someone would want to point farm, but I guess it's a thing.


I think I'll just hope there is a proper newspost explaining the filtering + what they're doing to address the concerns raised soon, I still have thoughts, but I really need to hear from the staff as well.

About the fetish gear thing, I read the rules and felt it was maybe just poorly worded? It seemed to me like they meant both lingerie AND collar should be filtered if suggestive, but is okay if not in suggestive content. 

" Lingerie does not need to be filtered unless it is accompanied by suggestive posing or purposefully highlights genitalia. Some gear, such as harnesses or collars, are permitted on-site without a filter so long as they are not framed in a sexual manner." 

I have coloured the parts that I feel match in the two sentences. I feel they just missed out clarifying that fetish gear suggestively is ok with a filter. I think the second sentence is supposed to say "Some gear, such as harnesses or collars, are permitted on-site without a filter, so long as they are not framed in a sexual manner, otherwise they need a filter (like the lingerie)"
Also I've just noticed it says sexual, not suggestive, making it more confusing... maybe suggestive collar/harness is ok with a filter but obviously sexual content isn't allowed on artfight... so...?

And then it just seemed to me that they forgot to put the collar in the filtered section of the cheat sheet (but also note they didn't put it in the "not allowed on art fight" section either!)
I could be wrong, but that is sort of what I am thinking lmao. I think we need some clarification.

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On the front of the "low-effort" thing, I do think it's too vague and encourages people to scrutinize people and their art, which isn't really art fight's vibe. I think it would have been better to remind people to simply rate their pieces accordingly - after all if a "low-effort" (or low-detail or rough) piece is uploaded and rated as "rough sketch, no background, no lighting, no colour etc" then where is the issue? That's what the rating system is for, surely?

It's been a few days since this announcement dropped and with time to really think about it, the "no kink" rule is even worse than I'd previously thought. Kink is not something that can be moderated because literally everything, literally everything, is a kink to someone out there. Feet, hands, armpits, amputees, fat people, pregnant people, people under 4' tall, trans people, bimbos, himbos, plushies, pool toys, sneezing, needing to go to the bathroom, leather clothing, medical themes, getting electrocuted, and lest we forget the legendary "blonde rich woman committing deforestation" and "blonde rich woman buying discount Wonder Bread". So many innocuous themes and silly situations would be banned if this rule were to go into effect, especially considering many people with niche kinks/fetishes may struggle to tell the difference between the implementation of their kink and an ordinary usage of those themes.

But you know what else are kinks people have? Vomiting and gore, which are both totally allowed on ArtFight even though I would wager most people think those two things are way more gross than a person getting harmlessly squished into the shape of a cube. How about the transformation kink and bloodplay kinks? Looks like last year's theme was too risque for the site! And Sonic characters all have very large feet and hands, which means they're also off the table.

It would be genuinely impossible to moderate this rule, which will only lead to less creativity in attacks and the deletion of perfectly ordinary characters because they *might* be someone's kink. Just leave it at "no aroused genitals or sex or legitimately illegal content" and let everyone just filter their art as needed.

people being mad about lingerie not being banned is just a lil funny because if lingerie was banned then stuff like normal bras (even sports bras), leotards, tights, and stockings/thigh highs would be banned because those are ALL by definition lingerie (i do get being upset at the rule changes and the vagueness, as i certainly am too)

Honestly I can definitely see why they made some of these rules considering how weird *some* people can be. But that’s the thing. It’s only some.

I definitely think they are disregarding an entire community of people in which some of rules are affecting the harmless things they draw. I also assume they didn’t think about how weird some of these bans are compared to the other rules.
Some things like a little kinky outfit can be banned but full out gore only needs a filter? Personally, I think gore is much worse (this is not me saying we should ban gore! I love it too haha!)
I think just a filter would be good enough since it’s genuinely not that harmful (correct me if I’m wrong). 
Filters are lovely, I love em’! Let’s keep using them instead of putting a damper on people’s creative freedom.

And since some other people have been bringing up a great point, can we also can we add a feature that tells us why exactly a filter has been put on an image? I think that would be extremely useful in this situation and would probably solve some current issues! :-)

——————

Update:   I just read about the low effort artwork rule, and I too, think it’s much too vague. I would be absolutely delighted to get a simple artwork even if it seems low effort. Because really, who cares!

 I think WinSketches’ comment below me made a fabulous point about “low effort” art when it came to drawing memes of characters/little silly things. Why would that not be allowed? 

It’s all in good fun!