One of the new rules that concerns me is the rule about stereotypes of people from different cultures. For instance, one of my main ocs is a British squirrel who may be seen as a British stereotype. I really don’t want to take him off my character list because he is one of my personal favorites and is one of my most popular characters. Every British friend I have loves him, so I definitely don’t think he’s offensive. Plus, I wasn’t mocking British people when I created him, I love their culture. Hopefully he’ll be safe. Same goes for a few of my Irish and Scottish ocs. I don’t want them to be seen as too stereotype and taken off my character list. I’m hoping that they will be safe from deletion too. 

Participated last year, and I'm eager to do it again this year! 

okay i'm commenting here for like, fourth time, but i just have reread the guidelines and i want to thank you for at least allowing monsters\aliens to be depicted in suggestive manners. this was, among others things, Way Too Far, especially in a community like this, to the point it's just genuinely silly

i will be waiting for changes about the other stuff too, though. i really hope. at least next year. speaking from a perspective of a person who has suggestive things filtered, by the way. i don't want to see it, but i see no reason to ban people for it, especially with such vague descriptions
i hope i don't sound too rude. i understand that the team is going through A LOT right now, and that staff are also people with hearts, and i believe they have the best of intentions. i just think it's a big problem and should be addressed until fixed\explained. 

perhaps simply replacing or removing "fetish" will already help a lot. it's not a very helpful term for rules, considering the huge variety it can have (and i will be totally removing that from my permissions, too.) 

Studying the rules. I feel like a maid outfit would be like the lingerie example. If it's suggestive, filter, if not, no filter.

I am concerned about the fetish area? Like I enjoy art where the teeth are pronounced. Like I have a shark character. Would him having a big smiling grin with a mean look, not be ok? I do feel like we could use some clarification on what you mean with these fetishes. I understand maybe you can leave it open as there is a HUGE variety of fetishes. I feel you want to ban the extreme things and leave other things case by case. I feel like some things should be blocked, but some things should be filtered. Like fetish-gere, A lot of furries wear leather dog masks as a way to mask identity and can't afford a suit. They can also look cool or be like an artistic element to a character to make them look tough. Or some people like the aesthetic of how masks or straps look. But I also get that sense they come from something sexual and some people don't want to look at them. These cases could be marked as filtered instead of outright banning it.


Otherwise, I'm excited to see what the theme is this year. I hope I can get myself to finish up a few more refs

how can you allow flaccid/closed genitalia under an extreme nudity filter but don't allow fetish gear even with a filter i genially don't understand how some leather harness is worse than a literal genitalia

I'm so excited!

I'm not a huge fan of permitting DNIs in any regard, especially "minors/adults DNI" because that might prevent people from being able to attack each other arbitrarily. And I'm also really not a fan of the rule saying that sentient ferals, aliens, and monsters cannot be sexualized in any way. I can understand wanted to prevented the sexualization of non-sentient animals, but this blanket ban is incredibly odd and comes across as being targeted directly at furries and monster...frienders. The other commenters have also pointed out that the fetish rule is too vague and can be used to target art styles. It seems like the fear of sexuality that has been actively making the internet a worse place as of late has seeped into here, too. Don't get me wrong, I don't want porn or graphic material on AF, but these rules don't help anyone and will instead make people more nervous about what they're allowed to do.

I'm still very much looking forward to the event this year, but I really hope these odd rules will be axed by next year.

Like many others, I find your fetish ruling to be too vague to be actually effective. I don't even draw anything that could be considered a fetish* but I'm still a bit worried. I want artfight to be a safe and fun place above all, and not like... deviantArt where untagged obvious fetish content galores, but as a user I also need to be able to have rules I can easily refer to and understand.

