Background Pony #B1A6
Currently, there aren’t any site rules governing image quality. If a post is later uploaded in better quality, or if a crop does not seem meaningful, it might be duplicate-merged. Occasionally, egregiously bad or pointless images might be deleted, case-by-case.
I’d like to propose a set of standards for unedited screencaps to provide cause for deletion of mutilated images:
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Photos of a display (“picture of a screen”) only allowed of media during a time that it is not available on devices that can screen capture (not counting unusual hardware like capture cards). eg. If a movie premiers on broadcast television, or if a preview is shown at a convention panel, photos of the display would be allowed - not in any other circumstance.This only applies when the purpose is to show the media. If there’s more to the image, like showing one’s plushie collection around a screen that’s playing an episode, that’s not what this rule is about.
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There should be nothing overlaid on the image that is not part of the video data - no playback controls, gradients shown while paused, rounded corners, closed captions, etc.If the purpose of the post is to show something about the closed captioning (such as YouTube auto-captions making mistakes), that’s not what this rule is about.
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The image should be in the correct aspect ratio.
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The image should show the full frame. Crops should be done purposefully (and tagged) - because composition is subjective, there can’t be a 100% strict rule about this, but I’d propose a guideline of at least 20% removed from either width or height.
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There shouldn’t be extra bars or borders around the image - no letterboxing (unless it’s part of the scene, of course), no pillarboxing, no whatever is going on here.
