DAEDRIC FUN TIP:
Challenge the rules at your own peril.

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Kazerad: Are butts allowed here? I hope so, because I really want to hold a conversation about this image. I forget who the artist is, and I can't figure out what is going on in it. At first I thought those were punching bags and she was just walking through a gym at night, naked, but they look more like candles? Or maybe they're columns with Welkynd stones on them, and she is dungeoneering naked. That is a pretty dumb thing to do! I don't know, what do you guys think?

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Tahrey: butts are ooooooooo-kay.

you get them in tv cartoons often enough after all

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Gren: http://i.imgur.com/ymG0KL8.gif

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Mediocre_Scrublord: THat's pretty dungeon-welkynd-stone-lookin to me

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AMKitsune: @Kazerad: Are butts allowed here? I don't know... We'll just have to ask whoever's in charge here XD.
Seriously though, judging whether an image would be suitable for workplace viewing or for younger viewers can be a relatively complicated process. On the one hand, you could simply go by what's visible in the picture and determine that the presence of certain things like 'butts & boobs' are enough to make a picture unsuitable. In that case, the threshold of what is considered acceptable is generally up to the community as a whole and what they're comfortable with (although, as with all sites, the owner (yourself in this case) ultimately has the final call on what they do and don't want on their site).

The other, less clear cut aspect of this discussion is how the 'artists intent' and 'viewer interpretation' factor into things.
It's clear that some people see some picture more sexually than others. This is by no means a bad thing as everyone's entitled to their own views and opinions, it just makes it tricky to try to moderate the content of a site in a way that everyone can be happy with. At pretty much any given 'level' of moderation, there will be some people who think that content is too 'porny' and should be removed while other users may be disappointed because other art that they thought to be perfectly reasonable (usually containing 'artistic nudity' in the case of this site)was taken down.

Who do you try to accommodate for? Do you use your own sensibilities as a cornerstone off which to judge all other images and hope the community agrees with you? Or do you try to put your own personal feelings aside and try to judge an image based off of what you think the 'average viewer' would approve of?

A good example of this issue in effect would be if you were to present Michelangelo's David to a group of school kids. Chances are, they wouldn't be able to appreciate the amazing quality of the sculpture and would instead see it as little more than 'a big naked man'.

Now, the whole 'having artistic merit' argument usually seems to rely on the image (or work) in question having a relatively high level of quality (which is often (wrongly) linked to the artists presumed age and consequentially, their presumed level of maturity). This is probably linked to the 'artists intent' aspect of the discussion.

If an artist makes an image with the intent that it's to be appreciated for it's form and 'accuracy of it's subject matter', is that how everyone should strive to interpret it? Should people have to try to put their own sensibilities aside to see the work how it was intended to be seen? Or should they be expected to stick to what they know and experience the artwork as it is?

This is something of a moral conundrum which I don't know if there's necessarily a right answer to.

If someone creates something that's pretty much intended to be seen as porn (or in some way sexually provocative), can't someone see beyond that and enjoy it as a simply well done piece of art? In this case, some people can, but would it them be right to host that material knowing full well that others would still see it as just porn? Probably not.

By the way, when I say 'porn' in this context, I mean any kind of artwork that could generally be viewed as being sexually provocative, not just the outright explicit stuff.

Going back to the topic of 'butts', I can see how they'd be considered somewhat suggestive as, while not sexually explicit, it's generally considered indecent to show ones butt of in public. But then we're drawn back to our David example. While there are barely any picture of the sculpture from the rear (for some reason...), I'm pretty sure it has a butt. I don't see anyone complaining about it though.

It's almost as though people feel 'allowed' to artistically appreciate what would otherwise be considered questionable when the work was made as a piece of 'beret wearing, deeper meaning, ART' as opposed to something a 10 year old drew and shared with their friends.

I've probably gone and overcomplicated this far more than anyone needed to, but to summarise, there's no clear right or wrong answer as to whether butts should be allowed here or not. As the owner of the site, I think that's going to have to be a call you make yourself (or try to find the general consensus)

Those are my thoughts, opinions and observations.

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Valkaiser: Yo @AMKitsune, I'm really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but the booru needs moar butts.

err...

They definitely look like Welkynd stones to me. A few possibilities suggest themselves:
She flees a drunken (and very dangerous) midnight assignation.
She is having a dream about dungeoneering (aaaaargh, I'm not wearing any pants!).
She is about to relax in a delightful hot spring just off panel.

Or maybe she used her clothing as a decoy to throw off pursuit whilst she escapes an ill-advised misadventure?

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Tahrey: tl;dr - BUTTS, LOL

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Kazerad: @AMKitsune: Yeah, I guess that about sums up my feelings too. At least in this case, I feel like there is nothing overtly sexual about this picture of Katia wandering across the top of a giant birthday cake. It is art.

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AMKitsune: @Kazerad: I also find a good, quick way to determine whether an image containing nudity should be considered 'artistically safe' or 'sexually suggestive' is to look at the characters pose and expression and imagine if they would still work as well if the character were fully clothed. From what I've seen, most of the (in my opinion) better nudes out there don't really have the subject acknowledging the fact that they're naked at all (the scene, pose and expressions would work just as well if they were wearing a full outfit).

I'll give you a couple of examples. If you were to imagine Katia wearing, say, a set of leather armour in this picture, it wouldn't look particularly out of place. Perhaps she heard something behind her while taking a small lean against a pillar? Nothing too out of the ordinary there.

On the other hand, if you imagine the same armour applied to the Pseudonimous 'I'm sorry' picture, you'd be left thinking something along the lines of "Why's she posing like that? What's with the sultry expression?". Without the nudity, it just doesn't make as much sense.