- "Overly-exaggerated proportions" can be almost any exaggerated cartoon style. You know the cartoon gag where a character blows into their thumb to inflate their fist to use as a weapon? That's now considered fetish content (and don't get me wrong, for some people it would be, but 'someone might be into this' can't be how stuff is ruled, because anything can be a fetish to someone!).
- "Extreme emphasis on certain parts of the body" is also vague, if I wanted to draw a piece focusing on a cool tattoo some character has on their palm, rules as written could rule that as fetish art because it does set emphasis on certain parts of the body. What does 'extreme' mean in this context, what is the difference between acceptable amount of emphasis and unacceptable amount of emphasis? What about characters with multiple body parts, or characters that _are_ body parts??? I know multi-bodypart characters are allowed (when filtered), but when does that ooze over to "extreme emphasis"?
- "Fetish gear" is also one where I understand the "spirit" of the rule but disagree with how it's handled: many alternative fashion styles feature fetish-y aspects without being NSFW or inappropriate, and the rules only mention "collars and harnesses" as something that is allowed! Gas masks are frequently featured as fetish gear, but they're also. You know. Gas masks. Latex/rubber/leather are all fetish clothing, but a character in leather pants might just be wearing leather pants. Latex-y materials are common in certain pulp aesthetics, without being inappropriate. Even _formal menswear_ is common fetish clothing, are you going to penalize users for having male characters in formal wear? Lingerie is allowed, for now, but where is the line? If the line is just "no suggestive posing", why not just say that characters aren't allowed to be in a suggestive manner at all?
- And "not limited to" can mean anything. Like. Literally anything. Again, I understand why this is written like it is (writing every single instance and exception would bog down the rules) but as written it gives the users no understanding of what is allowed and what is not. Crossdressing can be a kink, but it can also be how a gender non-confirming character represents themselves. How are you going to make this distinction? What about certain body types that are frequently fetishized but are also, you know, just body types?

I'm giving moderators benefit of the doubt, and I'm assuming they will rule in good faith and case-by-case, but these vague rules don't help the users decide what characters and art pieces to upload. I also understand that it's very hard to make catch-all rules for these that never get false positives, so I get it, but right now this ruling would unfairly target users with exaggerated cartoon art styles, or users that have recurring motifs in their works or characters (esp. if those motifs are body parts like hands, teeth, mouths, eyes...). Are there internal rules for mods to base their decisions on, or are they just going on based on vibes? Are situations where one mod would find something too fetish-y but others would let it slide possible?

Basically I'm trying to say that arbitarily trying to determine what is fetish content and what is not is impossible. I understand wanting to keep your site safe for different types of people, but this rule is half-baked at best, and might lead to more moderation strain, and will certainly lead into people being hesitant to post their art or characters!


(*technically I have a werewolf character that mentions transformations... which is a fetish and could, in bad faith, be argued to be in violation of the rules-as-written. And now that I did the edit to give out even more examples, I do realize I have multiple male characters in formal-ish wear, which could be argued to be fetish-y.)


edit: edited to give more examples

fake edit 2: I'm very happy that you are against AI tho, so thumbs up to that.

edit3: ok, seeing bad faith commenters already argue that everyone who is worried about the rule vagueness is somehow looking to post porn on the site, I absolutely cannot trust this community (or rather, a loud minority in it) to be sensible about it. :(

Some of the rules are not that understandable.. 
Like why aren't ppl allowed to have dni lists? 

I'm still betting it's going to be Seafoam vs Stardust but Arctic vs Tropic would be a welcome surprise.

oooo I can't wait!! I've been hyped for artfight since the end of july!!
Looks like the theme might me arctic vs tropic! though, I have been wrong with these guesses in the past lol.

Dang, guess artfight characters are no longer allowed to have feet because foot fetish /hj

me @ the rule changes:

I Hope tue fetish thing really won’t be taken advantage of for unique and exaggerated art styles, when it comes to my art style a lot of times my OCs will have a wide exaggerated chest and sometimes skinny waist, but that’s not a fetish to me it’s simply just exaggeration of art style 

I don’t think AF will ban anyone for having fat characters. I think exaggerated proportions goes more towards people who have thin or even fat characters with tits and arse that take up the whole screen. Or things like inflation/hyper feeding